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Her name literally means
"(female) of
throne", Her original headdress was an empty throne
chair belonging to her murdered husband,
Osiris. Her most important sanctuaries were at
Giza and at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta.
First mentions of Isis date back to the
Fifth dynasty of Egypt which is when the first
literary inscriptions are found, but her cult became
prominent late in Egyptian history, when it began to
absorb the cults of many other
goddesses. It eventually spread outside
Egypt throughout the
Middle East and the
Roman Empire, with temples dedicated to her built as
far away as the
British Isles. During the Hellenic era, due to her
attributes as a protector, and mother, and the lusty
aspect originally from
Hathor, she was also made the patron goddess of
sailors. |
Osiris the Egyptian God
of death and the underworld. |
The star
Spica (sometimes called Lute Bearer), and
the
constellation which roughly corresponded to the
modern
Virgo, appeared at a time of year associated
with the
harvest of
wheat and
grain, and thus with
fertility gods and goddesses. Consequently they
were associated with Hathor, and hence with Isis.
Isis also assimilated
Sopdet, the personification of
Sirius, since
Sopdet, rising just before the flooding of the
Nile, was seen as a bringer of fertility,
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Next
Age |
Crusading academic Camille Paglia, suggests a
reorientation in higher education to a discussion to address the
lack of a coherent cosmology in the present for the future.
Unfortunately few among her peer group share her view unlike
the field archetypal psychology where the search for the story
which resonates is a primary concern to all.
Cults and Cosmic Consciousness:
Religious Vision in the American 1960s by Camille Paglia
highly recommended |
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Osiris, Isis and Horus are the Egyptian Trinity.
When
a new cult was being developed or imposed, the priests who rose to power
often pushed the older deities upstairs by calling them “mother” or
“father” of the gods. They remained notionally in charge of their
offspring but practical honors were offered to their children. Osiris,
Isis and Horus were made co-equals in a holy family, while older gods
were pushed upstairs into obscurity, and another old Egyptian god Set
was discredited, and he was made the murderer of the popular Osiris, the
god equivalent in Egypt to Christ in Christendom.
The successor of Alexander the Great who inherited Egypt, Ptolemy I
(305-285 BC), aiming to continue the policy of spreading Greek culture
and religion syncretistically throughout the conquered lands, modified
the religion by introducing a Hellenised form of the Osiris and Isis
cult into Alexandria.
The new cult of Isis and Serapis seems to have been modeled on the
Eleusinian mysteries which had been popular for hundreds of years. The
hierophants of Eleusis were called Eumolpides and Ptolemy invited one of
these, Timothy, and a poet, Demetrius of Phaleron, to design a mystery
of Isis and Osiris based on the Eleusinian mysteries.
The consort of
Isis became Serapis instead of Osiris. Apis was already the god of the
bright world and Osiris the god of the dark world, combining the
dieties made a universal god, like Yehouah. The idea was that Greeks
and Egyptians could feel equally comfortable at worship and the
Ptolemaic Empire would be strengthened. The religion surpassed Ptolemy’s
best dreams and became a root of Christianity.
Cult
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“Everywhere in the Book of the Dead, the deceased is
identified with Osiris from 3400 BC to the Roman period,” E A Wallis
Budge wrote. After the New Kingdom (from 1570 BC)
initiates into the religion believed that they would enjoy
identification or communion with the god at death, thus
triumphing with him over death.
For those who have attained knowledge (gnosis), the blessed end is
deification. Thus everlasting life could be had by initiation or by
receiving knowledge by accepting a discourse (logos).
For the Egyptians, Serapis or Osiris was the Lord of life and death and
so the mystery cult was an important part of his worship. By
identifying himself with Osiris, the initiate became immortal.

The popularity of the cult was sustained for another four centuries,
based on its offer of immortality to its followers and its majestic
ceremonial. The last recorded festival of Isis was held in Rome in 394
AD but it was one of the last of the old faiths to die out, surviving
less flamboyantly—it was illegal—against the Christian onslaught until
the fifth century AD
“I am the Resurrection and the Life”
is
essentially what the Egyptians chanted about their god Osiris, the judge
of the dead. He had been slain by “the powers of darkness” embodied in
his wicked brother, Set. His sister and wife, Isis, had sought the
fragments of his body and put them together again and he had arisen from
the dead, and was enthroned in the world of souls, to judge every man
according to the weight of his works. The resurrection of Osiris was the
basis of the Egyptian’s firm hope of eternal life. Every year Egyptians
mourned for days over the slaying of Osiris and then rejoiced
exceedingly over his resurrection.
In Pompeii, the cult of Isis was one of the
most successful mystery cults. Her temple was quickly rebuilt
after the 62 A.D. earthquake which preceded the volcanic
eruption of 79 A.D. Her temple in the Roman town, situated near
the theatre, was surrounded by high walls, with the entrance
placed so that it was impossible to view the ceremonies from
outside. |
The
Mythic Story
 |
Nut, the sky goddess, was the spouse of Ra, the sun
god, who begot Osiris. By dallying with Thoth, the divine messenger, she
gave birth to Isis, and by dallying again with Seb, the earth-god, to
Set. Isis and Osiris so instinctively loved each other that they had
relations with each other, unwittingly in the divine mother’s womb.
Osiris and Isis were therefore brother and sister but, after the fashion
of the Pharaohs they married. Osiris became ruler of Egypt, which he
civilized, and he then set out to civilize the world.
The loving pair annoyed the prince of darkness, Set,
whose father, Seb, is the equivalent of the Roman Saturn. Osiris was
murdered by Set, who enticed Osiris to enter a handsome chest, fastened
it down with molten lead, and had it flung into the Nile. The desolated
Isis sought her brother and lover high and low. This search for the
missing god or goddess is a common feature, and was dramatically
represented in all the old mysteries. The chest was washed up on the
coast of Syria and became lodged in the trunk of a tree which grew to
such proportions that it was eventually cut down and used in as a column
of the palace at Byblos with the coffin inside the trunk. Isis
eventually found it there. After an interlude that smacks of the Demeter
and Brimos story, she took the chest and set the tree in a temple
swathed in linen like the tree of Attis.
Back in Egypt, Isis lay in the form of a hawk upon the
dead body of Osiris and thus miraculously conceived her son Horus. Or
she left the coffin at a place in Egypt while she went to see Horus. The
evil Set found the body of Osiris and tore it into fourteen pieces, and
scatted them. Isis painstakingly sought the parts of Osiris’s body and
Isis and Horus put them together. As the wings of Isis fluttered over
the corpse, Ra then reanimated him, and Osiris was resurrected. But, to
confuse Set, Isis effected to have each part buried where she found it,
which is why there were fourteen graves of Osiris in Egypt. But she
could not find a penis which the fishes had swallowed, and had to make a
synthetic one to conceive, in this version, their child Horus. Osiris
then reigned as the king of the dead while Horus reigned on earth. At
the core of this myth is a doctrine of a beneficent god slain by the
powers of darkness and rising again from the dead. |
The
search for Osirus takes Isis to Phoenicia
 |
The search
took Isis to Phoenicia where she met Queen Astarte. Astarte
didn't recognize the goddess and hired her as a nursemaid to the
infant prince.
Fond of the young boy, Isis decided to bestow immortality on
him. As she was holding the royal infant over the fire as part
of the ritual, the Queen entered the room. Seeing her son
smoldering in the middle of the fire, Astarte instinctively (but
naively) grabbed the child out of the flames, undoing the magic
of Isis that would have made her son a god.
When the Queen demanded an explanation, Isis revealed her
identity and told Astarte of her quest to recover her husband's
body. As she listened to the story, Astarte realized that the
body was hidden in the fragrant tree in the center of the palace
and told Isis where to find it.
Sheltering his broken body in her arms, the goddess Isis carried
the body of Osiris back to Egypt for proper burial. There she
hid it in the swamps on the delta of the Nile river.Unfortunately, Set came across the box one
night when he was out hunting. Infuriated by this turn of events
and determined not to be outdone, he murdered Osiris once again
. . . this time hacking his body into 14 pieces and throwing
them in different directions knowing that they would be eaten by
the crocodiles.
The goddess Isis searched and searched, accompanied by seven
scorpions who assisted and protected her. Each time she found
new pieces she rejoined them to re-form his body.
But Isis could only recover thirteen of the pieces. The
fourteenth, his penis, had been swallowed by a crab, so she
fashioned one from gold and wax. Then inventing the rites of
embalming, and speaking some words of magic, Isis brought her
husband back to life.
Magically, Isis then conceived a child with Osiris, and gave
birth to Horus, who later became the Sun God. Assured that
having the infant would now relieve Isis' grief, Osiris was free
to descend to become the King of the Underworld, ruling over the
dead and the sleeping.
His spirit, however, frequently returned to be with Isis and the
young Horus who both remained under his watchful and loving eye. |
Osirus-Dionysus
 |
The goal of
blending Platonism with the cult of Osiris's powerful myth of
his resurrection became more popular. However these
mystery religions valued fundamental truths for salvation of an
individual soul rather than the thaios or group soul. The
syncretic effort sought to blend the local god with Osirus
resulting in a series of gods who became known as Osiris-Dionysus.
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Isis worship was so widespread and popular in
the Roman Empire at the time of the foundation of Christianity that an
early Christian was able to write that some lands were full of the
“madness of Isis” and it is suggested that Claudius deliberately
promoted the cult of Cybele and Attis to temper its success and power.
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Anubis
(Anpu): the jackal-god, patron of embalmers, healers, and
surgeons; in both healing and mummification ceremonies, Anubis
was the patron deity which prepared the dead and healed the
living. Anubis is considered to be the great necropolis-god |

Thoth:
the ibis-headed god of Hermopolis; the scribe of the gods, the
inventor of writing, and the great god of all knowledge; the ape
as well as the ibis are sacred to him. In the judgment of the
dead he was the scribe who recorded the confessions and
affirmations of the dead on his scrolls, and also kept a record
of who went into paradise and who was eaten by the dogs of
judgment. |
Egyptian Osiris Harvest Festival |
The national festival of Osiris lasted
eighteen days and included a most elaborate ritual in the
temple. At Sais, one of the centers of the Osiris cult, this
myth was annually celebrated in November, the period of sowing
the corn in Egypt, in a sacred and solemn ceremony. Inscriptions
and bas-reliefs in the temples show that the image of Osiris was
buried, and in the end he was shown rising from his bier under
the spreading wings of Isis. The death of Osiris caused the Nile
to flood and the land to become fertile.
There were four days of mourning and
lamentation over the dead god, whose sufferings were represented
as a sacred drama on a lake at night, while the people lit lamps
to illuminate their houses and allowed to burn all night in
honour of the god in particular and the deceased in general.
This is reminiscent of the Christian festival of All Souls held
on November 1st between Halloween on October 31st and the Meso-American
holiday, Day of the Dead on November 2. which is now
celebrated throughout North America with altars honoring the
dead.
Among other things, candles are burnt all night in honour of the dead. Though the Church only
recognized this
ceremony in 998 AD, Sir James Frazer has shown that it was
simply incorporating the ancient Pagan custom. The festival of
All Saints held one day earlier was recognized in 835 AD and
undoubtedly has the same origin. |
The
search for Osirus takes Isis to
Astarte in Phoenicia
 |
The search
took Isis to Phoenicia where she met Queen Astarte. Astarte
didn't recognize the goddess and hired her as a nursemaid to the
infant prince.
 |
Astarte image on coin. She was an ancient [1200 BC]
principal goddess of the Phoenicians, representing the
productive power of nature. She was a lunar goddess and
was adopted by the Egyptian often pictured naked and
also associated with war. Her symbols were the lion, the
horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle
indicating the planet Venus. Astarte also was identified
with the lioness warrior goddess
Sekhmet |
Isis
in
hieroglyphs |
|
Fond of the young boy, Isis decided to bestow immortality on
him. As she was holding the royal infant over the fire as part
of the ritual, the Queen entered the room. Seeing her son
smoldering in the middle of the fire, Astarte instinctively (but
naively) grabbed the child out of the flames, undoing the magic
of Isis that would have made her son a god.
When the Queen demanded an explanation, Isis revealed her
identity and told Astarte of her quest to recover her husband's
body. As she listened to the story, Astarte realized that the
body was hidden in the fragrant tree in the center of the palace
and told Isis where to find it.
Sheltering his broken body in her arms, the goddess Isis carried
the body of Osiris back to Egypt for proper burial. There she
hid it in the swamps on the delta of the Nile river.
Unfortunately, Set came across the box one
night when he was out hunting. Infuriated by this turn of events
and determined not to be outdone, he murdered Osiris once again
. . . this time hacking his body into 14 pieces and throwing
them in different directions knowing that they would be eaten by
the crocodiles.
The goddess Isis searched and searched, accompanied by seven
scorpions who assisted and protected her. Each time she found
new pieces she rejoined them to re-form his body.
But Isis could only recover thirteen of the pieces. The

fourteenth, his penis, had been swallowed by a crab, so she
fashioned one from gold and wax. Then inventing the rites of
embalming, and speaking some words of magic, Isis brought her
husband back to life.
Magically, Isis then conceived a child with Osiris, and gave
birth to Horus, who later became the Sun God. Assured that
having the infant would now relieve Isis' grief, Osiris was free
to descend to become the King of the Underworld, ruling over the
dead and the sleeping.
His spirit, however, frequently returned to be with Isis and the
young Horus who both remained under his watchful and loving eye. |
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The names of the Great Mother are so
many: Inanna for the Sumerians, Ishtar for the Akkadians, Anat at Ugarit,
Atargatis in Syria, Artemis-Diana at Ephesus, Baubo at Priene,
Aphrodite-Venus at Cyprus, Rhea or Dictynna at Crete, Demeter at Eleusis,
Orthia at Sparta, Bendis in Thrace, Cybele at Pessinus, Ma in Cappadocia,
Bellona in Rome. The names for Isis are many more.
The last and future Great Goddess from Egypt is better known in the
passing great age of Pisces as the Black Madonna. Isis is the daughter
of Nut, goddess of the Sky, and of Geb, god of the Earth. Bride of
Osiris, killed by Seth, god of the desert, and risen from the death
thanks to the same Isis.
Isis is the nurturer of her son Horus within whom Osiris reincarnates
himself in Horus. The triad Isis, Osiris and Horus represents the
continuity of life, the victory over death, the life after death.
Isis represents the return of the Universe and the space age to the
story of who we are and where we came from. Isis is love. |
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A
sistrum is a percussion instrument. It has disks that make noise
when you rattle them. The carved head that is on the handle of
the sistrum, is Hathor, the goddess of music. A sistrum was used
in religious ceremonies and temple rituals. The sistrum kept the
beat for the orchestra, which consisted of harps, flutes, oboes,
clarinets, tambourines, and trumpets. The sistrum was played in
the Old Kingdom time period (2500 B.C.). It is still played
today in Ethiopian churches.
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Revel in pleasure while your life
endures
And deck your head with myrrh. Be richly clad
In white and perfumed linen; like the gods
Anointed be; and never weary grow
In eager quest of what your heard desires -
Do as it prompts you...
-- Lay of the Harpist
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"But the titanic, all-enveloping
sound of rock was produced by powerful, new amplification
technology that subordinated the mind and activated the body in
a way more extreme than anything seen in Western culture since
the ancient Roman Bacchanalia. Through
the sensory assault of that thunderous music, a whole generation
tapped into natural energies, tangible proof of humanity's link
to the cosmos."
--- Camille Paglia |
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Egyptian Bird Goddess
(Naquda culture, 3,500 BC |
Women in Ancient Egypt |
In Egypt, women
were much more free than their counterparts in other lands...
though they were not equal with men, both men and women in Egypt
accepted that everyone had their roles in ma'at (the natural
order of the universe)... and that the roles of men and women
were different.
"but the Egyptians
themselves, in most of their manners and customs, exactly the
reverse the common practices of mankind. For example, the women
attend the markets and trade, while the men sit at home and
weave at the loom... The women likewise carry burdens upon their
shoulders while the men carry them upon their heads... Sons need
not support their parents unless they chose, but daughters must,
whether they chose to or not."
-- Herodotus Book II, |
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The
Egyptians even believed in sex in the afterlife. Sex was not
taboo... Even the Egyptian religion was filled with tales of
adultery, incest, homosexuality and masturbation Masculinity and
femininity itself were strongly linked with the ability to
conceive and bear children. Taking after Isis, the mother
goddess of Horus, Egyptian women strove to be intelligent, wise,
mystical and mothers. Where her twin sister Nephthys was barren,
Isis was fertile. |
In 431 the Christian
bishops had gathered at Ephesus, the sacred city to the goddess
Artemis, one of the manifestations of the Great Mother. The
Council decreed that Mary, mother of Jesus, had to be called
Theotokos, Mater Dei, God's Mother. The
ancient title of the great goddess Isis. |
12 Days of Christmas
 |
The midwinter festival of the ancient
Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus (the prototype of the
earthly king) son of Isis (the divine mother-goddess). It was 12
days long, reflecting their 12-month calendar. This concept took
firm root in many other cultures.
It is based on what appears to
be a form of ancient zodiacal division of dividing the twelve
days into four quadrants of three days per quadrant. This was
done in the British Isles and it extended through Germany and
German Austria into western Europe.
From the weather on each of
the twelve days it was possible to divine the weather of each
successive month of the year. It was held to be accurate and
apply also to the Twelfth day itself where the weather on each
hour would determine the weather for the corresponding month.
The days were thus a system of divination for the year ahead in
its agricultural aspects.
In 567 AD, Christians adopted it. Church
leaders proclaimed the 12 days from December 25 to Epiphany as a
sacred, festive season. |
Easter
April Isis
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Eostre' the Germanic
goddess the Easter holiday is named after, is in the lineage of
Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love and fertility. This long
lineage also includes Isis, Venus and Aphrodite.
The month of
April, which is crowned by the major Christian spring holiday of Easter occurs is named after Aphrodite. Other names for
this archetype include Inanna, Diana, Astarte, Demeter,
Esther, and Freya and Africa's Iemanja. Freya is specifically honored on Good Friday,
the day named for her. |
Other contributions of the cult of Isis to early
Christianity was a compassionate caring goddess who wept for the
sorrows of mankind; the cult of Isis promised an afterlife. In
the cult of Serapis, the god was ritually killed every autumn
and rose again after three days. Initiation into this cult was
accomplished by a baptism with water. The depiction of the
mother Isis, seated holding or suckling the child Horus is
certainly
reminiscent of the iconography of Mary and Jesus. |
Frazer
holds:  |
The ritual of the nativity,
as it was celebrated in Syria and Egypt was
remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines
from which at midnight they issued a loud cry,
The Virgin has
brought forth! The Light is waxing!
(Cosmas
Hierosolymitanus, see fn. 3 to p. 303)
No doubt the Virgin who thus
conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the
great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly
Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess; in Semitic lands she was
a form of Astarte
The ecstatic frenzies
which were mistaken for divine inspiration, the mangling of the
body and the theory of a new birth and the remission of sin
through the shedding of blood, have all their origin in savagery
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Marble head of a Ptolemaic queen with Vulture headdress - 1st
century B.C.
Musei Capitolini, Rome |
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