orm, was able to be purified, and
to sit down and to eat bread with it "unceasingly and for ever;" and the
KA who was not supplied with a sufficiency of food in the shape of
offerings of bread, cakes, flowers, fruit, wine, ale, and the like, was
in serious danger of starvation.

The soul was called BA, and the ideas which the Egyptians held
concerning it are somewhat difficult to reconcile; the meaning of the
word seems to be something like "sublime," "noble," "mighty." The BA
dwelt in the KA, and seems to have had the power of becoming corporeal
or incorporeal at will; it had both substance and form, and is
frequently depicted on the papyri and monuments as a human-headed hawk;
in nature and substance it is stated to be ethereal. It had the power to
leave the tomb, and to pass up into heaven where it was believed to
enjoy an eternal existence in a state of glory; it could, however, and
did, revisit the body in the tomb, and from certain texts it seems that
it could re-animate it and hold converse with it. Like the heart AB it
was, in some respects, the seat of life in man. The souls of the blessed
dead dwelt in heaven with the gods, and they partook of all the
celestial enjoyments for ever.

The spiritual intelligence, or spirit, of a man was called KHU, and it
seems to have taken form as a shining, luminous, intangible shape of the
body; the KHUs formed a class of celestial beings who lived with the
gods, but their functions are not clear. The KHU, like the KA, could be
imprisoned in the tomb, and to obviate this catastrophe special formulae
were composed and duly recited. Besides the KHU another very important
part of a man's entity went into heaven, namely, his SEKHEM. The word
literally means "to have the mastery over something," and, as used in
the early texts, that which enables one to have the mastery over
something; _i.e._, "power." The SEKHEM of a man was, apparently, his
vital force or strength personified, and the Egyptians believed that it
could and did, under certain conditions, follow him that possessed it
upon earth into heaven. Another part of a man was the KHAIBIT or
"shadow," which is frequently mentioned in connexion with the soul and,
in late times, was always thought to be near it. Finally we may mention
the REN, or "name" of a man, as one of his most important constituent
parts. The Egyptians, in common with all Eastern nations, attached the
greatest importance to the preservation of the name, an