Death--and After?

The claim that the immortality of the Spirit in man was only revealed eighteen centuries ago The author is challenging the 19th-century view that the idea of an eternal soul was a relatively recent discovery belonging only to the Christian era. is, of course, clearly absurd when faced with the overwhelming evidence to the contrary found everywhere. The majestic Egyptian rituals and their Book of the Dead An ancient Egyptian funerary text containing spells and prayers intended to assist a dead person's journey through the underworld., which maps out the journeys of the Soul after death, should be enough on its own to permanently dismiss such a ridiculous claim. Listen to the cry of the Soul of the righteous:

O you who form the escort of the God, reach out your arms to me, for I am becoming one of you. (xvii. 22.)

Hail to you, Osiris The Egyptian god of the afterlife, death, and resurrection., Lord of Light, living in that great home in the heart of total darkness. I come to you as a purified Soul; my hands are around you. (xxi. 1.)

I open the gates of heaven; I carry out the commands given in Memphis An ancient capital of Egypt and a major religious center.. I have knowledge of my own heart; I possess my heart, I possess my arms, and I possess my legs, by my own will. My Soul is not trapped in my body at the gates of AmentiThe ancient Egyptian name for the underworld or the "Hidden Place" where the dead were judged.. (xxvi. 5, 6.)

Rather than boring the reader with endless quotes from a book that is entirely about the actions and words of the person who has left their body, let it be enough to share this final judgment on the soul that has achieved victory:

The deceased shall be made a god among the Gods in the lower divine region; he shall never be turned away. . . . He shall drink from the flow of the heavenly river. . . . His Soul shall not be held captive, because it is a Soul that brings salvation to those near it. The worms shall not eat it. (clxiv. 14-16.)

The widespread belief in Re-incarnationThe religious or philosophical concept that the soul begins a new life in a new body after biological death. is proof enough that the religions featuring it as a main doctrine believed that the Soul survives death. One might also cite as an example a passage from the Ordinances Likely the Ordinances of Manu, an ancient Indian legal and religious text that describes the soul's cycle of rebirth based on its actions.