When we call our mothers “Ma,” we are addressing them as the Principle of Truth—a singularly fitting name; since the mother is the literal image of Truth to the child, until he is old enough to discover it by reasoning processes.
Osiris, the spirit within the earth, draws every soul to him with a crook, and repulses it with a flail.
The ceremony about to be enacted quaintly set forth the trials by the law of causation, or experience, undergone by the individual in the process of being drawn into and thrown out of earth life. It was an enactment of the tragedy within each human heart.
On a square lectern in front of Hirach was a huge parchment scroll, tied with seven seals. By an ingenious arrangement, the lectern was also a support for a pair of balances. On the left side was a gold vase containing the heart of Orondo, which was soon to be weighed against a small image of Truth, on the right scale.
Between Hirach and the altar of offerings sat four intercessors, or Associate Judges, representing the material body, the astral body, soul and spirit. They were dressed in black, gray, purple and green.
The official mourners, selected from each of the guilds, and from the priesthood, made offerings to the four elements in nature corresponding to the four attributes of man. That to earth was a bunch of bearded wheat; that to water, a pond-lily; that to air, a white dove; while that to fire was a chalice of bergamot oil. After being consecrated and blessed, the offerings were brought forward by men dressed in blue, and laid upon the altar in their proper succession. The fires in the sacred urns in the burial service were used, in order that the life-principle present in fire might find the individual body it once inhabited.
Along the outer wall, in a semi-circle, were seated the forty-two assessors who were to try this novel case. They wore cloth-of-gold robes, and had a golden feather of Truth in the headbands over their closely curled hair, to show that they represented mental traits, and corresponded to the forty-two phrenological organs of the brain.
These assessors were divided into three groups, distinguishable by the color of their mantles. The first typified the psychic attributes, and pertained to the front of the cerebrum; the mental to the middle part of the head; while the material stood for the cerebellum.
The problem of the perfect life is solved by the even balance of these parts of the brain with the corresponding worlds of cosmic essence.
When the remains were placed between the altar of offerings and the lectern, the priestesses knelt on each side, followed by the official mourners.