Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts

Jeremy Naydler, Ph.D., is a philosopher who specializes in the religious life of ancient cultures. He is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy and author of Temple of the Cosmos, Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts, The Future of the Ancient World, and Goethe on Science. He lives in Oxford, England.

EGYPT / MYSTICISM "Erudite, rigorously developed, impeccably supported, observing all scholarly ground rules, yet revolutionary in its implications. This book should engage serious readers the world over." --John Anthony West, author of The Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt "A splendid melding of fine scholarship and passionate engagement with themes that are vitally important to us today. It is must reading not only for lovers of Egypt, students of shamanism and religion, and modern practitioners of soul travel, but for all of us who hunger for the real history of humanity's encounters with the more-than-human." --Robert Moss, author of Dreamgates: An Explorer's Guide to the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death "A fabulously convincing piece of work." --Normandi Ellis, author of Awakening Osiris To the Greek philosophers and other peoples of the ancient world, Egypt was regarded as the home of a profound mystical wisdom. While there are many today who still share that view, the consensus of most Egyptologists is that there is no evidence that a mystical tradition existed in ancient Egypt. This book presents the evidence by radically reinterpreting the Pyramid Texts--the earliest body of religious literature that has survived from ancient Egypt--and the ritual context to which these texts belonged. Until now, the Pyramid Texts have been viewed primarily as royal funerary texts that were used in the liturgy of the dead pharaoh or to aid him in his afterlife journey. Jeremy Naydler argues that they are mystical texts that speak of the experiences not of the dead but of the living king. Thrust into extreme psychological and existential predicaments, and undergoing perilous encounters with alternate realities, the experiences of the king are remarkably similar to those described in the literature of shamanism. Far from expressing ancient Egyptian funerary beliefs, the Pyramid Texts are revealed as initiatory texts that give voice to a potent shamanic wisdom, which provides the key to understanding both the true nature of these experiences and the basis of ancient Egyptian mysticism. JEREMY NAYDLER, Ph.D., is a philosopher who has for many years been interested in the religious life of ancient cultures, receiving his doctorate in religious studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He is the author of Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred and Goethe on Science. He lives in Oxford, England.

Preface and Acknowledgments Abbreviations Part One Mysticism in Ancient Egypt 1 Introduction: The Encounter with the Sacred Religious Egypt Mysticism and Ancient Egypt A Question of Boundaries Subjective Engagement Shamanism in Relation to Ancient Egyptian Religion The Call to Awakening 2 Egyptology: The Death and Rebirth of Mysticism in Ancient Egypt Mysticism and the Realm of Death Egyptology: Mysticism Denied The Knowledge of the Egyptians The Idea of Progress Were the Egyptians Practical Rather Than Mystical? The Rebirth of Egyptian Mysticism 3 The Mystical versus the Funerary Interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Religion A Clash of Views Mysticism and the Experience of Death The Eleusinian Mysteries and Other Mystery Religions The Funerary Interpretation of the Osiris Myth The Mystical Embrace of Osiris and Horus The Sed Festival 4 The Pyramids as the Locus of Secret Rites The Living in Relation to the Dead The Meaning of the Sed Festival The Sed Festival and the Step Pyramids Fourth Dynasty Pyramids and the Sed Festival Fifth and Sixth Dynasty Pyramids and the Sed Festival The Pyramid Texts and the Sed Festival 5 A Question of Method Phenomenology and the Ideal of Presuppositionless Inquiry On Approaching the Phenomena with Empathy The Challenge to Phenomenology Standing Reductionism on Its Head A Question of Motivation Part Two The Shamanic Roots of the Pyramid Texts 6 The Pyramid of Unas The Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Temples and Causeway of Unas The Pyramid of Unas Location of Texts The Interpretation of the Pyramid Texts 7 The Sarcophagus Chamber Texts The North-Wall Offering Liturgy The Twelve South-to-East-Wall Texts (Utts. 213–24) The Passage between the Chambers The East Gable (Utts. 204–5, 207, 209, 210–12) 8 The Antechamber Texts The West Gable (Utts. 247–53) The Fifteen West-to-South-Wall Texts (Utts. 254–58, 260–63, 267–72) The Eleven North-Wall Texts (Utts. 302–12) 9 From the Antechamber to the Entrance Corridor The East Gable (Utts. 273–76) The Snake Spells (Utts. 277–99 and Utts. 226–43) The Two Remaining East-Wall Utterances (Utts. 300–301) The Entrance Corridor (Utts. 313–21) 10 The Recovery of Ancient Egyptian Mysticism The Features of Ancient Egyptian Mysticism The Phenomenological Approach to Ancient Egyptian Religion Ancient Egypt and Western Esotericism Appendices 1 Summary of Utterances in the Pyramid of Unas 2 List of Utterances in the Five Double-Chamber Pyramids at Saqqara Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index