53 
their performance of ceremonial rites on earth and the heavenly 
guidance of Horus and Thoth in the regions of Hades. 
Immediately upon systemic death taking place, certain 
solemn words were whispered into the ears of the corpse, words 
which were of so holy a nature that they were only indicated 
on the funereal papyri, and of which the rubric declares, “ no 
men have spoken, no eye has perceived it, no ear has heard it, 
not any one other face has looked in it to learn it. It is a true 
secret; when it is known all the providers in all places supply 
the dead spirits in Hades. Food is given to his soul upon earth ; 
he is made to live for ever ; nothing prevails against him.”* 
In fact, as it has been well shown by Dr. Birch, iu his preface 
to th e Ritual of the Dead, the deceased was supposed to continue 
to live after death, or, as the texts express it, “ did not die again 
in Hades.”f The first death of the soul was its birth into the 
world in the human form, it being in its nature a pre-existent 
entity ; and in this its birth in the world it was considered as 
the “ egg of the great cackler,” or the goose-god Seb, or Saturn. 
The mortal man, indeed, was not a mere union of soul and 
body, for at least five distinct principles were necessary to com- 
plete the man. These principles were — Ba, the soul proper; 
Akh, or Kliu, the intelligence ; Ka, the existence ; Khaba, the 
shade ; Kha, the physical body ; and Sah, the mummy ; and 
these could only be perfect so long as the heart, which was 
considered as the chief organ of life and sense, was unconsumed ; 
and therefore there were a variety of prayers recited, and 
amulets employed, to protect that the most vital part of the 
deceased. J Hence the peculiar disks of painted linen, or thin 
copper, called Ilypocephali, were applied to the top of the head 
of the mummy in order to preserve the vital principle ; and these 
disks were supposed to represent the pupils of the vivific eyes of 
Horus Ra, whereby, as I have already stated, man was created. 
The soul of the deceased was, it is true, in itself an 
eternal essence, but it was not apparently an eternal indivi- 
duality ; a refinement and a distinction lost sight of by certain 
heretical theorists, who contended for the pre-existence of the 
human soul, a doctrine which they evidently derived from this 
feature of the Horus myth. 
While the body swathed, embalmed, and rendered sacro- 
* Ritual, cap. cxlviii. “ The book of instructing the Spirit, the delight of 
the Sun, who prevails as Turn, who is rendered great as Osiris, who is made 
powerful like him who dwells in the West, who is terrible like the gods.” 
f Bunsen’s Egypt, vol. v. p. 134. 
X Chiefly caps. xxvi. to xxx. The preservation of the body in Hades. 
