Search Results: Grateful dead

The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of spells which enable the soul of the deceased to navigate the afterlife. The famous title was given the work by western scholars; the actual title would translate as The Book of Coming Forth...

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the English translation of the Tibetan texts known as bar-do thos-grol (Bardo Thodol) – “Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State” – and serves as a guide for the soul of the deceased after...

A'Aru (The Field of Reeds) was the Egyptian afterlife, an idealized vision of one's life on earth (also known as Sekhet-A'Aru and translated as The Field of Rushes). Death was not the end of life but a transition to another part of one's...

Ancient Egyptian literature comprises a wide array of narrative and poetic forms including inscriptions on tombs, stele, obelisks, and temples; myths, stories, and legends; religious writings; philosophical works; wisdom literature; autobiographies...

The Negative Confession (also known as The Declaration of Innocence) is a list of 42 sins which the soul of the deceased can honestly say it has never committed when it stands in judgment in the afterlife. The soul would recite these in the...

The Forty-Two Judges were divine entities associated with the afterlife in ancient Egypt and, specifically, the judgment of the soul in the Hall of Truth. The soul would recite the Negative Confession in their presence as well as other gods...

The Coffin Texts (c. 2134-2040 BCE) are 1,185 spells, incantations, and other forms of religious writing inscribed on coffins to help the deceased navigate the afterlife. They include the text known as the Book of Two Ways which is the first...

The Egyptians believed the afterlife was a mirror-image of life on earth. When a person died their individual journey did not end but was merely translated from the earthly plane to the eternal. The soul stood in judgement in the Hall of...

The Pyramid Texts are the oldest religious writings in the world and make up the principal funerary literature of ancient Egypt. They comprise the texts which were inscribed on the sarcophogi and walls of the pyramids at Saqqara in the 5th...

In ancient Egypt, if a woman were having difficulty conceiving a child, she might spend an evening in a Bes Chamber (also known as an incubation chamber) located within a temple. Bes was the god of childbirth, sexuality, fertility, among...