The Temple Of The Pharaoh

'Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.' —Plato

It is in the paradoxical brevity of fleeting moments that we first encounter the ethereal presence of the afterlife. Thereafter, we remain oblivious to the faint, unrecognisable footfalls and whispered voices that may haunt or visit us silently. This yearning, an impulse we hold within the vicissitudes of fortune is often attributed to serendipity. Those who believe seldom achieve, through mere osmosis, the response they seek and fail to uncover the primal truth.

Thus, we are adrift within the immanent nature of such considerations, and the solace we seek becomes forever the image of an elusive paradise—ambiguous, unattainable, and metaphysical. In consequence, our mortality fades, but our essence will traverse the uncharted space and vortex at the very heart of the universe. It is in those vast spheres of the cosmos that man's ultimate journey, the culmination of his existence, will unfold, if not in the moment, then in the breath of eternity. It is incumbent upon us to discover whether our fate lies in the despair of a hellish doom or the serenity of an idyllic heaven — both abstract opposites, forever in balance.

The preternatural event I now speak of is tied to the factual accounts of my encounters with the ancient Egyptians, chronicled in my journal, found later. I shall herewith offer an account with the clarity that I possess, so that you, the reader, may come to understand the true nature of the experience which occurred within the sacred walls of the Pharaoh’s temple.

In this, we find the essence of man’s eternal search for justification, through the means of religion, yet it is neither religious nor scientific in nature, but rather a convergence of both. The soul, from the moment of our birth, is in a constant state of evolution — a natural process, just as the movement of the heavens above is constant and orderly, superior to all else.

There are, of course, countless sceptics who will brand me a solipsistic idealist, but heed the illuminating words I now impart. They are my personal reflections, subject to the philosophical ideals of an esoteric nature, and may, to some, be deemed beyond the ordinary realm of human understanding.

I am Cecil Lester, and in this account you shall read of my genuine encounters with the ancient Egyptians and the ominous death which befell me. Know that the entirety of my life was dedicated to the pursuit of the ultimate discovery — that of the afterlife.

My studies, particularly those concerning death and the soul, were to take me on a journey fraught with unforeseen consequences, brought about by the capricious forces of fate. My research would lead me from England to the timeless land of the pharaohs, Egypt, where the ancient mysteries awaited my discovery.

The ominous event that I shall recount, was not one I sought, but one to which I was drawn, unwittingly and inexorably. I did not willingly partake in the great force that seemed to direct my fate; rather, I succumbed to it — as though by some predestined command that I could neither foresee nor resist.

It was in the year of 1918, that I found myself in the great Cenotaph temple of Ramesses II at Abydos, Egypt. At the time, I was deep in my research on the ancient conceptions of the soul, particularly those of Pe and Nekhen, as mentioned in the Pyramid Texts at Saqqara during the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom. It was there, standing in the Second Hypostyle Hall of Seti I, that a strange vision formed before me. I saw, as if in a waking dream, the figure of the pharaoh, Ramesses II, walking solemnly with his entourage of servants, as though they were appearing from another time.

I was an archaeologist who had devoted much of my life to the study of Egyptology, particularly the work of Jean-François Champollion in deciphering the cartouches of Egypt. I had studied the ancient Egyptian views on the afterlife with great diligence, but never had I encountered the sensation that gripped me now. These cartouches were unique, and the towering pillars of the hall loomed over me like giants. A beam of sunlight pierced through an upper crevice in the temple, momentarily blinding me as I advanced, and the light then illuminated the cartouches with an otherworldly glow.

It was then that I began to witness flashes of the ancient Egyptians, their forms materialising before me in spectral images. Their presence, inexplicable yet undeniably real, seemed to carry a weight of meaning beyond anything I had ever encountered. The ancient Egyptian concept of the individual, believed to be composed of various elements of both physical and spiritual characteristics, made more sense to me than any of the biblical teachings I had been raised with.

During my time in Egypt, I began to experience unsettling visions. These brief flashes were a harbinger of the inevitable, a series of disturbing events that seemed beyond mere coincidence. The encounters I had with the Egyptians, whose forms appeared to me more and more frequently, caused me to question whether the spectres I had once seen only in dreams had, in some manner, materialised into my waking reality.

I had often heard that the Orphic wraiths— the souls of the dead who wander the earth— are the eternal guardians of sacred spaces, visible only to those few who are destined to witness them. I had previously pondered the afterlife as conceived by the ancient Egyptians, and thought much about the nature of such a fate—a fate that, once it is realised, is lost in the abyss of nothingness. Death, the final cessation of life, is but the threshold to an eternity, the consequences of which are irreversible. And I, it seemed, had entered into the very domain of that destiny.

The essence of my soul was intricately linked to the mysterious presence of the quoddamodotative Egyptians, whom I perceived as animistic beings, encountered metempirically. Is the soul truly incompatible with death, as it is with life? Is it not, rather, a mere continuation — a seity of eternal energy, manifesting in a form that our society has sorely misunderstood?

I do not present my views on the matter of the soul and death in alignment with established scientific or religious doctrines. Instead, I offer them through a zetetic lens, building my analogy upon the firm foundations of critical inquiry, all while embracing the grand pantosophy of universal knowledge. Death, that horripilating fear which we instinctively seek to avoid or dismiss, is nonetheless a part of human nature. It has developed through a gradual yet intricate evolution, perceived by most as an inscrutable enigma.

We have learnt the significance of this definition by rote, through ordalium, and remain forever troubled by the aspect of the phenomenon that we are reluctant to accept as inconsequential. I had studied the five components of the Egyptian soul: Ren, Ka, Ib, Ba, and Sheut, and I knew well that Anubis was regarded as the god of souls.

The ancients, particularly the Greeks, held that the soul was incorporeal, a spiritual breath that animated the body. Plato, too, posited that the soul consisted of three parts: the logos (reason), thymos (spirit), and eros (desire) — all of which were intrinsic to its basic function and understanding. We, in turn, confer both spirit and soul to the earthly vessel that is our bodily form, and we remain obsessed with the singular thought of the soul's passage to the afterlife.

It was in the throes of this belief that I experienced the phenomena of transmigration — or metempsychosis — which defined my ongoing struggle with the question of life and death.

I had not anticipated the turning point, the peripeteia, that would radically transform my understanding of these events. The abundant signs, the wandering dead depicted in the Egyptian symbols, the vivid hypotyposis of their forms, became increasingly present. The prolific images of my encounters with them were recorded in the pages of my journal, as I sought to capture their inexplicable nature in the context of this unimaginative account.

Thus, when my body reached the finality of its expiry, when pallor and mortis set in, I felt only indifference — listless and detached. Yet, it was in that last, gasping breath that my mortal existence ceased. But my immortal soul? That, I soon realised, had only just begun its journey, its true existence, to burgeon.

I shall not offer grand declarations on the facts of death; for such arguments are, as I now know, fundamentally untenable. My words spoken were not rooted in doxastic belief but rather in a logical approach, which, though it may be seen as alien or unconventional, holds the essence of truth. My vision of death was not in line with modern interpretations. There was no sententious Atticism — no ancient wisdom — that I could offer to the immutable fact of death, for it is as inveterate as the shape of the Earth itself.

The realisation of my fate was a sobering and experimental sensation, one which perplexed me at first. However, my mind soon adapted to the effects, those imperant and psychagogic forces that surrounded me. I began to discern the voices of the Egyptians, becoming audible to my hearing, their unique echoes reverberating mysteriously. The spectacular sequence of the latent dimension that had previously existed only in the realm of thought and conjecture was now manifesting before me.

I had always been drawn to the universal entity that connected the unseen beings I had glimpsed in childhood, their forms now inexplicably associated with the mysterious realm I had entered. Outside the temple, I often saw a peculiar formation of clouds, a strange conglomeration of towering cumuli, each day taking on an almost deliberate shape. Birds with fluttering wings cast an indelible impression upon my mind, as though they were extraordinary avatars, representatives of some higher power.

As a scientist, I had long perceived that the vast expanse of the cosmos — with its immeasurable luminosity — was not solely the domain of an omnipotent deity. Rather, it was bound to the recognition of a universal composition, a long-spanning network that encompassed all of existence, where that divine being was but one magnified reflection of a greater truth.

I had studied astronomy, yet it was now that I began to conceive of a different analogy. Though the body might dissipate after death, I surmised that the soul, in its essence, is a vagarious matter — a form of energy that is omnipresent. It does not alter the movements of the Earth itself, which serves as an allegorical reference to the vast and protracted universe — a conundrum that only a few men have begun to unravel.

Perhaps my thesis on death is construed as dyslogistic, but I know, with certainty, that what I experienced was a true awakening — an experience no living man had witnessed before. The concept of death, although intriguing, remains a rare velleity — a mere desire that, while fascinating, is elusive.

I leave to the Daedalian zoilists of this world the task of studying the variable changes and phenomena that define the strange manifestations of death. It is from this study that the true relevance of my destiny will be revealed — one that was predetermined before my mortal birth.

The point of any argument, of course, is of vital importance. But you should know this: I did not offer this account to the public for approval, nor for the accuracy or forgiveness of my misdeeds. The guilt I bear is not indifferent to the fleeting rhathymia I once exhibited, but rather to the acceptance of the unique sequence of events that I now avow.

If there is indeed a culpable force behind the chain of events that led to my demise, know that it was far more than a mere unfortunate outcome. As a child, I had pondered the incomprehensible nature of death, but it was only in reaching the pinnacle of wisdom and anamnesis — in the sacred halls of the temple — that I truly began to understand its reality.

Do not hastily judge my theory based on my perceived akrasia — for there is, I now know, a spiritual anabiosis after death. The soul, in some form, may indeed traverse the vast, inordinate boundaries of the wondrous universe in a spectral form. Do not think of me hastily as a foolish archaeologist, for my thoughts were not rooted in arrogance or whimsy, but in the unsettling reflections of my final days.

The eicastic Egyptians that I began to discern were unnameable and alien in origin, appearing more frequently as I sensed the presence of the pharaoh growing near. They were imperceptible to most, those who could not see them. But to me, who saw them clearly, I knew they were real — though at first they had seemed shapeless and indistinct.

I became consumed with the pursuit of uncovering the primordial origin of the soul. In the final three years of my life—those years of ceaseless torment—I was not, in any sense, free from the burden of my suffering, nor from the gnawing inability to fully comprehend the profound significance of both the soul and death. Know, however, that the sole object of my relentless inquiry was the supreme appeasement I had long sought but never truly attained in my life.

It was only in the eventual embrace of death that I would find the release I so desperately sought—only then would my soul be truly unbound. For there exist certain mysteries, inscrutable and beyond reproach, which cannot be reasoned into submission. The inevitable need I felt did not merely epitomise the course of my existence; it defined the entirety of my being. Thus, in a candid admission of my deepest reflections, I confess that my futile attempts to bring logic to bear on the notion of death itself were merely steps toward the realisation of the necessity of my journey.

The vast cosmos to which I so frequently referred holds an intimate connection with the invisible realms—those components of reality that remain forever divisible and elusive. The preconception that death is akin to a societal construct, a belief grounded in the educations of culture and religion, was, to my mind, a notion unworthy of full acceptance. Yet I wondered—if indeed the soul, once liberated from its corporeal prison, traverses the latent spectrum of the universe, can we not surmise that its essence remains an enduring force, one that exists independently of the body?

It is not unfathomable to suggest that this energy, this essence of the soul, might exist beyond the physical realm, manifesting as an intangible yet potent force. The concept of anima mundi—the "world soul," which unites all living beings—had long held sway over the minds of the learned. However, I questioned whether the earth, though it might serve as a temporary abode, truly captures the soul’s full nature. The state of the soul, once released from its mortal coil, is not immutable; it varies in ways not yet understood by our science or philosophy.

Our intellect, our nous, is the guiding force that enables us to navigate the complexities of existence. It is, after all, through the agency of the soul that we perceive and understand the world around us. The soul, I assert, is the very source of all mortal life, and through its bond with the body, it attains sentience.

But I came to realise that even after the body expires, the soul does not perish. It continues to exist, no longer constrained by the physical form, and manifests beyond the boundaries of human understanding—perhaps even as a spectre, a lingering presence. I pondered the thoughts of Ibn Sina, the Middle Eastern philosopher, whose view of the soul suggested its immortality as a gradual unfolding process, an absorption into the greater cosmic order. Yet, in my own musings, I questioned the veracity of this notion.

The eminent Augustine of Hippo, one of the founding minds of Western Christianity, described the soul as a distinct substance, endowed with reason, meant to govern the body with wisdom and coherence. His vision of the soul’s capacity to engage with the physical world was something I found both enlightening and troubling, as I sought to reconcile it with the mysteries that beset me.

I delved into the concept of jiva, the soul in Hinduism, which transmigrates through countless cycles of birth and death. Yet, in these considerations, I began to doubt whether the soul's inherent nature was truly understood, or if it was, instead, a cycle of which it had no true perception. I also grappled with the conclusions of neuroscience, which ascribed human thought and behaviour solely to physical processes in the brain, reducing the mind to mere neurological function. This reductionism struck me as inadequate in explaining the profound depth of human consciousness.

Theories from physics, such as those suggesting that spirit forces cannot interact with ordinary matter, left me unconvinced. I pondered the mysteries of quantum mechanics, where consciousness itself seems to influence the outcome of events, and wondered if the soul’s energy might, in fact, transcend the physical boundaries we understand. Could the soul’s essence be part of a broader, unseen structure of the cosmos, its energy participating in the same quantum reality that governs our material existence?

The theological notion of traducianism—suggesting that the soul is not a creation of God at each birth but an inheritance passed through the generations—was one that troubled me, for it left open questions regarding the soul’s origins and its eternal nature. The critical point, I now recognise, lies in the soul’s departure from the body, for this is the moment that determines its ultimate fate.

I have long contended with the question of what becomes of the consciousness after death, and whether it is truly extinguished with the cessation of the body. While science maintains that the mind and consciousness are inextricably linked to the physiological state of the brain, my reflections led me to consider that perhaps there is more to our being than mere biological processes. Could it be that, after death, the soul remains—somehow, somewhere—in a form that escapes our current understanding?

The prospect of the soul lost in an abyss of forgetfulness, forever separated from the consciousness of the living, is indeed a disconcerting thought. But if the soul is, in some measure, more precious than the transient cherubs—those vagrant and wilful beings—then surely the quintessence of our soul’s energy would surpass any form of our terrestrial animation.

In the last year of my life, the commencement of my doubts led me to scrutinise the confounding signs of death that affected my existence with increasing regularity. I had attempted to interpret the unusual formations of clouds, the perceptible voices of ancient Egyptians, the flocks of fluttering birds, the sidereal period, and the dubious nature of my perceptions. My studies, ever so thorough, took me deep into the annals of Egyptian lore, where I discovered much about the soul’s infinite passage to the other world, beyond the confines of interstellar travel.

The notion of infinity remained elusive and ambiguous, just as the ever-expanding universe seemed to grow more complex with each passing day. I was convinced that the ancient Egyptians and the Mayans, with their advanced knowledge, had uncovered the answers long before modern science. The persistent ringing in my ears—the intrusive, ceaseless sound—became an obsession that seemed otherworldly, extramundane in nature. These strange phenomena, which I meticulously chronicled in voluminous notes, filled me with both awe and fear. I dared not allow them to be seen, for they might easily be dismissed as mere fanciful delusions of an overworked mind.

As the incidents unfolded, I began to recognise the pattern, a chronology which seemed to affirm my suspicions, though I did not discount the possibility of madness creeping into my thoughts. My mental faculties, however, remained sharp, and the images of ancient Egypt—the Peristyle Court, the Portico, the Hypostyle Halls—continued to haunt me.

Death weighed heavily upon my soul, and for months, my dreams gave way to nightmares, their substance ever present and seemingly endless. My body grew ever more pale, weak, debilitated. Yet, even in the face of these physical changes, my mind remained clear, and my perceptions seemed only heightened. I was aware of the exceptional energy being emitted by these ancient beings—the Egyptians—and my understanding of the connection between them and the energies of the cosmos deepened.

Returning to my home outside Cairo, I began to experiment with Nikola Tesla’s theories of wireless power, listening intently to frequencies on the radio which, at first, seemed unintelligible but gradually revealed themselves to me as a form of energy beyond human comprehension—energy linked to the Egyptians’ ancient, esoteric knowledge.

In these profound experiences, I felt an extraordinary and alien contact with them. These encounters, though ineffable, left me irrevocably changed. The hours of my meeting with the ancient Egyptians remain unclear, but I felt their presence acutely during moments of deep significance. Their voices, unlike any human utterance, echoed through my mind as a reminder that I was but a passing soul in this great, unexplored universe.

Though there are some who claim the soul cannot be extricated from the body, I remain unconvinced. The construction of the soul and its profound, energetic nature cannot be so easily dismissed. I confess that I did not fully understand the reason for my own impending death, except that it would serve as a confirmation of my passage to the other world, a world I had long sought to understand. Destiny is a vague and often misleading notion, especially when the phenomenon in question is as enigmatic as the soul.

I have since come to realise that Einstein's theory of general relativity, with its conception of the interaction between mass, space, and time, might offer a glimpse into the nature of the soul. If this theory holds true, then perhaps the soul, as a mass of energy, could manifest in the very same space and time as the gravitational forces that bind the universe together. Death, in this light, becomes a precursor to the liberation of the soul—a necessary step in its journey through the cosmos.

It is written in the Holy Qur’an that Allah takes the rûh at death. If, as I suspect, the rûh is indeed the soul, then it follows that the soul, upon death, is freed from its mortal shell, returning to the vast cosmos from which it came. Could it be that the strange occurrences I experienced—the voices, the apparitions—were not mere hallucinations, but authentic experiences, manifestations of the soul’s true nature?

The dichotomy between science and mysticism, though difficult to reconcile, has long been a source of contemplation. It is my belief that the soul exists not merely as a theoretical construct, but as a vital, integrative force in the universe—one that transcends the confines of the body and endures in ways that we are yet to fully comprehend. I shall continue, until my final breath, to search for the truth that lies beyond this mortal realm.

I had ventured to envision Polaris, the inocciduous guide, leading me to that distant realm of the cosmos—the superb cosmogyral peregrinations to the perennial galaxies that had forever captivated my imagination with an allure beyond all comprehension. The persistent uncertainty that tormented me had not abated, and the voices—those incomparable, ethereal voices—once again reverberated in my consciousness—not as an ostentatious symptom of insufferable pathomania, but as a signal, an otherworldly resonance too profound to ignore.

Thus, my experience required no psychophilosophy to explain the events that had unfolded in my life. I had become resigned to the inexorable curse of death, and my soul was fated to wander the vast expanse of the universe as a spectral presence, lost within its immeasurable void. My pallor deepened, and the incessant ringing within my ears and head refused to relent.

I fought to preserve my mental equilibrium as I grappled with the enigma of when and where the enigmatic beings—those mysterious entities that sought contact—might manifest. Relentlessly, I transcribed the details of these recurring occurrences into my notes and recorded, using an apparatus of my own design, the eerie sounds of the ancient Egyptians—the haunting image of the pharaohs that seemed to rise, resplendent, before my eyes. I returned to the temple with a conviction that what I was witnessing was no mere pareidolia, but an encounter grounded in undeniable reality.

On that cold, tempestuous night, as I stood within the sacred walls of the temple, I was irresistibly drawn by the voices of the ancient Egyptians and the echoing winds of the desert, while birds fell from the sky in eerie silence. The obtuse clouds, darkened and foreboding, did not seem to arise by natural means; something unnatural had triggered the unfolding events.

Entering the temple, I made my way to the Second Hypostyle Hall of Seti I, where a portal, shimmering with an otherworldly glow, opened before me, allowing the mystical Egyptians to pass into our world—a radiant, ethereal mass of energy, their forms beyond the comprehension of mortal perception. There was no physical mechanism through which I could interact; only the appearance of a stranger—a being of intense, radiant luminosity—emerged before me. In that moment, I realised it was the hour of my death, the appointed time for my soul to depart from its corporeal vessel.

At first, the scintillating light flooded my senses, followed by the ethereal images of the ancient Egyptians, who passed by me like a gust of wind, swift and undulating. Then, the image of the pharaoh appeared—a vision so clear, so pellucid, that I was no longer in doubt. What had appeared before me on that stormy night were the unmistakable figures of the ancient Egyptians. Was this a hypnagogic dream, a fleeting hallucination, or would I awaken in the morning as though nothing had transpired?

The movement of my arms grew numb, and my heartbeat slowed, its rhythmic pulse fading as though in resignation. Yet my mind remained alert, fixated entirely upon the singular notion of my soul’s existence. The sui generis being who had first appeared to me returned—its presence undeniable. Slowly, I felt my soul, like a glowing orb, lift from my body.

The immobile, lifeless form of my body became visible to me, motionless and cold. Darkness enveloped me briefly, and yet, I was not afraid. Soon after, I was met by a glaring light—an unfathomable portal that opened to the boundless cosmos. My final mortal breath escaped, its psychomachy dissolving with it, and I lay placidly on the ground as the great portal to the other world closed, sealing my fate. I was forever bound to that ancient temple, where my lifeless form was discovered the following day by the Bedouins who had long assisted me.

Before my departure, I had left behind a letter for my esteemed colleague and fellow archaeologist, Mahmoud Al Bashir, recounting my experience and the events of that fateful night. My request was simple: to be buried with but a humble headstone bearing my name, accompanied by a sonnet—my final testament—engraved upon it.

The account you have read of my encounters with the ancient Egyptians, I trust, has illuminated the path of introspective enlightenment. I ask only that you understand that I have become one of those unknowable souls—immortal, invisible to the eyes of this earth, now travelling eternally through the aeonian infinity of the universe, until I reach the distant, heavenly paradise known to the ancient Egyptians as Aaru. Do not pity me, for I am far beyond your pity; instead, envy my freedom, for I am transpicuous—forever immortal.

The temple of the pharaoh was but one of the many insurmountable portals between death and the afterlife. There are untold portals yet to be discovered by mankind. We are but at the threshold of an ancient mystery, waiting for those bold enough to uncover it.

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.

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