Category Archives: Isis and magic

Hymns to Isis of 10,000 Names from Denderah

One thing I learned from our Egyptian visit to the Great Temple of Hathor at Denderah, is just how very, very, very present Isis is in this entire temple complex.

Approaching the Temple of Hathor at Denderah

I knew that, just as Hathor has a small temple at Isis’ great Philae sanctuary, so Isis had a small temple at Hathor’s great sanctuary at Denderah. But I didn’t know how present Isis is within Hathor’s temple itself.

The remains of the Isis temple at Denderah

So, today I’d like to share with you some of the praises and epithets of Isis found within the great Hathor temple. They can be used and/or adapted through your own creativity for ritual use. The translations come from Egyptologist Sylvie Cauville’s Dendara: Hymnes à Hathor et à Isis. So they are my English translations (with help from Google Translate) of her French translations of the hieroglyphs. I’m awaiting an interlibrary loan of her book on all the texts from Isis’ small temple at Denderah. I’ll share those with you in the future.

But for today, let’s look at some of the ways Isis was understood at Denderah. Since most of the remains at Denderah are Ptolemaic, we won’t be surprised to find Isis expressing Herself there in many of Her ten thousand names. Here’s an example:

Isis the Great, Mother of the God, Mistress of the Birth Mound, Who takes Her place in Denderah, Lady of the Beginning of the Year, Queen of Messengers, Who appears at the New Year to open the Beautiful Year. [She is] Amunet (the Goddess counterpart of Amun) at Thebes, Menhit (a Lioness Goddess) in Heliopolis, Renpet (“Year”) is Your name in Memphis, Sothis (Sopdet, the Star Goddess) in Elephantine, Hededyt (a Scorpion Goddess) in Edfu, the Venerable Vulture (the Goddess Nekhbet), the ruler of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen), the Feminine Heliopolitan One in Denderah, Daughter of Nuet, brought into the world in the Birth Mound on the beautiful day of the Child-in-His-Nest, the One Who takes flight again towards the sky; Heqet (the Frog Goddess) in Abydos, Seshat (the Scribe Goddess) in Hermopolis, Djedet (“Word” or “Great Word,” Djedet Weret) is Your name in Busiris, the Mysterious One in Bubastis, Ipyt (a Hippopotamus Fertility Goddess) in Pe, Depet (“the One of Dep”) in Dep, Neith in Sais, Wadjet in Nebecheh (the location of a temple of Wadjet), Hathor in all the land. She is the One Who dwells in every city and in every nome with Her son Horus and Her brother Osiris.

Those of you who have seen the Oxyrhynchus aretalogy of Isis will recognize this format: give Her name and then the place in which She is called by that name (or vice versa).

“Isis of 10,000 Names” from the Isis Oracle; art by Jim Manton

On one of the pylon doorways at Denderah, where both Goddesses are invoked, we learn this of Isis’ power:

She is the Sovereign of the Palace, the Ruler, the Mistress of Writing. She announces what will happen in the future. Life is in Her hand, health is in Her fist, one does not oppose what comes from Her mouth. She takes care of the one who is not unfaithful to Her and defends the one She loves on the day of the “fight in the arena” (I assume this means during challenging times; but I supposed it could be something more specific, too). She is the irreproachable protector of those who have nothing and those who have everything. What She conceives happens forever. She comforts the unfortunate with Her word at the closing gate. She is Seshat the Great, the Primordial, the First Who Inaugurated Writing, the First Who is Brought into the World Among the Goddesses.

On the doors of the “Mysterious Corridor,” Isis is praised as the Powerful One. Re is said to shine in the horizon (akhet) when He sees Her and human beings come to Her to make Her heart joyful. In the Isis Chapel within the Hathor temple, She is called by many of the titles we have already seen, but She is also the Queen of Egypt in its Entirety, the Great One in Heaven, the Powerful One on Earth, the Primordial One Who Created the First Time (Zep Tepi) and All Good Things—which She shares with those She loves. She “dispenses the Commandments in the places of worship.” What must happen “happens when You [Isis] order it.” She is “excellent and beautiful.” She is “the Female Ibis Without Her Equal, the Mistress of Writing, the Sovereign of the Library.” She is the ruler of the orb of the sun and of the stars. As Sothis, She is the One Who Brings the Flood to “create life for the living.” She is the Eye of Re and the Unique Uraeus serpent.

Isis of Corinth by Stuart Littlejohn; purchase a copy here; I have my copy, just gotta get it framed

She is also called Horet, the Female Horus. Her favors to Her devotees are great as is Her love. She is the Hand of God with inexhaustible benevolence. And Her true name is Isis (but also The Golden). This is very reminiscent of Apuleius’ aretalogy of Isis in which the Goddess lists many of the names by which human beings know Her, but finally states that Her true name is Queen Isis.

Quite a few of the Isiac hymns in the Denderah temple repeat many of the epithets we’ve already seen, so I’m trying to pick out the ones I find interesting and that I think you may also find interesting.

For instance, epithets from the Denderah Chapel of Water and Chapel of the Crown call Isis the Great Oracle Who Arrived at the Beginning and the Oracle Who Announces What Will Happen in the Future. These would be perfect epithets to use when reading Tarot or using another divination system under Her auspices. The Chapel of Water also says that She makes the Inundation flow to “invigorate the hearts of the Guardian Gods;” so another protective function. Her Ka is praised and She is called the Living Ba. She is the Lady of East, South, West, and North.

Isis the Magician, according to WordPress AI

In the Chamber of Fabrics, Isis is identified with Tayet, the Weaving Goddess. The text says that the Divine Fabric is made for Her Ka and that She is Mistress of the White, Green, Purple/Blue, and Red fabrics.

One of the things especially celebrated at Denderah is the birth of Isis. Her birth is connected to the epagomenal days when She rises as Sirius before the sun to mark the New Year.

In the Chapel of the Sistrum, it is said that Isis “took possession of the royal office even before She left the womb; She ruled the throne from Her swaddling clothes.” I’m guessing we’ll learn more about Her birth when I get that interlibrary loan of the texts from the small Temple of Isis.

Isis the Magician, according to Roman-era Egypt

On the exterior temple walls, Isis is said to be born “in the form of a black-haired woman, full of life, Sovereign of the Ennead, Ruler of Magic.” More of Her ten thousand names are added in the pronaos of the temple: She is Amunet, Menhit, Renpet, Sothis, Nekhbet, Tanenet (a Goddess of brewing and childbirth), Isis, Seshat, Heqet, and Wadjet. She is also the One Who Loves the Embrace, the Mistress of Life, Tayet, She Who Hears Everything, the Mysterious, Pyt (possibly a variation or misspelling of Ipyt), Depet, Neith, Khensyt (a Goddess of the royal crown), and Isis in every nome. She is the Mistress of Offerings, the Feminine Disk (of the sun), Mistress of Bread, Who Prepares Beer, and Lady of Exultation and Joy. She is the One Who is Rejuvenated in the Faiyum, Mistress of Life in Metenou (couldn’t find out where that is). In Mendes, She is the One Who Speaks. In Busiris, She is the One Who Hears Everything. And She is still The Mysterious in Bubastis.

The pronaos also notes that on the birthday of Isis, joy breaks out in Denderah and in Edfu. (Remember that these two temples are connected by the love connection between Hathor and Horus.) Heavenly Nuet gives birth to Isis—the Scholar for the Ennead—so that She may give birth to Horus the Avenger. The text says that Isis “was initiated into Wisdom as the Great One” and that the Goddesses come to see Her birth, wearing the menat-necklace and bearing the sistrum, “to appease the heart of The Magician (that is, Isis).”

That’s a lot of (hopefully) new and interesting epithets to work with for today. Any one of these epithets of Isis or Her identifications with other Goddesses would be a worthy subject for invocation and meditation.

Isis, Great of Magic

Heka, the God Magic
Heka, the God Magic, with His characteristic crossed serpent wands.

Great of Magic. The Enchantress. Lady of Words of Power. What does it mean that Isis bears these (and so many more) epithets having to do with magic? And what do we mean by magic, anyway?

You probably already know that the ancient Egyptian word that we translate as “magic” is heka. In Egypt, heka was in no way supernatural, that is, above nature. Indeed, Heka (the God) and heka (the force) were the very foundation of the natural world. In at least one myth, the God Heka, Magic personified, is the Being first made by the Creator, so Heka’s power is infused in every Deity and every thing that comes after Him.

The Deities, of course, are the most potent wielders of heka, though humanity has its portion, given to us “to ward off the blow of events,” according to one of the Wisdom Texts.

This is a magician’s bronze serpent wand; it is dated to the Middle Kingdom or 1st Intermediate Period. It is a two-headed cobra (something that does occur in nature), though I wonder whether this might be a way for the magician to combine Heka’s two serpent wands into a single instrument.

The reason we translate Egyptian heka as magic is because that’s how the ancient Greeks translated it: mageia. The Greeks had a somewhat ambivalent relationship with magic. Oh, they used it (witness the Greek Magical Papyri), but it was condemned as well.

This wasn’t true on the Egyptian side. Since heka was a building block of the universe, it was a good thing. And yes, of course, it could be used for ill; there are plenty of Egyptian destructive spells, but the force itself is not bad. Magic was also frequently teamed with healing. An Egyptian stele listing the names and titles of physicians has both sunu, “doctors” and hem-netjer Heka, “Servants of the God Heka.” In fact, most of the ancient Egyptian healing formulae have both practical and magical components.

My heka serpent wands. Made of painted curly willow with oven-baked-clay heads.

And so magic meets science, as it usually does around thoughtful magicians. Interestingly, magicians of every age often attempt to explain magic with the science of their time. Modern magicians like to quote Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We all know that it somehow works, yet we still want to explain to ourselves precisely how.

In ancient Egypt, the reason was divine. Heka the force and Heka the God are so intertwined that often no distinction seems to be made between them. Heka is sacred science, priestly science, and Magic is a Divine, Living, Conscious Power. Surely ancient Egypt’s rather precise ritual forms were the advanced scientific formulae of their day, having been refined through many generations of experimentation.

Energy passes from solar disk to Otherworldly Goddess, then from Her to the serpent. This is from one of Tutankhamon’s golden shrines.

Even so, magic has always been edgy. (Quite a few ancient Egyptian formulae swear the user to secrecy.) And what humans would like to do with magic is not always benevolent. Magic’s reputation has suffered the consequences.

By the Middle Ages, magic was being explained in demonic terms; magicians invoked devils to do their bidding. So now, instead of magic being basically good and a gift to humankind, magic was now basically bad and a function of demons.

Alchemists wisely emphasized the science of their Art, blending spirituality with chemistry in their desire to reveal the Ways of Nature (including the ways of human spiritual nature). They would sometimes refer to this as unveiling Isis or Venus.

An image from one of the shrines of Tutankhamon; these Otherworld beings are joined to their stars and "receive the rays of Re"
Another image from one of the shrines of Tutankhamon; clearly an energy transfer from star to these Otherworld Beings

18th-century occultists preferred scientific-sounding explanations for magical effects: “magnetism” explained attractions between things as well as defined pathways for moving “life energy” or the “etheric medium.”

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the magician Aleister Crowley famously defined magic as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will” and “the Science of understanding oneself and one’s conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.” Psychology was a relatively new science at the time, so naturally magical explanation got a psychological twist.

Many modern magicians speak of magic as “energy.” From cosmic rays to quantum mechanics, there are many types of energy we are just beginning to study and will perhaps someday understand. I’ve been interested in the idea that the four fundamental forces of nature (the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism, and gravity) might correspond to the four Elements (Fire, Water, Air, Earth). Other modern magicians speak of magic in terms of information—as ones and zeros even—since that is a key scientific paradigm of our day.

The lady Taperet worships Re-Horankhty and receives light energy from His solar disc in the form of flowers. Creative Commons license here. Attribution: Rama

I find value in most of these ideas about magic. Information magic gets along famously with Egyptian magic and its hekau, its “Words of Power.” The as-yet-unexplained-energy theory of magic works well with ancient Egyptian magic, too. We can clearly see instances of the flow of this power, whether in a shower of ankhs, in sunbeams, or simply as streams of energy as on the golden shrine of Tutankhamon; the energy is not only real, but in some sense physical. Both the demon and Deity theories attribute consciousness to magic as was done in ancient Egypt with Heka. And yes, of course, our own psychology plays an important part in our magic.

As devotees of Isis, the Goddess of Magic, I think we have a certain obligation to address magic in some way in our personal practice.

Perhaps it is the magic of spiritual growth, the Great Work of Hermeticism. Healers might explore the connection between magic and medicine or work toward the healing for the earth. Or we may find we have a talent for practical magic, the spellcasting magic that can help us get a job or find a parking spot.

Whatever form our own personal understanding and practice of magic may take, under the wings of Isis and with Her guidance, I trust it will be blessed.