The Great Pyramid & the Binary Soul Doctrine

D I V I S I O N T H E O R Y
THE TESTIMONY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID

Ancient Egypt is one of the best-documented examples of a culture that believed in this "binary soul doctrine" (BSD). They devoted huge amounts of their societal resources to the problem of death and the afterlife, and their most famous monument reflects this obsession. The interior of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, with its multiple chambers and forking passages, seems specifically designed around their binary soul afterlife theology. Just as they believed the living possess three elements, a body, a soul (Egypt's ka), and a spirit (Egypt's ba), this pyramid has three unique chambers that seem to mirror the expected afterlives for each of these elements. Similarly, the passageways between these chambers closely reflects Egypt's vision of the processes and changes thought to occur along the journey from life to death.

Fifty feet above the base, the pyramid's entrance opens into a steeply descending, claustrophobically narrow corridor that shoots down almost to ground level before it finally forks into two branches. One branch plummets further down to an underground chamber known as "the pit", while the other branch ascends back up again. This ascending passage eventually forks into two branches as well, one leading to the "Queen's Chamber" and another to the "King's Chamber". The first fork in the pyramid's corridor seems to represent the "first death", the initial change a person experiences upon their demise, when their mind and body disengage and go their separate ways. Similarly, the second fork seems to reflect the "second death", when the spirit and soul disengage as well, fracturing the mind apart.

At the first fork, one branch continues downward, tunneling deep under the monument until it reaches a rough-hewn cave containing nothing but a shallow, empty pit. Crudely carved out of the actual bedrock the pyramid rests upon, this grave-like cell is small, dark, and airless, perfectly symbolizing the end of the physical body at death. Meanwhile, the ascending branch rises just as sharply upwards again, appropriately symbolizing the hopeful promise of the mind's survival as it separates from its failing corpse. However, the very beginning of this upward passage is blocked by a thick granite plug, an appropriate reminder that nothing physical can escape the inevitable descent into death. Of the three components Egyptian theology credited a living person as possessing, only the two nonphysical elements, the ba and ka, could hope to pass into this ascending corridor.

On the other side of that granite plug, the person's ba and ka could continue on together, proceeding up the passage until they reach the place where it also forks off into two directions, one path leveling out to the Queen's Chamber and another ascending higher still to the King's Chamber. The Queen's Chamber seems to represent the final destination and afterdeath fate of the ka. The room is void of contents except for a niche in the East wall thought to once hold a life size "ka -statue" of the king, within which his living ka would be able to endure eternity. This chamber is aboveground, perhaps symbolizing that the soul living here does successfully survive death, continuing at least to exist. However, multiple features of this chamber suggest the unpleasant nature of that existence. Built of limestone, the walls and ceiling are smooth and polished, but the floor has been left rough and uneven, suggesting that the soul left here will not find his afterdeath experience easy and joyful, but instead quite rough and unpleasant. Also, both this room and the King's Chamber contain something like air shafts, tiny vents extending out towards the exterior walls of the pyramid. But unlike those of the King's Chamber, the Queen's air shafts come up disappointingly short, stopping many feet before they reach open air. This seems to symbolize that the soul living here, even though technically still alive, remains trapped and imprisoned after death.

The air shafts of the larger and more luxurious King's Chamber, however, do reach all the way outside, making it the only room in the pyramid equipped with any way out. This reminds us that the ancient Egyptians believed the ba to be the only part of a person guaranteed to enjoy true freedom after death, the only part guaranteed to completely escape the bonds of death, going on from there to visit new realities and begin new experiences. Built entirely of beautiful rose granite, the finely polished stones of the King's Chamber are the heaviest in the entire pyramid, reflecting the magnificent afterlife of the ba.

But the ba did not have to enter the King's Chamber alone, for the second fork in the pyramid's passageways is quite different than its predecessor. While the first fork had the upper path blocked off, the second fork leaves both its branches open. While all BSD cultures acknowledged the inevitability of the first death, some felt the second death was avoidable if the proper steps were taken. Egypt believed it was possible to prevent the ka and ba from dividing, in which case both of them could travel together to the paradisaical afterlife symbolized by the King's Chamber. Indeed, not only does the second fork leave both branches open, but instead of blocking the upper branch, the structure actually seems to encourage one to choose the upper path. Known as the Grand Gallery, the ascending passageway from the second fork to the King's Chamber has an extravagantly tall ceiling, which is a huge relief after squeezing through all the tiny corridors that led to this point.

Some BSD cultures taught that the afterdeath division of the soul and spirit was inevitable, but a few believed that it was possible to avoid it.

The same story also appears on an inscription by the entrance to the Great Pyramid, the only writing of any kind on or inside the ancient monument. The inscription is not written in any known form of Egyptian writing, and modern Egyptologists have no clue what it might mean. To the student of the binary soul doctrine, however, its meaning is immediately evident. What we find written at the entrance to the Great Pyramid is an elegant pictoral representation of the death transition according to the binary soul doctrine.

The famous Dr. Robert M. Schoch Ph.D. has graciously posted a photo of the inscription about halfway down HIS WEBSITE.
Here is my own freehand rendition of the inscription :

The inscription reads right to left. The first symbol, a circle divided into three portions, represents a whole living person composed of three united elements. Egypt believed people were composed of three parts : body, ba, and ka (today we might say body, soul, and spirit, or body, mind and heart). While we are alive on earth, these three elements were thought to be of relatively equal strength and value to us; this is represented by them being lined up horizontally rather than vertically, in which case one of them would be "above" or superior to the others.

The remaining three glyphs reflect the different possible afterlife fates Egypt believed in, the number and nature of which were determined solely by the different possible relationships between those three parts.

The second glyph features the same three elements we saw in the first glyph, but now their unity, represented by the circle in the first gylph, is gone. All three parts are now separated from one another, and their orientation changes from horizonal to vertical. Egypt believed that the three parts of a living person usually divide apart at a person's death. The self fractured into pieces and was basically lost, and then those leftover pieces all had vastly different afterlife fates of their own. The three separated elements in this glyph change to a vertical orientation so one of the three elements is now apparently "above" or stronger or superior to the others while another is "lower" or weaker than the others. This is all in keeping with Egyptian belief. At death, no matter what else happened, the ba was always considered completely immortal and safe; it basically had a pleasant afterlife unconditionally guaranteed to it. And of course the physical body was always considered doomed, having complete destruction guaranteed to it. The fate of neither the ba nor the body was in question, nor could anything be done to change their fates. The only real question in the afterlife was what happened to the ka, which could either go to its glory in the afterlife, or to its doom, depending. It was in the middle, and hung in the balance, just as the middle element does in the second glyph.

In the afterlife fate represented by the third glyph, a circle divided into two sections, the ba and ka would retain or regain their unity and connection and wholeness after death. The circle returns in this glyph, indicating that unity and wholeness are again present, but now there are just two elements inside the circle instead of the three in the first glyph. The third element, the physical body, has been lost, but the remainder that goes on is still whole and healthy. Egypt believed that it was possible to preserve or at least regain the unity of the ba and ka after death, and this glyph illustrates that belief. They believed a person can proceed into the afterlife mentally or spiritually whole, with both parts of his mind still basically intact. In other words, they believed a person could pass through the death transition and come out the other side as pretty much the same familiar "self" they were before. However, this glyph shows these two parts still oriented vertically as they were in the second glyph, declaring that one part is "above" or stronger than and dominant over other part in the afterlife. (Interestingly, modern psychics and mystics like Edgar Cayce, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Rudolf Steiner have all endorsed the peculiar notion that in the afterlife, one's unconscious is much stronger than it is in life, and dictates the overall experience of the individual to a much greater degree than it does in life.)

The fourth and final glyph reflects two opposite meanings. It speaks of both the best and worst possible fates according to the ancient Egyptian religion, reminding its reader that death holds both a terrible warning and also a great opportunity. If the symbol is read from bottom to top, it represents the ultimate afterlife threat : having one's ba and ka divide entirely apart in the next world, a horrible fate which basically rips the person's mind apart after death, literally and fully dis-integrating it. In Egypt's worse-case afterlife scenario, the ba and ka would divide entirely apart from one another; this is symbolized by the "V", which shows something that was together (on the bottom) dividing apart (on the top). The V is a naturally intuitive symbol for division, as it instantly reminds one of the cleaving of wood by an axe.

But if instead this final symbol is read from top to bottom, it then reflects the possibility of achieving the supreme victory in the afterlife, fusing the ba and ka fully together to form the akh. In this, the ultimate goal of Egyptian religion, the deceased becomes something akin to a divine being or angel. In this "best-case" scenario, the ba and ka are not merely equal partners (as might have been symbolized by a circle with two horizontal parts), but instead they unite or meld fully together in the afterlife to form an entirely new soul, the "two being made one" just as the Gospel of Thomas described. Egypt believed that the person's known earthly mind-self would be fundamentally transformed in the creation of the akh. The person would become something entirely different that he had been before, and far more than just a disembodied person's mind. He was not less than he was on earth (as the second symbol warned of), nor was he the same as he was before death (as the third symbol suggests). No, this fourth symbol describes something altogether different that includes a new level of personal wholeness, integrity, and completeness beyond anything experienced on earth. In the fourth and final symbol, duality itself is overcome. The person has changed from being/having three parts to just being/having two parts to finally just being/having one part. One moves from multiplicity to unity, from knowing multiple things to just knowing one thing. In the final glyph, the ultimate spiritual opportunity is offered, and the ultimate journey depicted. As one becomes fully one with oneself, it suggests, one becomes one with everything, and thus one with God Himself. This glyph depicts the ultimate promise testified to by all religions, the ultimate goal that is only sought by mankind's most ambitious members.

The primary purpose of Egyptian funerary ritual was achieving such a unity between the deceased person's ba and ka, or at the very least, preventing the full separation of them at death, and this inscription at the entrance to the great pyramid seems part and parcel of that perspective and that concern.