Восприятие
Божественного - II
This article comes as continuation
and completion of the first part which, under the title "The Perception of
the Divine – I", was published on the 9th of October 2024 here (amongst
others): https://megalommatis.wordpress.com/2024/10/09/the-perception-of-the-divine-i/
The Shuyet ('middle spiritual body', also known as 'shadow') of Irynefer; wall-painting from his tomb at Deir el-Medina (Tomb of TT 290); being apparently dark, the 'shadow' was the higher (or more important) part of the soul that could eventually be represented. Featured as a black silhouette, the Shuyet was for the Ancient Egyptians the apparent connection between the visible and the invisible worlds.
Содержание (Часть II: VII)
Введение
I. Человек:
душа, тело и характер
II. Связь с
материальной вселенной
III. Связь
с духовной вселенной
IV. Функция
человека: взаимодействие души, тела и характера
V. Ум без
мыслей; сердце без чувств; солнечное сплетение без желаний
VI. В
противоположность древним Духовным Наукам, Современная Психология производит
монстров, тем самым способствуя истреблению человечества
VII. Человеческая душа, ее части и их функциональность
VIII. Сознание души без подсознания и бессознательности
IX. Знание как
самосознание: Язык, письменность и обучение не нужны
X. Мудрость как осознание собственного предназначения в материальной
вселенной
XI. Судьба: процесс всех взаимосвязей и взаимного влияния всех созданных
факторов
XII. Удача (непредсказуемость судьбы): врожденное чувство условий,
позволяющих человеку превзойти то, что предначертано Судьбой
XIII. Восприятие Божественного: от Пяти Элементов до Двенадцати Высших
Существ
XIV. Бог и Божественное против Божественного и богов
XV. Восприятие Бога и восприятие богов
XVI. Человеческое понятие Божественного: результат неисправности Падшего
Человека
XVII. Конец Времен: освобождение от мыслей, чувств, желаний, языков и
систем письменности
Contents
(Part II: VII)
Introduction
I. Man: soul, body, and
character
II. Communication with
the material universe
III. Communication with
the spiritual universe
IV. The function of the
Man: interaction among soul, body and character
V. Mind without
thoughts; heart without sentiments; solar plexus without desires
VI. At the antipodes of
the ancient Spiritual Sciences, Modern Psychology produces monsters, leading to
the extermination of mankind
VII. The human soul,
its parts, and their functionality
VIII. Soul
consciousness without subconscious and unconsciousness
IX. Knowledge as
self-consciousness: no need of language, writing and learning
X. Wisdom as
consciousness of one's own destination in the material universe
XI. Fate: the process
of all interconnections and mutual impact of all created factors
XII. Fortune: inherent
sense of conditions enabling man to outdo what Fate specified
XIII. Perception of the
Divine: from the Five Elements to the Twelve Supreme Beings
XIV. God & the
Divine vs. the Divine & the gods
XV. The perception of
God and the perceptions of gods
XVI. The human concept
of the Divine: result of the malfunction of the Fallen Man
XVII. End Times:
liberation from thoughts, sentiments, desires, languages & writings
VII.
The human soul, its parts, and their functionality
VII. Человеческая душа, ее части и их функциональность
Many Orientalists have
the tendency to pretend that the Ancient Egyptians had the most analytical and
the most systematic approach to, and comprehension of, the human soul; this is
not quite accurate. What is correct to admit is that, due to the decipherment
of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, we have access to the largest possible
documentation of ancient beliefs, knowledge, and wisdom with respect to
- what the human soul
is,
- how it functions,
- which its constituent
parts are, and
- why the world (i.e.
the intertwined, spiritual and material universes) was created as it is.
Индекс
А- Введение
Б- Интеллект не является частью души
В- Восемь частей человеческой души
1- Иб (: Сердце)
2- Ба
3- Хат
4- Шуит
5- Сах
6- Сехем
7- Рен
а- Пять имен древнеегипетских фараонов
i- Хорово имя
ii- Небти-имя
iii-
Золотое имя
iv- Тронное имя
v- Личное имя
б- Имя души
8- Ка
Index
A- Introduction
B- The intellect is not
part of the soul
C- The eight parts of
the human soul
1- Ib (: Heart)
2- Ba
3- Khet
4- Shuyet
5- Sah
6- Sekhem
7- Ren
a- The five names of
the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs
i- Horus name:
ii- Nebty name:
iii- Horus of Gold
name:
iv- Throne name
v- Personal name
(nomen):
b- The name of the soul
8- Ka
A-
Introduction
In other words, there
are more Ancient Egyptian texts than Ancient Sumerian, Elamite, Assyrian-Babylonian,
Hittite, Phoenician, Iranian, Chinese, Indian, Greek and Roman sources
pertaining to the soul, its structure, and its function. Several religious
literatures (Zoroastrian, Ancient Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic) have left
long narratives and enormous descriptions about the spiritual universe and the
existing hierarchies, but on the basis of the hitherto excavated, deciphered,
translated and studied sources, we can affirm that the Ancient Egyptians seem
to have best comprehended out of what components (or parts) the human soul is
established.
Unfortunately, modern
Egyptologists limited their sphere of interests to the transliteration,
translation, and the grammatical, syntactical and lexicographical commentary of
a text. At best, some Orientalists expand in the field of Comparative
Literature, but none paid attention to the spiritual comprehension and
interpretation of the Ancient Egyptian knowledge and wisdom pertaining to the
human soul. The present unit consists in an introductory note in this
direction.
According to the
Ancient Egyptian sources, the human soul consists of components that are
well-distinct from one another and can stay in eternity (i.e. until the End of
the World, which is not to be confused with the End of Times). The eight parts
of the human soul as per the Ancient Egyptian beliefs are not correctly
understood by the modern scholars; only some parts seem to have been properly
studied, though not always accurately identified. The typical, but very
mistaken, way these sections are described is the following:
Khet: the
"physical body"
Sah: the
"spiritual body"
Ren: the "name,
identity"
Ba: the
"personality"
Ka: the
"double" or "vital essence"
Ib: the
"heart"
Shuyet: the
"shadow"
Sekhem: the
"power, form"
Osiris welcoming Tutankhamun and his Ka; the Ka is the precosmic 'double' of the spiritual-material being, which came into existence at a certain 'moment'. For this reason, all the so-called gods of Ancient Egypt, who were in fact aspects of the Divine, had also their Ka. In other words, we can today describe this concept as 'a form of existence at the stage of non-existence'.
To the average reader
and to the specialized Egyptologist the aforementioned list seems to be rather
incomprehensible; this is due to the prevailing ideologies and false
philosophies of rationalism, nominalism, Anglo-Saxon empiricism, materialism,
and existentialism. Even worse, due to the very common and really calamitous habitude
of projecting modern ideas, notions, concepts, thoughts and aberrations onto
the Ancient Egyptians, additional yet unnecessary confusion has been added to
the topic.
Lack of familiarity
with the spiritual sciences further increased the difficulty of modern
researchers, specialized scholars, and average readers to grasp how the Ancient
Egyptians perceived the Divine and understood the human soul. Samples of
inconsistent, erroneous and nonsensical publications, simplifications and
falsifications of the topic - indicatively:
http://myweb.usf.edu/~liottan/theegyptiansoul.html#:~:text=The%20Ancient%20Egyptians%20believed%20the,were%20deserving%20of%20maat%20kheru.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/dec/05/books-advent-calendar-5-soul-ancient-egypt
https://www.arabamerica.com/nine-parts-of-the-human-soul-according-to-the-ancient-egyptians/
https://web.archive.org/web/20080421124839/https://www.egyptologyonline.com/the_afterlife.htm
B-
The intellect is not part of the soul
It is essential at this
point, before briefly yet adequately presenting the eight parts of the human
soul, to point out that the mind and more importantly the intellect were not
considered as part(s) of the soul in Ancient Egypt. This was quite normal
because eternity defines a spiritually decisive activity or endeavor. All the
human thoughts, reasoning cares, decisions and processes, notions and concerns
were deemed minor and their effect temporary; in fact, whatever may have been
part of a human's mind and intellect, only little time after the death, is
dissipated and vanished. In striking contrast, the human character, namely the
Ba, is preserved.
Akh (: intellect in
Ancient Egyptian) is the corpus of mental activities deployed for temporary purposes;
the most elaborate philosophical reasoning is a worthless effort and a waste of
time that bring no change in universal terms of spiritual and material reality.
In fact, 'intellect' is a counterproductive form of black magic and that is why
mystics empty their minds from thoughts.
The Ancient Egyptian
word Akh (hieroglyphic sign G 25 of the Gardiner list: Sir Alan Gardiner,
Egyptian Grammar, p. 470) had exactly this meaning; it denoted "efficiency
through magic or craft"; in our times, a potential, secular, equivalent
would be "resourcefulness". All the same, as it is expected to be
dissipated after death, the intellect of a human would not be reconstituted in
the Hereafter. The validity attributed to this fact shows to us today very well
how the Ancient Egyptians viewed and evaluated human life; emotions and desires
mattered more than thoughts or ideas since they were known to be closer to the
core of Life and to consolidate the character of the humans. Actually, as I
already said, mental and intellectual processes are predominantly unsubstantiated
forms of subjectivism, which do not and cannot change the foundations of
spiritual reality in anything.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ꜣḫ
However, with due
attention to several rites, Akh could eventually be revivified through
concerted action undertaken by the Ka and the Ba; the rather uncommon and
frightful occurrence would thus produce a revengeful ghost that few people
would possibly need to encounter. There are references to ghosts doing good deeds
to others, but revivification of Akh, as a definitely scarce development in
Ancient Egypt, illustrated very well how the intellect was not considered as
important for the life and the afterlife of the Ancient Egyptians. In other
words, it was commonly believed that no one needed the dead to remember the
thoughts that they had made when they were alive. Plenty of historical texts
and many detailed ghost stories like that of Khonsuemheb help us best
understand the technicalities of the issue. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khonsuemheb_and_the_Ghost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_conception_of_the_soul#Akh_(intellect)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ꜣḫ
An enormous amount of
sacred texts, funerary inscriptions, and rituals document our knowledge on the
matter; they involve amongst others the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Book
of the Dead (lit. "Utterances of coming forth in the Day"), the Amduat
(lit., "what exists in the Nether world"), the Spell of the Twelve
Caves, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Book of the Earth, the Book
of Nut, the Book of the Day, the Book of the Night, the Book of the Heavenly
Cow, etc. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amduat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rw_nw_prt_m_hrw
In the category of
funerary texts known as books of Breathing, which were written with the
intention to empower the departed people to continue consciously existing in
the afterlife, we attest several particularities as regards different parts of
the souls of the people mentioned. These texts date back to the Late Antiquity
and constitute an evolution of the Book of the Dead. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Breathing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathing_Permit_of_Hôr
C-
The eight parts of the human soul
I will herewith
describe the eight components of the human soul according to the Ancient
Egyptian beliefs, presenting them in ascending order of importance.
1-
Ib (: Heart)
Ib is the Ancient
Egyptian word for 'heart'; as such, it was viewed as the seat of the human
soul. The hieroglyphic sign (F 34 of the Gardiner list: Sir Alan Gardiner,
Egyptian Grammar, p. 465) features the heart of a mammal (probably sheep). The
sign itself may look like a vase with two handles, but this is mere
schematization; in reality, it represents the heart with the veins and the
arteries. There were actually two possibilities to write this word in Egyptian
hieroglyphics, namely the purely ideogrammatic writing (involving basically the
sign F 34) and the alphabetic formula (involving the letters i and b, followed
by the sign F 34 as determinant).
It is noteworthy that
the same sign was also written as determinant when scribes wanted to write
another Ancient Egyptian word for 'heart', namely haty (ḥꜣty).
The two words appear to have functioned complementarily; whereas the term 'ib'
seems to have implied notions like 'internal', 'invisible' and 'hidden', 'haty'
(ḥꜣty) denoted 'what is in front', being 'visible' and 'outer'.
Actually, the second Ancient Egyptian word for 'heart' may have been a
construct form out of the noun 'hat' (ḥꜣt), which means the 'front', the 'forepart' and the
'forehead'.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jb#Egyptian
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ḥꜣt
The heart was viewed by
the Ancient Egyptians as the repository of all the human deeds and actions that
mattered in life and for which the human being was bearing responsibility. That
is why, contrarily to what happened to the other organs of the human body
during the mummification process, the heart was carefully kept intact in the
mummy to ensure its eternal life.
To prevent the ib
(heart) from narrating stories, which could be morally damaging for the defunct
individual, Ancient Egyptian embalmers used to prepare a heart scarab and place
it, as an amulet, just above the heart that was left in the mummified body. The
well-known Spell 30 from the Book of the Dead was written on the bottom side of
the tiny object.
The heart was critical
in order to allow the Ba (i.e. 'the character of the deceased individual'; see
below) to return in the embalmed body; for this purpose, a special ritual had
to take place, namely the "Giving of the Heart". In this, Isis and
Nephthys were portrayed as giving the heart "to its place in the city of
the dead for eternity". In most of the cases, the ceremony of the
"Opening of the Mouth" preceded the ritual of "Giving of the
Heart".
The ib (heart) and the
khet ('lower spiritual body', also known as the astral body) were exposed in
the process of the Judgment which took the form of Weighing of the Heart. It
must be noted that the Ancient Greek term 'psychostasia' (weighing of the soul)
does not consist in either proper understanding of the Ancient Egyptian belief
or correct representation of the cultic traditions. During the crucial spiritual
process, the deceased individual's heart was weighed against the feather of Maat,
the ultimate symbol of cosmic order and moral discipline.
From the Papyrus of Nebseny (BM EA 9900): vignette to Chapter 26 of the Book of the Dead
If the heart was to be found
guilty (and heavier), Anubis (reflection of the Divine Austerity) would take
note of the fact, and Thot (representation of the Divine Wisdom) would record
the details. Subsequently, Ammit (personification o the Divine Punishment)
would devour the heart, thus decomposing the soul, terminating its individuality,
and splitting its constituent elements. About:
The Formula of the
“Giving of the Heart” in Ancient Egyptian Texts
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12037163.pdf
The Papyrus Ebers: An
Ancient Egyptian Medical Manuscript of Significant Historical and Medical Value
https://www.cleverlysmart.com/the-papyrus-ebers-a-fascinating-insight-into-ancient-egyptian-medicine-and-society/
Contribution of Ancient
Egypt to cardiovascular medicine
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15182082/
The cardiovascular
examination in the light of the medical papyruses of old Egypt
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17152598/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_of_the_mouth_ceremony
2-
Ba
Usually interpreted as
'personality', Ba was for the Ancient Egyptians what I prefer to designate as
'character' in the present article and in other earlier publications of mine. Throughout
the Ancient Egyptian texts, Ba is the best documented part of the human soul,
and this fact highlights the individuality and its importance within the
Ancient Egyptian society.
When it comes to the
interpretation of the Ancient Egypt concept and term of 'Ba', I definitely
consider the use of the word 'personality' as very wrong. Referring to widely
accepted modern definitions, we find out the following: "character refers
to the person's moral and ethical qualities. It consists of beliefs and moral
principles that can guide their behavior in discrete ways. Personality is the
sum of a person's physical, psychological, emotional, and social aspects that
are manifested through behavior and actions".
https://www.verywellmind.com/how-are-character-and-personality-different-7644534
On the other hand,
according to modern consensus, "individuality refers to the individual
self. That's you, your Self. Personality is what builds an individual's
character. Ego is actually a tool that we use to interact with the world around
us".
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-ego-personality-and-individuality#:~:text=Individuality%20refers%20to%20the%20individual,with%20the%20world%20around%20us.
As I already said, the
Ancient Egyptians did not develop an 'ego' (in the way this word is meant
nowadays) because this was viewed as a sin and as a disorder. During three
millennia of pre-Christian Egyptian History, this process (development of an
ego) was very slow, limited and scarce; consequently, to stay close to the
facts and to accurately perceive their worldview, we have to use the word
'character' when referring to the Ba.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bꜣ
To the Ancient
Egyptians, the Ba was a bird with a human head; quite notably, the composite
symbol appeared in white and green plumage. The colors highlighted the most
critical aspects of Ba. Identical with revivified Osiris, green was associated
with the Ancient Egyptian version of the Paradise ("the Field of
Reeds"), the local account of the Tree of Life (the Holy Sycamore/Ιερὰ Συκάμινος-Hiera Sykaminos, which was located in
today's el Muharraqa in Upper Egypt), and the morally good and positive human attitude.
White was the national color of Upper Egypt, and in addition, it symbolized
sacredness and chastity. About:
https://www.trismegistos.org/place/846
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0064:entry=hiera-sycaminus-geo
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/999/color-in-ancient-egypt/
The most commonly used
hieroglyphic sign is G 53 of the Gardiner list (Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian
Grammar, p. 473); however, G 29 (hieroglyphic sign depicting the jabiru bird)
is also used for the purpose of denoting the Ba (p. 470).
As manifestation of a
human being's character, at the times of the Old Kingdom, the pyramids were
thought to be the Ba of the pharaohs in whose honor they were constructed. This
concept enables us to understand that the Ancient Egyptian visualization of the
Khet (i.e. the 'lower spiritual body' or astral body; see below) must have been
pyramidal.
The post mortem return
of the Ba to the deceased man's khet was thought of as fully corporeal; in this
sense, it was evident that the character of the person (: Ba) would continue
feeling the material dimensions of life endlessly. Following the respective
rituals, this cultic practice corresponded to the theological concept of Ra
returning to, and reuniting with, Osiris (: the Well Being) every night.
The notion of the term
Ba (character), according to the Ancient Egyptians, apparently encompassed
both, the expression (externalization) of the character of an individual and
the impression that others received from the individual. It is quite
interesting and quite indicative that the Plural of the word Ba (Bau; op. cit.,
p. 563, 173) was regularly used in Ancient Egyptian texts to denote the
'effect', the 'impressiveness' and the 'reputation' that a man made. This point
demonstrates that the inhabitants of Kemet were totally different from modern
men, and that in their comprehension of things, events and circumstances, there
was no duality of the type 'cause and effect'; on the contrary, they were able
to perceive an indivisible unity whereas the failed "Classic" or
"Renaissance" or "Modern" Man maintains a permanent
delusion about causality. General discussion of the topic:
The Illusion of
Causality is what is preventing us from becoming Enlightened
https://www.reddit.com/r/nonduality/comments/kv4lv4/the_illusion_of_causality_is_what_is_preventing/
As it can be easily
surmised, to the Ancient Egyptians, the character (Ba) of a human being was not
endowed with the delusional freedom that worthless philosophers and fraudulent
theoreticians of our times so passionately defend in order to hold mankind
captive. Every human comes with an important destination to reach and a
significant role to perform in life. That is why, in the 'Instructions for
Merikare', we read that "a man should do the things that are effective for
his Bau". In other words, the pertinent and complete expression of the
character, its impact on others, and the effective contribution of the human
being to the 'becoming' (the development) of the world are what a man comes to
deliver in this life. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_for_King_Merykara
https://web.archive.org/web/20120331080954/http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/merikare_papyrus.htm
An excerpt from the 'Instructions for Merikare'; the Egyptian term Heka in this example is used in the plural and it is not determined with a god’s determinative but with the “man with a hand at the mouth” sign. It was obviously understood here neither as a deity nor as an abstract force, but more likely as applicable rituals or spells. From: "Magic" in the Teaching for Merikare - https://www.antikemagie.com/magic-teaching-for-merikare/
As there was not even a
shred of materialism in Ancient Egypt, the objects did not have any value per
se; only their functionality mattered. Consequently, the objects had the
importance of the Bau of the humans, who were busy with them, being thus merely
the receptacles of expression of a man's character; that is why we read in the 'Instructions
of Amenemope' the following warning against the misappropriation of grain:
"the threshing-floor of barley is greater of Bau than an oath sworn by the
throne". Fully misleading their readers and distorting the historical
sources, modern Egyptologists would view in such sentences the rudiments of
social law or perhaps the foundations of social justice, but there is none. For
the Ancient Egyptians, it was a matter of cosmic order to respect the
expression of character and, therefore, the result of the labor of a human.
About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_of_Amenemope
https://www.maat.sofiatopia.org/amen_em_apt.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20081121174228/https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps078500.jpg&retpage=15530
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.82818
Comparison of excerpts from the 'Instructions of Amenemope' and the Biblical text of the Proverbs; from: The Proverbs of Amenemope https://thatankhlife.com/the-proverbs-of-amenemope/
Ancient Egyptian
literature about the Ba helps us better comprehend the perception of the Divine
World that the Ancient Egyptians had achieved; the existing textual sources
empower us to understand the unitary approach to the spiritual and material
universes that they had. The sun was thought of as the Ba (manifestation) of
Ra, and similarly, the Apis bull was considered as the Ba of Osiris. Very
often, one 'god' was regarded as the Ba of another; this constitutes an
additional element in the systematic argumentation that serves as demonstration
of the fact that the Ancient Egyptians were not 'polytheists' or 'idolaters'
but had a totally different perception of the Divine that other, spiritually
immature, morally perverse, and culturally lower nations (notably the Greeks
and the Romans) were virtually unable to possibly fathom.
Even the sacred texts of
Ancient Egypt were identified as the Bau of Ra; this attested belief terminates
the discussion about the singularity of the Quran as the 'Word' of Allah. Of
course, this improper and suspicious discussion has not been entertained by
Muslim theologians and historians, but by Western scholars who are conscious militants
of materialism and/or atheism. The concept of revelation by means of a sacred
book exists in Islam and it also applies to other, earlier revelations before that
of Prophet Muhammad. As such, it fully corresponds to the Ancient Egyptian
concept of sacred books being the Bau of the Supreme Ra, the sole God of the
Ancient Egyptian monotheists.
Nefertari and her Ba; from the tomb of Ramesses II's principal wife and queen, Valley of the Queens, Luxor West
In the Middle Kingdom text,
which is conventionally titled "Dialogue (or Dispute) of a Man with His Ba",
we attest a vivid concern about the complexities of the material and the
spiritual lives. This text is part of what is described as Sebayt (in Ancient
Egyptian) or, more generally, Wisdom Literature. This genre was highly
developed in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Canaan and Iran; the
contents of this Ancient Oriental literary corpus are remarkably superior to
what is conventionally called 'philosophy' or 'theology' in later periods
(notably the Late Antiquity and the Christian-Islamic times), because the
authors stay close to factual reality with respect to the spiritual and
material universes, thus avoiding unnecessary subjectivism, detrimental bias,
hollow theorizing, and unsubstantiated assumptions.
Debating against
himself in reality, the man expresses his doubts about the merits of human life
because every human appears to stand in front of uncertainties as regards life
after death and the difficult period that follows. Then, the Ba advises the man
(i.e. itself) to aspire to develop his character in this life and to forget for
some time the West (: the land of the dead); but to apply temperance for all
purposes of life, the Ba also admonishes the man to equally wish to effectively
reach the West after his dead body is buried, hoping that his Ba (: his
character, i.e. himself) will descend
(like a bird) and that they will thus attain their common purpose. About:
Mark-Jan Nederhof, Dispute
of a man with his ba
https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/texts/corpus/pdf/Dispute.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispute_between_a_man_and_his_Ba
Dialogue between a man
and his Ba | Ancient Egyptian Wisdom (Sebayt)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8dUyDJffJ4&t=17s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebayt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_literature
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ba.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_conception_of_the_soul
Merged (in Photoshop) pictures of an ancient Egyptian papyrus with the Hieratic text "Dialogue of a Man with His Ba"; Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin
The association of Ba
(character) with a bird was spread among many other peoples across Africa and
the Mediterranean world; as their spiritual wisdom was not so high and so
elaborate as the Ancient Egyptian spirituality and religion, it was rather
viewed as a genuine symbol for the soul. And the millennia old belief persisted
within the Christian and the Islamic worlds.
Wooden statuette representing the Ba, touched with a solar disk, from the Ptolemaic period; Metropolitan Museum, New York https://historicaleve.com/five-spiritual-elements-of-the-ancient-egyptians/
3-
Khet
Khet is basically
identified as the 'lower spiritual body' (also known as the astral body).
Modern translators often render 'Khet' as 'physical body', but this is very
wrong, because what was viewed as 'khet' by the Ancient Egyptians also
comprised the human aura, thus constituting a volume larger than the material body
of the human being stricto sensu.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ẖt
To be accurate and
comprehensive, I have to point out that, in reality, to the Ancient Egyptians,
'Khet' denotes what modern spiritual masters and mystics name distinctly
'physical body' and 'lower spiritual (or astral) body'. In Ancient Egypt, no
distinction was made between the two entities, which without due care would
gradually perish and disintegrate into their constituent elements, but with
pious concern and proper ritual would permanently exist, as mummified physical
body and imperishable astral body, thus preserving the character (Ba) of the deceased
in eternity, i.e. until the End of the World.
The theories of modern
Egyptologists, who happen to be militants of materialism and atheism, can be
disingenuous and their interpretations are insidious. It is very wrong to
assume that the Khet (believed to be as only the physical body) had to be
preserved for the soul to have the chance to be judged and the heart to be
weighed against the feather of Maat. In any case the physical body was not
preserved or it was lost and eventually not buried, the Khet -as the 'lower
spiritual (or astral) body'- underwent the post mortem procedure of Judgment.
Even more so, since in case the heart was proven heavier than the feather of
Maat and therefore guilty, Ammit was devouring the heart of the astral body
(not that of the physical, mummified, body), thus terminating the spiritual
existence of the deceased and decomposing his soul {see above 1- Ib (: Heart)}
Weighing of the heart (Judgment of the Dead) from a copy of the Book of the Dead, written for the merchant Kenna; papyrus in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Holland
In fact, almost all the
religious rituals performed after the death of an individual were addressed to
the 'lower spiritual (or astral) body' because this constituted the
electro-magnetic energy that had to be maintained, preserved, and immortalized.
The mummification of the physical body was the process due to which it could be
conserved and perpetuated, but in reality, the entire endeavor constituted
merely the prevention of its disintegration. The enacted preservation of the
unity of the physical and the lower spiritual (astral) bodies consisted of all
the rituals that were timely performed before the astral body got disintegrated
into its constituent elements.
One point that needs to
be further examined in view of a potentially convincing interpretation is the
fact that during the Old Kingdom, mummification was reserved only for the body
of the deceased pharaoh, but starting with the Middle Kingdom (end of the 3rd
millennium BCE), the process was made available to all Egyptians, and at times
to animals. A possible explanation is that the results of the embalmment of the
body were better comprehended and believed to be more beneficial for the
religious rituals performed for the lower spiritual (or astral) body, taking
into account the energy released by the blood flow.
In a way, the embalming
processes, as carried out in Ancient Egypt (involving notably the evisceration
of the brain, the removal of the lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines from the
corpse, their salination in natron, their separate placement into the four
Canopic jars, the complete exsanguination of the body, and the preservation of
the heart in the embalmed body) were replicas of spiritual exercises that the
humans may have persistently performed when alive.
Canopic jars, 945-712 BCE; National Museum of Natural History, US
Accumulating vital
power in different parts of the body, endowing single parts of the body with
the Five Elements, producing Element-harmony in regions of the body, projecting
Elements outward, developing the lower spiritual (astral) senses with the help
of fluid condensers, separating deliberately the astral body from the material
body, and several other spiritual exercises, which are also practiced today by several
mystics, were performed by priests and laymen in Ancient Egypt as preparatory
endeavor for the moment the soul would be separated from the body and then the
religious rituals would repeat the same practices that had been carried out by
the deceased individual during his life. See through Step III-Magic Physical
Training to Step IX-Magic Physical Training, in: Franz Bardon's Initiation into
Hermetics
https://www.72.sk/download/franz-bardon--initiation-into-hermetics.pdf
During, the burial
procedures, the Ancient Egyptians took good care of the Khet, which would have
at his disposal numerous ushabtis (or shawabtis), namely tiny figurines of
servants, guards and animals. Since the ushabtis deposited in just one tomb
were usually a few hundreds, and in the case of some pharaohs thousands, it was
normal for Egyptologists to study them closely. Unfortunately, the only success
in this regard was achieved at the level of observation and classification of
the material record. But the various interpretations of the possible use of the
ushabtis were customarily impacted by the ideological biases and the
theoretical favoritism of the unethical and foolish scholars. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushabti
Basically, the ushabtis
were the depositories of energy of living humans, who were related to the
deceased individual; actually, they were magically empowered in order to become
the spiritual domicile of their souls. As such, the ushabtis were not geared to
hypothetically serve the deceased but to actively enable their Khet (: the
lower spiritual body) to communicate with those humans, who were still in life.
It is true that the ushabtis were produced in big numbers; this was due to the
fact that the funeral undertakers and directors often wanted to make available
many copies of each ushabti.
An ushabti box from the Ptolemaic period; Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California (RC 623)
The reanimation of the unitary
entity that the 'physical body' and the 'lower spiritual (or astral) body'
constitute was the main target of the religious rituals performed immediately
after the death of an individual. The Opening of the Mouth ceremony involved
the progressive re-awakening of every section of the astral body, which would
then be reconnected with all embalmed parts of the physical body to thus stay
alive in eternity. About:
https://www.academia.edu/35031971/Papyri_with_the_Ritual_of_the_Opening_of_the_Mouth_in_the_Egyptian_Museum_in_Turin
https://egypt-museum.com/opening-of-the-mouth-ceremony-tutankhamun/
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/religion/wpr.html
"The opening of
the mouth"--a new perspective for an ancient Egyptian mummification
procedure
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25998653/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_of_the_mouth_ceremony
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/open.htm
https://egyptcentrecollectionblog.blogspot.com/2020/06/ritual-and-magic-in-ancient-egypt.html
https://www.mariarosavaldesogo.com/the-opening-of-the-mouth-ceremony-on-a-living-image/
4-
Shuyet
Shuyet (at times also
written as Shut) is the Ancient Egyptian word for 'shadow'. As part of the
soul, it is identified with what is called in modern languages the 'middle
spiritual body' (or 'mental plane', as superior to the physical and astral
planes and inferior to the 'causal plane'). The use of the Ancient Egyptian
word for 'shadow' in order to designate the middle spiritual body was due to
the fact that the Ancient Egyptians accepted the Creation as a process rather
defined as emanation of forms.
About: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/šwt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(esotericism)
Consequently, the
entire process was perceived as involving the emission of better specified and
more individualized forms from earlier, less particularized forms of superior
order; for this reason the 'shadow' (as the 'middle spiritual body) was a
superior layer of existence in-between the physical and astral planes and the
'causal plane' (or 'superior spiritual body': Sah; see below). Being apparently
dark, the 'shadow' was the higher (or more important) part of the soul that
could eventually be represented; featured as a black silhouette, the Shuyet was
for the Ancient Egyptians the apparent connection between the visible and the
invisible worlds. As a matter of fact, in Ancient Egypt, the black color
represented the totality, the complete and perfect environment, the completion
of processes, and the sphere of the Divine. Anubis (the reflection of the
Divine Austerity) was always portrayed black, and the same is valid for Bastet
(: Divine Protection symbolized as a cat). About:
https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/soul/
As the more original
and earliest visible part of the soul, the Shuyet had apparently an independent
mode of existence; on a wall painting from the Tomb of Irynefer (TT 290 I Deir
al Medina), a 19th dynasty noble man, who was 'Servant in the Place of Truth'
and worked as funeral director during the reign of Ramesses II, the defunct
official's Shuyet appears as a thin, black silhouette entering the tomb chapel.
He has therefore already been fully detached from the 'physical body', the
'lower spiritual (or astral) body', and the Ba (: character) of the deceased. In
this very well-known wall painting, Irynefer's Ba was depicted twice; first, it
appears flying to welcome the 'returning' Shuyet/Shadow (: the 'middle
spiritual body') and second, it is portrayed as standing out of the superior
realm of the spiritual universe, which is symbolized as a black sphere. About: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/TT290
https://deirelmedinaegypt.wixsite.com/home/tt290
https://www.academia.edu/37617420/Irynefers_tomb_TT_290_at_Deir_el_Medina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Theban_tombs#TT201%E2%80%93TT300
The 'returning' Shuyet/Shadow (: the 'middle spiritual body') of Irynefer
Interpretations of
depictions of the Shuyet as per which "the deceased emerges from the tomb
during the day in the guise of a shadow" are very erroneous; they reflect
entirely modern concepts and beliefs. Even more so, since the specialists, who insist
on these inaccurate readings, go on saying that the Shuyet ("a thin,
black, featureless silhouette of a person") represents "a mere shadow
of their former existence, yet they continue to exist". Such approaches
are very wrong and very biased. Actually, if the Shuyet had been as unimportant
as these modern specialists imagine, the Ancient Egyptians simply would have
never referred to it. Even worse, it is very difficult to believe that anything
trivial, weak and unimportant would have been colored black in Ancient Egypt. About:
https://historicaleve.com/shuyet-ancient-egyptian-shadow/
The undisputed
individuality of every human's Shuyet /Shadow (: the 'middle spiritual body') was
reason for great concern in cases of apocalyptic destructions and extraordinary
natural disasters. In the eschatological text that is conventionally known as
the Prophecies of Neferti (written during the Middle Kingdom and more
specifically at the beginning of the 12th dynasty, but set in the Old Kingdom),
we read that, in an extraordinary absence of sunlight (namely in a prophesied
natural disaster that came actually to happen, putting an end to the Old
Kingdom), "no one will distinguish his shadow"; this clearly implies grave
catastrophes of spiritual nature, namely the nightmare of a potential
amalgamation of middle spiritual bodies. Such references demonstrate how deeply
interconnected the material and the spiritual universes were viewed by the
Ancient Egyptians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_Neferti
https://www.touregypt.net/propheciesofneferti.htm
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/shadow.htm
It is evident that the
rituals performed in order to preserve the unity of the physical and the lower
spiritual (astral) bodies ('Khet') enabled also the Ba ('character') and the
Shuyet /Shadow (: the 'middle spiritual body') to remain in contact with them.
This means that the middle spiritual body would stay independent,
individualized and active until the Final Judgment at the End of the World. In
later periods and in recent times, only very few mystics and spiritual masters
were able to achieve this breakthrough. Several excerpts from the Coffin Texts
bear witness to similar occasions, preserving commands like the following
(given by the deceased):
"Go, my Ba and my
Shuyet, so that you see the sun"!
About the Shuyet (the
'middle spiritual body') and the Ba of a deceased, we find the following prayer
in the Papyrus of Nebseny:
"Keep not ward
over my shadow, but let a way be opened for my Ba and my Shuyet, and let them
see the Great God in the shrine on the day of the counting of souls, and let
them hold converse with Osiris, whose habitations are hidden, and those who
guard the members of Osiris, and who keep ward over the Ba, and who hold
captive the Shuyet of the dead, and who would work evil against me, so that
they shall not work evil against me"!
It is clear that only
the middle spiritual body could have the spiritual potency to achieve these
accomplishments and "converse" with the Well Being (Osiris); thus,
maintaining the deceased man's individuality and, uniting with his Ba, the
Shuyet of the defunct would obtain a very rare distinction and a complete
understanding of the human condition (namely the Fall). About:
https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00031779001
Le papyrus de nebseny (bm ea 9900)
https://www.eyrolles.com/Loisirs/Livre/le-papyrus-de-nebseny-bm-ea-9900--9782915840209/
Le Papyrus de Nebseny (BM EA 9900)
https://books.google.ru/books/about/Le_Papyrus_de_Nebseny_BM_EA_9900.html?id=Zpg_0AEACAAJ&hl=en&output=html_text&redir_esc=y
READING HIEROGLYPHICS -
A Very Ancient Text: CHAPTER 64 THE BOOK OF THE DEAD Extracts from the Papyrus
of Nu and the Papyrus of Nebseny (Reading hieroglyphs and ancient Egyptian art)
https://www.amazon.com/READING-HIEROGLYPHICS-Ancient-CHAPTER-Extracts/dp/1535210796
Teodor Lekov, The
Shadow of the Dead and its Representations
https://egyptology-bg.org/filebank/jes3-a2.pdf
At times, in representations of the Judgment, the Shuyet appears behind the heart.
As it is well known,
all beings have their souls and, consequently, the middle spiritual body of a
tree or a mountain or a spiritually empowered structure was identified with its
shadow. In one of Ancient Egypt's most historic monuments, namely the Dream
Stele of Thutmose IV (1401-1391 BCE), which was unearthed between the paws of the
Great Sphinx, we read that the pharaoh, when a young prince, "rested in
the shadow of this great god". The Great Sphinx was thought to be the
"Living Image" (Shesep Ankh) of Khafre (Chephren), but one millennium
later, during the New Empire, it was believed to be Horemakhet (i.e. the Horus
of the Horizon), a Messianic aspect of the Egyptian Universalism, and under
this name it was mentioned in the Dream Stele. It was then the middle spiritual
body of this Divine Aspect of Horus that brought extraordinary blessing to the
young prince, who seems not to have been the crown prince, finally making of
him one of the leading pharaohs of the rise of the monotheistic religion of
Aten (Aton) before Akhenaten (who was Thutmose IV's grandson). About:
Fragments of an assumed
dream stela of Thutmosis IV from Giza
https://ejars.journals.ekb.eg/article_6827_fab9818062bbb918805e8a7257e2a4ea.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sphinx/stela.html
https://mused.com/items/497/dream-stela-of-thutmose-iv/
https://www.ancient-egypt.org/language/anthology/fiction/dream-stela/dream-stela---translation.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Stele
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Names
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx#Etymology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_IV
The Dream Stele and detail from the lunette
Thutmose IV
The association of the Shuyet/Shadow
with the middle spiritual body was spread among other peoples and cultures
across Africa and the Mediterranean world. In the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:2),
we find the notion of the "shadow of death" (צַלְמָ֔וֶת/ṣal-mā-weṯ; σκιᾷ θανάτου/skia thanatou; umbrae
mortis); the term was repeated in the New Testament (Matthew 4:16). It
constitutes a clear reference to Death as a discrete spiritual entity.
5-
Sah
Sah is what many
mystics today denote as the 'superior spiritual body'. This is what emerges
from the space of the emanation of forms in the spiritual universe, when a soul
comes to existence. It is also Latinized as Seh or Sahu. At this point, it is
essential to make some clarifications at the lexicographical level as regards
the hieroglyphic writing and the related transliteration. This word is written
with the hieroglyphic sign for the letter ayn, which is customarily transliterated
as ꜥ;
so, the entire word in
transliteration signs is rendered as sꜥḥ. Ayn, as phoneme, is a voiced pharyngeal fricative; as
such, it is totally unrelated to the letter Aleph. About:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sꜥḥ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration_of_Ancient_Egyptian#Egyptological_alef,_ayin,_and_yod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_pharyngeal_fricative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph
It was essential to
point out the aforementioned first, because many non-specialists make a
terrible confusion; they confuse sꜥḥ (Sah; i.e. the 'superior spiritual body') with
the Ancient Egyptian divinity Sah, because in Latinized forms the two words are
written similarly (with –a). However, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, the name of
the divinity is written with Aleph (not Ayn), and it is actually transliterated
as Sꜣḥ, because the transliteration sign for Aleph is ꜣ. About:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sꜣḥ#Proper_noun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sah_(god)
Consequently,
popularized articles like the following are completely wrong:
https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/sahu/
The Sah, as the
'superior spiritual body', was considered incorruptible and therefore unifiable
with the Divine after the End of the World; the material body and the lower
spiritual body (Khet), as well as the middle spiritual body (Shuyet), would
finally disintegrate into their elements after the Final Judgment, but the Sah
would unify with the supreme Atum-Ra.
The Sah was never
represented in Ancient Egypt; belonging to an earlier emanated form, it was
considered as certainly less particularized than Shuyet. Similarly with what is
called by modern mystics and spiritual masters "mental sphere", the
Sah constitutes the subtlest substance we can find in the material-spiritual
entity that we call a 'human'. However, this comparison is only structural;
when it comes to the contents of this term, the Ancient Egyptians did not
accept any modern notion of 'thought', 'abstract idea' and 'concept'. This
makes the description of the Ancient Egyptian spiritual wisdom even more
difficult to us, because everything in both, the spiritual and the material,
universes was perceived as real without any abstraction.
Concerning the
emanation of forms in the spiritual universe, I expanded in the following
sections of my article on 'Ullikummi, Hittite Eschatology, and the Topography
of the Spiritual Universe':
VIII. Spiritual actions
and processes in the transcendental experience of the future
IX. The spiritual
universe and its topography
X. The space of the
emanation of forms in the spiritual universe
XI. The axis of Being
and Becoming, and the emanation of forms
XII. The transcendental
experience of the 'future' and its laws
Ουλλικούμμι, Χιττιτική Εσχατολογία και Τοπογραφία του Ψυχικού Σύμπαντος
(in Greek)
https://www.academia.edu/102946763/Ουλλικούμμι_Χιττιτική_Εσχατολογία_και_Τοπογραφία_του_Ψυχικού_Σύμπαντος
Whereas the Ancient
Egyptians defined various spaces of time, they did not accept the notion of
time, because it simply does not exist. The fact that they considered the material
and the astral planes as one, single and unified, sphere of existence was the
reason for which they were able to feel the Khet (the physical and the astral
bodies as one entity) as bound to space only, and not to what people today
denote as time, i. e. a mere delusion. However, the Sah (the 'superior
spiritual body') was perceived as spaceless, and that's why it was known as
proper to communicate with the higher spheres of spiritual hierarchies and
intelligences.
6-
Sekhem
Sekhem corresponds to what
many mystics in the Late Antiquity used to call 'Ether' or 'Aether' (also known
as the quintessence). In Ancient Egyptian, it means 'power' or 'form' (in the
sense of an early, not well defined, type of form); it was named in this manner
because it is in Ether where first the divine power is expressed and noted in
some form. Conventional Egyptologists interpret Sekhem as 'living force' or
'life-force', but this is merely due to their ideological and academic
constrictions. About: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sḫm #Noun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether
Denoting the 'Ether', Sekhem
involves the notions of 'power', 'control', 'authority', and the 'capability to
overpower'; as noun, it also signifies the condition of 'being of divine power'.
At times, it appears to mean the 'earthly image of a god'. It was used as
epithet for several divinities, and on rare occasions for some pharaohs. Because
the word encompasses the aforementioned meanings, we feel safe to claim that
this term, when used with respect to the human soul, indicates the primordial
element (Ether) out of which all the other Elements emanated. Furthermore, due
to the fact that in cases of spiritual performance, Ether can be especially
condensed in a staff or rod that makes miracles (like the staff of Moses), a
specific ritual scepter was also named Sekhem (meaning the powerful scepter in
the sense of performing miracles).
When consecrating
diverse sacrifices, the pharaoh used to hold two Sekhem-scepters; the first
represented Horus and the second symbolized Seth. That is why the two
apocalyptic and eschatological rivals were called "the two Sekhems"
(shmwy).
It is noteworthy that
Sekhem became also the personal name of either laymen or pharaohs. Last, in its
feminine form, it became the name of Sekhmet, namely the Divine Providence,
which symbolized the divinely imposed, strenuous exertion that humans may have
to undergo in life (to avoid post mortem castigation) and the protection
against sickness and infirmity. About:
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sekhemscepter.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhem_scepter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_of_Moses
The Scepter of Egypt
(p. 287)
https://cdn.sanity.io/files/cctd4ker/production/35f02ed6fd02e673f52cd2c86c6df8f3efe94c33.pdf
Mechanical Engineering
in Ancient Egypt, Part 87: Scepters Industry
https://scholar.cu.edu.eg/sites/default/files/galal/files/87_part_87.pdf
The Tombs of Iteti,
Sekhem ankh-Ptah, and Kaemnofert at Giza
https://gizamedia.rc.fas.harvard.edu/images/MFA-images/Giza/GizaImage/full/library/badawy_iteti.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhemkhet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhmet
Mystics and spiritual
masters from the Late Antiquity, the Christian and the Islamic times, as well
as the Modern times, made often a terrible confusion; they thought that Ether
is God and/or God is Ether; this is totally misplaced. Even worse mistake is to
equate Ether with the Sanskrit term Akasha, which in traditional Hindu
cosmology means 'the being'. The confusing and erroneous identification of
Akasha with Ether is due to colonial, fake-Freemasonic, and devilish Western
occultism of the 19th c. Akasha does not mean Ether, and it does not mean God. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akasha
As already said, Sekhem
(Ether) is what mystics, magicians and alchemists used to call quintessence
(Latin: quinta essentia: the 'fifth essence'), namely the fundamental element
from which all the rest have derived. All the same, in Modern Physics, the said
term has an absolute different connotation, denoting a "hypothetical form
of dark energy". About: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quintessence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintessence
Every religious dogma,
modern scientific postulation or philosophical nonsense, which accepts the
fallacy of ex nihilo Creation (or the Big Bang theory), automatically rejects
the reality of the Creation through emanation; this constituted the foundation
of the worldview and perception of the Ancient Egyptians. As a matter of fact,
for Big Bang extremists and ex Nihilo theorists, the Ancient Egyptian spiritual
wisdom remains forever incomprehensible. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatio_ex_nihilo
https://www.otago.ac.nz/english-linguistics/english/lowry/content/11_mysticism/c_cosmicegg/c_cosmicegg.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab_ovo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cosmological_theories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmogony
The Ancient Egyptian
term 'Sekhem' (Ether), as part of the human soul, corresponds to what Jesus
described in the New Testament (and more specifically the Gospel of Matthew) as
the Kingdom of the Heaven (Βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν/regnum caelorum) or the Kingdom of God (as usually in
the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John). The well-known sentence "the kingdom
of God is within you", made by Jesus (Luke 17:21; ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ
ἐντὸς
ὑμῶν
ἐστιν / regnum Dei intra vos est),
describes explicitly what the Ancient Egyptians believed as regards Sekhem,
namely that the human soul is made of Ether. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_heaven_(Gospel_of_Matthew)
7-
Ren
Ren means 'name' in
Ancient Egyptian. The importance of the name in Ancient Egypt was greater than
in any other ancient civilization, nation and country. Of course, among all
highly civilized nations, the personal names were far more critical and
important to them than our names are significant to us.
Although the personal
names among people of different religions have still today a certain importance
because they refer to names of divinities, holy persons, saints or outstanding spiritual
entities and principles, it is evident that the sanctity and the primordial
gravity of those names have been lost.
Names of ancient kings,
priests, scholars, mystics, generals and simple individuals were usually entire
sentences. Example: the name of the Assyrian Emperor Tiglath-Pileser III
(745-727 BCE), which is in Assyrian-Babylonian "Tukulti apil
Esharra", literally means "my trust is (or belongs to) the son
Esharra", Esharra being a) the central part of the Heaven, b) a heavenly
palace, and c) a temple that reflected the Heaven, being constructed in Assyria.
About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiglath-Pileser_III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C5%A1arra-%E1%B8%ABammat
https://africame.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-81.html
https://anefest.spbu.ru/en/articles/ancient-minor-asia/181-sacred-marriages-of-babylonian-and-assyrian-deities.html
https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/sidebar/the-creation-story-from-enuma-elis/
a- The
five names of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs
In Ancient Egypt, every
pharaoh had five names, and it is important at this point to clarify that the
Pharaonic names that we conventionally use today, although extant, were not
those regularly used in the Antiquity by the Ancient Egyptians. I will offer an
example later, as I want to briefly enumerate every incumbent pharaoh's five categories
of imperial and sacrosanct names first. Only one of those names was given to
the crown prince at birth.
Empowered with five
names, which belonged to distinct categories and were created at the moment of
the investiture, every pharaoh ruled the Two Lands in order to implement the
conceptual content of all those names. I now clarify that this term (in Ancient
Egyptian: 'Tawy') meant the Upper and Lower Egypt; this traditional and rather
administrative appellation was valid down to Diocletian, thus convincingly demonstrating
that Ancient Egypt was never one 'united' land or state, but two lands ruled by
one monarch. I herewith present the five Pharaonic names as per order of
importance:
i- Horus name: this was the oldest royal name that
a ruler had in Kemet (: the 'Black land', which was the 'national' name of the
land in Ancient Egyptian). In fact, this name constituted the formulation of
the concept, which the pharaoh, during his investiture, would wholeheartedly promise
to implement while impersonating Horus, i.e. the Messiah and End Times Savior,
who will win over Seth (: the Antichrist and/or Satan) and eliminate Evil from
the material universe. In fact, it was a Messianic 'oath' with which the
monarch heralded the ultimate coming of Horus, and described how his reign
would contribute to it.
Apparently, for the
polytheistic and idolatrous priesthood of Memphis (namely the servants of the
pseudo-god Ptah that was an abomination), the Horus name was the most loathed
part of the Pharaonic titularity. It was making them tremble, as it forced them
to contemplate the final, abysmal destruction that awaits them at the End. In
few cases, this category of Pharaonic name was challenged by evil rulers
promoted by the Memphitic polytheistic priesthood; then, they had Seth name
instead of Horus name.
%20Horus%20name.jpg)
Stela with the Horus name Djet of Pharaoh Wadj, who was the fourth ruler of the First Dynasty of Egypt (30th or 29th c. BCE); the rectangular shape that represents the façade of a palace is what the Ancient Egyptians called 'serekh'.
As the messianic and
soteriological name par excellence, the Horus name had to embody an aggressive
assertion of force and this was done by means of sophisticated symbolism. This
name was written within a particular frame, the serekh (: Sir Alan Gardiner,
Egyptian Grammar, sign O 33, p. 71-76 and 496), which was symbolizing the
Pharaonic palace. The palace itself was named in Ancient Egyptian 'Per Aa', and
from this term originates the name 'pharaoh'. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_royal_titulary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus_name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus_name#Symbology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serekh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh#Etymology
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pr-ꜥꜣ
ii- Nebty name: this was the pharaoh's truly national
name. If the Horus name had to describe how the ruler would function as Horus
(before Horus' coming, fight and victory), the "Two Ladies" (Nebty)
name defined how the monarch would rule the two lands as a righteous and loving
sovereign. The "Two Ladies" were the two divine protectresses, namely
the vulture-shaped Nekhbet, who guarded Upper Egypt, and the cobra-like Wadjet,
who defended Lower Egypt. This Pharaonic name was written after the hieroglyphs
denoting the two divinities; during the Ptolemaic times, the Ancient Greek
translation was "κύριος
βασιλειών" ("lord
of crowns"). About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebty_name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Ladies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekhbet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadjet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_and_Lower_Egypt
The Nebty name of Pharaoh Semerkhet, the 7th ruler of the First Dynasty
iii- Horus of Gold
name: this category
of name is by far the most difficult to understand and explain. Like the Nebty
name, it became part of the Pharaonic titularity during the first dynasties.
The name was written after the hieroglyphic sign of Horus of Gold, which
depicted a falcon standing on the Egyptian hieroglyph representing gold (Sir
Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, sign S 12, p. 505, 573 and 614), which was a
collar of beads. It is however noteworthy that, in Ancient Egypt, 'gold' (nbw)
was a name often given to Hathor, a divine force identified with Isis. In this
sense, the concept of Horus of Gold would initially mean the heir of the
original, supreme spiritual potency of the early monotheists, and in a wider
sense, that of the first humans.
Faience applique for wooden temples, from the Ptolemaic period (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
The modern
interpretation, as per which this category of Pharaonic name was invented to
consolidate the Messianic and anti-Satanic nature of the Egyptian crown and
throne, may reflect the historical reality. According to another approach, to
the Ancient Egyptians, gold symbolized eternity, and consequently, the Horus of
Gold name may have been meant as introductory to the heavenly life and the perfect
order after the final victory of the Messiah (Horus) over Satan and the
Antichrist (Seth) at the End of Time. The concept of irrevocable prevalence
over all rivals can also be attributed to this name category; even more so, since
in Demotic and Ancient Greek translations, during the Ptolemaic times, the Golden
Horus hieroglyph was rendered as "he who is over his enemy" (αντιπάλων υπερτέρου), as attested on the Rosetta Stone
(line 2 of the Greek text). About:
https://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/glossary.aspx?id=162
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547556
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_(hieroglyph)
https://preprints.readingroo.ms/rosetta/1871..The_Rosetta_Stone_in_Hieroglyphics_and_Greek%3B_with_Translations.pdf
iv- Throne name (having value of praenomen): this
was the pharaoh's truly imperial name. If the Nebty name defined how the
Egyptian sovereign would rule the two lands as a righteous and loving king, the
Throne name epitomized the royal aspect and the nature of the reign that the
ruler intended to deliver to his people. In other words, it was almost like the
emblem of modern crowned heads. The permanent insignia of the Egyptian throne,
namely the sedge (swt; for Upper Egypt) and the bee (bjt; for Lower Egypt),
preceded the Throne name in every text it was written. And this was the
official Egyptian title of the pharaoh: nswt bit, i.e. "he who belongs to
the sedge and the bee" and consequently "the one to whom Upper Egypt and
Lower Egypt belong"; this is conventionally translated as "King of
Upper and Lower Egypt".
About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenomen_(Ancient_Egypt)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nswt
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bjtj
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomen_(ancient_Egypt)
https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/Home/Page_En.aspx?name=RoyalNamesTitles
In order to be
irreversibly impregnable, impenetrable and unassailable, the Throne name was
written within a cartouche, i.e. an oblong with curved angles and with a
straight line at one narrow side. Throne names started being written in
cartouches around the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th dynasty of
Egypt, so around 2650 BCE. The introduction of the cartouche marks a critical
step in the rise of the Pharaonic universalist-ecumenical worldview. As
hieroglyphic sign (Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, sign V 10, p. 522), it
also denoted the Ancient Egyptian word for name (ren). About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartouche
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_ring
This was the customary
name that the Ancient Egyptians used to refer to their rulers. And it is with
this name that the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt became known to their significant
counterparts, namely the sovereigns of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Hurrians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. For instance, Tutankhamen's Throne
name Neb kheperu Ra was rendered as Nipḫururia in Assyrian-Babylonian and in
Hittite, according to a report prepared by the Hittite crown prince Murshili II
and sent to his father the Hittite Emperor Shuppiluliuma I, which is part of
the cuneiform documentation that is currently known as "the Deeds of Shuppiluliuma".
About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun#Military_campaigns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankhesenamun#Hittite_letters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0uppiluliuma_I#Zannanza_affair
https://www.scribd.com/document/254222573/The-Deeds-of-%C5%A0uppiluliuma-I
https://www.academia.edu/34161270/Ay_and_the_Dahamunzu_Affair
v- Personal name
(nomen): this was
the personal name given at birth. In fact, it was the minor of all the names of
a pharaoh. This is so because it was given to a newly born child that was not
yet a living Horus, i.e. a pharaoh. All the same, this name was preceded by the
expression "sa Ra", i.e. Son of Ra, which was the equivalent of what
we now call "Son of God"; for 2000 years before king Solomon of
Israel was said to be "a son to Yahweh" (1 Chronicles 28:6), the
pharaohs of Egypt were believed to be "sons of Ra". The personal name
of the Egyptian sovereign was also written in cartouche. This is the name by
which we conventionally refer to the rulers of Ancient Egypt today; it
therefore becomes fully evident that names with ordinals, such as Amenhotep II
and Ramesses III, were never used by Ancient Egyptians.
To therefore offer an
example of the complete five names of a pharaoh, I will mention the royal
titulary of Thutmose III (1479-1425), including approximate Latinization and
translation:
i- Horus name: Ka nakht
kha em Waset – "The strong bull arising in Thebes"
ii- Nebty name: Wah
nesyt – "Enduring of kingship"
iii- Horus of Gold
name: Djoser khau – "Sacred of appearances"
iv- Throne name: Men
kheper Ra – "Lasting is the Manifestation of Ra"
v- Personal name: Djehutimes
(: Thutmose) – "Thoth is born"
About:
https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/tutankhamun/
https://talesfromthetwolands.org/2019/08/11/the-naming-of-kings/
https://www.joyvspicer.com/joy-blog/2015/07/the-sunday-section-ancient-egypt-royalhtml
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6649877/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307107936_The_Cartouche_Names_of_the_New_Kingdom
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/ideology/king/what.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_God
Birth (The Oxford
Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt) https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/3517/1/Feucht_Birth_2001.pdf
Childbirth magic https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/58-3/childbirth-magic.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Egyptian_given_names
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Egyptians
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/mothers.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meskhenet
https://africame.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-1107.html
Abbreviating names in
ancient Egypt
https://llacan.cnrs.fr/fichiers/writing/fichiers/abstracts/4_Van_der_Moezel.pdf
b- The
name of the soul
If the Ancient Egyptian
high priests developed about the names of the pharaoh a so crucial and so extensive
concern, it is certain that the average individual's strong fascination with
the name given to a newly born child was a matter of foremost dedication. According
to an Ancient Egyptian maxim "a man lives when his name is mentioned";
that is why immediately after the birth of a child, the parents were impetuous
to give the proper name to their newborn. In most of the times, the name given
to a child corresponded to the parental wishes for the child's success in life.
Epitome of individuality,
the name allowed the newly born child to properly exist and be identified. The
importance of the name does not hinge only on the content, i.e. the constituent
words and their meaning, but also on the sound, namely the sonar formula that was
created to duly empower the new human being to be complete, effective and
forceful enough in life. The name given to a newborn child establishes the
particular bond between its material and spiritual parts or hypostases. In
Ancient Egypt, the sanctity of all the names and all the words was evident to
all since the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing itself was defined as "medu
netjer" (mdw-nṯr), i.e. "the words of
God". The term "re en Kemet" (lit. the "Egyptian
language") was not very common. This means that, above everything else,
the Ancient Egyptian language was believed to be the language of God. About:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mdw-nṯr
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mdw#Egyptian
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/r_n_kmt
https://medu-netcher.com/about/
Composed by several
phonemes, i.e. perceptually distinct units of sound, every name encapsulates
the identity of the human being that it denotes. In this regard, the identity
of the soul is indicated by the name that constitutes therefore a divine force.
Subsequently, powerful names have to protect the soul and the body, thus ensuring
spiritual potency and proper defense against the Evil. Personal names in
Ancient Egypt were indeed hierarchically structured clusters of letters that
fully functioned as per the phonotactic needs of the language of the Divine
(medu netjer).
In fact, it is out of
the sonority hierarchy of the Ancient Egyptian (similarly with that of the
Ancient Sumerian and that of the Akkadian-Assyrian-Babylonian) and out of its
particular sonority sequencing principle that the ancient sonar sciences were
established only to be later degraded and deteriorated to what is nowadays
called Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Kabbalah or Hermetic Qabalah. Within this context,
it becomes evident that total faith in, and absolute concentration on, the name
were practiced in the process, thus offering the nascent human a splendid place
in the two universes. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonority_sequencing_principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonority_hierarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Kabbalah
Agata Paluch, Between
Active Matter and Letters: Kabbalah, Natural Knowledge, and Jewish How-To Books
in Early Modern East-Central Europe; https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/29/3/article-p271_3.xml
As a matter of fact,
the name of the soul is second in importance only to the Ka. About it, I will
expand later. This is so because all the other parts come to proper existence
only due to the name (ren), but solely the Ka is anterior. This is so because,
with respect to the human souls, the various emanations of the Ka get
concretized exclusively due to the name. In this regard, by giving the name of
a person to a statue, one instantaneously offered a second body to its soul.
The mystical importance
of the name for the Ancient Egyptians is highlighted by the sacred text about
the secret name of Ra and the contrivance devised by Isis in order to have
access to it. Of course, the text may be of sacerdotal rigor rather than
spiritual vigor; it has to be examined and comprehended within the context of the
rivalry between the monotheistic and polytheistic priesthoods – a situation
which typified life in Ancient Egypt. More specifically, the Heliopolitan
priesthood of Isis, in its clash with the clerical abomination of Ptah and the
Memphitic doctrine, definitely needed texts like that in order to best
propagate its own spiritual potency. However, in spite of its probably
utilitarian aspect, the text reveals that the name, with all its specificities
and functionalities, was considered of foremost importance in Ancient Egypt.
About:
https://sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/ebod07.htm
Nicholaus Benjamin
Pumphrey
Names and power: the
concept of secret names in the Ancient Near East
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/216048895.pdf
https://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/egypt-secret-name-of-ra.html
https://www.thecollector.com/isis-ra-secret-name/
https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Egypt/Ra&Isis.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra#Other_gods
The importance of the
name of the soul in Ancient Egypt is also underscored by what is customarily
denoted by a Latinism, i.e. the Damnatio Memoriae (lit. condemnation of
memory); this practice involves the systematic and eventually total removal of
an individual's name from all written records. This was a widespread practice
in ancient times, whenever there was a need. Today's absurd, biased, and
debased academics, intellectuals, journalists, politicians and statesmen would characterize
this practice as 'historical negationism' or 'historical denialism', but this
is preposterous, because everything, every single act and decree, decision and
undertaking, is part of World History and, if someone intends to prescribe what
humans can do or cannot do, this is not leading anywhere. Sooner or later, the
practice of damnatio memoriae will be repeated again.
Even worse, the aforementioned
ridiculous terms ending in –ism would have some validity, if all humans had a
comprehensive knowledge of World History; but does it really matter if a modern
historiographer, deliberately and mistakenly, tries to conceal a historical
fact concerning one nation, when numerous people among his own readers already
do not know even the names of entire nations with sizable population and
significant past? In a world of excruciating ignorance, a conscious effort of
concealment matters only little.
Thutmose III makes offerings; underneath them, Hatshepsut’s cartouches have been removed; from Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari, Luxor West From: https://www.seeingthepast.com/blog/hatshepsut Also: https://www.ees.ac.uk/resource/analysing-the-destruction-of-hatshepsut-s-monuments.html
A major case of
damnatio memoriae in Ancient Egypt was that of Hatshepsut, who was aunt,
stepmother and predecessor of Thutmose III; daughter of Thutmose I, great royal
wife of Thutmose II, Maatkare Khemenet Imun Hat shep sut ("Truth is the Ka
of Ra", "Unified with Amun; the foremost of noble ladies") was queen
regnant for 20 years, having sidestepped her 2-year old crowned nephew. This
development was an unprecedented event in the (already 1500-year long) history
of the country; to legitimize her imperially weak (if not impossible) position,
she presented herself as the "king", and with the support of the
polytheistic clergy of Amun of Karnak, she came up with the innovative, yet
absolutely blasphemous, concept of Theogamy (or Divine Birth), as per which the
god Amun took the material form of Thutmose I and entered in intercourse with
Ahmose, Hatshepsut's mother.
As the monotheistic
priesthood efficiently protected the young Thutmose III, he survived and got
his throne back after his aunt and stepmother died; yet, he had to wait for no
less than 20 years, being secluded in a sector of the precinct of Amun in
Karnak. It was then that an overwhelming campaign of damnatio memoriae started
against Hatshepsut. Her royal names and her representations were erased almost
from everywhere. Even entire temples built by Egypt's first queen regnant were
deconstructed. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae#Ancient_Egypt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_negationism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut#Exclusion_from_the_historical_record
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Hatshepsut%27s_birth_and_coronation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III
Creativity and
Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut (Theban Workshop 2010)
https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc69.pdf
https://www.tsfx.edu.au/resources/hsc-2019-ancient-history-3-FINAL.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOoqxlUVst7gOuycQvb3qI44Vj9Jwwnfb7aSykWSEJr_iYw4p3y45
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapelle_Rouge#Destruction
With the aforementioned,
I may have expanded extensively about the importance of the name of the soul;
all the same, before completing this part of the article, I have to make it
clear that not one high priest, mystic, scholar or spiritual master in Ancient
Egypt was foolish enough to imagine that the name itself (with its spiritual
value) was or could be 'everything'. In striking contrast to this perception,
during the Late Antiquity, the Renaissance, and the Modern Times, several Gnostics,
priests, mystics, monks, and spiritual masters ended up with the conviction
that the Name of God, as it is the energy and the action of God, is (or can be
considered as) God Himself.
Accepting this concept
(and/or heresy), only because through use of the (eventually only hypothetical)
secret name of God one mystic can perform stupendous 'miracles' is an aberration;
even worse, it is a self-condemnation. This is so because in the effort of
uttering properly and correctly a name, and even more importantly a holy name,
many unsolicited external factors may interfere. If this happens, the 'miracle'
will not be the achievement of the performing mystic (or rather of the apprentice
magician), but that of an interfering spirit.
The origin of this
often lethal mistake made by numerous spiritual masters is the Ancient Egyptian
religious tradition about Isis being the only to know how to utter the secret
name of Ra. This ended up in spiritual extremism and religious fanaticism among
the Kabbalah practitioners, the Jesuits, and their victims, notably the
heretics who claimed that the Name of God is God (Imiaslavie/ Имяславие or Imyabozhie
/ Имябожие or Imyabozhnichestvo / Имябожничество) or Onomatodoxy / Ονοματοδοξία). About:
http://jscc.ruc.edu.cn/yw/BACKISSUES/Vol51/2h/21a57611a782450898a3509a416fac33.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imiaslavie
Ostracon with the Tale of Isis and Ra, Dynasty XVIII (1575-1295 BCE); source: University College
Some modern scholars
tried to retrace the heresy of Imiaslavie back to theories and concepts
mistakenly attributed to Plato and the Stoics, stating that these ancient
philosophers supported the idea that "names and forms pre-exist their
respective sensual manifestations in the material world"; this is an
aberration, because these Ancient Greek philosophical considerations consist in
definite misunderstanding of the Ancient Egyptian Spiritual Ontology. Actually,
this misperception concerns the interrelation, interaction and interfunctionality
of the parts of the human soul. In this regard, what the ancient philosophers
failed to comprehend properly and accurately (thus ending up with definitions
such as "names and forms") corresponds to the Ka; in contrast, the
"sensual manifestations" are nothing else than the regular function
of other parts of the soul, notably the Khet, the Ib (heart) and the Ba.
In fact, the spiritual
and the material universes are not separated, but the sensual manifestations in
the material world concern only some parts of the soul, the complexity of which
the Ancient Greek pupils in the temples of Egypt, Babylonia and Iran were
unprepared and unable to grasp. There cannot be any distinction between the
visible (material) and the invisible (spiritual) world (universes).
8-
Ka
Ka is often translated
as 'double' or as 'vital essence'; although this is not wrong, it is not
necessarily comprehensible to modern audience. Almost all the Egyptologists,
who happen to have written about Ka, had difficulties to accurately and
specifically describe what it truly was according to the Ancient Egyptian
perception of the Divine. Most of them stick to the well-attested sense of the
'double'; they thus stay close to the textual sources, but they fail to fully
clarify the notion and to state in what sense the Ka was or is the 'double' of
a human being.
Although the Ka is
customarily taken as part of the human soul by all specialists attempting to
interpret the Ancient Egyptian conceptualization of the spiritual and the
material universes, in fact it is not. In spite of the fact that it is not
exactly wrong to consider the Ka as part of the soul, the notion of the
'double' in and by itself lets us understand how things are: you can never be
the 'double' of anything of which you are a part.
All the different
Ancient Egyptian religions and systems of world conceptualization, Cosmology,
Cosmogony and Eschatology were at times ferociously opposed to one another.
However, most of them offered to the faithful narratives, albeit brief, about
'the world before Creation' or the state of Nonbeing from which the Supreme,
Only and One Atum-Ra, through successive series of emanations, created the
spiritual and the material universes. Consequently, almost all the Ancient
Egyptians (with the exception of the absurd Memphitic polytheism) were
acquainted with the precosmic stage to some extent. But then, if we take into
consideration the fact that Creation is emanation, everything that was created
in fact pre-existed within the Sublime Atum-Ra.
The strong faith, the
devoted belief, the perfect wisdom, and the spiritual potency of the Ancient
Egyptians led them therefore to the perception of Ka as the precosmic 'double'
of the spiritual-material being, which came into existence at a certain 'moment'.
For this reason, all the so-called gods of Ancient Egypt, who were in fact
aspects of the Divine, had also their Ka. In other words, we can today describe
this concept as 'a form of existence at the stage of non-existence'; this
contributed to the formation of the complete perception of eternity (nḥḥ: nekhekh; Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, p. 575,
left column, 6th entry before the bottom) that the Ancient Egyptians had.
However, we have to always keep in mind that the Ka is not a 'fact', a 'being'
or a proper, real, form or existence. It is a genuine postulation of the
Ancient Egyptians, and they viewed it as such. For this reason, contrarily to
the Sah and the Sekhem, the Ka was represented in several forms. About:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nḥḥ
With respect to the Ka
and the existing textual and archaeological sources about it, it is essential
at this point to make a clarification; the Ancient Egyptian History is a very
long period that covers no less than 3500 years, spanning from the end of the
4th millennium BCE to the Christianization of the Nile Valley. During this
period, the notion of the Ka was gradually altered; as Hermitage curator of
Ancient Oriental Antiquities Andrey Olegovich Bolshakov (Андрей Олегович
Большаков) clearly pointed out, "the notion of the Ka was a dominating
concept of the next life in the Old Kingdom. In a less pure form, it lived into
the Middle Kingdom, and lost much of its importance in the New Kingdom,
although the Ka always remained the recipient of offerings".
This is a basic
parameter that we must always take into account; actually, it concerns everything,
namely spirituality, faith, civilization, culture, spiritual and material
potency, cult and daily life. As a matter of fact, there was no evolution in
History; there was degradation, deterioration and decay; this situation
determined also the world conceptualization of the Ancient Egyptians and their
perception of the Divine, the notion of Ka included.
A very well-known belief of the Ancient Egyptians is the narrative about Khnum creating the bodies of children on a potter's wheel and inserting them into their mothers' bodies; this story puts in relief the spiritual helix of life, which functions as the generator matrix. In other words, by establishing the mythical representation of the spiritual truth -namely the axis of Being and Becoming- and by symbolizing the space of the emanation of forms in the spiritual universe, the ancient Egyptian high priests, scribes, and spiritual masters managed to establish a mirror of the reality in the hearts of the average people. Then, Heqet and Meskhenet, who were believed to breathe the soul into the children at the moment of their birth, represented the forces that enabled the precosmic 'double' to be concretized into what would become the soul of a human.
About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heqet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meskhenet
Andrey O. Bolshakov,
Man and his Double in Egyptian Ideology of the Old Kingdom
http://www.gizapyramids.org/pdf_library/bolshakov_double.pdf
https://ancientegyptdigitalibrary.blogspot.com/2015/12/andrey-bolshakov.html
The Ka was symbolized
as two upraised arms making one right angle (90 degrees) each, at the elbow
(between the upper arm and the forearm); more specifically, the upper arms are
extended to the right and the left, and the forearms are raised. In the
uppermost part of the composite scheme, it is notable that the five fingers and
the palm of the hand form a parabola (a type of curve: a plane curve) that
starts at the wrist; the inner legs of the two parabolas represent the thumbs
whereas the outer legs stand for the four fingers (schematically looking as
one). In this case, the thumb is a symbol for Ether and the other four fingers
signify the other four Elements. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabola
https://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMAT6680Su09/Beal/A2/Intro2.html
http://www.csun.edu/~ayk38384/notes/mod11/Parabolas.html
Identical with the
aforementioned design, the Ka hieroglyph typifies the unity of the two
universes with the precosmic presence of the Sublime Atum-Ra, being at the same
time an expression of interminable prayer and praise of God the Creator.
A particular type of
sculptures found in Ancient Egypt involved the Ka statues; their nature and
purpose have been widely misinterpreted by modern scholars. These masterpieces
of Ancient Egyptian Art were not created for the Ka to 'stay' or 'rest'
therein, because as I already said, the Ka was known to be merely a
postulation. This exceptional sort of monuments consisted of a rather regular
type of statue, which represented the deceased individual, and of the symbol
(or hieroglyphic sign) of Ka atop of the head of the statue. It was meant to
reflect the complete patchwork of life, i. e. the accomplishment of the round movement
of the Ka from Nonbeing into Being and then from Being into Nonbeing. In other
words, the Ka statues heralded the elevation of the individual to divine status,
stressing the divinization (or apotheosis) of the deceased. All the offerings
made to the Ka of a deceased were in a way prayers and expressions of gratitude
for the Creation. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka_statue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheosis
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/soul.htm.
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ka.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_conception_of_the_soul#Ka_(vital_essence)
The Ka statue and offerings: bas-relief from the outer wall of Denderah temple of Hathor
Contrarily to what many
Egyptologists have thought, the so-called 'soul houses' in Ancient Egypt were
totally unrelated to the Ka of the defunct; they were basically pottery
offering trays that at times included the model of a house. They were not
produced in order to accommodate food offerings delivered to the tomb but
rather clay models of those offerings. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_house
The Ka was also
represented as a human; in similar cases, it followed the individual whose Ka
it was, it had blue-colored hair, and it used to bear the Ka hieroglyph atop of
the head. The existing textual sources make it clear for us to understand the
deep conviction of the Ancient Egyptians that everything that exists in the
spiritual and material universes pre-existed in God as an infinitesimal
miniature at the precosmic stage.
The term ḥwt kꜣ ptḥ
(Hwt Ka Ptah), namely 'the enclosure of the Ka of Ptah' denoted the great
temple of Ptah in Memphis; due to the importance of the site, this name became
widely known among Assyrians and Babylonians, Ugarit Canaanites, 2nd millennium
BCE Achaeans, and 1st millennium BCE Ionians. This is how the word 'Aigyptos'
(Αἴγυπτος) was formed and later
diffused among Roman as 'Aegyptus'. Subsequently, the use of the name 'Egypt'
was spread among the modern Western languages. About: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ḥwt-kꜣ-ptḥ
Two upraised hands constitute the hieroglyphic symbol for the Ka; relief from the temple of Amun at Karnak
The precosmic presence and
existence of Atum-Ra is a concept that we find in the Ancient Hebrew religion
and in Judaism; it is reflected in the term "the Ancient of Days" (עַתִּיק יֹומִין - ʿattiq yomin; ὁ παλαιὸς τῶν
ἡμερῶν;
antiquus dierum), which appears three times in the Book of Daniel (7:9, 13,
22). About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_of_Days
Distinctly Ancient
Egyptian, the notion of Ka was spread among several other peoples and cultures
in Africa, Asia, and across the Mediterranean world; we find the notion intact within
the dogmas of Manichaeism and imperial Christianity. In the Nicene and the
Constantinopolitan creeds (325 and 381 CE respectively) we notice that this
notion was attributed to Jesus, who -alone- was deemed to be the 'son of god'.
More specifically, we read in the Creed of the First Council of Constantinople
the following excerpt: "And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten
Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light,
very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father".
About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existence_of_Christ
Similarly, in the
Athanasian Creed, we read: Qualis Pater,
talis Filius, talis [et] Spiritus Sanctus. Increatus
Pater, increatus Filius, increatus [et] Spiritus Sanctus. Immensus Pater,
immensus Filius, immensus [et] Spiritus Sanctus. Aeternus Pater, aeternus Filius, aeternus [et] Spiritus
Sanctus. Et tamen non tres aeterni, sed unus aeternus" (Such as the Father
is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son
uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father infinite; the Son infinite;
and the Holy Ghost infinite. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy
Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal). About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed
I don't mention here
the so-called Apostles' Creed, which is faulty, because first it does not
mention the 'pre-existence of Christ' and second the Eastern Orthodox Church
did not accept or use it. All the same, the notion of Ka is also attested in
the Eastern Christian exegesis of the term "the Ancient of Days" as
referring to Jesus and not the Father. About:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_of_Days#Eastern_Christianity
=============================================
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