Akh Ascension Alchemy: Indigenous African Healing System for Foundational Black Americans

Written by Minister Dr. Akila Ka Ma'at

Healing in Ancient Egypt began with a person’s knowledge of who they were. Chapter 25 of the Book of the Dead, a collection of Ancient Egyptian sacred texts, records the request “Let me remember my name” (Renouf & Naville, 1904). Desiring to keep the Ren, the name counted as a living part of the person (Ma’at, 2026). For foundational Black people of the United States of America (USA), that request has a specific history, because enslavers assigned new names to the Africans they held in bondage. Remembering one’s name today means recovering knowledge of one’s origin, people, and worth that enslavers in the USA worked to erase. That work of recovery defines my path as a scholar and spiritualist.

I am Minister Dr. Akila Ka Ma’at, a spiritual teacher, melanin metaphysician, and alchemist, ordained interfaith minister, author, and speaker. Before this work, I earned a PhD in Socio-Behavioral Health Communication Sciences. Over nearly three decades, I worked in public health research, university teaching, and nonprofit leadership. Across those years and since, I have published more than 50 articles, books, and ebooks. My newest book, Born From Darkness, launching December 21, 2026, is third in my trilogy from hurt, through release, to shining. Audiences have heard me speak at more than 150 national and international events, virtual and in person, including spiritual centers, practice-based retreats, and workshops. Those credentials still leave open the question of why I teach melanin healing through Ancient Africa.

The answer comes from my own life. My academic research career and my chronic exposure to racism became the catalyst for my spiritual reawakening and personal transformation. The search for healing, affirmation, and transformation led me to a sustained study of the metaphysics and bioscience of melanin, ancient Nubia spirituality, and Kemet. In 2023, I wrote a white paper titled, Intuitive Melanin Metaphysics (Ma’at, 2018, 2026). This work presented a model of melanin’s cosmic, planetary, and spiritual, outlining diverse melanin gifts of heightened consciousness and being. Its applied path, the Akh Ascension™, describes the person as nine bodies of light and nine body energy healing. Throughout this study, personal practice, and the lack of public visibility of spirituality indigenous to Kem, the predominant healing systems readily available come from other people, groups. This pattern is a large part of the reason I developed and practice healing through Ancient African sources alone, which is Akh Ascension Alchemy™.

Ancient Egyptian texts name the people this healing serves. The writers of those texts called themselves Rmt, meaning people, and called their land Kmt, or Kemet, the black land. In this essay, Kem is used for foundational Black people in the United States of America. This article posits that ancient African energy healing gives foundational Kem an indigenous alchemy of their own. To arrive at that point, there is a deep dive into the Kemetic spiritual system, including the individual, nine bodies of light, and seven energy centers. We must actively engage in the essential act of reclaiming our innate metaphysical power and spiritual authority that religion and other spiritual systems strip away or can not address because they were not created to cultivate, facilitate, activate, and sustain the divine power of melanin and the people it blesses.

Indigenous African Spiritual Systems

Human spirituality began in Africa, which Edward Bruce Bynum (2021) identifies as the origin of human mysticism and psychology. As people migrated out of Africa, the newly settled regions cultivated the seeds of ancient African spirituality and metaphysics over time into a distinct, indigenous spiritual system given life by the language, cosmology, and ontology of those peoples. Those adaptations became each region’s indigenous spiritual and healing systems. Each of these systems was first and foremost for its own use among the people of that land. The same principle applies to the systems that reach foundation Kem.

America holds a plethora of East and Southeast Asian spiritual systems and European religions. None of them is indigenous to rmt kmt. A healing system names the parts of the person, explains how those parts lose balance, and prescribes how to restore them. Each of these systems does that work through, not always empirically based, explanations of what is beingness (ontology-nature of reality/Divine Intelligence) and why things begin and/or change (cosmological-nature of universe) of the people who developed it. For that reason, these systems can’t properly heal foundational Kem or awaken the innate metaphysical power and spiritual authority they hold. 

African spirituality traveled with the people who left Africa. Each region adapted it into a healing system for its own people, in its own language. Foundational Kem need a system that describes them in terms indigenous to Africa. While there are many native spiritual systems across Africa, Ancient Egypt and Nubia left the oldest surviving written record of that system (Ma’at, 2026). That record begins with an account of how the universe came into being.

The Universe and the Person of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt understood the universe, the person, and knowledge. Before creation, Nun, a dark and limitless body of water, held every possibility (Allen, 1988). In the creation account from Memphis, the god Ptah conceived the world as thought in his heart and then created it by speaking with his tongue (Allen, 1988). Creation in this account moves in a fixed order from thought to word to form. A person who understands that order treats their repeated thoughts and spoken words as forces that direct action. Ptah’s creation also brought forth the Neteru.

English writers usually translate Neteru as gods, though Ashby (2007) describes them as natural forces of divine power. Ma’at, the principle of justice, order, truth, balance, and harmony holds those forces in right relation and served as the ethical standard for how Ancient Egyptians treated one another (Karenga, 2004). Isfet, the force of disorder, works against Ma’at. A person lives in Ma’at when their thoughts, words, and actions agree with one another and with truth. Within an individual, Isfet appears as chaos between what a person knows and what that person does. Restoring Ma’at therefore requires an accurate description of the person who has lost it.

A person is described as a set of distinct parts, or layers, rather than one body that contains a soul. The Intuitive Melanin Metaphysics (Ma’at, 2020; 2026) framework organizes the layers as the nine bodies of light. The bodies are organized within Gates . A person can keep a healthy physical body and still carry harm in, for instance, the name (Ren), the heart (Ib), one’s purpose (Ba) or the life force (Ka). Energy healing in this framework therefore attends to all nine bodies. Among them, the heart holds a special place, because Ancient Egyptians located knowledge there.

Ib, the heart, holds a person’s thought and character (Ma’at, 2026). Ashby (2007) identifies Saa, divine understanding, and Hu, divine speech, as the heart and tongue of the divine Self. The phrase rech-i em ib-i translated as “I know what is in my heart” (p. 44) places self-knowledge inside the person rather than in the approval of others. Foundational Kem often receive definitions of themselves from schools, media, and employers that others strive to control perceptions of self and others. Kemet returns the authority to define the self to the person’s heart. Knowledge in the heart becomes effective through a force called heka.

Ancient Egypt treated heka as a real power, present at creation and available to people through speech and ritual. Chapter 144 of the Book of the Dead describes a traveler who must pass seven gates, each with a keeper whose name the traveler must know. The speaker passes because “he knows your names” (Renouf & Naville, 1904). Correct knowledge, spoken aloud, opens each gate. For a living person, this means moving past an obstacle, such as fear, exhaustion, or an absorbed belief, once they can name it accurately. In energy healing, I identify the specific blockage in a specific center and address it with hekau, words spoken, along with breath and intention, practices of Ancient Egyptian healing accounts.

These written records connect creation to healing in one sequence. Ma’at holds the Neteru, the forces of creation, in balance. The person exists as nine bodies of light, with knowledge seated in the heart. Heka turns that knowledge into effect when a person names and speaks with accuracy. Healing, in these terms, returns every part of the person to Ma’at. Such a return depends on life force moving freely along a path that Ancient Egypt places at the spine.

The Tree of Life and Its Seven Centers

Ashby (2007) links these centers to the seven spheres that the Kenna Papyrus, an Ancient Egyptian scroll, shows on the shaft of Ma’at’s balance scale. He describes the centers as points that regulate the flow of Sekhem, the life force, and teaches that a person must open and purify them. Sekhem, which means power, names the life force as a whole, the power at the neck, and one of the nine bodies of light. The full path is called the Tree of Life, or Khet en Ankh. All seven centers sit along a structure that Ancient Egypt represented with the djed (spine). 

In Ashby’s reading, the djed is the subtle, non-physical spine along which life force rises (p. 44). Chapter 155 of the Book of the Dead speaks over a djed of gold: “Here is thy backbone, thou still-heart!” (Renouf & Naville, 1904). Still-heart names a person whose heart no longer moves with life. This chapter gives that person a spine so that they can stand again. For a living person, the line describes recovery from exhaustion faced by many foundational Kem. Energy healing therefore begins at the base of the spine, where the djed stands.

Sefekht, whose name means seven, sits at that base and holds all seven powers in unity. Tekh, below the navel, governs absorption and creative energy. What a person takes in through food, media, and relationships shapes what that person creates. Ab, below the breastbone, holds will and desire, the forces that move a person toward a goal. Kheper, the power of transformation and second birth, sits at the center of the chest. Ashby (2007) separates the three lower spheres, which govern the lower nature, from the four upper spheres, which govern higher consciousness (p. 134). The heart center therefore marks the point where grounding work ends and the work of the upper centers begins. Above the heart, Sekhem, the power of the divine word, sits at the neck.

In chapter 23 of the Book of the Dead a Neter is asked to remove “the muzzles which are upon my mouth be loosed” to free speech (Renouf & Naville, 1904). Many Black people in America edit their speech and opinions to meet standards that others set. Opening the throat center restores a person’s full voice. Mer, between the eyebrows, governs inner vision, which Ancient Egypt associated with the Eye of Heru. Ikh (or Akh), at the top of the head, unites the powers below it. The seven serpent powers named as these seven spheres, manifest as one body of a person when reawakened.

Reclamation is the purpose of clearing the seven centers. The centers sit along the djed, the subtle spine, and regulate the flow of Sekhem. Each center governs a specific power, from Sefekht at the base to Ikh at the crown. Energy healing opens and purifies the centers so that the seven powers can work as one. Those seven centers supply the nine bodies of light, which Akh Ascension Alchemy™ organizes into three gates.

Three Gates and Nine Bodies of Light

The three gates of the Akh Ascension and how each draws on the seven centers was adapted based on the gate structure from Chapters 144 to 147 of the Book of the Dead, where a person passes guarded gates through knowledge (Ma’at, 2026). The graphic (click for larger image) lists the bodies in each gate and the center that supplies each one. A person moves through the gates in order, because the work of each gate prepares the person for the next (Ma’at, 2026). Work in the Gate of Ka begins with the life force a person inherits.

The Ka passes to a person through the bloodline (Ma’at, 2026). Chapter 105 addresses it directly: “Hail to thee, my Ka … let me have strength and soundness” (Renouf & Naville, 1904). Its speaker greets the Ka as a lifelong companion and asks it to keep the person strong and whole. For foundational Kem the bloodline includes ancestors who survived enslavement and its aftermath. Reconnecting with the Ka allows a person to use that endurance as a living resource. Life force for the Ka comes from the Ab center below the breastbone, while the Sefekht energy center at the base of the spine supplies the Khat, the physical body. Restoring the Ib, the heart, through the Kheper center in the chest completes the Gate of Ka by bringing thoughts, words, and actions back into agreement.

The Gate of Ba turns to the parts of the self that others have renamed, hidden, or restricted. First among these is the Ren, which draws life force from the Sekhem center at the neck. Ancient Egyptians held that speaking a name keeps its bearer alive (Ma’at, 2026). Names still affect how others treat a person. Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) found that employers called back résumés with names associated with caucasian applicants 50 percent more often than otherwise identical résumés with names associated with African American applicants. Ren work restores a person’s relationship to their name. Beside the name, the Shut, or shadow, holds the parts of the self that a person learned to hide.

Ancient Egyptians treated the Shut as a protected part of the person rather than something to expel (Ma’at, 2026). Its life force comes from the Tekh energy center below the navel. Life force from the Mer center between the eyebrows and the Ikh center at the crown supplies the Ba, the soul-personality that travels between worlds. Chapter 92 asks, “imprison not my Soul, put not in custody my Shade” (Renouf & Naville, 1904), petitioning that no one confine the soul or the shadow. Today, scarcity, fear, and the rules of others can confine a person’s purpose and the self they keep hidden. Freeing the Ba and integrating the Shut completes the Gate of Ba. Finally, the Gate of Akh gathers the remaining bodies at the crown.

The Sahu, the Sekhem, and the Akh all draw life force from the Ikh energy center at the crown. Chapter 136B gives the declaration “I am the Sāhu, the Lord of Maāt, the creator of every Dawn” (Renouf & Naville, 1904). Its speaker identifies with the spiritual body, aligns it with Ma’at, and claims the power to begin each day as a creator. A person who knows the self beneath their circumstances acts from that identity instead of from labels that others assign. In Akh Ascension Alchemy™, the Akh forms when the Ka and the Ba unite (Ma’at, 2026). That union is the aim of all three gates.

Reaching that union requires moving through the gates in sequence. The Gate of Ka restores the body, the inherited life force, and the heart, while the Gate of Ba frees the name, the shadow, and the soul-personality. In the Gate of Akh, the spiritual body, directed power, and radiant spirit unite at the crown. A closed center reduces the life force that reaches those bodies (Ashby, 2007). Akh Ascension Alchemy™ clears the centers, restoring the flow to all nine bodies and disrupting the impact of specific conditions that foundational Kem face today.

Akh Ascension Alchemy™ Matters for Foundational Kem

Akh Ascension Alchemy™ is the synergy of the seven energy centers and nine bodies of light reclaiming melanin power unique to melanated beings. Centering melanin in this way is a stark contrast to  the ongoing oppression of foundational Kem, opening space for reclamation of the divine Kem identity understood long before caucasians hid that heritage. Many foundational Kem do not know who they are or the spiritual authority they hold. We follow rules and standards that other groups set. Our Ka supports systems that don’t serve us, reducing the life force at the Ab energy center. Scarcity, money, materialism, fear, and pain direct their Ba away from its purpose. 

The reason the Book of the Dead is the basis of this healing practice is because its passages give clarity, divine insight, and liberation for melanated beings. In my sessions, this knowledge becomes energy healing that I perform with each client’s nine bodies of light. Each session works toward seven outcomes: a freed voice, directed life force, clear purpose, spiritual authority, self-sovereignty, healthy self-worth, and personal peace. These outcomes restore an energy center and divine resonance to the body of light weakened by chronic exposure to pathogenic conditions and environments. A freed voice comes from the throat center and the Ren, while directed life force comes from a restored Ka. Spiritual authority follows from the unity of the Akh at the crown. What remains is what this healing means for those who seek it, practice it, and authentically active it in daily life.

Conclusion

A seeker of Ancient African energy healing should approach healing as work on all nine bodies of light rather than on one layer. That approach begins with self-knowledge in the heart, which the phrase rech-i em ib-i names. It continues with a practitioner who reads the seven centers and nine bodies together from Ancient African sources of melanin power. Learning the names of the bodies and powers also helps a seeker, because accurate naming is the basis of heka, real power, present at creation and available through speech. Practitioners have a matching responsibility. As a practitioner of Ancient African energy healing, my work is to assess every center and body rather than treat the person as one layer. 

Practitioners of Akh Ascension Alchemy™ understand the Book of the Dead as instruction for the living and speak hekau, words spoken with knowledge of their meaning. Ma’at serves as the standard for every session, which means practitioners offer capacities and practices rather than guaranteed outcomes. Above all, practitioners serving foundational Kem of the United States of America work from the same sources that describe Kem as divine power. When seekers and practitioners hold to these principles, Ancient African energy healing returns all nine bodies of the layered person to Ma’at.

Minister Dr. Akila Ka Ma’at  

Melanin Metaphysics · The Original Chakras · www.power-prophet.com

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The 2027 Akh Ascension Journey

The 2027 Akh Ascension Journey guides a person through all three gates and all nine bodies of light over twelve months with Kmt energy healing, the Ancient Egyptian energy healing I practice. Participants use reflection, meditation, daily tracking, and energy healing to remove blockages across the nine bodies of light. Each person who successfully completes the 12-month journey receives a certificate of recognition and the Akh Ascension Alchemist™ Level 2 Practitioner Certification. That certification recognizes intermediate knowledge, understanding, and proficiency in the nine bodies of light and Kmt energy healing. Enroll in the Journey

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References

Allen, J. P. (1988). Genesis in Egypt: The philosophy of ancient Egyptian creation accounts. Yale Egyptological Seminar.

Ashby, M. (2007). The Kemetic tree of life: Ancient Egyptian metaphysics and cosmology for higher consciousness. Sema Institute/Cruzian Mystic Books.

Assmann, J. (2005). Death and salvation in ancient Egypt (D. Lorton, Trans.). Cornell University Press. (Original work published 2001)

Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review, 94(4), 991–1013. https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002561

Bynum, E. B. (2021). Our African unconscious: The Black origins of mysticism and psychology. Inner Traditions.

Geronimus, A. T., Hicken, M., Keene, D., & Bound, J. (2006). “Weathering” and age patterns of allostatic load scores among Blacks and Whites in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 96(5), 826–833. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.060749

Karenga, M. (2004). Maat, the moral ideal in ancient Egypt: A study in classical African ethics. Routledge.

Ma’at, A. K. (2026). Intuitive melanin metaphysics: The founding framework of Melanin Metaphysics™ and the Akh Ascension™ (2nd ed.) [White paper]. Power Prophet LLC. https://www.power-prophet.com

Nobles, W. W. (2006). Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational writings for an African psychology. Third World Press.

Renouf, P. le P., & Naville, E. (Trans.). (1904). The Egyptian book of the dead: Translation and commentary. Society of Biblical Archaeology. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69566

Ritner, R. K. (1993). The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc54.pdf