Ancient Egypt
Egyptian funerary magic
Priestly textual traditions for the transformation, protection and continued existence of the dead — not the work of any one occult author.
- Dates
- c. 2400 BCE onward
- Dating
- tradition or corpus
The life
The corpus widens over two millennia: first royal, then extended to a broader elite, then assembled individually for whoever could pay for a papyrus.
Place in the tradition
Later Western occultists would repeatedly claim Egyptian origins for Hermetism, Masonry, Tarot and ceremonial magic.
a note on the record
History and later legend
Some of those connections are real and indirect. Many specific claims of uninterrupted transmission are not.
the written record
Principal works
-
c. 2400–2300 BCE
Pyramid Texts
Inscribed inside royal pyramids, among the oldest substantial religious texts known. Their utterances concern the dead king's transformation, protection, ascent and identification with the gods.
-
c. 2100–1650 BCE
Coffin Texts
Extends formerly royal funerary privileges to a broader elite, elaborating the journeys, dangers and powers available after death.
-
from c. 1550 BCE
Egyptian Book of the Dead
A changing collection of funerary spells rather than one fixed book. Individual papyri were assembled for the deceased and supplied the knowledge, incantations and instructions needed to pass through the afterlife.