At death, soul, body, and shadow separate from one another.

The soul to return to the place from whence it came, to Heaven, for it is a part of God (of Osiris); the body, to be committed to the earth from which it was formed in the image of its creator; the phantom or shadow, to descend into the depths, the kingdom of shadows.

The gate to this kingdom was placed in the West among the sunset hills, where the sun goes down daily,--where he dies.

Thence arise the changeful and corresponding conceptions connected with rising and setting, arriving and departing, being born and dying.

The careful preservation of the body after death from destruction, not only through the process of inward decay, but also through violence or accident, was in the religion of ancient Egypt a principal condition (perhaps introduced by the priests on sanitary grounds) on which depended the speedy deliverance of the soul, and with this her early, appointed union with the source of Light and Good, which two properties were, in idea, one and indivisible.