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THE study of Magic, which has now fallen into disrepute, was, among the Egyptians, regarded with a veneration hardly accorded to the highest Philosophy in modern times.
To the Ancient Egyptians the most eminent man was he who had by hard training gained supremacy over the Elements, from which his own body and the Manifested World were alike formed; one whose Will had risen Phoenix-like from the ashes of his desires; one whose intuition, cleansed from the stains of material illusion, .was a clear mirror in which he could perceive the Past, the Present and the Future. The Kings and Priests of Egypt were the elect of those who had studied with success in the ”School of Wisdom,” a Philosophical Aristocracy; they were chosen because they were not only wise, but could use their wisdom. They could give strength to the armies of the nation and they had the means of transmitting their power; for the Staff of the” King-Initiate” held so strong a magical potency, that, with it in his hand, the leader of armies became as mighty as Pharaoh himself.
The King-Priests gave forth an exoteric religion to the people, by which to guide their footsteps until they had reached that stage of development (it may have been only after repeated failures, incarnation after incarnation), when they also might join the ranks of the initiated: yet it appears extremely probable that the whole Egyptian population was allowed a certain participation in the Mysteries; for the tests of a candidate before Initiation were of such a nature that none but human beings developed to a considerable degree of perfection could hope to stand them.
There is every reason to suppose that only those who had received some grade of initiation were mummified; for it is certain that, in the eyes of the Egyptians, mummification effectually prevented reincarnation. Reincarnation was necessary to imperfect souls, to those who had failed to pass the tests of initiation; but for those who had the Will and the capacity to enter the Secret Adytum, there was seldom necessity for that liberation of the soul which is said to be effected by the destruction of the body. The body of the Initiate was therefore preserved after death as a species of Talisman or material basis for the manifestation of the Soul upon earth.
In studying Egyptian Magic one has at once a thoroughly scientific satisfaction. One is troubled with no vague theories, but receives precise practical details; we observe that every square inch of the Upper and Under Worlds is mapped out. The strength that such a system inherently contains was proved by the long duration of the archaic Egyptian civilization.
The first principles of Egyptian Magic were based on an elaborate system of correspondences depending on the formula that, the evolution of what is material follows the type and symbol of the emanation of the spiritual; that spirit and matter are opposite faces of the selfsame mystery. The Egyptian Adepts regarded the conceptions of the mind, the aspirations of the soul, the words of the mouth and the functions of the body, as possessing analogies from which a complete system of rules of life and death could be constructed. Moreover they looked upon each body, or manifested being, as the material basis of a long vista of immaterial entities functioning as Spirit, Soul and Mind in the Formative, Creative and Archetypal Worlds.
* See Westcott on Kabalah, in Lucifer, May, 1893, p. 2°4. and Tyndall, Belfast Address.
Included in this volume is a list of standard works upon the subject of "Egyptian Beliefs," for the use of those who have not studied the modern theories on the subject; so there is no need to enter here into details which can easily be found elsewhere. I shall therefore at once state the ideas which my study of ancient lore has led me to formulate, without waiting to quote the hypotheses set forth by our leading Egyptologists.
In the first place we have hitherto written of man as composed of soul and body; but the Initiated Egyptians regarded themselves as being far from simply soul and body. They gave names to several human faculties, and postulated for each a possibility of separate existence.
The KHAT, KAT, or Body, was only a vehicle or material basis for the operations of the Ego upon this plane of human earth life. In considering the Egyptian philosophy of the Life Cycle, let us start from the beginning; according to the obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut, a human HAMMEMIT or Primal Entity circled round the sun for a period of One Hundred and Twenty Years before incarnation. During this period certain cosmic and elemental forces would be lil10re powerful than others; these environing the Primal Entity would give it a certain characteristic bias, and guide it in the choice of the means and moment of incar nation. . In the meantime the reflections of the higher elemental forces affecting the Primal Entity would be at work in the material world. These reflections would .bias the human parents in like manner. When the natal epoch arrived the Great Mother-Force, symbolized by the vulture holding the Seal, imprinted upon the Primal Entity the symbols dominant at the selected moment; and this is the rationale of the Astrological horoscope.
The human mother had in the meantime become the centre of elemental forces that formulated an illusive attraction around her. This is the formulation of the SAHU, or the Astral body of the future human being, under the magic of the natural elemental forces. For the plainest woman, for a time, becomes beautiful in the eyes of her lover. No sooner, however, is the co-operation of the parent forces accomplished than the SAHU hastily attaches itself to the vitalized germ and remains with it as an invisible pattern towards which solid matter gravitating forms the material body. This operation of the Sahu accounts for the vision which some clairvoyants have perceived in regard to the Vegetable Kingdom, of an astral plant-form attached to seeds or grains before they are sown in the ground.
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