Equally separate in tone and spirit are the next six chapters (lxxv.-xc.), which have emanated from the school of Heliopolis. They deal with the destiny of the Ba or "soul" rather than with that of the Osirian, and describe the transformations which it can undergo if fortified with the words of the ritual. It may at will transform itself into a hawk of gold, a lotus flower, the moon-god or Ptah, even into a viper, a crocodile, or a goose. But first it must fly to Heliopolis and the solar deities who reside there, and it is in Heliopolis that its transformation into the god Ptah is to take place.
The next chapter, the 91st, transports us into a different atmosphere of religious thought. It deals with the reunion of the soul and the body. But the two which follow forbid the Egyptian to believe that this meant a sojourn of the soul in the tomb. On the contrary, the soul, it is said, is not to be "imprisoned"; while the 93rd chapter "opens the gates of the sepulchre to the soul and the shadow (_khaib_), that they may go forth and employ their limbs." And the land to which they were to go was a land of sunlight.
From this point onwards the Book of the Dead is purely Osirian in character. But beliefs derived from the solar cult have been allowed to mingle with the Osirian elements; thus the bark of the sun-god has been identified with the bark which carried the Osirian dead to the fields of Alu, and Osiris is even permitted to assign a place to his faithful servants in the boat of Ra instead of in the paradise over which he himself rules. And the Osirian elements themselves belong to two different periods or two different schools of thought. In the earlier chapters the paradise of Osiris is gained like the paradise of Ra, by the magical power of the words of the ritual and the offerings made by the friends of the dead; from the 125th chapter onwards the test of righteousness is a moral one; the dead man has to be acquitted by his conscience and the tribunal of Osiris before he can enter into everlasting bliss.
The bark which carried the followers of Osiris has been explained by the Pyramid texts. When the dead man had ascended to heaven, either by the ladder which rose from the earth at Hermopolis or in some other way, he found his path barred by a deep lake or canal. According to one myth, he was carried across it on the wings of the ibis Thoth, but the more general belief provided for him the boat of the ferryman Nu-Urru,(158) the prototype of the Greek Charon. The fusion of the Osirian creed with the solar cult, however, caused the boat of Nu-Urru and the bark of the sun-god to be confounded together, and accordingly three chapters (c.-cii.) have been added to that in which the boat of the Egyptian Charon is referred to, "in order to teach the luminous spirit (_khu_) how to enter the bark among the servants of Ra." In the next chapter, Hathor, "the lady of the west," is the object of prayer.