The Egyptian Afterlife
(continued - Page 4)
The Soul’s Journey
to Paradise
By Donald A. Mackenzie
But the idea of rebirth in infant form had already become archaic
in the ancient Pyramid Age of the early dynasties. No doubt the
custom of mummification, which was then being gradually adopted,
had something to do with the abandonment of the idea of the infant
soul.
The Pharaoh's body was being preserved so that he himself might
have real existence as an adult in the Otherworld of the Celestial
regions, and in various texts we can trace a variety of beliefs
regarding the manner in which he was supposed to reach the sky.
Some early and late texts told of a ladder similar to that which
Jacob saw in his dream—"a ladder set up on the earth,
and the top of it reached to Heaven and behold the angels of God
ascending and descending on it " (Genesis xxviii. 12).
A Pyramid text tells of the gods "fixing together the ladder
for King Pepi," and another calls on King Unis to climb the
ladder so as to reach the sky. The ladder ultimately became a stairway,
and was taken over by the Osiris cult after the Paradise of that
god had been raised to the regions beyond the sky. Sometimes the
ladder is referred to as one of wood, and sometimes as one of rope.
Other beliefs were that the Pharaoh was raised to heaven by the
wind, or that he climbed a column of smoke and then used a cloud
as his vehicle. "He has been taken away by the clouds of the
sky," one text proclaims, while another says of the Pharaoh:
"He goes up on the smoke from the mighty burning of the incense."
<repeat the Soul’s first Flight>
In many ancient Egyptian pictures the soul, "Ba," is depicted
as a human-headed bird. The idea of the soul reaching the sky in
bird form is found to be as old as the Pyramid Age, when the gods,
as stars, were supposed to flutter by night into the darkened sky.
"Thou takest flight to the sky as a falcon," a text suggests
to the Pharaoh; "thou hast perched on a cloud like a bird on
the top of a mast," is another example of imagery characteristic
of the Egyptian texts.
The deseased and his wife are shown
receiving from the goddess Nut, in her sacred sycamore tree, the
bread and water wherewith weary travellers might be refreshed. She
must be distinguished from Nut the sky-goddess, and is often identified
with Hathor, the Lady of the West. After a coloured plate in Rosolini's
"Monumenti Civili".
Apparently, however, the soul-transformation belief did not entirely
satisfy the theorising priests, who still clung to the memory of
the nursing deities. In some very old mortuary texts the Pharaoh
is represented as being lifted from the earth by the mother-goddess,
whose body was supposed to curve over the world, forming the sky,
her legs and arms being the supports of the four quarters.
In ancient pictures the arms of the mother-goddess are shown stretching
towards the earth from the curving sky, and a Pyramid text, inscribed
for the benefit of one of the old Pharaohs, renders articulate this
piece of symbolism in the words.
"Nut (goddess of heaven) has reached forth her arms to thee,
she with the streaming hair (sun rays) and hanging breasts."
In other texts that have been preserved the gods and the priests
(literally "servants") are called upon to raise up the
body of the re-animated monarch.
After reaching the sky, which was supposed to be of iron, the Pharaoh
had to have its door or gates opened for him. Magical texts were
provided to secure that this would be accomplished.
The insistence in the Pyramid texts that the dead should go eastward
suggests, however, the existence of the belief that admission to
the Celestial regions was possible only at dawn. The foundry (mesnet),
in which the new sun was forged, was situated in the eastern horizon."
When the doors of the foundry are opened,"a text declares,
"the disk (in other words, the sun) riseth up."
On entering the foundry doors the dead man was accompanied by Horus,
in his form of a " green falcon," called "Morning
Star," another indication of the belief that the Celestial
regions " to the east of the sky " could be reached at
dawn only. The wonderland of the realm of Ra, the sun-god, was then
revealed to the wandering soul.
By intercession and the right formulae
souls could obtain the aide of the goddess Hathor on the last stage
of their journey. Appearing as a cow, she carried the tired soul
on her back at a swift gallop through the haunted desert lands.
After a coloured facsimile in Leemans' "Monuments Egyptiens"
continued...
Page 4 of 8 
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