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| Suicide |
Suicide
By destroying the body (instead of having it embalmed and nourished by offerings according to traditions) the soul would lose the house into which it must return every night in order to be renewed and to be reborn the following morning at sunrise, so as to live eternally. Here we are confronted with the very essence of Egyptian ethics. The Egyptians believed that not only the “Ba” (Soul), but also the body and its organs, heart, kidneys, etc., came under the responsibility of the Gods and were the dwelling places of the divine powers to the extent that eating and drinking became virtually a duty of a man toward these divine powers. The question of whether or not suicide is sinful and thus subject to eternal reprobation becomes irrelevant if themere preservation of the corpse by embalming it and supplying it with offerings suffices to keep the soul alive.
Causes of such disorders were attributed to several sources: In seven cases the etiology was believed to be vascular in nature. Other causes are purulence, fecal matter, obscure causes, a mysterious substance (translated from hieroglyphics, the name of the substance would be AAA), and on only two occasions the cause of symptomatology is said to be demonic or of spiritual origin.
A psychotherapeutic method used in ancient Egypt was “incubation” or the “Temple sleep.” This was associated with the same name of Imhotep, the earliest known physician in history. I. em. ho.tep., “he who comes in peace,” was the physician vizier of the kingDjoser. Imhotep built the first pyramid, the Step pyramid at Saqqara after 2611 BCE. He was worshipped at Memphis, and a temple was constructed inhis honor onthe island of Philae.The templewas a busy center for sleep treatment. The course of treatment depended greatly on the manifestations and contents of dreams, which were, of course, highly affected by the psycho-religious climate of the temple, or the confidence in the supernatural powers of the deity, and on the suggestive procedures carried out by divine healers
