The mystery of the Great pyramid : traditions concerning it and its connection with the Egyptian Book of the dead : with numerous illustrations

MYSTERY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID

still more ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, with its Ritual of Initiation.t

That the Book of the Dead was simply the ritual of a secret brotherhood is one of the suggestions that have been advanced for its origin, the various halls mentioned in it representing the different stages of initiation through which its members had to pass. We find the same idea in other ancient races as, for example, the Mayas of Central America, who had their Book of the Dead in the Popul Vuh, and Mr. Athol Joyce in his Mexican Archeology says that the court of the Maya Hades, as given in the Popul Vuh, “seems to have been conducted on the principle of a secret society with a definite form of initiation.”

“If the Book of the Dead did not contain an early type of initiatory ceremonial, it may have powerfully influenced the ceremonial of mysteries when they arose. The mysteries of the Cabiri, for example, are supposed to be of Egyptian origin. On the other hand, it may be possible that the Book of the Dead represents the ceremonial of an older prehistoric mystery, which had been forgotten by the dynastic Egyptians. Savage races all over the world possess such mysteries . . . and it is quite possible that the Book of the Dead may preserve the ritual of Neolithic savages who practised it thousands of years prior to its connection with the worship of Osiris.” *

It requires, indeed, no very close study of this remarkable

1 ‘That the Book of the Dead was definitely connected with the Egyptian Mysteries and formed a ritual of initiation thereto seems plainly inferred from the closing words of the Rubric to chapter exxxvil (Papyrus of Nu): ‘‘ These things shall be done secretly in the underworld ; they are the mysteries of the underworld, and they are a type of the mysteries of Neter-Khert ” (i.e/ the ‘ divine lower region”, one of the names of the Egyptian underw

* Quoted from Myths of Ancient Egypt (Harrap), by Lewis Spence, pp. 121-2.