Anubis
Anubis is the Egyptian god who opens the roads of the other world for the dead. Anubis is represented either as a black jackal with a bushy tail, wearing a collar of magickal force and sporting the lash of Osiris, or as a black-skinned man with the head of a jackal. Black represents the discoloration of the body as a result of the mummification process. Black is also the colour of the Nile silt which produced rich harvests. It hence has the connotation of rebirth in the afterlife.
Anubis invented funeral rites and performed the first mummification on the body of Osiris after he had been killed by Set. Anubis presided over funerals and ensured that offerings made by the living reached the dead. Afterwards, he took on the role of leading the dead into the presence of the judges before whom he would weigh their hearts. Anubis' role as the god of the dead won him a universal cult, while his association with Osiris assured the survival of the cult until the last days of the Egyptian religion.
Some Graeco-Egyptian magickians identified Anubis with Hermes, the Conductor of Souls into the afterlife (psychopomp), and gave him the compound name Hermanubis, portraying him bearing the caduceus. Other Graeco-Egyptian magickians saw him as a cosmic deity ruling over earth and sky, bringing light to humanity and manufacturing love potions. On the walls of the catacombs of Alexandria he was portrayed as an armour clad guard of Osiris with his lower body in the shape of a serpent.
Anubis is the traditional guardian against the forces of the lower astral, and as such it is prudent to call on him prior to astral travelling. He should also be invoked prior to surgery when the spirit or "ba" is separated from the physical body. He is called upon to find that which is lost. He is a source of comfort to those coping with bereavement and for those awaiting death.
Traditionally Graeco-Egyptian magickians contacted Anubis in visions either as a result of staring into a copper vessel filled with water and/or oil; or by wearing a black blindfold.
