ear the pure force of fire
(the spirit). Demeter is obliged to abandon the idea. She is only able
to found a temple service, through which man is able to participate in
the divine as far as this is possible.

The Eleusinian festivals were an eloquent confession of the belief in
the immortality of the human soul. This confession found symbolic
expression in the Persephone myth. Together with Demeter and
Persephone Dionysos was commemorated in Eleusis. As Demeter was
honoured as the divine creatress of the eternal in man, so in Dionysos
was honoured the ever-changing divine in the world. The divine poured
into the world and torn to pieces in order to be spiritually reborn
(_cf._ p. 90) had to be honoured together with Demeter. (A brilliant
description of the spirit of the Eleusinian Mysteries is found in
Edouard Schure's book, _Sanctuaires d'Orient_. Paris, 1898.)

VI

THE MYSTERY WISDOM OF EGYPT

When leaving thy body behind thee, thou soarest into the ether,
Then thou becomest a god, immortal, not subject to death.

In this utterance of Empedocles (_cf._ p. 55) is epitomised what the
ancient Egyptians thought about the eternal element in man and its
connection with the divine. The proof of this may be found in the
so-called _Book of the Dead_, which has been deciphered by the
diligence of nineteenth-century investigators (_cf._ Lepsius, _Das
Totenbuch der alten Aegypter_, Berlin, 1842). It is "the greatest
continuous literary work which has come down to us from ancient
Egypt." All kinds of instructions and prayers are contained in it,
which were put into the tomb of each deceased person to serve as a
guide when he was released from his mortal tenement. The most intimate
ideas of the Egyptians about the Eternal and the origin of the world
are contained in this work. These ideas point to a conception of the
gods similar to that of Greek mysticism.

Osiris gradually became the favourite and most universally recognised
of the various deities worshipped in different parts of Egypt. In him
were comprised the ideas about the other divinities. Whatever the
majority of the Egyptian people may have thought about Osiris, the
_Book of the Dead_ indicates that the priestly wisdom saw in him a
being that might be found in the human soul itself. Everything said
about death and the dead shows this plainly. While the body is given
to earth, and kept by it, the eternal part of man enters upon the path
to the primo