Category Archives: History of Isis

Is Isis a Virgin Goddess?

Seen this about a million times? Yeah, me, too.

It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.

Recently, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.

Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.

We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)

So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?

Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.

Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.

Perhaps no text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi texts. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least they think that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.
The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Clearly, Isis is syncretized with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?

The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women, or young men for that matter, be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity with demanded, especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh, especially for women.

This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.

This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.

The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses and usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Ramesses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.

Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the inscriptions from the Isis Chapel at Abydos. In Egyptian, this is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the Egyptian name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmou here, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young. A young boy or youth is hunu.

Parthenogenesis was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves alone. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God.

So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. On this holy day and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.

The Divine Bread of Isis

I offer bread to the Goddess — Offering bread to the Goddess

Here in the famously cloudy Pacific Northwest, I find myself thinking of a hot bowl of soup and a slice, well buttered, of bread. So today, I write today in honor of bread—both as a worthy offering to Isis and Her Divine family and as a powerful symbol of transformation.

Indeed, the offering tables of ancient Egypt fairly groaned beneath the weight of loaves of offered bread. In tomb paintings you can see them, baked into neat, conical or oval shapes and piled high upon the altars. “Thousands of loaves” were promised to Deities and deceased pharaohs. Excavations have shown that actual loaves of bread were among the grave goods of kings and commoners alike. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased declares he will live on the bread of the Goddesses and Gods.

An offering table with the bread and wine already on it — An offering table with the round loaves of bread and pitchers of wine already and eternally upon it

As in so many places in the world, bread in ancient Egypt was a basic, even archetypal, food and the grain from which it was made, an essential, as well as symbolic, food crop. To the ancient Egyptians, a loaf of bread came to symbolize all types of food offerings and all good things.

Both Isis and Osiris are strongly connected with bread and the grain from which it is made. A number of Isis’ epithets attest to this. She is the Lady of Bread and Beer, Lady of Green Crops, Goddess of the Fertility of the Field, and the Lady of Abundance. (And by “bread and beer” the Egyptians meant more than just a sandwich wrapper and a drink. The phrase meant every good thing; Egyptians would even greet each other by saying, “bread and beer,” thus wishing each other prosperity.)

Lady and Lord of Abundance — Lady and Lord of Green Crops

For Osiris’ part, like so many Gods, He is identified with the cycle of the living and dying grain. The Coffin Texts connect Osiris and grain with immortality: “I am Osiris . . . I live and grow as Neper [“Corn” or “Grain”], whom the august gods bring forth that I may cover Geb [the earth], whether I be alive or dead. I am barley, I am not destroyed.” The texts also tell us that the deceased, identified with Osiris as the Divine grain, nourishes the common people, makes the Gods Divine, and “spiritualizes” the spirits. Thus bread and grain are more than just bodily sustenance; they are spiritual sustenance as well.

I am emmer wheat and I will not die — I live and grow as Grain…

Temple walls show grain growing out of the body of the dead Osiris while His soul hovers above the stalks. But it is not enough that the grain sprouts and grows. It must also be transformed so that Osiris Himself may also be transformed. And, as in the main Isis and Osiris myth, the Goddess is the one Who transforms the God. In the myth, She does this by reassembling His body and fanning life into Him with Her wings. Using the grain metaphor, Isis becomes the Divine Baker Who transforms the raw grain into the risen and nourishing bread. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased person asks for a funeral meal of “the cake that Isis baked in the presence of the Great God.”

Emmer wheat, the most common type from which the ancient Egyptians made bread

As a symbol of transformation and ongoing life, grain has magical properties. Some of the funerary texts have the deceased rubbing her body with barley and emmer wheat in order to partake of these magically transforming properties.

In several temples where important festivals of Osiris were held, the priests made a complex form of bread, called Divine Bread, that was molded in the shape of Osiris. (In fact, the ancient Egyptians were quite adept at using molds to bake bread in a variety of shapes and forms.) The Osirian Divine Bread was made from grain and a special paste consisting of ingredients such as Nile mud, dates, frankincense, fresh myrrh, 12 spices with magical properties, 24 precious gems, and water.

A "corn Osiris" ... perhaps molded like the Divine Bread — A “corn Osiris” … perhaps molded like the larger Divine Bread of Mendes?

At Denderah, this Divine Bread was modeled into the shapes of the pieces of the body of Osiris and sent to the various cities in which Isis was said to have enshrined them.

At Mendes (which is where, we must note, the phallus of Osiris was enshrined), a sacred marriage was part of the Osirian celebrations. It took place between the Goddess Shontet, a form of Isis, and Osiris as the grain. In the Goddess’ holy of holies, Her sacred statue was unclothed and grain was strewn on a special bed before Her. After allowing some time for the Goddess and God to unite, the grain was gathered up, then wrapped in cloth, watered, and used to model a full-body figure of Osiris Khenti-Amenti (“Osiris, Chief of the West,” that is, the Land of the Dead). Finally, Osiris the Divine Bread was buried with full ceremony, including a priestess who took the role of Isis to mourn Him and work the transforming magic of the Goddess.

Several ancient writers describe an entirely different type of bread also associated with Isis. It is lotus bread. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians who lived in the Delta gathered the lotuses that grow profusely there. They dried the centers containing the seeds then pounded them into flour that was made into bread. Lotus-seed bread was made from both the white and the blue water lilies. The lily rhizomes were also used; they were dried, then ground into flour for bread making—though the rhizome version was likely to have been less palatable than the seed bread. In Diodorus’ account of Egyptian prehistory, he mentions that lotus bread was one of the Egyptian subsistence foods and that the “discovery of these is attributed by some to Isis.”

Isis is the Lady of Abundance Who gives us the bread of earthly life; and She is the Divine Baker Who makes the magical bread that gives us eternal life. She is the Goddess Who regenerates the Grain God as She guides the transformation of Her Beloved from the threshed grain into the ever-living Green God Osiris. She is the Goddess of Divine Bread Who feeds our bodies and souls and Her sacred bread is a pleasing offering to Isis, Goddess of Transformation.

Let’s get baking!

Fierce Isis

Screen Shot 2020-06-07 at 10.56.04 AM — Photo by OmarPhotos.com. See more work here.

As Weret Hekau, Great of Magic, Isis’ magical “push” can be powerful indeed. If you are inclined to your own magical pushing every now and then (as I am), let me suggest one thing first: connection to Great Isis before any other Work.

Commune with Her about your purpose. Ask Her advice. Many of us are feeling anger right now, and while anger is not necessarily out of place in magic (as you will see in the upcoming tale), it can be blinding and cause us to make mistakes. Centering in Her Divinity will always help us see more clearly.

That said, as you know, Isis is not all sweetness and light. So today, we have an Isis story that shows Her fierce and fiery aspect and which you may not have heard before.

This is a tale of Isis the Avenger and it is from the Papyrus Jumilhac. The only publication of the papyrus has been in French (which is why English readers probably haven’t heard the tale). Via the blessings of interlibrary loan, I was able to borrow the French text.

The Papyrus Jumilac is about 23 “pages” long. It is a Ptolemaic text (approximately 2nd century BCE) but it was found in Upper Egypt and records some thoroughly Egyptian myths. It may have been a sort of training manual for the priesthood of the 17th and 18th nomes and tells stories connected with the local landmarks. Our Isis story from it is a tale of transformations, and in it, Isis changes Herself into a hound, a uraeus serpent, Hathor, and Sakhmet—all in Her pursuit of and revenge upon the murderer of Her husband.

The Papyrus Jumilhac may have been for the training of the priesthood in the 17th and 18th ancient Egyptian nomes.

Herewith is the tale of Isis the Fierce:

Set once more regrouped His allies, but Isis marched against them. She concealed Herself in Gebal which is south of Dunanwi, after having made Her transformation into Her Mother Sakhmet. She sent out a flame against them all, seeing to it that they were burned and devoured by Her flame. (It is said to Her, “Hathor, Mistress of the Two Braziers.”) She [Isis] created for Herself there, a place to observe the preparations of the Evil One and His allies. (It is said to Her, “The Temple of the Mistress of the Two Braziers,” and the wab priest of this Goddess is called Ouroumem [the Great Devourer].) Then Set, seeing Isis at Her observation point, transformed Himself into a bull to chase Her, but She made Herself unrecognizable and put on the form of a bitch with a knife at the end of Her tail. Then She began to chase Him, and Set couldn’t trap Her again. So He scattered His semen upon the earth, and Isis said, “It is an abomination to have scattered Your semen like this, O Bull.” His semen grew, in Gebal, in the plants which we call bdd-k3w.

This Egyptian image from about the 2nd century CE shows Isis with a serpent body as Isis-Thermouthis

Then the Goddess entered into the mountain which we call Hout-Kâhet, and settled Herself there. After which, She went to the north and, having transformed Herself into a serpent, She entered into that mountain which is north of this nome to spy on the allies of Set as they arrived in the evening. (It is said to Her, “Hathor, Mistress of Geheset.”) The Goddess [Isis] watched the allies of Set as they arrived in the Oxyrhynchite Nome and as they crossed the country to reach Gebal, the City in the East. She pierced them all [with Her fangs since She was in the form of a serpent], and She made Her venom penetrate into their flesh, so that they perished, all together; their blood poured out upon the mountain, and this is why this mountain is called the prsh of Geheset.

The story bears a little commentary to explain some of the features. Isis is pursuing Set in revenge for His having murdered Osiris. It is interesting to note that it’s not Horus the Avenger Who is going after Set, but Isis the Avenger. I’m not sure exactly where the local Gebal is; but we are told that it is south of Dunanwi. Dunanwi is a local God of the 18th Upper Egyptian nome, so perhaps the direction refers to a temple or shrine of the God or the text is using the Deity’s name as a name for the nome itself.

Although Isis’ first transformation is into “Her Mother” Sakhmet, Isis is repeatedly called by the name and epithets of Hathor, a local Goddess of Geheset. Geheset is a mythically powerful place; it hasn’t been conclusively identified with any real place in Egypt, but some scholars believe it may be at modern Komir, on the westbank of the Nile, south of Esna. (Interestingly, Komir was a center of the worship of Nephthys and a temple dedicated to Her has been found there. It is in the 3rd nome, however, south of the 17th and 18th nomes.) The Jumilhac papyrus does contain more information on Geheset. In another passage it says:

“Regarding Geheset, it is the temple of Hathor of Geheset, the house of the Chief of the Two Lands. House of Uraeus is the name of the Divine Booth of Hathor in this place. Isis transformed Herself into the uraeus. She hid from the companions of Set, Nephthys was there at Her side. The companions of Set passed by Her without their knowing. And then She bit them all. She threw Her two lances at their limbs. Their blood fell on this mountain, flowing, and their death happened immediately.”

Now, in the 4th nome, there was a famous Hathor cult center in Pathyris or Aphroditopolis, modern Gebelein. It is reasonably near to the Komir Nephthys temple. If this is the mythical Geheset, then Nephthys being at Isis’ (as Hathor) side makes some geographic sense.

5 of Swords from Yoshi Yoshitani’s Fairytale Tarot

In the encounter between Isis and Set, in the form of a bull, Set attempts to rape Isis. We know this because He eventually ejaculates on the ground and Isis castigates Him for having wasted His semen like that. This reminds me of the myth in which Hephaestus tries to rape Athena, but His semen either falls on the ground or on Her leg, which She then wipes off in disgust and tosses it on the ground. The semen fertilizes Gaia and the Earth gives birth to Erichthonius, a mythical ruler of Athens who may have been part serpent. In this case, the semen of Set becomes an unidentified local plant called beded kau; the kau part is the plural of ka or vital essence.

For the final part of the tale, Isis Herself takes the form of the holy cobra, the uraeus serpent. As a great serpent, She kills all of Set’s companions with Her venom. Their blood pours out on the mountain and becomes juniper berries (prsh); there is an Egyptian pun here on juniper berries and the flowing out of blood. In another part of the Jumilhac papyrus, Isis “cut up Set, sinking Her teeth into His back” and in yet another She first transforms into Anubis, “and having seized Seth, cut Him up, sinking Her teeth into His back.” (Is there some connection between Isis transforming Herself into a dog with a knife in Her tail and later into Anubis?)

The myths recorded in the Papyrus Jumilhac are surely much earlier Egyptian stories that the priesthood used to teach their tradition in the temples of the 17th and 18th nomes. There were almost certainly other tales like these, from other nomes, in which it is Fierce Isis Herself Who takes revenge upon the murderer of Her beloved Osiris. I hope someday we will find more of them.

May the Fierce Goddess always protect you and guide your heka.

More Occult History of the Mensa Isiaca

Part 3

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been looking into the history—occult and otherwise—of the unique artifact known as the Mensa Isiaca or Table/t of Isis. And it is, literally, unique. We have no other ancient artifact like it. It is a large bronze tabletop, or perhaps altar top, with Egyptianizing figures and pseudo-hieroglyphs, all expertly crafted in polychrome metals.

Lets dive back in and see what some other writers, thinkers, and magicians had to say about it.

Other Ideas

Following Kircher’s intensive explication of the meaning of the Mensa, it became a subject of much scholarly discussion. For centuries.

In 1719, a monk named Bernard de Montfaucon addressed the Mensa. Montfaucon was a scholar and is credited with helping to develop early archeology. He thought the Mensa described Egyptian religion in some way and found it very symbolical and enigmatic. He went on to describe the Mensa in some detail, seeing almost every figure in it as either Isis or Osiris. Of Kircher’s interpretation, he commented, somewhat snarkily, that he doubted whether any Egyptian had ever thought as he did.

In his Sacred and Profane History of the World Connected, Samuel Shuckford considered the Mensa to have been made before the Egyptians came to worship their Deities in anthropomorphic form because the priests shown kneeling in the border all kneel before animal forms.

William Warburton, a Christian Bishop and writer, came pretty close to modern thinking about the Mensa. He thought it was made in Rome by an Isis devotee due to the odd mixture of hieroglyphs and the fact the Isis is clearly the most important figure. Yet another writer, Paul Ernest Jablonski, thought the central figure was Neith. He saw Isis in a number of the other female figures and thought that the Mensa was a calendar of Egyptian festivals, adjusted to Rome.

Levi’s attribution of the sections of the Mensa Isiaca to Qabalistic and astrological symbolism—and thus to the tarot

The English masonic authority, Kenneth Mackenzie took note of the Mensa because of its three-part division and thus its possible correspondence with three-part craft masonry.

Eliphas Levi & the Mensa Isiaca

Eliphas Levi, a French writer, esotericist, and magician, also had an interest in the Mensa Isiaca. Writing in his History of Magic (1860), Levi said,

The most curious, and at the same time the most complete key to the Tarot, or modern version of the famous Book of Thoth, is found in the Isiac Tablet of Cardinal Bembo, which has been represented by Kircher in his work on Egypt: this learned Jesuit has divined, without being able to establish complete proof, that this Tablet contained a key in hieroglyphics to the sacred alphabet.
History of Magic, Eliphas Levi

(You see, it was the secrets of the Alphabet of Thoth that the Hebrews took with them when they left Egypt…and thus developed Qabalah…which, in Hermetic Qabalah, has correspondences to the tarot.)

Looking at his chart (above) and his description in his book, I am baffled as to how he reached some of his conclusions. For instance, he says there are 21 images in the middle register that correspond to the letters of the alphabet. Surely he must mean the Hebrew alphabet, but neither the French, Hebrew, nor Egyptian alphabets have 21 letters. Second, there’s no way I can count the figures in the middle register that adds up to 21. You?

An easier-to-see illustration of the Mensa Isiaca; click to enlarge

But perhaps it’s all just too recondite and admirable for me. Or perhaps Levi cheated a bit. Westcott (remember him from last week?) was a big fan of Levi and in his own book on the Mensa, he expanded on Levi’s comments, connecting the images and divisions of the Mensa to various Qabalistic and astrological symbols.

The Secret Teachings of All Ages & the Mensa Isiaca

Manly P. Hall in his Secret Teachings of All Ages introduces the section on the Mensa Isiaca by quoting “a manuscript by Thomas Taylor” that said,

Plato was initiated into the ‘Greater Mysteries’ at the age of 49. The initiation took place in one of the subterranean halls of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The Isiac Table formed the altar, before which the Divine Plato stood and received what was always his, but which the ceremony of the Mysteries enkindled and brought from its dormant state. With this ascent, after three days in the Great Hall, he was received by the Hierophant of the Pyramid (the Hierophant was seen only by those who had passed the three days, the three degrees, the three dimensions) and given verbally the Highest Esoteric Teachings. After a further three months’ sojourn in the halls of the Pyramid, the Initiate Plato was sent out into the world to do the work of the Great Order, as Pythagoras and Orpheus had been before him.
Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Due to the popularity of Secret Teachings, this statement has been often repeated in various esoteric publications, both print and digital. For the record, there is nothing like this in any of Thomas Taylor’s* published works, nor are there any known records of such details of Plato’s purported initiation. According to the Greek historian and geographer Strabo, Plato studied in Egypt for 13 years, learning geometry and theology. But the description above sounds perhaps a bit too masonic with its three degrees. For the rest of his section on the Mensa, Hall relies mainly on Westcott’s book.

IYNX! A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to this Blog Post

Strangely, this part of the Mensa is what Kircher labels the Azonian Hecatine Triad

Perhaps it was a subconscious prompting. Or perhaps it really was a meaningful synchronicity. But here’s what’s going on. I keep a folder with blog post ideas. And since the Getty Museum semi-recently put out a paper on their study of the Mensa, I thought, “why not?” What I intended to be one post turned into three. And then I came across a somewhat surprising name in Kircher’s discussion of the Mensa. The name is Hekate.

Where does She come into it? Remember that Westcott remarked that the Mensa’s cosmic scheme is almost identical to that of the Chaldean Oracles? Well, if you’ve got Chaldean Oracles, you’ve got Hekate. She is the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World, and the connector between the Empyrean (heavenly) and Hylic (earthly) Worlds.

And that funny word, Iynx, with which the Mensa’s Isis is labeled? It can be a magical tool—the so-called strophalos, or wheel, of Hekate—a bird used in erotic magic, or a type of Being in the Chaldean system. As a Being, Iynges (plural) are “transmitters” of higher-level energies to the lower worlds. The Hathor-headed pillar in the center of the image (above) is what Kircher says is “Isis under the form of Hekate.”

Isis—as the “Supreme Mind, or Pantomorphous Iynx”—sits in the center of the Mensa, connecting everything and transmitting the Divine energies throughout the Universe.

Don’t know if these are actually supposed to be Chaldean Iynges, but it will do

Why does this matter to me right now? Because I’m preparing to take part in a Fall Equinox festival dedicated to Hekate. I’ve been working with Her for many months now in preparation. And so, with this series of posts, my two Goddesses have come together for me, for now.

A Meditation

As you can see, the Mensa Isiaca, the Table of Isis, has been a screen upon which many have projected their thoughts for hundreds of years. Even as a Roman work of art with incomprehensible hieroglyphs, it has served as an Egyptological and esoteric inspiration. And, I think, it has also shown how things can be symbolically connected, even if that was not the original intent of the work. And though we may not be quite as invested in all ancient religions being the same as Kircher was—still—there is something beautiful and magical in the weaving of those connections.

Honestly, a meditation like Kircher’s could be very worth doing for Isis devotees. For instance, we might pick out an ancient Egyptian image of Isis (like the one at the top of this post) and, in gentle meditation, give a meaning to each and every detail, each and every color the artist used. When we do, we’ll see what connections arise for us and in us. No doubt, it won’t be exactly what the ancient Egyptians intended. But it will be a meditation of deepening and it might help us identify some of our own inner symbolism and how, for us, it connects with Isis.

*Thomas Taylor was an 18th-19th-century English translator and neoplatonist. He was the first to translate into English the complete works of Aristotle and Plato.

The Occult History of the Mensa Isiaca

Frontpiece of the oldest known treatise on the Mensa Isiaca; first edition 1605; Lorenzo put himself in the picture as the artist/scholar

Part 2

A Mysterious Artifact

At about the time we first hear about the Mensa Isiaca, non-Egyptians were becoming increasingly fascinated with ancient Egypt. They wanted to discover what the hieroglyphs said. And because it had so many hieroglyphs, the Mensa Isiaca was one of the key sources for such early discovery.

One of earliest to take a specific interest in it was Lorenzo Pignoria, an Italian cleric, antiquarian, writer, and philosopher. In 1605, he published “An accurate explanation of the very Ancient Brazen Tablet, engraved with the Sacred Figures of the Egyptians.”

It includes a drawing of the Mensa, but apparently Pignoria was only able to identify a few of the figures and pronounced himself unable to fully unravel its secrets. Yet now a large-sized reproduction of the Mensa, in convenient paper form, was available to other researchers.

The Secrets of the Egyptians

It was Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar and polymath, who really went to town on the Mensa. He believed it to be from the holy-of-holies of an Egyptian temple and to contain a wealth of mystical secrets.

Kircher’s personal studies spanned most of the arts and sciences of his day, from music to geology, as well as multiple languages, including Coptic. He correctly understood Coptic to be a late form of ancient Egyptian and produced a book on Coptic grammar.

While he was a devout Catholic and a biblical literalist, he also wholeheartedly embraced the Hermetic writings, no doubt influenced by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola before him. He had a keen interest in ancient Egypt and considered Egypt to be the source of all ancient religion, from Greece and Rome to China and the Americas.

Title page of *Oedipus Aegyptiacus*, 1654; Kircher shows himself as Oedipus solving the riddle of the Egyptian sphinx

Thus, he wanted to understand ancient Egyptian religion because he believed it was humankind’s earliest and that there were underlying harmonies in all religions. Through later, better-documented religions, he believed he could extrapolate information about the Egyptian. According to Kircher, the theologies of Zoroaster, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Proclus, the Chaldeans, and Hebrew Qabalah all had their source in ancient Egypt. He was definitely of the “all the Gods are one God” school…with that one God (eventually) being the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

His key Egyptological work is Oedipus Aegyptiacus, published in 1654. In it, he put his ideas about the connections between ancient religions and Egypt into practice and claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphs—with the Mensa Isiaca and several Egyptian obelisks (still in Rome today) assisting in this endeavor.

An illustration of Isis from the *Oedipus Aegyptiacus* following Apuleius’ description of the Goddess

There’s quite a lot that could be said about Kircher. His work has been derided because of how much he got wrong. Yet, studying what was available to him, he did indeed get some things right about ancient Egypt. Oedipus Aegyptiacus, along with his Coptic grammar, are now considered some of the very earliest works of Egyptology. Unfortunately, one of the things he got right wasn’t the hieroglyphs. His hieroglyphic interpretations are both highly cosmological, highly Neoplatonic, and completely wrong. It’s all quite complex and I won’t go into it here, except for what he says about Isis.

Kircher’s Isis

In Kircher’s Father-Son-Holy Spirit trinitarian scheme, Isis is—interestingly—the Son. Thus, She is the savior, just as she was in the the Hellenistic world. (Kircher had read his Apuleius.) In Oedipus Aegyptiacus, much of his Egyptian discussion is given under the heading, “The Temple of Isis.” By doing so, he was placing all of his Egyptian interpretations under the purview of the Goddess of Wisdom, our Lady Isis.

William Wynn Westcott, medical doctor, freemason, a founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and author of a book about the Mensa Isiaca

Since I don’t read Latin, when it comes to Kircher’s interpretations of the Mensa, I’m going to rely on W. Wynn Westcott’s translated quotes and discussion of Kircher’s text in his own book on the Mensa, The Isiac Tablet. Westcott was very much a fan of Kircher’s interpretation of the Mensa—and added his own interpretations as well.

Kircher’s and Westcott’s Isis

Westcott says that the philosophy and theosophy Kircher associates with the Mensa Isiaca is almost identical with that of the Chaldean Oracles, an important text to Neoplatonists, now only known from quotes in other works. And furthermore, that it also has much in common with the Hebrew Qabalah. Here, he quotes Kircher’s explanation of the Mensa:

The universe is regulated from the Paternal Foundation through three triads; this Foundation is variously called The Iynx, Soul of the World, the Pantomorphous Redeemer, and by Philo, the Constructive Wisdom, and exists in the perfection of triads of Pater, Potentia, and Mater, or Mens, the Father, the Power, and the Mother, or Design: coexisting with Faith, Truth, and Love.
Westcott, in The Isiac Table, quoting Kircher in Oedipus Aegyptiacus

Kircher is talking about the figure of Isis in the center of the Mensa as the Paternal Foundation. She is Isis and She is the Iynx, the Soul of the World, and the Panomorphous (All Formed) Redeemer. He goes on to say that the figures around Her are administrators of the Divine power in various spheres, such as the zodiac, the planets, and the winds.

Later, he says the central seated figure of Isis is “the Supreme Mind, or Pantomorphous Iynx Multiform Sphynx or Logos, Word, or Soul of the World, and is placed here in the middle, as in the Centre of Universal Nature.”

Isis’ enthroned posture means dominion and power; the dog on Her throne (looks more like a cat to me) is because “the Isiac Iynx is associated with the Dog Star, Sirius.” Her winged clothing “denotes the sublime velocity of the higher powers.” Each and every detail of the image is given mystical significance. (It’s a lot, so I won’t include it here. What’s more, almost every figure in the Mensa, he considers to be a form of Isis…She’s pantomorphous, after all.)

Some things he gets right. For instance, he says the disk and scarab represent the sun. Other things don’t match what we know about Egyptian symbolism, but gain meaning through Kircher’s mystical exercise. For instance, the alternating black and white stripes on the lotus-form columns represent the ups and downs of earthly life, which Isis as “the mother of Universal Nature” rules.

All in all, Kircher’s decoding of the Mensa Isiaca reveals cosmic Mysteries containing the Wisdom of the Egyptians, with Isis in Her many forms guiding and controlling the multifaceted Universe throughout.

Kircher Isn’t the Only One

The importance Kircher gives to Isis, and his ongoing influence, especially in esoterica, is one of the keys that helps us understand why Isis continued to be such an integral part of the western spiritual imagination. Through works such as Kircher’s, She remained an important part of the Western Mystery Tradition.

Well, I’m at the end of this post and we’re still not quite to the end of this exploration of the Mensa. I thought I’d be able to do it in two, but it looks like three will be the charm. So next time we’ll look at what some other historians and occultists had to say about the Mensa. And I’ll tell you about a weird synchronicity that happened for me in relation to these posts.

The central register of the Mensa Isiaca with Isis enthroned

What is the Mensa Isiaca?

Have you ever heard of the Mensa Isiaca?

Did this mysterious Isiac artifact serve as the altar when Plato received his initiation into the Egyptian Greater Mysteries in a secret, subterranean hall beneath the Great Pyramid? Was it an altar top from a Roman Temple of Isis? Was it a repository of ancient occult lore? A key to the hieroglyphs? Or the tarot? Perhaps it was just a rather expensive piece of home decor for a rich Roman with a penchant for Isis?

All of these things have been suggested as the ultimate identity of this significant Isiac artifact. It has quite the history…and some legit mysteries, all of which we take a look at as we try to find out more about this literally unique artifact—and discover what it has meant in the long story of the worship of our Goddess Isis.

As you may have guessed, “Mensa Isiaca” is Latin. It means “Table (or Tablet) of Isis.” It’s also known as the Bembine Table of Isis. I’ll explain why in a bit.

One of the prizes in our library, a copy of one of the few works about the Mensa Isiaca. The author is W. Wynn Westcott, one of the three founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

First, what is it?

The Mensa Isiaca is a large bronze tabletop inlaid with polychrome metals—that is, a variety of colored metals—featuring Egyptian figures in a selection of typical Egyptian-style poses, all surrounding the central, enshrined figure of Isis. Or at least She has always been taken to be Isis due to the popularity of the Goddess during the period of the Mensa’s creation, sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. And it was almost certainly made in Rome.

The reason we cannot be absolutely sure the central figure is Isis is that, while the Mensa includes hieroglyphs, they are only pseudo-hieroglyphs and cannot be read. They are decoratively placed near the figures, as well as around the lip of the Mensa and the borders that separate its three surface registers. So, unfortunately, they cannot help us clearly identify the figures on the Mensa. The Mensa’s later interpreters, however, did not know this and spent a good deal of brainpower on trying, unsuccessfully, to decipher the glyphs.

The art style is all very Egyptian, in the Hellenistic mode. In other words, the images look very much like the ones found in many of the Hellenistic-era temples we see in Egypt today. It’s that slightly softer style you see at Denderah rather than the older, crisper style at Abydos.

But before we go further, you may be wondering what the Mensa Isiaca looks like; click for a larger image:

The Mensa Isiaca; I know, it’s hard to see, so there’s an illustration later in the post. As you may have guessed, that’s Isis in the middle.

I hadn’t remembered how large the Mensa Isiaca was until I read a recent article with results from an intensive study of the Mensa while it was on loan from Italy’s Turin Egyptian Museum to the Getty Museum in L.A. At almost 50 inches wide (126 cm) and 30 inches tall (75.5 cm), it is decidedly table-sized rather than tablet-sized. It also has a slightly-over-2-inch lip on all sides of the table. I had been picturing it as something a bit more portable. But no. It’s of an impressive size as well as being an impressive work of art.

While at the Getty Museum, researchers took advantage of new technologies that enabled them to study the Mensa Isiaca in new depth and non-invasively.

Examples of Egyptian polychrome metalwork; note the inlaid gold, silver, and copper

A striking feature of the Mensa is its polychrome inlays. Earlier in the Mensa’s history, some of the more colorful inlays had been described as enamel. Others suggested that the beautiful variety of colored metals were the result of Egyptian alchemical experiments. Researchers found that the metalsmiths used at least seven distinct alloys, including silver, gold, black bronze, and a variety of different copper and zinc alloys. They achieved colors from red, yellow, orange, and brown to blue-grey. Each figure is intricately outlined in silver or black bronze wire. The Mensa is in remarkably good shape and shows no signs of ever having been buried. In other words, it has remained in someone’s hands throughout its lifetime.

An illustration of the Mensa Isiaca so you can more easily see the imagery; click to enlarge

Polychrome metalwork was a specialty of Egyptian craftspeople; we have examples from at least the 18th dynasty and researchers now think the technique was much more widespread than they had previously believed. Thus, the Mensa Isiaca was created using techniques that were genuinely Egyptian—even if the craftspeople didn’t know hieroglyphs (many didn’t by that time). Due to the excellence of the work and Egyptian mastery of those techniques, my guess is that is was created by Egyptian metalsmiths working in Rome, perhaps with Roman smiths. But we have no proof. It could also have been made by Roman smiths in an Egyptianizing style.

A closeup of some of the complex metalwork on the Mensa

The green represents where silver was used; the purple represents gold

If you’d like to read all the details about the Getty investigation into the physical properties of the Mensa Isiaca, here’s the link. (Most of the images in this post are from this article.)

What is its history?

There is no historical mention of the Mensa Isiaca until after the sacking of Rome in 1527. Some of the unpaid-for-a-long-time forces of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, overran the city of Rome and went on a rampage of destruction, looting, and killing.

The Mensa was likely kept in one of Rome’s palaces prior to the sacking. Afterwards, it came into the hands of a blacksmith or ironworker who eventually sold it to Cardinal Bembo—after which it was known as the Bembine Table (or Tablet) of Isis. Bembo was an Italian scholar, trained in Neoplatonism and intensely interested in his country’s history. In later life, he was made a cardinal in secret. He is buried in the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva basilica, part of which lies over the older Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius.

The Mensa remained in Bembo’s hands until after his death. Then, it came into the possession of the Dukes of Mantua, who kept it in their museum until 1630, when Mantua was besieged and also sacked. We don’t know how, but it next came into the hands of Cardinal Pava, who gifted it to the Duke of Savoy, who eventually gave it to the King of Sardinia in 1730. In 1797, French troops brought it to Paris, where it was exhibited in the Bibliothèque Nationale. With peace between France and Italy, it was returned to Turin. Today, Turin is the site of Italy’s Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) and the permanent home of the Mensa Isiaca.

Proposed original appearance of the central register with Isis, digitally recreated except for missing or damaged areas

In Westcott’s book about the Mensa (see the image above), he notes that a guidebook for travelers to northern Italy by John Murray, published in 1863, mentions the Mensa and gives an unattributed history. Murray says that the Mensa was originally found on Mount Aventine in Rome where once stood a temple of Isis and suggests it was made during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. This period for its creation is entirely possible since Hadrian’s reign roughly matches the current scholarly dating for the Mensa Isiaca—and Hadrian himself was quite the Egyptophile. As far as I can tell, none of the known Isis temples in Rome was on the Aventine hill. But then, much of the Aventine is unexcavated since it is covered with many homes.

What is the Mensa Isiaca’s occult significance?

That’s enough of historical history (as far as we know it) for now. Its occult history is much more interesting. The Mensa Isiaca has been an inspiration to occultists for centuries and was believed to contain the deep secrets of ancient Egyptian mysteries and magic. We’ll get into that fascinating subject next time in Part 2.

The Goddess of Willendorf

In Search of the Feminine Divine