1994 Books of the Dead
Author: Stanislav
Date: 2012-03-05T19:19:38+00:00
Keywords: Psychedelic Library; com0; com1proceess

Stanislav Grof

Books of the Dead

Manuals for Living and Dying
with 148 illustrations, 16 in colour

Thames and Hudson

ART AND IMAGINATION

Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

© 1994 Stanislav Grof

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information
storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0-500-81041-9

Printed and bound in Singapore by C.S. Graphics

Contents

The Ancient Books of the Dead

Manifestation in the Light 7

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Liberation Through Hearing 11

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Ballgame in the Underworld 17

The Maya Book of the Dead

The Mystery of the Plumed Serpent 20

The Nahuatl Book of the Dead

The Art of Dying 23

The Christian Book of the Dead

The Posthumous Journey of the Soul 26

Myth and Science

Plates 33

Themes 65

Egyptian Deities of the 'First Time' 66

The Sun's Underworld Voyage 68

Visions of the Bardo Thödol 70

The Six Realms of Existence 74

Death, Rebirth and the Maya Underworld 76

The Ballgame of the Gods 78

Quetzalcoatl: the Redemption of Spirit from Matter 80

Death and the Strategy of Life 82

The Visionary Quest 84

Attitudes to the Human Body 86

The Scenery and Inhabitants of the Netherworld 88

Animals of the Beyond 90

Deities as Models 92

Transcendence and the Emergence into Light 94

Bibliography and Sources of Illustrations 96

The Ancient Books of the Dead

One of the major tolls modern humanity has had to pay for the rapid technological development following the scientific and industrial revolutions is a progressive alienation from its biological nature and loss of connection with the spiritual source. During the period of rapid evolution of materialistic science and precipitous technological progress, three basic areas that link humans to nature - birth, sex, and death - were subjected to deep psychological repression and denial. At the same time, the spiritual awareness that had provided a sense of meaningful belonging to the cosmos was replaced by atheism, or superficial religious activities of decreasing vitality and relevance.

At the beginning of this century, depth psychology inspired by the studies of Sigmund Freud initiated a sexual revolution that has greatly increased our understanding of instinctual life and radically transformed cultural attitudes and behaviour. Interest in non-ordinary states of consciousness, triggered by psychedelic research and widespread self-experimentation in the 1960s, has attracted attention to the problems related to birth and death. This resulted in the study of the psychological impact of the birth trauma, development of pre-and perinatal psychology, and the introduction of new obstetric practices. Systematic study of non-ordinary states of consciousness together with the pioneering work with patients suffering from incurable diseases conducted by Dr Kübler-Ross and others then led to an unprecedented renaissance of interest in the psychology of dying and neardeath experiences.

It is not easy to understand why the public suddenly became open to issues related to death. Even at the time of the deepest cultural denial there were isolated researchers, particularly parapsychologists, who were studying various aspects of death and dying and publishing papers and books on their findings. Special publications, such as Jess E. Weisse's The Vestibule, Jean-Baptiste Delacour's Glimpses of the Beyond, or Karlis Osis's Death-Bed Observations of Physicians and Nurses, described and discussed strange experiences reported by people who had come close to death and lived to tell their stories. For some reason, the professional circles and the general public paid very little attention to these reports until Raymond Moody's Life After Life became overnight an international best-seller.

Moody's book was a study of neardeath experiences based on interviews with 150 individuals who had had a close brush with death. Rather than making a breathtaking new discovery, Moody basically confirmed the 5
findings of many of his predecessors. He showed that people who come close to death experience a series of most extraordinary adventures in consciousness that deserve serious attention of professionals as well as laymen. As Moody himself pointed out, similar experiences had been reported not only in earlier decades, but throughout centuries. The literature of ancient cultures, who had a remarkably sharp awareness of the spiritual and philosophical importance of death, abounds in eschatological passages.

The ancient texts that are specifically dedicated to the problems of death and dying are usually referred to as 'books of the dead'. The oldest of these texts is the so-called Egyptian Book of the Dead; it is a collection of ancient Egyptian papyri based on a body of literature called Pert em hru, usually translated as Manifestation in the Light, or Coming Forth By Day. Probably the most famous of these documents is the Tibetan Book of the Dead, known under the name Bardo Thödol, or Liberation by Hearing on the Afterdeath Plane. Mesoamerican examples are the Maya Book of the Dead, which can be reconstructed from the pictures and texts on the funeral vases of the so-called Ceramic Codex, and comparable Toltec and Aztec material from the preserved screenfold codices. To these can be added a range of medieval European eschatological material known as Ars moriendi - The Art of Dying.

When the ancient 'books of the dead' first came to the attention of western scholars they were considered to be fictitious accounts of the posthumous journey of the soul, and as such, wishful fabrications of people who were unable to accept the grim reality of death. They were put in the same category as fairy tales — creations of human fantasy of undoubted beauty, but no relevance for everyday reality. However, a deeper study of these texts revealed that they had been used as guides in the context of sacred mysteries and spiritual practice, and very likely described the experiences of the initiates and practitioners. From this new perspective, presenting the books of the dead as manuals for the dying may be seen as a clever disguise to obscure their secret ritual function and protect their esoteric message from the uninitiated.

Modern research focusing on non-ordinary states of consciousness brought unexpected new insights into this problem area. Systematic study of the experiences in psychedelic sessions, powerful non-drug forms of psychotherapy, and spontaneously occurring psychospiritual crises, showed that in all these situations, people can encounter an entire spectrum of unusual experiences, including sequences of agony and dying, passing through hell, facing divine judgment, being reborn, reaching the celestial realms, and confronting memories from previous incarnations.

These states are strikingly similar to those described in the eschatological texts of ancient and pre-industrial cultures. Such experiences seem to originate in the collective unconscious as described by C.G. Jung, and their specific symbolism can be drawn from many different cultures of the world, not necessarily the subject's own. Moreover, thanatological studies of neardeath states showed that the experiences associated with life-threatening situations bear deep resemblance to the descriptions from the ancient books of the dead, as well as to those reported by subjects in psychedelic sessions and modern experiential psychotherapy. It has become clear that 6
these texts are actually maps of the inner territories of the psyche encountered in profound non-ordinary states of consciousness.

It is possible to spend one's entire lifetime without ever experiencing these realms, or even being aware of their existence, until one is catapulted into them at the time of biological death. However, for some people this experiential area opens up during their lifetime in a variety of situations, including psychedelic sessions or other powerful forms of self-exploration, serious spiritual practice, participation in shamanic rituals, or during spontaneous psychospiritual crises. This offers us the possibility of experiential exploration of these territories of the psyche on our own terms, before it is imposed on us by biological death.

The experiential practice of dying, or 'dying before dying', has two important consequences. It liberates the individual from the fear of death and changes his or her attitude toward dying, and so prepares him or her for the experiences at the time of biological demise, and by eliminating the fear of death, it transforms the individual's way of being in the world. For this reason, there is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death by exploration of dying, on the one hand, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment, on the other. This is the reason why the ancient books of the dead could be used in both situations.

Thanks to the findings of modern consciousness research amassed during the last few decades, we can attempt in this book to do more than just present the actual historical material of the books of the dead, and review the information amassed by scholars who have subjected these texts to expert professional analysis. We can compare this information with the observations from thanatology and other areas of modern consciousness research, such as psychedelic studies, experiential psychotherapy, anthropology, comparative religion and mythology, and show the relevance of these ancient texts for contemporary readers.

Manifestation

One of the most famous funerary texts is the so called Egyptian Book of the in the Light:

Dead, or Pert em hru. The English name is misleading, since it suggests a comprehensive and coherent work associated with a specific author, or at The Egyptian Book least with a definite historical period. In actuality, Pert em hru is a vast and of the Dead
heterogeneous collection of texts, some of which are spells and incantations, prayers, hymns, litanies and magical formulae, others mythological sequences, or procedures for treating the deceased. These texts originated in different historical eras, and in their totality they span a period of almost five millennia.

The title Egyptian Book of the Dead is derived from the name given by Egyptian tomb-robbers to every roll of inscribed papyrus they found with mummies - Kitab al-Mayitun, or 'book of the dead person'. The original Egyptian title Pert em hru is usually translated as 'manifestation in the light', 'coming forth by day', or 'chapters of everyday arrival'. From this large body of funerary texts, the ancient scribes made specific selections for the benefit of a particular individual, brought them together in a comprehensive way, and provided them with rich illustrations. Instead of a standard and uniform text, we thus have many individualized and unique collections that bear the 7

names of the deceased, such the papyri of Ani, Hunefer, or Anhai, now in the British Museum in London.

The funerary texts were originally written only for kings, and were inscribed on the walls of certain pyramids, such as those erected in the honour of the pharaohs Cheops, Chephren and Mykerinos in Sakkara. Both the pyramids and the pharaohs for whom they were built were related to the sun god, Ra. These so-called 'Pyramid Texts' were produced between 2350
and 2175 BC, and are among the oldest written records, not only in Egypt, but in the whole of human history. However, the material they contain points to sources that are even more archaic. The preoccupation with afterlife and belief in the beyond that led to the practice of mummification is known in Egypt from about 3100 BC.

After about 1700 BC, the practice of burial with funerary texts was extended from the pharaohs to members of the nobility and other prominent figures. The so-called 'Coffin Texts' took the form of scrolls, or were painted on the sides of wooden coffins. The most famous of these funerary texts came from the city of Thebes, like the papyri of Ani, Hunefer and Anhai, mentioned above. One of the principal figures of P e r t e m h r u , the sun god Ra, was the state deity of Thebes.

8

From the first to the last, the texts of Pert em hru reveal the unalterable belief of the Egyptians in the immortality of the soul, resurrection, and life after death. However, the message of these texts is not consistent and coherent like that of their Tibetan counterpart, the Bardo Thödol. From the oldest to the youngest, the Eygptian funerary texts span a period of almost five thousand years. Even a conservative culture such as ancient Egypt undergoes significant changes in the course of millennia. In addition, various cities had their preferences in regard to principal deities, and there were differences, conflicts, and power struggles between the priests of Heliopolis, Memphis, Thebes, and Hermopholis. New deities were adopted and often worshipped alongside the old.

In spite of the great complexity of the funerary texts, one can discern two major ideological streams. On the one hand, great emphasis was put on the sun god Ra, his divine retinue, and their archetypal nocturnal-diurnal journey. In the mythology underlying this belief, the sun god accompanied by his crew of assisting deities travelled in a splendid solar boat. In the daytime, they proceeded in a large arc across the Egyptian sky. Toward the end of the day, at sunset, the barge disappeared in the opening in mountains of the West and entered the underworld, Tuat, a dismal and terrifying region full of treacherous places, demons and other dangerous creatures. This 'unseen place' contained abysmal depths of darkness and firepits in which the damned, the enemies of Ra, were consumed. The sun god and his retinue had to overcome daily all the challenges of this ominous realm.

Those who worshipped Ra as their principal deity believed that after physical death they would join him and his crew and travel with them in the solar barge. Their principal text was Am Tuat, or 'The Book of What is in the Tuat', written by the priests of Amen-Ra to proclaim the sun god's supremacy. The Am Tuat provided for the followers of Amen-Ra the information about the divisions of the Tuat, the knowledge of the Halls and The god Ra in the solar barque.

Cates and the names of the beings who guarded them, and the necessary The deity changes his form
magic formulae and power-words for the safe passage of the solar barge and according to the stage of the
its crew.

journey

On the other hand, an older tradition of the ancient mortuary god Osiris also permeated the texts of Pert em hru. Osiris, one of four divine siblings, was killed and dismembered by his evil brother Seth, and the parts of his body were dispersed all over the Nile delta. Reassembled and resurrected by his two divine sisters, Isis and Nephthys, he became the god and ruler of the Egyptian underworld. His followers expected to join him after death in Sekhet Hetepet, or Happy Fields, a paradisean replica of the Nile Valley, and enjoy eternal life cruising on the celestial river, worshipping deities, feasting on exquisite food, and engaging in joyful agricultural activities.

The principal text of the followers of Osiris was the Book of the Gates; it The funeral procession of Ani,
c. 1250 BC, is shown in his
was compiled to prove that, despite the pretensions of the priests of Amen-papyrus of the Book of the

Ra, the ancient god of the dead, Osiris, was still the overlord of the Dead. It illustrates Chapter I, underworld and that his kingdom was everlasting. This text, the most with words to be spoken on the
complete version of which was found inscribed on the alabaster day of burial, when the deities
sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti I (around 1375 BC), consisted of two parts. The Thoth, Horus, Ra and Orisis are invoked for the journey into the
first is a series of texts and pictures which describe the progress of the sun underworld and the 'coming god to the kingdom of Osiris, the Judgment of the Dead, the life of the forth by day'

beatified in Sekhet Hetepet', and the punishment of the wicked and the foes 9

of the sun god and Osiris. The second part consists of a series of texts and pictures which represent the magical ceremonies that were performed in very ancient times to reconstruct the body of the sun god and make him rise every day.

The story of the death and rebirth of Osiris played such an important role in Egyptian eschatological mythology that it deserves to be briefly told. The four divine siblings Isis, Osiris, Nephthys and Seth were the children of Geb, the god of the earth, and Nut, the goddess of the sky. Osiris was also the husband of his sister Isis, and Nephthys the wife of her brother Seth.

According to the legend, Osiris was an enlightened king who civilized the Egyptians, taught them the art of agriculture, and prohibited cannibalism.

His brother Seth hated him, and with his fellow-conspirators plotted his death.

Seth invited Osiris to a banquet where he showed him a richly decorated chest made specially for him, and invited him to try it. Once Osiris lay inside, Seth slammed the lid and secured it with nails. The chest was thrown into the river Nile and floated down to the sea. It drifted to Byblos, on the Phoenician coast, where it came to rest on the shore, and a lovely tree grew up and enclosed it. The tree's size and beauty captured the attention of Malacander, the King of Byblos, who had it cut down to be used as a pillar of his palace.

Isis in the form of a kite,
begetting Horus by the dead

Osiris, and (below) Anubis
reconstituting the body of Osiris,
directed by the god Thoth and
helped by the frog goddess

Heqet. (After bas reliefs at Philae)

10

Isis, as sister, lover and wife to Osiris, searched for him everywhere, weeping, while the land of Egypt dried up and the vegetation withered. Isis finally discovered the pillar in the palace in Byblos, and succeeded in obtaining it from the queen after serving for sometime as a nurse to the little prince. She returned on a ship to Egypt with Osiris's body, and on the way, managed to conceive a child by perching upon Osiris in the form of a kite.

Fearing that Seth could discover Osiris's body and her pregnancy, she hid in the marshes. Seth had not given up his plan to destroy Osiris. Hunting in the marshes, he came upon the body, hacked it into fourteen pieces, and scattered them to the four winds.

Isis and Nephthys, with the help of the jackal-headed deity Anubis, found and gathered all the pieces together in a rawhide and succeeded in resurrecting Osiris, who then became the Lord of the Underworld. Horus, Isis's child by the dead Osiris, grew up to become the avenger of his father.

After a long and hard struggle, he defeated Seth and castrated him. The death and resurrection of Osiris was for the Egyptians an important archetypal pattern for survival after death. The battle between Horus and Seth became a metaphor for the cosmic battle between the forces of light and darkness, or good and evil In the mystical tradition of Egypt, the experience of death and rebirth was not necessarily bound to the time of the biological demise. The sacred temple mysteries of Isis and Osiris gave neophytes the opportunity to Isis nursing her son Horus, confront death long before old age or disease made it mandatory, and to concealed in the papyrus
conquer it and discover their own immortality. In initiatory procedures of swamps, and attended by Thoth and Amen-Ra. Below: Corn
this kind, neophytes not only lost the fear of death, but also profoundly grows from the body of the dead changed their way of being in the world. The ancient Egyptians saw such Osiris. Inscribed beneath is the close parallels between the archetypal adventures of the sun god during his ankh, symbol of eternal life, diurnal-noctural journey, the states associated with biological death, and framed by the characters for
the experiences of neophytes in the sacred mysteries, that they considered

'good fortune' and 'wellbeing'.

(After bas reliefs at Philae)

them effectively equivalent. Modern consciousness research brings important insights into the connections and interrelations between these three experiential realms, and transfers ancient Egyptian eschatological beliefs from the world of primitive superstition to the domain of transpersonal psychology.

Liberation

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Bardo Thödol, is of much more recent Through Hearing
origin than its Egyptian counterpart, and it has incomparably more inner on the
consistency and congruence. Unlike Pert em hru, it is a well-defined and Afterdeath Plane:

homogeneous text of which we know the author and the approximate time of origin. Although it is clearly based on a much older oral material, it was The Tibetan Book first put into writing in the eighth century AD, and it is attributed to the Great of the Dead

Guru Padmasambhava. This legendary spiritual teacher introduced Buddhism into Tibet and laid the foundations for Vajrayana, a unique amalgam of Buddhist teachings and elements of an ancient indigenous tradition, called Bon, that had been Tibet's principal religion prior to Padmasambhava's arrival.

Little is known with certainty about the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet; however, one of its dominant features seems to have been preoccupation 11
with the continuation of life after death. It included elaborate rituals aimed at ensuring that the soul of the dead person was conducted safely to the Beyond. Sacrificed animals, foods, drinks, and various precious objects accompanied the deceased during the posthumous journey. Beside ensuring the happiness of the deceased in the Beyond, these rites were also expected to have beneficial influence on the wellbeing of the living.

Additional characteristic features of the early indigenous Tibetan religion were the cult of local gods, especially mountain and warrior deities, and the use of trance states for oracular activities. The original Bon had significant animistic and shamanistic components. After the arrival of Buddhism into Tibet, both these religious systems coexisted, and in spite of their separate nature, showed rich crossfertilization. In practice the two have been so closely combined as to appear fused into a single belief system. The non-Buddhist elements are particularly prominent in a terrifying rite of imagined self-annihilation, as practised by certain ascetic yogis, and in the remarkable Bardo Thödol.

The Bardo Thödol is a guide for the dying and the dead, a manual to help the departed to recognize, with the aid of a competent teacher, the various stages of the intermediate state between death and rebirth, and to attain liberation. The states of consciousness associated with the process of death and rebirth belong to a wider group of intermediate states, or 'bardos'.

Among the bardos are recognized the bardo state of the existence in the womb, the bardo of the dream state, the bardo of ecstatic equilibrium during deep meditation, the bardo of the moment of death (Chikhai Bardo), the bardo of the karmic illusions following death (Chonyid Bardo), and the bardo of existence while seeking rebirth (Sidpa Bardo).

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is written as a guide for the dying. However, it has additional levels of meaning. According to the Buddhist teachings, death and rebirth do not happen only in connection with the biological demise and subsequent beginning of another lifetime, but occur in every moment of our existence. The states described in the Bardo Thödol can also be experienced in meditative states during systematic spiritual practice. This important text is thus simultaneously a guide for the dying, for the living, and for serious spiritual seekers. It is one of a series of instructions on six types of liberation: liberation through hearing, liberation through wearing, liberation through seeing, liberation through remembering, liberation through tasting and liberation through touching.

The instructions on the different types of liberation were formulated by Padmasambhava and written down by his wife. Padmasambhava buried these texts in the Gampo hills of central Tibet, as was done with many other texts and sacred objects, called termas or 'hidden treasures'. He gave the transmission of power to discover them to his twenty-five chief disciples.

The texts of the Bardo Thödol were later found by an incarnation of one of these disciples, Karma Lingpa who belonged to the Nyingma tradition. They have been used throughout the centuries by serious students of this teaching as important guides to liberation and illumination.

The Bardo Thödol describes the experiences that one encounters at the time of death (Chikhai Bardo), during the period of facing the archetypal visions and karmic illusions following death (Chonyid Bardo), and in the process of seeking rebirth (Sidpa Bardo).

12

The Bardo of the Moment of Death

The Chikhai Bardo describes experiences associated with the moment of death, whose most characteristic feature is a sense of losing touch with the familiar world of polarities such as good and evil, and entering a realm of unreality and confusion. The logical and ordered world that we know from everyday life starts to dissolve, and there follows the sense of uncertainty whether one is attaining enlightenment or becoming insane. The Bardo Thödol describes the experiences heralding imminent death in terms of the different elements of the body.

Here belong experiences of heaviness, intense physical pressures, and progressive loss of touch with the physical world. In this situation, one takes refuge in the mind, and tries to reach reassurance that it is still functioning.

This is described as earth sinking into water. In the next stage, the operations of the mind cease to be fluid and the circulation of thoughts is disturbed. The only way to relate is through emotions, to think of somebody one loves or hates. Feelings of clammy cold are replaced by sensations of fiery heat. The Bardo Thödol refers to this experience as water sinking into fire. Then the vivid emotions dissolve and attention moves away from the objects of love and hatred; one's entire being seems to be blown into atoms. This experience of fire sinking into air creates a state of openness for the following encounter with cosmic luminosity.

At the actual moment of death, one has an overwhelming vision of Dharmakaya, or the Primary Clear Light of Pure Reality. It is as if the whole of existence suddenly appeared in its absolute totality and in an entirely abstract form. In this experience, all dualities are transcended. Agony and ecstasy, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, burning heat and freezing cold, all coexist in one undifferentiated whole. Ultimate enlightenment and total insanity seem to be equally plausible interpretations of this experience. In the last analysis, the Dharmakaya is identical with the experiencer's own consciousness, which has no birth and no death, and is by its very nature the Immutable Light.

According to the Bardo Thödol, if one recognizes this truth and has been prepared by systematic practice for the immensity of this experience, the vision of the Dharmakaya offers a unique opportunity for instant spiritual liberation. Those who let themselves be deterred, and shy away from the Dharmakaya, will have another chance immediately after death when the Secondary Clear Light dawns upon them. If they miss this opportunity as well, they will be involved in a complicated sequence of spiritual adventures with an entire pantheon of blissful and wrathful deities, during which their consciousness becomes progressively more estranged from the liberating truth as they are approaching another rebirth. These are the experiences described in the texts relating to the second and third bardos.

The Bardo of Experiencing Reality

The experiences in the Chonyid Bardo consist of successive visions of a rich panoply of divine and demonic presences that one encounters during one's journey from the moment of death to the time of seeking rebirth. On the first five days of this bardo appear the glorious images of the five Peaceful Deities. These are the transcendental Dhyani Buddhas, or Tathagatas, enveloped in brilliant lights of different colours - Vairocana (Buddha 13

The germinal mandala of the

Tibetan Book of the Dead: the
mandala of the five transcendent

Dhyani or Tathagata Buddhas

Supreme and Eternal), Akshobhya (Immovable Buddha), Ratnasambhava (Buddha of Precious Birth), Amitabha (Buddha of Infinite Light), and Amoghasiddhi (Buddha of Unfailing Success). With them appear their attendants, male and female Bodhisattvas.

On the sixth day, all the Dhyani Buddhas appear at once with their attendants, together with the four wrathful Doorkeepers and their female partners, shaktis or dakinis, the Buddhas of the six realms or lokas into which one can be reborn, and a number of additional divine figures, forty-two deities altogether. Their radiances are in vivid contrast with the lure of the dull and illusory lights representing the six lokas. On the seventh day, five Knowledge-holding Deities from the paradisean realms appear with their dakinis, innumerable heroes and heroines, celestial warriors, and faith-protecting deities. Radiances of colourful light emanating from their hearts compete with the dull light of tiryaloka, the realm of animals, or brutal subhuman creatures.

The period between the eighth and fourteenth day is the time for the appearance of the Wrathful Deities. The demonic figures appearing between the eighth and twelfth day, as terrifying as they might seem, are in actuality the dark aspects of the five transcendental Dhyani Buddhas. On the thirteenth day, the Kerimas, the Eight Wrathful Ones, and the animalheaded Htamenmas emerge from within one's brain-centre. On the fourteenth day appears a rich array of deities, among them four Female Doorkeepers with animal heads and other powerful goddesses, and yoginis (female yogis).

14

Block-print mandala of the

Peaceful and Wrathful Deities
according to the doctrine of the

Tibetan Book of the Dead. The

Adibuddha Samantabhadra
appears at the centre, but the
other deities appear only in the
form of sound-syllables or
mantras

For the unprepared and uninitiated, the Wrathful Deities are a source of abysmal awe and terror. However, those familiar with these images from their previous studies, and prepared for them by intensive spiritual practice, would be able to recognize them, and realize that they are essentially empty images of their own mind. They will be able to merge with them, and attain Buddhahood.

The Bardo of Seeking Rebirth

Those who have missed the opportunity for liberation in the first two bardos have to face this last stage of the intermediate state. After having fainted in fear in the Chonyid Bardo, they now awaken in a new form - the bardo body. The bardo body differs from the gross one we know in everyday life. It is not composed of matter, and has many remarkable qualities. It is endowed with the power of unimpeded motion and can penetrate through solid objects.

Those who exist in the form of the bardo body can appear and disappear at will, or travel instantaneously to any place on earth. They can change size and shape, and replicate their form, manifesting simultaneously in more than one location. At this point, one might seem to be in command of miraculous powers; here the Bardo Thödol issues a serious warning against allowing oneself to feel desire for these forces, and becoming attached to them.

The quality of experiences in this bardo - the degree of happiness or misery-depends on the karmic record of the dead person. Those who have 15

Painting from an initiation chart
with a group of animalheaded

Phram-men-ma deities,
enveloped in auras of flame and
making characteristic gestures or
mudras
accumulated much bad karma will be tormented by frightening encounters with flesh-eating demons or rakshasas swinging weapons, terrible beasts of prey, and raging elemental forces of nature - clashing and crumbling rocks, angry overflowing seas, roaring fires, or ominous crevices and precipices.

Those who have accumulated karmic merit will experience various delightful pleasures, while those with neutral karma will face colourless dullness and indifference.

A culmination of the experiences in the Sidpa Bardo is the scene of judgment, during which the Lord and Judge of the Dead, whose name is Yama Raja or Dharma Raja, examines the past actions of the individual with the help of his tale-telling mirror. He then assigns the person according to his or her merits and demerits to one of the six lokas or realms into which one can be reborn.

When the lights of the six lokas are dawning on the person at this stage of the bardo journey, an attempt can be made to close the door of the womb 16
and prevent reincarnation. The Bardo Thodol suggests several approaches to this end. It might help to contemplate one's tutelary deity or meditate on the Clear Light, realize the essential voidness of all the apparitions, or focus on the chain of good karma. Another approach is to avoid attraction by figures of male and female bodies in sexual union, or resist the ambivalent oedipal forces that draw one toward one's future parents.

If all the opportunities for liberation have been missed, one will be manoeuvered irresistibly by vivid illusions, and rebirth will invariably follow.

With proper guidance, the unfortunate individual has one more hope left: he or she can still have some influence on the choice of the womb to enter.

With the right environment and support, the new life may offer opportunities for spiritual practice that will provide a better preparation for the next journey through the bardo states.

The Ballgame in the

The ancient Maya were a high civilization with a rich cultural heritage; Underworld: The Maya
however, much of their literary legacy has been lost for posterity. This is partially due to the climate of Central America, an unfortunate combination Book of the Dead of heat and moisture which is certainly not favourable for the preservation of perishable documents. However, the main responsibility for this situation falls on the Spanish invaders, who deliberately destroyed enormous quantities of literary treasures. This was particularly the case with the so-called codices, accordion-like bark-paper screenfolds with rich and colourful illustrations, a goldmine of information about various aspects of Maya life. No codices survive from the Classical Period (before AD 900) and only four from the Postclassical Period (900 to the Spanish Conquest).

The Maya lived their lives in sharp awareness of death. Short life expectancy, high infant mortality, and the combination of warfare and sacrificial rituals made death an ever-present reality. Much of the Maya ritual and art was dedicated to the process of death, from the soul's entrance into the underworld, called Xibalba, to rebirth and apotheosis.

Maya mythology and funeral art described death as a journey whose challenges were known, and its important stages were depicted on coffins, walls, pottery, jades, and other objects that accompanied the deceased during the great transition.

In spite of this keen interest in death and dying, no specific eschatological texts comparable to the Egyptian or Tibetan Book of the Dead are known.

However, mayologists Lin Crocker and Michael Coe were able to distinguish a well-defined group of vessels which they designated as 'codex-style ceramics' because the style of the painted scenes and glyphs that ornamented them resembled that of the Maya codices. They came to the conclusion that the same artists who created these masterpieces also painted the bark-paper books. Cardiosurgeon and archaeologist Francis Robicsek, a scholar who has studied the Maya funeral vases extensively, went one step further. He became convinced that these vases not only looked like the codices, but placed in the proper sequence, they formed a book-like narrative.

To verify this assumption he visited Maya archaeological sites as well as institutional and private collections world-wide. Together with anthropolo-gist-hieroglypher Donald Hales, he made the first complete study of the 17

Maya codex-style ceramics, which encompassed all known examples. It became apparent that many of the vases fell into groups, each of which represented a single underworld myth or tale. Robicsek and Hales were able to suggest a tentative sequence of funerary ceramics which together represent the 'book of the dead' of the Maya.

The codex-style ceramics date from the Late Classic Period, probably around the turn of the eighth century, during the period of the greatest economic and political prosperity of the Maya city states. The scenes depicted on the vases are extremely rich and complex, painted in white, black, red and blue. They represent underworld lords and ladies with their attendants, death gods, the Hero Twins, palace ceremonies, sacrificial scenes, warfare, hunts and ritual ballgames.

Tree bearing the head of Hun

Many of the vessels depict fantastic mythological creatures such as the Hunahpu, the decapitated father

Great Bearded Dragon, the Cauac Monster, the Hallucinatory Serpent of of the Hero Twins, from a

Bloodletting, the Principal Bird Deity, the Quadripartite Monster and the funerary ceramic

Celestial Monster. Among the animals we find jaguars, jaguar-dogs, spider monkeys, bats, rabbits, vultures, moan-birds, serpents, turtles, toads, fish, fireflies and scorpions. Some of the creatures wear sacrificial scarfs and hold bowls containing eyes, bones, and severed hands ('triadic bowls') which indicate their underworld character.

While some of these images clearly relate to myths and legends which are now lost, many of them seem to concern a famous story of the Hero Twins, who underwent incredible ordeals during their visit to Xibalba, the Maya underworld, and experienced death and rebirth. This story forms an important part of the Popol Vuh, an epic of the Quiche Maya put into writing shortly after the Conquest by an anonymous Guatemalan Indian, but clearly based on a much older oral tradition.

The section of the epic of particular interest in the present context describes the victorious encounter of the Hero Twins with the Lords of the Underworld, the rulers of Xibalba. The father of the Twins, Hun Hunahpu, and his companion Vucub Hunahpu were lured to the underworld by the Codex-style Maya funerary vases Xibalba Lords to play ball. After their defeat they were killed and with creatures of the Maya
decapitated, and Hun Hunahpu's head was hung on a calabash tree. The underworld, Xibalba
tree, previously barren, immediately bore fruit and was hailed as miraculous.

18

Maya ballplayer carved on a
stone marker, with date glyphs

When a maiden named Xquic came to see the fruit, Hun Hunahpu's skull spat into her hand and impregnated her. The maiden returned to the surface of the Earth and gave birth to the Hero Twins, Hunahpu, god of the hunt, and Xbalanque, 'Little Jaguar'.

When the Twins grew up into beautiful youths, they discovered the rubber ball their father and his companion had used, and decided to descend to Xibalba to avenge their deaths. In the underworld, Hunahpu and Xbalanque were subjected to a series of perilous ordeals invented by the Xibalba Lords. They successfully overcame the dangers of the House of Gloom, the House of Knives, the House of Cold, the House of Jaguars and the House of Fire, and won against the Lords of Xibalba in all games of ball.

However, in the House of Bats they almost met defeat when Hunahpu's head was cut off. The Xibalba people took the head and hung it in the ballcourt as a trophy.

Xbalanque called the animals, and the turtle took the shape of Hunahpu's head. His twin then bounced the ball far over the court, where a rabbit had been stationed to chase it and encourage the Xibalba people to run after him. Xbalanque used this diversion to steal the real head; Hunahpu was restored to life, and the game ended in a tie. During the next test, the Twins willingly jumped into the flames of a great fire, knowing that by then their prowess had won them immortality. Five days later they rose from the dead and performed miracles in the disguise of ragged fishermen. They burned houses and made them reappear, then cut themselves into pieces and returned to life looking younger and more handsome than before. When the Xibalba Lords asked the same for themselves, the Twins sacrificed them and did not bring them back to life.

19

In the written form of the Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins are taken into heaven and become the sun and moon. The Maya scholar J. Eric S.

Thompson believes that the written form of the epic reflects a distortion of the story under Spanish influence. He suggests that in the oral tradition, the Twins were changed into the sun and the planet Venus, considered brothers in Maya mythology. It is also likely that the original version placed a greater emphasis on the spiritual aspect of the transformation of the Twins. The legend of the Twins' father Hun Hunahpu entered the histories of various Maya sites where the rulers were regarded as the descendents or incarnations of the Hero Twins.

Although the Popol Vuh itself was put into writing in post-Conquest times, the legends describing the birth, life, death and rebirth of Hunahpu The Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, from a painting in
and Xbalanque are remnants of an important mythic cycle from the Classic Naj Tunich Cave, Guatemala,

Period. The Hero Twins' adventures reveal the Maya concept of the soul's Late Classic period
journey through death and rebirth. They provided instructions for defeating death and attaining resurrection, knowledge that had universal relevance.

The king, the nobles, and possibly every human being, thus metaphorically assumed at death the identity of one of the Twins.

The evidence of the codex-style ceramics thus seems to indicate that one of the Mesoamerican patterns for the posthumous journey of the soul, and possibly also for the sacred initiation of death and rebirth, was closely related to the themes of Popol Vuh. It portrays the transformation-process of death and rebirth as a series of difficult ordeals and adventures that take place in subterranean regions and have their characteristic protagonists. A particularly interesting and mysterious aspect of this symbolism is the element of the ritual ballgame. The ballgame was a real-life event in Mesoamerican cultures, and it seems likely it offered the living an opportunity to play out the myth of the Hero Twins.

The Mystery of

The greatest figure of Precolumbian eschatological mythology symbolizing the Plumed Serpent:

the process of spiritual death and rebirth was undoubtedly Quetzalcoatl.

The Nahuatl

This glorious deity played an important role in creation mythology. It was Book of the Dead
believed the gods created five suns in succession, each corresponding to one period of the world's history, and that Quetzalcoatl helped to create the Fifth Sun and gave it movement. He also mysteriously appeared among his people as a hero with a white complexion and a beard, who founded their religion, taught them the arts of civilization, and disappeared without trace.

The myth of Quetzalcoatl was the religious theme common to all Mesoamerica.

Quetzalcoatl's name derives from two Nahuatl words: quetzal, a rare exotic bird of brilliant green colour, and coatl, a serpent. The combination of these two words literally means 'plumed serpent'. An alternative translation of the same name is Precious Twin, alluding to Quetzalcoatl's identification with the planet Venus and its two aspects as morning star and evening star.

However, he was also known by many other names, such as the God of Wind, the Lord of Dawn, and Lord of the Land of the Dead. To the Mayas of Yucatan he was known as Kukulcan, closely associated with Itzamna, the deity represented as a celestial lizard or serpent with two heads.

20

There are two principal versions of the myth about Quetzalcoatl. The first one assumes that he was a historical figure, possibly Topilzin, a twelfth-century priest of Quetzalcoatl and the ruler of theToltec capital of Tollan. In spite of many efforts, it has been impossible to confirm the historical authenticity of Quetzalcoatl and his adventures, and the question of his true identity has remained a deep mystery.

The second principal myth about Quetzalcoatl is an esoteric story of deep spiritual meaning, expressing a universal truth rather than historical facts. It describes Quetzalcoatl as a wise, good, and pure ruler of the City of the Gods established after the creation of the Fifth Sun. His heavenly rival and polar opposite, Tezcatlipoca, brought about Quetzalcoatl's downfall by intoxicating him with a drink of pulque, an alcoholic beverage made from the agave plant. Under its influence, Quetzalcoatl committed incest with his sister Xochiquetzal, the goddess of love and beauty. After regaining sobriety and realizing what had taken place, he imposed upon himself a harsh penance.

First he disposed of all his material riches and spent four days in a stone coffin. Then he travelled to the celestial shore of divine waters where he built a large pyre. Having donned his feathers and bird-mask, he threw himself into the flames. As he was burning, all the rare birds gathered to watch him turn to ashes. Eight days later his heart rose like a flaming star. After his physical form had died and been consumed by the fire, Quetzalcoatl underwent a journey through Mictlan, the Land of the Dead, accompanied by his twin Xolotl in the form of a dog. He succeeded in obtaining from Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Dead, the bones of a man and a woman, and escaped with them after many trials. He redeemed them from death with his own blood, and the first people could begin inhabiting the world.

Quetzalcoatl then made his ascent to heaven, and as Lord of Dawn was transformed into the planet Venus, the morning star. Since that time, he has been repeating his journey in this astronomical form, first appearing in the western sky as the evening star, then disappearing underground, and reappearing in the eastern sky as the morning star, to be reunited with the rising sun. The Quetzalcoatl myth is thus an expression of the universal theme of death and resurrection, sin and redemption, and the transfiguration of a human into god. Since Quetzalcoatl, as one of the four sons of the supreme Creator, was already divine when he succumbed to mortal sin, his story clearly concerns the perennial motif of all great religions: the incarnation of the pure spiritual principle as gross matter and the agonizing redemption of matter by spirit. The story of Quetzalcoatl's death, journey through the underworld and rebirth is told in the magnificent paintings of the Codex Borgia, an Aztec screenfold filled with religious and ritualistic symbolism which may be termed the Nahuatl Book of the Dead.

Quetzalcoatl's adventures in the underworld and his celestial ascent recall those in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, where the experiences of the deceased person and the initiate in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris were closely related to the noctural journey of the sun god through the underworld. But while the Egyptian version made the astronomical association exclusively to the sun, linking death with sunset and rebirth with sunrise, the Mesoamerican version included also Venus and its different phases. Venus was seen as mediator between night and day, good and evil, 21

The underworld journey and
transformation of Quetzalcoatl,
from the 15th-century Codex

Borgia. At the top, Quetzalcoatl
passes through curtain formed
by the body of the Earth

Goddess and enters the
subterranean kingdom of fire.

Below, he ignites a fire in the
belly of the Goddess. In the
centre, he undergoes
rejuvenation and solarization by
fire. At the bottom, he can be
seen rising in the sky in his solar
aspect
and as a force facilitating transcendence of opposites within human nature.

The mythic importance of Venus for Mesoamerica is not entirely surprising for in that latitude the planet appears in the dawn sky as big as a snowball and shines with astonishing brilliance. In the Codex Borgia, as in the Mesoamerican world-view in general, mythology is intimately interwoven with astronomy. All periods of time, from hours and days to planetary orbits and phases, were seen as manifestations of cosmic forces with deep spiritual significance. In this cosmic drama, played out by a multitude of gods and goddesses, the Codex Borgia seems to reserve a special role for Quetzalcoatl, in linking his death, journey through the underworld and rebirth with the cycles of Venus.

Venus revolves around the sun in a nearly circular orbit, and during its revolution it undergoes phases, like the moon. Its sidereal period - the time of a complete orbit of the sun — is 225 days, but its synodic period, the time necessary to go through one cycle of phases, is 584 days. The Maya astronomers knew that each synodical revolution of Venus consisted of four main phases. Following the inferior conjunction with the sun, it was visible for 236 days as the morning star, until it was lost to view in the light of the sun. Then it could not be seen for ninety days until it rose again to visibility after superior conjunction, this time as the evening star. After 250
days of visibility, it passed through inferior conjunction, becoming invisible for eight days. According to myth, these eight days represented the period 22

Quetzalcoatl spent in the underworld before reappearing as the morning star.

The ordeals that Quetzalcoatl undergoes during his underworld journey bear a certain similarity to the descriptions of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

During his descent into Mictlan he encounters an entire pantheon of tzitzimimes - demons of darkness - and of wrathful deities threatening to destroy him. He also meets during his journey many peaceful deities who are nourishing, protective, and supportive. As he passes through the regions of the underworld, he is divided into two Quetzalcoatls: his dark twin brother Xolotl and his light self, Tezcatlipoca. After disintegrating into his physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual components, he transcends all the opposites, and during his transformation into Venus achieves a state of spiritual wholeness. This state has been represented in Tibet and many other cultures by the sacred symbol of the mandala. The Codex Borgia contains some of the finest mandalas of all time.

Ars Moriendi:

While many people have heard about the Egyptian and the Tibetan Books of The Christian Book
the Dead, it is generally less well known that an extensive body of literature related to problems of death and dying exists also in the western tradition. It of the Dead is usually referred to as Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying). Toward the end of the Middle Ages the works belonging to this genre were among the most popular and widespread literary forms in many European countries, particularly Austria, Germany, France and Italy.

The intense interest in death and dying in this period of history was greatly stimulated by the general uncertainty of life in the Middle Ages. Death was ever-present, as openly visible in the cities as in the villages. People died by tens of thousands in famines, wars and epidemics. It was not exceptional that during the outbreak of pestilence a quarter, a third, or even half of an entire population would be exterminated. People were used to witnessing the deaths of their relatives, friends and neighbours. Funeral corteges and processions with corpses were a standard part of daily life, rather than exceptional events. Mass burials, burning of cadavers, public executions, even the immolations of heretics and alleged witches and satanists were conducted on a large scale. According to some estimates, the number of the victims of the Holy Inquisition alone exceeded three million.

The all-pervading presence of death and the far-reaching corruption and disintegration of the social, political and religious fabric in medieval Europe provided the context that inspired the Ars moriendi literature. Both the mystical and the scholastic tradition contributed to the development of this eschatological genre, and many outstanding theologians considered its topic of sufficient significance to invest in it much time and energy. It is important to point out that the message of Ars moriendi was not limited to sick, old, and dying people whose main concern was biological demise.

Like the Egyptian and the Tibetan Books of the Dead, the European eschatological writings addressed not only the issues related to death, but also the fundamental problems of human existence in the face of impermanence.

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The extensive body of literature referred to as Ars moriendi falls into two broad categories. The first of these deals primarily with the significance of death in life, and would more appropriately be named Ars vivendi (The Art of Living). It emphasizes the importance of the right attitude toward death for life. The second focuses more specifically on the experiences of death and dying, and includes the management and emotional and spiritual support of dying people.

A recurrent theme in many of the works that belong to the category of Ars vivendi is contemplatio mortis, the contemplation of death that leads to contempt for the world and secular pursuits. This literature carries in many forms a strong reminder that a life oriented exclusively toward material goals is futile and wasted. Such an orientation is based on deep ignorance, and is possible only for those who are not aware of, or have not accepted, the fact that everything in the material world is impermanent and that death is the absolute ruler of life.

Mors certa, hora incerta (death is certain, its hour uncertain): the saying points to the awareness of death which is the beginning of all wisdom. It introduces into human life constant vigilance to avoid harmful behaviour.

Our main concern should not be to live long, to prolong our life at all cost and by all possible means, but to live rightly, in accordance with divine law.

Since none of us knows when death will strike us, we should live every moment of our lives as if it were the last.

This does not necessarily mean living in constant anxiety and anticipation of death. A more optimistic interpretation of such an attitude is that it reduces the degree to which we waste time and energy in the pursuit of multiple external goals, and helps us to focus instead on the fullest possible experience of the gift of life as it is manifest in the present moment. This idea is illustrated in a story by the great mythologist and philosopher Joseph Campbell. A man being pursued by a wild animal falls over the edge of a steep precipice but manages to break his fall by seizing hold of the branches of an overhanging shrub. As his grip begins to lose its strength, he notices a wild strawberry growing in a patch of grass close beside his face. He reaches out to it with his tongue, and slowly savours it. Did a strawberry ever taste as good?

The works dealing with contempt of the world illustrate the impermanence and futility of all worldly pursuits in many symbolic images, metaphors, and parables. Favourite subjects were the powerful, rich and famous, the hierarchy of Church and State. To depict those who have achieved the highest worldly goals in mortal despair at the moment of death was a devastating proof of the truth of the statement vanitas vanitatum, omne est vanitas (vanity of vanities, all is vanity), and, Thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return'.

Memento mori - 'remember death': the strongest argument for the contempt of the flesh was the contemplation of the ugliness of death, with realistic descriptions of the human body in various stages of putrefaction and decomposition. In certain forms of meditation, medieval monks were asked to visualize their own death and identify with their bodies as they Death and the Physician, from were gradually reduced to rotting flesh, bones, and finally dust. There is a Der Doten Dantz mit Figuren, reminder here of the practices of Tibetan tantric meditation in which the 1495
body is mentally annihilated, or even of more concrete exercises, where 24

The Orchestra of the Dead, from

Hermann Schedel, Liber

Chronicorum, 1493
practitioners had to meditate on corpses or in cemeteries. Modern study of non-ordinary states of consciousness has shown that exercises of this kind are much more than pathological indulgence in morbid topics. Deep acceptance of our physicality, including the worst that biological decay has to offer, leads to the realization that we are more than our body, and is a prerequisite to transcendence of the body and to spiritual opening. The message of the Ars vivendi was thus that we should not live purely for worldly pleasures, power and riches, which must inevitably fail us. Instead, we should learn to focus our attention on transcendental realities.

Polemic poems (Streitgedichte) presented the philosophical and religious problems of life and death in the form of dialogues or disputations between man and death, the world and man, life and death, the soul and the body, or the dying and the Devil. In the poems called Vado mori (I am walking to die), representatives of various social groups or personifications of various human characteristics shared their feelings and reflections in the face of death. These poems were in many ways predecessors of the texts used in the dances of death (danses macabres, Totentaenze), the fascinating medieval manifestations of mass psychology that will be discussed later in this book.

The second category of medieval works dealing with death includes texts focusing on the immediate experience of dying, and on the art of guiding and supporting dying individuals on their last journey. The beginnings of this literary genre can be traced to the end of the fourteenth century, to a time when the mortality rate from disease was so high that it became impossible for the priests to visit all the sick and prepare them for dying.

Under these circumstances, many people died, as the Church saw it, 'in the midst of their sins'. Concerned clergy became interested in disseminating information to prepare people for death before it was imminent. Among 25

those who preached and taught about death were the friars of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. Ars moriendi at first took the form of pastoral manuals for young priests to prepare them for work with dying individuals. Later, when the number of the priests was insufficient to meet the increasing need, the Latin texts were translated into the relevant languages to make them available to lay people.

Certain parts of the texts focused on doctrinal questions for the dying and required, in accordance with tradition, specific answers. However, other parts discussed the states of consciousness experienced by the dying, and prepared them for the various challenges of the posthumous journey of the soul. Sections were also dedicated to concrete instructions for the dying and for their helpers, to guide them during the last hours. Most medieval manuals agree that the preparation for death depends critically on creating the right disposition and the right attitude in the dying person.

It was considered particularly important not to instill false hopes of recovery. All possible support should be given to the dying individual to help Churchman surprised by Death.

him or her to face death, and accept it. Confrontation with death was seen Hans Holbein, Les simulachres et
as absolutely crucial, and avoidance was considered one of the major faces de la Mort, Lyon, 1538
dangers the dying person was facing. Some of the manuals explicitly stated that it was less objectionable and harmful if the helpers were to evoke fear in the dying individual, or prove to have anticipated death prematurely, rather than that they should allow him or her to use denial, and die unprepared.

The approach to the dying advocated in Ars moriendi was thus diametrically opposed to the practices that until recently dominated modern western medicine. In hospitals, it used to be a common practice for the attending physicians and other medical personnel to use all possible means to conceal from the patients the diagnosis and prognosis of serious diseases, and to join with the relatives in elaborate games to obscure the reality of the situation. In spite of much progress in this area, such a strategy is not exceptional even today.

The Posthumous

Until the middle of this century the ancient eschatological texts and the Journey of the Soul:

spiritual literature in general had not received the serious attention of the Myth and Science
western scientific circles. The interest in mysticism remained limited to individuals and groups who pursued it at the risk of isolating themselves from the mainstream culture and being ostracized. This situation started to change in the middle of this century; since that time, there has been a gradual cultural awakening in regard to spiritual matters among lay people as well as among certain groups of professionals.

Among the factors that seem to have contributed to this development were a sudden increase of interest in non-ordinary states of consciousness, triggered by scientific research and widespread popular use of psychedelics, systematic study of neardeath experiences, and the discovery of powerful experiential techniques of psychotherapy. At the same time, there was also an unprecedented renaissance of interest in mysticism, Eastern philosophy and shamanism. It came as a big surprise that westerners who used psychedelics, participated in powerful forms of experiential psychotherapy, got involved in systematic meditation, or experimented with some other 26
form of mind-altering techniques, had experiences that bore deep resemblance to those described in the mystical literature and in Eastern spiritual philosophies.

It has become obvious that the lack of appreciation of the western industrial world for the mystical traditions (or for perennial philosophy, in Aldous Huxley's sense) arose from the fact that we have lost contact with the deeper levels of our psyches that reveal themselves in altered states of consciousness. Crosscultural research has shown that the vast majority of ancient and pre-industrial cultures held non-ordinary states in great esteem, and spent much time and energy to develop various techniques of inducing them. They used them in various ritual contexts to connect with their deities and with nature, to diagnose and heal diseases, to cultivate extrasensory perception, and to tap deep sources of creative inspiration. As a result their cosmology, philosophy of life, mythology and spirituality reflected, not just everyday perception of the world, but the insights from their visionary states.

In comparison, western psychiatry pathologized all non-ordinary states of consciousness with the exception of dreams, and instead of studying them, focused on developing means of suppressing them. This resulted in a narrow, pragmatically biased understanding of the human psyche and ignorance of its true nature, as well as a limited and skewed image of the cosmos. When the experiential realm of non-ordinary states of consciousness opened to modern westerners, the typical result was a profound shift from a mechanistic world-view to a basically mystical way of understanding existence.

In addition, startling revolutionary advances in many scientific disciplines showed the limitations of the Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic thinking and replaced it with radical alternatives. Here belong, for example, the profound revision in our understanding of the physical world brought about by the theories of relativity and quantum physics, the holographic model of the universe and of the brain as developed by David Bohm and Karl Pribram, Rupert Sheldrake's concept of morphogenetic fields in biology, Gregory Bateson's systems approach to reality, and many others. One of the most exciting characteristics of this development has been a progressive convergence between this new understanding of the universe, often referred to as the new paradigm in science, and the world-view of the mystical traditions, which has created an atmosphere conducive to serious and unbiased study of the spiritual legacy of humanity.

Modern consciousness research

Systematic study of non-ordinary states of consciousness has shown that the model of the human psyche used in traditional psychiatry and psychology, which is limited to postnatal biography and the Freudian individual unconscious, is too narrow and superficial. In deep meditation, psychedelic sessions, experiential psychotherapy, trance states, spontaneous psychospiritual crises ('spiritual emergencies'), and other similar situations, the experiences typically transcend biography, and the psyche reveals its deeper dynamics. This results in a rich spectrum of phenomena that bear a close similarity to those described in spiritual literature of all ages.

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An important group of these deeper experiences combines in a very unusual way the elements of a shattering encounter with death and a struggle to be born. Since many people feel that the source of the sensations and emotions involved in these states is the memory of the birth trauma, we can refer to this level of the psyche as 'perinatal'. The activation of this domain of the unconscious — deliberate or spontaneous — results in profound experiences of dying and being born or reborn. Their rich symbolic imagery is often indistinguishable from the descriptions found in the spiritual scriptures of the world, particularly in various eschatological texts.

Perinatal experiences represent a strange amalgam that combines concrete memories of biological birth with elements that are clearly archetypal and transpersonal in nature, and have a very strong spiritual overtone. They occur in four typical experiential clusters, or basic perinatal matrices, that seem to be closely related to the consecutive stages of delivery.

The first of these matrices can be referred to as the experience of the amniotic universe. Its biological basis is the situation of the original symbiotic unity with the maternal organism during foetal existence, before the onset of delivery. Besides taking the form of a biological memory, it can also be associated with oceanic or cosmic experiences and states of mystical unity. Visionary states of this kind often bring images of paradises or heavens of different cultures emerging from the collective unconscious.

Reliving of episodes of intrauterine distress or crisis is often accompanied by images of treacherous demons.

The second perinatal matrix is characterized by experiences of cosmic engulfment and 'no exit' or hell. It is related to the memory of the stage of delivery when the uterine contractions encroach upon the foetus and the cervix is not yet open. The beginning of labour is experienced subjectively as a dangerous whirlpool, or as entering an ominous underworld labyrinth.

When this state is fully developed it feels like a claustrophobic nightmare, a situation of extreme physical and emotional suffering from which there is no way out. Any contact with the divine seems forever lost, and all of existence appears to be meaningless, absurd, and monstrous. In spiritual terminology, this is hell or the dark night of the soul. This cluster of experiences can be accompanied by archetypal images of devils and infernal scenes from different cultures.

Many of the aspects of the third perinatal matrix can be understood from its connection with the propulsion through the birth canal after the cervix opens. It is subjectively experienced as a determined death-rebirth struggle.

Among its characteristics are crushing pressures, tensions and streaming energies, pains in different parts of the body, suffocation, murderous aggression, strong sexual arousal, and encounter with various forms of biological material, such as blood, mucus, urine, even faeces. The accompanying symbolic visions combine elements of fierce titanic battles, sexual and sadomasochistic scenes, demonic motifs, scatological experiences, and encounter with purifying fire. Here subjects frequently identify with archetypal figures representing death and rebirth, such as Jesus, Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, or Quetzalcoatl. This matrix is also closely related to the religious concept of purgatory.

Finally, the fourth perinatal matrix reflects the actual moment of birth and emergence into an entirely new form of existence. The propulsion through

An experience from the final
stage of the death-rebirth
process in a high-dose LSD
session. This encounter with a

Moloch-like deity with a furnace—
belly and tearing claws
immediately preceded
psychological rebirth and the
opening into light (solarization)

the birth canal is completed and is followed by explosive relief and relaxation. Subjectively, this sequence is experienced as psychospiritual death and rebirth. Emotional and physical suffering culminates in an experience of total annihilation on all the levels - physical, emotional, intellectual, moral and transcendental. This sense of ultimate disaster, usually referred to as the ego death, is typically followed by visions of blinding white or golden light, intricate rainbow halos and peacock designs, or glorious celestial beings. There is a sense of spiritual liberation, divine epiphany, redemption, and salvation. The universe seems indescribably beautiful and radiant, and evil appears ephemeral and unimportant.

29

Beyond the perinatal level of the psyche, as revealed in non-ordinary states of consciousness, is a domain which is now called transpersonal. This realm connects the individual psyche with the collective unconscious of all humanity, with-all of nature, and with the entire cosmos. Transpersonal experiences can involve encounters with deities and demons of different cultures, spirit guides and power animals, various archetypal sceneries and mythological sequences, out-of-body states, past life memories, and many others. Phenomena of this kind have been described in different combinations in the literature on shamanism, rites of passage, Eastern spiritual philosophies, ancient death-rebirth mysteries, and specifically in the books of the dead and other eschatological texts.

Scientific exploration of the Beyond

Modern consciousness research has validated many of the claims of the great mystical traditions. It has shown that the spiritual scriptures, rather than being products of primitive minds dominated by wishful and magical thinking, describe with great accuracy experiences in non-ordinary states of consciousness. This general insight was then complemented by very specific corroboration of many of the assertions of the ancient eschatological texts. The relevant information was accumulated by thanatology, a new discipline studying death and dying.

As mentioned earlier, this field of inquiry was brought to the attention of the general public, as well as professional circles, by the 1975 publication of Life After Life by Raymond Moody. The author, a physician and psychologist, analyzed 150 accounts by people who had had neardeath experiences, and personally interviewed some fifty people who had survived clinical death.

He was able to show great similarities between the reports of his subjects and the descriptions of the posthumous journey of the soul found in the spiritual literature, from Plato through the Tibetan Book of the Dead to the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Although his report was mostly anecdotal, it served as an incentive for carefully conducted systematic research of the neardeath phenomena. It led to the publication of such widely read books as Kenneth Ring's Life At Death and Heading Toward Omega, Michael Sabom's Recollections of Death, and Bruce Greyson and Charles Flynn's The Near Death Experience. This information also captured the attention of the media; it has become the subject of many magazine articles and talk shows and has provided inspiration for many Hollywood movies, such as Resurrection, Flatliners, and Ghost. A study conducted in the early 1980s by Gallup Poll and reported in the book Adventures in Immortality by George Gallup, Jr., showed that about eight million Americans living at that time reported having had neardeath experiences.

The general public is now familiar with the cartography of the neardeath experience, at least on a superficial level. It is well known that about one third of the people who have a close brush with death report that it was a fantastic visionary adventure that involved such elements as a condensed life review, travel through a dark tunnel, meeting with dead relatives and ancestors, encounter with a source of light of supernatural brilliance and beauty, and a scene of divine judgment. Less frequent are memories of terrifying and hellish experiences and encounters with archetypal beings.

30

Probably the most interesting aspect of neardeath experiences is the incidence of out-of-body travel, during which one can perceive one's own body from above and accurately observe the rescue operations. Moreover, under these circumstances it is possible to travel to other more or less remote locations and obtain reliable information about the events unfolding there. There are even reported cases where individuals who were blind because of a medically confirmed organic damage to their optical system could at the time of clinical death temporarily see the environment and then again lost their sight when they were brought back to life. Occurrences of this kind, unlike most of the other aspects of neardeath phenomena, can be subjected to objective verification. They thus represent the most convincing proof that what happens in neardeath experiences is more than the hallucinatory phantasmagoria of physiologically impaired brains. The similarity between these observations and the descriptions of the bardo body in the Tibetan Book of the Dead is truly astonishing.

Modern consciousness research has thus shown that the ancient sacred scriptures, including the eschatological texts, are not irrelevant products of superstition and primitive imagination. Instead, they seem to be accurate descriptions of the experiential territories traversed in non-ordinary states of consciousness. They are often based on countless personal experiences and on many centuries of careful observations. Experiential confrontation and knowledge of the realms they describe is a matter of extreme relevance, since the degree to which we become familiar and comfortable with them can have far-reaching consequences for the quality of our life, as well as for the way we die. In this sense, the books of the dead explored in this volume can be seen, not as historical curiosities, but as practical guides for situations we all might encounter sometime in the future.

Painting recording the
experience of identification with
the archetypal image of the
phoenix, .at the moment of
psychological rebirth during a
psychedelic session

31

The principal deities and archetypal beings who are encountered
between the moment of death and
the time of seeking rebirth are
depicted together in this painting.

In the centre is the Buddha Heruka,
the wrathful transformation of

Samantabhadra, with four other
terrifying Herukas. Around them
dance the fierce dakinis and
guardian deities of the mandala.

The small mandalas in the corners
each contain one of the five
transcendental Dhyani Buddhas, or

Tathagatas, with their consorts and
entourage of assistant Bodhisattvas.

Immediately above the main circle
is Vairocana, the primal Tathagata

Buddha, radiating dazzling blue
light from the heart. (Tibetan tanka
painting, 19th century)

32

The contemplation of death was a
their lives. Bruegel's painting

Precolumbian death god is
central theme for the artists of the

(following page) shows a skeleton
recognizable by his fleshless limbs
medieval Ars moriendi (The Art of
army advancing through a
and skeletal backbone. (This page:

Dying). 'And I looked and behold a
panoramic scene of destruction

Francesco Traini, fresco in the
pale horse, and his name that sat
and sudden death in many forms.

Campo Santo, Pisa, 14th century.

on him was Death.' Here Death's

As the least perishable part of the

Relief from Izapa, Mexico, c. 200
arrows spare the old and the poor,
body, the skeleton and bones are

BC—AD 200. Following page: Pieter
but strike down lords and ladies,
cross-cultural symbols of death and

Bruegel, The Triumph of Death,
bishops and popes in the prime of
the underworld deities. Above, a

16th century)

35

The basic dilemma of human
of Becoming' is held in the fierce
lifetimes, according to their good or
existence — how to find meaning in
grip of Yama, Lord of Death
bad karma. The segments of the
life, in the face of death and

{opposite). At the centre, the three
large circle represent the six realms
impermanence — is graphically
animals represent the forces that
or lokas into which one may be
illustrated by the medieval Wheel
perpetuate the cycles of death and
born: from the top, clockwise, the
of Life. From infancy to old age and
rebirth: pig (ignorance), rooster
realms of the gods, titans, hungry
death, the wheel turns

(desire) and serpent (aggression). In
ghosts, hell, animals and human
remorselessly full circle, while
the next circle are the dark,
beings. (Anonymous woodcut,

Death towers over the globe as
descending, and light, ascending

1558. Tanka painting, 18th 19th
absolute ruler. The Tibetan 'Wheel
paths travelled by souls between
century)

38

In the Christian tradition of the Ars
moriendi the gruesome and
repulsive fate of the body after
death has often been emphasized
in order to turn people's minds
from worldly and ultimately futile
concerns to spiritual and
transcendental realities. The
painting shows the flesh whose
pleasures the lovers enjoyed in
their lifetimes infested with worms,
toads, flies and scorpions. During
the modern celebrations of the Day
of the Dead, the living welcome
the souls of the departed into their
midst. Death symbolism abounds,
but it is not meant to evoke fear or
loathing; its origins lie in the
autumn-winter festival of the
turning year. (Master of the Sterzing

Panel, The Damned Lovers. Players
of El Teatro Campesino celebrating
the Day of the Dead, San Juan

Bautista, California)

40

41

Death presides over the infernal
spiritual power. In the hell-scene
contact with the divine is forever
realms and their archetypal
around and below, his helpers
lost. The sense of chaos, anguish,
demonic beings. Yama, Tibetan
slash, pierce or strangle those
and despair of the hell experiena

Lord and Judge of the Dead, rules
whose evil deeds were motivated
is well conveyed by the helpless,
in a pavilion and court adorned
by anger. Skeletal death embraces
tumbled bodies in van Eyck's
with human skulls, heads and
the Christian Hell, above, a realm of
painting. (Tanka painting, c. 1800.

flayed skins. In his right hand he
eternal torments from which no

Detail of the Last Judgment, by
holds the sword symbolic of
escape is possible, and where

Hubert van Eyck, c. 1426)

Visions of celestial, wrathful and
the heavens, among saints and

'Knowledge-holding' deity
demonic beings are common to all
angels, with Satan in Hell below.

Chemchok Heruka, in the embrace
religious traditions, although the

The Mandala of the Peaceful and
of his consort. In the upper part of
iconography the Books of the Dead

Wrathful Deities ( opposite) is
the mandala are the Peaceful
shows many variations. A painting
specifically based on the Bardo

Deities, while all around dance the
of the Last Judgment sets the

Thodol, and is intended for mental
ferocious host of human and

Christian pantheon of God the
preparation for the visionary
animal protectors. (The Last

Father, Christ and the Virgin Mary
encounters experienced at the time

Judgment, Bologna. Tanka painting,
in a mandorla-shaped opening in
of dying. It centres on the

18th-19th century)

Throughout history, many spiritual
traditions have developed powerful
techniques that make it possible to
experience states of consciousness
normally only accessible at the
time of biological death. In some
instances these approaches
involved procedures damaging to
the body. Some Christian mystics,
for instance, spent long periods in
solitude, exposing themselves to
extremes of heat in the desert, or
to excessive fasting and ascetic
penances. Others practised various
forms of painful self-mutilation.

Cranach's painting shows St Jerome
beating his side with a heavy stone.

The ancient Mayans employed
ritual bloodletting as a powerful
mind-altering method. A Maya
lintel depicts Lady Xoc, wife of a
ruler, experiencing a ritually
induced hallucinatory vision. In her
left hand she holds a dish
containing blood-spotted papers
and ritual lancets. Above a second
dish, placed on the ground, rises a

Vision Serpent, the Maya symbol
for their contact with the
otherworld of the gods and
ancestors. From the Serpents'

upper mouth emerges an armed
warrior, and from another mouth
below, a head of TIaloc, deity of
rain and abundance. (Lucas

Cranach, St Jerome, 1502. Lintel,

Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico, Late

Classic Period, AD 600-900)

47

For the ancient Egyptians, the

(right), a tomb ceiling-painting
mouth and is swallowed. Engulfed,
experiences of the deceased person
represents the sun's night-time
it travels through the night hours to
and initiate were closely related to
journey as a passage through the
be born from her loins at daybreak
the nocturnal journey of the sun.

body of the sky goddess Nut.

into the eastern sky. (Painted

Illustrating the 'Book of Day' {left of

During the day, the sun disc travels
ceiling, tomb of Rameses VI, 20th
the picture) and 'Book of Night'

west, until it reaches the goddess's

Dynasty)

48

In the Aztec Codex Borgia the final
body of the goddess of death,
circle of his feathered neck—
episode in the miraculous

Mictlantecuhtli, here represented
ornament. Below, the body of the
transformation of Quetzalcoatl -
by the square. In the dark abyss of
goddess opens, giving the same
his death, underworld journey and
the centre are shown two
two figures triumphant birth into
rebirth as the Morning Star - is
intertwined figures of the dead
the south-eastern sky. (Codex
shown as occurring within the

Quetzalcoatl, enclosed by the

Borgia, p. 30)

49

According to Christian doctrine
it will be directed to heaven, hell or
human beings are endowed with a
purgatory. The medieval scene of a
single soul which parts from the
death chamber indicates the trials
body at the time of death and has
that may be expected during the
to face the consequences of the
last hours. It shows an angel and
individual's actions. Depending on
the devil hovering above the dying
how well prepared the individual is
man's head, waiting to contend for
for the ordeals of death, and upon
his departing soul. (Illumination from
the outcome of a divine judgment,
the Grimani Breviary, 1480-1520)

50

The ancient Egyptian conceptions
the kingdom of Osiris, afterwards
of the soul were considerably more
dwelling both in paradise and in
complex. The spiritual aspect of
the tomb. Ab was the conscience
each person was believed to
or 'heart', which faced the
consist of several main
judgment. Akh was the transfigured
components. Of these, the ka was
spirit. Ba was the power of animation
the vital force that leaves the body
after death: here Osiris's ba is shown
at the time of death and travels
hovering over his mummy at his
west to meet its heavenly double in
embalmment. (Relief, 23rd Dynasty)

51

Water plays an important role in
death-rebirth mythology. For the
ancient Maya, the moment of
death was sometimes equated with
the downward plunge of a canoe.

The serrated outline of an eccentric
flint suggests both the dive of a
canoe with its passengers into the
watery underworld, and the shape
of an underworld water-creature,
the crocodilian Celestial Monster.

The element of water also
describes the sun god's journey
journey is the transformation from
dominates a painting from a
through the dark regions of the
the densest form of matter to the
psychedelic session which captures
underworld as a voyage on
most subtle form of energy,
the subject's experience of the
subterranean waters, involving
followed by re-emergence into the
onset of psychological death and
many perils and ordeals. In this
material world. (Eccentric flint from
rebirth. It shows a whirlpool
section, Ra takes the form of a

North Peten, Guatemala, 650-800.

drawing the helpless foetus into its
ram-headed human figure. A

Contemporary psychedelic
centre and threatening to engulf
serpent known as 'the Enveloper'

painting. Wall painting from the
and annihilate him.

forms the deck-cabin over him. An
tomb of Sethos, Abydos, c. 1285 BC)

The Egyptian Book of the Dead
esoteric meaning of the underworld

53

54

The divine judgment of the soul

According to the Egyptian Book

Horus attends the balance, and
appears in the ancient Egyptian,
of the Dead, the judgment took

Thoth, the scribe of the dead, acts

Tibetan and Christian accounts of
place in the underworld Hall of
as an impartial witness. Below the
the afterlife as a scene of weighing.

Maat, goddess of justice. First came
scale waits Amenet, Devourer of

In Christian doctrine the soul is
a 'negative confession', in which

Souls, a crocodile-headed monster
judged at the time of death and
the deceased declared that he or
who swallows any heart heavy with
again on the Day of Doom. A
she had committed no sins. Then
sin. Those whose hearts pass the
cathedral sculpture (left) shows the
the deceased (shown standing at
judgment are led by Horus to join

Archangel Michael and the Devil
the left) watches as her ab or

Osiris in the paradise of the Happy
weighing the souls, and competing

'heart', seat of conscience, is

Fields. (Sculpture by Gislebertus,
for them at the Last Judgment. The
weighed against a feather, or here,

Autun Cathedral, c. 1132. Judgment

Devil is evidently cheating.

against a small figure of Maat.

from a papyrus Book of the Dead)

55

The archetypal beings of heaven
enchantress, and sister and spouse
of the pharaoh Tutankhamen, with
and the underworld are often seen
of Osiris, who took the form of a
long golden wings outspread.

as endowed with wings. Isis, the
kite to conceive his son Horus,

(Relief, tomb of Tutankhamen, 18th

Great Mother Goddess,
stands as protectress in the shrine

Dynasty)

The joyous scene of the
while wings denote unlimited

Coronation of the Virgin as Queen
ability to travel between realms, or
of Heaven ( opposite) is thronged
else divine kindness and
with gold-winged beings. Gold is
protectiveness. (The Limbourg
frequently used as a metaphor for
brothers, Les Tres Riches Heures du
the visionary and paradisean state,
due de Berri, 1409-15)

The hope of resurrection or reincarnation — of new life after the darkness of death, finds expression
in a variety of different metaphors.

A painting from a psychedelic
session in which a tree's roots are
shown drawing nourishment from a
coffin, recalls the myth of the dead

Osiris concealed in the trunk of a
beautiful tree until he was
discovered by his sister-spouse Isis.

A relief (below) from the Temple of

Dendera shows Osiris's coffin
enclosed in a tamarisk tree. Both
images reflect the insight that life
feeds on life, and new life grows
out of old. For medieval faith (right),
the dead rose in their bodies on

Judgment Day, in a literal
awakening of the dead, to clamber
gratefully out of their dark tombs.

(Contemporary psychedelic
painting. Drawing after a relief at
the Temple of Dendera, 1st century
bc. Illumination from the Vysehrad

Gospel Book, 11th century)

58

The realms of Paradise, the abodes
the Celestial Nile and carrying on a

The Christian Paradise is
of the blessed, typically combine
variety of agricultural activities
frequently represented as a rose
the most beautiful and pristine
rewarded with magnificent harvests.

garden (opposite), an exquisite
aspects of nature: sparkling streams

The emphasis on farming carries
haven of peace and love for the
and lakes, luscious vegetation, rich
a profound symbolic meaning: just
soul after death. With the Virgin
profusion of fruits and flowers, birds
as plants are sown, grown,
and Child is shown the martyred St
and young animals.

harvested, and re-emerge after a

Catherine of Alexandria, mystic

The paradise of the ancient
second sowing, so the deceased is
bride of the infant Christ.

[Egyptians bore a striking similarity
reborn in the hereafter. The scene

The peacocks represent
to their earthly life. The deceased
on the tympanum links the Happy
immortality. (Tomb of Sed-nedjem,

Sed-nedjem and his wife are shown

Fields with the voyage of the solar

19th Dynasty. Madonna of the
in the Happy Fields after their
barque and the emergence of the

Rose Garden, by Stefano da
resurrection, enjoying boat-trips on
sun at dawn, and so with rebirth.

Verona, c. 1374-1450)

60

Flowers form an essential element

A visionary drawing by William

Tathagata Buddha Akshobhya is
of the paradisean landscapes, and

Blake illustrates the Virgin as
represented in a bronze sculpture
the symbolism of particular flowers

Queen of Heaven in Glory, in the
enthroned in a lotus, surrounded
is often used to describe high
mystic white rose. Angels and
by eight Bodhisattvas couched in
mystical states — in particular the
sages are enfolded among the
the petals. The lotus-flower, arising
rose in western tradition, and the
petals. A Maya ceramic represents
from the underwater darkness and
lotus in India, the Far East and prea young lord as reborn in a
mud of the lake bottom to open in

Hispanic America.

waterlily, while the transcendental
pristine beauty in the sun, is a

62

particularly apt symbol for the
spiritual journey. (William Blake,
illustration for the Paradiso, Dante's

Divine Comedy, 1824-7. Vessel of
the Maya ceramic codex. Bronze
mandala, East India, 12th century)

63

A triumphant scene from the

Themes
papyrus of Ani depicts the instant
of the emergence of the sun god
after his nocturnal journey through
the underworld. At the same time,
it represents the rebirth of the
deceased person, and the moment
of illumination of the initiate in the
mysteries. Beside the d/ed, the
vertebral column of Osiris, kneel
his sisters Isis and Nephthys,
worshipping the solar disc
supported by the ankh, symbol of
eternal life. The six baboons in
postures of adoration are the Spirits
of Dawn, celebrating the sunrise.

(Papyrus of Ani, 19th Dynasty,
c. 1250 BC)

Right: A fleshless sun, on its way to
light the world of the dead. (From
the Aztec Pyramid of the Sun,

Teotihuacan, Mexico, AD 500)

65

boat carries additional deities who
assist the sun god during his dangerous
journey. Above is shown the sky god Egyptian Deities of the 'First
dess, Nut, receiving the new sun; she

Time'

stands on the head of Osiris, whose
body encircles and embraces the

'lower world' or Duat.

The deities of the Egyptian Book of the

The first divine couple, Shu, god of

Dead or Pert em hru are linked with
air and empty space, and Tefnut, godthe earliest times, when the cosmos dess of life-giving moisture, conceived
itself was created. In Egyptian myththe earth god Ceb and the sky goddess ology the source of creation was Nun,

Nut. The siblings showed each other
god of the waters of primordial chaos.

great affection, defying the strict prohi The creator of gods, humanity and the
bition of their father. Below, Shu is seen universal order was the self-created
upholding his daughter Nut (the vault

Atum; at the time of the Pyramid Texts
of the sky) in the attempt to keep her

(2350-2175 bc) Atum became identified
forever separate from his son Ceb
with the sun god, Ra.

(earth).

Nun appears, left, at the moment of

While the jealous Ra also tried to
creation, upholding the solar barque
keep them separate, Nut and Ceb were"

with the sun god in the form of a
brought together by the god Thoth.

scarab who supports the rising sun. On

Playing draughts with the moon, he
either side of the sun god stand the
won a 72th portion of his light, and on
goddesses Isis and Nephthys, and the
these five days stolen from the lunar

66

calendar, Nut and Ceb were able to
represented as a dead king, with only

Another important figure from the
conceive their four children, the divine
the hands emerging from the mummy's

Pert em hru was Thoth, a self-begotten
siblings Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys.

wrappings, holding the emblems of his
deity who mysteriously emerged in a

A funerary papyrus, bottom left, shows supreme power, a shepherd's crook
lotus, the inventor of speech, the
the sisters Isis and Nephthys praising
and a flail.

sacred hieroglyphic alphabet, and also
the sun god Ra as he rises in the east.

Seth, the fourth of the divine siblings,
of mathematics, engineering, magic

Between them is the djed pillar which below left, was an ancient deity origand divination. He was seen as the god symbolized the spinal column of Osiris, inally worshipped in Libya in the form
of the moon and as Measurer of Time.

the seat of the magic fluid and the vital
of a crocodile or hippopotamus. He is

One of his important roles was imparfire of life, bestowed by Osiris on the cast as the treacherous archenemy of tial judge of the dead. His symbolic
dead. Below the vault of heaven stands
his brother Osiris, but the legend gives
representations show him either ibisthe sun god Ra in the form of a falcon.

him cause for hatred. Although he was
headed or as a dog-headed baboon.

Osiris, an ancient corn deity, was
the husband of his sister, Nephthys, her

Below, he is shown bestowing eternal
associated from earliest times with
loyalties were to Osiris. Seth being the
life on pharoah Seti I by pointing the
funerary rites and the pattern of birth,
god of aridity and storms, the marriage

Nile cross or ankh toward his nostrils.

death and renewal. Eventually he came
remained childless. With the help of

(Facing page: Drawing, relief on the
to represent for his followers the hope
alcohol and disguised as Isis, Nephthys
sarcophagus of Seti I, 19th Dynasty, c.

of an eternally happy life in another
managed to conceive by Osiris her son,

1305 bc. Greenfield Papyrus, c. 950 BC.

world, where he ruled as a good and

Anubis, who became the herald of

Papyrus of Hunefer, 19th Dynasty, c.

just king. He is depicted here (lacing,
death and inventor of embalming. Seth

1310 bc. Papyrus of Ani, 19th Dynasty,
bottom right) with his sister and spouse,
was usually represented as a pig-like
c. 1250 bc. This page: Bronze figure of

Isis. Her name means 'seat', and she is
animal with a long curving snout,

Seth, 22nd Dynasty, c. 945-715 bc.

often shown wearing a little throne on
square upstanding ears, and an upright

Wall painting, tomb of Seti I, 19th
her head. Osiris was traditionally
tufted tail.

Dynasty, 1305-1290 BC)

67

The Sun's Underworld

Voyage

The posthumous journey of the soul
was closely associated with the diurnal—
nocturnal journey of the sun god Ra,
who emerged in the east from behind

Manu, the mountain of sunrise, and
began his journey in the Manjet boat,
the Barque of Millions of Years. During
the day he traversed the sky, giving
heat, light, and life to the earth. At
sunset, the sunboat passed through the
chain of mountains in the west, and
during the night, as a second barque,
the Mesektet boat, continued the journey through the Tuat, the Egyptian underworld (centre left).

The Tuat was a gloomy and treacherous place that presented grave dangers for the solar crew. It was
divided into twelve provinces, usually
called arrit (hall), nut (city) and sekhet (field), each the equivalent of one night
hour. All the halls had gates with specific watchers, heralds and gatekeepers, top left, who had to be correctly named with the help of the Book of the Dead
before the barque was allowed to
continue.

Ra and his companions had to struggle through places of blazing fire, where heat and fumes destroyed nostrils and
mouths. Many hideous beings and fantastic creatures threatened them on their way. Among the perils was Osiris's brother Seth in the form of Aapep, a gigantic snake that attempted to devour the solar disc just before
sunrise (p. 89).

As Ra passed along the infernal river
the various gods and demons who
inhabited each province came forward
to haul his boat, for no wind could
penetrate the Tuat. At the close of the

Twelfth Hour, /eft, the sun god emerged
triumphant. Here, in a scene illustrating
the Am Tuat (The Book of What is in
the Tuat) he is shown as a scarab
entering the eastern sky.

The followers of the sun god
assumed that the deceased and
initiates joined him on the solar barque
and participated in the crew's heroic
adventures. For the followers of Osiris,
the solar barque would carry them to
the hall where Thoth held the scales of
judgment, right, and then, provided the
judgment was safely passed, they

were led to Osiris's kingdom (p. 92).

sepulchre chamber, the ceremony of

The tomb of Tutmosis III, above, is the 'Opening of the Mouth' was pershown painted with scenes of the First formed to allow speech at the gates Hour of the Am Tuat (The Book of and the judgement, and to ensure the

What is in Tuat), a guide for the
rebirth of the deceased (see p. 86).

deceased on the underworld voyage.

(Facing page: Papyrus of Ani, 19th

After mummification, the bodies of Dynasty, c. 1250 bc. Relief wall painting, royal persons and nobles were often tomb of Seti I, 19th Dynasty, 1305— placed in a number of richly decorated 1290 bc. Wall painting, tomb of Tutmoanthropomorphic coffins. The carton-sis III, Valley of the Kings, 18th Dynasty, nage for a priest's mummy, right, c. 1450 bc. This page: Tomb of Tutmosis
displays the d/ed column symbol of

III with wall paintings, 18th Dynasty, c.

Osiris and other imagery related to the 1450 bc. Cartonnage of Nespanetjeren-Book of the Dead. At the tomb, the
pere, 22nd Dynasty, c. 945-715 bc.

mummy was first held upright, and,

Papyrus of Kenna, 19th Dynasty, c.

before it was lowered into the

1305-1290 bc)

69

While many religions and cultures have be missed, progression through the Forth of the Seed' ( facing page, left), is elaborate mythologies with vivid remaining two bardos reveals an ever—
the Buddha of the Central Realm and
descriptions of deities and demons,
increasing multitude of specific forms.

the first to manifest. He is white, and
none matches the rich and detailed

The five primordial expressions of
the space in which he appears is blue;
iconography of Tibetan Buddhism. This cosmic energy, the Dhyani or Tatha-the dazzling blue light that radiates
is particularly reflected in the Tibetan
gata Buddhas, first appear in their blissfrom his heart competes for the atten Book of the Dead, or Bardo Thddol,
ful aspects ( facing page) and gradually
tion with the dull white light of the
which describes a fantastic array of
develop into an amazing pantheon of

Realm of Cods ( devaloka). Seated on a
blissful and wrathful deities and other

Knowledge-holding, Wrathful and
lion throne and embraced by the
archetypal inhabitants encountered on

Doorkeeping Deities, Yoginis of the

Mother of the Space of Heaven, he
the afterdeath plane.

Four Cardinal Points, and a rich array of holds an eight-spoked wheel symboliz Authorship of this work is attributed
other archetypal beings. Simultaing transcendence of direction and to the legendary spiritual teacher Pad-neously there shine the dull lights of time. He represents the wisdom of the
masambhava, who is credited with
different colours representing the six

Dharmadhatu, the limitless, all-pervadbringing Buddhism to Tibet. He is lokas, or realms into which one can be ing space in which everything exists as
depicted, above, among various scenes
reborn. Lastly, the Sidpa Bardo, the
it really is. Since he is the original and
from his life. The profound wisdom that Bardo of Seeking Rebirth, brings the central figure, his family of associated can lead to spiritual liberation is known Judgment and scenery of the lokas.

Bodhisattvas is known as the Buddha or
as Prajnaparamita, and is sometimes

'Tathagata', like the name Buddha,

Tathagata family. In his negative aspect,
personified as a goddess ( above right).

signifies 'the Awakened One'. The five
he symbolizes the poison of confusion

According to the Tibetan Book of the Tathagatas are the five principal modes or ignorance out of which all the others Dead, the best opportunity for ultimate of energy of Buddha-nature, fully awakevolve.

liberation occurs at the moment of
ened consciousness. They embody five

Akshobhya, 'Immovable Buddha',
death, during the first bardo, or interqualities of wisdom; everything that is next to appear, is the Buddha of the mediate state between life and death.

part of existence and every event can

Eastern Realm of Pre-eminent Happi The Primary and Secondary Clear Light be described in terms of one of the ness. He is blue, and the bright white
that manifest at this time represent the
five. However, in the state of mind of
light of the mirror-like wisdom radiating
cosmic creative energy in its pure
an unenlightened person, they appear
from his heart competes with the
nature, and the encounter with them
as five poisons or confused emotions,
smoke-coloured light of the Hell Realm
can be overwhelming. Should the
represented by their wrathful aspects.

(narakaloka). Embraced by his consort
opportunity for liberation in this bardo

Tathagata Vairochana, 'Spreading

Buddha-Locana, 'the Buddha Eye', he

70

The Visions of the Bardo Thödol
sits on an elephant throne, holding a
five-pronged Vajra or thunderbolt. Like
all the Tathagatas, he has two male and
two female Bodhisattvas as his attendants. Akshobhya is the ruler of the Vajra family that represents deep transcendental wisdom, reflecting everything with clarity and without critical judgment. The corresponding poison is aggression or hatred.

Ratnasambhava, 'Buddha of Precious

Birth', is the Buddha of the Southern

Realm Endowed with Glory. He is
yellow and radiates the dazzling yellow
light of equanimity and non-discrimination, the richness and majesty of which might make one choose the
competing dull bluish-yellow light of
the Human Realm ( manakaloka). He is
represented here (top right) as a Bodhisattva. His right hand makes the boon—
bestowing gesture and his left the contemplation gesture. (Facing page: Tanka painting, 16th-17th century, Wall
painting, Tholing Monastery, 15th
century. This page, above: Tathagata

Vairocana and consort, detail of tanka
painting. Right: Ratnasambhava,
bronze, 14th-15th century. Amitabha,
tanka painting, 15th century, Amoghasiddhi, tanka painting, c. 18th century)

Seated on a horse-throne, Ratnathe Padma family, characterized by power of the image, as the effect of
sambhava is described as holding in his compassion and discriminating wisdom. prayers is augmented by prayer-wheels hand the wish-fulfilling gem. His yellow Its poison is indulgence in ordinary or by reiteration of spoken mantras.

colour symbolizes the fertility, wealth, passions and attachment to pleasurable After the five Peaceful Tathagatas and richness of the earth; his consort aspects of the material world.

have appeared singly on the first fiv,e

Mamaki represents water, an element

Amoghasiddhi, 'Buddha of Unfailing consecutive days of the Chonyid Bardo, which is indispensable for fertility. Rat Success', is the Buddha of the Northern they all manifest simultaneously on the nasambhava presides over the Ratna Realm of Successful Performance of
sixth day (below left). They fill all the family which is characterized by the

Best Actions. He is green, and emaspace, all the directions, and there is no wisdom of equanimity, equality, and
nates from his heart radiant green light escape, for the four gates are guarded non-discriminating light; its specific poiwhich competes with the dull green by the Doorkeepers with their conson is pride.

light from the Realm of the Jealous
sorts; the east by Vijaya, the 'Victorious

The fourth of the blissful deities,

Gods (asuraloka). He is described as

One', the south by Yamantaka, 'Des Amitabha, 'Buddha of Infinite Light', is enthroned on a sheng-shang, an arche troyer of the Lord of Death' (p. 74, the Buddha of the Western Paradise or typal bird, and embraced by his conabove), the west by Hayagriva, the Sukhavati. He is red, and radiates from sort, Samaya-Tara, 'Saviour of Sacred 'Horse-headed King', and the north by his heart brilliant red light of the all-Word'. He holds a crossed multico Amritakundali, the 'Coil of Immortality'.

discriminating wisdom. Simultaneously loured vajra symbolizing total fulfil With them appear the Buddhas of the
shines the dull red light of the Realm of ment. Among his Bodhisattvas is Vajra-six lokas and other figures: forty-two the Hungry Ghosts ( pretaloka). Amipani, or 'Vajra-holder', symbolizing deities altogether, depicted opposite left tabha is described as seated on a pea enormous energy ( below right), shown in the Mandala of the Peaceful Deities.

cock throne, holding a lotus, and
here with his consort. Amoghasiddhi

On the seventh day appear the
embraced by his consort Pandaravasini, presides over the Karma family, asso Vidyadharas, or 'Knowledge-holding

'the White One'. He is shown here
ciated with wise action, efficiency and Deities', shown opposite right with the (previous page, centre right) in monk's fulfilment; the corresponding poison is Wrathful Deities. All the deities of the robes, with monks, Bodhisattvas, lotus jealousy. This Tathagata is shown here Bardo Thödol have a specific connecpools, lions and peacocks. The peacock among numerous small representations tion with the chakras, or centres of and the lotus symbolize purity, openof himself .(previous page, loot). The subtle energy of the body. While the ness and acceptance. Amitabha rules
repetition serves the purpose of

Peaceful Deities are associated with the
increasing the spiritual

72

heart centre and the Wrathful Deities

Knowledge-holder Who Ripens the Karcounterpart is the reddish black with the brow centre, the Knowledge-mic Fruit', in a halo of radiant rainbow Padma-Heruka, and that of Amoghaholders represent the link between colours, embraced by his dakini. In the
siddhi is the dark green Karma-Heruka.

them, mediated by speech, and are
east is the Earth-abiding Knowledge—

As a protection against terrifying bardo
thus connected with the throat chakra.

holder', white, and embraced by the
visions, the Bardo Thödol suggests

This is also reflected in their counte White Dakini. To the south is the smilvisualization of Vajrapani (facing, right).

nance and demeanour. They are not
ing and radiant deity named 'He Who

On the thirteenth day appear the
quite peaceful and not quite wrathful,

Has Power Over Duration of Life',

Kerimas, the Eight Wrathful Ones, and
but intermediary; they are majestic,
yellow and with the Yellow Dakini. In
the Htamenmas, terrifying zoomorphic
impressive, and overwhelming. At the
the west is the 'Knowledge-holder of
deities with the heads of various anitime of their appearance manifests also the Great Symbol', red, smiling and
mals - lion, tiger, fox, wolf, vulture,
the green light of the Animal Realm
radiant, in the embrace of the Red
crow and owl. On the fourteenth day,

(tiryakaloka), symbolizing ignorance.

Dakini. To the north is the 'Self-evolved
the visions of this bardo end with a rich

The Vidyadharas are shown dancing,

Knowledge-holder', green in colour,
array of deities, among them four
while making mudras (gestures) of fascihalf-angry and half-smiling, embraced female Doorkeepers with animals
nation and holding crescent knives and
by the Green Dakini.

heads and other powerful zoomorphic
skulls filled with blood, signifying

From the eighth to the twelfth day of
deities and yoginis.

renunciation of human life and of the
the Chonyid Bardo the Tathagatas

If all the opportunities for liberation
world of illusion. They are surrounded
appear in their horrifying aspects, as
in the first two bardos were missed, the
by innumerable dakinis, heroes,

Herukas and their consorts (p. 33). They
process moves to the Bardo of Seeking
heroines, celestial warriors, and faith—
have three heads, six arms and four

Rebirth, with its specific challenges.

protecting deities. Using drums and
feet, and represent the colossal energy

(Facing page: detail of a mandala with
thigh-bone trumpets, they produce
of the Buddha families. The dark brown
the five Tathagata Buddhas and Doorawesome music that causes entire Great Glorious Heruka is the terrifying
keepers. Vajrapani, brass, early 15th
world-systems to tremble. Awe-inspiraspect of Vairochana. Vajra-Heruka, century. This page: Mandala of the
ing mantras alternate with terrifying
dark blue, is the wrathful form of Vajra—

Forty-two Peaceful Deities, tanka paintscreams: 'Slay! Slay!'

sattva (Akshobhya). The horrific aspect
ing, 18th century. The Great Mandala

In the centre of their circle is the
of Ratnasambhava is yellow Ratna-Her—
of the Knowledge-holding and Wrathful

Lotus Lord of Dance, the 'Supreme
uka, while Amitabha Buddha's dark

Deities, tanka painting)

73

The Six Realms of Existence

A central theme in the Sidpa Bardo is motives and pride lead one to the cold the judgment. The King and the Judge hells. Other tortures involve being of the Dead ( facing page, below) is hacked or sawn to pieces, strangled,

Yama Raja, King of Death. His head
pierced and exposed to crushing presand body, his pavilion and court are sures. In the horrible Avitchi Hell, those adorned with human skulls, heads and who deliberately neglected to fulfil Tan-hides. He treads underfoot a figure tric vows endure unending tortures.

symbolic of the illusory nature of

The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts
human existence, and judges the dead ( pretaloka) is inhabited by pitiful creaholding in his right hand a sword, a tures who possess insatiable appetites.

symbol of spiritual power, and in his They have large distended bellies, but left the Mirror of Karma, in which are their mouths are the size of pinholes. In reflected all the good and evil deeds of this realm, even as we gather the fruits the judged.

of our desire, they make us feel more

On either side of the balance,
hungry and deprived. As with addicattended by Shinje, a monkey-headed tion, a fleeting experience of pleasure deity, stand the Little White Cod (left) leads only to further endless searching.

with a sack of white pebbles and the This is the suffering associated with Little Black Cod (right) with a sack of greed.

black pebbles. On the instructions of

The Animal Realm ( tiryakaloka) is

Yama Raja they place on the scale
characterized by dullness, or survival
white or black pebbles according to
on an uncomplicated level, where a
karmic merits or demerits of the
sense of security alternates with fear.

judged. Various animalheaded deities Whatever is unpredictable is perceived act as witnesses. Issuing from the court as threatening and becomes a source are six karmic pathways leading to the of confusion and paranoia. Humour is six buddhas of the lokas, and below are not among the features of the Animal the hells. According to the result of the Realm. The animals can experience weighing, the dead are assigned to one pleasure and pain, but the sense of of the six realms of existence. In Tibe humour and irony is missing.

tan Buddhist psychology, movement

The Human Realm ( manakaloka) is a
between the lokas is not limited to the domain where pleasure and pain are time of biological death, but applies balanced. As in that of the Hungry
equally to deep transformation occur Ghosts, there is the incessant passion ring in the course of spiritual practice. to explore and seek pleasure. However, The six realms are depicted as segthis loka also shares with the Animal ments in the Wheel of Life ( facing page, Realm the tendency to operate in such above). The Realm of Hell ( narakaloka), a way that one creates a safe and at lower right, is a domain where one is predictable situation. A characteristic exposed to extreme tortures, each of of the Human Realm is a sense of
which represents the forces operating territoriality inspiring the invention of in one's own psyche. There are the clever and cunning tools for self-pro Eight Hot Hells where mountains are tection and defeat of others. It leads to made of red-hot metal, rivers are mol a world of tremendous success and ten iron and claustrophobic space is achievement; however, when this propermeated with fire. The Eight Cold cess lacks conscious awareness, it Hells are regions where everything is results in a dangerous situation where frozen. In the hot hells are those whose people lose control of their lives.

acts were motivated by violent anger,

The Realm of the Jealous Gods (asur-
while the acts resulting from selfish
aloka) is a domain entirely governed by

74

I

jealousy and envy. The purpose of life
in this realm is to function, survive and
win in the atmosphere of intrigues. On
the archetypal level, it is the world of
the titans, angry warrior demigods who
are in constant battle with the gods. In
everyday life, it manifests as the world
of international diplomacy, military
leaders and politicians. One is born
here as a result of intense jealousy.

The Realm of the Cods ( devaloka) is
described as a state of existence filled
with delight and endless pleasures.

Mythology describes heavenly and paradisean realms with gorgeous gardens,
splendid palaces and abundance of
brilliant gems and precious metals. This
realm can be experienced in life by a
consciousness suffused with loving
kindness and compassion. When
awareness is lacking, this domain is
expressed as pride in the ego and one's
separate identity, and the transient
pleasures of worldly rank and wealth.

In Tibetan spiritual practice, the
awareness is cultivated so that each of
these experiential realms may be
entered without entrapment. The essential strategy in approaching all domains of existence, whether they
involve the challenges of everyday life,
encounters with radiant and wrathful
deities, or adventures in the various
lokas, consists in the realization that all are ultimately products of our own
mind, and that all forms are actually
empty. This results in the ability to see
the true reality of the Dharmakaya
beyond the illusory appearances in all
the domains, and on all the levels of
existence. To practise this awareness
during our lifetime makes it possible to
use the situation of biological dying as
an opportunity for instant spiritual liberation. (Facing page: Yamantaka, Doorkeeper of the South, tanka painting, 18th century. Manuscript of the Bardo Jhodoi, This page: Wheel of Becoming,
painting in Tiksey Monastery, Ladakh.

Judgment scene, Sikkim, 1919)

75

Death, Rebirth and the Maya Underworld

The Maya underworld, Xibalba, had
second bone, top right, shows a canoe
women who have died in childbirth.

landscapes and architecture, like the
at the moment of sinking below the

The goddess sitting at the left of the
temples and palaces of the Lords, but
water. Important iconographic elethrone-platform turns her head to the scenes painted on the funerary
ments of the ceramic codex include
watch the scene of the beheading of a
vases of the ceramic codex (p. 17) also
sea-shells, waterlilies and alligator-like
bound captive by two executioners. A
indicate that it was associated with
creatures.

snake-like form with ennucleated eyes
water in some important way. As with

The inhabitants of Xibalba are many
that emerges near the victim's loins

Creek mythology, the passage through
and varied; they include anthropomay represent a Vision Serpent. The the Maya underworld involved a water-morphic, zoomorphic and skeletal creaaccompanying glyphic text identifies crossing. Incised bones found at Tikal in tures, as well as an entire menagerie of the two executioners as the Hero Guatemala suggest the Maya there
chthonic animals. A codex-style vase,

Twins, Hunahpu (left) and Xbalanque
equated death with a canoe voyage. A
above, shows God Cl of the Palenque

(right), who entered the underworld
bone, above, represents a canoe guided
triad with four lesser gods ambushing a and faced the Lords of Xibalba to by the Paddler Twins: the Old Jaguar
young lord as he emerges from the
avenge the deaths of their father and

God in front and the Aged Stingray—
jaws of a Bearded Dragon. Fish indicate uncle. In the foreground a rabbit scribe spine Cod behind, with four animal a watery milieu.

is shown writing a codex.

passengers: a dog, a parrot, a spider

The god known to Mayologists as

Though in general the triumphant
monkey and an iguana. The human

God L was clearly the principal ruler of ending of the underworld journey in figure seated in the centre of the canoe Xibalba. He wore a Moan Bird (screech-rebirth and resurrection are repreis holding his wrist in a gesture signallowl) headdress, and was usually represented in the ceramic codex far less ing impending death; the glyphic sented seated on a throne. He is shown frequently than scenes describing the symbols on his headdress identify him on a vase from Guatemala, above right,
ordeals of hell, splendid examples of
as the deceased Ruler A in whose
enjoying the good life with five godrebirth imagery do occur. On a tripod mausoleum these bones were found. A
desses, the Chihuateteo, the souls of
plate, right, a young lord wearing body-

76

jewelry and a headdress of quetzal
feathers emerges from a crack in a
turtle carapace. He is identified as Hun

Hunahpu, the murdered father of the

Hero Twins. Below, in the centre of the
shell, is a skull with a sacrificial wristlet
and a bouquet of coils. From the ends
of the carapace emerge a toad on the
left and the Patron of the Month Pax
on the right. Attending the reborn Hun

Hunahpu are his sons, Hunahpu at the
left, and Xbalanque, right, pouring the
contents of a large vessel over the
carapace. Beneath the carapace appear
waterlilies, symbols of rebirth and
transformation, and the layered water—
symbol. At a deep level, these represent the primeval ocean, the source of all life. (Drawings after incised bones from Temple I, Tikal, Guatemala, Late

Classic Period, ad 735. Cyclindrical vessels, photo rollouts, Late Classic Period, ad 600-900. Tripod plate, Late Classic Period)

77

The Ballgame of the Gods

One of the chief trials in the confrontation between the Hero Twins and the Lords of Xibalba was the underworld
ballgame. The exoteric aspects of this
game, such as the layout and architecture of the ballcourts, below, found scattered through Mesoamerica, and the technical elements of the play are
well known, though its full esoteric
meaning and spiritual symbolism are
less certain.

The ballgame was a dangerous sport
that required skilful manipulation of a
heavy rubber ball about a foot in diameter. The players wore protective garments on their legs and arms, right, the parts of the body that took most of the painful blows, and draped cloth
beneath their yokes.

One to four players on either side
competed in controlling the ball without touching it with their hands, and directing it toward markers or rings.

The objective was to make the ball
capacity to triumph over death and
pass through the ring, or at least to hit
gain rebirth. In the game played on a
the marker. To drive the ball through
royal level, the Maya rulers may have
the ring was very difficult; even the
dressed as the Herd Twins, thus enactlegendary players succeeded only a few ing the roles of the demigods they times during their lives. Losers were emulated.

sacrificed, left, and their hearts were

A scene carved on a tablet from
offered to the sun god. Sometimes their Palenque carries a similar message of severed heads were placed in play.

hope. The ruler's son in the guise of the

A relief carving from the Great Ballunderworld Jaguar God, with the sun room at Chichen Itza, below, depicts sign in his headdress, dances out of a
the culmination of the ballgame: the
watery Xibalba to be greeted by his
victorious player has decapitated the
mother, who hands him a little figure of
defeated with a sacrificial knife. The ball underworld God K, and welcomes him is represented between them as a
to the ranks of triumphant ancestors.

belching skull. Six snakes and an ela (Ballplayer ceramic, Late Classic Period,
borate tree sprouting from the loser's
ad 700-900. Ballcourt, Xochicalco.

neck symbolize the fertility and life—

Relief, Sta Lucia Cotzumahualpa, Guaenergy this sacrifice will bring.

temala, c. ad 1000. Drawing after a

The deeper symbolism of the ballrelief at Chichen Itza, Mexico, Postclasgame suggests that the player, like the sic Period, ad 900-1200. Drawing after Hero Twins who in the Popol Vuh
a relief from Temple 14, Palenque,
defeated the Lords of Xibalba, has the

Chiapas, Late Classic Period, ad 705)

Quetzalcoatl and the

Redemption of Spirit from

Matter

By far the most important archetypal
symbol of death and rebirth in the Precolumbian world was Quetzalcoatl, a complex and multifaceted deity who
could be represented in many different
ways. He appears most frequently in
the form of a plumed serpent, symbolizing the union of the earthly and spiritual elements, as he is shown, /eft,
on a side of the pyramid of Xochicalco.

Quetzalcoatl's mother was the earth
goddess, Coatlicue. When the Sun took
her for his bride, all the generative and
destructive forces of nature came into
being, and Quetzalcoatl was the fruit of
their union.

The giant sculpture of Coatlicue,
below left, shows her dual head formed
from two facing rattlesnakes and her
skirt composed of writhing serpents.

Her neck is shaped like a sacrificial
vase, with a necklace of severed hands,
hearts, and a skull. In her massive legs
are the underworlds, the nine Aztec
hells, and her heads contain the
thirteen heavens. This seemingly
monstrous figure was for the Aztecs a
powerful reminder of the awesome
forces of Mother Earth, to whom they
owed their life and sustenance.

The Sun as the male generative
power, Coatlicue as Earth, and Quetzalcoatl, associated with the planet Venus, formed a trinity in which harmony and balance were attained.

While Coatlicue embodies primarily the
forces that entrap the spirit in the
material world, Quetzalcoatl symbolizes the possibility of redeeming matter and reconnecting it with spirit. The
mysterious process through which this
is possible is described in the myth of

Quetzalcoatl's fall and penance (p. 21),
embodying a profound experience of
annihilation, transformation, and
rebirth.

In another of his aspects, Quetzalcoatl appears as Ehecatl, god of wind, when he wears a bird-like mask. His
association with death and rebirth (as
breath of life) and reconciling function
is suggested by a painting (lacing top)

showing him joined back-to-back with
the skeletal god of death, Mictlantecuhtli.

80

The story of Quetzalcoatl's journey
through the underworld and transformation is told in the Codex Borgia, a Nahuatl screenfold filled with religious
and ritualistic symbolism. In the East,
the Place of Burning, Quetzalcoatl
climbs on the pyre and is burned to
death. His ashes are scattered by the
wind and transformed into a flock of
birds. His heart or spiritual essence
does not die but rises from his ashes.

Next he enters the South, the Place of

Thorns, characterized by dismembering
and decapitating (p. 88). In the West he
passes two temples, one the abode of
women who died in childbirth and the
other of dead warriors. There Quetzalcoatl disappears into the maw of the Earth Dragon Cipactli, and emerges in
two forms, the red and the black.

Quetzalcoatl is shown in the West as
god of wind, centre left, opposite the
god of the planet Venus, Tlahuizcalpan—
tecuhtli, seated on a temple-platform.

The open jaws of the Earth Dragon

Cipactli support the platform. From
skulls at either side flow two rivers,
together forming the glyph for war. In
the centre is a sacrificed captive, and
above, a broken blood serpent and a
sacrificial rope.

A further image from the Codex Borgia, bottom left, shows Quetzalcoatl's transformation inside a square representing the body of the goddess of death, and the dark centre of the subterranean kingdom. An urn shaped as a stylized skull holds his ashes, from which emerge serpentine banners symbolizing death, some bearing small heads of Quetzalcoatl as god of wind.

Above the urn, the mortuary form of

Quetzalcoatl arises, with the features of
the deity of the Morning Star.

In the North, the darkest and lowest
region, the red Quetzalcoatl is sacrificed by the black, and the black immolates himself. Transformed first
into a hummingbird, he rises in the
eastern sky as Venus, the Morning Star,

Lord of Dawn. (Pyramid of Xochicalco,

Mexico. Statue of Coatlicue, Late Postclassic Period, 1200—1519. Illustrations of the Codex Borgia, 15th century)

81

Death and the Strategy of

Life

A main objective of the medieval Ars
phenomenon that developed in France
moriendi literature was to bring home
in the late thirteenth century and
the futility of a life-strategy dominated
spread to the other countries of
by the pursuit of external goals, such as Europe. Its earliest known illustration wealth, possessions, power and fame.

was a series of paintings formerly in the

In their efforts to divert people from
cemetery of Les Innocents in Paris
worldly ambitions and turn them towhich showed the whole hierarchy of ward God, the artists of Ars moriendi

Church and State dancing with skeleused the themes of death and tons or corpses who escorted them to
impermanence.

their graves. Although this graphic

Popular memento mori were Death's
warning was destroyed in 1669, the
horseman, above, and the story of the
explanatory verses survive, and a series

Three living and three dead', below.

of woodcuts published by the Paris

This described how three young nobleprinter Cuy Marchant preserves the men, when out hunting, came upon
imagery. Right, from the top: death
three corpses who either spoke or disconducts a chambermaid and a played their terrible warnings: 'Thus will matron, a doctor and a lover, a bride ye be, and as ye are, so once were we'; and a prostitute, an astrologer and a

'Rich and poor alike must die', and,
bourgeois, a pope and an emperor.

'None shall escape death'. Here the

(Woodcut from Le grant kalendier
message is displayed beside the coffins
printed by Nicolas le Rouge, Troyes,
of three plague victims.

1496. Woodcuts from La danse macabre

The dance of death, or danse
des femmes, 1486, and La danse
macabre, was an extraordinary mass
macabre des hommes, 1485)

A second purpose of the Ars mor science; impatience and irritability due
iendi texts was to assist those on the
to suffering; conceit, vanity and pride;
point of death. Besides model prayers
and greed, avarice, and other worldly
to Christ, Mary, and the Archangel
concerns and attachments. Devils seize

Michael, and standard admonitions,
the miser's moneybags, left, and a
there were other passages which
dying man violently overturns a table.

advised on experiential aspects of

These attempts of the devil were
dying. The phenomena usually referred counteracted by divine interventions to as 'attacks of Satan' were specific and influences that gave the dying a
challenges which the dying typically
foretaste of Heaven, a sense of being
experienced during the non-ordinary
subjected to Divine Judgment, a feeling
states of consciousness that occurred
of obtaining higher help, and a joyful
in their last hours. The Church interpromise of redemption. Many similar preted these difficult experiences as
experiential sequences have been desresulting from the devil's desperate cribed in modern studies of death and
attempts to divert the souls from their
dying. (Death and the Miser, by Hiero—
way to Heaven at this critical time.

nymous Bosch, c. 1450-1516. Woodcut

The 'attacks' fell under the headings
from a German Ars moriendi, 15th
of serious doubts regarding faith; descentury. Christ in Judgment, from Hartperation and agonizing qualms of conmann Schedel, Weltchronik, 1493) 83

The Visionary Quest

Both the pedestal and body of the
columbian codices. A leaf of an Aztec
second portrays the ecstatic release,
statue of the Aztec Xochipilli, Lord of
codex dating from the years immediafter the subject experienced annihila Flowers, shown seated in ecstasy
ately after the Conquest shows a celetion by this figure.

(above), are decorated with floral
brant eating sacred mushrooms,

Bloodletting was another powerful
glyphs. These have been identified as
attended by the god of death, Mictlan—
mind-altering method that opened up
stylized psychedelic plants: the caps of
tecuhtli. Ritual use of the magic mushexperiental realms not normally accessthe sacred mushroom (Psilocybe azte-room, known as teonanacatl or the ible until the time of biological death.

corum), morning glory flowers and ten 'flesh of the gods', is still common in

Particularly among the Maya, bloodletdrils, and hallucinogenic tobacco contemporary Mexico, particularly
ting from the tongue, earlobe or penis
flowers. There is strong evidence that
among the Mazatec, Zapotec and Mix—
was conducted on many occasions -

Precolumbian cultures gained their
tec Indians.

when buildings were dedicated, crops
knowledge of the experiental territory

Ritual use of the Mexican cactus
planted, couples married, the dead burof death, not only from accounts of peyote also dates back more than
ied, or wars initiated, and particularly at
neardeath experiences, but from
three thousand years, and continues in
the completion of the twenty-year
visionary states induced by a variety of
modern Mexico and among various
cycle, the katun. A Maya tablet (right) psychedelic plants.

tribes of North America. Paintings on
shows a priest piercing his tongue as an

In the Highland Maya culture area of vessels suggest that peyote was admiact of ritual self-sacrifice.

Guatemala, and in southern Mexico
nistered among the ancient Maya in

For kings, every event of political or
and El Salvator, archaeologists have
the form of ritual enemas.

religious importance required santifica—
long been uncovering mysterious stone

Modern psychopharmacology has
tion through bloodletting. A Maya lintel
figures with an umbrella-like top,
been able to isolate and identify the
depicts Lady Xoc, the wife of the king
mostly about a foot high and dated
active alkaloids from most psychedelic

Shield Jaguar, in a trance state as she
between 1000 bc and ad 500. In the
plants, and produce new psychedelic
draws a spiny rope through her tongue.

last few decades research has identified substances, like LSD. This has made it (Statue, Mexico, Late Classic Period, ad these as effigies of psychedelic mushpossible to conduct laboratory research 600-900. Terracotta figures from Colrooms. A ceramic from Colima in Mexinto the visionary states induced by ima, Mexico, 200 bc-ad 100. Leaf from ico, above right, shows celebrants dancpsychedelics. Two paintings illustrate a the Codex Magliabecchi, Mexico. Coning around a mushroom-effigy which rebirth experience from a high-dose temporary psychedelic paintings. Relief,
may also represent the World Tree, the LSD session, top, lar right. The first Mexico, Late Classic Period. Lintel from axis mundi. Similar mushrooms can be
shows a terrifying archetypal figure

Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico, Late Clasfound among the illustrations of Preobstructing the way to light, the sic Period, ad 725)

84

Attitudes to the Human Body

The Books of the Dead differed considerably in the roles they ascribed the physical body, and in how they
approached its mortality. Many passages of the Pert em hru attest to the ancient Egyptians' belief that the physical body was important for the afterlife.

Meticulous care was devoted to the
procedures of mummification, a complex process that took many weeks to complete. The brain was removed
through nostils, and the liver, lungs,
stomach and intestines were taken out
of the body and placed in four canopic
jars, or four compartments of a canopic chest, each under the protection of one of the four sons of Horus and
linked to the cardinal points. The body
cavities were filled with spices, resins,
bitumen, or balls of linen, and the body
was preserved in precious oils and
resin, then wrapped in linen bandages
together with magic ornaments and
amulets.

All the materials used in embalming
were considered the transformed tears
shed by the gods at the death of Osiris,
and conferred the powers of the gods
on the deceased. Osiris's son Anubis,
top, was in charge of ceremony, which
ensured the rebirth of the deceased
by re-enacting the events that raised

Osiris from the dead.

At the tomb, a priest wearing the
mask of Anubis conducted the 'Opening of the Mouth' ceremony (right) in accordance with the Book of the Dead (Chapter 23), to restore the ability to
see, hear, eat and speak. Mythically this
corresponded to the occasion when
the god Horus visited his dead father

Osiris after vanquishing his enemy

Seth, and gave him his own eye which
had been snatched by Seth during their
battle, and so re-awakened him to
consciousness.

86

In the pre-Conquest cultures of

Central America the most striking practice involving the body was that of human sacrifice and self-sacrifice,
sometimes premedicated with sacred
mushrooms or peyote. In an Aztec
ceremony, bottom left, the victim's
heart is offered up to the sun god. The
importance of death in the universal
scheme was fully acknowledged and
accepted, and human agents assumed
control over its timing.

In the Christian tradition, while the
flesh might be re-assumed at the time
of universal judgment, the corruptibility
of the body as bearer of sin was contrasted with the everlasting life of the spirit. A medieval tomb-sculpture,
above, invites contemplation of the
physical intimacy with worms and
toads that death may bring.

The iconography of the Bardo Thödol
abounds in human skulls, severed
heads and hands and plucked-out eyes.

However, these do not have a literal,
but a deeply symbolic meaning. A specific type of painting for meditation represents a charnel field, as indicated by the upper border of hides, intestines
and plucked-out eyes. It is intended to
be completed mentally by the viewer,
for often only the atttributes of the
deities are shown. The primary concern
of Tibetan ritual art in relation to death
is to train the human mind to face the
non-ordinary states of consciousness
associated with the process of dying.

During the bardo states the body is
returned to the elements of which it is
composed. (Papyrus of the Book of the

Dead, showing embalmment. Papyrus
of Hunefer, 19th Dynasty, c. 1310 BC.

Drawing after the Aztec Codex Florentine. Tomb of Francois de la Sarra, La Sarraz, Vaud, c. 1400. Tanka painting,

19th century)

87

The Scenery and Inhabitants

The scenery and inhabitants of the
underworld described in the Books of
of the Netherworld
the Dead vary in detail, but show many
similarities. The chthonic realms are
dark, dismal, and ominous; they are
places of dangers, ordeals and cruel
punishment. While the hells of the

Tibetan Book of the Dead and the

Egyptian and Precolumbian underworlds were places through which the deceased or initiate could pass during
their spiritual journey, the Christian

Hell was the final destination, from
which there was no escape.

The Maya name for the underworld,

Xibalba, means 'place of fright': it had a
plethora of terrifying deities, often

88

shown with aged, toothless human
faces. The ruler Cod L is depicted, far
left, seated on a jaguar throne supported by vertebrae and facing six young gods. Other gods are represented with distended bellies and wearing disembodied eyes and bones as jewelry, like two on the left of a detail from a funerary vase, centre lett. Death

Cod A is portrayed, centre, as almost
toothless and holding a human skull.

The Aztec underworld included, at
the South, the Place of Thorns (far left,
below), a region characterized by cutting, piercing and decapitation. Here the goddess of voluptuousness, earth and death is shown sitting in a vessel
shaped like a stylized skull. The figure
of Quetzalcoatl appears between the
goddess's head flints, emerges again
from her chest flint, and having passed
safely through this region, is shown
below, continuing his perilous journey.

The North, the darkest region of the

Aztec hell, is ruled by Mictlantecuhtli,

Cod of Death (facing, bottom right).

Christian mythology, like the Tibetan,
describes hell as a place of demonic
tormentors, consuming fire, crushing
pressure, cutting and piercing: such tortures as are depicted in this detail of a medieval hell-scene (left).

The Egyptian underworld also had
places of fire and devouring monsters.

The final peril before dawn was the
serpent Aapep, who barred the sun
god's way until he was destroyed by
the cat, Bastet (left, below). The Egyptian scene has a striking modern parallel in a painting from an LSD session in which the subject experienced death and rebirth (left). A sprouting seed and
a foetus, symbolizing new life, are
threatened by a giant snake, here
representing the old, neurotic elements
of the personality: guilt, aggression and
fear. (Facing page: Drawing after the

Vase of the Seven Gods, Late Classic

Period, ad 600-900. Pottery figure,

Tikal, Guatemala, ad 400-500. Drawing
after a funeral vase, North Peten, Mexico, Late Classic Period. Drawing after the Codex Borgia, 15th century. Figure from Central Veracruz, Late Classic Period. This page: Detail of The Last Judgment, by Stephen Lochner, after 1440.

Painting from the tomb of Inkheska,

16th-14th century BC. Contemporary
psychedelic painting)

89

Animals of the Beyond
severed hand and long-bone. A fish
nibbles at his waterlily headdress. Next
follows a spider monkey with deer ears

The pantheons of the Egyptian, Preand a small bundle attached to its tail.

columbian and Tibetan mythologies

The Aztec god of death, Mictlante—
abound in animal symbolism. A wide
cuhtli, is shown, above right, with the
variety of deities and their helpers or
bird of the dead, an owl with a human
adversaries appear either in animal
skull for a head. It perches on a bundle
form, or as human figures with animal
of wood in a sacrificial offering bowl.

heads. Some of them are inhabitants of

The Bat Cod, right, was the sharp—
the underworlds, others belong to the
toothed adversary of the Hero Twins of
celestial or paradisean realms. In some
the Popol Vuh, one of whom it
instances, states of psychospiritual
managed to decapitate.

transformation are expressed through

Subjects undergoing psychedelic
the symbolism of animals and various
therapy report encounters with terrifyaspects of nature. Typical are the Chrising animals as part of the process of tian fish, lamb and peacock, the therio-psychological death and rebirth. Paintmorphic deities of the Egyptian and ings from high-dose LSD sessions show, Tibetan pantheons, and the strange
left, the foetus in the jaws of a snake,
fauna of the Maya and Aztec
and threatened by a giant spider repreunderworlds.

senting a devouring mother goddess,

A vase depicts animals of the Maya
and, right, the pains of the uterine
chthonic menagerie, above left. From
contractions experienced as attacks by
the left, a Jaguar Dog is followed by a
giant predatory birds, yet accompanied
toad-like Uinal monster, holding an
by the promise of liberation, redempoffering bowl containing an eye, a tion, and rebirth.

In Arabian mythology the phoenix
ing (top right) the deceased Hunefer is
had a life-span of five hundred years.

seen adoring the two lions; between

Then the bird built a nest and laid an
them is the solar disc.

egg. The parent bird was burnt by the

During their stay in the paradisean
fire of the nest, ignited by the sun, and
realms of the Egyptian Beyond, the
the heat of the same fire hatched the
blessed experienced great joy, and all
new phoenix. Here (top /eft) the
their needs were satisfied. The divine
deceased appears with the Egyptian
nourishment and sustenance that they
version of the phoenix, the Bennu bird,
received there were symbolized by the
illustrating the spell in the Book of the
seven celestial cows and a bull (above).

Dead (Chapter 13) which calls for the

The cat goddess Bastet (left) was the
deceased to 'go forth as a phoenix' -
helper of the sun god. Her role in the
that is, to be reborn.

solar barque was to kill Aapep, the giant

The god Thoth, the divine scribe and serpent incarnation of Seth, archenemy Measurer of Time, was sometimes
of Osiris, and so assure the sun barque's
represented as a baboon. He is seen,
emergence and the dawn of the new
above left, holding the Eye of Ra and
day. (Facing page: Vase of the Maya
wearing the lunar disc and crescent;
ceramic codex, Late Classic Period, ad
the winged solar disc stresses his ele600-900. Detail from the Codex Borgia, vated position as defender of Ra.

15th century. Bat, Zapotec sculpture.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Contemporary psychedelic paintings.

deceased is identified with Osiris and

This page: Painting, tomb of Anhuskha,
often referred to by that name, while the 20th Dynasty, 1200-1085 bc. Papyrus of reborn is identified with Ra and with the Hunefer, 19th Dynasty, c. 1310 bc.

new day. Yesterday and Today (Osiris

Relief, 22nd Dynasty. Painting, tomb of
and Ra) were represented in a symbolic Queen Nefertari, Thebes, c. 1250 bc.

form as two lions. In this papyrus paint Bronze, Late Period, 664-332 bc)

91

Deities as Models

Every major culture of the world
which has something the other lacks
includes in its mythology archetypal
and needs. A figure of Quetzalcoatl as
figures representing death and rebirth,

Lord of Life reverses to Lord of Death
or transformation.

(above), reflecting the dialectic of these The texts of the Egyptian Pert em hru two aspects of existence.

centre on two such figures: Ra, guiding

In the medieval monastic tradition
the sun barque on the underworld
the figure of Christ was explicitly used
voyage, and Osiris, killed, dismembered as a model for the spiritual path. In and resurrected, with whom the transfisuffering and dying in meditation, gured dead were identified. Those who monks practised imitatio Christi.

successfully passed the Judgment were

According to Christian mythology,
led to Osiris's kingdom (above). Here
between the time of his death on the
the deceased, the scribe Ani, kneels
cross and resurrection (right) Jesus desbefore Osiris in adoration, his own hair cended to Hell and liberated sinners white like mummy-wrappings.

from eternal damnation.

In preparing to face death and meet

The victory over death found expresthe perils and ordeals of the undersion in several episodes from the Buddworld, the ancient Maya had the examha's life. Here (far right) Kama Mara, ple of the Hero Twins, whose resource Lord of Illusion, representing the forces
fulness enabled them to vanquish the
of desire and fear of death, has made

Xibalba Lords, die by their own volition his last attempt to prevent the Buddha and return to youthful life. A scene of from reaching Enlightenment. He has
two Lords and a bat hovering overhead sent his three daughters to divert him, (left) recalls the Twins' ordeal in the and when this failed, attacked him with

House of the Bats, where Hunahpu was an army of demons. Sakyamuni decapitated.

Buddha is shown in deep meditation.

Precolumbian mythology had

The Buddha's victory comes when he
another powerful figure in Quetzalcoatl, dies, and enters paranirvana. (Facing who in penance for incest with his sister page: Papyrus of Ani, 19th Dynasty, c.

immolated himself, passed through the

1250 bc. Drawing after the Bloomington
regions of the underworld and emerged Vase, North Peten, Late Classic Period, as Venus, the Morning Star. In his life-ad 600-900. This page: Codex Borboni-giving aspect as the god of wind, above cus, 16th century. Statue, Huastec cul right, he dances in front of Tezcatlipoca, ture, Early Postclassic Period, ad 900-who symbolizes matter: a dualistic 1250. Illuminated MS, 13th century.

opposition of matter and spirit, each of

Tanka painting, c. 19th century)

92

93

Transcendence and the

Emergence into Light

The posthumous adventures of the
soul, as they are described in the
ancient Books of the Dead, are full of
challenges and ordeals, but they also
offer many important promises. Thus
the Egyptian and Precolumbian Books
describe the possibility of overcoming
all obstacles and experiencing rebirth,
or attaining a joyful existence in various abodes of the blessed. The Christian literature promises those who have lived a good life and overcome all the temptations associated with dying, the
eternal bliss of Heaven or Paradise, a
realm of radiant, supernatural light. The

Tibetan Book of the Dead also
describes the possibility of rebirth into
celestial and paradisean realms; however, the ultimate goal of Tibetan spiritual seekers is to achieve liberation from rebirth into any of the realms.

94

On a carved sarcophagus, top left
state and the experience of a universe
the transition between the diurnal and
filled with the light of millions of stars.

nocturnal realms is symbolized as a

In Dante's version of the Christian
transfer of the sun disc between two
posthumous journey, the glorified souls
solar barques, one for the night jourdwell among the celestial spheres.

ney, the other for the day. The

Above, Dante and Beatrice leave the
deceased is shown twice, kneeling over heaven of Venus and approach that of each barque: this symbolizes the core the sun.

of ancient Egyptian belief-that human

The gold disc poised on the head of
life belongs to both the phases of

Ra as a falcon, right, shows the god in
eternity.

the form of Khepri, the scarab who

Modern psychological research has
rolled the ball of the sun nightly
revealed that ecstatic experiences of
through the underworld toward the
spiritual rebirth, and of the paradisean
east. He is depicted here with the
and celestial realms, emerge spontawings of Horus who carried the sun neously in non-ordinary states of conacross the day sky, suggesting the sciousness. A painting from an LSD
image of the moment of dawn, and the
session, /eft, shows the foetus as a
rebirth of the soul. (Relief from the
divine child sitting on a resplendent
sarcophagus of Djed-hor, c. 6th century
golden lotus, symbol of transcendence
bc. Contemporary psychedelic paintand rebirth. Another painting from a ings Illumination by Giovanni di Paolo
psychedelic session, below left, shows a
for the Paradiso of Dante's Divine Com deep connection between the oceanic
edy, c. 1445. Carving from Tutankhaecstasy of an undisturbed intrauterine men's chariot, 1357-49 bc)

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Museum. Purchase 1969. The Members' Fund (Photo John Bigelow Taylor, Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 42; Chantilly, Musee Conde 57; N.Y.C. 1991) 45; New York, Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum 69 right Courtesy Michael D. Coe 80 top, 88 top left; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz (Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund), 93 top right (Henry L. Batterman and Frank Museum 89 top; Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek 51, 67 left; Dallas S. Benson Funds); The Metropolitan Museum of Art 43 (Fletcher Fund Museum of Art. The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Fund, in honor of 1933), 69 top; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 72 left; Paris, Bibliotheque de Mrs. Alex Spence 52 top; Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection I'Assemblee Nationale 93 top left; Musee du Louvre (© Photo R.M.N.) 94

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I'Oeuvre Notre Dame (Photo Musees de la Ville) 40: Karl Taube 18, 20; below, 91 centre left, 92 top; By courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Utica, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute 78 top; Vatican, Biblioteca Victoria and Albert Museum 39, 71 below right; Los Angeles County Apostolica 49,81, 90 top right; Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana 50; Museum of Art. From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.

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96