Egyptian Afterlife (Dr. Bob Brier, Ancient Egypt) - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World

Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World is brought to you by the StarQuest Production Network, and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit sqpn.com slash give. You're listening to episode 240 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about the mystery of the ancient Egyptian afterlife. I'm Dom Bentinelli, and joining me today is Jimmy Akin. Hey Jimmy. Howdy Dom. The idea of the afterlife is a human universal. It appears in all human cultures, all the way through human history, all over the world. This was as true for the ancient Egyptians as much as any other group. But the ancient Egyptians were fascinated with death. When a new pharaoh took office, he began building the tomb that would be his home in the next world. And common people were just as concerned about their own afterlives as the pharaoh, because the Egyptian afterlife contained frightening experiences. So what did the Egyptians believe happened to us in the afterlife? What did people need to do to survive the afterlife? And what happened to those who didn't? And that's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. Jimmy, why did you want to do this episode? Well, in the first place, because the Egyptians had some really wild ideas about the afterlife, and it's a fascinating subject. Also, we've had requests from listeners to do more Egyptian mysteries on the show, and because I was able to obtain an interview with a world-famous Egyptologist. His name is Dr. Bob Breyer, and I've been a fan of his for a long time. I've been through his Great Courses series on the history of ancient Egypt multiple times, and I highly recommend it, and we'll have a link to where you can get a copy for yourself. Jimmy, as a refresher, what are some of the Egyptian mysteries we've covered before? Way back in episode 6, we talked about the Egyptian pyramids, and then in episode 28, we talked about Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh. In episode 42, we discussed whether King Tutankhamen was murdered, an idea that Dr. Breyer himself explored in his book, The Murder of Tutankhamen, which we'll also have a link to. In episode 89, we talked about the Black Magic harem conspiracy against Pharaoh Ramesses III. In episode 166, we talked about the biblical exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. And today, we'll be talking with Dr. Breyer about the Egyptian afterlife, and then next week, we'll be talking with him about mummies. So is there anything sensitive in these episodes that listeners should know about? Well, the Egyptian afterlife contained some scary experiences, but nothing that bad. The worst thing that would happen to you is that if you failed to survive the afterlife, you'd simply stop existing, in which case you wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again. Also, while the ancient Egyptians may have believed these things about the afterlife, modern audiences don't believe them. I don't, and I'm sure that the typical listener doesn't either. So I don't think that the afterlife episode will be particularly disturbing unless you're really, really sensitive or something. And what about next week's episode on mummies? Well, we will be talking about dead bodies, but as always on Mysterious World, we'll be We will briefly see some pictures of unwrapped mummies in the video version of the podcast. Also, we'll be discussing how the Egyptians got the brain out of the body when they were mummifying it. Little boys all over the world know, based on what they've heard, that they got the brain out through the nose. That's just the kind of detail that little boys love to know. Well, next week, we will briefly mention what they typically don't know, which is how they got the brain out through the nose. But it's not what you would think. And it's a really brief mention, but you know, there might be a kind of momentary ooh, but nothing more than that. On Mysterious World, we usually analyze mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. How do those relate to our topic today? Today's interview is essentially one long look at the Egyptian afterlife from the what we've learned from archaeology about what the Egyptians believe. When it comes to the faith perspective, we really don't need to say much. The Egyptians had a different faith, and so they had different ideas about the afterlife. It's interesting to know about them and how they were similar to and different from Jewish and Christian beliefs. But it's a fundamentally different religion, so we don't need to respond to it in detail from the faith perspective. This is what they believe, but not what we believe. Okay, so before we get to that interview with Dr. Breyer, we'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons who make this show possible, including Albert A., Scott H., Dan F., Nancy A., and James C. Their generous donations at sqpn.com slash give make it possible for us to continue Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World and all the shows at StarQuest, and you can join them by visiting sqpn.com slash give. Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World is also brought to you in part through the generous support of our sponsors, including Aaron Ferguson Electric and Automation at aaronv.com, a-a-r-o-n-v.com, making connections for life for your automation and smart home needs in North and Central Florida. And by Catechism Class, a dynamic weekly podcast journey through the catechism of the Catholic Church by Greg and Jennifer Willits. It's the best book club, coffee talk, and faith study group all rolled into one. Find it in any podcast directory. And without any further ado, let's go to your interview about the Egyptian afterlife with Dr. Bob Breyer. Dr. Bob Breyer has traveled the world and published more than 10 books on the topics of Egyptology and mummies. Affectionately known as Mr. Mummy, Dr. Breyer is recognized as one of the world's foremost experts on mummies and Egyptology. As senior research fellow at Long Island University in Brookville, New York, he has conducted pioneering research in mummification practices and has investigated some of the world's most famous mummies, including King Tut, Vladimir Lenin, Ramses the Great, Eva Peron, the Chinese noblewoman Marquise Tai, and the Medici family of Renaissance Italy. He is the author of The Murder of Tutankhamen, which we covered in episode 42 of Mysterious World, and his latest book is Tutankhamen and the Tomb that Changed the World. Dr. Bob Breyer, welcome to Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. Thank you, Jimmy. I want to, before we start with the questions, I want to mention now you're famous for Egyptology and most people will know you from that. For example, I've been through your course on the history of ancient Egypt from The Great Courses multiple times. I think you're a fantastic teacher. You're the best of all the Great Courses teachers I've encountered so far, and frankly, I'd take a course from you on anything. You're also a philosopher, which not as many folks know. I have a background in philosophy myself, and you've even done a bit of work in parapsychology. A while back, I took a course in paranthropology, which is the study of parapsychology through the lens of anthropology, and one of our main textbooks for that course was the Proceedings of an International Conference, Parapsychology and Anthropology, that was conducted in England in 1973. And you were one of the participants. You delivered a paper called Parapsychological Principles from Anthropological Studies, and I had a delight reading that as well as your interactions in the discussion sections after all the people delivered their papers. That's from my distant past, Jimmy. Yeah, you've got quite a diversity of interests. Yes, yes. So let's talk about the Egyptian afterlife to start out with. Now, your latest book, as I said, is Tutankhamen and the Tomb that Changed the World. And in it, you talk about how Howard Carter discovered the tomb and the various findings that resulted from that discovery, which were rather revolutionary in some cases. We learned a lot of things we didn't previously know, and as the artifacts from the tomb have continued to be studied over the last several decades, we've learned more that we didn't previously know. But the Egyptians were obviously very concerned about the idea of the afterlife. You know, they spent all those efforts building pyramids and tombs and engaging in mummification practices. How do we know what they believed about the afterlife? Well, we're very fortunate in that both we have artifacts that tell us, like you mentioned the pyramids, Jimmy, and the pyramids are solely intended as tombs that protect the body for resurrection in the next world. So we have objects that tell us a lot about ancient Egyptian belief in life after death. But even more to the point, we have texts. They wrote everything down about religion. So for example, in the Valley of the Kings, on the walls of the pharaoh's tombs are texts that tell us what they thought the afterlife would be like, what they thought the journey to the next world would be like. And we have things like, even in Tutankhamen's tomb, his mummy was encased in three coffins, nested coffins, and they were to protect the body. But then that was encased in nested shrines, and on those shrines, on those golden shrines, were texts, religious texts, telling us about the next world. So we have loads of texts about that. Even the Book of the Dead is a papyrus that tells us all about it. So we have loads of material about the Egyptians. That's one thing we have plenty of. So my understanding is that the earliest texts that we have describing the Egyptian afterlife are what are sometimes called the pyramid texts, which were written on and illustrated on the walls of various pyramids, like in the Old Kingdom. And then after the Old Kingdom fell apart and we had the first intermediate period, you know, the tombs were robbed, the pyramids were opened, people saw the pyramid texts, and they wanted to kind of get in on the action. And so they started writing the same sort of material, but on the coffins or sarcophagi that people were buried in. And so these are what are known as the coffin texts. And then later, people started writing them on papyrus scrolls that would be buried with the dead. And these are what are known as books of the dead, just means a book that's owned by a dead person. But what would these texts do? I mean, obviously, they would describe the afterlife, but why would a person, like, want to be buried with one? Well, as you mentioned, the pyramid texts are the first texts that we have that are the religious texts for the next world. And they deal with different phases that the Pharaoh is going to go through as he journeys to the next world, as he is accepted by the gods in the next world, and finally resurrected in the next world. So these texts are going to help him figure out how to behave, what to do. They have magical spells that he's going to utter at different stages in his journey to the next world. So they're going to make sure that the Pharaoh knows everything he needs to know to get to the next world. Now, those pyramid texts that you mentioned are not only the first religious texts we have about the next world, but they're the first large body of writing in the world. There's no large body of writing on one subject in the world that's earlier than the pyramid texts. And that's an indication, I think, of just how important the next world was to the Egyptians. Now, as you mentioned, at some point, the pyramids were looted, and everybody saw these texts on the walls of the pyramids. So everybody wanted these texts, but they couldn't afford a pyramid. So that's when they put them on their coffins. And it's the same spells, pretty much, but written on the coffins. But the problem with a coffin is, of course, it's not as big as a pyramid. You can't fit all the spells on a coffin. And that's why they went to the Book of the Dead, because you can have a papyrus as long as you want, and you can put all the spells you want on it. And you can even draw pictures and paintings and things like that to illustrate it. So it's a natural transition, but it shows that for over 2,000 years, the Egyptians were really honed in, really focused on resurrecting in the next world. One thing I've wondered about, because a lot of people in the ancient world, including in Egypt, were illiterate, meaning they couldn't read. And so if I'm an ordinary commoner and I'm not trained to read, how am I going to use my Book of the Dead if I can't read the spells in it to make it to the next world? Would they just kind of have a magical effect, even though I'm not able to read them? Or do you know what Egyptians thought about that? Well, first of all, if you're an ordinary commoner and can't read, you can't afford a Book of the Dead. It's really for the elites. Not everybody had a Book of the Dead. So it's really for the elites who could read. It was an expensive thing to buy a Book of the Dead. You know, it took a scribe or a team of scribes, even. You had someone writing the text, you had someone else illustrating it. It could take as long as a year to do a nice Book of the Dead. So not everybody had a Book of the Dead. Now, if you were illiterate, you'd of course want everything you could get to help you into the next world. So you might have magical amulets. You could be buried with some magical amulets that would help you resurrect. So, for example, there's a little amulet that's a headrest, and you would be buried with that behind your neck. So when you got to the next world, you could lift your head up and see where you were and what to do. So it was sort of different strokes for different folks. Now, the Egyptians had a very long civilization before they, you know, were conquered by the Greeks and then later the Romans. From the early dynastic period to the turn of the age, the A.D. or the Common Era, it was more than 3,000 years. Did their views of the afterlife change in that period, or were they pretty consistent? Oh, they were pretty consistent. As a matter of fact, you know, I think the Egyptians were probably the most conservative nation in the history of the world. And when I say conservative, I mean in terms of resisting change. They wanted it to be the same. They were the greatest nation in the world for thousands of years. And if it's not broke, don't fix it. And this is why the Egyptians didn't adopt many innovations from other countries that would have been very beneficial. So, for example, the Egyptians never picked up on the wheel. They never made full use of the wheel. They eventually had it for chariots after they were conquered by the Hyksos, and so this thing's really good. But they never really used it for transporting things. They didn't have carts and things like that. They still continued to pull their things on sleds. And they never used horses as, say, beasts of burden or rode them. They were just for pulling chariots, as they saw the Hyksos had. So it's really quite, quite conservative. And their belief in life after death really didn't change for 3,000 years. Now, in the West, people tend to think of a human being, at least traditionally, as composed of a body and a soul. And when you die, your body and your soul separate. As the letter of James says in the New Testament, the body without the soul is dead. But the Egyptian view of human nature was more complex than that. They thought that there was more than just the body and the soul. What did they believe about what a human being was composed of? Yeah, it's a very good question. I think an important difference, say, between the Egyptian concept of resurrection and the Christian concept of resurrection is that the Egyptians also felt you needed your body. It was a physical resurrection of the actual body that you have on this earth that's going to resurrect. That's why they mummified. So part of a person is his body. And another part is what they're called the Ba, the A. And this was really what we would call your personality. It's what makes you, you. And then, in addition, there was an extra feature called the Ka, K-A, which was kind of like a spiritual double, almost like a doppelganger, a shadowy outline of you. And you needed all of this together to resurrect in the next world. There's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful text called A Report of a Dispute Between a Man and His Ba. It's about this guy who's living in hard times, and he's thinking about killing himself. And his Ba, his personality, his soul, says to him, don't do it. If you kill yourself, I'm going to desert you, and you're not going to resurrect in the next world. And then the guy sort of tries to talk his Ba into, you know, no, no, let me kill myself, but I'll build a tomb for you that will be the envy of every Ba in Egypt, you know. So he says, hey, stay with me. And the Ba says, no, no, you can't kill yourself. And then the papyrus breaks off at the end, so we don't know what happened. But I suspect it's a kind of resolution where the man decides, no, no, I won't kill myself, things aren't so bad. And the Ba decides to stay with him. But for the Egyptian, you had to have it all together, or you were in trouble. So that's a difference, then, between Egyptian belief about resurrection and Judeo-Christian belief, where your body can totally fall apart, you know, dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return. You don't need the body because God can put it all back together. Whereas for Egyptians, you don't want the body turning into dust. You want to keep it together. Did they have fail-safe plans in case something happened to your body that you could, like, I've read or heard of Egyptians having sort of surrogate bodies that they could use in case something happened to their actual body. Is that the case? Yes, some, very wealthy, of course, would have what we call a car statue. It's literally a life-size statue of you. And the hope was that if something happens to your body, and they were aware of tomb robbers, and that was the biggest threat to your body. You know, tomb robbers getting into your tomb, ran rummaging through the body, looking for amulets and gold and bracelets and things like that, and destroying the body. So as a plan B, if you're wealthy enough, you could have a car statue, which was a double of you, and the Ba could live, dwell inside that statue if the body were destroyed. So that was a plan B. So they were always thinking about how to get to the next world. So the different parts of a human being, the body, the Ca, the Ba, in their view, these are all going to eventually be reunited in some way in a resurrection event. Now, in the Judeo-Christian conception, resurrection is an event that's typically thought to occur in the future, in the messianic age, or at the end of the world. Was the Egyptian belief about the timing of resurrection similar to that? Was there a future point where everybody gets resurrected, or was it something else? No, it's something else. It's something else. In Judeo-Christian tradition, it's almost a communal event, the resurrection. Everybody's going to get up and go at the same time. In Egyptian, no, no, it's every man for himself. You're going to resurrect on your own. Your resurrection has nothing to do with anyone else's resurrection. So we don't know how long it took, though. For example, we don't have a messianic event that's going to happen or anything like that. We don't know, for example, how long the body is supposed to stay in the tomb. Is it going to stay there for 70 days? Is it going to stay there for 100 days? Is it going to stay there for 1,000 years? How long does it take before the body resurrects? They never said anything about that, so we don't know. So is it possible that some of them thought, hey, that pharaoh that lived 1,000 years ago, he's probably up in his tomb, you know, relaxing and reading his tomb walls? Or was it generally assumed that they were probably still in an inanimate state? No, I don't know what they thought. I really don't know what they thought. But you know, one thing that happened is when you resurrect, you're in the West. They believe that you resurrect in the West because that's where the sun dies. It sets in the West, and the West is associated with death. So when a person died, he was called a Westerner. And the euphemism, like we often say, the dearly departed or something like that, they say he went West. And you're going to go West, and you'll be in your tomb till you go West, but I don't think you're really reading the walls. I think you're kind of in your car, and this is the sense I get reading between the lines or between the hieroglyphs. This is the sense I get that you're in your tomb, you're surrounded by the magical spells that are going to help you, and we just don't know when you're going to get up and go again. Did the living need to do, now, in various cultures, like in, for example, Chinese culture, there's the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts, where you provide money to assist the dearly departed in the afterlife. Did the Egyptians believe that the living could do anything to assist the departed? Did they leave them offerings, or how did that work? Yeah, it was almost necessary to help the deceased till he resurrected. So, for example, for the very wealthy, they would have a little chapel near their tomb where the family could come and make offerings for the deceased twice a day, leaving a token bread and beer or some vegetables or something like that, and this would sustain the deceased till he resurrected in the next world. And I think an indication that they didn't really have a particular time when you'd resurrect is that sometimes these offerings were made for thousands of years. We know that for pharaohs, some pharaohs, they were making offerings at his mortuary temple a thousand years after he died, and that's a real commitment and a belief. I mean, we don't have that much in our society today. I mean, who thinks that somebody's going to be making offerings for them a thousand years from now? Now, sometimes you had situations, and we know about this in the case of some of the pharaohs like really hated some of their predecessors, and they would do things like cut out the names. In Latin, it's called damnatio memorare, the damnation of memory or condemnation of memory, where they would like obliterate the names of their predecessors. Was this believed to have any effect on the pharaohs in the afterlife, and were there other ways that the living could sort of ruin the chances of a deceased person? Absolutely. I mean, I can think of quite a few ways you could ruin the chances of resurrecting. For example, burn the mummy. That's a problem. You don't have a body anymore. Also, this notion of erasing the name, eradicating the name of the person in some way condemns him to non-immortality. I think there's a lot of texts about that in ancient Egypt. For example, there's a phrase we have, to say the name of the dead is to make him live again. And the idea was sort of by saying the name, you're assisting him in living again. And even on tomb walls, on the outside of a tomb, the outside of a tomb, the facade, there would be a prayer which goes something like this, oh, passerby, stop and read my name. It causes you nothing, but it's a blessing. And the idea was that by saying the name of the dead, you make him live again. So, you know, and it's just the opposite. If you erase the name of the dead, if he's not in memory, in some way, he's not going to be immortal. One thing I've heard that could ruin the chances of a person in the afterlife was decapitation, taking the head off of the body. Is that accurate? Or could you maybe then like switch to your Ka statue or an alternative body? No, I don't think necessarily decapitation would ruin your chance for immortality. I mean, think about mummification. In mummification, you're taking out the internal organs and things like that. But eventually you're going to get it all together and resurrect. So, no, I don't think that would do it. It has to be more drastic than that. So, for example, there was a great tomb robbery period when the tombs of the pharaohs were violated. And eventually the tomb robbers were caught and they were convicted. And for some of them, they weren't just executed. We know that their bodies were burned and the ashes were spread on the roads where donkeys would trot on it. So, there's an example of making sure that this culprit, this tomb robber, never resurrects in the next world. And that would be by thoroughly destroying the body. And in that case, would the fate of the soul be annihilation? The person just ceases to exist in the afterlife? Yeah. The ancient Egyptians, as far as we know, and I think this is right, had no concept of hell. There was no sense of an eternal punishment. And the worst thing that happened to you is you go out of existence. Okay. So, let's suppose I'm Pharaoh and I die. I've spent my whole career preparing my tomb and they mummify me and they put me in my tomb and they do all the right ceremonies. What do I experience in the afterlife? What happens with my Ba? Well, the afterlife is very much a continuation of this life. It's not everybody hanging out together like angels in white cloaks. Everybody's not equal in the next world. If you were a Pharaoh, you're going to be treated as a Pharaoh in the next world. And you're going to be taking with you all your treasures from the palace. That's why, for example, Tutankhamen's tomb was packed with all kinds of things because he was going to take it with him to the next world. I mean, they literally believed you could take it with you. Now, a poorer guy who was a worker, maybe a farmer, he's going to be a farmer in the next world. And what we know is that the elites, the nobility, maybe the administrators of the palaces and things like that, on the walls of their tombs, they showed their daily lives. And the idea was they wanted to show the gods how important they were in this world. So you would see, say, Hoy, H-U-Y is the man's name. He was the viceroy of Tutankhamen to Nubia in the south, to the south where they got all their gold. And Hoy is shown on his big boat, taking his horse with him into Nubia. And then he's shown bringing back the gold for Tutankhamen in the form of rings, big rings of gold. And he's showing the gods, I was an important guy. That's how I'm going to be treated in the next world. So the next world is really a continuation of this one, just the way you lived it here. No equality. Yeah. My understanding is that kind of the destination that one was going to was a location sometimes called the Fields of Osiris, which was kind of a paradisical environment, except you also had to work. But before you got there, there was a journey. The Egyptians had the idea that there were 12 hours during the night. And sometimes this journey is described as passing through the 12 hours of the night, where if you're a pharaoh, you're accompanying the sun god Ra on his boat. You know, he sails across the heavens during the day. And then when the boat sinks in the west, it has this 12 hour journey in the underworld. And you're kind of accompanying him on that. And there were various challenges that you had to face on that journey. And it sounds kind of scary from some of the things I've read. What were some of the things you would encounter on that journey to the Fields of Osiris? No, it was a very scary journey. And that's why you needed the priests, because they knew how to assist you in the next world, to get to the next world. And that's why on the tomb walls of the pharaohs, you have all of these depictions of the journey itself. So for example, you're going to get to 12 gates, you're going to have to get through 12 gates. And these gates are guarded by terrifying demons. And you have to know their names to have power over them. So the Book of the Gates will give you their names, and they'll tell you what to say to them. There's a lake of fire that you have to pass through, and you're going to have to sort of fireproof your boat, you know. And the Book of the Gates is going to tell you how to get past all these gates. No, it was a very, very perilous journey. It wasn't just a sail down the Nile, not at all. And you're going to need the God's help as you get there. One of the famous experiences that's reported for the journey that we see on different walls and so forth is a time where you encounter a group of assessor gods who were there to judge you and make sure that you lived the way you should have on earth. And so you're expected to deal with these gods and say, hey, I was a good guy. And I didn't do the following 42 things, even though you probably did a good number of those 42 things. So this is sometimes called the negative confession. You say, I did not steal. I did not commit adultery. I didn't oppress the worker or whatever. What was this experience like, and how were people who had done these things in life, how were they supposed to get past the assessor gods? Well, I think there's a few questions you've got packed in there, and they're all good ones. I think one thing to say right up front is this isn't very different for Christianity. I mean, people do terrible things, but they still think they might get into heaven. You know, it's like, well, God didn't really see that, or I can say this, I could do that. So it's not the idea that everybody thinks God is omniscient all the time. Everybody sort of wants to believe, well, maybe he won't see this. So when you're judged on the day of judgment, your heart is going to be weighed against the feather of truth to see if you were truthful. It's a balance scale, the kind of scale that justice, blind justice holds in her hand. And on one side is your heart, on the other side is the feather of truth. And you've got these 44 deities that are watching, and they're going to make a decision whether he's true or voice. But this is where you stand up and make your negative plea, where you say, as you were commenting, I haven't diverted the irrigation ditch. I have never taken more than my appropriate amount of the water of the Nile. I have not killed anyone. I have not lied. I have not da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And you make all that. And then if the balance balances, the gods will say he is true of voice. They believe him. Now, this notion true of voice was so important in the judgment that eventually true of voice became a euphemism for dead. So if your uncle was dead for 30 years, when you mentioned his name, Uncle Amenhotep, you would at the end say true of voice. In other words, he made it to the next world. He was declared true of voice, and it became a euphemism for dead. So there is this judgment. And I think like in most religions, the belief is even though you haven't been perfect, you can maybe say you were, and it'll get you into the next world. Petey Yeah. In a Christian context, I think the idea would be you're not trying, at least maybe folk Christianity, you know, different people who aren't really well-educated might have different ideas. But the idea would typically be you're aware that you've sinned, and God is too, but because you've repented and trusted in God, you are forgiven. Yeah, but that's not what the Egyptians thought. You didn't say, yeah, I did all that stuff, and I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I trust you. They're just lying to the gods. David Exactly. Exactly. That's right. Petey Yeah. What happens if the feather of truth or the feather of Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of order and truth, what if it says, this guy's lying? What happens to you? David Now, first, let me emphasize on the books of the dead that we have, there is usually a depiction of this judgment. It's chapter 125 of the Book of the Day. And the balance scale always balances in that picture. They're never going to show you, oh, I lied. They're not going to show that. They're going to show you the desired outcome. But if, if, if, if it didn't balance, there is a creature waiting who is called the devourer of the hearts. And he is a creature that's a combination of crocodile, hippopotamus, and he's got this mouth open, and he's ready to devour your heart. So if the balance scale didn't level out, if it showed that you were lying, then your heart would be thrown to this creature, he would eat it, and you would go out of existence, because your heart is an essential part of you. Trenton Larkin Right. They believe that we literally thought with our hearts, not our brains. David Right. And you know, that's not counterintuitive. It makes a lot of sense. Because when you get excited, it's your heart that beats quickly, not your brain. So very, very, you know, it's quite a normal thing to think that the heart is the seed of consciousness. Because when certain mental events occur, it's the heart that reacts. Which is why on Valentine's Day, you know, we give chocolate hearts, but we really should be giving chocolate brains. Trenton Larkin I, I wonder what the reaction would be from some women if their paramour gives them a chocolate brain for Valentine's Day. That's a very interesting. Okay, so, so suppose I'm, I'm Pharaoh, and I've made it through the negative confession. And I make it through the 12 hours of the night with Ra on his boat. And I arrive at the fields of Osiris. What happens now? David You're accepted into the next world by the gods, mainly by Osiris, who is the god of the dead. There is a very elaborate myth about Osiris, who is the first Westerner. He is the first one in Egyptian history, mythology, this is mythology takes place, you know, before chronological time. So this is way back when. And in the myth, Osiris is killed by his evil brother. But he resurrects. Isis is his wife, says the magical words, reassembles his body after it's dismembered. And he resurrects in the next world. And because he's the first one to resurrect, he's the god of the next world, almost by default. So Osiris is the god who accepts everybody into the West. So you're joining Osiris in the West. And it's kind of like this world except it's air conditioned. I mean, that's the sense you get, you know, everybody's wearing their finest linen. Nobody has any deformities. You know, for example, in the next world, if you were missing an arm or a leg, it would be supplied for you. That's one of the things that embalmers did. When somebody was mummified, who would say, we have a couple of examples of this, say he's missing a big toe. Well, they would supply it with an artificial toe and anything you're missing, they will supply. So when you resurrect in the next world, you will be complete, even if you weren't in this world. So it's a better world in many ways, but it's a continuation of this world in other ways. It's kind of like Laurie Anderson, the New York performance artists, saying paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much, much better. And so it's kind of an upgraded version of Egypt. So they had like a celestial Nile and fields of reeds. And on the tomb walls, we see, you know, people, Pharaoh's officials fouling, you know, going out using birds to hunt in the fields of Osiris. So a lot of the same activities that we would do in this life, they would view as happening in the afterlife. All the good things that you enjoyed in this life, you will have in the next life. But none of the bad things. We never see scenes of people having unpleasant experiences in the next world. So it's just what you want is what they believe. There were there was, though, a requirement of work in the afterlife. Is that correct? Yes. Well, as I say, it's a continuation of this world. And most of the people in Egypt had to work. Most of them were farmers. And the real big work was when the Nile overflowed its banks and you dug canals to bring as much of that Nile water inland so you could farm as much land as possible and grow as many crops as possible. So they thought you're going to have to do that again in the next world. But if you didn't want to get your feet muddy and your hands dirty, you could have servant statues to do that for you. And many of the Egyptians were buried with three hundred and sixty five little servant statues and they carry farm implements. They have little hoes and rakes and they are going to farm for you in the next world. And they're called in ancient Egyptian, they're called Ushabti figures. Now, the word Ushabti comes from another Egyptian word, which means to answer. So the belief was just like in this world, when you had a corvette, when you're called up to do your work for the pharaoh and they called your name, this little statue would answer for you. He'd get up and he'd say, here I am. And then he would, by magic, do the work for you. So, yep, you'll have to work in the next world, but you'll have a statue to do it for you. I've seen you mentioned some wealthy people having numerous Ushabtis and some of these are very beautiful. You know, you see them in museums in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and others. They're often made of a kind of blue faience. So they're very pretty to look at, or at least the well-made ones. But then ordinary people, you know, poor people have sometimes very simple Ushabtis and only like one or two of them. And I sympathize for the, I mean, they're basically slaves, you know, people who do work for you so that you don't have to. But I can just imagine a beaten down Egyptian who's been a poor person all his life. And it's like, I just want one or two Ushabtis to work for me in the afterlife so I can get a little bit of rest. And I find that, you know, a very human thing. Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned a different quality of Ushabti statues. For example, Tutankhamen's Ushabti statues, each one's an individual sculpture of him. They're made out of wood, you know, and they have his features. And they're just little masterpieces, each one. Now, the poor guy, of course, isn't going to have that. But even if you're a lowly farmer, you can get your neighbor maybe who's a potter to make you 365 little statues that kind of, they're pretty crude. They look like cigars. They're made in molds and they're just made out of mud. They're dried mud. But at least you're going to the next world with your little Ushabti statues. Yeah. And this is another difference between Egyptian belief about the afterlife and Judeo-Christian belief, where in Judeo-Christian circles, the afterlife is described as entering into God's rest. So the idea is you've worked all your life and now you get to rest. Whereas in Egyptian afterlife, well, you've worked all your life and now you get to work some more, unless you've got the Ushabtis to help you out. Yeah, I think what's fair to say is that in the ancient Egyptian belief in the afterlife, it's not quite such a qualitative difference. The existence is going to be basically the same activities, the same this, whereas in Judeo-Christian, it's a qualitative, it's a real difference in the next world in terms of what you're going to be doing and the kind of person you're going to be. I mean, there are no murderers in heaven. Oh, that's good to know. Anything else we should know about the afterlife itself before we talk about mummies? Well, I think the afterlife is kind of a projection of what everybody wanted. I mean, think about it. If you're king, what's the best possible thing? To continue being king. You know, and if you're a farmer, well, we're more realistic. I'm still going to be a farmer, but I'm not going to have to do the work myself and it's going to be all air-conditioned and there'll be plenty of food for everybody. So I think it's a projection of what you want, and that's what the afterlife is. All right, that does it for today's interview with Dr. Bob Breyer about the Egyptian afterlife. Jimmy, is there anything else we should say before we go? I'd just like to thank Dr. Breyer for appearing on today's program, and I think the listeners will find next week's episodes on mummies fascinating as well, especially because there's a twist in the episode that you may not see coming. Excellent. So, Jimmy, what further resources can we offer to the listeners and viewers? We'll have links to Dr. Breyer's book Tutankhamen and the Tomb that Changed the World, also his book The Murder of Tutankhamen, a link to his great course's History of Ancient Egypt program, the audio version of that course, also his author page on Amazon and his personal webpage. Excellent. So that's it from us this time. What are your theories about the mystery of ancient Egyptian afterlife? You can let us know by visiting sqpn.com, the Jimmy Akins Mysterious World Facebook page, sending an email to mysterious at sqpn.com, sending a tweet to at mys underscore world, visit the Starquest Discord community at sqpn.com or call our mysterious feedback line 619-738-4515. That's 619-738-4515. And I want to say a special word of thanks to Oasis Studio 7 for the video and animation work they do on this episode. You can check out what they do by going to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Jimmy Akin, where we have the video version of the podcast, as well as other videos I do. And while you're there, I am trying to grow my channel, so I'd really appreciate it if you would subscribe and hit the bell notification so that you always get a notification whenever I have a new video, whether it's Mysterious World or something else. So, Jimmy, what's our next episode going to be about? Next week, Dr. Bob Breyer will be back and we'll be learning all about Egyptian mummies. What are the famous mummies in the Bible? How did they make mummies? And what has modern science revealed about the process? Looking forward to that. Folks, be sure to get your very own Mysterious World t-shirt or mug or sticker or so much else in our merchandise shop at sqpn.com slash merch. You can find links to Jimmy's resources from our discussion and links to Mysterious Headlines on our show notes at mysterious.fm slash 240. And remember, to help us continue to produce the podcast, please visit sqpn.com slash give. 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