Seven Sacred Oils & Chakras

The Seven Sacred Oils & The Chakras

by R. Shane Clayton
(c) 2025 Wandering Stars Publishing

Vessels-2

7) Hat en Tjhenu — “Best Libyan"
6) Hat en Ash — “Best Cedar”
5) Tuat — “Support”
4) Nekhenem — “Rejoining”
3) Sefet — “Fir”
2) Hekehenu — “Jubilation”
1) Seti Heb — “Festival Scent”

From the hazy proto-dynastic days before 3200 BCE to the official closing of the last operating temple in 537 BCE, the Egyptians consistently recognized seven primary varieties of sacred anointing oils, representing each with a jar of a different shape, a heiroglyph in form to identify the jar's contents - as shown.

THE SEVEN SACRED OILS of ANCIENT EGYPT
The “Seven Sacred Oils” is a term used by Egyptologists based upon the archaeological evidence of temple inscriptions, tomb art, oil palettes, vessels, and papyri spanning the 3,700-year history of ancient Egypt. These seven oils were known collectively as Merhet, a generic Egyptian word for vegetable oils used especially for fragrant cosmetics and consecrated anointing oils.
𓎯The word for Merhet was represented by the single distinctive jar-shaped hieroglyph above, and cylindrical alabaster jars of this shape were the predominant storage vessels of choice for sacred Merhet throughout Egyptian history.

The oldest of these surviving jars, dated to pre-dynastic times, were found in tunnels and chambers deep under the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, many of them carved with bafflingly high precision from extremely hard stone — Pre-Dynastic Pharaonic heirlooms that were passed down for generations, some roughly inscribed with a later New Kingdom Pharoah's cartouche nearly two millennia after they were created.
Early sources state that the anointing of the deceased entailed “pouring” of the consecrated oils on the head and upon areas of the body corresponding to their “Seven Souls,” assumed to be based upon the seven-fold proportion standard of the Egyptian bas-relief carvings and paintings of the human form. These seven are incorporated and manifest in life together as the physical body, which dies, releasing two pairs: the Sah and Ba, the Shut and Ka.
The Seven Souls, their Hieroglyphs, and their representative Seven Sacred Oils:

7) 𓅜 The Akh — the magically effective Spirit or Body of Light — Hat en Tjhenu oil

6) 𓂓 The Ka — the vital spark, the Witness or Inner Genius — Hat en Ash oil

5) 𓀾 The Shut — the Shadow — Tuat (Duat) oil

4) 𓄣 The Ib (or Ab) — the Heart, center of thought and emotions — Nekhenem oil

3) 𓊸 The Ba — the Soul, will, or personality — Sefet oil

2) 𓅭 The Sah — the spiritual or dreaming body — Hekhenu oil

1) 𓆱 The Khat (or Khet) — the earthly physical body — Seti Heb oil

Those familiar with the seven Chakras and their associated perfumes in the Hindu religion may wish to compare the two systems along with the Egyptian 3 x 7 division proportional guidelines for the human form in temple and tomb art.
7_chakras_Lotus_Palace_Cairo

The photo above is of a Chakra chart painted on papyrus under the cracked glass of a table top at the Lotus Palace in Cairo, Egypt, March 2018. My museum guide Dr. Sherif had introduced me to the Seven Sacred Oils over coffee and took me to the nearby shop where the proprietor Ali showed me a well-worn scanned photocopy of an Old Kingdom oil palette with fingertip-sized depressions for each oil, labeled in heiroglyphs.

He claimed that the ancient Hindus and Egyptians shared similar beliefs, and explained how the Seven Souls and Seven Chakras were surprisingly similar and crossover. He said that while we don't know what exactly what was in the ancient seven oils (I soon found out that we do), we can be sure that Blue 'Lotus' was at the top. While he was only partially correct about Blue 'Lotus', he was spot on about the uncanny correspondenses. Of course, I bought a set of his delightful Hindu Chakra oils or "attars."
A few days later while marveling in the Hypostyle Hall of the Horus Temple at Edfu with my Luxor guide Omar Ali, I quizzed him about the Seven Sacred Oils, and with a look of surprise he said, "Right this way..." and directed me into the "laboratory" chamber where the ingredients of the Seven Sacred Oils were listed, along with two recipes for the Kepu or Kyphi incense. He wasn't sold on the Chakra correspondence, but did show me where the Seven Sacred Oils and Incense were presented in the fabulous Temple of Seti I at Abydos. And the rest is, well, history.

The correspondences ARE surprising and mutually supportive. Add to these the Hebrew divisions of the soul, which can range from 3 to 7, which are also worthy of comparison and contemplation in this regard. These similar divisions, functions, and proportions deserve a separate article of their own, no doubt.
More on the Akh from Wikipedia:

“The akh or ꜣḫ " (magically) effective one,” was a concept of the dead that varied over the long history of ancient Egyptian belief. Relative to the afterlife, the akh represented the deceased, who was transfigured and often identified with light.

It was associated with thought, but not as an action of the mind; rather, it was intellect as a living entity. The akh — ꜣḫ also played a role in the afterlife. Following the death of the khat — ẖt (physical body), the ba — bꜣ and ka — kꜣ were reunited to reanimate the akh ꜣḫ. The reanimation of the akh ꜣḫ was only possible if the proper funeral rites were executed and followed by constant offerings. The ritual was termed sa-akh, s-ꜣḫ "make (a dead person) into an (living) akh ꜣḫ.”

In her “Akh — A Religious Concept in Pharaonic Egypt “ (1978) the Egyptologist Gertrud Englund summarizes the Akh as:

“the effective one... a glorious and shining spirit which has risen up to the heavenly realm to enjoy the eternal life... the consciousness or immaterial part of the person after the transfiguration of the Ba.”

The Egyptologists Jan Assmann and Massimiliano Nuzzolo tell us that:

“the ceremony was principally directed to effecting a spiritual transformation and interchange between two of the main immaterial forms of all human beings (including gods and pharaohs), the Ba and the Akh. This passage could be realized only if the living being, either reborn (the mummy) or created for the first time (the statue), would have harbored the divine spirit or vital spark of the Universe, the so-called Ka. The latter, joining the Ba, i.e. the soul, allowed the rebirth of the person in the afterlife and the reaching of the state of the perfect spirit — the Akh.”

(per Jan Assmann — “The Search For God in Ancient Egypt,” 2001, Massimiliano Nuzzolo — “Man Approaching God,” 2013).
This all points to a powerful and authentic method of application of the ancient Egyptian's Sacred Science of Scent in aromatherapy, meditation, and spiritual practices such as have been explored at Wandering Stars and by my clients and customers over the past five years.
See my Article: The Seven Sacred Oils

'The Egyptian' Sacred Scents

The Seven Sacred Oils & The Chakras