The author of the Book of Am Duat has dealt with the heaven of Osiris as he has done with the Hades of Sokaris. Osiris and his paradise have been transported bodily to the nocturnal path of the sun-god, and condemned to receive what little light is henceforth allowed them from the nightly passage of the solar bark. Thoth guides the bark to the city which contains the tomb of Osiris, that mysterious house wherein are the four human forms of the god. On the way the serpent Neha-hir has to be overcome; he is but another form of the serpent Apophis, the enemy of Ra, who thus takes the place of Set, the enemy of Osiris. When the sixth region is passed, which is a sort of vestibule to the "retreat" of Osiris in the seventh, other enemies of Osiris--of whom, however, the Osirian doctrine knew but little--are being put to death in true solar fashion. Perhaps the most noteworthy fact in this description of the kingdom of Osiris is, that not only all the gods of the Osirian cycle are relegated to it, including the hawk Horus, but also the Khû or luminous manes and the ancient kings of Upper and Lower Egypt. The fact points unmistakably to the great antiquity of the Osirian creed. It went back to a time when as yet the Egyptian monarchy was not united, and when the _khû_ or luminous soul held the same place in Egyptian thought as had been held at an earlier time by the _ka_ and later by the soul or _ba_. So undoubted was the fact that the old Pharaohs of primeval Egypt had died in the Osirian faith, that the author of the Book of Am Duat could not disregard it; he was forced to place the predecessors of a Seti or a Ramses, for whom the book was copied, in one of the murky regions of the other world instead of in the solar bark. They had been followers of Osiris and not of Ra, and there was accordingly no place for them in the boat of the sun-god.
Osiris is thus subordinated to the sun. The god of the dead is not allowed to rule even in his own domains. Such light and life as are graciously permitted to him come from the passing of the solar bark once in each twenty-four hours. He has lost the bright and happy fields of Alu, he has had to quit even the judgment-hall where he decided the lot of man. Osiris and his creed are deposed to make way for another god with another and a lower form of doctrine.