Apech

That’s very interesting can you expand a bit on the ‘trails’?

I think this is a complex subject. The first point to make is, I think that the mind naturally visualises in dreams or just when thinking of an object and seeing it in your mind. Some people claim not to do this, just as some people claim not to dream. I've met a couple of people with this position which at first I found astounding as I am quite a visual thinker and dream a lot. Since I am sure this is a natural function of our minds I can only conclude that these people either are blocked or just have never learned to notice their visual perceptions. When I first learned meditation I tried visualisation techniques - but quickly dropped them. In fact it was when I dropped any intermediary technique including counting breaths etc. that I made a significant breakthrough. Years later when I started Vajrayana practice there was a lot of emphsis on visualisation - which I must admit I didn't take particularly seriously (at first). I was very casual about it - but in the end I found this was probably the right approach. For instance if someone says think of your mother or other loved one and an image of them comes up - you don't put any effort in. Similarly if say I study a picture of a yidam like Chenrezig for some time - then when I image the same on my head or in front of me the image just pops up fully formed with more or less no effort. I think that Damo and Mizner are mistaking the techniques used with visualisation with 'just imagining'. So for instance just thinking of a line of energy going up your spine or whatever this is unlikely to have any result at all. So they a right about that. In fact the result would be inhibiting because it would block your ability to relate to the energy flow directly. However in meditation generally, the whole of the mind has to be encompassed - and this includes visual thought-forms and images. If as you say you rest your intent - preferably in the LDT - then the mind is released and images can flow in a more distinct and vivid forms. A kind of controlled day dreaming. This becomes important when trying to become unified or whole, since all of your mind/body must be engaged.

I wanted to talk a bit about the heart and ma'at. According to tradition the Sun (who has various names such as Ra or Atum or Khepera etc.) creates the world. Before creation there is what is described as the primordial waters. These waters have four qualities - darkness, wateriness, infinity and hiddenness. The last one, hiddenness is sometimes called 'lostness'. That is because in that dark infinity there are no directions and so no way to say what is left or right or up or down. Nothing can be said to be in any position in relation to anything else - and so it is chaotic, formless and so on. It is said that the Sun god could find no place to stand. To stand in Egyptian is related to words for place or site - so the sun had no location in which to exist. That is until the Sun god stood on his own heart. He used his heart as the locus from which to bring the cosmos into being. That is he became his own origin point from which all other dimensions and positions could be measured. When he created there first became light/air and dark/moisture, then the sky above and earth below and so on. So the world had structure and was no longer hidden or lost. This structure, the essential order of the universe was ma'at (personified as the sun god's daughter). So there is an immediate cosmological link between heart as the origin point for creation and ma'at as cosmic order. We each have a heart in our body, which is both the hollow muscular pump of science and also the seat for our minds and volition. Our characters are shaped by our hearts - how we conduct ourselves is informed by whatt is in our hearts. So as an echo of the Sun god we have choices in how we conduct ourselves - either in harmony with ma'at which is usually exampled by acts of kindness and care for others - or chaotically ruled by passions and greed etc. which are seen as ingress of primordial chaos into out lives. What is in accord with ma'at is usually codified by something called the Negative Confession - which are 42 statements saying that you have not done acts which are against ma'at - here is an example from the Papyrus of Nu: This is what you are judged against at the Weighing of the Heart in the underworld - and shows how important conduct was to the Egyptians - that is conduct in what we would consider normal human interactions and also in relation to the gods, their offerings and rites. What you do in life is carried with you, by your heart to the Judgement Hall, making this perhaps the foremost most important part of being in the first stage of your post mortem journey.

Have I done it now?

Errrr no!

The other mystery is the Set beast ... no one knows for sure what that was either:

Oh - have I done it ... I'm a boomer - need help.

I can't delete quotes you'll have to ask a mod.

Hi, I'm not sure I understand your questions - but just a few thoughts. As I think I mentioned already you can't really tie all the Egyptian gods together because there were many similar place traditions in different parts of Egypt. So it is quite possible that similar traditions would grow up in different parts of Egypt and then become merged or overlapping in attributes. There are consistent themes in the Egyptian cosmological view but it is nightmare to try to equate or even relate all of the gods together. The main funerary texts of the Egyptians often state that they were 'good on earth' as well as for the dead. So the afterlife journey and so on was a kind of meditation for the living also. Practice dying you might call it. There were some shamanistic type practices and so on which were based on the afterlife. You are right that both Thoth and Anubis have psychopomp roles. In the case of Thoth it is about understanding the process and knowing the right words to use for the various things encountered. You could call this getting the over view - or mapping the process if you like. Anubis on the other hand is about applying sensitivity to subtle energy to be able to do certain transformations and navigate certain situations or environments you might encounter - a more on the ground approach if you like. If you accept the Egyptian view the gods are not really archetypes, they are living souls which form part of the universe. I don't know if this helps or not.

They are easily confused because the iconography is so similar. And there are other 'jackal' gods. Even the great huntress goddess Neith (Nit) is a female jackal. By the way when I say jackal - that is what they are usually called - but I would suggest some kind of hunting dog instead - breed unknown. In Egypt there were several 'main' cult centres where particular sets of gods were worshiped - most notably Heliopolis (On), Memphis, Abydos, Thebes ... but until the very late period there was no universalism - there was always a cultural divide between Upper (South) Egypt and Lower (North) Egypt as well. So many gods were popular in their local cult centre - but became fused with other pantheons as time went on. After all 'pagan' really means 'religion of place' in modern understanding. So most gods were either tutelary gods of cities or localities or protectors. The exception is the funerary cult - which although it had regional variations was essentially formed from the Heliopolitan cosmology and the Osiris cult. the union of the souls of Ra and Osiris being the central theme.

https://www.jasoncain.net/blogs/sep

Massive Chew Sets

Mini soda

Here's a better black and white version of the scene I posted above: It's a bit easier to see what is going on here. In the centre is Anubis working on the mummification, beneath the bier are some jars of oils used in the process - there are said to be seven oils but only four are shown here. At the head and foot of the bier are the two sister goddesses, Isis at the foot and Nephthys at the head. Behind Nephthys is a symbolic pole with a cow skin hanging from it - this is called 'imy-wt' which means 'within the skin' and behind this is Khonsu-mes holding his hands up in a gesture of respect. On the other side of the picture stand four figures, these are the Sons of Horus. They are connected with the mummification process because they guard four main organs which were removed from the body to aid preservation. These organs were placed in stoppered jars which are called Canopic Jars and kept separately from the body in a small square chest. Everything in this picture is about the body, that's why the 'imy-wt' symbol is there to show this. At death there is of course a separation between the physical body and the animating entities which make it live. During life of course it acts as an anchor for the set of entities - and the in the immediate post death phase it was still thought of as important as a focus - hence the strenuous efforts to preserve it. From medical papyri it is known that the Egyptians had a good grasp of the functions of the body and they could perform types of surgery for instance. In addition to the skin, bones, circulation system and nervous system they also recognised twenty two subtle channels which connected different parts of the body similar to subtle body channels. For them the controlling centre of the being, where volition and thought was exercised - was the heart. They did not place consciousness in the head like we tend to today. So within the body the most important part was the heart. That is why it was the heart that was weighed in judgement. Cosmologically, perhaps the most important figures shown are the four Sons of Horus. They have correspondences at all levels of the cosmos. As four organs in the body, as the four supports of the sky, as the four steering oars of the sun's boats, as the four cardinal points of the compass and so on. They are also individually related to the parts of being I mentioned before. So it's probably easiest to set out these correspondences first. Each of them are placed under the protection of a goddess (in italics). Imsety (man) - South - Liver - ka - Isis Hapi (ape) - North - Lungs - heart - Nephthys Duamutef (jackal) - East - stomach - ba - Neith Quebsenuef (hawk) - West - intestines - shade - Serqet Placed together they form a kind of mandala of the personality which can be seen in this beautiful example from Tutankhamun's tomb:

I don't know about that diagram - so its probably easier if I say how I think things worked. Also Khaibit should be Shwt ... that's an old Budge mistranslation.

I wasn't aware of this.

Hi @stellarwindbubble, The jackal or dog figure in the weighing scene is Anubis (Anpu) who is the primary guide to the dead - or psychopomp as it is sometimes called. One of his main roles was to be in charge of the Divine Booth or tent where mummification takes place: Here he is at work - from the same papyrus (sorry the image is blurred). Essentially you could say he is in charge of the process of taking care of the dead person including mummification. In the judgement scene he checks the balance to see is the person's heart weighs the same as the feather of ma'at. he reports the result to Thoth (Hermes) who writes it down in the book of life and gives the result to Osiris who acts as judge. There is another jackal/dog god called Wepwawet whose name literally means Opener of the Ways. He is associated with the city of Abydos where the god Osiris was said to be buried. Every year he led a procession into the desert to find the tomb of Osiris - and as vanguard of this procession was the one who showed the way ... hence his name.

Mrs. Hippy

Thanks to the mod team for moving this thread from my ppf to here. One of the things about the Egyptian understanding - which has an influence on how we see our selves, is that they didn't see a person as a single entity. In fact if you google it you can find up to 9 different entities involved. I think though that close analysis shows that some of these are different expressions of the same thing. So I would say that apart from the physical body itself, there are four parts of being - which between them have the potential to lead to the most important fifth - which is the akh, the immortal self. So one way of understanding the Egyptian path, either post mortem or during spiritual work in life, is the exploration of how these four parts of being act and interact, what happens when they separate, and how they can be joined to form a unified being. This goes a long way to clarifying the processes outlines in the Book of the Dead and other 'underworld texts' such as the Amduat. The important four parts , or different entities are: - the heart (ib, or ab) - the ka - the shade (shwt) - the ba.

To be honest I don’t really care what people think about that book or about CC himself. I made the OP because it contains interesting ideas. If people aren’t interested in those ideas I don’t see any point in posting here. PS surely you are not blaming the direction of your life on The Journey to Itxlan etc???? Are you?

Old English hælþ "wholeness, a being whole, sound or well," from Proto-Germanic *hailitho, from PIE *kailo- "whole, uninjured, of good omen" (source also of Old English hal "hale, whole;" Old Norse heill "healthy;" Old English halig, Old Norse helge "holy, sacred;" Old English hælan "to heal"). With Proto-Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho (see -th (2)).

Let me know if you want me to post bail.

See @blue eyed snake above

It tells me she didn't love her cats enough.

It is possible to improve health generally without curing specific diseases - any kind of exercise like for instance daily walks will do this.