GUIDEBOOK TO THE AFTERLIFE
Wearing clean clothes and white sandals, you stand in a long hall supported by columns. On a throne at the far end of the room you see the figure of Osiris, the god of the underworld. You are surrounded by 42 gods, terrifying mummified figures including the Swallower of shades, the Bone-breaker and the Eater of entrails.
In front of you is the god Thoth in the form of a baboon. He sits atop a pair of scales that will very shortly decide your eternal fate. This is judgment day and, should you fail the test, you will experience the agonising second death. But you show no fear because you are a possessor of the Book of the Dead – a tome that contains within its texts the secrets to surviving the afterlife.
You turn to the first of the gods and begin to speak: “O Far-strider who came forth from Heliopolis, I have done no falsehood.” Then you turn to the second: “O Fire-embracer who came forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed…”
