The Underworld to the ancient Egyptians signified the higher dimensional etheric realm that was the domain of the souls of the deceased and which was ruled over by their revered god Osiris. Before entering, the dead would request permission from the Aker to make their journey to this dimension beyond. Unlike the Judaeo-Christian concept of hell, the Underworld did not carry the negative connotations of a realm where souls were condemned to eternal punishment. Rather it was a domain where souls continued their journey after death with the aim of reaching a paradisical state if they successfully avoided pitfalls along the way.

The Aker is believed to be one of the oldest gods in the Egyptian cosmogony. Yet, as a symbol it embodies a highly sophisticated concept of the nature of existence. It embraces the idea that the totality of existence is multidimensional, and extends far beyond our physical three dimensional universe, the domain of sight and sound. In fact, this “higher realm” may contain an infinite hierarchy of dimensions and types of being. The sphinx, whose body crouches on the surface of the Earth, symbolizes a kind of stargate portal to this higher dimensional afterlife domain. In some ways it resembles the concept of the stargate monolith in Arthur C. Clark’s novel 2001: