all ourselves.
In fact Osiris personified the old self or the old creation and Ra was the new birth, the new man. Just like medieval Alchemy, creation was made from a mixture and through transformation.
“The Egyptians did not believe in creation ex nihilo. On the contrary, the religious texts state clearly that the cosmos was created from pre-existent materials, namely primeval water, matter, and air. Creation involved the transformation of the materials from the state of chaos into a state of order. It involved the construction of a new cosmos from the remains of an old cosmos.” [2]
This mixture required the reduction of the self (ba and ka) and the reformation in the midnight hour of the parts to create the true trinity of the ba Ra ka.
The Egyptians believed that when the ka left and the body died, it returned to the divine but remained close to the body. In fact even false doors were created in tombs for ka’s called ‘ka doors’, so that the ka could access the earth at will. Now the ba could roam the earth, but only when Ra, the sun-god, was in ascendance in the sky. When Ra returned to the underworld, so too did the ba. This is in fact the Egyptian explanation for ghosts.
In symbolism the ka was represented by two upturned arms and the ba by a human headed bird. Offerings of food were given to the ka and it was believed that the ka did not eat the food, but instead drew off the life-force from the offering.
The union of the ba Ra ka is indeed a true blessing and this is where the Arabic Barakah and the Hebrew Barach takes the word – both different versions of the Sufi baraka. Blessing of course is now an English word