250
Ceremony
Shai en Sensenu-The Book of Breathings This sacred text is also known as Shai en Wepet Ra er Sensen, the "Book of Open ing the Mouth for Breathing," and Egyptian legend holds that this book was writ ten by the hand of Djehuti himself. Very few copies of it exist, as they were pe culiar to a specific time and place in history. All that are known to exist can be traced to a region in Middle Egypt near the ancient city of Per Menu. They were written at the very last stage of Egyptian civilization, in the first century of our era (10-99 c.E.) during the Graeco-Roman period. Moreover, this ritual text ap pears to have been included solely in the funerary troves of temple priests and priestesses. As such, it implies a ceremony that guarantees a conscious transition 1
into noncorporeal realms. While this work possesses some of the ritual elements of the Un Ra (the Opening of the Mouth ceremony), which animates the lifeless or inanimate, the Shai en Sensenu has distinctive features. It is a conscious act of reanimation along
with entry into a new spiritual reality, the cosmos. It appears to be intended for observance with one already sentient, but it awakens the person into a new realm, where fusion with new powers is possible.
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Figure 50-Taiti: The Swathed One
1. Epiphanius Wilson, Egyptian Literature (New York:
The Co-Operative Publication Society,
1901) 385.
