The Heart Scarab and the Soul's Journey: Myth, Magic, and Mortality in Ancient Egypt, with Selena Madden, PhD, Begins November 11
Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, November 11 - December 16, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members/ $180 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
What does it mean to weigh the heart against a feather?
In ancient Egypt, the soul’s passage into the afterlife hinged on this very question. At the moment of death, the heart—considered the seat of memory, truth, and moral consciousness—was placed on a scale opposite the feather of Maat, goddess of cosmic justice. To ensure a favorable outcome, the deceased was often buried with a heart scarab: a carved beetle inscribed with sacred pleas and spells from the Book of the Dead, meant to protect the soul during judgment.
In this course, we will explore the mythic, symbolic, and psychological layers of this funerary tradition. Drawing from archaeology, mythology, and archetypal psychology, we’ll follow the soul’s journey through the Duat—the Egyptian underworld—and examine the talismanic role of the scarab, the sacred ethics of Maat, and the rituals designed to secure eternal life.
Through comparative mythology, visual analysis, and creative reflection, we’ll trace echoes of this ancient metaphysics in other traditions of underworld descent—from Inanna to Psyche to the Gnostic Sophia—and ask: What truths are hidden in the heart? What must we weigh and witness before we cross the threshold?
This course invites artists, scholars, spiritual seekers, and lovers of myth to engage deeply with death, judgment, and the transformative magic of the soul’s passage.
Dr. Selena Madden is a mythologist, educator, and guide whose work dwells in the liminal—where psyche meets story, and ritual rekindles the sacred. With roots in depth psychology and the mythic feminine, she invites others into embodied remembrance through archetypal teaching, academic understanding, movement, and ritual.
Images: Judgement Scene from Book of the Dead of Hunefer, New Kingdom, 19th dynasty, ca. 1290–1280 BCE, British Museum, London, UK. Detail. Winged Scarab, Late Period, 664–332 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, November 11 - December 16, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members/ $180 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
What does it mean to weigh the heart against a feather?
In ancient Egypt, the soul’s passage into the afterlife hinged on this very question. At the moment of death, the heart—considered the seat of memory, truth, and moral consciousness—was placed on a scale opposite the feather of Maat, goddess of cosmic justice. To ensure a favorable outcome, the deceased was often buried with a heart scarab: a carved beetle inscribed with sacred pleas and spells from the Book of the Dead, meant to protect the soul during judgment.
In this course, we will explore the mythic, symbolic, and psychological layers of this funerary tradition. Drawing from archaeology, mythology, and archetypal psychology, we’ll follow the soul’s journey through the Duat—the Egyptian underworld—and examine the talismanic role of the scarab, the sacred ethics of Maat, and the rituals designed to secure eternal life.
Through comparative mythology, visual analysis, and creative reflection, we’ll trace echoes of this ancient metaphysics in other traditions of underworld descent—from Inanna to Psyche to the Gnostic Sophia—and ask: What truths are hidden in the heart? What must we weigh and witness before we cross the threshold?
This course invites artists, scholars, spiritual seekers, and lovers of myth to engage deeply with death, judgment, and the transformative magic of the soul’s passage.
Dr. Selena Madden is a mythologist, educator, and guide whose work dwells in the liminal—where psyche meets story, and ritual rekindles the sacred. With roots in depth psychology and the mythic feminine, she invites others into embodied remembrance through archetypal teaching, academic understanding, movement, and ritual.
Images: Judgement Scene from Book of the Dead of Hunefer, New Kingdom, 19th dynasty, ca. 1290–1280 BCE, British Museum, London, UK. Detail. Winged Scarab, Late Period, 664–332 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art
Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, November 11 - December 16, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members/ $180 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
What does it mean to weigh the heart against a feather?
In ancient Egypt, the soul’s passage into the afterlife hinged on this very question. At the moment of death, the heart—considered the seat of memory, truth, and moral consciousness—was placed on a scale opposite the feather of Maat, goddess of cosmic justice. To ensure a favorable outcome, the deceased was often buried with a heart scarab: a carved beetle inscribed with sacred pleas and spells from the Book of the Dead, meant to protect the soul during judgment.
In this course, we will explore the mythic, symbolic, and psychological layers of this funerary tradition. Drawing from archaeology, mythology, and archetypal psychology, we’ll follow the soul’s journey through the Duat—the Egyptian underworld—and examine the talismanic role of the scarab, the sacred ethics of Maat, and the rituals designed to secure eternal life.
Through comparative mythology, visual analysis, and creative reflection, we’ll trace echoes of this ancient metaphysics in other traditions of underworld descent—from Inanna to Psyche to the Gnostic Sophia—and ask: What truths are hidden in the heart? What must we weigh and witness before we cross the threshold?
This course invites artists, scholars, spiritual seekers, and lovers of myth to engage deeply with death, judgment, and the transformative magic of the soul’s passage.
Dr. Selena Madden is a mythologist, educator, and guide whose work dwells in the liminal—where psyche meets story, and ritual rekindles the sacred. With roots in depth psychology and the mythic feminine, she invites others into embodied remembrance through archetypal teaching, academic understanding, movement, and ritual.
Images: Judgement Scene from Book of the Dead of Hunefer, New Kingdom, 19th dynasty, ca. 1290–1280 BCE, British Museum, London, UK. Detail. Winged Scarab, Late Period, 664–332 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art