Part V
The mystery rituals did dramatize the life of an underworld but the gods, and kings of this nether realm, were not subterranean deities. The gnomes and other nature spirits were the only "deities" that were believed to subsist beneath the surface of the physical earth. The gods of the underworld were always the gods of the dead. And as the souls of deceased mortals were in all religions asserted to ascent to heaven and never to remain in the burial ground with the corpse, it was again impossible to place the underworld down with the gnomes. But it seems next to incredible that the academic diligence should have missed the plain correlation which would have made the descent of spirit from heaven equate the descent of all divine heroes and sun-gods into the dark underworld of earth.
From the great Kemetic ritual, which so cryptically allegorized this earthly death, we learn that the mystery of the Sphinx originated with the conception of the earth as the place of passage, of burial and rebirth, for the humanized deities. An ancient Kemetic name for the Sphinx was Aker. This was also the name for the tunnel through the underworld. And it is said that the very bones of the deities quake as the stars go on their triumphant courses through the tunnels of Aker. As the stars were the descending deities, the metaphor of stars passing through the underworld tunnels is entirely clear in its implication. The riddle of the Sphinx is but the riddle of mankind on this earth. The terms of the riddle at least become clearly defined if we know that the mystery pertains to this our mortal life, above ground, and not to our existence in some unlocalized underworld of theological fiction.
The entrance to Amenta, with its twelved dungeons, consisted of a blind doorway which neither Manes nor mortal knew the secret of and none but the god could open. Hence the need of a deity who should come to unlock the portals and unbar the gates of hell, and be "the door" and "the way." The god came not only to unlock the door of divinity to human nature, but to be himself that door. The giving of the keys to bolt and unbolt the doors of the underworld was but the allegory of this evolutionary reinforcement of the human by the divine nature.
Descriptions of this dark realm of our present state are given in the texts. "It is a land without an exit, through which no passage has been made, from whose visitants, the dead, the light was shut out." "The light they beheld not; in darkness they dwell."
The first chapter of the Per Em Hra (Book of the Dead) was repeated in the mystery festivals on the day when Ausar was buried. His entrance into the underworld as a Manes corresponds to that of Ausar the corpse in Amenta, who represents the god rendered lifeless by his suffocation in the body of matter. The dead Ausar is said to enter the place of his burial called the Kasu. In this low domain of the dead there was nought but darkness; the upper light had been to shut out. But Heru, Ptah, Anpu, Ra and others of the savior gods would come in due time to awaken the sleepers "in their sepulchres," open the gates and guide the souls out into the light of the upper regions once more. One of the sayings of the soul contemplating its plight in the underworld is: "I do not rot. I do not putrefy. I do not turn to worms. My flesh is firm; it shall not be destroyed; it shall not perish in the earth forever." Inasmuch as the flesh of the physical body most certainly will perish, rot, putrefy, and turn to food for worms in the only grave that Christian theology has been able to tell us of the term "flesh" in the excerpt can not be taken as that of the human body. And that is not to be so taken is obvious from other passages. It refers to the substance of another body which does not rot away.
The same sense may distinctly be caught in the term "body" as used in the prayer uttered by the soul in the body when it says: "May my body neither perish nor suffer corruption forever." Such a prayer directed to the physical body would be obviously irrelevant, expecting the impossible. Heru, on his way to earth to ransom the captives, says: "I pilot myself towards the darkness and the sufferings of the deceased ones of Ausar."
The wilderness of the nether earth, being a land of graves, where the dead awaited the coming of Heru, Shu, Apuat...as servants of Ra, the Supreme one god, to wake them in their coffins and lead them forth from the land of darkness to the land of day.
The mystery rituals did dramatize the life of an underworld but the gods, and kings of this nether realm, were not subterranean deities. The gnomes and other nature spirits were the only "deities" that were believed to subsist beneath the surface of the physical earth. The gods of the underworld were always the gods of the dead. And as the souls of deceased mortals were in all religions asserted to ascent to heaven and never to remain in the burial ground with the corpse, it was again impossible to place the underworld down with the gnomes. But it seems next to incredible that the academic diligence should have missed the plain correlation which would have made the descent of spirit from heaven equate the descent of all divine heroes and sun-gods into the dark underworld of earth.
From the great Kemetic ritual, which so cryptically allegorized this earthly death, we learn that the mystery of the Sphinx originated with the conception of the earth as the place of passage, of burial and rebirth, for the humanized deities. An ancient Kemetic name for the Sphinx was Aker. This was also the name for the tunnel through the underworld. And it is said that the very bones of the deities quake as the stars go on their triumphant courses through the tunnels of Aker. As the stars were the descending deities, the metaphor of stars passing through the underworld tunnels is entirely clear in its implication. The riddle of the Sphinx is but the riddle of mankind on this earth. The terms of the riddle at least become clearly defined if we know that the mystery pertains to this our mortal life, above ground, and not to our existence in some unlocalized underworld of theological fiction.
The entrance to Amenta, with its twelved dungeons, consisted of a blind doorway which neither Manes nor mortal knew the secret of and none but the god could open. Hence the need of a deity who should come to unlock the portals and unbar the gates of hell, and be "the door" and "the way." The god came not only to unlock the door of divinity to human nature, but to be himself that door. The giving of the keys to bolt and unbolt the doors of the underworld was but the allegory of this evolutionary reinforcement of the human by the divine nature.
Descriptions of this dark realm of our present state are given in the texts. "It is a land without an exit, through which no passage has been made, from whose visitants, the dead, the light was shut out." "The light they beheld not; in darkness they dwell."
The first chapter of the Per Em Hra (Book of the Dead) was repeated in the mystery festivals on the day when Ausar was buried. His entrance into the underworld as a Manes corresponds to that of Ausar the corpse in Amenta, who represents the god rendered lifeless by his suffocation in the body of matter. The dead Ausar is said to enter the place of his burial called the Kasu. In this low domain of the dead there was nought but darkness; the upper light had been to shut out. But Heru, Ptah, Anpu, Ra and others of the savior gods would come in due time to awaken the sleepers "in their sepulchres," open the gates and guide the souls out into the light of the upper regions once more. One of the sayings of the soul contemplating its plight in the underworld is: "I do not rot. I do not putrefy. I do not turn to worms. My flesh is firm; it shall not be destroyed; it shall not perish in the earth forever." Inasmuch as the flesh of the physical body most certainly will perish, rot, putrefy, and turn to food for worms in the only grave that Christian theology has been able to tell us of the term "flesh" in the excerpt can not be taken as that of the human body. And that is not to be so taken is obvious from other passages. It refers to the substance of another body which does not rot away.
The same sense may distinctly be caught in the term "body" as used in the prayer uttered by the soul in the body when it says: "May my body neither perish nor suffer corruption forever." Such a prayer directed to the physical body would be obviously irrelevant, expecting the impossible. Heru, on his way to earth to ransom the captives, says: "I pilot myself towards the darkness and the sufferings of the deceased ones of Ausar."
The wilderness of the nether earth, being a land of graves, where the dead awaited the coming of Heru, Shu, Apuat...as servants of Ra, the Supreme one god, to wake them in their coffins and lead them forth from the land of darkness to the land of day.