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As for any spirit or god who will help me when I ascend to the sky on the ladder of the God; my bones are assembled for me, my limbs are gathered together for me, and I leap up to the sky in the presence of the god of the Lord of the ladder.
A ladder is knotted together by Re before Osiris, a ladder is knotted together by Horus before his father Osiris when he goes to his spirit, one of them being on this side and one of them being on that, while I am between them.
In shamanism, certain themes are prevalent such as the ascension to the spirit world of the Gods upon a ladder.
A common feature of the initiation process of the shaman often involves the initiate undergoing an out-of-body-experience in which the shaman senses that they are being attacked and that their limbs are being torn apart, their body dismembered and reassembled before they can ascend the ladder to commune with the spirit world.
This 'experience' (state of consciousness) is very reminiscent of the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris in which Osiris is attacked, dismembered only to be put together again by his consort, Isis, before journeying on to the Afterworld to be with the Gods.
Could it be also that the 'Ladder' to the 'spirit realm' is symbolised in the Great Pyramid through the so-called 'Relieving Chambers' with the body of the initiate placed in the coffer below?
Byrd: Scott, I think your references on shamanism are incomplete.
SC: In shamanism, certain themes are prevalent such as the ascension to the spirit world of the Gods, upon a ladder.
Byrd: Not true in Egypt, and not true in ancient forms of shamanism. It is found in neoshamanism (which emerges after 1970.)
Utterance 478:
As for any spirit or god who will help me when I ascend to the sky on the ladder of the God; my bones are assembled for me, my limbs are gathered together for me, and I leap up to the sky in the presence of the god of the Lord of the ladder.
A ladder is knotted together by Re before Osiris, a ladder is knotted together by Horus before his father Osiris when he goes to his spirit, one of them being on this side and one of them being on that, while I am between them.
(Emphasis mine)
Byrd: Shamans don't deal with gods... priests do. Shamans deal with spirits: en.wikipedia.org...
SC: A common feature of the initiation process of the shaman often involves the initiate undergoing an out-of-body-experience in which the shaman senses that they are being attacked and that their limbs are being torn apart, their body dismembered and reassembled before they can ascend the ladder to commune with the spirit world.
Byrd: Ladders are a fairly modern tradition.
Byrd: In many cultures that I've studied, the shaman "rides" to the otherworld on sound or motion (dancing) and travels on or with birds (this is a belief of the Costa Rican (and Central American) shamans which continues today and is reflected in their tribal art of birds and other folk practices.) They also report flying to other worlds on smoke, rainbows, or riding on animals. It was common for Native American shamans to see the process as climbing a mountain. Travel below was accomplished by descending through hollow trees, caves, tunnels, and tubelike structures.
Byrd: Sacred-Texts has a lot of old material on shamans that you may wish to read. You will notice, though, that none of the texts mention ladders: www.sacred-texts.com...
SC: This 'experience' (state of consciousness) is very reminiscent of the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris in which Osiris is attacked, dismembered only to be put together again by his consort, Isis, before journeying on to the Afterworld to be with the Gods.
Byrd: Dismemberment isn't part of the process for the shaman as a usual course of affairs. While it may occur in an initiatory phase (deoxy.org...),
|Byrd: ….only a very inept shaman would let himself be attacked or harmed while journeying elsewhere.
Byrd: The Inuit shaman often sees him (or her)self as a skeleton: en.wikipedia.org...
”The very precise angle [37*] was a hallmark of spirit-journey postures performed by hunters [like the birdman of Lascaux], especially for journeying to the sky world... This same posture turned up twelve thousand years later in Egypt in a drawing of Osiris [who] underwent a typical shamanic initiation in which his body was dismembered and the reassembled by his sister [consort] before he made his spirit journey to the Upper World”
”Osiris was a shaman... the figure [above] seems to point to the fact that shamanism in this form once predominated the Mediterranean, from southern France all the way to Egypt. What is remarkable is that these elements were preserved in northern Africa over such an enormous time span [12,000 years], especially in light of the fact that we are dealing with two different cultural types. The shaman of Lascaux was without doubt a hunter, like everyone during that period. Osiris, on the other hand, changed into a god of the much more recent agriculturalists on the Nile without, however, losing his original character. Nor indeed did the Egyptians lose the knowledge about the correct posture, expecially about the proper angle of ascending to the sky world.”
Byrd: The Shamanism FAQ has a number of good books that it recommends. deoxy.org... More advanced reading would include the Boaz books on Northwestern tribes. I am lukewarm about Harner, who is crafting his material to satisfy the needs of moderns and not relating ancient traditions.
SC: Could it be also that the 'Ladder' to the 'spirit realm' is symbolised in the Great Pyramid through the so-called 'Relieving Chambers' with the body of the initiate placed in the coffer below?
Byrd: Probably not. By then, the Ancient Egyptians were heavily invested in a religion (as opposed to shamanism)
Byrd: ...with a court of multiple deities and no shamanic-like practices in the worship ceremonies (priests didn't trance or drum or go on spirit journeys as part of their regular practices.).
Byrd: What is found in their writings is an ecstasy similar to the experiences of some of the Christian saints -- and both of those are very different from the shamanic practices: www.philae.nu...
Byrd: (in short, shamans enter their trances voluntarily and are on an equal footing with the spirits. They choose the time and place. Priests/monks/nuns are captured by the spirit of the deity and given an intense mystical experience.) They do NOT choose the time and place.
Byrd: The king himself was the High Priest and did not go through initiations or ecstatic trances (see Ancient Egypt: a social history By Bruce G. Trigger).