THE FORTY-THREEFOLD EGYPTIAN WISDOM

As we have seen, in the Egyptian tradition, the immortal wisdom was mapped out by the divisions of the land—the land of Egypt itself was an image of heaven and represented the transcendental ground on which the forty-two layers were conceived.

As we have seen, these lesser kingdoms were presided over by the forty-two nomarchs, who were viewed as embodiments of the gods. The land of Egypt as a whole was presided over by the pharaoh, who was viewed as the embodiment of God, the Supreme Being. In this way, the Egyptians strove to create a kingdom of heaven on earth, in accordance with their understanding of the 42 + 1 = 43 layers of the metaphysical Logos.

This understanding was also reflected in the final judgment scene depicted in the Book of Coming Forth by Day, referred to by modern scholars as the Egyptian Book of the Dead: The heart of the aspirant is weighed against the feather of Maat in the presence of forty-two spiritual judges presided over by Osiris, who represents simultaneously the supreme forty-third judge, and the Lord of Immortality. Immediately prior to the final judgment, the soul must make the forty-two negative confessions by professing its innocence before the forty-two judges. Once all judges are satisfied with the soul’s innocence, the heart of the aspirant is weighed and Osiris pronounces his final judgment. This reflects the notion that when the soul ascends to the fortieth layer and enters into the Hall of Two Truths, it comes face to face with all forty-two aspects of the Supreme Being as well as the Supreme Being itself in a type of holographic vision, and is then judged by them all. These forty-three beings constitute collectively the Grail family—the family of the self.

In some Egyptian traditions, the Supreme Being was represented by Thoth, the Egyptian wisdom god. Whereas the rulers of Egypt strove to follow in the footsteps of Osiris, who was viewed as the all-powerful form of God, the priests strove to follow in the footsteps of Thoth, who was viewed as the all-knowing form of God. There was an ancient Egyptian myth that Thoth had composed a set of forty-two secret books containing the knowledge of everything in heaven and earth, but no such books have ever been found. The truth is that the books of Thoth are written in consciousness, and can be “read” only by the soul as it ascends through the forty-two layers that constitute the path of immortality. They represent the forty-two forms of pure knowledge experienced on the basis of the forty-two layers. When the soul ascends to the supreme forty-third layer, it becomes identified with Thoth himself.

We find, then, that the Egyptian seers, like the Vedic seers, conceived the metaphysical spectrum as consisting of 42 + 1 = 43 layers, and sought to copy or model that metaphysical reality by mapping it out on the land and reflecting it in their central myths. The immortal wisdom is not the province of any one culture or religion; it represents a truly universal form of wisdom inherent in every human soul, and it unfolds gradually in ever-greater clarity as the soul ascends the stairway to the sky.