Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

2o8 The Initiation of the Postulant. [Cn.

death of defilement from the creatures of
darkness (xliii.-li.). But still, by the same
guidance avoiding all these dangers, he comes
forth as the day through the Gate of the
West, to the passage which conducts him to
the Well of Life; and as he passes that
threshold, he is fed with the celestial food
which they may not eat who are partakers
of defilement (li.-lii.). " The enemies do not
eat of my body," says Osiris, in another part
of the Ritual. Avoiding defilement through
the strength of that food (lii., liii.) he receives
the breath of Ptah (liv.-lviii.), and drawing
near to the Well of Life, is granted a first
draught of its refreshing streams (lix.-lxiii.).
In the depths of that well, wherein, as the
Sai-an-Sinsin tells us, approach is made to
Osiris, shall presently take place the regenera-
tion of the renewed man (or " Ka "), by reunion
with the new-born soul amid the living waters.
" I give the waters of life to every mummy,"
says the Goddess Nout, who presides over