To me the Sixth Airt seems more like participating in the mythical avenging of Osiris by Horus defeating Set, the prelude to the resurrection when Horus retrieves the Eye lost during the battle. I
The Egyptologist Reginhild Finnestad posited that Nun and the Duat were both states of "latent being", which applies an appropriate phenomenological spin on the potentiality of Nun (and arguably the Abrahamic "waters" of Genesis). Meanwhile, Jan Assmann observed that the Nun is undifferentiated pre-existence, with creation being a function of differentiation. This makes sense given the concern that Apep would "unmake" the world through chaos, through breaking down the order and differentiation.
From this standpoint, the esoteric idea of "transcending opposites" and "dissolving boundaries" seems antithetical to the Egyptian afterlife. The journey of the afterlife is not one of losing one's individuality or ego, but a reorientation of such. However, while the "hero's journey" through the gates of the Duat has enough symbolism to apply to one's own life, all evidence points to the Egyptians viewing it as the exclusive domain of the deceased.
Your citation of Finnestad and Assmann points toward a recognized aspect of Egyptology I perhaps articulated imprecisely. When I speak of "transcending opposites," I don't mean their dissolution into undifferentiated unity, which would indeed constitute the very chaos (Apep) that Egyptian cosmology sought to prevent. Rather, I mean what might be termed more accurately as reorientation, or a sacred recalibration of perspective that recognizes the dynamic interdependence of seemingly opposed forces.
The Egyptian understanding reveals something more sophisticated than simple transcendence: it shows us how to participate consciously in the creative tension between order (Ma'at) and chaos (Isfet), between Re and Apophis, between life and death. This isn't about escaping duality but about dancing with it skillfully. The solar barque requires both Re's light and Apep's transformative darkness to complete its regenerative journey.
Your point about these being exclusively for the deceased touches on what I believe is one of Egyptology's most limiting assumptions. The rigid categorization of these texts as purely funerary creates an artificial boundary that the Egyptians themselves didn't maintain. Consider the Opening of the Mouth ritual, performed both for statues in temples (very much alive and functional) and for the deceased. The technology transcends our modern categories of funerary or temple praxis.
My sixty-day practice revealed something the papyri suggest but academic discourse often overlooks: these aren't preparation manuals for a distant future event but technologies for navigating the death-rebirth cycles that constitute conscious existence. Every dawn is resurrection.
Every threshold crossed in life prepares us for the ultimate crossing.
The dynamic tension you mention between life and death requires both poles to be actively engaged. To relegate death-wisdom solely to post-mortem experience is to sever the creative polarity that generates transformation. I wholly believe the Egyptians understood what we've forgotten: we die many times before we die, and how well we learn to die determines how fully we live.
Apep represented Isfet, and the two were never considered beneficial, even as a point of tension; they might be considered the result of imbalance between things in fact. Apep was always to be smitten...viciously: we have entire execration rituals burning and stabbing his effigy that were performed daily in the temples.
If we wish to find "creative tension" in a deity, I think Set as the lord of unbridled forces, fits the bill, opposite to Horus...we even have examples of a deity with both a Horus and a Set head! However, in the Late Period he assumes the same role as Apep. Yet Sekhmet, at least, never lost her role as the avenging angel of Egypt, with a violent streak that could both harm and heal (being a deity associated with healing and disease at the same time), one who shot arrows at enemies and protected from them. She is who I would turn to for the tension of tumult versus order in later contexts. Even the creator God (Atum in your essay, although Ra and Horus were equated with him) and the Nun can encompass the tension of patent/latent being.
While the opening of the mouth ceremony was performed on statues, this was to invite the ka (indwelling life presence) of the deity into the icon, just as the same procedure on a mummy did for the ka of the deceased. In both cases the concept is one of creating an appropriate receptacle for a numinous being. Yet this was never performed on the living...it was only in the temple cult or funerary context; these two applications were never transcended.
I would argue instead that the limiting factor when considering Egypt is the assumption their funerary practices were the dominant feature of their thought. This may be due to us translating their funerary texts first, and an obsession with giving our modern initiatory societies ancient pedigrees. Yet the Egyptians had other ways of engaging with cyclic experience through ritual before, or even in absence of death: hymns to the rising and setting of the sun through which humans, animals and plants were given life...reciting prayers to the twelve hours of the day as the sun God traveled across the heavens to give blessing to the living. Even funerary prayers and the hymns of the twelve hours of the night in the temples were for the dead, not the priests or people reciting them. The dead are often specifically named, in fact. Only the Solar Litany of Seti I says that it is useful to one who is living or dead, but this was confined to very few tombs.
While I do not adjudicate the truth or falsehood of the individual spiritual experiences of others, I can neither view them as adequate substitutes or co-equals of academic study and archaeological observation when making broader propositional claims.
Thank you, Frater O.D. This is exceptional and thrilling writing.
Thank you 🙏
To me the Sixth Airt seems more like participating in the mythical avenging of Osiris by Horus defeating Set, the prelude to the resurrection when Horus retrieves the Eye lost during the battle. I
The Egyptologist Reginhild Finnestad posited that Nun and the Duat were both states of "latent being", which applies an appropriate phenomenological spin on the potentiality of Nun (and arguably the Abrahamic "waters" of Genesis). Meanwhile, Jan Assmann observed that the Nun is undifferentiated pre-existence, with creation being a function of differentiation. This makes sense given the concern that Apep would "unmake" the world through chaos, through breaking down the order and differentiation.
From this standpoint, the esoteric idea of "transcending opposites" and "dissolving boundaries" seems antithetical to the Egyptian afterlife. The journey of the afterlife is not one of losing one's individuality or ego, but a reorientation of such. However, while the "hero's journey" through the gates of the Duat has enough symbolism to apply to one's own life, all evidence points to the Egyptians viewing it as the exclusive domain of the deceased.
Your citation of Finnestad and Assmann points toward a recognized aspect of Egyptology I perhaps articulated imprecisely. When I speak of "transcending opposites," I don't mean their dissolution into undifferentiated unity, which would indeed constitute the very chaos (Apep) that Egyptian cosmology sought to prevent. Rather, I mean what might be termed more accurately as reorientation, or a sacred recalibration of perspective that recognizes the dynamic interdependence of seemingly opposed forces.
The Egyptian understanding reveals something more sophisticated than simple transcendence: it shows us how to participate consciously in the creative tension between order (Ma'at) and chaos (Isfet), between Re and Apophis, between life and death. This isn't about escaping duality but about dancing with it skillfully. The solar barque requires both Re's light and Apep's transformative darkness to complete its regenerative journey.
Your point about these being exclusively for the deceased touches on what I believe is one of Egyptology's most limiting assumptions. The rigid categorization of these texts as purely funerary creates an artificial boundary that the Egyptians themselves didn't maintain. Consider the Opening of the Mouth ritual, performed both for statues in temples (very much alive and functional) and for the deceased. The technology transcends our modern categories of funerary or temple praxis.
My sixty-day practice revealed something the papyri suggest but academic discourse often overlooks: these aren't preparation manuals for a distant future event but technologies for navigating the death-rebirth cycles that constitute conscious existence. Every dawn is resurrection.
Every threshold crossed in life prepares us for the ultimate crossing.
The dynamic tension you mention between life and death requires both poles to be actively engaged. To relegate death-wisdom solely to post-mortem experience is to sever the creative polarity that generates transformation. I wholly believe the Egyptians understood what we've forgotten: we die many times before we die, and how well we learn to die determines how fully we live.
Apep represented Isfet, and the two were never considered beneficial, even as a point of tension; they might be considered the result of imbalance between things in fact. Apep was always to be smitten...viciously: we have entire execration rituals burning and stabbing his effigy that were performed daily in the temples.
If we wish to find "creative tension" in a deity, I think Set as the lord of unbridled forces, fits the bill, opposite to Horus...we even have examples of a deity with both a Horus and a Set head! However, in the Late Period he assumes the same role as Apep. Yet Sekhmet, at least, never lost her role as the avenging angel of Egypt, with a violent streak that could both harm and heal (being a deity associated with healing and disease at the same time), one who shot arrows at enemies and protected from them. She is who I would turn to for the tension of tumult versus order in later contexts. Even the creator God (Atum in your essay, although Ra and Horus were equated with him) and the Nun can encompass the tension of patent/latent being.
While the opening of the mouth ceremony was performed on statues, this was to invite the ka (indwelling life presence) of the deity into the icon, just as the same procedure on a mummy did for the ka of the deceased. In both cases the concept is one of creating an appropriate receptacle for a numinous being. Yet this was never performed on the living...it was only in the temple cult or funerary context; these two applications were never transcended.
I would argue instead that the limiting factor when considering Egypt is the assumption their funerary practices were the dominant feature of their thought. This may be due to us translating their funerary texts first, and an obsession with giving our modern initiatory societies ancient pedigrees. Yet the Egyptians had other ways of engaging with cyclic experience through ritual before, or even in absence of death: hymns to the rising and setting of the sun through which humans, animals and plants were given life...reciting prayers to the twelve hours of the day as the sun God traveled across the heavens to give blessing to the living. Even funerary prayers and the hymns of the twelve hours of the night in the temples were for the dead, not the priests or people reciting them. The dead are often specifically named, in fact. Only the Solar Litany of Seti I says that it is useful to one who is living or dead, but this was confined to very few tombs.
While I do not adjudicate the truth or falsehood of the individual spiritual experiences of others, I can neither view them as adequate substitutes or co-equals of academic study and archaeological observation when making broader propositional claims.