Ritual of the Mystery of the Judgment of the Soul. From an Ancient Egyptian Papyrus.
London: Bernard Quaritch for the Society Rosicruciana in Anglia, ND (ca 1890). First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. 36pp. Patterned brown cloth decorated in black and with black titling to spine and upper board, beveled edges. Color frontis of Egyptian painting of Anubis weighing the heart from the Papyrus of Ani with printed tissue guard. The first edition of Blackden's work on the Psychostasia, or Weighing of the Soul, the key ceremony of The Egyptian Book of the Dead in which Osiris weighs the heart of the deceased. The author, Marcus Wolsley Blackden, was a member of Isis Urania Temple of the Golden Dawn, who by 1897 had risen to the Grade of Adeptus Minor. He was also a member of both the first and second of Florence Farr's Sphere Groups and the British Archaeological Survey Egypt Exploration Fund. The translation is apparently entirely original, and not based on that of Budge. Cloth a little discolored in places, notably to the back board. A lovely copy, still in the rather tatty remains of the publisher's glassine protective wrapper. A hint of uneven toning to the endpapers, but still as close to Fine a copy as it would be possible to find in a book of this vintage. Item #62355
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