Human’s emergence in Africa during the Ice Age is attributed first to the spectacular climatic condition, by being in the sunshine near the equator. What early Africans called Khenthunnefer, located along the Nile River Valley at its origin in the delta and its end at the White Nile in Central Africa’s Great Lakes, was borrowed into the European Bible as the “Garden of Eden”. Second was the accommodating geological formation of the Rift Valley stretching from the eastern Sahara to east and central Africa, culminating in southern Africa. A gift of the Rift Valley was the plentiful food supply in its river basins and fresh lakes–both girded by a protective chain of mountains. This gift set the stage for the development of a gentle people who, by believing Nature is everything, devoted much time to its study. Circumstantial evidence suggests these newly emerged Africans in the Rift Valley established the original religious pattern from which has branched all of the world’s major religions and philosophies. In the beginning, the paradise nature of Africa, with its abundance of food, allowed Primitive (the first) Africans to engage in foresight and forethought—essential ingredients for the cultivation of any high level civilization (Societal and Technological development) and culture (Intellectual, Feeling, and Spiritual development). Geography continued to play a major role in Africans being able to pursue cherished things not biologically necessary for survival (e.g. exploring the world of the Unseen). Also of particular importance was the introduction of agriculture (before 20,000 BC) in the fertile deltas of the Nile River, such as those of Nubia and Kemit (Egypt).
Whereas primitive Interior African agriculture exhausted the soil and compelled frequent migrations, the yearly over-flow Nile River deltas replenished the agricultural land with rich soil deposited by the flood, ensuring a surplus of food produced by one family’s labor that was far above that family’s needs. So, many joined to form storage places for grain, food, and necessary supplies. Such centers in and around Kemit, serving for material life support, explains the care with which records were kept of everything that went out of and came into a temple’s compound. This however, soon expanded to encompass non-material needs, hence justifying the name “Houses of Life” (Bailey, Ancient African Bible Messages). This alone was sufficient to make possible the creation of a small leisure class. To assist in learning to “Live Right”, perhaps as early as 20,000 BC, within these “Houses of Life” arose centers of activities. Some of these activities were concerned with the greatest mysteries–Life and Death—done for the purpose of thinking deeply about bringing some order to the complex things in the Seen World and the Esoteric entities of the Un-Seeable realms. The living king-god went to Labyrinths of Wholism so as to renew and strengthen his own vitality by association with the immortal lives of his “Living-Dead” Ancestors. The Journey of the Dead focused, not on the fact of death itself, but in the desire for the renewal of life through contact with those “Living-Dead” Ancestors persisting in leading a life beyond the grave. The “Houses of Life” expanded into the Egyptian Mystery Schools (?12,500 BC). Here, deeper and more expansive discussions concerned how to overcome death while renewing life. An example of this is humans who have managed to achieve a Cosmic Consciousness and know: “I am an expression of an eternal Cosmic Organism.”
From this insight one knows why things in the world are the way they are—knows one is not separate from what one does—knows one can see the divine in everybody’s eyes—knows everybody plays an essential Cosmos part, even if ones does not like it–and knows one is part of the Cosmos ‘doings’ of the ‘great happenings’ of God–called the flow of Tao by the Chinese. Such enables Mysticism, the transcending of barriers so as to absorb an inexpressible—a vibratory essence called Intuition (learning from within direct, immediate, and true “ME/WE” knowledge of the Cosmic Organism and its Laws of Humanity). These convey Ma’at Right ways to Think, Feel, Express, and Act/React that flow effortlessly. To so live, prepared the “Heart” for the Heaven Afterlife–its “Heart’s” fate surviving death in the Netherworld, as determined by the evidence it displays on the Balance Scale–whether for or against its possessor. Thus, their most powerful teaching symbolism tool became the metaphor of the “Weighing of the Heart” of the deceased on Judgment Day.