For more specific information about our concepts of the creative irrational and spiritual we begin with Ancient Egypt. Its literature was created about 5,000 years before the present but must have been well developed previously to have been so completely and eloquently captured in the writings. What did these cultures attempt to capture in their early writings? What were they trying to represent? What could Egyptian higher knowledge be dealing with? What would be of most importance for them to capture in this newly established form of communication: writing? In their literature they wrote explicitly about the creative irrational experience of the different levels of human existence[1]. Amazingly we see them dealing with distinctions between our different bodies, a fact that is clearly represented in the earliest of human written literature in the Pyramid Texts!

Before we get into the specifics of the Ancient Egyptian view of the bodies of a human, there are a number of continuing modern day misunderstandings about Ancient Egypt that need to be addressed to allow an appropriate appreciation of their writing. It is first of all to point out that there is a false perception that the culture was solely concerned with death and the dead. As in the modern Christian world with its tombs, graveyards and cemeteries, they definitely created structures associated with their treatment of the dead. But it is critical to recognize that the pyramids are not tombs. While a number of Egyptian pyramids contain sarcophagi, it is questionable whether these ever held the mummified bodies of humans, as all of the tombs did. Like Christian cathedrals, which may contain the tombs of saints and other significant individuals, we need to consider that pyramids likely had purposes other than simply to house a few dead bodies.

To this end it is important to recognize that of the 100s of pyramids build in Ancient Egypt only eleven contain the collection of verses known as the Pyramid Texts. These texts are an extensive collection of verses or recitations carved onto the stone walls, gables and ceilings of eleven of the some of these oldest great pyramids. They were built earlier than the well-known Giza Pyramids that start around 2,500 BCE[2] and were located further south in Saqqara, Egypt[3]. The texts that they contain form the first complete recorded literature in human history. But the fact that they are presented as a complete, single extensive theme indicates that the thoughts and concepts that they represent had long been in development - over centuries -preceding the construction of the pyramids themselves. The hieroglyphics are beautifully carved and provide an extensive and detailed text. There is no question that they represent the result of an incredible effort of development and execution by the culture.

There is a second misconception of the Pyramid Texts that stands in the way of fully appreciating the knowledge that they contain; it is represented in the impression left by some early would-be students that they are only a collection ofsuperstitious “spells” intended to help the “deceased” develop in the “afterlife”. This problem arose at the very beginning of their discovery. The early investigators of the culture began their studies under the impression that Ancient Egyptians were a “primitive” people. About the time of publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species concepts of social evolution and a belief in the continual improvement of human cultures was developing. Thus a 5,000 year-old culture would be considered as necessarily primitive compared to the “new” thinking of the 19th century. Moreover, these early explorers would have been Christian with all of the preconceptions of the sole authority of Christianity. Declaring the texts as magic was consistent with the approach of Christianity towards foreign cultures and allowed these “new” explorers to maintain their superior attitude[4]. While they actually did great things in exposing this new world of the lost Ancient Egyptian culture, they also did a great disservice to the subtle and complex higher understanding and impeded acceptance of what this incredible culture would be able to teach them.

One final challenge to appreciating the Pyramid Text lies in the actual translating and presenting of their messages to our modern day understanding. Without a doubt what is written is in a highly abbreviated and stylized form by a people with a potentially much different mind-set from our own. To get an insight into such challenges, we present here an example of a recitation carved onto the inner surface of the Pyramid of Pharaoh Pepi I, 2332 – 2287 BCE:

“Someone has gone to be with his Ka;

Osiris has gone to be with his Ka;

Seth has gone to be with his Ka,

Eyes-Forward has gone to be with his Ka;

Pepi has gone to be with his Ka.

Ho Pepi! You have gone away that you might live; you have not gone away that you might die.

You have gone away that you might become Akh at the fore of the Akhs, take control at the fore of the living, become Ba and be Ba, become esteemed and be esteemed.[5]

In this one single recitation we encounter references to what are three incredibly important concepts related to the bodies of a human: the Ka, the Ba and the Akh. While many of our readers may have encountered these words we ask their patience in readdressing what may seem familiar. Like translations from any language, we find it takes some effort to fully understand them. Can we discern what they might mean to a modern reader?

But in spite of all of these challenges, there an undeniable advantage in exploring the concepts and knowledge of the Ancient Egyptians over the constructions of the hunter gatherers of Göbekli Tepe. We can actually see and read their written words. We present here in Figure 21 a photograph of an alternative, shortened version of this same recitation from another pyramid, the Pyramid of Pharaoh Unas, built circa 2,500 years BCE. In this instance the recitation is translated by Allen as:

“Someone has gone to his Ka;

Horus has gone with his Ka; Seth has gone with his Ka;

Thoth has gone with his Ka; the god has gone with his Ka;

Osiris has gone with his Ka; Eyes-Forward has gone with his Ka

You too have gone with your Ka.[6]”

Or as translated by Brind Morrow:

“Go go with his spirit (Ka)

Go wild dog with his spirit (Ka). Go Thoth.

Say this four times:

Consecrate the fire with his spirit (Ka)

Go holy falcon with his spirit (Ka)

Go Osiris with his spirit (Ka)

Before the eyes of the holy falcon of old

With his spirit[7].”

Figure 21. Screen shot of Recitation 20 from the Pyramid of Unas dealing with his Ka[8].

The purpose of showing the image of the text is in no way intended to expect the reader to translate the text for himself or herself. Rather our intent is to show how different the Ancient Egyptian text is from modern day English, and thus to highlight both the challenges and advantages of working with such material. For present purposes, we only invite the reader to note in scanning the photo that it is possible to easily recognize a number of key hieroglyphs, such as the two upraised arms that represent the Egyptian concept for the Ka, that occurs repeatedly in this translated text. The Pharaoh’s signature cartouche is also found a number of times in the encircled oval in the image. The hieroglyph for Seth with his squared-ears and upraised tail is also evident. But the question is how do these simple images get turned into the translations that we are presented with in English?

While there have been many translations of the Pyramid Texts by various authors over the years[9], a recent publication by Brind Morrow[10] does a marvelous job at presenting and addressing a direct approach to the Pyramid Texts. She provides what she calls “a new poetic translation and interpretation” of the Pyramid Texts from the pyramid of the Pharaoh Unas[11]. Her work helps us to better understand and appreciate the impulses and broader values held and developed by our predecessors. Her careful poetic and mystic approach to the material exposes us to an incredible level of sophistication and clarity that requires patience and work from us before we are able to give them appropriate meaning in our language.

In her book, “The Dawning World of the Mind”, Morrow presents us with what she calls the “poetic rediscovery’ of the impulses and influences that led to the writing of these ancient and well-known but not fully appreciated texts[12]. Her enquiry is usefully supported by many photographic reproductions of extracts of the hieroglyphs from the texts. Her publication shows remarkably clear, detailed pictures of the inscriptions from throughout the passageways, ceilings and sarcophagus chamber, which is itself a treasure for study. Her approach to the texts, both in their layout, depending on their location in the pyramid, and in their shamanic tone is consistent with the interpretations provided previously by Naydler[13]. In Brind Morrow’s book we are presented with remarkable efforts of transcription and translation that strengthen our appreciation of the spirituality theme as opposed to the false funerary “spell” interpretations. The clarity and complexity of her results guides us to a more genuine entrance into a multi-level of sophistication in interpretation. It also reassures us that we are being guided to taste, even savour, a level of understanding that for the first time is being made available to us from these ancient texts. They are presented to us with a direct insight into how these “ancients” perceived our world. They present us with an exposure that can only excite our own, relatively feeble understanding of the potential for transcendence beyond any ordinary level of understanding. Here is a direct demonstration of the many dimensions that have been re-found and made available to us through her seemingly newly discovered appreciation of what is often called the “beyond”.

Brind Morrow interprets the hieroglyphs from many different points of view. She explores various literary tools such as the alliteration, use of puns and onomatopoeia. She gives us images with repeated interpretation and comparison of the results with those at various other locations in the pyramid. It all gradually builds for us an image of their hidden meanings. Comparisons and interpretations that were made necessary as she observed them in relation to what is observed in the sky, add a dimension to our understanding of the night sky that has shined above human heads since the beginning of time. We are led initially to observe easily recognizable stars such as the important Sirius and the North Star as well as groups of stars Orion, Taurus. The scene includes the large “Milky Way” that glows in its broad band of bright and dimstars that stream across our nighttime view. From that point of beginning it becomes possible to assemble a concept of how this “on earth” scene appears to viewers who can picture themselves at higher levels of existence in the night sky. Only gradually are we led to understand something that while it appears to have been well-known, may actually be new to us - because of our failures to be able to see it in its wholeness - in such a full complexity. We can begin to be able to see it on the broader scale on which this whole back-drop must be understood; but it requires patience and study from us.

We come to appreciate these concepts only if we patiently watch and remember the sequences of the rising and setting of the complex constellations and the immense scales on which this apparently intimate scene can really be understood. We may even come to appreciate how the early observers began to place their perceptions and ours in the context of how our own true natures can appear as the base from which the really vast scales of interpretation that are being identified and shown to us are revealing this whole set of virtually multi-dimensions of existence at one instant. All this, that we only gradually become able to see, comes to us so unexpectedly from this marvelous Ancient Egyptian text from the beginning of the written word. It is as a virtual testimonial of our own present ignorance or at least unknowingness. Here, in this most ancient of the texts presented within the depths of pyramids of a period as old as 2,500 BCE, more than four and a half thousand years before we are here to try to understand it. It is, to us, a highly original inscription of texts that appear almost miraculous in their meaning and their tone. Only now are we coming to fully appreciate the vast time and space scales of the phenomena that the ancients had understood and apparently wrote about or illustrated in a fashion that allows our modern scholarship to open for our contemplation. There can be no misunderstanding of the vastness of the scope on which this ancient writing is now made known to us and has become available to be understood by us through these discoveries.

As Brind Morrow found, these writings from Ancient Egypt, show us how lacking in imagination and vision other translators have been, and how long it seems to have taken our society to learn of the need for the long time required to prepare ourselves before we can overcome the false superiority we have felt as we gradually come to understand how primitive were our own beginnings. It gradually becomes possible for us to appreciate the near transformation of our own level of knowledge and understanding that is required to allow us to catch up to what we thought was known many years ago.

The sheer immensity of this task makes us begin to appreciate the role that poetry and vision can yet play as one begins to understand the importance of the title of her work “The Dawning Moon of the Mind”. Such a “dawning” alone permits us to come to a true unlocking of the Pyramid Texts, as true as we are likely to be able to appreciate, unless through her insight. We must find the unlocking of our own minds that has been necessary in order to allow us to enter the mind that in theory has been available for nearly 5,000 years but in fact has only now been opened to us on scales of perception that we rarely have been given the grace to comprehend.

Let us look at one example of her insights. We believe that it highlights how her work can provide a fuller detailed description of the state of the Universe, and ourselves, from which this poetic, metaphoric, mystic perspective arises. In this process we turn to a word that Brind Morrow uses often in her treatment. We wish here to attend to the meaning of the word “tantric” that been generally misunderstood as originating in India, but is found in the worldview of the Ancient Egyptians. It is derived from two words of the Egyptian: “ta ntr, which has the meaning of “your land” or “sacred ground”[14]. This “land” is in fact the whole of the Nile delta from its source in the hills of the southern highlands of the Nubian region where we find the source of water and nourishment on which the whole of the Nile River and its Ancient Egyptian civilization depended.

The whole mystical story begins to unfold on the West Wall of the Entranceway into the Pyramid of Unas. It contains vivid descriptions of the physical world that are introduced as “primary forces in the night sky” in motion[15]. The rotation of the skies around the axis mundi terminating at the North Star marks time for humans. This turning of the sky is what Brind Morrow describes as “the unstoppable rising of the water” to the greening force of life rising on earth. The force of this water-flow is then conflated with the generative seed or semen, “the rising force that brings life”. This sets the context for human existence in the stars and universe. There are many images of nature presented in the recitations. There are snakes, crocodiles, falcons, etc., etc.. Check Figure 21 above to see numerous birds represented in that recitation. But this is not a documentation of the nature and ecology of the Nile valley. It is not superstitious babble of ignorant people. After all they are contained within some of the grandest constructions ever made by humans. These selected images of nature require reflection and appreciation. As one example we may take the “crocodile”. Definitely this species was well known to the Ancient Egyptians living in the environs of the Nile. But in the Texts it means much more than the animal species. It is representative of something more: something that is much more key to the full expression of life and human existence. Here the word for “crocodile” is introduced as the serpentine life force: pure brilliant light, iabu in Ancient Egyptian, burning, shining light, the animating force of the energy of life. As Brind Morrow puts it, “this energy as it exists in the body is not only conjured but mapped.” The crocodile shares visual traits of the curving snake. It shares the metaphysical traits of curled potential for quick striking energy. This is a masterful interpretation of the use of items in the natural world, the crocodile and serpents, to capture and express layers of understanding and experience that are available to humans. Such a methodology is key to appreciating the form and structure of the Texts.

The text continues on the East Wall of the Entranceway. As it continues, the theme now turns the attention away from the outer body to the inner body. The life force that can be seen in the sky above and in the water below is now to be found “within”. As Brind Morrow points out the language of this initial idea is clear and precise. Then it begins with a recitation dealing with the Generation of the Light Body:

Unas becomes the primary serpentine life force

That absorbs his seven serpents

That manifest as the seven yoked attributes of his seven vertebrae

Nine times three sanctified attributes obey these words

Unas comes back as he absorbs myrrh, he receives myrrh

He is blessed with myrrh, he is brought back with myrrh

Unas takes on your power sanctified attributes

As he turns he yokes your spiritual faculties.[16]

She finds in the text recognizable instructions. They support our contention that this is ritual text. It performs a ritual purpose the mapping of energy of internal serpents, a mapping that recognizes the esoteric physics of tantra. It employs the serpent metaphor an “esoteric” schemata of energy in the body arranged in seven primary chakra nerve centres.

This is, of course, a bare but striking example of the purposes of the Pyramid Texts that we are trying to understand as evidence for the creative irrational. It takes us into the realm of ritual prayers and spirituality that can lead us towards our aim of understanding the way towards our own purpose, better serving our own present aims of self-knowledge and self-understanding. It leads us toward a new understanding that can hardly come to us without the intermediary of the talents of a modern poet linked so realistically yet imaginatively to the truly almost overwhelming visions recorded by the very first writers of literature.

Brind Morrow’s transcriptions and translations present aspects of the Ancient Egyptian culture that broadens our understanding of their creative urges that includes that remarkable human phenomenon that we call a “sense of humor”. Much needs to be appreciated about this early and ancient civilization before we can aspire to fully understand its level of sophistication. What do we understand as the elements that have led us beyond the level of necessity for food, shelter, procreation and immediate pleasures towards what we find expressed in various activities that we group under the general terms “art and architecture”? A study of these activities can lead us to appreciate the importance of the new directions that were experienced and are displayed by what we believe to be the creative need for a broader and new perception of this world that they help us articulate.

These primary themes of the Pyramid Texts concern the various states of human existence. Texts a thousand years later, circa 1550 BCE, written on papyrus entitled “Book of Coming Forth by Day” or “Among the Stars at Dawn”[17], more often incorrectly referred to as “The Book of the Dead”, are quite derivative of the themes found in the much earlier Pyramids Texts. Together the Pyramid Texts and later texts present supporting concepts concerning the different states of human existence. As we have presented in the quote above, throughout the Pyramid Texts the person is often advised:

“You have not gone away dead; you have gone away alive.[18]”

or as translated by Brind Morrow:

“O Unis you will not go on to die, You will go on to live.[19]”

The outstanding feature that attracts our attention in Morrow’s book is what we term its capturing of the creative irrational. It is striking that the incredible building accomplishments of the Ancient Egyptians realized in their pyramids are tied to an esoteric text that deals with much more than the day-to-day concerns of the society. Yes, they built storehouses for grain. Yes, they built palaces for living in. They even built temples and tombs, but without a doubt they saved their most impressive structures for their pyramids. We need to recognize that they are, as are we, dependent on the higher beliefs that we must come toward if we are to appreciate the full breadth and depth of life to encompass beliefs beyond the necessities of biological existence that have directed us to this point.

We see this Pyramid Text as the first written expression of the creative irrational leading to the spiritual. We, and others, see the Pyramid Texts as recitations, closer in nature to the purpose of Christian prayer, to be used by an initiate or aspirant to assist in their own internal development of Being. We see them as dealing metaphorically with the Ancient Egyptian understanding of our personal development and striving during life. The Pyramid Texts present one of the clearest and most explicit representations of the different levels of being within ourselves. Without a doubt we are dealing with what Brind Morrow says is the “earliest historical religious system”. It is now time to see what this system says about the bodies of a human.

The Bodies of a Human

Throughout their writings over the thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian culture, there are many references to the different facets of human existence. The texts identify these facets with specific forms or “bodies” of humans. The characteristics of these bodies are most often presented by way of descriptions of the events in which they are involved. That is, they are not so much presented as a succession of bodies that can be entered one after another by an aspirant, as they are internal perceptions of a set of qualities of feeling and sensations that need to be found and allowed to develop by the “being” and can only be passed through by the expenditure of appropriate effort. As one important example, in an often-used theme where the initiate or central figure addressed in the recitation takes on the form of the resurrected god Osiris, the aspirant undergoes extreme changes in state before approaching Osiris in the Duat[20]. This person then takes on a new name, “Osiris”. This is indicative of a new state of being "re-membered,” as was Osiris by Isis as she found and reassembled his scattered parts[21]. In our reading of the literature it is difficult to distinguish the aspirant from the god named Osiris. This may be a result of the translation challenges from a 5000-year-old language into modern day English or it may be a deliberate technique used in the original to assist the reader not to become overly concrete in their understanding of these complex and ephemeral concepts. Nevertheless the further transformations of this body constitutes a progressive realization of the nature of the various bodies through which the literature implies that the arising of eternal life is to be comprehended. This is one of the most remarkable examples of the creative irrational in the history of human worldview.

The studies of levels of existence began in what the Egyptians called “the Al Khemi”[22] or alchemy. In fact the word alchemy itself derives from the Egyptian word Kemit, which refers to the Black Earth, the farmable soil of the Valley of the Nile. The study of alchemy was said to have been taught to humankind by the Ancient Egyptian neter of wisdom Djeuti, better known by the name Thoth as he was called by the later Greeks. In time this same neter, Djeuti, began to be known by the Greeks as Hermes Trismagistus. The terms body, soul and spirit as levels of being were commonly used in philosophy and religious studies in the form of the alchemical teachings that were especially well-known during the Middle Ages of Europe. Here we are more concerned with their origins of writing in The Pyramid Texts. As can be seen in the example shown in Figure 21 and in Brind Morrow[23], the words body, soul and spirit are never explicitly used in the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts. We adopt them here as a structure on which to illustrate our understanding of the tradition that can be seen in what has survived from them through the millennia down to our present day.

In fact the Ancient Egyptians recognized a higher resolution of the different human bodies that one can experience within oneself. We present them here as:

The Physical Body – the Khat and the Sahu

The Soul – the Abu, the Sekhem and the Ka

The Spirit – the Ba, Khaibit and Akh

Fully Realised Human - Ra.

It may be difficult for us to differentiate between the psychological and spiritual contexts. We examined the attributes of the bodies as a means of using this scale to elicit a clearer recognition of the subtle observations of differentiation that need to be available in us for use to describe development in our own experience – distinctions and development that are not to be found in any other species - hominin or otherwise.

The Physical Body – The Khat and The Sahu

The Egyptians distinguished two bodies at the level of what we call the physical body: the Khat and the Sahu. The first of these, the Khat, is perhaps best translated simply as the physical or sometimes carnal body. It is the material body that is destined to decay. Special chemical techniques of embalming were developed to preserve it. Chapter 17 of the Book of Coming Forth by Day refers to this as "the filth". Clearly, this is a body that is recognizable to us as that body that requires food, air, rest, etc. It is relatively easy to recognize in our ordinary states. It is of considerable symbolic significance to us, however, that in Egypt it was not represented simply as a body to be disposed of. They recognized in its materiality an essential base from which all else could flow. This point was especially emphasized in the ceremony called the "opening of the mouth", that took place at the time the preserved mummy was deposited in the burial chamber. The ceremony was regarded as necessary to allow the being that occupied it to have “communication” with other levels of being. We would perhaps not be amiss to interpret it as a symbolic recognition that finer functions of the body, particularly those associated with breathing and the formation of words, as well as the finer sensitivities lower in the solar plexus and abdomen, are always important in relation to the potentially higher levels of being found in it. It is likely that this physical body is that which can be found for any and all biological species in the world.

The Sahu, or second body, while also an aspect of the physical body, identifies that particular part of it that gives it the power of sustaining life. It is thus called the "body that germinateth." It has been emphasized by Schwaller de Lubicz[24] that germination is not only a power that permeates a seed and begins the process of creating a living organic being, but it continue to operate as the seedling grows. The creative power represented by the Sahu can be metaphorically expressed by the mystical Golden Ratio and displayed as the Greek letter, phi, (φ)[25]. The Sahu gives to body the qualities that distinguish their expression as a whole body from the actions of the ordinary chemical compounds of which it is composed. The chemicals are reducible to earthly elements, but the body contains this remarkable property of self-promulgation and growth that is not simply liable to stagnation and decay. The science of biology offers a similar concept in its recognition of a part of the physical body called the "germ plasm". It consists of the cells that give rise to the sex cells, that are also seen to pass in a line of continuity from generation to generation, combining with similar elements from other bodies to convey both information and the "germ of life" to the progeny on which the continuity of generations depends.

In retrospect, it seems strange that science does not even suggest that there is any question about an additional indefinable quality of life associated with this special nature of the germ-plasm. This unique part of our body clearly represents the special qualities of the "everlasting". In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the body that has the qualities of a Sahu is even able to associate with other souls, and to "have converse" with the Sahus of the gods. It therefore has qualities of the living physical body that are more available to those with a previously developed sense of our basically personal, hence unique, sense of being. A rough analogy might be the information on being that is passed on through the transmission of our DNA to our offspring that can persist in our lineage forever after the death of our physical body. It doesn’t take a genetic engineer to appreciate comments like “She looks just like her Grandmother!” or “Oh she has her Dad’s eyes!” An individual’s contribution of ½ of the DNA that passes to their children’s genetic makeup could potentially be seen as the Sahu’s ability to “communicate” with like stages or “levels” of being in others. Modern day genetics research has made us keenly aware of the Sahu body with our developing capacity for genetic engineering and manipulation of the DNA in living organisms.

We see here an example of the advantages of conceptualization that are offered by the Egyptian texts. In our language we do not ordinarily distinguish this seemingly immortal germinating property of the Sahu as a separate property of "life", although it could legitimately be considered so, even in science. The limiting of our scientific concepts mainly to the material universe of "things," is thus made more evident through recognition of these fundamental and significant distinctions that our more usual habits of concept and language fail to make for us. The Egyptian view of levels of existence and Being begin to show something of the subtlety of attention that needs to be, and could be invoked, in relation to the real functions of our bodies that we so thoughtlessly take for granted.

The Soul – The Abu, the Sekhem and the Ka

On the second level of existence that we shall call the soul, the Egyptians recognized three bodies: the Abu (the heart), the Sekhem (the image) and the Ka (often translated as the soul). They are perhaps to be thought of as psychical properties that relate to the physical properties of man. That is, they partake somewhat of the nature of the body while displaying additional special levels of sensitivity. They also have a certain independence from the physical body. What seems to us of particular value here is the further questions this raises about our usual assumption that what we perceive as properties of humankind are directly or entirely dependent solely on the material, physical body.

The Abu in the ritual depictions of introduction to life in the “afterworld” is symbolized by the Egyptians as the physical heart of the body. It is treated by the texts as the seat of the power of life, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is the seat of the attitude of our being to that power. For example, the Egyptians held it to be the seat of the arising of "good and bad thoughts" in living humans. We tend to associate heart with the origin of many of the finest sensations that arise in the course of our lives. What, for example, do we make of the feelings of transport that may be aroused by exquisite music? What is the source in us of the movement of appreciation of fine works of other art forms? In fact, the states in which we are cognizant of these factors may also be close to what we call "Love", that every school child learns to associate with the drawing of the heart. These well-known phenomena of our experience have a certain ethereal quality about them - feelings of lightness or transcendence.

The Egyptians had a strong recognition of the need for a balance in all factors of our being. Thus the heart is also seen as the seat of negative emotions or "bad thoughts". The enlivening feelings of love for another can easily become heartbreak and hate at the end of a relationship. On occasion we still speak of having a “heavy heart”. The two aspects of the Abu, light and heavy, are qualities that we understand in common, even while we exist as seemingly separate individuals. They are functions that are tied to and dependent on the individual body.

If these contrary attributes, good and bad, are to be located in the heart, perhaps we too can understand why it is that the Abu is identified as the organ that is "weighed" in judgment. The Egyptians captured this concept in their representation of the “Weighing of the Heart” ceremony that is so dramatically illustrated on tomb walls and funerary papyri (Figure 22). The image shows a scale with the Abu on one side and the feather of neter Maat on the other side. According to the prayers repeated in the texts, the heart must be found to be lighter than Maat's feather if the "dead" person is to be acceptable in the "life" represented as the kingdom of Osiris in the Duat. Otherwise the heavy heart is fed to the crocodile-headed neter Ammit, the "devourer of the Dead". While the heart of the person might be heavy or light depending on their existence, the lightness of Maat’s feather is a constant unchanging standard against which it will be compared. Maat, neter of Justice and Truth, is an obvious direct symbolization of "abstract" qualities of one’s higher aspirations. The development of its qualities is clearly seen as something that is the responsibility of the incarnate person. It is beyond concerns with one’s body chemistry. It thus represents a property that is in the body but not necessarily "of" it.

Figure 22. The Weighing of the Heart in the lower center of the scene. The Abu is on the left scale and the feather of Maat is on the right. Anubis steadies the scale on the right and Djeuti stands to the right of the scale recording the weight. The… — Figure 22. The Weighing of the Heart in the lower center of the scene. The *Abu* is on the left scale and the feather of Maat is on the right. Anubis steadies the scale on the right and Djeuti stands to the right of the scale recording the weight. The crocodile faced neter Ammit sits patiently behind Djeuti in the hope of devouring a “heavy heart”. The Ba bird can be seen as the human headed bird just above the scale with the heart. (Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_of_Ani).

It is important to remember that the scene of the Weighing of the Heart is a metaphor for ourselves. Each aspect of the image is full of meaning. Even the scale can be seen as a representation of our attention that is required to distinguish and weigh our moods against our knowledge of our higher aspirations.

The second part of the psychic body, the Sekhem is more abstract, and is often translated as the "image." It seems to "personify" an essential view of character that may even appear in the statue of an individual, before as well as after death. This unusual idea may be recognizable by us in the correlation we often find to exist between the "appearance" of individuals, and what we call their "character" in ordinary life.

The idea of the Sekhem seems to centre on aspects of our nature related to what we call “personality”, that are seen and recognized by others but are not the same as our view of ourselves. Similar questions arise in attempting to understand the relation of the characters in the ancient story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu[26]. By considering the “image” as a body we are reminded that self-knowledge requires that we need to learn to deal with a wholeness of our attributes. This is a conception that we find very difficult to have of ourselves, separate from our changeable moods. Yet we are sensitive to a corresponding more general level of existence by our experiences with our fellow human beings. Through glimpses of what is implied by the word "image", we may be able to recognize that our views of ourselves are almost always "partial".

It is difficult to appreciate what further significance the Egyptians may have placed on this body, since the Sekhem seems at times to be a part that can leave the body and appear among the eternal aspects of man; that is, among the gods – that is on levels more-than-merely-personal. We recognize, again, an example of subtlety that pervades the texts and that needs to be appreciated if we are to believe that we understand the significance of the Egyptian literature for us.

The third of the qualities of the soul, the Ka, seems to hold out to us a curious blend of the literal and the abstract. It is represented in hieroglyphics as two arms with upraised forearms and hands (see Figure 21 above). Brind Morrow views the Ka as the “emanation body”[27]. The word has been recently translated as "spiritual essence," but is most often translated in scholarly works as the "soul," a term that raises questions about just what we mean by the word. A principal attribute of the Ka, evident throughout the texts, is its remarkable mobility and at least partial independence of the physical body. When paired with the twisted thread hieroglyph for “h”, Ka can be found in the word often translated as “magic”[28]. The Ka is represented as able to move about invisibly in the world, unrestrained by physical boundaries, such as walls or physical objects. In this sense our word, "ghost", invokes our associations more strongly than the term "soul". However, the Ka has subtle attributes that go beyond such simplistic ghostly designation.

The Ka arises in the physical body or at least simultaneously with it, having been created separately but at the same time on the potter’s wheel of Khnum (Figure 23). It apparently retains its essential separate "form" after death of the physical body. That is, it comprises a balance of all of the properties and sensitivities to be found in us. However, this state of the body does not simply exist, it requires maintenance. In Egyptian symbols, the Ka is dependent on a supply of the same "nourishment" as the living, physical body. That is not to say that the Egyptian beliefs are to be interpreted as a need of the Ka for chemical nourishment, although this has been the literal interpretation of the ritual inclusion of food and many other objects of everyday life in their tombs. The intention of such ceremonies seems to be symbolic recognition of the level of being that is our essential nature as an individual presence, and is dependent on the impressions or qualities that we are able to receive from our relationships to our environment, both external and internal.

Figure 23. Khnum seated on the right modeling the Pharaoh’s spirit on the potter’s wheel in the form of his Ka and Ba represented as two standing figures. The Ba is represented by the figure holding a bird in his hand. Both representations of the Ph… — Figure 23. Khnum seated on the right modeling the Pharaoh’s spirit on the potter’s wheel in the form of his Ka and Ba represented as two standing figures. The Ba is represented by the figure holding a bird in his hand. Both representations of the Pharaoh have hairstyles that are indicative of a young juvenile individual[29].

The well-being of the Ka depends upon a nourishment that seems to take place through a form of self-awareness. That is, nourishment does not take place except when in the present moment we can have an impression of ourselves that we earlier called self-remembering. This is emphasized in the Egyptian symbolism by the idea that it is the Ka of the individual that meets the Ka of the god Osiris in the moments after the weighing of the heart. In this act, the “dead” person is also called Osiris and shares in his nature. Hence, in the literature of Ancient Egypt there are continual reminders that this aspect of existence depends on a special awareness of ourselves that is in accordance with the essential and special nature of the re-membered Osiris. There can be no confusion here between popular conceptions of a ghost-like continuance of a kind of ethereal personality, and the actuality of a sense of my own living presence, a life that exists in the rare moments when "I am", Being in the eternal NOW.

Whereas the Ka appears to have a creation in a moment, it does seem to have a period of time external to the physical bodies where it is encouraged to move on, away from the physical body, up into the stars to join and be one with other surviving Kas. The Egyptians attributed special sensitive powers to the group of Kas that is referred to as “The Kas of the Ancestors.” They seem to be perceived in our world at the time in the morning just before the actual appearance in the sky of the disc of the sun. Similarly, this special place in the world of the neters, appears again at sunset, just after the disc has set, but the sky still shows the complexes of shades and colourations that characterize the brief appearance of this higher world in ours at this remarkable daily time of transition. It is through the moods or attitudes that can be felt to be engendered in us as individuals or as groups, that at these times we may be led to perceive particularly clearly the larger dimensions of being that can arise in our consciousness. This was especially known by the Ancient Egyptians who lived in a climate where, in particular seasons, weather conditions always allowed the sun to be observed arising above the horizon at morning.

The Spirit – The Ba, the Khaibit and the Akh

At the third general level of man's possible existence, the Egyptians recognized two or perhaps three bodies that are completely independent of the physical body: the Ba, the Khaibit and the Akh. These bodies seem to be the only ones that can survive permanently beyond the death of the physical body, and come to exist in the realm of the gods/neters, while still having possible relationships with whatever else exists of the remnants of our natures. This is the basis on which we ventured the general name, "spirit".

The best known and defined of the bodies at this level is called the Ba. Brind Morrow translates this as “soul”[30]. It has the mobility of the Ka, but is not restricted in the forms it takes, and is most often represented in the vignettes of the Book of Coming Forth by Day in the form of a small bird with a human head (Figure 22 and Figure 24). The Ba is distinctly different from the Ka in the fact that it is no longer dependent on nourishment from levels "below" it in the spiritual hierarchy. The Ba depends only on nourishment from the level of the neters and "eats" the same foods as nourishes the gods. With the Ba we encounter the first elements of human existence that can have eternal life, all the previously recognized forms being limited by mortality: that is, they exist in the lower dimensionality of ordinary time.

Figure 24. The Sacred Ba Bird, hovering over the Mummy of a dead Pharaoh (Papyrus of Ani, British Museum).

In alchemical language a primary function of the soul is to form a bridge between body and spirit. The spirit is regarded as a phenomenon that "descended" from heaven into the life of us as individuals on earth. It seems appropriate to call the Ba the lowest representative of this spiritual level of being in us, simply from this apparent relationship to the Being. That is, the Ba partakes of our individual nature and yet transcends it. If we could call the part of us that transcends the purely personal and yet is most sensitive to the highest qualities of individual humankind, our specific “Consciousness”, perhaps we could say that the Ba in us represents an “Objective Conscience”. This places the idea of the creative irrational into the spiritual perspective.

There is another noun, Khaibit, used rarely in the Book of Coming Forth by Day, but which, when it appears, is used virtually as a synonym for the word Ba. According to Budge[31], it is used more commonly in the Pyramid Texts, although it is not separately identified by Allen[32]. On the walls of the Pyramid of Unas, it still appears as a body virtually inseparable from the Ba, or at least one that dwells very close to it. Some Egyptologists accord it separate status, and in translation, give it the name, "shadow," apparently in the belief that it has the same qualities as a "spirit" of that name mentioned in mystical Greek and Roman writings. The shadow has also found its way into modern psychology in the works of Jung. We have no basis here for clearly distinguishing it from the Ba, but at the least it appears as a go-between of the Ba and the higher body that is called the Khu , the Akhu, or simply the Akh. Perhaps the Ba casts a "shadow" when it appears in the spiritual light that pervades and emanates from the realm of the Akh.

The final, truly eternal part of human existence is known as the Akh. It is first represented in the hieroglyphic carvings of the Pyramid Texts (Figure 25) and can be found throughout the later history of Egyptian writings (Figure 26). It is literally the "shining" or translucent one. It seems to lend itself more readily to the term "spirit", and is often translated as the "intelligence," in the sense that it is the "light" of an exalted state of independence and initiative in the universe of the bodies. The texts show this part as having its normal dwelling place in the “heaven” of the neters. The objective of the Akh of being human is to wend its way back into that central realm where it can dwell with the Akhs of the gods. This imagery is very similar to that of Philo and Plotinus that we present later in Chapter 11.

Figure 25. Akhs carved into the walls of the pyramid of Unas[33].

Figure 26. The Sacred Akh Bird, as represented by the Crested Ibis[34]. — Figure 26. The Sacred *Akh* Bird, as represented by the Crested Ibis[34].

In the Pyramid Text version on the Pyramid walls of the Pharaoh Teti, is written:

"Horus has loved you and provided you;

Horus has painted his eye on you.

Horus has parted your eye, that you might see with it . . .

Horus has found you and has become Akh through you.

Horus has elevated the gods to you;

He has given them to you that they might brighten your face.

Horus has put you in front of the gods;

He has made you acquire all that is yours.[35]”

Here we have an indirect reference to the battle between Horus and Seth. It deals with the reconstituted capacities following Osiris’ dismemberment and death. It is dealing with the spiritual level. The reference to the eye is thus a double reminder that in the place of dwelling of the Akh we are addressing the Teti's highest potential power as a whole, remembered being. If we can understand the Ba as an aspect of higher being corresponding to Objective Conscience, it would seem appropriate to name the Akh correspondingly as an “Objective Consciousness”.

In summary of the extreme of the levels of human bodies there is a critical statement carved into the walls of the Pyramid of Unas:

“Akh, to the sky! Corpse, to the earth![36]”

Or as Brind Morrow translates:

“The serpent goes to the sky. The centipede falcon under the shoe.[37]”

There are natural venues for our bodies. While the Christian idea of “from dust to dust” is appropriate for our corpse, the Akh is appropriately assigned to the sky above.

The Great Sun God Ra

The highest of all creative irrational conceptions of what might represent the full spiritual development of the potential of being alive is represented as the ultimate Egyptian God Ra (Figure 27). This represents the force that created everything. It is associated with the Sun, particularly at dawn and dusk. Ra knows many forms and can be seen sharing his nature with aspects of other gods when he takes the names Ra-Harakhty, Amon-Ra, Sebek-Ra, and Khnum-Ra.

Figure 27. The Ancient Egyptian sun god in the form of Ra-Herakti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra. — Figure 27. The Ancient Egyptian sun god in the form of *Ra-Herakti* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra.

Ra is closely associated with the Pharaoh. In a recitation from Pyramid Texts from the Pyramid of Pepi II we see that the tradition captures in the writing is guiding the Pharaoh to become more than his highest level of Akh:

"This Pepi Neferkare has gone forth to the sky and Pepi Neferkare has found the Sun waiting to meet him.

Pepi Neferkare will sit on (his) shoulders, and he will not set Pepi Neferkare down, knowing that Pepi Neferkare is his eldest son.

This Pepi Neferkare is elder to every god: Pepi Neferkare is in fact more Akh than the Akhs, Pepi Neferkare is more skilled than the skilled; this Pepi Neferkare is more lasting than the lasting.[38]"

It is obvious that the initiate Pharaoh is reaching a level beyond the Akh. The initiate is becoming the peak of the Egyptian concept of Being - Ra.

In the Pyramid Texts of Unas the initiate Pharaoh becomes so powerful that he feeds on the other gods:

“Unas is the sky’s bull, with terrorizing in his heart, who lives on the evolution of every god, who eats their bowels when they have come from the Isle of Flame with their belly filled with magic.[39]”

or as Brind Morrow translates it:

“Unas becomes the bull of Heaven.

His heart throbs as he lives in the form of every star

Feeding in their pastures as they come,

Their insides filled with spiritual power

From the encircling fire of the horizon.[40]”

The key role of the Pharaohs in their lifetime was to develop themselves, on behalf of their subjects, to be able to join with the Ra in the heavens upon their death on earth, thence to reflect back to the aid of those seeking to rise from the lower levels. We see Ra in these Ancient Egyptian writings as the realization of the whole of life’s experience of “Being”. The struggle to find the level of Ra in us is the goal of our real existence in life. The extensive instructions carved into the surfaces of the oldest of the pyramids as the Pyramid Texts guiding the initiate through the challenges of the Duat to reach his position in Ra points to how vital it was that the work and journey be successfully carried out. We see this as the oldest representation of what we develop here as our spiritual – the Being of Ra.

The Creative Irrational In The Bodies of a Human

The observation that the Ancient Egyptians were concerned about the subtleties of human existence in their writing 5000 years ago is striking. They clearly lay out their perception of the levels of humans beyond the merely physical body. At this, the beginning of human culture, the Pyramid Texts do not deal with procuring more food or producing more babies or being better prepared to resist storms. They reflect a worldview that is much beyond that associated with the simple burials that have been seen with other hominins such as Neanderthals. One measure of the importance to the Ancient Egyptians of the knowledge captured in the Pyramid Texts is the amount of effort, both planning and execution, that went into creating the first pyramids with their highly refined carvings. Their creation is evidence of the exceptionally high value the culture placed on capturing and preserving these ideas. The ideas recorded inside the pyramids were essential to the Ancient Egyptian culture for the thousands of years that the culture persisted. The urgings in the Pyramid Texts for the initiate to reach higher levels of being can be seen as representing the all-important aspects of the spiritual in human existence. What they took such great pains to express was truly the result of the creative irrational.

Understanding that we are composed of more than one type of body is a challenge. But we can learn to experience various levels of existence, awareness or Being. These levels range from the lower levels, where we begin to pay attention to our ordinary states of consciousness that some traditions refer to as “waking sleep” in our everyday body, mind and emotions. We see them portrayed in the Ancient Egyptian writing where they recognized that there are different levels of perception in life that were seen as differences in the qualities of what can be opened to us. Critically they were dealing with esoteric aspects of human life where we now recognize that we especially require that we attend to this ability to give rise to and maintain a sense of ourselves. Knowledge of both the struggle and what it is we seek is instrumental in assisting us to return to the question of what is essential to our human nature: something we need to identify in relation to what can be seen about our Being. Their teachings help us recognize our own needs for a considerable knowledge of our developmental level. In these Ancient Egyptian works we are offered models through which can personally explore our own possibilities.

———————————- Chapter 6 The Greek Expression of the Creative Irrational ———————————

———————- Table of Contents ——————————

[1] Dickie, L.M. and P.R. Boudreau. 2015. Awakening Higher Consciousness – Guidance from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Inner Traditions. Vermont.

[2] Naydler, J. 2004. Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt. Inner Traditions.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Egyptian_pyramids

[4] Dickie, L.M. and P.R. Boudreau. 2015. Awakening Higher Consciousness – Guidance from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Inner Traditions. Vermont.

[5] Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. Page 108.

[6] Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. Page 19.

[7] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. P. 165

[8] http://www.pyramidtextsonline.com/Sarcnorth2RH.htm

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts

[10] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. 289 pp.

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Unas

[12] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar Straus and Giroux. New York, 239 pp.

[13] Naydler, J. 2005. Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts. Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vt.

[14] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. P. 53.

[15] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York.

[16] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. p. 98.

[17] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York.

[18] Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. p. 31.

[19] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. p. 145.

[20] The early translators translated the Egyptian letters “ntr” into the more familiar word “gods”. Throughout this book we stick to the original word Egyptian word “neter” except the higher deities of Ra, Atum, Osiris and Horus.

[21] Dickie, L.M. and P.R. Boudreau. 2015. Awakening Higher Consciousness: Guidance from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Inner Traditions.

[22] VandenBroeck, A. 1987. Al-Kemi, Hermetic, Occult, Political and Private aspects of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz. Inner Traditions/Lindesfarne Press, distributed by Harper and Rowe, Inc.

[23] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar Straus and Giroux. New York, 239 pp.

[24] Schwaller de Lubicz, R.A. 1998. The Temple of Man: Apet of the South at Luxor. (Two Volumes) Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont. 1048 pp.

[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi

[26] Dickie, L.M. and P. R. Boudreau. 2015. Awakening Higher Consciousness: Guidance from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Inner Traditions. Rochester. Vermont.

[27] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar Straus and Giroux. New York, p. 38.

[28] Dickie, L.M. and P.R. Boudreau. 2015. Awakening Higher Consciousness: Guidance from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Inner Traditions. Vermont.

[29] http://www.secretoftheankh.com/?p=157

[30] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar Straus and Giroux. New York, p. 27.

[31] Budge, E.A.W. 1967. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. (The Papyrus of Ani) Dover Publications Inc. New York.

[32] Allen, J.P. 2000. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge University Press, London and New York.

[33] http://www.pyramidtextsonline.com/images/AnteeastGH.jpg

[34] http://www.egyptianmyths.net/akh.htm

[35] Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. Page 80.

[36] Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. p. 57.

[37] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. p. 134.

[38]Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. p. 273.

[39] Allen, J.P. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. Atlanta. p.101

[40] Brind Morrow, S. 2015. The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. p. 125.

Chapter 5: The Egyptian Bodies of a Human