The Egyptian Mystery System

What is the Egyptian Mystery System and why do we need to understand its content? The earliest theory of salvation is the Egyptian theory. The Egyptian Mystery System had as its most important object, the deification of man, and taught that the soul of man if liberated from its bodily fetters, could enable him to become godlike and see the gods in this life and attain the beatific vision and hold communion with the immortals (Ancient Mysteries, C. H. Vail, p. 12).

Liberation which the Mystery System offered was not only freedom of the soul from the body’s worldly burdens, but also from the cycle of reincarnation or rebirth. The Egyptian Mystery System involved a process of disciplines or purification both for the body and the soul. Because it proposed the salvation of the soul, it also placed great emphasis upon its immortality.

The Egyptian Mystery System, like the modern university, was the center of organized culture; and candidates entered it as the leading source of ancient culture. The System had three grades of students. (1) Mortals or probationers who were being instructed, but who had not experienced the inner vision. (2) Intelligences or those who had attained the inner vision, and had received mind or nous. (3) Creators or Sons Of Light who had become identified with or united with the Light (i.e. true spiritual consciousness.

The three grades of the Egyptian Mystery System have been described as the equivalents of Initiation, Illumination and Perfection. Students underwent years of disciplinary intellectual exercises and bodily asceticism with intervals of tests and ordeals to determine their fitness to proceed to the more serious, solemn, and awful process of actual initiation. it was the Egyptian Mystery System theory of salvation which became the basis and purpose of Greek Philosophy.