Lost Light
Chapter
XXII
SKYLARK
AT HEAVEN’S GATE
Paul asks (I Corinthians 15:35)
a question which, had it been envisaged in the light of the succinct answer
which he himself immediately gave to it, would have left world religion in far
better case than its present position.
"But some man will say,"
he argues, "How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they
come?" Paul’s first word of answer is a rebuke to the stupidity of such a
question. He says: "Foolish man!" And by a quirk of ironic fate the
rebuke administered to such ignorance of basic Greek philosophy (in which Paul
was steeped) as the question implied, now falls upon the very institution which
exalts him as its original propagandist and builder. By one of the most arrant
perversions of clear philosophy ever to be perpetrated in world history, the
Church he founded has put itself in the very place of the "some man"
asking the absurd question--whether the dead rise up in their corpses or in some
other form. And this in spite of the fact that the great Apostle addressed
himself, in the remainder of his chapter, to as lucid an exposition of the
spiritual resurrection as is to be found anywhere in sacred literature. This
15th chapter of I Corinthians marks the high point of spiritual sublimity
reached in the New Testament. Its oracular grandeur should have lifted
the body of Christian theology far above the mists of controversy that overhang
it over the question of the corporeal resurrection. But the later formulators of
orthodox theology looked askance at Paul and classed him as a heretic. They
would have ousted his Epistles from the canon if they had dared. For he had
grown in disfavor among them. His studies were not in line with the policy of
the literalizers of religious drama; he was the exponent of that Orphic-Platonic
wisdom from the Chaldean and Egyptian springs that they had come to revile. He
indited more than one of the grandest chapters of their Bible; yet they frowned
upon him
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because his writing was not in
accord with their cult-Christianity. His was cosmic Christianity. It was
emblemed in terms of Platonic Gnosticism, the flower of Greek rational
mysticism. Orphic paganism glows throughout that 15th chapter of Corinthians.
The sublimest chapter in the Christian Bible is clearly pagan philosophy.
Let us follow Paul in his exposition
and see how completely he is in accord with pagan teaching. First he announces
the great law of incubation, as the prelude to any understanding of the
resurrection in spirit: "What you sow never comes to life unless it
dies." Then he clarifies a moot point: "And what you sow is not the
body that is to be; it is a mere grain of wheat . . . or of some other
seed." But "God gives it a body . . . gives each kind of seed a body
of its own. Flesh is not all the same; there is human flesh, there is flesh of
beasts, flesh of birds and flesh of fish." Has it ever been noticed that
Paul here enumerates precisely the four kingdoms on which man’s life rests at
its corners, matching the four figures in Egyptology, and in Ezekiel’s and
John’s celestial visions? Man, animal, bird, fish. Amsta, Hapi, Tuamutef and
Kabhsenuf, the four sons of Horus; the man, lion, eagle and fish (crocodile);
the four quarters of the zodiac; the four bases of man’s life. Paul’s vital
statement is that God plants "bare grain" (Authorized Version), that
is, souls of pure spirit untried by matter in incarnation, our Hamemmet Beings,
Innocents, younglings, Kumaras, Asuras, virgin souls; and he later gives to
these tender spirits garments of solar glory.
Then Paul tells us that "there
are heavenly bodies and also earthly bodies," but the splendor of the one
is greater than that of the other.
"There is a splendor of the sun
and a splendor of the moon and a splendor of the stars--for one star differeth
from another in splendor. So with the resurrection of the dead:
what is sown is mortal,
what rises is immortal;
sown inglorious,
it rises in glory;
sown in weakness,
it rises in power;
sown an animate body,
it rises a spiritual body.
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As there is an animate body, so
there is a spiritual body. Thus it is written:
"The first man, Adam, became an
animate being,
the last Adam a life-giving
spirit;’
.
. . . . .
Man the first is from the earth,
material;
Man the second is from heaven.
Thus as we have borne the likeness
of the material Man,
so we are to bear the likeness of
the heavenly Man.
I tell you this, my brothers, flesh
and blood cannot inherit the Realm of God, nor can the perishing inherit the
imperishable . . . the dead will rise invested with the imperishable, and this
mortal body invested with immortality; . . . then . . .
Death is swallowed up in
victory."
How in the face of this lucidity of
statement the Church perpetrated its frightful dogmatic travesty of "the
resurrection of the body," it is hard indeed to understand. And now we can
see also that the first and second Adam of Paul were the Egyptian Horus of the
two horizons, the "lions of the double force" of soul and body, Horus
the younger, and Horus the elder.
The seed is sown in and as the
natural material body, but unless that dies, and in dying transmits its
essential strength over to a finer vehicle that will be built out of its
disintegrating elements, it will not live again. The old material seed will
never rise again; and the physical corpus of man will not rise from the grave.
But the germinal essence will come forth from decay shining in new life. That
which is sown in the earth will die; but out of its death will rise the stem
that bears the new generation of beauty aloft to sun and air. Well did Paul say,
"Foolish man!" to ask such a question. And well may the world say
"Foolish Church!" to have missed and confounded the simple clear
meaning of the resurrection.
The putting on of the robe of
immortality has not been adequately translated into rational comprehension. It
hovers in the background of the Christian consciousness as a beautiful haze of
indefinite meaning. A clearer grasp of its significance may accrue from
inspection of some of the ancient material touching it.
The deceased says to Osiris:
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"Do thou embalm these my
members; for I would not perish and come to an end, (but be) like unto my divine
father Khepera, who is the divine type of him that never saw corruption. . . .
Let not my body become worms, but deliver me as thou didst deliver thyself. . .
. Homage to thee, Osiris; thou didst not decay, thou didst not become worms,
thou didst not waste away, thou didst not become corruption, thou didst not
putrefy. . . . I am the god Khepera and my members shall have an everlasting
existence. I shall not decay, I shall not rot, I shall not putrefy . . . and I
shall not see corruption beneath the eye of the god Shu. I shall have my being .
. . I shall live . . . I shall germinate . . . I shall wake up in peace . . . I
shall not suffer from any defect; mine eye shall not decay; the form of my
visage shall not disappear; mine ear shall not become deaf; my head shall not be
separated from my neck; my tongue shall not be carried away; my hair shall not
be cut off; . . . and no baleful injury shall come to me."
In spite of death the Manes cries:
"I am, I am; I live, I live; I grow, I grow; and when I awake I shall
awake, I shall awake in peace, I shall not see corruption . . . I shall not
perish in the earth forever" (Ch. 154, Naville). The immortality that was
previously potential in the first Adam-Horus became established at last in Tattu
and secured by the resurrection of the illumined soul from the pit of Akar (Rit.,
Ch. 30A). At the consummation of the Mane’s victory over earthly forces it
is declared to him: "Thy father Tum hath prepared for thee this beautiful
crown of triumph, the living diadem which the gods love, that thou mayest live
forever" (Ch. 19). The Manes says (Ch. 85):
"I am the first-born god of
primeval matter, that is to say, the divine Soul, even the Soul of the god of
everlastingness, and my body is eternity. My form is everlastingness, and is the
lord of years and the prince of eternity."
The soul is assured in the text:
"Thou shalt never perish, thy Ka shall never perish, a Ka
established." The flow of events in time is connected with the temporal and
impermanent vestures in which the seed-spark of divinity has embodied itself to
travel through Amenta. Decay does not touch the core of being itself, the Ka.
But what specifically is this robe
of immortality that the mortal must put on if he is to live forever? It is
Paul’s "spiritual body" as contrasted with the natural or
"animate body." But what is a spiritual
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body, the world has been asking for
these hundreds of years, and "science" has also asked contemptuously.
The answer is to be found in an early chapter, in the theses that modern science
itself has now reified or hypostasized matter of various grades of ethereal
fineness, sublimated essence, capable of being organized into material
structures in the world invisible to man. The Egyptians predicated a total of
seven such successively finer bodies in man’s constitution, of which the lower
or coarser four have been so far developed to function. Besides this obvious
physical body, man possesses inner bodies of what a scientist called
"immaterial matter."
That sublimated vesture, then, which
seems to be the "spiritual body" in which the dead specifically rise,
is the Sahu, though the next higher one, the Khu, is frequently mentioned in the
experience. The Khu is so high in its structure that of it is said: "Thou
shalt not be imprisoned . . . it is heaven alone that shall hold thee."
Also it is written that the Khus, or glorified ones, "live on the shades of
the motionless, or the souls of the dead." This means that the highest
bodies absorb and transmute into their own subtler essence the substances of the
ones below, as a candle flame absorbs the tallow below it. The Khu was thus
figuratively conceived of as a "ghoul" or "feeder on the
shades" of the Manes in the nether worlds. It is constellated as the
"Ghoul," the star Beta in the Perseus group.
The Ka always accompanies the soul
through its incarnations and returns. "Thou hast come and thy Ka with
thee" is the welcome greeting on the soul’s return. The Manes passes from
the state of a shade to that of a Ka when he is said to have completed his
investiture. Then as a Sahu he is reincorporated in a spiritual body, and as a
Khu he is invested with the robe of light and glory. No healthy child was
believed to be born without this Ka, the soul of animate life; and in their
pictures of it they made it resemble the physical body. They looked upon it as
the "double" of the body. It did not die with the body.
In open contradiction to other
reasons he had assigned elsewhere, Budge gives a motive for mummification:
"It has been urged by some that
the custom of mummifying the dead, which obtained throughout Egypt for so many
thousands of years, was maintained because the Egyptians believed in the
resurrection of the material body, but it is not so. They mummified their
dead simply because they believed that spiritual bodies would ‘germinate’ in
them."
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This passage is a remarkable
demonstration of how a scholar can state the surface facts in a particular
matter and yet tell nothing true about it. Yes, the Egyptians believed that
spiritual bodies would germinate from or in the physical Khat, but while it was
a living body, not the long-preserved cadaver! Germination of finer spiritual
bodies would come in the living man, and in the mummy only as the ritual symbol
of the body of this death.
Budge gives both "Ba" and
"Sahu" as meaning "something like" "noble" or
"sublime," "chief," "free." The Ba, he says, was
free to travel over all heavens and mix with souls there and to take any form it
pleased; for such statements are found. Far more free were the higher bodies to
do the same. The learned Egyptologist writes again:
"Concerning the form in which
Osiris rises from the dead the texts are silent, and nothing is said as to the
nature of his body in the underworld; that he dwelt in the [same] material body
which was his upon earth there is no reason whatever to suppose, for there are
indications in the texts which point to a definite belief in the resurrection of
a spiritual body, both in the case of the god and of man."1
When the reader has noted with us
even the limited and haphazard collection of passages from these same texts
describing the bodies in which Osiris lives and rises, he will be able to
determine for himself whether "the texts are silent, and nothing is said as
to the nature of" the body of Osiris in the underworld; also how futile
seems to have been the reading of these venerable texts by such savants as Budge
and others. In the present matter Spence has read somewhat more intelligently:
"The soul, ba, and the spirit,
Khu, which were usually represented as a hawk and a heron in the hieroglyphics,
partook of heavenly food and became one with the gods, and in time became united
with the glorified body of heavenly frame, so that the soul, spirit, power,
shade, double, and name of the deceased were all collected in the one heavenly
body, known as the Sahu, which may be described as the spiritual body. It was
considered to grow out of the dead body, and its existence became possible
through the magic ceremonies performed and the words of power spoken by the
priests during the burial service."2
Budge endorses this general view in
saying:
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"When the material body had
been brought to the tomb for burial . . . it acquired the power of sending forth
from itself a body called the Sahu, which was able to ascend to heaven and dwell
with the gods there. The only suitable rendering for the word ‘Sahu’ is
‘spiritual body,’ and the meaning fits very well into the translation of the
texts where the word is found."
This is in the broad sense true, but
thrown out of due symmetry to the scholar’s ignorance of the cardinal meaning
of "death" and "the dead" in symbolic usage. The name
unquestionably means "spiritual body" and "free, noble,
chief" might be applicable to it. But the derivation would seem to be
closer at hand than Budge presumes. The two divine sons of the great first god
Tem, or Tum (meaning "total"), were the gods Sa and Hu. These two
short names seem either broadly or in some particular reference to connote
"spirit" and "matter," the opposite nodes of primal energy.
Souls were said to be composed of the essence of Sa, drawn in the beginning from
the great "Lake of Sa" in the southern heavens. "Sa" also
meant the son, or spirit born of matter. Hu was the basis of Ihuh, or Atum-Huhi
(Adam-Jehovah), the spark of flame in matter. As the spiritual body was built up
of spirit and matter in combination, the two basic god-names seem to have been
combined to designate it. Massey says that the word "Sahu" means
"to incorporate." It is the incorporated spirit or its product.
Chapter 47 of the Ritual reads: "I am a spiritual body (sah),
therefore let me rise among those who follow the great god." As
Osiris-Sekari, the god was the coffined one; as Osiris-Sahu, he rose again in a
spiritual body. "I am the spiritual body of the god," cries the
Manes on fleeing the grave (Ch. 99). In chapter 128 Osiris exclaims: "Horus
hath made for me a spiritual body through his own soul, to take possession of
that which belongeth to Osiris in the Tuat." In the text of Unas we read:
"Behold, he cometh forth this day in the real form of a living
spirit." The Chaldean Oracles say: "The powers build up the
body of the holy man."
In the Hymn to Osiris the
risen soul is praised: "Thou art a shining Spirit-Body, the Governor of
Spirit-Bodies."
Luke (24:39)
represents Jesus after the resurrection as calling attention to his very
members: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself." This is
clarified by the knowledge that, the resurrection once consummated, the soul has
power to assume what form it will and
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to materialize for the moment its
old physical semblance. Did not Jesus pass through closed doors and appear to
his disciples, so that Thomas put his hands in the wounds in the flesh to
resolve his doubts? Of spiritual essence, he could yet become palpable to sense.
Budge’s assertion that the texts
are silent with respect to the nature of the vesture in which the soul arose
might have been modified had he seen the following from the Papyrus of Pepi: "They
draw thee unto heaven in thy soul, and thou art endowed with soul among them.
Thou appearest in the sky as Horus from the womb of the sky in this thy form
which came forth from the mouth of Ra, as Horus, the Chief of the Spirits."
And again from the same text: "When Osiris ascended the ladder, he was
covered with the coverings of Horus, he wore the apparel of Thoth." In
chapter 180 the soul says: "I stretch myself at my desire, I run forward
with my strides in my spiritual form of hidden qualities." And how striking
is the following from the text of Teta: "He receives bones of a marvelous
nature and a complete and imperishable body is bestowed upon him in the womb of
his mother Nut!"
The Egyptians regarded the physical
body as being powerless and lifeless save for the more magnetically powerful
inner bodies. Of itself it could never have arisen. It could not rise as flesh
and blood; it could ascend only after being transformed, like water converted
into vapor, by more potent spirit. It was only the presence in it of the Ba, the
Sekhem, the Khu that gave it erectile force. As says James (2:26):
"the body without the spirit is dead." So much more vital was the
spirit than the body, so much "more ancient" and established, that
even the destruction of the latter would not annihilate it. For well the
Egyptians knew, before Paul, that "if our earthly house of this tabernacle
is dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens." When the deity descended to earth he put on the mask of a
crocodile, an ibis, a lion, or other zootype of the primary powers. But when
rising into spirit, he divested himself of these "filthy rags" and
stood forth clothed in the majesty of solar light. He personates in turn each of
the gods and appropriates their strength and qualities.
"Their magical powers are in
his body, the Sahu do not retreat from his hands. He eats the wisdom of
every god, his period of life is eternity, his limit is everlastingness in this
form (sah) of his."
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"I am come," says Horus,
"as a sahu in the spiritual body, glorious and well-equipped; and that is
given to me which lives on amidst all overthrow."
Here at last is that element which
all philosophy, all religion, all moral feeling has been seeking for ages as the
indubitable foundation of both faith and knowledge. All rationalism and
mysticism alike are the search for the enduring real, that which abides amid the
flux. Here it is, says Horus. Here is the ages’ Rock of Certitude.
The soul was released from the khat
or physical body when the latter had been itself sublimated to such tenuity that
it quickly vanished away. Horus, coming out of Sekhem, left his earthly body
behind in the sepulcher, and was greeted as pure spirit by those who had forerun
him in the glorification. They rejoiced to see him walking upright and ready to
stride onward through eternity. He who had earned these salutations was the
re-establisher of time "for millions of years." He came in raiment
like the dawn, as the true light of the world newly kindled in the night of
death. He says he comes forth equipped with Ra’s words of power. In the Book
of Teta the risen soul is greeted: "Hail, thou hast received thy robe
of honor, thou hast arrayed thyself in the Hata garment. Thou art clothed with
the Eye of Horus . . . which giveth thee thy apparel before the gods."
"Let love for him," proceeds the text, "be in the body of every
god who shall see him. This is the swathing which Horus made for his father
Osiris," mentioned by Tertullian. "Thou art provided with thy form, O
dweller among the spirits." "Thy movement is like that of a star. No
ruin falls to thee . . . Thou art complete in thy members of crystal."
"Thou hast thy state of glory . . . thou hast thy faculty of knowledge."
"Thou art pure with the purity of the gods, who journey
unceasingly." Chapter 171 is captioned: "Of trying on the garment of
purity." In the Pepi text it is stated that as he rises he puts on the sheth
garment of Horus and the apparel of Thoth. The coming forth of Jesus as a
spirit, or as the Christos, is called his investiture. He says: "The
times are fulfilled for me to put on my vesture. Lo, I have put on my vesture,
and all power hath been given to me by the first mystery" (Pistis Sophia
I:10).
In his first advent as the
Virgin’s son he was the "bare grain," the word made flesh but not
yet made truth. In his second advent he re-
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vealed the glory of the Father
through that body which God gave him. He now regains the glory he had with the
Father before he laid it aside to put on the sackcloth of earth. The Ritual details
how the ransomed spirits, redeemed from the mummy condition and all the ills of
the corruptible flesh, put on the pure white robe of righteousness, called the
vesture of truth. This is given them by the god Taht for their entrance into the
boat of the sun. Earth’s apron is removed, and he receives a bandage of the
finest linen "in place of the old garb of shame." In chapter 64 there
is this explicit statement: "I have made the dress which Ptah has woven out
of his clay." Spirit must draw its light from the very womb of matter. Ptah
was the divine Potter, as Jesus was the Carpenter and Hiram the Mason.
When the deceased has been
resuscitated he says (Ch. 85): "The seven Uraeus divinities are my body. .
. . My image is eternal." The lower elements form his material body; his
spirit body is imperishable. But the soul synthesized the seven and raised them
aloft to share its everlastingness. Ptah tells Rameses II that he has
refashioned his flesh in vermilion. The texts speak of the dead bones being
refleshed with a coating of red earth. These are references to the renewal
through the soul’s bath in the pool of the body’s blood.
The Manes were of two classes, the
clothed and the naked. Those were clothed who had passed the judgment trial and
received their investiture of the robe of righteousness. "I hasten to the
land (of Aarru) and I fasten my stole upon me," says the Manes, "that
I may come forth and take possession of the wealth assigned to me" (Ch.
110). "I range within the garden of Hetep (Aarru); I fasten my stole upon
me." "I am the glorified one coming forth in triumph." Paul has
said that we "groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house
which is from heaven," "clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed
up of life." "I was naked and ye clothed me," says the Gospel
Jesus himself. Isaiah (61:10) sings: "I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord . . . for he hath clothed me with the garment of salvation, he hath covered
me with the robe of righteousness." Hermes says: "I am gone out of
myself into an immortal body, and am not what I was before, but am begotten
in mind." How well this describes what the Greek philosophers call the "ekstasis,"
or transport of release from the physical body-tomb! Ekstasis means
literally "a standing out" of the soul from the body, so that one is
in truth "beside oneself" with "ecstasy."
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In Iamblichus’ great work on the Mysteries
of the Egyptians (p. 55) he unfolds the doctrine thus:
"The Gods, being benevolent and
propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying abundance, calling
upon their souls, procuring them a union with themselves, and accustoming them, while
they are yet in body, to be separated from bodies, to be led around to their
intelligible principle."
Thus they, too, were "begotten
in mind." Hermes tells Ptah he "would that thou also wert gone out of
thyself, like them that dream in their sleep." This is the ecstasy and
transport when the soul passes from the boat of Horus to the ship of the sun,
from mortal flesh to radiant spiritual glory.
In chapter 19 of the Ritual is
the whole detailed struggle of the powers of intellectual light to gain the
victory for Horus over his enemies "on the day of making his triumph over
Set and his fiends." For a purpose of very great importance we quote some
of this chapter at length. The great final conquest is achieved by Horus--
"on the night of the battle and
overthrow of the Seba-fiend in Abtu; on the night of Osiris’ triumph over his
enemies; on the day of the festival of Haker (on the fifteenth of the month); on
the night of setting up the Tat in Tattu in the presence of the great sovereign
princes; on the night of the judgment of those who shall be annihilated in
Sekhem; on the night of laying the things on the altars in Sekhem; on the night
of the establishing of the inheritance by Horus of the things of the father
Osiris, at the great festival of plowing and turning up the earth in Tattu or in
Abtu (Abydos); on the night of the weighing of words or a weighing of looks; on
the night when Isis lieth down to watch and make lamentation for her brother in
Re-stau; on the night of making Osiris to triumph."
The design in making this strange
quotation is to call attention to the multiplicity of symbolic occurrences
that are thrown into the period of the night preceding the Passover of the
vernal equinox, which is just the "dark night of the soul" in
incarnation, ending with the passing of the soul across the boundary at Easter.
All processes of transformation, purifying, perfecting, glorifying, reach their
consummation on the last marge of the "night" period, as it breaks
into the dawn of Easter’s spiritual Sun. In the yearly calendar this would be
the night of the Passover of spring. Hence Egyptian drama placed the crowning
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of every process on this eventful
"night." Being purely symbolical, there would be no difficulty in
allocating to this date any number of representations of the various
aspects of the soul’s experience as it concluded its earthly history. The
Christ’s trial, his bloody sweat, his battle with the fiends, his mockery and
suffering, his crucifixion in its last stages, his last supper, his bearing the
cross, and every other phase of his "death" and "burial" in
matter could be "staged" on this night. But it would not and could not
be "history." What then would happen if at a later time symbolic
events in such number were turned into alleged history? Here indeed is a point
for "higher criticism," if not for downright common sense.
It seems to be incontestable that
the many events of the last night of Jesus’ life as narrated in the Gospels
are a somewhat attenuated copy of this momentous nineteenth chapter of Egypt’s
Ritual! Perhaps the material was not taken directly from it, but was
drawn from the dramas and Mystery plays that had been based on it and worked out
in consonance with it. Obviously so blind was fanatical zealotry in
hurrying to crush paganism and to change spiritual allegory into history that it
did not pause to reckon with the difficulty of crowding a long series of varied
events into the course of a single night of clock time. So Jesus was given a
busy night to close his sad career! The literalizers of drama did not scruple to
ask zealotry to believe that there could actually have occurred in the brief
space of one night the Last Supper with the disciples, the walk to the Mount of
Olives, the long watch in the garden of Gethsemane, the incidents of the
disciples falling asleep when Jesus upbraided them for not being able to watch
with him one little hour, the arrest, the severed and healed ear cut off by
Peter, then three separate and distinct judicial trials involving the
summoning of judges, juries, attendants, officers, the populace in the dead
of night (a thing impossible if considered in realism), then the mockery of
the soldiers, the parting of Jesus’ garments, the forcing on him of the crown
of thorns, then the march to the hill of Golgotha ("the place of the
skull"), and the harrowing "crucifixion" running into the next
morning. There is an obvious very meager limit to what can occur in the temporal
span of one short night. The Gospels here stand helplessly exposed to the attack
of plain reason in view of the patent conditions of the problem raised. The
Gospels are the old manuscripts of the dramatized ritual of the incarnation and
resurrection of
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the sun-god, which was first
Egyptian, later Gnostic and Hellenic, then Hebrew and finally adopted ignorantly
by the Christian movement and transferred to the arena of history. They were not
history until in Christian hands the esoteric meaning had been obscured and the
wisdom needed to interpret them non-historically was wanting.
An important link is the
identification of the Sahu body with the sun. The Kabalah intimates that
the soul in each solar system spends six aeons on planets and the seventh in the
sun of the system. In the seventh or human kingdom, then, life would be
preparing for the soul a body of solar essence. And solar energy is the
expression of deific intellect, according to Proclus. The soul of humanity is to
clothe itself in an indestructible armor of solar light, eternally self-luminous
and self-perpetuating. The Bible’s statement that "the Lord God is a
sun" is echoed in Egypt: "I am the lord of light, and that
which is an abomination unto me is death; let me not go into the chamber of
torture which is in the Tuat." A hundred texts exalt the principle of
light, and here its rebellion against being overwhelmed by the darkness of
matter in incarnation is registered.
Here was the whole gist of theology
outlined in terms whose significance for human life could not have been missed
save by minds hopelessly warped by previous obsession of fantastic conceptions.
For "death" is here distinctly defined as residence in a world where
the intellectual light of deity would be sadly darkened. But we have seen how
the failure properly to locate "the underworld" blocked the sway to
all true comprehension of intrinsic wisdom for centuries. The appearance of the
angel who descended from heaven to roll away the stone from the grave was
"as lightning, and his raiment was white as snow" (Matt. 28:2).
"He has come forth like the sun," says the Osirian in his
eulogy of the soul. "He comes in raiment like the dawn," sings the
sacred writer. Osiris is said to give life "to the ministers of the
sun," the sun-gods. Says Horus: "I have come like the sun through the
gate . . . and have passed pure" (Rit., Ch. 148, Birch). Jesus
insisted that each man had light within himself, and with its increase by
spiritual cultivation, it would even supplant the sun and moon as light-givers.
In man all previous powers of creative light were to be synthesized in the glory
of a new order of radiant being.
We read in the Litany of Ra (Ch.
2:7): "Thou commandest the Osirified deceased to be like Khuti, the
brilliant triangle which appears
585
in the shining place." This was
the solar trinity of mind, soul, spirit. Horus is seated in the decans of the
Ram, the whip of rule in his left hand and the starry "Triangula" in
his right. Thus the dead god rose on the horizon of the resurrection like the
sun in the vernal equinox when that sun was in Aries, bearing the triangle as
symbol of the triunity of man’s spirit. "He shineth like a new being in
the east," is a tribute to the risen glory of the soul. In chapter 129 of
the Ritual--the book of making perfect the Khu--we have: "And the
majesty of the god Thoth lovingly shall make light to rest upon his corruptible
body." The very gods "withdraw themselves when they see thee arrayed
in the awful majesty of Ra."
In Exodus we read that the
vestments worn by the children of Israel were to be woven of violet, purple and
scarlet yarn. These three vivid colors likely typify the higher triad in the
scale of seven colors, or the coat of many colors. Macrobius, commenting on the Orphic
Hymns, speaks of the sacred dress in which those initiated into the
Dionysiac Mysteries were invested, preparatory to their enthronement:
"He who desires in pomp of
sacred dress
The sun’s resplendent body to
express,
Should first a veil assume of purple
bright,
Like fair white beams combined with
fiery light."
"I shine forth from the egg
which is in the unseen world" (Ch. 22).
The mummy-swath was, like the shenti,
a linen tunic, made from shena, and this was the garment woven
without a seam. The "young man" who left his garment and fled naked
from the resurrection scene was the figure of the rising soul that had shed its
mummy-cloth and made its transformation into spirit that no longer needed
earthly covering. The seam was obliterated when the two halves of man were made
into one whole and new man.
Spence states that the spirits of
heaven "lived upon the rays of light which fell from the eyes of Horus;
that is, they were nourished upon sunlight, so that in time their bodies became
wholly composed of light."3 This is true. They emaned their own light and
there was no need of external light, "for the glory of the Lord did lighten
it." The Talmud says: "There is a light which is never eclipsed or
obscured, derived from the upper light, by which the first man could view the
world from one end to the other" (Avodath Hakodesh). This is pre-
586
sumably that light of the poets
which never was on land or sea; the gleam, of Tennyson’s conception. "I
live by reason of my splendor," chants the emancipated soul.
The souls having attained the
resurrected state in shining raiment were called the Khus or the glorified.
Jesus asked the Father to glorify him with primeval radiance; Horus pleads in
the same way (Ch. 175): "But let the state of the shining ones be given
unto me instead of water and air. . . ." The elect "arriveth at the
Aged One, on the confines of the Mount of Glory, where the crown awaiteth
him" (Ch. 131).
Mt. Olympus of the Greeks was
identical with Mount Hetep of the Egyptians. Hence the Kimmerians of Homer may
possibly be identified with the Egyptian Khemi, or Akhemu, the dwellers in the
northern heaven, as never-setting stars or spirits of the glorified, the Khus or
Khuti.
The whole course of evolution on
earth is designed to perfect the individualized humans, who are the crown of
animal development. This perfection comes through the spiritualization of the
gross animal nature by the impacting upon it of currents of intellectual and
spiritual forces which gradually refine the lower self. When a certain degree of
sublimation has been achieved the lower bodies become capable of affording free
course to the influx of the higher influences, which then so transform the lower
that a practical identity between the two is established. Greek mythology called
it the union of Cupid and Psyche; in Egypt it was the embrace of Horus and
Osiris; in Churchly language it was the marriage of the Bride and the Lamb. It
was that welding at last in blissful harmony of the mortal and immortal
elements. Of this ultimate union of male and female components, the body-soul
with the spirit-soul, all marriage and sexual intercourse is only the outward
sign and symbol. For its attainment the male and female natures in the
individual must be "married"; the centers below and those above the
diaphragm must merge in interchange of activity. The wedding or welding of these
two groups of energies will divinize human nature. For it will return man to his
original androgyne state which obtained before the "fall" into
physical generation, when he assumed the garb of the animal nature and put on
the mask of personality.
Massey concisely sums up this basic
datum of theology:
587
"The marriage of Cupid and
Psyche is a fable that was founded on this union of the two souls which we have
traced in the Ritual as the soul in matter, or as the human, and the soul in
spirit."4
Evolution’s work in the moral
sphere was to unite a soul inherent in matter with a higher soul that was
divine. This operation takes place in the body and consciousness of mankind. The
divine soul was a unit of sublimated intellectual essence from beyond the skies,
but temporarily united with the lower body to engraft upon it its own higher
potencies. Physical evolution was impotent to pass a certain point, the boundary
between sense and soul, until the germ of conscious selfhood linked with it from
above. Life languished on earth until the heaven spirit descended like a dove to
free it." As soon as thou enterest the Utchau and unitest thyself thereto,
the beings on earth flourish."
A strong and moving assertion of the
influence of the union of lower life with higher is seen in the following from
the Book of the Dead:
"Thou joinest thyself unto the
Eye of Horus and thou hidest thyself within its secret place; it destroyeth for
thee all the convulsions of thy face, it maketh thee strong with life, and thou
livest . . . thou joinest thyself unto the upper heaven, O luminary."
The soul is addressed here as the
luminous person of the sun, and most challenging is the statement that the force
of the solar intellect released in the personal life will destroy the
convulsions of the face, caused by the painful constraint of the soul under the
bondage of matter. Like lovers’ kiss, the embrace between the spiritual soul
and the psychic entity in the body brought harmony and expanded life. A
complementary and salutary interchange of health and strength flashed between
spirit and matter in the embrace, when the two met in Amenta.
Budge says that the conjunction of
the lower ba, or animal soul, with its Ka, or spiritual soul, took place in
Heliopolis, the city of the sun, Annu. This would correspond with the revival of
Osiris, or Lazarus, at Beth-Any. The ba comes forth upon earth to do the will of
its Ka. This is important, matching Jesus’ declaration that he comes to do the
will of his Father.
The work of the exiled god on earth
being now consummated, his effort having prevailed to overcome the flesh and
transform the soul
588
of the body into the likeness of the
glorious sun-soul, the risen deity stands on the eastern threshold of heaven,
ready to complete the last stages of the twelve-months’ journey, and with the
waxing sun of spring to climb the steep ascent of heaven from March to June.
This is the final arc of the return to the Father who stands at the apex of
heaven at the gate of Cancer. The summit of the mount of the zodiac was the
place of reunion and reconciliation; the paradise of perennial plenty and
everlasting peace, the land where there was no more sea and no more night, where
beings carried their own light eternally within them. Hither the twelve
companions of Horus bring the sheaves of golden grain which they have reaped in
the harvest fields of Amenta. Horus tells Osiris at the festival of the Harvest
Home that he has cultivated his corn for him and reaped the golden crop in the
Aarru Fields of Peace, or Hetep.
Exodus (3:12)
reports the Eternal as saying to Moses: "When thou hast brought the people
out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." It was there called
Mt. Horeb, and the first syllable, Hor-, can be equated with the Hor-,
of Hor-us, the sun. The injunction to Moses precedes:
"Thou shalt bring them in and
plant them in the mountain of their inheritance, the place, O Lord, which thou
hast made for them to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have
established."
Here "the Lord shall reign for
ever and ever." This was the Mount of Jerusalem, the Aarru-Salem, or
Aarru-Hetep, the mount of eternal peace. In escaping from Egypt or Amenta, the
goal of refuge is the Mount of Peace, as every religion on earth has attested.
As spirits, not human marching columns, the children of Israel, after crossing
the swampy Reed Sea of this life, are led to the celestial land flowing with
water. This heavenly home was located and dramatized as the circumpolar
paradise, the Homeland of exiles and captives. "I am master there,"
says the beatified spirit who has attained this mansion in the skies and built
his homestead there. "I am in glory there; I eat there; I plant and I reap
there; I plough there; I take my fill of love." "I net ducks and I eat
dainties." "I am united there to the god Hetep"--the seven powers
completely exalted, unified and at peace.
There the risen spirit becomes one
of the glorious stars that never-
589
more shall set in ocean’s or in
earth’s depths. "A divine domain hath been constructed for me: I know the
name of it; the name of it is the garden of Aarru" (Ch. 109, Renouf).
Instead of being damned eternally
for eating of the fruit of the tree of life and knowledge, the Manes is part by
part divinized as he transmutes the substance of its food into higher essence.
In the Rubric at the end of chapter 99 of the Ritual we read: "This
chapter being known, the deceased appears in the fields of Aarru. He receives
food there, the produce of its fields." The cakes, corn, bread and wine
which he shall partake of there are described. "And he shall come forth in
Sekhet-Aarru in any form whatsoever he pleaseth, and he shall appear regularly
and continually." Chapter 110 tells of the soul’s going in and out of
Sekhet-Hetep, of the coming forth by day, of becoming a glorified Khu there; of
reaping, eating, drinking, making love there and "doing everything even as
a man doeth upon earth." The soul exults: "And I have sailed into the
divine city of Hetep . . . I array myself in apparel and I gird myself with the sa
garment of Ra." To have attained this blessed home the soul must have
undergone the earthly baptism:
"I have gone into the city of
An-Aarret-f (the place where nothing groweth) and I covered my nakedness with
the garments which are there."
In the midst of Sekhet-Aarru was a
door, with a sycamore of turquoise on each side of it, through which the sun-god
Ra appeared every day. The outgoing and return of the celestial glory was thus
depicted for the blessed each day, as it is for mortals on earth.
The soul’s reward for leaving its
celestial home and spending the long toilsome cycle of necessity in dreary exile
on earth is the evolutionary gain therefrom, which is vast and permanent, as is
attested by the ecstasy that accompanies the return. The pitiful nostalgia which
has oppressed it throughout its long sojourn among "the wild beasts"
is blithesomely appeased by its nearing vision of the Father’s portals and the
sunny meads and shady bowers of the Homeland. Death is indeed swallowed up in
victory and the night of gloom and the Götterdämmerung are followed by the
fresh sweetness of supernal dawn.
Iamblichus presents beautifully the
philosophy of our escape from the iron fetters of fate and return to the liberty
of the sons of God:
590
"But neither are all things
comprehended in the nature of fate, but there is another principle of the soul,
which is superior to all nature and generation, and through which we are capable
of being united to the Gods, of transcending the mundane order and of
participating eternal life and the energy of the super-celestial gods. Through
this principle, therefore, we are able to liberate ourselves from fate. For when
the more excellent parts of us energize, and the soul is elevated to natures
better than itself, then it is entirely separated from things which detain it in
generation, departs from subordinate natures, exchanges the present for another
life and gives itself to another order of things, entirely abandoning the former
order with which it was connected."5
Iamblichus says elsewhere that there
is found no other dissolution of the fetters of fate and necessity than the
knowledge of the gods. For to know the godly powers is felicity. Oblivion of
them while in terrestrial body is the greatest source of evil to a deific
nature. Knowledge of the gods preserves the true life of the soul and leads it
back to the Father, the Noetic principle. For fate ties the soul to natures that
are inferior, that are perpetually unstable, flowing from one impermanency to
another, and prevents it at every turn from obtaining a vision of immutable
good. Intellectual union with the gods alone will anchor the soul to the support
of its true felicity.
Proclus is as luminously clear on
the same point:
"The one salvation of the soul
herself, which is extended by the Demiurgus and which liberates her from the
circle of generation, from abundant wanderings and an inefficacious life, is her
return to the intellectual form, and a flight from every thing which naturally
adheres to us from generation."6
For the soul, he continues, having
been hurled like seed into the realms of generation, should cast aside
the stubble and bark, as it were, which she accumulates about herself from
contact with the fluctuations in these realms, and preserve her pristine purity.
Purging herself from everything she touches, she should become the intellectual
flower and fruit, delighting in the stable circles of sameness, rather than in
the revolutions of difference. Having fallen from celestial harmony into the
jangling diffusion of divine energies, she had, as Proclus says, become
something belonging to an individual instead of to the universe. Departing from
her connection with the lower irrational nature, and
591
steering her course by reason, she
will be led happily from her wanderings about the realms of sense, and from the
passions which adhere to us from generation, back to the blissful contemplation
of the one universal Life.
In a cosmic upper chamber the
"old ones" and "the ones gone before" gather to welcome the
return of the exiled souls. There are reception hosts who assemble to
"welcome the pilgrims of the night." The text of the Ritual gives
some faint picture of the joy that thrills through the heavenly arches when the
solar sons return triumphant from their long expatriation:
"The divine power hath risen
and shineth in the horizon. . . . The Khus shine in heaven . . . for there is
among them a form which is like unto themselves; and there are shouts and cries
of gladness within the shrine, and the sounds of those who rejoice go round
about through the underworld . . . and his majesty shineth as he shone in the
primeval time, when the Utchat was first upon his head."
The script of Teta reads:
"Thou standest at the doors. .
. . Khent-Ament-f comes forth to thee; he grasps thy hand and leads thee to
heaven before thy father Keb [Seb], who rejoices to meet thee and gives thee his
two hands. He kisses thee, he fondles thee, he pushes thee forward at the head
of the indestructible spirits . . . thou keepest the festivals of the first day
of the month and the festivals of the fifteenth day of the month, according to
the decree which thy father Keb made for thee."
When Osiris, reborn as Horus,
triumphs, "Joy goeth the rounds in Thinis," the celestial city; and
even earth catches the repercussion of the jubilee in the heavens. The Book
of Enoch relates that the same heavenly host that met to anoint the
collective angelry that was preparing to come to earth to do evolution’s work
assembled again to welcome the returning victors, and that the reaches of
farthest space were filled with angelic halleluiahs, as heaven and nature sang
in unison.
Yet the paeans of heaven are hardly
more intriguing than the more restrained pronouncements of Greek philosophy.
Says Proclus:
There is "the race of men, who
through a more excellent power and with piercing eyes, acutely perceive supernal
light, to the vision of which they
592
raise themselves above the clouds
and darkness, as it were, of this lower world; and there abiding, despise every
thing in those regions of sense; being no otherwise delighted with the place
which is truly and properly their own, than he who, after many wanderings, is at
length restored to his lawful country."7
The night of earthly sorrow
breaks into the morn of heavenly rejoicing, for "joy cometh in the
morning."
"The great and mighty gods cry
out: ‘He hath gotten the victory.’"
.
. . . . . .
Earthly dust from off thee shaken,
Soul immortal thou shalt waken,
With thy last dim journey taken,--
All through the night.
593
NOTES
CHAPTER
I
None.
CHAPTER
II
1. Quoted in the Tibetan Book of
the Dead, by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, in a note to p. 234, from Origen’s Contra
Celsum, Book I, Ch. VIII.
CHAPTER
III
1. For corroboration see such works
as The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, Iamblichus’ The
Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, and Thomas Taylor’s Eleusinian
and Bacchic Mysteries.
2. Vide From Orpheus to Paul, by
Vittorio D. Macchioro, a recognized world authority on Orphism.
3. See such a work as Lothrop
Stoddard’s The Revolt Against Civilization.
4. See Bouck White’s The Call
of the Carpenter, which builds an entire economic interpretation of the
Gospels on such specious material in the texts.
5. Quoted by Edward Carpenter, Pagan
and Christian Creeds, p. 22. Also in Glover’s Conflict of Religions in
the Early Roman Empire.
6. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
221.
7. Quoted in Pagan and Christian
Creeds, p. 206.
8. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
130.
9. See Tertullian’s Apologia, C.
16.
10. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
263.
CHAPTER
IV
1. From Hibbert Lectures, p.
217.
2. Quoted in Preface to Lectures
on Ancient Philosophy, by Manly P. Hall.
3. Phaedrus, p. 64.
4. Emile Baumann, Saint Paul, p.
275.
5. Quoted by Gerald Massey, Ancient
Egypt, the Light of the World, p. 543.
6. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and
the Egyptian Resurrection, II, p. 30.
7. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 33. As Massey is an authority frequently to be cited in this
work, it is well to state that he was an English literary figure of some
prominence in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first years of
the twentieth. He studied the Egyptian hieroglyphics for
595
forty years and had a force of
transcribers employed in his later years of investigation to assemble the
material from the monuments, tombs and papyri. His interpretation of Egyptian
writings has been all too largely ignored by savants, yet he has the merit of
having approached the task with a mind free from scholastic, theological or
conventional biases, which have so utterly blinded the discernment and vitiated
the conclusions of orthodox authorities. It is permissible for us to state that
it was his works that opened our eyes to the hidden meaning under the material,
when the works of more accredited specialists in the field had left us without a
single enlightening hint. Massey is the only scholar in whose hands the
recondite Egyptian material begins to take on rational significance. All the
others leave it resembling unintelligible nonsense. Several important
misconceptions in his interpretation are dealt with in the course of our work.
Indeed we have used one or two of these as the most direct approach to a
correction of the profound misconstructions which have vitiated the work of
scholars in this field up to the present.
8. Lectures on Luniolatry, p.
2, by Gerald Massey.
9. Introduction to the Book of
the Dead, p. xlvi.
10. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, I, p. 101.
11. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, I, p. 334.
12. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, I, p. 370.
13. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, I, p. 280.
14. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 431.
15. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 29.
16. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 30.
17. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 201.
18. Myths and Legends: Egypt, p.
271.
19. Myths and Legends: Egypt, p.
283.
CHAPTER
V
1. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 168.
2. The Mythical Interpretation of
the Gospels, T. J. Thorburn, p. 108.
3. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 539.
4. The Mythical Interpretation of
the Gospels, p. 109.
CHAPTER
VI
None.
CHAPTER
VII
1. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 4.
2. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 120.
3. The superior intellect of man is
indeed the "god" spoken of. "Man’s genius is a deity,"
said Heraclitus.
4. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
239.
5. See later explication of all
lunar typology in the present work.
596
6. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, 275.
7. The Mysteries of the
Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 93.
8. The Mysteries of the
Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 312.
9. T. J. Thorburn: The Mythical
Interpretation of the Gospels, p. 80 ff.
10. See Proclus: The Six Books of
Proclus on the Theology of Plato, 2 Vols., wherein the two hundred and
eleven principles of Greek theology are listed and expounded.
11. See later exposition of the Law
of the Two Truths, passim.
12. The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 332.
13. It should be understood that the
Egyptians often used the names of kings for the character of the Christos, or
the sun-god.
14. Book of Hades, First
Division.
15. Detailed by Massey: Ancient
Egypt, the Light of the World, p. 556.
16. See: The Book of Job as a
Greek Tragedy, Horace M. Kallen.
17. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 559.
18. This spiritual edict has often
been sadly misconstrued by mystical devotees. It does not, to be sure, imply the
stern negation of all carnal impulses, far less their total annihilation. The
animal nature is not to be ruthlessly slain, but transformed into the likeness
of the spiritual man.
19. Greek Philosophy.
CHAPTER
VIII
1. Hindu, Tibetan, Platonic and
other ancient systems are at one as to the accuracy of this item, difficult as
it appears to us in our ignorance of cosmology and occult science.
2. Known also as Gandharvas, Suryas,
Kumaras, Rudras, Adityas, Manasaputras, Agniswatha Pitris, and by some dozen or
more other names.
3. The Natural Genesis, I, p.
315.
4. Hargrave Jennings: The
Rosicrucians.
5. Quoted by Iamblichus: The
Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 364.
6. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, p. 355.
7. Quoted by the editor in
Iamblichus’ The Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, p.
345.
8. Article by Thomas Taylor in Classical
Journal, Vol. 16, p. 338.
9. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
132.
10. Tylor: Primitive Culture, I,
p. 469. (Edn. 1903.)
11. An approach to this viewpoint is
notable in a recent study of great importance by the English scholar, Lord
Raglan, in his book, The Hero (Oxford University Press). The work
presents evidence that the masks worn in olden celebrations were those of
animals.
12. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 74.
13. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 74.
14. A fuller elucidation of this
theme will be given at a later place when the profounder significance of
mummification is dealt with.
597
15. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 231.
16. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 211.
17. Mysteries of the Egyptians,
Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 355.
18. That part swayed by mere sense
intimation and superficial impression.
19. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, p. 475.
20. Mysteries of the Egyptians,
Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 179.
21. The Enneads, I, Bk. VI.
22. Rather the impulse of sense
uncensored by critical thought.
23. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 103.
24. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, p. 476.
25. In Alexander Wilder’s
Introduction to the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, of Thomas Taylor,
p. vxiii.
26. Be it noted, the use of the term
"Gentiles" here bears out the interpretation (as the not fully
humanized animal souls) given in a former place.
27. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 479.
28. Given in verse in The Book of
Job as a Greek Tragedy, Horace M. Kallen, p. 165 ff.
29. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 508.
30. Incarnation Records, Vol.
II. p. 131.
31. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 104.
32. Sekari, the god suffering
diminution as he passed through incarnation.
CHAPTER
IX
1. Mistaken for the defunct human,
but really the descending god.
2. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 846.
3. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 7.
4. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 152.
5. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 306.
6. Question mark is Budge’s--showing
how much the scholar has been confused by his failure to apprehend the technical
theological use of the term by the Egyptians. Passage from the Book of the
Dead cited by Budge.
7. Quoted by Thomas Taylor, Eleusinian
and Bacchic Mysteries, p. 91 ff.
8. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 706.
9. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 868.
10. Quoted by Budge: Osiris and
the Egyptian Resurrection, II, p. 8.
11. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 67.
12. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 69.
13. Cf. the raising of Lazarus.
14. Myths and Legends: Egypt, p.
121.
15. Later equated by Massey with
Achor, the valley of Sheol, the Hebrew Hades.
16. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 415.
17. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 643-4.
18. Here would seem to be authentic
rebuttal of the major premises of so
598
much Oriental philosophy which
builds on the general thesis that the whole of life on earth is evil, "a
calamity to be avoided at all costs." (Radhakrishnan: Indian Philosophy,
Vol. I.)
CHAPTER
X
1. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 416.
2. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 644.
3. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 198.
4. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 211.
5. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 416.
6. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 648.
7. Iu, a name of the Egyptian
Messiah, equivalent to Jesus or Horus.
8. As we saw, equals the
"cave" of the body.
9. Upper Egypt, by the uranographic
transfer, denotes the spiritual man and his spiritual body, while Lower Egypt
denotes the carnal man and his body of flesh.
10. Sheol may be taken as identical
with the Egyptian Amenta.
11. So named because of the golden
hues of the chrysalis.
12. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 219.
13. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 213.
14. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 883.
15. Ritual, Ch. 173 (Renouf
and Naville).
16. The specific significance of
this term will appear in the chapter on Dismemberment.
17. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 190.
18. Mead’s Translation, p. 394.
19. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 210.
20. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 374.
21. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 415.
22. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 455.
23. Taylor: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 105.
24. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 709.
25. Budge: Introduction to the Book
of the Dead, p. xc.
26. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 144.
27. Italics are Budge’s.
28. The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 525.
CHAPTER
XI
1. Introduction to the Book of
the Dead, p. lxxx.
2. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 108 ff.
3. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 154.
4. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 479.
5. Taylor: Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 134.
6. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 152.
599
7. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 814.
8. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 815.
9. Quoted by Edward Carpenter: Pagan
and Christian Creeds, p. 239.
10. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
28 (note).
11. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, I, p. 352.
12. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 525.
13. Talbot: The Legends of Ishtar;
Records of the Past (Vol. I).
14. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 877.
15. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 466.
CHAPTER
XII
1. I Corinthians 10:14 ff.
2. It is impossible to pass these
verses by without a remark upon what is commented upon them by Schweitzer, one
of the most popular European writers of the day on religious themes, in a recent
work. He follows his quotation of John’s verses with the statement that it is
not the purpose of John’s discourse to be understood; that its aim is solely
to direct attention to the miracle which is to happen in connection with the
bread in the future; and that it does not matter, therefore, that it should
offend the multitude.
One is indeed permitted to ask: What
is the poverty of modern spiritual discernment when it is frankly stated by a
leading religious publicist that John’s immortal verses are not meant to be
understood? But, after all, is it to be wondered at that there should be
complete befogging of vision when all but a few Docetic wings of Christian
thought have been bent on taking the eating of the flesh and the drinking of the
blood of the Son of Man in a physical sense? There has not seemed to be present
the matured capacity to assimilate the entirely spiritual purport of the
transaction.
3. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 900.
4. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 32.
5. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, I, p. 264.
6. Massey: Ancient Egypt, the
Light of the World, p. 64.
7. Reclus: Primitive Folk, pp.
311-315.
8. Budge: Introduction to the Book
of the Dead, p. xcix.
9. Proceedings: Biblical
Archaeology, Dec. 2, 1884, p. 45.
10. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 465.
11. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 3.
12. Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 142.
13. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 729.
14. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 561.
15. Mysteries of the Egyptians,
Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 133.
16. In Iamblichus’ Mysteries of
the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 7.
17. Lectures, Vol. I, p. 383.
Ed. 1862.
600
CHAPTER
XIII
1. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 344.
2. The Natural Genesis, I, p.
529.
3. Massey: The Natural Genesis, I,
p. 147.
CHAPTER
XIV
1. Thomas Taylor: Eleusinian and
Bacchic Mysteries, p. 126.
2. See. R. H. Matthews: The
Wiradthuri Tribes, Journal of Anthropology Inst., Vol. XXV, 1896.
3. If this term is the same as the
Sanskrit Atma, it means the high spiritual essence, the soul of the soul
of man.
4. Ancient Egypt, the Light of
the World, p. 359.
5. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
129.
6. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 175.
7. Mysteries of the Egyptians,
Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 272.
8. Pagan and Christian Creeds, p.
139.
9. Taylor: Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, p. 139.
10. The Natural Genesis, II,
p. 78.
11. Book of Hades, Fifth
Division, D.
CHAPTER
XV
1. Westrop and Wake: Phallism in
Ancient Religions, p. 47.
2. The Natural Genesis, I, p.
324.
3. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 236.
CHAPTER
XVI
1. Ancient
2. Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, II, p. 222.
CHAPTER
XVII
None.
CHAPTER
XVIII
1. Ancient
2. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, p. 482.
3. Foundation Truths of the
Christian Religion.
4. Ancient
5. Massey: Ancient
CHAPTER
XIX
1. Introduction to the Book of
the Dead, p. cvii.
2. Ancient
3. Ancient
601
CHAPTER
XX
1. From an article in the New
York Times of
2. The Rosicrucians: Their Rites
and Mysteries; Hargrave Jennings, p. 211.
3. From a papyrus rendered by M.
Chabas.
4. Thomas Taylor: Eleusinian and
Bacchic Mysteries, p. 145.
5. Lecture on Luniolatry, p.
14.
6. Latin: "Emits blood from the
genitals."
7. The Natural Genesis, I,
pp. 44.
8. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, p. 148.
CHAPTER
XXI
1. Ancient
2. Ancient
3. Ancient
4. Introduction to the Book of
the Dead, Ip. lxxxv.
5. The Natural Genesis, I, p.
127.
6. T. J. Thorburn: The Mythical
Interpretation of the Gospels, p. 131. As Thorburn is antagonistic to the
mythical interpretation, his data are therefore all the more valuable.
7. Ancient
8. Plato mentions this as one of the
hymns of
9. The story of the rich man and
Lazarus, the beggar, repeated in the Gospel of Luke (Ch. 16:19), is told
at length in the second tale of Kamuas, as Egyptian.
CHAPTER
XXII
1. Introduction to the Book of
the Dead, p. lxxxv.
2. Myths and Legends:
3. Myths and Legends:
4. Ancient
5. Mysteries of the Egyptians,
Chaldeans and Assyrians, p. 312.
6. The Timaeus, Lib. V, p.
33.
7. The Six Books of Proclus on
the Theology of Plato, II, p. 272.
602