Transcript Document

Ancient Egypt – the Black
Land
Sun rising over the Nile
Mud silt left after the Nile’s
annual inundation
Km or Khem, meaning black
that relates to the Nile mud,
forms the basis of the word
Alchemy
The Nile, four thousand
miles long, is Egypt’s
sacred river – it is Egypt!
Osiris as god of fertility causes the rise
and fall of the Nile as well as the
movement
of soul and sexual potency with all
people. He is the substance of being.
Osiris wearing the Atef crown and
bearing the crook and flail, symbols of
his divine rule over land and animals.
Green skinned Osiris
The Birth of Osiris
Thoth, god of magic, symbols and language, knows of
Re’s, the Sun god, fear of losing his power, prophesizes,
“If Nut bears a son, he will one day rule Egypt.”
Nut appeals to Thoth who cleverly devises a scheme
that will satisfy Nut’s wish to bear children while, at
the same time, not defy Re’s pronouncement,
“No child of Nut shall take my throne from
me! Lo, now I lay this curse upon her: she
shall give birth to no child on any day in any
year – no, nor in the night time either. I have
spoken, and what I have decreed cannot be
altered.”
Thoth turns to Khonshu, the moon god, and challenges him to a
game of droughts. Khonshu loses everything, including enough
of his light to make five extra days.
Khondu, the moon god,
and Thoth, god of magic
and language. Note the
moon headdress on each.
Seth
Nepythys
Nut gave birth to:
Osiris
Harmachis
Seth
Isis
Nepythys
Osiris and Isis
Harmachis
The Death of Osiris and his Transformation to the God of
Death
•Isis and Osiris marry. Seth marries Nepythys.
•Osiris sleeps with Nepythys and they bear a son, Anubis.
•Seth plans his revenge on Osiris by secretly learning his
measurements and having a beautiful coffin made to fit.
•Seth has a party at which he promises the give this prized coffin
to whoever best fits inside it.
•When Osiris lays in the coffin, Seth and his 72 conspirators seal
Osiris in it, binding it with leaden bands. They throw the coffin
into the Sea.
•The coffin is washed ashore at Byblos, Syria, and entwined with
a tree.
•The tree is taken by the king and made into a column within his
palace.
Dismemberment
Before mummification, bodies were buried in shallow graves. The dead
were both feared and respected. To prevent the dead from returning and
taking possession of the living, the bones of the deceased were
sometimes broken.
This same magical practice is seen the Book of the Dead where,
for example, the hieroglyph for horned viper was severed so that it
would not slither off the papyrus and harm people.
With the help of Thoth and Anubis, Isis was able to locate all but one
piece of her husband’s body; the penis was thrown into the Nile and
swallowed by a fish. Thoth retrieved it and Anubis prepared his
father’s body after Isis,
with her magic powers, rejoined Osiris’ body. She then had sex
with him and bore Horus. Isis and Nepythys guarded Osiris’ body
until it was taken by Thoth into the Duat, the Underworld, where
the black-skinned Osiris becomes God of the Underworld.
Horus avenges his father’s death by going to war with Seth. There is a
protracted battle in which Horus loses an eye and Seth, a testicle.
Eventually, Thoth intervenes between the “two fellows” and brings
their
case before the gods. The decision was made in favor of Horus and
Seth was sentenced to serve him. Horus then awakens his father in
The Resurrection of Osiris
Osiris awakens in the Duat and becomes the God of the
Underworld. He presides over the Judgment of the Dead and is
given the wisdom needed to carry the Sun through the duat,
returning it each morning to the earth.
The Judgment in the Great Hall
The heart of the deceased is placed on the scale of judgment
and is weighed against the feather of Ma’at, goddess of
supreme order.
If the heart outweighs Ma’at feather, the deceased’ ba soul is
reunited with its body and it enters into the eternal Field of
Reeds. If the judgment is against it, the deceased is either
thrown into the Lake of Fire or is devoured by Ammit. Thoth
records the judgment.
The Field of Reeds, The Field of Offerings
Before Egypt was called by that name, it was simply
the Land of Beauty. Death was not contrary to Life, but
rather a continuation of it…into eternity. So loved was
their country that “heaven” was little different than
their life on earth. There was great abundance, a full
harvest and joy in the Field of Reeds. The only burden
was the obligation to work one day a year. But, even
this was cleverly avoided by placing ushabi into the
Mummification and the Tomb
The process of mummification took seventy days. In the initial
preparations the wet organs – stomach, lungs, intestines, liver- were
removed and placed in four separate Canopic jars. Specifically, the
liver was placed in a jar with the man-headed god Imsety for
protection, the lungs in a Hapi the baboon-headed jar, the stomach in
the jackal-headed jar of Duamutef and the intestines in Qebehsenuef,
the falcon-headed jar. These protector gods were the four sons of
Horus. The brain was removed and discarded while the heart was
kept in place, for it was to later serve in the weighing of the Great
Judgment.
The body was then covered in natron, a commonly used salt, for
fourty days. The natron was used to desiccate the corpe of all
moisture. The final thirty days were spent in careful and ritualistic
bandaging the body in some three miles of linen. Enfolded into the
bandages were sacred amulets. Other objects were placed in the
tomb, including ushabi, small statuettes that symbolized the workers
who would be called upon to substitute for that one day when the
The final ritual before the mummy was placed in its tomb was
called the Opening of the Mouth. In this sacred ritual the priests
used heka (magic) to open the senses so that the deceased would
be able to see, hear and speak in the afterlife.
Ushabi
Opening the Mouth
The pharaoh tomb was placed in the great pyramids where
their soul would be reunited with the immortal body. The
pharaoh would then ascend into the heavens and take its place
among the stars.
This presentation was made by Dr. Thom Cavalli as part of the
seminar he provided at the 2007 International Alchemy
Conference. It is © 2007 copyrighted and all rights reserved.
It is not meant as an exhaustive description of the funerary
practices of ancient Egypt. An accompanying paper will be
published that gives further details of these practices and their
psychological implications for the study of Alchemy. Dr.
Cavalli’s book, Alchemical Psychology, Old Recipes for a New
World (Putnam, 2002) is a solid introduction to alchemical
psychology. For further information contact Dr. Cavalli at
illavac.com.
There is great wisdom to be learned from the ancient Egyptians,
knowledge that has been lost to this world; knowledge that may
well preserve the beauty we all treasure.
Peace be with you.
Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D.