Is there anything as mysterious as Egypt? The civilization by the Nile still holds the record for being the longest and most stable civilization in history, and is, although most folks don't realize it, the original source of much of the thought and vocabulary in today's Western culture. This much, at least, we have been able to figure out, thanks to over a century of slow and painstaking work by modern archaeologists and Egyptologists.

Yet when our scholars try to truly grasp how ancient Egypt actually looked at "life, the universe, and everything" (apologies to Douglas Adams), they have invariably come away utterly baffled. Again and again, we have read the so-called experts declare that Egyptian philosophy was inconsistent, muddled, and contradictory. With a multitude of seemingly different, contradictory, and overlapping gods, goddesses, creation stories, afterlife scenarios, and even multiple souls (or parts of souls, or aspects of souls, or...?), trying to make sense of Egypt's philosophy and religion has just seemed too complex a puzzle to solve without anyone left from the past to tell us how all the pieces are supposed to fit together.

Still, even though we are separated from ancient Egypt by thousands of years, it nonetheless remains the source of much of our cultural heritage; and the sad fact of the matter is, not knowing where we have come from, we have been at a loss to understand much about who we are.

Enter Ramona Louise Wheeler.

A student of religion, psychology, and mythology, Wheeler examined the writings and works left behind by this lost people and saw not confusion, but beauty. Instead of seeing the same empty, meaningless, and absurd collection of gods and myths dryly described by other researchers, she found herself staring into the face of a still-relevant wisdom, a vibrant spiritual system based on a profound familiarity with human psychology. Ramona Louise Wheeler makes the reader realize that these were an intelligent and thoughtful people, who considered and explored the same questions all other races do, arriving at many of the same conclusions we have found written elsewhere. Wheeler points out a number of surprising similarities and parallels Egyptian philosophy had with Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought (although she missed the fact that Egypt held the concept of the breathing/breath dichotomy in common with Judaic thought. Wheeler is of the opinion that ancient Egypt's thought was 180 degrees opposed to that of the ancient Hebrews, and I would argue that it only seems so from our modern and erroneous interpretations of ancient Hebrew thought. But that's the subject of another discussion ).

This book is not one to be read once, but many times. I found myself rewarded with a multitude of insights, not only into Egyptian thought, but also some of the most genuinely insightful psychological and theological explorations I have run across in quite some time. The Rosetta Stone gave us the ability to decipher Egyptian writing, but it seems it took Ramona Louise Wheeler to begin to decipher what those words really meant to the people writing them. Thanks to her, ancient Egypt is a little bit less dead than it has been for a long, long time.

My only serious complaint about this book is that it came to an end. She has whet my appetite for more insights into the lost wisdom of this ancient culture. I pray she is well on her way to writing a follow-up work to this, fleshing out yet more of this culture's mind for us. If not, I may be forced to learn to read hieroglyphics myself.

Wheeler's book can be ordered at Amazon.com, directly from the publisher, at Allisonepress.com , or at Wheeler's website .