Egyptians firmly believed in immortality of the soul and its reincarnation. The "Soul" or the Ego of the defunct is said to be living in Eternity. The soul is said to join the living on earth by day and return to Tiaou (the realm of the cause of life) by night, in the Book of the Dead. This expresses the periodical existence of the immortal Ego. Egyptians believed that the soul of the mummified defunct remained attached to the body by a magnetic thread which could be broken by its own exertion. They placed an ever-burning lamp in the tomb—the symbol of incorruptible and immortal spirit, to help the soul to leave its body and unite forever with its Divine SELF.
In Kircher's Oedipus Egyptiacus (vol. iii., p. 124) one can see, on the papyrus engraved in it, an egg floating above the mummy. This is the symbol of hope and the promise of a second birth for the Osirified dead; his Soul, after due purification in the Amenti, will gestate in this egg of immortality, to be reborn from it into a new life on earth. For this egg, in the esoteric Doctrine, is the Devachan, the abode of Bliss; the winged scarabæus being alike a symbol of it.
The Spirit of Life and Immortality was everywhere symbolized by a circle...the globe, with two wings added to it, which then became the sacred Scarabæus of the Egyptians, its very name being suggestive of the secret idea attached to it. For the Scarabæus is called in Egypt (in the papyri) Khopirron and Khopri from the verb Khopron "to become," and has thus been made a symbol and an emblem of human life and of the successive becomings of man, through the various peregrinations and metempsychoses (reincarnations) of the liberated Soul. (S.D., II, 552)
In the after-death state of man, Osiris plays a significant role as the Judge of the defunct in the region of Amenti. It reminds us of the Hindu doctrine of Yama (Dharmaraja) judging the man on the basis of the record of the actions of the dead man read out by Chitragupta. Man is responsible for his actions and is answerable to God. A complete record of all his actions is maintained by the record-keepers of the god, known also as Lipikas. As already seen, Osiris was killed by his brother Typhon (also called Seth) and dismembered. He was brought back to life by Isis—his wife and sister (Mulaprakriti). Death and resurrection of Osiris thus became a model for every human being. The mummy became identified with the body of the god, and the dead person became an Osiris. Osiris having died and risen became the god and judge of the dead and ruled over the underworld.
The "soul" under trial is brought before Osiris, the "Lord of Truth," who sits decorated with the Egyptian cross, emblem of eternal life, and holding in his right hand the Vannus or the flagellum of justice. The spirit begins, in the "Hall of the Two Truths," an earnest appeal, and enumerates its good deeds, supported by the responses of the forty-two assessors—its incarnated deeds and accusers. If justified, it is addressed as Osiris, thus assuming the appellation of the Deity whence its divine essence proceeded, and the following words, full of majesty and justice, are pronounced: "Let the Osiris go; ye see he is without fault....He lived on truth, he has fed on truth....The god has welcomed him as he desired. He has given food to my hungry, drink to my thirsty ones, clothes to my naked....He has made the sacred food of the gods the meat of the spirits." (Isis Unveiled, II, 548)
The Hindu Chitra-Gupta who reads out the account of every Soul's life from his register, called Agra-Sandhani; the "Assessors" who read theirs from the heart of the defunct, which becomes an open book before (whether) Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma—are all so many copies of, and variants from the Lipika, and their Astral Records. Nevertheless, the Lipika are not deities connected with Death, but with Life Eternal. (S.D., I, 105)
Esoterically, Amenti is said to be the dwelling of the God Amen, or Amoun. It is also a place of purification. Exoterically, it is the kingdom of Osiris divided into fourteen parts, each of which was set aside for some purpose connected with the after-death of the defunct. These divisions included the Hall of judgment and celestial field—Aanroo. The field of Aanroo is said to be covered with wheat, and the "Defunct" are represented as gleaning it, the food of divine justice—their reward or punishment, for the "Master of Eternity"; some stalks being three, others five, and the highest seven cubits high.
Regarding the mystery of mummification, not much is known. According to one view, the dead body was considered to be an earthly home for the soul and, therefore, had to be preserved. The inevitable decay of the bodies was therefore recognized as a disaster that would, if uncorrected, prevent the deceased from achieving eternal life. As a result, the whole art and science of mortuary was perfected through experimentation over generations and its secret was passed from father to son.
It is not known what was the real origin of making mummies, as the examples we have belong to very recent periods of the Egyptians, who must have existed many thousands of years before the times we can know of their history. It has been suggested very justly that the practice began with their Adept kings for reasons of their own, and that it came to be imitated afterwards. If this is so, then it would be natural for the kings to permit it among the people so as to create a greater security for their own mummies, for if there be mummies for all, no one will bother to look for any particular mummy for some special reason, whereas if only kings were known to be mummified, then later people might want to exhume and inspect them, for the early kings were thought by the people to be Adepts, as is evident from the records. But on all this we are as yet but making assumptions. (Forum Answers, pp. 93-94)
It was believed that mummification accompanied by the rituals and ceremonies performed by the priests, purified and restored the deceased, giving a reason for joy among the relatives who then feasted with the mummified deceased before it was finally entombed. It was also believed that in order to enter its second life, the body has to be reunited with the spiritual elements, which had previously animated it. The body had to be preserved for resurrection. This brings to our mind the teaching of Theosophy that the human soul acquires immortality by uniting itself with its higher self. Giving us the inner significance, Mr. G. Massey connects the Greek Christos with the Egyptian Karest, the "mummy type of immortality," and proves it very thoroughly.
The mummy-image was the preserved one, the saved, therefore a portrait of the Saviour, as a type of immortality. This was the figure of a dead man, which, as Plutarch and Herodotus tell us, was carried round at an Egyptian banquet when the guests were invited to look on it and eat and drink and be happy, because, when they died, they would become what the image symbolised—that is, they also would be immortal! This type of immortality was called the Karest, or Karust, and it was the Egyptian Christ. To Kares means to embalm, anoint, to make the Mummy as a type of the eternal; and, when made, it was called the Karest; so that this is not merely a matter of name for name, the Karest for the Christ.
This image of the Karest was bound up in a woof without a seam, the proper vesture of the Christ! No matter what the length of the bandage might be, and some of the mummy-swathes have been unwound that were 1,000 yards in length, the woof was from beginning to end without a seam....Now, this seamless robe of the Egyptian Karest is a very tell-tale type of the mystical Christ, who becomes historic in the Gospels as the wearer of a coat or chiton, made without a seam, which neither the Greek nor the Hebrew fully explains, but which is explained by the Egyptian Ketu for the woof, and by the seamless robe or swathing without seam that was made for eternal wear and worn by the Mummy-Christ, the image of immortality in the tombs of Egypt.
In the Gospels Jesus rises again with every member sound, like the perfectly-preserved Karest, to demonstrate the physical resurrection of the mummy. But, in the Egyptian original, the mummy transforms. The deceased says: "I am spiritualised. I am become a soul. I rise as a God." (The Esoteric Character of the Gospels)
At the end of it all, a sad thought troubles our mind, though. Is this to be the fate of all great civilizations? Are all mighty nations but counting their days to reach their doomsday? Where have those great people of Egypt disappeared? Mr. Judge points out that they have not. The egos of the great Egyptian people have long since reincarnated on the European and American continents to carry on their evolutionary progress.
The Egyptian souls who helped in planning the pyramid of Gizeh, who took part in the Egyptian government, theology, science, and civilization, departed from their old race; that race died out and the former Egyptians took up their work in the oncoming races of the West, especially in those which are now repeopling the American continents. (The Ocean of Theosophy, p. 18)
Great civilizations like Egypt and Babylon have gone because the souls who made them have long ago reincarnated in the great conquering nations of Europe and the present American continents. As nations and races they have been totally reincarnated and born again for greater and higher purposes than ever. (The Ocean of Theosophy, p. 91)
(Concluded)
A Theosophist [is] one who seeks after divine wisdom—i.e., the comprehension of the ultimate causes of force, correlation, and psychic development, the method of solving all life's riddles. Persons of this temperament cannot be bigots; they chafe under the sectarian yoke, and their hearts warm with sympathy for all who suffer, who groan under social burdens resulting from ignorance, for all of any race, creed, or colour, who aspire after knowledge. These men are true Theosophists, the brothers of humanity, and, in their complete development, the spiritual exemplars, guides, teachers, benefactors, of our race.
—H. P. Blavatsky