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6
JUDGMENT OF DEAD

sonic degrees in the least analogous to the Judgment of Amenti, that portion of the Mysteries of Isis not having been adopted into the Mysteries as celebrated in other lands and at a later age. The following representation of the scene, taken from the 'Book of the Dead." will, however, be interesting to all readers, and members of the Fraternity will not fail to recognize in it certain Masonic features which we may not particularize. The figure seated on the throne is Osiris., or Judge of the Dead; he holds the flail and crook, emblems of majesty and dominion. The deeds of the deceased, or of the candidate, typified by a vase containing his heart, are being weighed in the scales of justice by Anubis and Horus against an ostrich feather, emblem of truth, in the opposite scale. * * * Thoth (Hermes, Mercury, or the Divine Intellect) presents the result to Osiris. Close by is Cerberus, or Am-mit, the "Eater of the Dead." At the right the candidate is seen attended by the Goddesses of Truth and Justice; the Goddess of Truth holds in her hand the emblem of eternal life, and both wear upon their heads the emblem of truth. Close to Osiris is seen the thyrsus bound with a fillet, to which the spotted skin of a leopard is suspended. It is the same that the high priest, clad in the leopard-skin dress, carries in the processions, and which gave rise to the nebris and thyrsus of Bacchus, to whom Osiris corresponds in Greek mythology. The lotus flower, the emblem of a new birth, is represented just before the thyrsus. If. on being tried, the candidate is rejected, having been "weighed and found wanting," Osiris inclines his scepter in token of condemnation. If, on the contrary, when the sum of his deeds has been recorded, his virtues so far preponderate as to entitle him to admission. Horus, taking in his hand the tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris. In the initiation, those who represent Thoth, Anubis and Horus wore symbolical masks, as represented in the drawing. (See Kendrick, Wilkinson, and also Arnold's 'Philosophical History of Secret Societies," from which last work the above drawing is taken.)