Religion and the Invisible World

A broad critical history of the transformation of religious thought in Egypt from ancient to modern periods

When a civilization disappears, its heritage does not vanish. It survives in different potentially hybrid forms and becomes part of the legacy of humanity. Religion and the Invisible World is a broad survey of the development and transformation of interrelated forms of invisibility, sanctity, and religious beliefs and rituals in Egypt.

Drawing on forty years of research as an anthropologist, historian, and Egyptologist, el-Sayed el-Aswad shows how concepts of sacredness and invisibility have been core elements in the spiritual transformations in Egypt as embodied in the early pharaonic religion, Egyptian-Hellenistic religion, Christianity, and Islam, and how these practices of spirituality and cosmology cut across many divides of ethnicity, gender, region, religion, language, and social class. He draws on available prior ethnographies and descriptions pointing to the “invisible” world in Egyptian villages and urban settings, including dreams, rituals, trance, bodily practices, and what a century ago were called “survivals.”

By focusing on concepts of invisibility and sanctity, this book provides a holistic understanding of the similarities and differences between religious beliefs and rituals that have existed in different historical epochs in Egypt from the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms to the contemporary world—a span of five thousand years.