Hail to thee, Osiris, Lord of Light, dwelling in the mighty
abode, in the bosom of the absolute darkness. I come to thee,
a purified Soul; my two hands are around thee. (xxi. 1.)

I open heaven; I do what was commanded in Memphis. I have
knowledge of my heart; I am in possession of my heart, I am
in possession of my arms, I am in possession of my legs, at
the will of myself. My Soul is not imprisoned in my body at
the gates of Amenti. (xxvi. 5, 6.)

Not to multiply to weariness quotations from a book that is wholly
composed of the doings and sayings of the disembodied man, let it
suffice to give the final judgment on the victorious Soul:

The defunct shall be deified among the Gods in the lower
divine region, he shall never be rejected.... He shall drink
from the current of the celestial river.... His Soul shall
not be imprisoned, since it is a Soul that brings salvation
to those near it. The worms shall not devour it. (clxiv.
14-16.)

The general belief in Re-incarnation is enough to prove that the
religions of which it formed a central doctrine believed in the
survival of the Soul after Death; but one may quote as an example a
passage from the _Ordinances of Manu_, following on a disquisition on
metempsychosis, and answering the question of deliverance from
rebirths.

Amid all these holy acts, the knowledge of self [should be
translated, knowledge of the _Self_, Atma] is said (to be)
the highest; this indeed is the foremost of all sciences,
since from it immortality is obtained.[2]

The testimony of the great Zarathustrean Religion is clear, as is
shown by the following, translated from the _Avesta_, in which, the
journey of the Soul after death having been described, the ancient
Scripture proceeds:

The soul of the pure man goes the first step and arrives at
(the Paradise) Humata; the soul of the pure man takes the
second step and arrives at (the Paradise) Hukhta; it goes the
third step and arrives at (the Paradise) Hvarst; the soul of
the pure man takes the fourth step and arrives at the Eternal
Lights.

To it speaks a pure one deceased before, asking it: How art
thou, O pure deceased, come away from the fleshy dwellings,
from the earthly possessions, from the corporeal world hither
to the invisible, from the perishable world hither to the
imperishable, as it happened to thee--to whom hail!