Customer Reviews

Symbolism of the Gods of the Egyptians and The Light They Throw on Freemasonry

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First, ignore the "free-masonry" part of the book's title because there is very little content dedicated to masonry; this amounts to at most several pages in the entire 126 page book. Thomas Milton Stewart's "Symbolism of the Gods of the Egyptians" is a fantastic description of ancient egyptian spirituality.

Milton clearly spent many decades delving into the ancient beliefs, rites, deities and symbols of the ancient egyptians and it shows. Other than Jeremy Naydler's excellent works (see my other reviews), there is no other book that "gets it."

Milton first talks about the philosophical underpinnings of their religion. The focus of course is on personal responsibility, harmony with nature, and balance in all things.

Next, the author explains that The Book of Going Forth by Day (mistakingly called The Book of the Dead for tooooo long) is not about death, but about an initiation into the spiritual realms by a living person. That is, you die to the belief that your life ends at death. The successful initiate achieves enlightenment, yoga, union with one's soul and learns of her or his own immortality. Anyone who has experienced this process knows deeply that The Book of Going Forth by Day is a description of this process, one that anyone with courage and fortitude can experience themselves. Milton's view, written in 1927, is still rejected by egyptologists, most of whom have never had an enlightenment experience or who have never chosen a path of spiritual upliftment with the ancient egyptian's help.

The author demonstrates that the ancient egyptians were definitively not polytheists. Instead, they believed in one true, absolute, infinite deity of which we are all a part. The so-called "deities" are merely aspects of self or energies with which one can attune. So about half of this excellent and insightful book is explaining what the "deities" really were and how they can inform your life to this day, 5,000 years after their "worship" in ancient egypt.

If you have been to egypt and were struck by the majesty, perfection, and deep religiosity of the culture or if you have a deep abiding interest in ancient egypt or if you have a zeal for spiritual upliftment then you will find a nearly perfect advocate in Milton's "Symbolism of the Gods of the Egyptians." I whole-heartedly endorse this work.

Jason Apollo Voss
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