The Human journey begins as soon as the child receives a name at birth. The bestowing of a name marks the advent of a new existence. Ancient peoples believed that one who had no name was not truly born.
And here is the first main obstacle: the advent of puberty is accompanied by physical as well as psychological metamorphoses of such a nature that a new being seems to emerge from the protective shell of childhood.
Marriage also heralds a new phase of existence. Does not the life of the couple required the creating of a subtle and permanent harmony between bodies and souls, a mutual metamorphosis?
As for the slow process of aging, this also present new problems. Faculties become impaired.From then on life demand less room. In order for it to exist without a feeling of despair, it must have wisdom. And finally death comes. The human being must face death without fear and without regret when giving life up.
Thus birth, puberty, marriage, aging and death are unavoidable trials. Whether we face them happily or despairingly, whether we celebrate them or let them pass unnoticed, they map humanity's path. With each test overcome, a new phase of existence begins. At the end of each season of life, the outline of a new being emerges.
THE ROLE OF INITIATION
It is true that nowadays human beings tend not to celebrate the various stages of life we must each pass through. We no longer feel, with the same acuity, how we change with each trial we overcome.
Little by little, we become unconscious of our metamorphosis. By smoothing out the path of our life, by removing all obstacles from our itinerary, we deny a truth;we lie to ourselves. Lost in a fallacious fog of the soul, we fall out of step with the indispensable vital cadence. Nowadays, the distressing questions concerning the meaning of life stem mostly from the loss of this existential rhythm.
Ancient peoples and civilization felt strongly about how important it was to celebrate each phase of life. Their"transitional rites" were feasts to commemorate accession to a new stage of existence .And by performing them, the whole community induced a victorious entry into a new phase of life through a series of power-generating acts. To enter a new stage of life with the help of the community and particularly through the power of rituals, meant to become initiated.
There existed one of the most important of rituals: initiation into the death experience.Death, the great transition, is the ultimate initiation. Many culture of the world demand that the neophyte undergo the trial of death and experience its pangs in order to be reborn.
Such was the purpose of the secret doctrines and practices called the mysteries which were a common feature of the ancient Mediterranean world, especially in ancient Greece,Rome and Egypt.
THE MYSTERIES
Rituals was introduced to change the quality of the quality of the novice's soul, to raise the novice's consciousness to a superhuman level, and to turn the novice into eternal being. Thus the rituals of Adonis or Tammuz in the Near East, of Osiris in Egypt, of Orpheus and Dionysus in Greece, all depict death and resurrection so that one may symbolically experience a superhuman state and eternal life.
Psychologically, these practices resulted in the true victory of human beings over their fear of death. Through initiatory death, the human being is absolutely convinced that he will be spared the pangs of death, which is the lot of the average person. In fact, he is saved because he has been initiated.
THE NECROPOLIS AT ABYDOS
We must first go to Abydos in order to meet the initiates of ancient Egypt. A very holy city from pre-dynastic times, Abydos was situated between Asyut and Luxor (thebes), and sheltered an ancient necropolis, a place for the burial of the dead. Here the first Egyptian pharaohs were entombed beginning around 3200 BCE. A constant religious piety added to the Abydos cemeteries of every period, despite the fall of dynasties and empires. It is no wonder, then, that nine-tenths of the funerary stelae of the Middle Kingdom (c 2052-1778 BCE) exhibited in the museums of Europe come from Abydos.
How can we explain this three thousand year entanglement of necropoleis and this prodigious depository of documents? The fact is that the city was doubly venerable. Originally the final resting place of the earliest pharaohs, it became , at the beginning of the second millennium BCE, the guardian of the head of Osiris the saviour who led mankind to immortality .
The most precious part of the divine body dismembered by the god Set, his brother, lay in this holy place, sheltered in a shrine surmounted by two feathers. The holy sepulchre was built in a place called Peker, in the south of the city, while at the north stood the great sanctuary of Osiris. Erected at the dawn of history, beginning with the first Dynasty, and remodeled , destroyed and rebuilt several times, all that is left of it today is an outline, hardly visible, on the site of its successive ages.
And yet, together with the holy Sepulchre, this temple was the crucible of the Osirian faith. The inestimable relic, the head of Osiris, conferred upon it an unequalled aura of holy power.
Has the mind of the masses really changed so much ? For example, London has protected its unknown hero in west minister Abbey, Paris under the Arc de Triomphe, while in Moscow the remains of Lenin are preserved in his mausoleum in Red Square. It seems that each city draws strength from the legacies of its great dead. But wasn't Osiris, whose resurrection promised eternal life to every pious man and woman, the greatest of them all?
INITIATION OF ABYDOS
But how do we know whether or not secret initiation were conducted in Egypt, especially in Abydos? An ancient text that was recently discovered and dating back to c.2000 BCE seems to give an affirmative answer: Fellow the god to his abode. In his tomb Anubis sanctifies the hidden mystery of Osiris.In the sacred valley of the master of life(Osiris), it is the mysterious initiation of the master of Abydos!
What could be plainer? the god Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the necropoleis, participated in the unfolding of a 'mysterious initiation" conducted by Osiris, the master of Abydos.
Anubis welcome the postulant at the threshold of the sacred domain. He is a "dreadful-looking god," writes the Roman author Apuleius following his initiation in the 2nd century CE, "a god that server as a messenger between the world above and the infernal world below, with a face half-black and half-gold, his head held high and proudly stretching his dog's neck".
So, Egyptians wished to die in Abydos. To die near the god, to rest in the peace emanating from the holy Sepulchre; to experience the miracle of resurrection in its shadow was the dream of an entire population, from century to century.
It is then toward this holy place that er must journey in order to conceive, with the help of Egyptian text of various dates and sources, how the initiatory process unfolded in the era of the pharaohs, and up untill the time of the 2nd century CE.
Unfortunately, there is little left of Abydos today except ruins and a single bastion: the sanctuary of Seti I and the strange edifice adjacent to it called the Osireion .
THE OSIREION OF ABYDOS
This structure is without doubt the most mysterious in the valley of the Nile. Its construction began during the reign of the 19th dynasty pharaoh, Set I (c.1300 BCE), and was entirely underground when originally built. It comprise a long dark corridor leading into a hall half filled with water. From the centre of this basin rise a rectangular esplande, a kind of island surrounded by heavy pillars of pink granite, to which toe staircases lead.
What could be the purpose of this extraordinary architectural complex ? Could it be a cenotapy; a monument erected in honor of a dead person whose remains lay elsewhere, perhaps of Seti I, whose name is inscribed in the entrance corridor and he central hall ? This is possible, as the walls of the corridor are covered with funerary inscriptions, such as in the tombs of the valley of the kings. In addition, a spacious empty room, reminiscent of the those in the pyramids of Sakkara and laid out on the east side of the Osireion, conjures up images of a huge sarcophagus.
But, three or four centuries after its construction, this edifice was looked upon as a place dedicated to the worship of Osiris. And there are many archaeological clues to support this hypothesis. First, the esplanade raising out of the water-filled central hall and provided with two staircases was undoubtedly thought to be the primordial mound itself, where death was vanquished at the dawn of time. There, according to tradition, Osiris lay in his sepulchre. Second, the two cavities hewn in the pavement of the esplanade undoubtedly had the purpose of housing the sarcophagus of the god and the holy shrine containing his viscera, perhaps even his head. Finally, circular pits, unearthed around the central hall are still filled with fertile soil, used to shelter verdant tress,symbols of the eternity of the resuscitated Osiris.
We can now see the purpose of the Osireion: Seti I wanted sacred rites to be performed in Abydos, in order to ensure his immortality near Osiris and, at the same time, to perpetuate the worship of the great god. Therefore, the royal cenotapy was an Osirian tomb as well.
Replica of the Sanctuary of Osiris?
We must not confuse this sanctuary with the main sanctuary in Abydos north, whose ruins are still scattered in the place know today as Kom es-Sultan, and where the annual festival of Osiris took place.
Very few documents mention this illustrious site. Those that do however, reveal a surprising fact. There is in France, in the Museum of Archaeology in Marseille, a sarcophagus that has depicted on it a rounded knoll crowned with four tree guarded by two ram-headed gods.
Without any doubt, Osiris lies under this knoll. His name is inscribed there,and the beginning of the inscription above the picture clearly ready: this is the knoll that hides within the (body) decayed; it is the holy place of Osiris who dwells in the west. The knoll and the four trees therefore allude to the famous sepulchre of Osiris.But right away, the esplanade of the osireion comes to mind, symbolizing also the primordial mound and lifting above the waters the sarcophagus of the god, as well as the trees of eternal regeneration that framed the central hall.
Would the Osireion of Seti I be an imitation of the large ruined temple of Abydos? it ever confirmed, such a fact would be of decisive important, because all initiatory progression in the famous lost sanctuary could, in such a case, be conceived as well in the architectural complex of the still- standing Osireion. Thus the latter would preserve intact the exact reproduction of the decor where the most secret practices of the pharaonic era took place; making it unique in ancient Egypt and even in the history of ancient civilizations.
We can now conclude that on the sacred domain of Abydos the great temple of Osiris is almost completely destroyed. However, several ancient papyri preserve its main characteristics. Under a mound surrounded by tress was a basin filled with water where pillars supporting the roof of the sanctuary stood; and from the centre of this basin emerged a terrace with two staircase of which lay the mummy of Osiris. This description, no matter how brief it may be, immediately arouse a comparison with the Osireion built by Seti I, which seems to be a replica of the lost temple. We can still find today the basin, the pillars, the esplanade with its double staircase, the two cavities arranged to house the sarcophagus and the shrine containing the viscera; and finally, the pits where verdant tress used to frame the whole sanctuary buried underneath the sand.
All this archaeological data points to the fact that Seti I intended to reproduce he architectural complex of the great temple of Osiris at Abydos. Hence the conclusion that since the Osireion seems to be a copy of the destroyed temple, all the details of the test pertaining to this temple can be transferred, without risking too much error, to the architectural complex of the the still-standing Osireion of Seti I.
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