Ba Hovering Over Mummy (Pyramid text )
The spirit/psychic force carrys a shen, symbolic of eternity.
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Heavenly Journeys
Ascension to Heaven
"Open to me, heaven!...Let me see the bark of Phre descending and ascending...for I am Geb, heir of the gods; I make intercession before Phre my Father [for] the things proceeded form me...Open to me, mistress of the spirits,...primal heaven!"
- The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden X.23ff
"...There was a method for attaining the experience [of visiting the heavens] by self-hypnosis (presented as magic, but involving expectation of the events, recitation of repetitive formulas, gazing at the sun [perhaps], the regulation of breathing; see PGM 4.475-829, esp. 537-40). The same rite includes instruction for 'using a fellow initiate so that he alone may hear with you the things spoken...and if you wish to show him (the things seen)..."
- Morton Smith, "Two Ascended to Heaven - Jesus and the Author of 4Q491" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 294
In the following ritual, the initiate lies naked on a white sheet on the roof of a high building at dawn. He then intones a prayer to the Egyptian god Typhon to send him a god to have power over.
"...When you say these things thrice the following sign of your union [with the god] will occur, but you, armed with your magic soul, should not be terrified. For a sea hawk, flying down, will strike you with his wings on your body, by this very sign indicating that you should arise. You, therefore, arise, clothe yourself in white garments, and burn uncut frankincense in drops on an earthenware altar, saying as follows, 'I have been united with they sacred form. I have been empowered by thy sacred name. I have received the effluence of [they] goodness, Lord, God of gods, King, Demon'...When you have done this, descend, having attained that nature equal to the God's which is effected by this ritual union."
- Papyri graecae magicae IV.154-221
"The magician who has received the rite for getting a spirit is one who 'has been thought worthy by the Lord God of this great mystery' that he is to 'communicate to no one'; he is a 'blessed initiate of holy magic.' The rites for ascension to heaven are 'transmitted mysteries for my only child [for whom] I desire immortality as an initiate' (- Papyri graecae magicae IV.476f.; cp. 721ff.)."
- Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) pp. 176-177
Intimations of a similar practice can be found in Jesus' raising of the young man in the Secret Gospel of Mark and the naked young man who fled during Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man [some manuscripts 'Man, who is in heaven']."
- John 3:12-13
"...The Qumran fragments have provided a little poem by some egomaniac who claimed to have done just what I conjectured Jesus claimed, that is, entered the heavenly kingdom and secured a chair with tenure, while yet commuting to earth and carrying on his teaching here."
- Morton Smith, "Two Ascended to Heaven - Jesus and the Author of 4Q491" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), pp. 294-295
 Click here for the complete text of 4Q491. |
The earliest known Christian hymns contain the same theme of heavenly ascent.
"He who caused me to descend from on high, and to ascend from the regions below."
- Wisdom of Solomon 22:1(ca. 50 C.E.)
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The Kingdom of God
"In reply Jesus declared, 'I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again' [or 'born from above']."
"No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man [some manuscripts 'Man, who is in heaven']."
- John 3:3, 13
Both verses" are concerned with heavenly journeys, and only the meaning "born from above" fits this connection.... Jesus is the only one with access to the heavenly secrets...[which] demonstrated [the Christians] superiority over those who surrounded them."
- William Grese, "Unless One is Born Again: The Use of a Heavenly Journey in John 3", Journal of Biblical Literature, 107/4 (1988)
This theme of heavenly journeys and secrets is echoed by Clement decades later.
"The Word of god shall be thy pilot and the Holy Spirit shall bring thee to anchor in the harbors of heaven. Then thou shalt have the vision of my God, and shalt be initiated in those holy mysteries, and shalt taste the joys that are hidden away in heaven, preserved for me, 'which neither ear hath heard nor have they entered into the heart' of any man."
"O truly sacred mysteries! O pure light! In the blaze of the torches I have a vision of heaven and of God. I become holy by initiation. The Lord reveals the mysteries; He marks the worshiper with His seal, gives light to guide his way, and commends him, when he has believed, to the Father's care, where he is guarded for ages to come. These are the revels of my mysteries! If thou wilt, be thyself also initiated, and thou shalt dance with angels around the unbegotten and imperishable and only true god, the Word of god joining with us in our hymn of praise."
- Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 - 215), Exhortation to the Greeks (Protreptikos Pros Hellenas), 12:118, 120
"More than once we have discerned in the shamanic experience a 'nostalgia for paradise' that suggests one of the oldest types of Christian mystical experience. As for the 'Inner light,' which plays a part of the first importance in Indian mysticism' and metaphysics as well as in Christian mystical theology, it is...already documented in Eskimo shamanism."
- Mircea Ellade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), p. 508
Experience of Possession
The description of a particularly vivid Merkavah visionary experience is described in 3 Enoch.
"As soon as the Holy One, blessed be He, took me to serve the throne of glory, the wheels of the chariot, and all the needs of the Shekhinah [Holy Spirit/Divine Presence], at once my flesh was changed into flame, my tendons into a fire of glowing heat, my bones to glowing juniper coals, my eyelids to radiance of lightning bolts, my eyeballs to torches of fire, the hair of my head to glowing heat and flame, all my limbs to wings of burning fire, and my bodily frame to scorching fire. On my right were hewers of fiery flames, on my left torches were burning. There blew around me wind, storm, and tempest, and the noise of earthquake upon earthquake was in front of me and behind me."
- 3 Enoch 15:1b-2; para. 19
"...It is difficult not to get the impression that this description is not another one of those who serve the Throne, but of a supreme power which is entirely a fiery flame, and that fire, storm and thunder surround him. Yet, these are all descriptions of God Himself, of whom it is stated, 'for the Lord your God is a consuming fire.'"
- Joseph Dan, The Ancient Jewish Mysticism (1993), p. 119
This ecstatic trance state resembles the "anak ua" or luminous fire experienced by the Iglulik shaman of the Arctic. Note also the description of Jesus when he was transfigured before his disciples on a high mountain. "His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them." (Mark 9:3; [Matthew 17:2; Luke 9:29]). Compare also with a modern altered-state experience:
"I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking. All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by; the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe...It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then..."
- Richard Marice Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness (1961)
"It seems clear also that the Merkavah mystics were deified (turned to angelic creatures of fire) before the throne of God, at least for the duration of the heavenly journey. Enoch received this deification permanently when he was transformed into the angel Metatron in 3 Enoch. But perhaps not too much should be made of this either, since deification rites are also known from the pagan magical papyri (e.g., PGM IV.475-829) and human claims to godhood go back to the Egyptian funerary Pyramid Texts."
- James R. Davila, "Ancient Magic (The Prayer of Jacob)"
"In the past, when God's spirit came upon people, it transformed them, giving them the power to work wonders and making them prophesy with inspired language."
- Great Events of Biblical Times
"Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him [Moses], and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again."
- Numbers 11:25
Another account of possession by the Holy Spirit can be found in the apocryphal 4 Ezra, a Jewish text from the end of the 1st century C.E.
"If then I have found favor before thee, send the Holy Spirit into me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things which were written in thy law, that men may be able to find the path, and that those who wish to live in the last days may live.'"
"And on the next day, behold, a voice called me, saying, 'Ezra, open your mouth and drink what I give you to drink.'
"Then I opened my mouth, and behold, a full cup was offered to me; it was full of something like water, but its color was like fire.
"And I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its memory; and my mouth was opened, and was no longer closed."
- 4 Ezra 14:22, 38-41
| In a lighter vein - Scientology L. Ron Hubbard's trips to heaven |