A pyramid text describes the translation of the dead king to the heavenly realm in these words: “The king ascends to the sky among the gods dwelling in the skyHe [Re] gives thee his arm on the stairway to the sky. `He who knows his place comes,' say the gods. O Pure One, assume thy throne in the barque of Re and sail thou the skySail thou with the imperishable stars, sail thou with Unwearied Stars” ( Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 136 )

The injunction [Egyptian religious texts] to stand upright is reminiscent of the Djed or Tet pillar. This classic image of the resurrected Osiris looks remarkably like a ladder in some pictures (fig. 005.08) . The process of translation to eternity was graphically represented in antiquity by the image of ascending the ladder of the planetary spheres. When a soul is born into an earthly body it descends from heaven through the planetary spheres and acquires the qualities pertaining to each:

Osiris as a Ladder

Saturn: reason and understanding

Mars: bold spirit

Venus: the impulse of passion

Moon: the function of molding and increasing bodies,the function farthest removed from the gods, but the first in us and all earthly creation ( Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, pp. 136f. )

There is a kabbalistic parallel to the theme of returning to the planetary archons the qualities pertaining to each, as indicated in this passage by Gershom Scholem:

The task of the Kabbalah is to help guide the soul back to its native home in the Godhead. For each single Sefirah there is a corresponding ethical attribute in human behavior, and he who achieves this on earth is integrated into the mystic life and the harmonic world of the Sefirot.The kabbalists unanimously agreed on the supreme rank attainable by the soul at the end of its mystical path, namely, that of devekut, mystical cleaving to God.(This is achieved by climbing) the ladder of devekut ( Scholem, Kabbalah, pp. 174f. )

Certain Hasidic sayings use the image of the ladder, such as the following: “The souls descended from the realm of heaven to earth, on a long ladder. Then it was taken away. Now, up there, they are calling home the souls. Some do not budge from the spot, for how can one get to heaven without a ladder? Others leap and fall and leap again, and give up. But there are those who know very well that they cannot achieve it, but try and try over and over again until God catches hold of them and pulls them up” ( Buber, Ten Rungs: Hasidic Sayings, p. 40. )

IMAGE OF THE SPIRITUAL LADDER

AOP Pg 137 (g) FigNo005.09

Icon from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, 11th-12th century

Dream:

I beheld a ladder of brass, of miraculous size, which reached up to heaven, and was so narrow that it could only be ascended singly. On either side of the ladder, all manner of iron implements were fastenedswords, lances, hooks, daggers and spearsso that anyone who was careless, or did not hold himself erect while climbing, was torn to pieces and remained hanging. Beneath the ladder lay a gigantic dragon, lying in wait for the climbers and frightening them awayAnd the dragon slowly lifted his head out from under the ladder, as if in fear of me, and I trod on it, as though I were treading on the first rung of the ladder, and ascended to the top ( Quoted in Von Franz, The Passion of Perpetua, pp. 10f. )