No. 100 The Initiatic Message of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead - A Source of Masonic Tradition

About twenty formulas extracted from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead are divided into 11 chapters, which constitute the major stages of a journey towards light, highlighted by the author through his commentaries.

The collection of hieroglyphic texts commonly known as The Book of the Dead is actually entitled Formulas for Coming Forth by Day and is addressed as much to the living in search of initiation as to the "justified" deceased. These texts are an inexhaustible source of richness for those seeking a spiritual life, but difficult to access due to their often enigmatic wording once translated into our modern languages.
To overcome this pitfall and extract the essential substance from this rich material, which is one of the important sources of the symbolism of Masonic initiation, Pierre Dangle has selected and commented in this essay on a number of formulas that describe the major stages of a journey towards Light whose nature is timeless.