Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt »

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.

Jeremy Naydler's radical reinterpretation of the Pyramid Texts--the earliest body of religious literature from ancient Egypt--now places these documents into the ritual context in which they belong. It is the shamanic spiritual tradition, argues Naydler, that is the undercurrent of the Pyramid Texts and holds the key to ancient Egyptian mysticism.

Rosicrucian Digest

“An invaluable contribution to the dialogue about the mysteries of ancient Egypt.”

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