Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt

by Jeremy Naydler

A radical reinterpretation of the Pyramid Texts as shamanic mystical wisdom rather than funerary rituals

• Reveals the mystical nature of Egyptian civilization denied by orthodox Egyptologists

• Examines the similarity between the pharaoh’s afterlife voyage and shamanic journeying

• Shows shamanism to be the foundation of the Egyptian mystical tradition

To the Greek philosophers and other peoples of the ancient world, Egypt was regarded as the home of a profound mystical wisdom. While there are many today who still share that view, the consensus of most Egyptologists is that no evidence exists that Egypt possessed any mystical tradition whatsoever. Jeremy Naydler’s radical reinterpretation of the Pyramid Texts--the earliest body of religious literature to have survived from ancient Egypt--places these documents into the ritual context in which they belong.

Until now, the Pyramid Texts have been viewed primarily as royal funerary texts that were used in the liturgy of the dead pharaoh or to aid him in his afterlife journey. This emphasis on funerary interpretation has served only to externalize what were actually experiences of the living, not the dead, king. In order to understand the character and significance of the extreme psychological states the pharaoh experienced--states often involving perilous encounters with alternate realities--we need to approach them as spiritual and religious phenomena that reveal the extraordinary possibilities of human consciousness. It is the shamanic spiritual tradition, argues Naydler, that is the undercurrent of the Pyramid Texts and that holds the key to understanding both the true nature of these experiences and the basis of ancient Egyptian mysticism.

Genres: Egypt, Egyptology, Religion, Philosophy, History

480 pages, Paperback

First published December 9, 2004

About the author

Jeremy Naydler, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in theology and religious studies, and is a philosopher, cultural historian and gardener who lives and works in Oxford, England. He has long been interested in the history of consciousness and sees the study of past cultures – which were more open to the world of spirit than our own predominantly secular culture – as relevant both to understanding our situation today and to finding pathways into the future

Reviews

[Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shamanic Wisdom and the Pyramid Texts offers a compelling and coherent explanation of how most (and perhaps all) of the pyramid-temple complexes in ancient Egypt were used. Naydler bases his argument primarily on the content of the texts at the pyramid of Unas, which has the most complete surviving set of ritual descriptions. The more famous pyramid complex at Giza was built 180 years later, but its inscriptions apparently were carved on the outer stone casings, which have been stripped away and lost. Naydler speculates that those inscriptions would have told much the same story.

Unlike many traditional Egyptologists, Naydler believes that the pyramid ritual describes, not primarily burial rites, but the festival of Sed. This festival was to occur every thirty years during a king's reign. During the ritual and guided by priests, the king underwent a spiritual process of death, dismemberment, reintegration, and rebirth. This is a shamanic, astral journey which empowers the king with benefits that ensure the welfare of the entire kingdom. It also makes it possible for him to reascend, as shamans do, to communicate with the higher realms at will. The process of death and transformation follows the path of the Osiris myth, in which Osiris dies (at the hands of the evil Seth) and is dismembered. His consort Isis searches for his parts, mates with his severed organ, and gives birth to a reintegrated Osiris as her son Horus. In the Sed ritual, the king enters the rite as Osiris and emerges as the living Horus, ready to resume his earthly reign. This is the same cycle the dead king will follow to achieve rebirth in the astral realm (which is the traditional academic view).

My only complaint with the book is that Naydler feels he has to spend so much time contending with the prejudices of traditional Egyptology. He is primarily a historian of religion, sympathetic with the world view of Mircea Eliade, and his approach deals more directly with the content of the texts than their social and cultural contexts. He warns the reader that the book was intended mainly as a doctoral thesis, and it certainly reads that way. A more popular text could have simply taken a position and not done so much self-justification. Anyone interested in this subject, no matter what the academic field, should pay attention to this significant book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was originally written as a doctoral thesis and it shows. The author says in the introduction that he's shortened and tightened up his writing for a general audience and I think he does a good job of that. Personally I don't mind reading long-winded theses when they are going in an interesting direction and this is definitely the case with this book. He attacks one of the major issues in Egyptology head-on in reinterpreting one of the standard ideas in the field. That is, the idea that virtually every monument and text is funerary. In this particular case he explores the nature and possible non-funerary function of the pyramid texts, especially focusing on those in the pyramid of Unas (Wenis). He also refers to later versions of the texts from other pyramids and also to the much later literature that derives from them. Being that this is the oldest known religious text in the world and very strange from a modern perspective anything that can shed light on its nature and function is a great leap forward in understanding the ancient Egyptians, their religious and magical practices, and even the nature of kingship.

Contrary to the usual funerary interpretation he demonstrates evidence that the utterances (beginning with Dd mdw, literally 'say words') served functions other than as spells to carry the deceased king on his way to a happy afterlife. His hypothesis is that they served a so-called 'shamanic' function while the king was very much alive. The term shamanism isn't entirely accurate since it really comes from Siberian shamans but fits practices that are referred to as shamanic by anthropologists. The idea that the texts and the pyramids themselves served the function of renewing the king in the duat during an otherworld journey rather than simply serving as funerary spells in a funerary monument makes sense of many things that otherwise don't make much sense. The texts themselves declare many times that the king is alive and not dead. At times he is obviously not resurrected to an afterlife but in fact still alive and empowered by his journey to the world of the gods.

The author very successfully connects not only the texts but the whole pyramid complex to the Sed festival, the renewal of the king's power after thirty years (with many exceptions to that time period). While other authors deny there is any positional significance to the placement of texts in the pyramid of Unas, Nadler develops the idea that there are thematic relationships between not only cardinal directions and the walls the texts are placed on but between texts on opposite sides of the wall between the sarcophagus chamber and antechamber as well as floating a hypothesis about the significance of the retrograde writing on some walls which is otherwise unexplained.

This is one of those books that makes things that didn't make much sense before suddenly make sense. The dots connect and a full picture begins to form. Of course at this great remove in time and lacking so much concrete information it's hard to say exactly how something like this may have been used but I think the author makes an excellent case for the pyramid and these texts being far more than funerary monuments and spells for the good of the deceased.

I would have liked to see more expansion on the apparent fusion and irregular equivalence of Horus and Osiris in these texts but that isn't the author's aim. That's a subject for another day. What he sets out to demonstrate he does in an exhaustive way which challenges the usual assumption that the pyramids, and virtually all remains of ancient Egypt, are essentially dedicated to the dead. So many tombs do remain because they were constructed to last for eternity. Many other things put to use during life surely were not. This creates an obvious bias against those things that are more perishable. But I think the bias of Egyptologists that so many things and so many texts only served the dead is seriously wrong in many cases such as this. I feel, as do many others, that the other books also presumed to be nothing but spells and instructions to the dead also served similar functions.

The whole subject is a bit esoteric if you aren't deeply interested in the religion and magic of ancient Egypt but if you are and want to gain a deeper understanding of the origins of the pyramid texts and the much later Book of Going Forth by Day (Book of the Dead), Book of Gates, Book of Breathings, Am Duat, etc. this book is well worth reading.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book takes a revisionist view of The Pyramid Texts, and makes a very strong case for casting them as recordings of mystical or shamanic journeys undertaken by the Pharaoh rather than as the funery texts they have always been presumed to be. Nadler starts by defining shamanism as he chooses to use it in his writing, and then goes over the history of the translations and theories about The Pyramid texts as put forth by well known Egyptologists. He then dissects the archeological, architectural and literary content of the texts, linking what he reads there very convincingly to a shamanic journey made by a living pharaoh rather than the journey in the afterlife of a dead king. If one is at all interested in either Shamanism, or Egyptology or both, this is an excellent read. I recommend it highly.

[Soren Kerk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would read anything this man has written. Well, I have. I look forward to his next book.

[Carlton Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth a read for an alternative, and well substantiated, review of the purpose of ancient Egypt´s pyramid texts. His central thesis is these were directed at shamanic endeavors for accessing altered states of consciousness, where ancient religions ultimately manifested from. This contrasts with the mainstream views that these texts somehow served a funerary cult and conferred afterlife benefits on the dead Pharaoh (is this even phenomenally possible for the human condition...? Urhmm...). This book represents a repurposed PhD thesis, and as such is well supported in its evidence and logical in its approach. At times the author comes across as defensive, but positively & objectively so, and given the circumstance and counter-posed context of his thesis its little surprise.

I enjoyed Jeremy´s portrayal of Egyptology´s evolution and ultimately its floored foundation of premise regarding its mystical-religious past - that it was mundane, primitive, and essentially non-mystical. Implicitly, he reminds us how paradigm shifts happen in science, and arguably Egyptology is well overdue this. Anyone having experienced transcendental states of consciousness can see it as clear as day - that the mystical & ritual nature of these ancient Egyptian religious cults is embedded all over their Sun god temple art & iconography - not just the pyramid texts.

A brave book & author in my view and definitely worth a read. a great job and a big thanks.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, with the caveat that the second half entails work for the casual reader. It is an extension of a PhD thesis; as someone without any foreseeable plans to become an expert on the Pyramid of Unas, I found the deep analysis of situational placement in the chambers re: the utterances to be interesting but also required serious commitment that I in my morning sickness phase found seriously draining. It's work, but it's meant to be work and it has to be so to make the case.

Overall Naydler has produced one of the most sober and polite refutations of positivist Egyptology. The funerary/mortuary obsession has long been a projection of the quantified Western mind, something with which to fend off genuine encounter with Egypt. Naydler kindly points out the flaws & incompleteness of what Barfield might have called "the beta phase of understanding," and then follows the phenomenological path to a participatory reconciliation. Worthwhile for anyone with an interest in Egypt or ancient religion.

[Harley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

Interesting take on real purpose of symbol and heirogliphic spiritual texts. Thank you. Would recommend to anyone who's lost and in the dark.

[Matt]

too much minutia and analysis not enough shamanic wisdom... where is my shamanic wisdom? yawn.

[Paul Kemner · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title makes the book sound new age, which it definitely isn't.

There is a lot of phenomenology to wade through, but he presents some interesting ideas.