As the teal-blue waters of the Nile swirl and eddy upon the rocky shores of Her island; as the daily rebirth of Re fills the horizon with colors of peach and purple and red; as Mother Night smiles at the glory of Her reborn child—every morning, in Her beautiful temple at Philae, the Great Goddess Isis was awakened in Her sacred image.
This morning, She was awakened in Her smaller temple, the shrine I have made for Her in my home, and the lamp I have set for Her in my heart.
My ritual is not the ritual in the ancient temples. But the intent is the same: to call in, renew, and reawaken Her ka, Her ba, and Her akh—at least the sparks of each that reside within Her sacred image on my altar—so that She may be present with me and I may be present with Her. I honor Her, awaken Her in peace, and place before Her the Offering of the Morning.
As I enter Her shrine, my hands crossed upon my breast, I bow to Her veiled image. I light the charcoal, prepare the incense, a special blend made for Her by artisans of sacred scent. I pour pure Nile water into the libation cup and ready the libation bowl.
And then I sing to Her. “Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Morning. Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Night. Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Morning. Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Night. Isis, Isis, Isis.” I continue to sing until the chant seems complete.
Now, I make the gesture of Opening the Shrine, flinging wide for Her the doors of Her shrine. I vibrate Her name, “Isis!” I unveil Her beautiful image and look upon it.
I kneel before Her, then sit.
I open my awareness. As I breathe deeply, the lamp in my heart grows brighter.
I open my awareness. I sense the ka of the Goddess’ living power like a bright tingle on the nape of my neck.
I open my awareness. I turn my face upward and envision Her ba—in the form of Her sacred raptor, the black kite—swoop down from above, fast and sure. It alights upon Her sacred image and nestles softly into Her lap. All the while, I am chanting Her name in my mind, in my heart, in my mouth.
I open my awareness again. Her spirit, Her akh is coming. It is like the welcome light of dawn after a long, dark night. It is like water to those who thirst. It is like a needed, deep breath that makes my chest shudder as I take it in.
I say aloud to Her: “A spark from Your Mysterious Heart, Isis, resides within this sacred image. I honor that spark as I honor You Yourself, Great Goddess.”
Quietly, and with my awareness opened to the ends of the earth, I vibrate Her name three more times. I feel Her ka. I see Her ba. I sense Her akh.
And I say aloud to Her, “Awaken, O Isis Within, to this beautiful day. Be welcomed into morning! Awaken, O Isis Within, to the joy of the day. Be welcomed into today!”
I take up the incense and place it upon the charcoal. The resins and herbs and flowers burn, releasing their scent. Taking up the censer, I elevate it toward Her image. “May Your eyes be opened to the beauty of the day,” I say. “May Your nostrils be opened to the sweet scent of this spice. May Your ears be opened always to the voices of Your children.”
I replace the censer and take up the libation cup of pure Nile water. I elevate it toward Her image, then pour it, very slowly, into the waiting libation bowl. “May Your lips be opened to the sweetness of this cool water,” I say. “May Your heart be opened to Your people this day. May Your body, O image of Isis, be opened to the beautiful energy of Isis the Goddess, Ever-Living.”
I am seated once more. I become aware of my heart. I breathe and let the lamp burn brighter. And brighter. I am aware of the sacred image of Isis before me. I feel Her presence. I sense Her heart. I breathe my fire into Her heart. She returns it to mine. I know Her image breathes. I breath Her breath. I am illumined in Her dawning fire. I speak Her words for Her: “I am that Golden morning that arises and shines each day. Splendid are the ornaments upon My brilliant brow. I am the One Who glows in the Sun. I am the Eye of Awakening. I am the Greening of the Earth. I am the Joy of the Day.”
I let myself sit in Her Presence for a while, enfolded in Her wings. When I am ready, I stand and say to Her, “Awaken in joy, Isis, awaken in joy. Amma, Iset.”
We need to know that we are not alone in our pain and outrage. And we are not.
For right now, our Goddess hears us. She knows our hearts. She, too, has mourned. She, too, has raged. She, too, has feared. She understands us when we bring our hollow hearts and roiling bellies to Her.
She will hear us, hold us, advise us. In time, She may even heal us.
But before that healing, we must feel what we feel. The God has died and He must be mourned.
We can share the burden of our feelings with others who mourn with us. We can share them with our Deities, with Her.
Yet at some point, the mourning time will pass. And what will we do then?
If we would follow Her, then what we must do is rear the fatherless Child. We must continue taking action. We must continue our Work.
Though we see the enormity of the problems, let us not despair; there is hope; there is opportunity. Instead, let us renew our dedication to our Deities and our spiritual work, for this will strengthen our souls. Let us renew our support of progressive institutions with our dollars. And let us continue to work with others in progressive organizations for the changes we want to see.
Our Goddess is strong and practical; let us follow Her in this wisdom.
But if—right now, at this time—you mourn, it is well. Make an offering to Isis of your mourning. She will receive it from you…
This is a gift I bring before the Beautiful Mourner, Isis the Weeper Who Transforms: an invocation offering of mourning.
I offer You, Isis, my mourning for there is nothing else I can do with it. How is it that something so empty can be called pain-full? I am abandoned in an ocean of pain so deep that there is nothing else. My tears are nothing but more salt for that bitter sea. My grief is nothing but a hole in my belly. I cannot breathe. I have no breath. There is no air. My mind is blank, unable to receive the words that are pushed at me. My heart? I have no heart.
Mourning is what we do when the loss is so great that we can do nothing else. Each of us who mourns has their own share of this hollow pain. But it is the pain of one human being at one time, in one place. You, Isis, You hear the cries of the world. You feel each heart breaking, You know every human cruelty.
The sorrows of a Goddess are deep. What then is my mourning compared to Yours?
Listen, O Isis, to the words of Mourning: “I am offered unto Isis for She is the Well of Mourning. She absorbs me and takes me into Her vastness. I am dissolved in infinity. I am mixed with all things. I am reborn as a child. I am the mystery of suffering. I am Mourning.”
Unto You, Isis, I offer my mourning and all things beautiful and pure. M’den, Iset. Accept it, Isis.
For some of us, poetry is one of the ways in which we can express our feelings or experiences with the Divine. Whether we compose it ourselves or discover a poem that has the perfect words to touch our hearts and say what we’d want to say.
Hesiod Listening to the Inspiration of the Muse; Edmond-François Aman-Jean, French, 1890
It isn’t easy to be a poet. You can wrestle with words for days and still come up empty-handed. I find that if I just sit down with the intention of writing a poem about Isis, I get—well—pretty much nothing.
The way it works best for me, is to poise my fingers over the keyboard, clear my mind, close my eyes, invoke the Goddess…and start typing. (The trick is keeping your fingers over the right keys. Otherwise you get rhwewosqeonger.)
What comes out is by no means finished. It’s more like notes for a poem. Then I work with it and shape it, making it into something, and in that process discover its meaning—for me, for now.
The value of this for me is that I often get images that I would not have come up with in my normal state of consciousness. Sometimes, they don’t even make logical sense, but they do make a kind of poetic sense. They can be odd and beautiful. Sometimes I edit out the strangenesses. Sometimes I just leave them in, hoping that they’ll communicate what the Goddess intended.
To show you what I mean, I’m going to do a little experiment right now. [NOTE: This is a repost. But when I first wrote it, it was done “live” and in real time.]
So here we go. Fingers poised over keyboard…opening…invoking…and typing this:
long black wings against a blue white sky clouds bending into circles interpenetrating the blackness of feather of feature of faith clean sharp shriek of light coming into my mind clearing feathered fog leaving its own breath I am hearing you now
That’s what it looks like first out of my brain, and inspired in whispered hints from some Muse-form of Isis. It sort of reminds me of Symbolist poetry from the late 19th/early 20th century.
Now, I’ll break it up into phrases and add punctuation as remembered from my mental “hearing” of it:
Long black wings against a blue-white sky. Clouds bend into circles, interpenetrating the blackness of feather, of feature, of faith. A clean, sharp shriek of light comes into my mind, clearing feathered fog and leaving its own breath. I am hearing you now.
I’m starting to understand what this is about. It’s about the subject of this post—receiving poetic inspiration from the Goddess. So it is an image of what that inspiration can be like.
Now, working with it a bit more, I get this:
Long, dark wings flash against a purified sky. Blue-white ghost clouds move and spiral, interpenetrated by the blackness of feather, of feature, of faith. In my mind, a clean, sharp shriek of light clears feathered fog, leaves its own breath. I am hearing you now.
Diego y yo, Frida Kahlo; Frida and Diego served as muses for each other
I’ll leave this as it is for now. If I had intended to keep this, I would probably work with it a bit more. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s just a quick example of what the Goddess might inspire.
Now, art of any kind isn’t quick and easy. In fact, it takes time and practice. But if you are at all inclined, I’d urge you to try it. In your own way, of course. And in your own medium. Maybe you’ll paint instead. Maybe you’ll sing. But however it comes to you, don’t be concerned with the perfection of your results. She doesn’t care about that. Isis will always gladly take your work as an offering of devotion and love.
(I have a question about this little bit of Isis poetry: That final phrase, “I am hearing you now.” Is that the poet hearing the Goddess, or the Goddess hearing the poet? What do you think?)
I enter Her shrine, light the candles, ignite the charcoal in the censer, pour Nile Water into the cup. The stillness of the morning settles in the shrine and in me. I sit on the floor before Her sacred image, looking up at Her.
“Hello, Isis,” I think to Her. No response. But I do not really expect one. Not yet.
I breathe, slowly, deeply. I focus on my own consciousness, which I sense centered in my head. Then, on a breath, I let my consciousness roll out and out and out, expanding into the unseen world, where She Is, where I can greet Her.
“I am open unto Isis, only Isis,” I whisper into the stillness. I breathe, opening my mind and body and Self to Her.
The water vessel filled with Nile Water
I take up the cup with Nile Water, elevate it. I call out to the Souls—the Bau—of Night asking Them to imbue this water with Their purifying powers in Her name. I envision blue light flowing into the cup. I sense starlight. I feel a slight heaviness in the cup.
I sprinkle water throughout the shrine. East, south, west, north. I sprinkle myself with this ensouled water. I speak the purifying formula, adapted from ancient texts. “Isis is pure, I am pure…” As I breathe in, blue light spirals into my core. As I breathe out, it reverses direction, carrying impurities out with it. I do this until I feel balanced and ready to come before Her in worship.
A hand-painted censer with lotus flowers
I take up the censer, place incense on the coal. Scented smoke rises. I call out to the Bau of Day asking Them, in Her name, to fill the censer with Their consecrating powers. Red light settles around the censer; its heat increases. I waft the smoke throughout the shrine as before. “Isis is consecrated, I am consecrated…” I coax the scent over my body. I breathe in the red consecration until I am replete, consecrated to Her worship.
I sit. Breathe. Open my consciousness again. I sense Her waiting on the edges of that consciousness.
I raise my hands, beckoning. I speak the very simplest of all the Egyptian invocations I know. “Iu en-i (Eeoouu-en-ee). Iu en-i, Iset,” I say. “Come to me, come to me, Isis.” I repeat this, softly, letting my words, my desire flow out to Her.
And suddenly the shrine is full of wings. Now it feels a bit crowded in here, but I let my ka relax, that it may better touch Hers. She shows Her beautiful face to me. Large, dark, almond eyes. Wide mouth. Long, wide nose. The shrine is full of wings and feathers, impossibly multi-hued. And it is full of Her.
She has serpents and sistra
I have come to worship, so I ask what She desires. “Your thoughts and offerings help Us abide in Our images [She means the sacred images we obtain and consecrate for Her and for all our Divine Ones] and in your hearts,” She says. “Spend time, make offering.”
She is before/around me now. She begins to breathe through my being. She is concentrating on the shenu—the energy centers—of my third eye and my heart. [I think this means either those centers are the most sensitive in me right now, or perhaps the least sensitive and they need work. I am not sure.] She breathes out, I breathe Her into my centers. Hold. I breathe out, She breathes into Her shenu and holds the power. We do this again and again. “What do you feel?” She asks. “Expansion. Excitement. Connection to You,” I say. “Worshiping is communion,” She says. “Your thoughts of Me are the flowers I choose for My garden.”
She, with Harpokrates, Werethekau, and the Goddess with Upraised Arms
I think blue lotuses for Her.
She takes them.
“Look into My eyes,” She says, “into the Black of the Kore.” [She is referring to this.] I do. “Worship begins at the Origin and ends there, too,” She says. “Worship is exchange, energy, offering, love. Worship is being in harmony with. Worship is rising in the Boat of the Morning and setting in the Boat of the Night. Worship is surrender that I may uplift you. Worship is vulnerability before Me, a release of fear. Worship is just love; you for Me, Me for you,” She says.
I sit then, in worship, as I do whenever I enter Her shrine, and whenever I think of Her. I am content. She, I think, is also content.
Several posts ago, I mentioned a particular type of graffiti found at Isis temples in Egypt and in other locations throughout the Mediterranean. These are the images of a foot or feet or footprints that were sometimes scratched on or near Her temple or shrine. Similar feet have also been found carved on separate stone slabs and placed within temples. In Egypt, we find these feet images associated with Isis in Abydos and Philae. Outside of Egypt, we find them in Delos, Chaeronea, Thessaloniki, Maroneia, Rome, and more.
A knot of Isis like the one She took as offering
If you’ve ever traveled to a sacred place, you may have been tempted to leave behind an offering or token of some kind to mark your journey. On my own recent pilgrimage to Isis’ temple at Philae in Egypt, it seems I left such a token—if inadvertently. On the boat ride to Her temple island, I was wearing two pieces of jewelry: a knot of Isis and a tiny sistrum. I paid no attention to them at all while we explored Her sacred temple. But on the boat ride back, I had only the tiny sistrum. The knot of Isis must have fallen off sometime during our visit.
Yet the loss made me happy. Why? Because I had had a premonition that something would happen while I was there. I believe that what happened was that Isis accepted the offering that I had unconsciously brought Her. I have since wondered if the Goddess re-gifted it to some other visiting priestess and absolutely made her day, week, and month. I hope so; that’s my fantasy, anyway.
A votive footprint from a temple in the Egyptian Faiyum
Of course, I would never have etched my footprints or left graffiti on Her temple as some ancient visitors before me had done. I mean, what were they thinking!?! And, in fact, that’s exactly what I’d like to explore today: what were they thinking, and what are those footprints about anyway?
In a general sense, footprints are tangible proof that someone was here; right here—and substantial enough to leave a print. Remember the Ice Age footprints discovered in New Mexico several years ago? They are of a woman and child and they’re the longest continual track of fossilized footprints found to date; they continue for almost a mile. Because of the pace of the footprints and the changing depth of the imprints, researchers can tell something about what may have been happening to those people at that time. Or remember how affecting seeing Buzz Aldrin’s human footprint in the dust of the moon was? Or perhaps you’ve been intrigued by the celebrity footprints (and handprints) outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood? Like a fingerprint, a footprint uniquely represents the one who made it.
Etched footprints of (probably) priests of Khonsu on the roof of His temple at Karnak
Footprints can often have a spiritual significance, too. Across the world, people have always pointed out what they say are footprints of Deities, heroes, and supernatural beings. Some are natural footprint-shaped indentations in rock, while others are human-created, like the giant God-footprints in Syria’s ‘Ain Dara temple. Such physical evidence is meant to clearly demonstrate the Deity’s Presence. These God-sized footprints may be meant to commemorate a human being’s experience of Divine epiphany. Or their permanence, especially in a temple, may be meant to say, “the Deity is always here.” However we interpret them, there is magic in them.
The “walking” footprints from Isis’ Baelo Claudia temple; you can see Her name in Latin in the upper left of the photo
Isis is, of course, one of the Deities Who left such evidence of Her Divine Presence in Her temples. We have a limestone slab from Alexandria, Egypt that shows a single, large footprint that has been conveniently labeled for us in Greek: Isidos Podas, “Foot of Isis.” Separate stone slabs like this, incised with a Divine foot or feet, seem to have been an Egyptian thing and is attested for Egypt from at least the 5th century BCE. Similar carved slabs are also found throughout the Mediterranean, and often in temples of “The Egyptian Deities.” During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, “the Egyptian Deities” meant specifically Isis, Serapis, Harpokrates, and Anubis. Sometimes, other symbols related to the Deity are carved along with the foot or feet, or the dedication informs us that it was given to fulfill a vow or “by order of” the Deity.
We sometimes also find votive footprints carved in stone that would then be set into the floor of the temple. In the Isis temple in Baelo Claudia, Spain, the footprints are offset, as if in movement, and seem to lead toward the altar. (I love this.) In this case, the footprints have been interpreted as the path walked by Isis’ priests as they served Her or as the steps of the Goddess Herself as She attends the ceremonies at Her temple. Another small Isis sanctuary near Seville shows similar treatment with the footprints approaching the sanctuary entrance.
Votive “footsteps” dedicated to Isis Dykaiosyne from the sacred island of Delos
From the sacred island of Delos in Greece, we have a pair of footprints, labeled as “footsteps” and dedicated to Isis Dikaiosyne, “Isis of Justice,” by “order of the Goddess.” Another set of Goddess-sized footprints from Delos were dedicated to Isis and Anubis by at least three women. From Chaeronea, we have sandalled feet dedicated “following the command of Isis.” We have similar dedicated footprints from the acropolis in Athens and from Thessalonike.
While oversized footprints usually represent Deities, smaller, human-sized ones represent Their human worshipers. The footprint demonstrates the worshiper’s presence before the Deity at Their temple. Some of the earliest examples come from Egypt. We find them not only in temple complexes, but also in hilltop locations, perhaps putting the human closer to the Divine in this elevated position. In Egypt, there are hundreds of examples and they date from as far back as the Old Kingdom. Some were made by visitors to the temples, but many were made in areas—such as the roof—that were inaccessible to anyone but the clergy. Thus it seems to have been a privilege of the priests to be able to put themselves in continual proximity to the Deity of the temple. In fact, the four instances of footprint graffiti found at Isis’ Philae temple come from a single family that served there as priests of Isis. (Researchers also note that some of the footprints from Egypt are found in secular contexts, often made by soldiers, and simply say, “I was here.” Because. Humans.)
Footprints of the Goddess and Her devotee from the Temple of Isis Locheia in Dion, Greece
Sometimes we find a larger footprint beside a smaller one, perhaps to represent the Deity and Their worshiper. An example of a set of footprints like these comes from the Temple of Isis Locheia in Dion, Greece. They may be meant to show that the devotee is walking beside her Goddess. Since Isis Locheia is a protector of women in childbirth and of children, we can surmise that the footprints represent a pregnant woman asking protection from her Goddess.
We also find a number of these footprint dedications given by now-free, formerly enslaved people. Both Isis and Serapis were known to help manumit slaves through a fictitious “sale” to the Goddess and God.
Later, during the Roman Imperial period, a new kind of “foot” comes into vogue. It is a gigantic 3D sculpture of a Divine foot. A famous example is the Piè di Marmo (“Marble Foot”) that now resides on Via del Piè di Marmo in Rome and which is believed to be a large foot of Isis (or possibly Serapis) from the temple of Isis Campense or the Serapium. These feet are free-standing and not part of a large, lost statue. In other words, the whole Deity is represented by the foot. Scholars believe that this trend, too, first developed in Egypt and was exported to other sanctuaries in the Mediterranean.
The Piè di Marmo in Rome
The concept of representing ourselves or our Deities by footprints—by the traces left behind by our presence or Their Presence—is found worldwide. People everywhere do it and have done so for thousands of years. The many “footprints of Buddha” are just one example from outside the Mediterranean region. They are, I believe, similar in meaning to the prehistoric handprints found in caves from Indonesia to France.
In Egypt, we have Old Kingdom evidence of the idea that “my footprint means I was here” in both secular and sacred contexts. By the New Kingdom, oversized Divine footprints begin to appear. But instead of being etched into temple walls or roofs, they are often carved on separate slabs of stone and dedicated in temples. We begin to see this trend outside of Egypt, too, especially in temples of Isis and Serapis, but also in temples of other Deities in sanctuaries throughout the Mediterranean. Remember the ones at Hekate’s temple in Karia?
For the Isis shrine in my backyard, we purchased two slabs of rock that we intend to have sandblasted with a pair of votive feet, right foot on one, left on the other. This is a project yet to be done, but after looking into this interesting little chapter in the worship of Isis, I’m gonna have to get on that. She needs some footsteps of Her votary—me—leading into Her temple.
I am thrilled to let you know that both Isis Magic and Offering to Isis WILL be back.
Offering to Isis: Knowing the Goddess Through Her Sacred Symbols is being published with updated text and new illustrations of the offerings later this year (2024). It is from Azoth Press and will be available from Miskatonic Books. I’ll share more information as soon as I have it.
Isis Magic: Cultivating a Relationship with the Goddess of 10,000 Names, 25th Anniversary Edition will be available in spring of 2026. It will be published by REDFeather, Mind, Body, Spirit, which is known for its beautiful oracle decks and other topics in personal transformation and empowerment.
Oh, you saw that “25th Anniversary Edition” thing, too? Woof. I can’t believe it’s been that long. On the other hand, when I think of the tiny Mac computer with the floppy disks that I first started writing Isis Magic on while seated at our kitchen table, I actually can believe it.
As those of you who have been following along with this blog know, I don’t talk much about myself here. I prefer to keep the focus on Her. She’s the reason you’re here. She’s the reason I’m here. And She’s the reason both of these books are here. But I thought I’d break my rule just a little bit to share with you something about me and how these books came to be…
The earliest I can remember writing stories was in the sixth grade. Influenced by the spy TV shows that were popular at the time, I wrote about secret agent cats and their clandestine organization, P.U.R.R. Yeah, you don’t want to know what that stood for.
Next, I graduated to monster and horror stories inspired by the Creepy and Eerie graphic novels (we called them comic books then, but they were graphic novels).
I never really thought of myself as a capital-w Writer, though I made my living from marketing writing. During this time, I learned how to research. I found The Goddess and connected with my local Pagan communities. I studied magic and psychism, both on my own and through training in a Hermetic magical tradition. And of course—I’m sure I share this with many of you—I never lost my deep interest in ancient Egypt.
With all that in the background, it isn’t really surprising that, when I did find Isis—or She found me—that the task She wanted me to do was to write books for Her.
As I worked on that little Mac on the kitchen table, I researched to discover everything about Isis that I could find in order to bring it all together in one book. (There was no Google when I began. I know; shocking.) The devotions, meditations, and rituals in both books were inspired by what I learned about ancient Egypt and by Her. In fact, She used many of them to train me as Her priestess. One piece of UPG (unverified personal gnosis) that She gave me during the writing of these books, is that these books would bring seven important devotees to Her service. They would be leaders and would help more people come to know Her.
I hope this has already happened. I hope you’re one of them.
So. Those are the bare bones of the story of Isis Magic and Offering to Isis. I’ll keep you up to date on when the new editions will be available and share with you any new information as it comes along. Thank you all for your devotion to—and if you’re new here, interest in—Isis. She is the most wonderful and magical of Goddesses. She is Divine Magic, Divine Wisdom, Divine Power, and Divine Love. And She IS.
The House of Isis is open unto you. It always has been. Come.
I’m recovering today from a bit of surgery, so I will leave you with this photo of some Isis statuettes we were privileged to see at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Isis, Isis everywhere!
We can pretend this is Ahwere, who tells the tale in Part 1
I went down a rabbit hole yesterday morning that—after some exciting twists and turns—led me back to an older blog post here on Isiopolis. And I realized that I hadn’t finished the story of Ahwere, Naneferkaptah, and their child, Merib.
This story has been called the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian literature (though we don’t have that much ancient Egyptian literature). It was written down in the Ptolemaic period and is usually called Setne and the Magic Book. It’s a classic type of ancient tale and involves Isis, Thoth, and dead Egyptians having effect in the living world. In it, the son of Rameses the Great, Setne Kaemweset, learns that a previous prince, Naneferkaptah, had acquired vast magical knowledge and an amazing magical book locked inside a series of chests and sunk in the bottom of the river. Now, the son of Rameses, also a glutton for magical knowledge, wants it for himself. (The real Kaemweset became a Sem-Priest of Ptah at Memphis and was responsible for new buildings at the temple of Ptah as well as restorations of ancient tombs and pyramids. He became a kind of folk hero with fantastical tales attached to his name.)
I’m going to back up a just a bit to tell you a little more about the contests between Setne and Naneferkaptah over the magic book. Remember, Setne wants its magical power and Naneferkaptah, who is deceased, wants to keep it hidden because of the great tragedies that befall anyone who uses the book.
So Ahwere and Naneferkaptah, wife and husband, are in Naneferkaptah’s tomb warning Setne not to lust after this dangerous book. Setne threatens to take it by force if they don’t hand it over to him. So Naneferkaptah says he can only get the book by being able to best Naneferkaptah at a game a droughts (perhaps the game of Senet, the equipment for which was found in a number of tombs). Setne is up for the challenge. But Naneferkaptah wins the first game. By his magic, Naneferkaptah sinks Setne into the earth up to his lower legs. After losing the second game, Setne is sunk to his crotch, and on losing the third, he is sunk to his ears. Setne was down, but not out. He gives Naneferkaptah a whack and sends the spirit of his deceased brother to Setne’s father, the pharaoh, to tell of everything that happened and ask for help. This the spirit does—and pharaoh sends some powerful magic to Setne.
Setne is up to his ears in trouble
A few formidable amulets later, Setne is out of the earth, has snatched the magical book from Ahwere and Naneferkaptah, and runs out of the tomb. As he goes, Ahwere laments that all power has left the tomb. But Naneferkaptah comforts her and vows to make him return the book.
Setne locks the tomb behind him and goes to his father. Dad advises Setne to be smart and put the dang book back, but Setne refuses. In fact, like an idiot, he proceeds to read the magic book to everyone. (The story doesn’t tell us how this came out.)
Now we have a change of scene. Sometime after Setne gets the book, he finds himself walking in the temple of Ptah and sees an incredibly beautiful and alluring woman there, too. He cannot take his eyes off her and has his servant go find out who she is. Turns out she is the daughter of the High Priest of Bastet and her name is Tabubu. Setne, prince that he is, somehow thinks it would be a good idea to send his servant to offer her 10 pieces of gold to spend a hour with him. Not only that, but his invitation includes a veiled threat demanding her compliance. She is insulted and highly pissed.
Tabubu, Bastet priestess, looking like Ozma of Oz
So, she sends word to Setne that if he wants to do as he wishes with her, he has to come to her house, she being of priestly rank. Setne was okay with that, but everyone around him thought it was a Very Bad Idea.
So off to Bubastis he goes and he finds that Tabubu lives in a very rich house upon very rich grounds. Tabubu greets him and has him come inside with her. She serves him food and drink and they fool around for a while. Finally, Setne is ready to do the deed. Ah no, says Tabubu. She is of priestly rank and if he wants her he must sign over all his possessions. Somehow, Setne thinks this is a good idea and has a legal paper drawn up and signs it. Then Tabubu tells him that his children are here. Setne says to bring them to him. As Tabubu stands to go get the children, the transparent gown she is wearing makes Setne ever hotter and he begs to have sex with her. Nope, she says, not until your children sign off on the paperwork you just signed. Which they do. He begs again. Nope. Not until your children are killed. Setne—clearly madder than a hatter by this time—agrees. Their bodies are thrown out the window to be devoured by cats and dogs. Yeesh.
Finally, Tabubu leads him to a couch. They lay down together and just as he reaches out to touch her…
Statue of Khaemweset, prince of Egypt
He wakes up with a huge erection and nothing to do with it.
Then he realizes that it was Naneferkaptah who sent him this evil dream (perhaps to show him how much of a monster could be?). When Setne goes out into the street, still naked, he comes upon the pharaoh. I am imagining the pharaoh rolling his eyes to the heavens as he advises his wayward son to go to Memphis and see his children, who are indeed alive. Pharaoh again advises Setne to get rid of the book. This time Setne listens and takes the book back to the tomb of Naneferkaptah where Naneferkaptah and the ka of Ahwere remain. Now remember that Ahwere and their child Merib are buried in Koptos in the vicinity of the temple of Isis and Harpokrates. She is in Naneferkaptah’s tomb just in ka-form. In order make amends, Naneferkaptah tells Setne go find the tombs of Ahwere and Merib and bring their bodies back to be buried in Memphis with him.
So prince Setne takes pharaoh’s boat and goes to Koptos. He makes offering to Isis and Harpokrates when he arrives. Then Setne and the priests of Isis spend three days searching for Ahwere and Merib, with no success. Meanwhile, Naneferkaptah had been keeping tabs on Setne and has seen his lack of success. So he changes himself into the likeness of an old priest. When Setne sees him, he thinks that such an old man just might remember where they were buried. As the old man was really Naneferkaptah, he most certainly did and told Setne they were under part of the small town of Pehemato (another translation says under the house of the chief of police). Digging there, Ahwere and Merib were found. And the now-reformed prince restores everything that had been destroyed during their digging just as it had been.
Ahwere and Merib’s bodies were taken to Memphis and buried with Naneferkaptah. The family was reunited and Setne learned his lesson. And so our the story is complete and you have now heard one of ancient Egypt’s greatest tales.
And on another note, a blessed and happy Easter to all who celebrate.
Hello, Isiacs! I’m off celebrating the equinox today. Yes, it’s Portland and it’s overcast and chilly. But the daffodils are blooming and all the little green shoots are coming up.
So, no post today, but I’ll leave you with some images of Our Lady that I had the privilege to see at the Egyptian Museum.
Isis in a somewhat unusual squatting postion
A classic mourning Isis
An Isis aegis; these busts of the Deities were sometimes used to decorate the sacred boats in which They were carried among the people during festivals
An Isis-Aphrodite with Her bare vulva and show-girl hat
Not Isis, but Her son Horus; this is a cippi of Horus used for healing. You pour water over the image and magical words. It gathers in the basin below…and you drink that as your cure.
One of the questions I regularly receive from folks who email me is, “how can I tell if Isis is calling me?” It’s a very good question, if a somewhat difficult one to answer.
Sometimes, people have had dreams with what they think could be Isiac imagery. Sometimes they’ve had a vision or some other experience during a ritual. Sometimes it’s a feeling, sometimes a wish or a hope.
To try to unravel this, the first thing we need to figure out is what we mean by “calling?” In other words, if She were calling us, what would that mean? What kind of obligation, if any, comes with that calling? Because so many of us have Christianity in our personal backgrounds as well as Christianity being so prominent in our societies, we might automatically associate “a calling” with a vocation for the ministry or priesthood. It’s certainly possible. But there are other possibilities, too.
What calling means to us can also depend on where we are in our spiritual journey, as well as what we’ve been studying or reading or thinking.
For instance, let’s say you’re very interested in ancient Egypt, you’ve been reading about it, and you’re in a spiritual circle of some kind that regularly invokes Deities. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. She might, indeed. She could also be one of any number of Egyptian Goddesses, which you would know about from your reading. What you intuit from your own dream will be very helpful here. If you think She’s Isis, you can follow that thread. We’ll talk about that shortly.
For another instance, let’s say you’ve never had any particular connection with ancient Egypt and you’re not on any specific spiritual path. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. This may be just a dream. But if you find it exceptionally powerful, keep looking. A dream like that might be pointing out that your soul is yearning for some positive Mother or Divine Feminine energy in your life. That knowledge, in and of itself, is very valuable information. On the other hand, such a dream could be the impetus to set you on a spiritual journey as you seek to learn more.
And for a third instance, let’s say you have that same dream. But you don’t feel that you’re ready—or that you even want to—do anything about it. You absolutely don’t have to. If it’s an important knock on your spiritual door, She’ll knock again. And it’s okay to say no. You won’t hurt Her feelings and there are no negative consequences.
So. Dreams are one way to hear Isis if She’s calling you. But if you, like me, are a crappy dreamer and neither remember them nor write them down, there are other ways to hear Her. There are usually signs. Signs can be tricky. In most cases, a sign is something unusual that catches your attention and relates to the particular Deity involved, in our case, Isis. Because She is a Bird Goddess, it might be wings and feathers. You may hear the sound of wings at an odd time. Or a bird swoops down immediately in your line of sight, startling you. Or a feather drops from the sky. Her symbols—like the Knot of Isis or a throne—might show up unexpectedly. Perhaps you overhear Her name in a passing conversation between strangers. This will happen, not just once, but many times. Be patient. Wait. And look and listen for the signs.
Now, if you’re actively wanting Her to be calling you, signs and synchronicities can ramp up. Does a breeze rustle the leaves of a tree as you pass, thinking of Her? It is Her breath. Have you found a piece of jewelry engraved with Her image? She confirms your Path. Did that hawk circle above you as you drive your car down a country road with Her name on your lips? She is guiding you.
Is it foolish to see these signs everywhere? Is it “just my imagination?” In some cases, sure, there will be a kind of confirmation bias. But that doesn’t matter; She’s on your mind. You’re thinking of Her. It has begun.
Sometimes, there are other ways to tell. You might have an intuition of Her presence about you. Or something weird might happen. I’ve had incense burn and disappear all by itself, strangers have given me unexpected Isis gifts, very loud disembodied voices have spoken my name. What your weird thing might be, I can’t say.
Now. There’s also an important secret about all this that I’d like to share with you. Two, really. The first is that if you want to connect with Isis, you don’t have to wait for Her to call you. You can call Her, too. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Ask Her to come into your life. If you like ritual, use the Opening of the Ways here.
The second is that being called by Isis doesn’t necessarily mean you are being called to a lifelong relationship with Her. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being called to serve as Her priestess or priest. It might mean you’re being called to learn more about Her—right now and perhaps only for a while. Perhaps you’re being called to relationship. And like any relationship, that means investing time. Spend time with Her, in meditation and prayer. Read about Her in anything and everything you can get your hands on. Get to know Her. See how She feels to you. Do you like Her energy? Does it fit with yours? That’s what I mean by following the thread…and just see where it leads you.
And if you find, after time, that this is not the relationship for you, that’s perfectly okay. You will have learned. You will have grown and your spiritual world will have been expanded.
But if you find that, like me, you are a lifetime (or at least longterm) devotee of Isis, then I know you will discover for yourself Her deep love, wisdom, power, and magic.
This is an important Isis myth. It almost always gets overshadowed by the main Isis and Osiris myth, the murder of Osiris and Isis’ search for Him. But this is the Isis myth that is, for many, the most unsettling when we are first learning our Isis lore; and that is the tale of how Isis tricked the Sun God Re into revealing His most secret name and thereby gained additional power for Herself and for Her son, Horus. Know that story? If not, you can read a translation here.
On the basis of this tale, some have decided that Isis is an evil magician. I have even seen the story used as an argument to show how naturally underhanded all women are! And, on the face of it, the tale is troubling. Isis decides to gain power. She deliberately poisons Re, then cures Him only after He reveals to Her His most secret, hidden, and powerful name. Although Isis’ Divine knowledge is already equal to Re’s, knowing His name gives Her even more power. What’s more, She will be able to share Re’s name with Horus, once He is oath-bound to keep it secret, and Horus will receive the sun and moon as His Two Eyes.
So what are we to make of this? Is Isis just another tricky female? Perhaps we should consider Her as one of the Trickster Deities. She’s a Divine Magician, after all, and magicians are always tricky. Or maybe Isis was forced to resort to magical artifice to break through a Divine glass ceiling. Think of royal women in the Egyptian court. Because they did not have outright power equal to men’s, they would have used tricks, subterfuge, perhaps even poison, as a path to power. We must remember that it is always human beings who tell these stories, thus all stories come through a human filter.
As you might guess, none of these explanations satisfy me. I do have one that does, but it will take me a little while to get to my point, so I hope you’ll bear with me.
Background Info
There are several things you should know about this story. First, the version of the tale that has come down to us is from a papyrus known as the Turin Papyrus (along with a few other sources). It has been dated to Egypt’s 20th dynasty, about 1186-1169 BCE. No doubt, the story itself is much, much older, but the version we have comes from the later time. Second, the story is part of a healing formula to cure snakebite. Egyptian medicine almost always had a magical prescription as well as whatever herbal or surgical therapy was given. Such prescriptions often included a myth that related to the problem, followed by a statement that just as so-and-so was cured in the myth, so shall the sufferer be cured. In this case, just as Re was cured by Isis, so shall the snakebite sufferer be cured. Instruction is given at the end of the formula to recite the story over images of the main characters in the tale.
Elements of the Myth: the old king
The papyrus tells us that Re was so old that He drooled. In a time when the pharaoh was considered a God, and therefore should be the epitome of physical, mental and spiritual perfection, it would hardly be acceptable to have a ruler so old He drooled. Myths such as the death of the Holly King in Celtic countries, ritual combat to the death between the outgoing priest of Diana at the grove of Nemi and an incoming hopeful, and Arthurian legends of the Wounded King of the Wasteland—all point to the archetypal nature of this theme.
Lady of Renewal
Elements of the Myth: the Goddess of Renewal
If you know anything about Isis, you know that one of Her key powers is the ability to renew and resurrect. The Turin papyrus tells us that Isis came to Re with Her magic and that Her “speech was as the breath of life.” When the Star of Isis, Sirius, rose in summer, it signaled the beginning of the New Year and the renewal of all things. Her magic brought Osiris back to life enough to conceive Horus and then gave Him a new existence as Lord of the Dead. As some of you may know, I believe Isis is the ancient Bird of Prey Goddess. Thus She is the Lady of Death and Regeneration, an identity that She has never lost, even to this day. Since the failing Re does not willingly give up His power, Isis must create the conditions that force the old ruler to the point of renewal.
Elements of the Myth: the saliva of the God
In Egypt, magic might be worked by means of bodily fluids. Saliva, semen, blood, sweat, milk, and other such fluids were a means of creation. If it was the blood, sweat, and tears of the Deities, it was even more creative and powerful. Since Re drooled, rather than purposefully spitting (for example, when Atum creatively spit to give birth to the Goddess Tefnut), He was wasting His power.
Elements of the Myth: the holy serpent
Yet, the Goddess does not let it go to waste. Instead, She mixes Re’s drool with earth, the place of renewal from which new life grows, to create a holy cobra (or “noble snake” as in the linked translation). The cobra is a mixture of life—in that it is made partly of earth and will ultimately cause Re to be healed—and death—in that it is made from the wasted generative power of Re and is a symbol of His unfitness for His throne. And of course, the serpent is an almost universal symbol of renewal due to the snake’s ability to shed its skin and emerge new from the experience.
In the form of the holy cobra, Re’s own weakness strikes Him and brings Him more pain than He has ever before experienced. He quakes with cold and burns with fire.
Re
Elements of the Myth: name magic
In Egyptian magical theory, to know someone or something’s name is to be able to access its essence at the time of Creation, when all heka was at its more pure and potent. In this story, Re is considered the most powerful Deity in the universe (the tale also contains a litany of Re’s great powers). Knowing His secret name confers ultimate power; including the power to heal. As Isis tells Re, “the person who hath declared his name shall live.”
If this story is very ancient, it may be that its original form, in which Isis renews Re simply because that’s what the Goddess does, was lost. Perhaps later scribes tried to explain the Mystery to themselves and their audiences by framing it as a trick to gain power. Thus what may seem like simple blackmail is actually much more profound. Re is being forced to reveal a most secret and inner part of Himself to the Goddess. To be healed, He must make Himself vulnerable to the Lady of Renewal. He must accept both Her help and Her very real power.
Isis heals the ailing Re
Once Re gives Himself over to Isis, He is healed, renewed in strength and power. He learns that He must give up in order to gain. He learns to trust the Goddess Whom He has been forced to trust. And the Goddess proves Herself worthy. In no successive myth do we ever find any evidence that Isis abuses the ultimate power She has gained.
But Wait, There’s More
In the very same papyrus in which this story is found, there is a parallel story involving Horus and Set. It, too, is a magical snakebite cure. Here’s that story:
Horus and Set were voyaging together on Horus’ golden barque. Suddenly, Set cried out, “Come to me Horus, I have been bitten!”
And Horus turned to Set and said, “Tell Me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”
Set replied, “I am Yesterday, I am Today, I am Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come.”
But Horus said, “No, Thou art not Yesterday, Today, or Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come. Tell me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”
So Set said, “I am a Quiver of Arrows, I am a Cauldron of Disturbance.”
“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated what He had said before.
“I am a Man of a Thousand Cubits, Whose Reputation is Not Known.”
“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated again what He had said.
“I am a Threshing Floor; I am a Jug of Milk, Milked from the Breast of Bastet.
“No, Thou art not,” said Horus again.
Finally, Set replied with His True Name, “I am a Man of a Million Cubits Whose Name is Evil Day. As for the Day of Giving Birth or of Conceiving, There is No Giving Birth and Trees Bear No Fruit.”
The formula concludes with the promise that the sufferer will be made as sound as Horus was by Isis, so even though in this story Horus is one Who is pushing Set to reveal His true name, the cure is attributed to Isis.
Horus and Set as sphinxes flanking a Cow Goddess
What the Trickster Teaches
It seems clear to me that a key to both of these myths is vulnerability to the Divine that precedes healing. We must reveal our innermost selves, symbolized by our true name, to Goddess, to God. We must do so even if, like Set, it is a name with which we are not entirely comfortable. We must give ourselves over to the Divine, as we are, right now, with no masks. Only in this state of radical openness can we receive the renewing gifts that Divinity has for us. Like Re and like Set, we must—at least eventually—be willing to acknowledge and trust the Divine in order to bring Its power into our lives. This vulnerability and revelation of truth can be painful, like poison; and yet the truth always frees us.
Like Re especially, we must acknowledge the power of Goddess and make ourselves open to Her. If we don’t, She will find a way—perhaps a rather difficult way—to bring that lack to our attention. But when we do reveal ourselves to Her, we can know Her and be known by Her. We can enter into mystical communion with Her as we move through the natural cycle of death and renewal that is guided by Her hand.
The Milky Way arching through the night sky; Nuet, the Secret One
While I have no declared priestesshood for Nuet, She draws me. A lot. In fact, almost anytime I do spiritual work with Her, I am overawed by Her Eternity, Her Depth, Her Beauty, and I want to lose myself in Her.
Nuet is the mother of Isis. And She is also the One Who Bears All the Gods and Goddesses, and so She is called the Mistress of All. She is the Splendid and Mighty One in the House of Her Creation. She is the Great One in Heaven and the “indestructible stars” (that is, the circumpolar stars that are always visible) are said to be in Her.
The Sky Goddess Nuet, full of stars, swallowing the Sun (my image, too, whoohoo!)
She embraces the deceased “in Her name of Sarcophagus” and “in Her name of Tomb.” She is the Mistress of the Duat (the Otherworld). She is the Glowing One (as the Milky Way) and in Her we are joined to our stars, Becoming divine. She is the one Who gives birth to us and Who welcomes us back into Her starry body at our deaths. She is Heaven and She is the Otherworld. She is the one Who is “Amid the Iset Temple in Denderah” for She is over Her daughter Isis and Her daughter is both in and of Her.
A most beautiful Nuet
As Nuet gives birth every day, She is the quintessential Mother Goddess. She births the Sun God Re each day and receives him back into Her body, by swallowing Him, each night. She also gives birth to Him yearly at the winter solstice. A cycle within a cycle within the Mother.
The decan stars, by which the ancient Egyptians kept time throughout the night, rise and set within Her heavenly body and so She is also a keeper and regulator of time. In one instance of what Egyptologists refer to as a “shadow clock,” the Hours of the Night are counted off in relation to where the sun is on/in Nuet’s body: First Hour, “hand,” Second Hour, “lip.” Third Hour, “tooth,” Fourth Hour, “throat,” and so on.
Nuet on the interior of a coffin, facing the deceased
Most ancient Egyptian painted representations of Deities show Them in profile. Yet there are a few Who come to us face-forward. The Great Goddess Hathor is famously depicted that way, as is Bes, the God Who is a protector of households, children, and mothers. Interestingly, we also find Nuet shown in this way. Like Hathor, She is a Mother Goddess and like Bes, She is a mighty protectress.
We often find Her on the inside of a coffin, stretched out over the deceased person like the sky, positioned face-to-face with them. This face-forward, face-to-face position is particularly intimate, particularly appropriate for the close relationship with a mother…or a Mother Goddess. Yet facing forward is also a protective stance. We see some of these face-forward Deities holding dangerous beasties (scorpions, snakes, crocodiles) harmlessly in Their hands, demonstrating how They can protect us from real as well as metaphorical beasties. Isis’ son, Horus the Child or Harpokrates, is often shown in this way on what are known as Cippi of Horus.
Nuet has another interesting epithet that is found in the Otherworld books known as The Book of Caverns and the Book of the Earth. Just like the more-famous Book of the Dead, these are magical texts to assist the dead in the Otherworld.
The Secret One with serpents, crocodiles, sun disk, and ram in Her hands facing Geb/Re/Osiris
In these books, there is an important Goddess known as the Secret One, the Shetait. Egyptologists generally believe that this is an epithet of Nuet. As the Secret One, Nuet can be seen, not face-forward, but standing between serpents and crocodiles that She has tamed on behalf of the Sun God (and thus the deceased). Her power over them is in the form of heat or fire. They “stay in their place due to the fire, the heat which is in this Goddess,” says the Book of the Earth. The Book of Caverns says that the Goddess “is secret of form, being in their darkness as a flame to which the gods cannot ascend.” She is thus a fiery Light in the Darkness, a flame that protects and illuminates.
And now, back from Egypt, I’m excited to have my very own photos of the illustration above. You should have heard me squeal when I recognized it in the tomb! Here it is:
The Secret One and Geb
A closer image of Himself
A closer image of Herself
The Secret One holds in Her hands a sun disk and, in this case, a ram-headed God, or sometimes a ba-bird. Either represents the Sun God, Who is in the process of being regenerated and reborn. Thus, the Secret One holds this process in Her hands.
The Book of Caverns tells us that the Secret One’s head is in the upper Duat while Her feet are in the lower Duat. The Sun God travels upon Her arms, but at the same time is hidden by Her from the Gods, the akhu (the transfigured, light-filled, potent spirits), and the dead. The process of rebirth is delicate and must be hidden until the proper time. In the Book of the Earth, it is said that “the Double Ba, He travels Her body.” The Double Ba is the conjunction of Re and Osiris—something that must also happen in the Duat in order for the sun to be reborn.
In Her Name of Sarcophagus, Nuet spreads Herself out over the deceased and then She is called Shet Pet. Shet Pet is a common epithet of Nuet’s and means “Coverer of the Sky.” With a little bit of the word play for which the ancient Egyptians were so well known, this epithet can also be interpreted as the Secrecy of the Sky (Sheta Pet) reinforcing Nuet’s identification as the Secret One.
The sun disk about to enter the Secret Place and the Secret One
With Her doubled snakes and containing the Double Ba, Nuet can also split Herself in two and become manifest as Her two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Just as Nuet unites the east and west with the arch or Her body across the sky, so Her daughters form a unity as They position Themselves to the right and left of Osiris or They are to be found framing either side of one of the illustrated scenes in the Otherworld books.
The Secret One is, for me, a particularly potent epithet of the Goddess. It tastes of Her Mystery, the great Mystery of Life and Death and Rebirth. It speaks of Her Eternity. It breaths forth Her Depth and Her Power.
If you missed getting an Isiopolis post during the last couple of weeks, I have a very good excuse.
I was in Egypt. Finally.
And yes, it was amazing. On multiple levels.
Those of you who have already visited Our Lady’s homeland know. Those of you who haven’t yet, I hope you’ll be able to make the journey someday.
Imagine driving down a major road in your city and seeing this
Now, if you’ve been reading along with this blog, you might know that I’ve never been overly interested in the kings and queens of ancient Egypt. For me, it’s always been about the Deities. And one in particular.
Given that, I’ve never been super-fascinated with the pyramids—other than by the sheer fact of their ancient eminence. But if one goes to Egypt, one must, of course, visit the very impressive pyramids.
But I hoped to make this pyramid trek special because of something I learned about years ago and now would have the opportunity to see for myself.
The map we sent to our guide to show him where we had to go
You see, what I’d learned was that there are the remains of a small Isis temple behind one of the queen’s pyramids, behind the Great Pyramid.
The temple is at the pyramid of Henutsen, who was probably the second or third wife of Khufu, and who lived during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
The famous Inventory Stele
There is some confusion over whether Henutsen was a wife or daughter of kings due to an important artifact found in the Giza plateau known as the Inventory Stele. The Stele calls her “king’s daughter” (some Egyptologists think she might have been a daughter of Sneferu). But other than the Stele, the only title we have a record of for her is “king’s wife.” Either way, Henutsen was royalty, bore at least two princes, and got her own smaller pyramid. For our trip, we arranged a private tour in order to be able to include the Isis temple (and forego the camel ride).
Yet, before we talk further, I’d like to quote the Inventory Stele for you, so you can see what is so interesting about it. The Stele has caused a lot of excitement, especially among those who believe that the Sphinx and Pyramids are older than the fourth dynasty period to which Egyptologists usually attribute their construction.
Here’s what it says (my capitalization of Divine pronouns):
Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He made for his mother Isis, the Divine Mother, Mistress of the Western Mountain [i.e. the necropolis], a decree made on a stele, he gave to Her a divine offering, and he built Her a temple of stone, renewing what he had found, namely the Gods in Her place.
Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He found the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, by the side of the cavity of the Sphinx, on the northwest side of the House of Osiris, Lord of Rostau, and he built his pyramid beside the temple of this Goddess, and he built a pyramid for the king’s daughter, Henutsen, beside this temple. The place of Hwran-Hor-em-akhet [that is, the Sphinx] is on the south of the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, and on the north of Osiris, Lord of Rostau. The plans of the Image of Hor-em-akhet were brought in order to bring to revision the sayings of the disposition of the Image of the Very Redoubtable. He restored the statue all covered in painting, of the Guardian of the Atmosphere, who guides the winds with his gaze.
He made to quarry the hind part of the nemes headdress, which was lacking, from gilded stone, and which had a length of about 7 ells [3.7 meters]. He came to make a tour, in order to see the thunderbolt, which stands in the Place of the Sycamore, so named because of a great sycamore, whose branches were struck when the Lord of Heaven descended upon the place of Hor-em-akhet, and also this Image, retracing the erasure according to the above-mentioned disposition, which is written {…} of all the animals killed at Rostau. It is a table for the vases full of these animals which, except for the thighs, were eaten near these seven gods, demanding {…} (The God gave) the thought in his heart, of putting a written decree on the side of this Sphinx, in an hour of the night. [That is, the pharaoh had a dream from the Sphinx that he should do this.] The figure of this God, being cut in stone, is solid, and will exist to eternity, having always its face regarding the Orient.
Translation from The Sphinx: Its History in Light of Recent Excavations, Selim Hassan (1949). Hassan takes it from French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero’s original translation.
The rest of the stele is taken up with a list of the sacred images of the Deities that Khufu restored within the Temple of Isis. The largest part of the stele is an inventory of these images, which is why it is known as the Inventory Stele.
Pretty cool, huh?
Part of the Temple of Isis at Giza; I sat here for a while
What excited me, of course, were the Isis references and the (new-to-me) title “Mistress of the Pyramid.” What excites most of those who get excited about this stele is that it—supposed to have been carved by Khufu’s fourth-dynasty sculptors on the king’s orders—tells us that the Sphinx was already there by that time! Not only that, but apparently the Temple of Isis was there even before Khufu built his Great Pyramid. So wow, right?
The Giza big three
Alas, most Egyptologists agree that the Stele is an archaized work, probably created sometime between the 25th and 26th dynasties, during a period when Nubian kings were trying to revitalize Egypt by harking back to its Old Kingdom glory days. The style of art and writing point most clearly to the 26th dynasty. Key to the evidence is that we have no reference to “Hwran” and “Hor-em-akhet” as names for the Sphinx until the 18th dynasty.
As for the Temple of Isis, it was probably originally a funerary chapel associated with the pyramid of Henutsen, Khufu’s wife, or as the Inventory Stele says, “king’s daughter.” The temple had been “found” by the pharaoh Pasebekhanu in the 21st dynasty and either converted into a small Temple of Isis at that time or, because the pharaoh either had or believed he had found the remains of an earlier Isis temple, had it refurbished as one. There, Isis was worshiped as Lady of the Pyramid until the Roman period. We even have evidence that Her cult had its own priesthood.
Stele C from the Sphinx temple at Giza
Prior to the Inventory Stele, we find Isis on a Giza stele of Prince Amenomopet, a prince of the 18th dynasty. This is on the so-called Stele C found in the Sphinx Temple and which shows the Sphinx and Isis, wearing the Horns and Disk Crown and within a shrine, receiving offerings from the prince. The image is captioned, “Isis, the Great, the Divine Mother, Queen of the Gods, One in Heaven, Who Has No Equal, the Elder [daughter of] Atum.” Dating on the stele is controversial (so what else is new in Egyptology?), but if the 18th dynasty dating is accurate, then Isis and the Sphinx are being worshiped together at Giza by at least that time.
After this period, we have a number of other Giza inscriptions that include Isis. Some that list Her with other Deities, notably Osiris and Horus, some that indicate that She was being worshiped alone. So it would seem that there was an active cult of Isis at Giza from at least the 18th dynasty. There is also evidence of private devotion at the Temple of Isis; a number of votive plaques were found there as well. (By the way, this info has been gathered together by Christiane M. Zivie-Coche in her book Giza Au Premier Millenaire Autour du Temple D’Isis, Dames des Pyramides.)
We also have several fragments of columns, probably from the Ramessid era, but which were reused in the Third Intermediate Period by Pharaoh Amenemope, on which the king offers wine to Osiris and Isis, Who is identified specifically as Lady of the Pyramids. Because the column was reused, we can’t be sure whether that epithet goes back to the Ramessid period or is from the 21st dynasty. Either way, we have another attestation that one of the Goddess’ epithets is Mistress or Lady of the Pyramid (or Pyramids). This likely refers to Her function of protecting the pyramids and the Osiris-kings in them, and surely to Her power to safeguard their rebirths as well.
Interestingly, a graffito on Henutsen’s pyramid from (probably) Egypt’s late period says that the pyramid is the burial place of Isis. Oriented to the south, it faced the symbolic burial place of Osiris, Lord of Rostau.
Another view of the Giza Temple of Isis with Henutsen’s pyramid in the background
I’m looking at another article about all this that leans toward taking the Inventory Stele more seriously as fact than previously thought. If there’s anything of interest there, I’ll let you know. But I think this is enough for now.
I am privileged to have been able to sit at Her Giza temple. There’s not much left, either in temple structure or (unfortunately) residual magical buzz. But that’s okay. For I’ll use what I experienced in Giza in my meditations in Her shrine here. I’ll add Her epithet of Mistress of the Pyramid to Her names honored here. In time, Her pyramidal Mysteries will unfurl once more.
An illustration of an ivory carving depicting the Egyptian city of Alexandria, personified as Isis; originally from Egypt, but now in the Aachen Cathedral in Germany. Note Her Isis knot.
When the Christian Empire forcibly forbade the worship of the Pagan Deities, the Goddesses and Gods did not die. But They did go underground. Yet Isis was one of the ones Who retained Her presence among the western world perhaps more than any other.
One of the underground lairs of the Deities was euhemerism. It’s the idea that the old Pagan Deities are merely historical mortals who, because of their special talents or moral worth, eventually came to be worshiped as Goddesses and Gods as Their stories became exaggerated over time. The concept is named after Euhemerus, a 3rd century BCE Greek mythographer. It wasn’t his original concept, though, yet it is his name that became associated with it and here we are.
A photo of the same carving
Euhemerism turned out to be not such a great look because ascending Christianity could use it to ridicule Pagans for being stupid in worshiping mere human beings. On the other hand, it preserved the stories of the Goddesses and Gods far into the West’s Christian-ruled centuries. You see, since these stories were not really about Deities, they could be told and retold without being a genuine threat to Christianity.
Churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages were often decorated equally with images of Pagan Deities and Biblical characters. The sibyls of the Pagans and the prophets of the Bible were both considered people of wisdom from whom the churchgoer could learn. And while the Church wasn’t completely comfortable with this arrangement (and sometimes even railed against it) still the practice continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.
In these stories, Isis is often seen as a culture-bearer and philosopher. In 1508, John Trithemius, the Abbot of Spanheim, lists Isis among the “men” who devoted themselves to the study of wisdom.
Verily in these times, as it evidently appears from the Histories of the Ancients, men more earnestly applied themselves to the study of wisdom, amongst whom the last learned and most eminent men, were Mercurius, Bacchus, Omogyius, Isis, Ianachus, Argus, Apollo, Cecrops, and many more, who by their admirable inventions, both profited the world then, and posterity since.
John Trithemius, De Septem Secundeis, A0-6
Christine de Pisan
Allegory was another refuge of the Pagan Deities. Allegory interprets the myths or attributes of the Pagan Deities as moral tales or philosophical concepts. Again, it was a method created by Pagans themselves to find additional meaning in their myths. The Neoplatonists of the late Pagan period used allegory as a method to refute the arguments of Christians who claimed moral superiority for their religion. Pagans could point to allegorical interpretations of the myths to show how Pagan myths taught honor, chastity, fidelity, and other virtues. Eventually, the myths of the Pagan Deities came to be used at least as often as Biblical stories to teach “Christian” values.
Christine in her studio working
Today I’d like to introduce you to one of the writers who learned from the story of Isis and used it to teach moral virtues. Her name was Christine de Pisan (1364—1430 CE). De Pisan was born in Venice, but spent her life in France. Writing in the Late Middle Ages, de Pisan was an early feminist (some say the first feminist, some prefer proto-feminist); her work challenged misogyny and the gender stereotypes of her day. De Pisan was a fortunate medieval woman in that she had a lot of support from the men in her life. Her father, astrologer and secretary to King Charles V of France, taught her classical languages. She studied literature, mythology, history, and the Bible. She was married at 14 to Etienne du Castel, a nobleman from Picardy. He, too, supported his wife’s educational and writing endeavors.
When du Castel died of plague at age 25, Christine took to writing full time to support her three children and mother (who had not been as happy as her father with her work). She became the first woman writer to be able to support her family through her writing.
In much of her work, she wrote about the virtues of women as told in classical tales. She wrote poetry and prose, the biography of the King of France, she debated the anti-woman views in the Romance of the Rose as well as those coming from the pulpit, she wrote about the early victories of Joan of Arc when no one else had. Like Dante, she wrote about her visions; for instance, one in which Nature instructed her to write.
Ysys (Isis) descends from heaven to graft new branches on old trees. The Goddess cultivates trees and fields just as the knight should cultivate virtues in himself.
So where does Isis come into it? In two of her most famous works: the Epistle of Othea to Hector and the Book of the City of Women.
As the Goddess Othea, a Goddess she created to represent the “Wisdom of Women,” de Pisan writes to the young Trojan hero Hector, who represented the ideal knight. The Epistle consists of 100 stories meant to teach values to the young. All the stories are derived from Pagan texts and authors like Homer and Ovid. In Othea, de Pisan describes Isis (Ysys) as a planter and cultivator.
An illustration accompanying the text shows Isis grafting new branches on old trees. The knight is advised to follow the example of the Goddess and plant virtues in himself. The planting of these virtues is to be understood as similar to the conception of Jesus by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Whose “great bounties may be neither imagined nor said.” As was so frequently the case, here Isis is assimilated with Mary.
De Pisan speaking to the Sibyl in her vision
De Pisan’s Book of the City of Women starts with three Goddesses visiting Christine: Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. They tell her she must create a place where “ladies and valiant women may have a refuge and a defense against the various assailants.” Her book is that place, where she tells the tales of such valiant women in history, Isis among them, of course. In this entry, Isis is still the planting Goddess, but also the “a woman of such great learning acquired through labor that she was not only named the Queen of Egypt but also the most singular and special goddess of the Egyptians.”
She also conflates the story of Isis with Io and has Isis married to Apis rather than Serapis or Osiris, presumably wishing to keep any hint of the Isis and Osiris sibling marriage out of it. (For the story of Isis and Io, go here. ) De Pisan also tells us that Isis invented a shortform (hieratic or Coptic?) of writing, which helped the Egyptians manage “their excessively involved script.” (As I writer, this was important to her.) De Pisan also names Isis as a lawgiver and extremely just ruler, causing Her to be worshiped all through the world.
The manuscript for Epistle of Othea to Hector showing Ceres planting and Ysis grafting.
And so, while we cannot claim that the worship of our Lady Isis is an uninterrupted tradition, I think we can rightfully claim that Isis never left human awareness. From the time when Her worship was forbidden to modern times when so many have returned to be sheltered in Her loving wings, Ysis-Isis-Iset-Auset, as you wish, continued to live in myth, in allegory, in stories, in poems by first-feminist poets, in wisdom teachings, in alchemy, and in so many of the flowing streams of the Western Esoteric Tradition.
Isis is alive. The Goddess is alive. And yes, She always has been.
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.
The Two Sisters
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.
Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun
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.
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 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 identified 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.
The Two Sisters
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.
Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun
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 Egyptian hymns to Osiris (I believe it is from the Isis Chapel at Abydos; still checking into it.) In Egyptian, this would is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the 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 (asexual reproduction), 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. 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.
I am terrible with memories. I don’t mean my memory is bad. I mean I don’t honor ‘things past’ enough. I don’t take many pictures (and certainly not of myself). I tend not to care for traditional souvenirs. And I definitely have the “get rid of it” gene (which my beloved does not). In my defense, I don’t generally dwell on past wrongs either.
But I do keep magical journals. And semi-recently came across an old one. There were memories in it.
Not my magical journal, but I like…
When I keep journals, I don’t record everything all the time (good Goddess, the paper trail would never end!). Usually, I keep them during periods when I’m doing a lot of intensive magical work. This particular journal, as I have said, is old. I mean really old. Like “before the fire” old. Yes, of course, you don’t know what I mean.
Before we moved to the Pacific Northwest, we lived in an apartment in Tennessee. One night the complex caught on fire. Neighbors knocked on neighbors’ doors, telling them to get up and get out. We grabbed the cat and the insurance papers and got out. The next day, with the fire quenched, we were able to go back to survey the damage. It had been a weird fire. Things like our stereo system were completely and utterly incinerated. Things like our irreplaceable magical papers (papers, mind you!) were saved. This journal was among them. I can tell from the singed edges.
So I thought I’d sit down and read it. There was lots of visionary work pertaining to a magical system I was training in. But every now and then, there were entries about Isis. This was before I knew very much about Her, before I became Her priestess, and way before Isis Magic. Yet I clearly had been working with Her (or She was working with me).
A magical, glowing blue lotus
One entry reads, “I have had a very strong Isis connection since my dream the other night.” That dream was not recorded, but a vision was. I was working on love and acceptance. For the vision, I called on Isis to touch me and help me let Her love of humanity come through me. I sensed Her great, but gentle hand descend from above. She placed it on top of my head. Waves of Her not-quite-orgasmic love passed though me and out into the world. I describe that flow of energy, then write, “I again saw the bright, bright, blue glowing lotus.” It had been so bright that I couldn’t tell one petal from another; eventually, the lotus-light enveloped me. I conclude, “I am feeling very worshipful of Great Isis.”
I see myself falling in love with Her through this journal.
Another entry says, “A most wondrous dream! A prayer answered!” Apparently, my beloved was snoring, so I took my bedding and went into our temple room to sleep. I was overcome with a desire to know, truly know, that Isis was with me. I write that it was “a demanding, revealing need” for Her presence. I prayed to Her “more emotionally than ever before” to send a dream to let me know She was with me. I chanted Her name for a while, then slept.
This art was inspired by a dream the artist had of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. See what her dream was and more of her work here.
“A few hours later,” I write, “I came from a full, deep sleep to awake with loud sobbing from happiness and amazement.” (My sobbing.) Due to the abrupt awakening, I lost part of the dream. But the actual content of the dream wasn’t the point. The point was that, in the dream, the resolution to a dream-problem happened by a miracle. By Her miracle. And it made me so happy that I woke up crying with joy. And I again saw the blue lotus flower.
Woman picking blue lotus
I remember this event. The details are a bit fuzzy now, but I vividly remember the visionary blue lotus. I could see it anytime I closed my eyes with crystal clarity instead of the vague dreaminess that vision often has. “I must look up lotus symbolism and I must make a blue lotus talisman,” I wrote. See how much I didn’t know then? Another entry says simply, “I love Her.” And now you know why the Isis temple in my backyard is called the Lotus Temple.
Next, I found an entry that I had marked IMPORTANT with a drawing of a star, a lotus, and a sickle on top. I wrote, “In the dark month of February, on the 15th of the month, with the moon waning in Capricorn, I have taken and been taken by Isis in Her Black Aspect as my Lady, my personal Goddess.” But this wasn’t when I became Her priestess; that was long in the future then. This was my forming a true bond with Her, a bond that will last my entire life. She became “my” Goddess, I became Her devotee. This is when I really began learning about Her.
There is, of course, more in this journal. I see my own inner struggles, doubts, fears, angers, and depression. But this particular record is incomplete. These are loose-leaf pages without a binder…and it seems that some are missing. After we moved to Portland, I began buying blank-but-bound books for my journals. The next one—which I am still writing in—starts with the time when I actually did become Isis’ priestess. In this journal, I can see that I am working out the magic part for what will eventually become Isis Magic.
But I think I have regaled you with quite enough of my journal entries for now. And I have learned my lesson that I should better value memories and keepsakes. Perhaps you will do some magical work with Isis yourself today? After all, your story will be a much better tale—because it will be yours. Just don’t forget to write in your journal.
If we look to ancient Egypt, we definitely find a concept of fate or destiny. It is shai (or shau). Like so many ancient concepts, Fate was personified, in this case as the God Shai. Shai comes from a root word meaning to ordain; as in that which is ordained. Often in ancient Egypt, what they thought was ordained was the length of one’s life. And, also often, this was connected with one or another of the Deities. People prayed that the Deities would lengthen their time on earth.
Shai and Meshkhenet at the Weighing of the Heart
In some of the Egyptian folk tales we have left to us, the time and sometimes the manner of death is decreed at birth by the Seven Hathors. In the story of the birth of the three kings, the Birth Goddess Meshkhenet is the one Who declares the destiny of the newborn kinglets. The Goddess Renenutet (or Renenet) is also a Destiny Goddess and could decree the prosperity a person might have in life. Shai and Renenutet are sometimes paired as Fate and Fortune or Fate and Destiny.
A wonderful Renenutet…couldn’t find the artist. Anyone?
Those of you who have been following along with this blog won’t be surprised to find that Our Lady of Ten Thousand Names was syncretized with each of these Fate-connected Goddesses.
We already know Her as as Lady Luck. But there is an even more important Isis-Fate connection. And that is, that She is the Ruler of Fate. In Her 1st century CE aretalogy from Kyme in Asia Minor, Isis says, “I overcome Fate. Fate obeys me.” In Egypt, She is called Mistress of Fate (Nebet Shai), Who Creates Destiny; She is Mistress of Life, Ruler of Fate and Destiny. At Aswan, She is “the One under Whose command fate and destiny is.”
Iset-Renenutet or Isis Thermouthis
Interestingly, sometimes the hieroglyphs for shai were determined (that is, they have another glyph at the end that gives the overall sense of the word) with the sign for either “death” or “time.” Surely this is because of the Egyptian connection between one’s fate and the time of one’s death. We already know Isis is connected with death and the otherworld. But She is also a Goddess of Time.
This is most easily seen when She is Iset-Sopdet or Isis-Sothis. As I write this, it is summer and the star of Isis, Sirius, is absent from the night sky. It will be some time before I can see Her rise before the sun in the dawning light.
As Isis Sothis, Isis controlled the time of the seasonal, all-important Nile Inundation by the rising of Her star. She is also connected with the timekeeping Egyptian decans, which are 36 stars or smaller groups of stars (asterisms). As the earth turns, each decan is visible for a period of about ten days (or 10 degrees of a 360-degree circle), after which another one rises, marking 360 days of the year. To get to 365, the Egyptians added the five epagomenal days that were “outside” of the year—and during which the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated. In addition to their yearly timekeeping, tracking the decanal stars and asterisms through the night sky served as a star clock for the Egyptians as they counted off the twelve Hours of the Night.
Isis-Sothis & Sah (Osiris) as stars
I’ve seen two different Egyptian names for the decans (decan is Greek for “a tenth”): baktiu and ankhiu. Baktiu, means “those who work” because, when it rose, each decan was said to be “working.” Ankhiu, as you might guess, means “living ones” because, as it rises, each decan is considered to be born. Iset-Sopdet is the first of the decans. Her heliacal rising just before the sun marks the beginning of the New Year. She leads and rules them all.
The Queen of the Decans is also the year as a whole, including what happens within that year. In Memphis, Isis-Hathor is called Renpet, the Year. One of the Oxyrhynchus papyri records one of the names of Isis in the Greek port city of Leuce Acte as Eseremphis, which is a Hellenized version of Iset Renpet. As the Year Itself, Isis decrees what fate each year brings. Horapollon, writing a late work on the meaning of hieroglyphs, says,
When the Egyptians want to represent the year they draw Isis, that is, a woman. And they signify the goddess in the same way. And among them, Isis is a star, called Sothis by the Egyptians, by the Greeks the Dog Star, which appears to rule over the other stars. Now greater, now less as it rises, and now brighter, now dimmer. And according to the rising of this star, we note how everything during the year is going to happen. Wherefore it is not unreasonable to call the year Isis.
Horapollon, book 1, entry 3
Isis-Sopdet (second from left) and the Star Deities from Seti I’s tomb
The temple of Ptah at Memphis was known (among other names) as “the Balance of the Two Lands.” The devotees who inscribed the Isis aretalogy at Kyme, in which Isis declares that She overcomes fate, wrote that they had copied it from a stele that stood in front of the Memphis temple of Hephaestos, that is, Ptah. German Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch commented in his thesaurus of Egyptian inscriptions that the Egyptian New Year’s festival was “the great festival at which the whole world is brought into balance, when the birth of Isis takes place.”
During the period of Roman rule in Egypt and across the Roman empire, people were feeling particularly pressured or bound by Fate. Astrology had gained general popularity, yet people felt constrained, not enlightened, by “their stars.” So we can easily understand the appeal of a Goddess Who, as the Kyme aretalogy says, regulates the pathways of the stars and orders the course of the sun and moon—and Who also frees those who are in chains.
A Roman image of Isis Fortuna
We find all these themes in Apuleius’ story of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. When he comes into Her service, Lucius is freed from his asinine state (he had been turned into a donkey). Isis, a Goddess of Fortune Who sees, replaces the Blind Fortune that had been tossing Lucius to and fro. Instead of implacable Fate, he is now allied with Invincible Isis, Victorious Isis, Triumphant Isis—Isis Who is Providence Itself.
As She always has been, Isis is Nebet Ankh, Henut Shai yt Renenet, Mistress of Life, Ruler of Fate and Destiny. And perhaps in these unsettling times, we too need a Goddess Who can overcome Fate…or help us to do so ourselves.
And so, let us commune with Isis—invoke and make offering to Her. Let us work magic under Her wings and then work in the world toward a better destiny for us all.
Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Only at festivals?
And no matter what you do, do you sometimes feel guilty that you’re not doing enough? Do you worry that Isis may be displeased because you’re “not doing it right?”
If so, you’re not alone. Many of us feel like that from time to time (or even more often).
But let me tell you a secret.
It’s not a deep, dark secret. In fact, I think we all know it in our hearts. But we are human and we forget.
The first part of this secret is that Isis knows. She knows what we’re going through and what’s hard for us right now. She has Divine patience and compassion. And while we might not have infinite time in our lives, She does. If we drift away, She will always, always welcome us back. Even if it’s with a sly smile and a wry comment.
Kissing the ground before Her beautiful face
The other part of the secret is that—very often—our way of relating has to do with where we are in our lives. Now, mind you, my next comments are very generalized. Your path may—absolutely will, in fact—vary.
Some of us find Her early in life, some of us at later points. Some find Her, leave for a while, then come back. Some come to Her only for a specific period in our lives. Whatever the situation, it’s important to take into account where we are in our individual lives and what’s going on with us in general before we start getting all guilty and worried. And by “where we are in our lives,” I mean what stage of life we’re in as we grow and change over the decades.
Isis ritual on a fresco from Herculaneum
In our teen years, we’re exploring. Everything is new and can be confusing. Will the Goddess be angry if I don’t have an altar? What if I don’t say or do the right thing? And there are so many people online who are willing to tell us exactly-what-we-should-be-doing for Isis or Hekate or Dionysos. Who do I listen to? Depending on what our home lives are like, in our teens, we may also have to hide our interest in Isis. (Btw, She won’t care if you don’t have an altar.)
The orant posture, standing in awe of Her
In our 20s, we find new freedoms. We might discover like-minded others with whom to explore an interest in Isis. This is when many people start their personal practice and begin to develop the habits that will become a key part of their ongoing relationship with Isis. And because we’re more in control of our own schedule, this is when we might find we have more time to spend with Her and to learn more about Her. At this stage, we’re trying to figure out Who We Are and Who She Is. We might discover that She is an important part of our identity.
Do what you can do
In our 30s, we are coming into our power. But that also means that we’re coming into Peak Responsibility. Kids. Career. And everything that goes along with that. Our late 20s and early 30s are also a time when we may find we have some personal healing to do. We discover that what we learned earlier no longer serves us (or never served us, for that matter).
Such healing that takes time, patience, and extraordinary effort. For most of us, the 30s, early 40s, is a crazy-busy time of life. If the personal practice we started in our 20s starts to slip, it’s no wonder. We need to know that it’s okay to scale back our spiritual work in order to handle the things we need to handle. And yet, for some people, this is also the time of life when they first come to Isis. So, they’re starting that exciting journey along with everything else. Whew!
In our 40s and 50s, we still have everything that was going on in our 30s, but it’s at a different level. We know a lot more about what we’re doing. We also have the ability to focus more on the tasks we choose. If we have Work To Do in the World, we’re busy doing it. We lead our covens, make our art, write our books. Or, if our Work is private, we deepen our practice. We might find that it gets easier to make contact with Isis when we invoke Her—even if we can’t do it as often as we would wish. What’s more, if we’re Doing Our Work (groups, art, writing), that IS our Work. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. Remember, She knows our hearts.
Priestesses making offering
In our 60s, we still feel our power—and we still have our power. But to navigate these years, we shift our focus. For most of us, there’s less time ahead than there is behind. Peak Responsibilities are lessening; we’re handling them, or have even handled them. Now we may find that we have more time for our personal relationship with Isis. We find new and different ways to be present in the world and our own lives, and to be of service to and in harmony with Her.
In the later decades of our lives, we may, once again, turn within. We assess our lives. We think about our legacy. And make whatever adjustments are needed. We plan for transition. Who am I now? If we are fortunate enough to be able to retire, our time is—finally, blessedly—our own. If we wish, we can be a full-time Servant of the Goddess and no one can say us nay. Isis will welcome us home and She will continue to teach us new things about ourselves and about Her.
Priests making offering
The inspiration behind today’s post is that I’ve seen too many good folks beating up on themselves for not living up to whatever high spiritual standard they have decided to subscribe to. Let’s not do that. We don’t deserve that. None of us do. Especially you.
The point is simply this: at whatever point in your life you are, just do what you can do. None of us who love Isis today live in an ancient Egyptian temple where we can devote ourselves fully to Her service. We always have many other aspects of life we have to take care of. Responsibilities wax and wane throughout our lives.
Of course I’m not saying that our spiritual lives aren’t important. They are. Sometimes it is our spiritual lives that make the other aspects of life manageable. All this is to say, whatever it is that you can do, just do that—and don’t feel guilty or worried about what you can’t do. Isis is wise and loving, magical and powerful. She will be there. Always. I know She will be there for me. Always. And I know She will be there for you. Always.
The awesome scene from “The Mummy” when the statue of Isis raises the ankh to save Her reincarnated priestess from a lovestruck but murderous mummy
Of all the emblems of ancient Egypt, the hieroglyphic symbol of the ankh is probably the most familiar. Many people still wear it as an amulet and know that, in Egyptian, ankh means life.
Every Deity has an ankh
The ankh was extremely popular in ancient Egypt, too. Egyptians made ankh-shaped vessels, fan bases, sistra, unguent jars, jewelry, mirror cases—in addition to wearing the symbol itself as an amulet. Special bouquets of flowers, formed into the shapes of ankhs and simply called Ankhs, were given as offerings to Deities and as sustenance to the dead. The ankh was carved into temple walls and used to decorate furniture.
In later times, the Coptic Christian church used it as the crux ansata, the handled or “eyed” cross, because of its resemblance to the Christian cross.
Egyptologists still aren’t sure what the familiar oval-and-cross shape originally represented. Some believe it has sexual symbolism because some ankhs have what appears to be a female pubic triangle painted just beneath the cross bar. Others believe it represents a sandal strap. Still others see it as a type of magical knot or bow—similar to the Isis Knot or Tyet, which it closely resembles. Since Egyptian magic frequently employed knots, this idea is not at all far-fetched. Indeed, in some examples of the symbol, you can see what could be folds in the fabric or rope used to tie the knot.
My favorite bumper sticker
Yet another interpretation combines the knot concept with an idea that may have some merit since it actually connects with the meaning of the symbol itself: life. In this interpretation, the ankh is an umbilical cord that has been looped and tied to a short stick (the cross bar) to create the ankh-shaped amulet. Thus the ankh represents the way Life flows from the Divine to the human in the same way that life flows from the mother to the child through the umbilical cord. There are numerous references to Isis “cutting the navel string” of the reborn Horus. And there is even a myth that Horus recovers the birth cord of His murdered father, Osiris, in order to bury it safely. In a tale about the birth of three kings, the children’s birth cords are cut off, wrapped, and preserved. Clearly, the birth cord had significance.
Isis giving ankh to Queen Nefertari
Yet the life symbolized by the ankh is more than simple daily existence. It is also the sacred and ever-renewing principle of Life. It is the Eternal Life with which the Goddesses and Gods imbue humanity. It is the Life that is renewed after death. In funerary art, Deities such as Anubis and Horus pour streams of ankhs over the deceased to symbolize this eternal, regenerating life that flows from the Divine. Goddesses and Gods hold the ankh to the nose of the deceased to revive her or him in the Otherworld.
While the ankh is rightfully a symbol of every Deity, it is also especially appropriate to Isis. On an earthly level, Isis is the Great Divine Mother, the generatrix of all life on Earth. Isis is intimately connected with the fields that bring forth food, the waters that nourish and regenerate the land, and the life-giving air that fills our lungs.
Isis is a Green Goddess of Life, daughter of Earth and Sky. The Coffin Texts call Her She of Vegetation and Mistress of Herbage Who Makes the Two Lands Green. She is a Water Goddess for Her yearly tears for Osiris caused the Nile to overflow its banks, vivifying the land. She is the Queen of the Sea and the Lady Who brings rain. As a Bird Goddess, Isis is Mistress of the Skies and a Lady of Air.
Isis and Nephthys flanking the ankh, which upholds the solar disk and is supported by the djed column
On a spiritual level, Isis gives the gift of renewed life after death. Beating Her magical wings, the Goddess fans air—and ankh—into the nose and lungs of Her beloved Osiris. It is Isis’ vital breath that fills the nemset jars with which the deceased is dried after a purifying bath. And it is Isis Who brings the spiritual water that helps regenerate the dead.
As She is the Lady of Life, Isis is the Lady of Life Everlasting. She is the Green Goddess of life on Earth and She is the Divine Mother of each of us Who cuts our navel-string when we are transformed and reborn into Eternal Life.
Oops. I totally forgot to post yesterday. We had a divination party on Saturday, so was cleaning up and resting after that.
But in honor of that and in the spirit of the veil-thin-between-the-worlds season, I offer you an ancient method of divination that is specifically connected with our magical Lady Isis. It is (a bit) new in that it is a new translation of the ancient text in which the divination is found. The new translation doesn’t really change things much but it does, perhaps, give us a slightly better understanding of the original. And that’s always good.
A Coptic (not Demotic) magical papyrus
The other new thing is that we can try it for ourselves.
This Isiac divination is found in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. You’ll usually see them just called the Greek Magical Papyri (Latin: Papyri Graecae Magicae, abbreviated PGM) because they are written in Greek, but the scholars who worked on them tell us that they reflect, in large part, Egyptian magical techniques, so I prefer Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. What’s more, we also have a cache of similar magical texts written in Demotic, which is a late, cursive version of the hieroglyphs. Demotic is derived from hieratic, which was an earlier, priestly version of cursive hieroglyphs. So those are unarguably Egyptian. Here’s some background on these fascinating texts.
The particular text I want to discuss is listed on the linked page above, but for easy reference, here it is again:
Great is the Lady Isis! Copy of a holy book found in the archives of Hermes: the method is that concerning the 29 letters through which letters Hermes and Isis, who was seeking Osiris, her brother and husband, found him. Call upon Helios and all the gods in the deep concerning those things for which you want to receive an omen. Take 29 leaves of a male date palm and write on each of the leaves the names of the gods. Pray and then pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf and you will find your omen, how things are, and you will be answered clearly.
PGM XXIVa
Male date palm leaves; big enough to write on
This seems like a simple, easy, and fairly quick divination method.
It is likely that the 29 letters refer to the 29 letters of the Coptic alphabet. Coptic is the latest form of ancient Egyptian. The letters are adaptations of Greek, but with additional letters that incorporate Egyptian-language sounds that Greek didn’t have. It developed under the all-pervading influence of Hellenism in the Mediterranean region. Because the text instructs us to write the names of the Deities on the 29 palm leaves, I would assume that each of the Deity names written on the leaves had one of the Coptic letters as the initial letter of the name.
But that’s just a guess, not a certainty, and we simply have no other information. On the other hand, the Egyptians may have had tables of correspondences that connected the Deities to the Coptic alphabet like many modern magical systems do and which may or may not have been based on the spelling of the Deity name.
The Coptic alphabet
Oh, and just to be clear, this particular text WAS written originally in Greek, not Coptic or Demotic. But because the “29 letters” probably refers to the Coptic alphabet, we may understand this as likely to be a genuine Egyptian method of divination, but recorded in Greek.
Those of you who looked at the Coptic alphabet here may have noticed something: that it has more than 29 letters. (And, in fact, you will see some variations in the letters included, depending on dialect as well as the time period in which it was in use.)
That’s why I want to share with you a new translation of that same passage by David Jordan, head of the Canadian Archeological Institute in Athens, an Egyptologist and expert in the ancient magical texts. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it seems pretty reasonable to my definitely-not-an-expert self.
Great Isis the Lady. Copy of a sacred book found in the archives of Hermes. The method is the odd number of letters [i.e. 29; the number was actually a marginal note in the text rather than a number found inside the text itself], through which Hermes received omens and Isis, searching, found her own brother and husband Osiris. Say: ‘I invoke the sun and all the gods in the deep’—about whatever you wish to receive an omen. Taking 29 leaves of a male palm, write on each of the leaves (one of) the names of the gods and, when you have said a prayer, pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf, and you will find wherein your omen consists, and you will receive an omen lucidly.
PGM XXIVa, revised translation
So you see, it’s not much different and certainly not in terms of how to actually do the divination. It’s just always interesting to me to see the graceful art of translation in action. The translator makes note that the initial phrase, “Great Isis the Lady,” appears in one other place that we know of: a graffito found in Rome. (There’s another well known Roman graffito related to Isis that I’ve written about before, which was found on one of the walls of the Temple of Isis in Rome. It says, Una, quae es omnia, Dea Isis, “Being one, You are all, Goddess Isis.”)
The fact that the phrase “Great Isis the Lady” was well known enough to be a graffito adds weight to Jordan’s translation. In this case, the phrase may be intended as the title of the divination method. It gains power and prestige from being the method the Great Magician Goddess Isis used to find Osiris and Thoth (Hermes) the Great Magician God used to receive omens.
So let’s give it a try.
Because I am sometimes lazy and didn’t have access to male palm leaves, I did it the cheap-and-easy way just to see how it worked on the quickie. It will definitely be worth following up on the more authentic track, too.
Some of the cards from the Book of Doors by Alison Davidson and Athon Veggi.
Instead of palm leaves with Deity names on them, I used 29 cards from an Egyptian-themed divination deck that I like. It’s called the Book of Doors. (If it appeals to you, you can get it from Inner Traditions or used on eBay.) It’s not a tarot deck with the traditional Arcana. Instead, it has an Egyptian Deity associated with each card and groups Them into families like Sun, Moon, Air, or Fire. The authors call it an “alchemical oracle.” I like the art.
Anyway, for this first attempt, I didn’t choose the 29 Deities based on Coptic alphabet initial letters, I just picked 29 of the most well known Goddesses and Gods, including Set and Apophis, because there have to be options in a divination.
First, we invoke…
We could follow the text and simply say, “I invoke Helios and all the gods of the deep about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could choose Egyptian names: “I invoke Re and the Primordial Ogdoad, the Great Infinities, about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could go All-Isis-All-the-Time: “I invoke Isis, the Radiant Goddess, Isis-Re-et, Great of Magic, in Her Name of Lady of the Depths about [stating the subject of the divination].” Take your pick.
The benevolent Hathor
Then we shuffle the 29 cards and spread them out, face down. In our hearts, we speak a prayer to Great Isis the Lady to reveal the true omen and send the Goddess, send the God Who will help us discover the answer. We pick up the cards, two by two, leaving them face down until there is only one left. That card, we turn over.
The question I asked was whether this divination method was truly an Isis divination. When revealed, the singleton card was Hathor. In this particular deck, Hathor is in the transformational family of Fire and She is shown emerging from the Otherworld.
How shall we interpret?
First reaction: Hathor is a strongly positive Goddess and, in this card, She is not in Her raging-Sakhmet aspect. If I had to give a quick yes/no answer, I’d definitely say yes, this IS a legit Isis divination. Or, since this card is part of a divination deck, we could use the interpretation provided by the authors. Their short-form answer for Hathor is “love, pleasure, beauty.” So again, I’d take that as a yes.
A stunning image of Beyonce as Hathor from her film, Black is King. This is absolutely wonderful!
We could also go deeper into what we might know about Hathor Herself. She is a Great Goddess associated with the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. She is the all-containing sky Whose name means “House of Horus;” She is the greater sky in which He flies.
Because She is so all-containing, Hathor indicates that this is a divination method that contains all omens and is thus appropriate for receiving a wide range of Divine counsel. As a Lady of the earth, nature, and fertility, we may understand that the oracle can also provide earth-plane practical advice. Hathor is also a Goddess of the Otherworld and, in this card, is specifically shown emerging from it. Thus we can expect the emergence of revelations—as well as Mysteries—from this divination method.
If we choose, we could understand the divination on a more personal level, too. For instance, in another area of my magical life, I have a connection with Hathor, specifically with Her late-period form and Her Egyptian Coptic name of Ahathoor. So perhaps I could say that this could be a particularly good method of divination for me.
And, of course, Isis and Hathor were more and more closely connected as time time passed in Egyptian history; so much so that They shared many of each others’ epithets and symbols.
In sum, I’d say the answer to my question is definitely yes; this is a divination that could be very useful for those of us who honor Isis. Personally, I am looking forward to using it a lot more, learning more about it, and perhaps I can find some of those male palm leaves.
Here’s a great graphic showing how Demotic evolved from the hieroglyphs.
Did you do a specific ritual? Did it slowly gain its living quality over time?
Following the inspirations of ancient Egyptian cult, for me, the ones that are alive are so because of ritual. I’ve used versions of “Enlivening the Divine Image” from Isis Magic on several of them. But my main image—my BIG Isis—was enlivened long before Isis Magic existed.
To enliven Her, I invited a circle of friends to come over for an Isis birthday party. There was ritual around everything, of course, but the main event was that each participant cradled the image in their arms, as if holding a baby, and breathed their living breath into the sacred image…then passed Her to the next person. And it worked; She has been quite lively ever since.
But what exactly do I mean by “is alive,” anyway?
Let me give you an example. Several years ago, one of the traveling Egyptian museum shows came to our local museum and a group of us went. Of course, there were many wonderful things. But one image—smallish, broken, a head of Sakhmet in yellow alabaster—hummed with magical power. I felt Something in its presence. Mind you, not everything in the show felt like that. But this piece did. I think what I felt was the magic of the ritual that had “opened the mouth and eyes” of this sacred image of Sakhmet so that something of the Goddess was still within the image. The priests who worked that rite, those guys were good. This Sakhmet had power; it had life.
That’s what I want from my sacred images of Isis, too. When someone visits my Isis shrine, I hope they feel Something. A little buzz. A little hum. A little magic that says, “yes, I’m here.”
From the very start of the artistic process of making such a sacred image, the ancient Egyptians knew they were creating something that would be alive. Sculptors sometimes referred to their work as “giving birth.”
We are used to thinking of Egyptian statuary are gargantuan. But the main cult image in each temple—the one kept in the holy of holies and cared for each day—was likely no more than about a foot in height for anthropomorphic images. We know this due to the size of the shrines that enclosed these images. So this means that the size of the images many of us have on our own home altars are very much in harmony with the most important Egyptian temple images. I like that. A lot.
The oldest texts we have that provide information on what the ancients thought about their divine images come from the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE), but the ideas in them are likely much older. We find this information in ritual texts for the Daily Ritual, which cared for and fed the Deity and the Opening of the Mouth rite used to enliven the images, as well as some additional temple texts that mention the relationship between the Deities and Their images.
At core, what these texts make apparent is that some part of the essence of the Deity was considered to be alive in the sacred image. In the Daily Ritual, the sacred image is awakened, clothed, praised, and anointed as a living being. Each step in the ritual re-enlivens the statue each time the ritual is performed. Toward the end of the rite, the priest can finally say to the Deity in the image, “oh living ba who smites His enemies, Your ba is with You and Your sekhem is with You.” In this case, the ba of the Deity is Their manifestation (ba also has connotations of power) and sekhem is the word for power. The priest then says that he, too, is a ba and embraces the sacred image.
So at this point, the ba of the Deity is in the image. Ba is a complicated term and I won’t go into all its complications here. (Besides, I’m still learning about some of them.) For our purposes here, we can think of the ba of a Deity as Their Presence or Manifestation. In this way, the sacred image of the Deity IS the outward manifestation of the Deity. But that’s not all that it is. For we have other texts that tell us that the ba of the Deity swoops down like a great hawk to alight upon the image and indwell it.
But back to the Daily Ritual…
Next, food is presented and now the emphasis shifts to the ka of the Deity. The ritual says that Ma’et embraces the Deity “so that your ka will exist through Her.” The simplest definition for ka is “vital essence;” it’s the difference between alive and dead. And since I am, at this moment, into simplification, we’ll let that do for now.
The hieroglyph for the word ka is two upraised arms, perhaps intended to be read as an embrace. For it is through an embrace that ka may be passed, for example, from Atum to His children Shu and Tefnut to protect Them and give Them Their kas. The royal ka—the ancestral power that makes the pharaoh a pharaoh—is passed by an embrace from the old king as Osiris to his heir as Horus.
So we have two aspects of the Deity present in the sacred image during the Daily Rituals: ba and ka. The ba is the Presence and the ka is Life. It is through the ka that the Deity Who is alive in the sacred image receives offerings. You can read more about that here.
These sacred images were taken out in procession during certain festivals. On such occasions, the Deity would also be present in the image—present enough to give oracular responses, and we even have one instance of a man claiming that he was cured of blindness during such a procession. Unfortunately, we don’t have texts of any of the rituals that might re-enliven or “charge up” the image before going out, but we know they existed because the library at Edfu was supposed to contain a book of “all ritual relating to the exodus of the God from His temple on feast days.”
From another temple text, we know that the Opening of the Mouth ritual was performed on statues. The full name of the text is “Performing the Opening of the Mouth in the workshop for the statue (tut) of (Name of person or Deity).” The key part of that ritual was known as netjerty, when the mouth of the image was touched with the adze, a specific craftsman’s tool. Netjerty is formed from the root Netjer (also Nutjer, Neter)—Deity—so we can understand that this part of the rite was a god-ifying part. Much of the rest of the ritual is very similar to the Daily Ritual and its magic, with both ba and ka present.
Other than these references in the Daily Ritual and Opening of the Mouth, there are a few scattered references about the relationship between Deity and image. In the Hibis temple of Amun-Re, all the other Deities are considered aspects of Him as Creator. And, as Creator, He is also the one Who creates His own image. He made it “according to His desire, He having graced it with the grace of His breath…” In the Daily Ritual text that we have for Amun, He is said to be “the tut Who made Their [all the Deities] kas.”
In several similar passages, the creation of the sacred image is attributed to the Deity Who’s image it was. This reminds me of why all the books of Egypt could be said to have been written by Thoth: the scribe, in the act of writing, is in the Godform of Thoth, so the book is written by Thoth. Perhaps the sculptors and artists were supposed to be in the Deityform of the Deity they were sculpting, too. I am imagining an artist, in the Goddessform of Isis, crafting Her image by channeling inspiration from Her.
In what is known as the Memphite Theology, Ptah the Craftsman is the Creator and He creates the bodies—statues—of all the Deities according to Their desire, so that They willingly “enter into” Their bodies and Their kas are satisfied.
At Isis’ temple at Philae, a text says that Isis’ son Horus is the one who established all the temples and made all the sacred images. Horus and Hathor were known to “go out as Their statues” during one of Their festivals. Edfu temple also has passages that say the Deities “unite with Their bas in the horizon—the akhet, that most liminal of liminal places and a very reasonable place to work this transitional magic.
From these and similar clues, we can be sure that a Deity’s ba and ka were understood to be present in Their sacred images. What’s more, Their presence in one temple neither precluded nor diminished Their presence or power in another. Both ka and ba are in divinely infinite supply.
Thus Isis can be alive and present in my shine, on your altar, and on the altars and in the shrines of all those who love Her.
May She bless and be alive in your sacred image always.
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 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 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 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 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.
Gathering lotuses for the lotus bread
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.
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.
Another of the sections of the Mensa
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.
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.”
Lorenzo Pignoria
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.
Athanasius Kircher
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
Isis, the Supreme Mind or Pantomorphous Iynx
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
For me, there are two things that make August wonderful, here in Portland, Oregon. One of them is all the produce that I can go pick on Sauvie’s Island, fresh from the farmers’ fields. (My countertops are full of peaches and tomatoes right now and peppers are on the way.) The other—and the more important for us local Isiacs—is the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis, Sirius.
While everything else starts to crisp in the late-summer heat, I am refreshed in the cool morning of Her rising power.
Now some of you may be saying, “wait, wait, I thought that happens in July.” It could. When you are able to see Her heliacal (“before the sun”) rising depends on where on this globe you are.
Here in Portland, Oregon in 2023, Sirius rises at 4:31 in the morning, Local Solar Time, on August 23rd. Further south, She rises earlier. It all depends on your latitude. You can calculate Her rising in your area with this online calculator. The calculator results are in Local Solar Time. It gives you star rise and sun rise in LST.
One of my favorite tarot images: Isis as The Star in the Ancient Egyptian Tarot by Clive Barrett
There is some difference between clock time and Local Solar Time. But check the time of sunrise locally and you can work backward from there. In my case, I’ll want to be at my point of observation about 5:30 in the morning, about an hour before local sunrise. And this year, for once, it may be clear enough to see Her rise.
While Isis has connections to both the sun and the moon, the heavenly body in which I most easily see Her is the star, Her star: Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek). And it isn’t just because of Her strong ancient connections with the Fair Star of the Waters, the Herald of the Inundation. It’s something about the way my particular spiritual “stuff” fits with Her particular Divine “stuff.” Her diamond starlight draws me, lures me, illuminates my heart and mind.
The Star of Isis, coming soon to a dawn near me
I fell in love with Her as Lady of the Star the first time I saw Sirius through a telescope. As I watched, Her brilliant star sparkled with rays of green and blue and pink and white. It was incredibly, unutterably beautiful. It was alive. And pure.
Likely, you already know why Sirius was important to the ancient Egyptians, so I won’t repeat that here. But I would like to add a few interesting bits about Sirius that you may not know about; in particular, the orientation of some Egyptian temples and shrines to Sirius at the time of their construction. For instance, the small Isis temple at Denderah and Isis’ great temple at Philae seem to have been oriented toward the rising of Sirius. Philae may even have a double stellar orientation: one axis to the rising of Sirius, one to the setting of Canopus.
Iset-Sopdet following Sah-Osiris in Their celestial boats
Overall, Egyptian temples have a variety of orientations. A survey of temples taken between 2004 and 2008—that actually went to the temples in Egypt and measured the orientation—showed that most temples were oriented so that the main entrance faced the Nile. But not only that. It seems that the temples were also oriented toward other astronomical events, most especially the winter solstice sunrise, which of course makes very good sense as a symbol of rebirth.
Orientation to Sirius is rarer and harder to be certain of since the earth’s position in relation to the stars has shifted over the millennia.
A Horus temple, called the “Nest of Horus” on the summit of the highest peak of the Hills of Thebes, seems to have been oriented to the heliacal rising of Sirius around 3000-2000 BCE. Nearby, an inscription carved in rock during the 17th dynasty (1580-1550 BCE) records the observation of just such a rising of Sirius. This high place would have been ideal for Horus in His nest to await the coming of His mother Isis. On the other hand, the archaeoastronomers who did the survey I mentioned believe that it may also be oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, an event closely associated with Horus.
The original temple of Satet on Elephantine; made of mudbrick nestled among the natural boulders
Another temple that may have a Sirius orientation is the archaic temple of the Goddess Satet on the island of Elephantine. The original temple was built amidst the great boulders on the island and really is quite simply the coolest temple ever. It seems that when it was built (around 3200 BCE) the rising of Sirius and the rising of the winter solstice sun were at the same place—so it could have been built to accommodate both important astronomical events.
After the initial study, the same team followed up with a survey (in 2008) of some temples in the Fayum that they hadn’t been able to study before as well as temples in Kush. They found generally the same results except for the Nile orientation since many of these temples were built far away from the river. They made note of a son of a Priest of Isis, Wayekiye, son of Hornakhtyotef, who was “hont-priest of Sopdet” and ”wab-priest of the five living stars” (the planets) and “chief magician of the King of Kush.” This is from an inscription on Isis’ temple at Philae dating to about 227 CE. It emphasizes the importance and sacrality of the study of celestial objects and events to the kingdom and it is quite interesting that this was the work of the Chief Magician. This study revealed that most Kushite temples and pyramids were oriented either to the winter solstice sunrise or the rise of Sirius.
The star Sopdet over the head of the Goddess
Another interesting thing the study found was that by the time of the New Kingdom, in the 34 temples that were unmistakably dedicated to a Goddess—specifically Isis or a Goddess associated with Her—the most important celestial orientation point was the rising of Sirius. But, in addition to Sirius, the star Canopus was also a key orientation point. According to their data, Goddess temples in general were more frequently aligned with these very bright stars, Sirius and Canopus, while God temples were more often oriented to key solar-cycle events. Isn’t that interesting?
On the horizon, She rises, with Orion/Osiris above
If you are, as I am, feeling the anticipation of Her rising later this month, you might like to do some ritual. The Opening of the Ways is always good. You could use it as an invitation to Her. Or try a simple meditation, allowing yourself to yearn for Her coming. Waiting for Her and wanting Her is sometimes a very good exercise. You might set out a vessel of water (a shiny silver one is nice) on the night of Her rising, let it be charged with that rising energy in the dawn, then use it as part of your holy water for purification. I have just such star water that I use waiting in my shrine right now.
Last time, we talked about the Egyptian ba—very loosely translated as the soul. When represented in tombs, the ba is shown as a human-headed bird, often a falcon or hawk, and bearing the face of the person to whom it belongs.
With their power of flight, birds have always been magical creatures to us flightless human beings. Not only in Egypt, but in many cultures throughout the world, birds of various types have been associated with death and the afterlife. In some cases, birds (especially the owl) are seen as harbingers of death. Sometimes, birds are psychopomps, guides of the dead, showing the newly-disembodied human soul or spirit the correct path to the Otherworld. Researchers have suggested that the concept of birds as spirits of the dead that have returned to earth is almost universal.
Tutankhamon’s innermost sarcophagus, aka “the egg”
But more often than being harbingers of death, birds are associated with the idea of transcendence and rebirth, as they decidedly were in ancient Egypt. The innermost coffin was sometimes referred to as “the egg,” so you can see the power of this idea almost immediately. In the funerary literature, we also find birds in connection with the so-called “transformation” spells, which are designated in the texts by the verb kheper, “to become.” So once again, we come to that important word.
Two forms of Isis from Denderah: anthropomorphic and in Her Ba form
As you already know, our Goddess Isis is often depicted in birdform. She is the hawk, falcon, kestral, or swallow protecting the body of Osiris, and thus all the dead, with Her powerful wings. But sometimes, She is also shown as a human-headed falcon. In this case, we are being shown Her powerful ba kheper. If you recall last week’s post, you’ll remember that in the earliest Egyptian records, the ba is a Divine Force. That Divine Force is what we are intended to see when we find Isis in this form. It is Her Great Ba that is with us.
From an inscription at Denderah, we are told that Isis is “She Whose Ba (-Power) is Great” and “She Whose Ba is Great Among the Gods,” and even “She Whose Ba is Greater Than All the Gods.” Human beings recognize the power of Her ba: “those on earth bow to Her Ba.” (And, it is often the ba of the Deity that was understood to inhabit the Deity’s sacred image; sometimes the ka, too, but mostly the ba.)
Isis is also among the Great Goddesses Who are called Ba-et Goddesses. As a Ba-et Goddess, Isis’ ba-power is understood to be exceptionally powerful among the bau (plural) of all the other Deities. Isis is “She Who is More Mighty (Ba-et) than the Gods.” She is especially powerful in the sky: She is “The Mighty One (Ba-et) in the Sky,” “The Mighty One in the West and the East,” and She is “The Mighty One of the Bau Souls.”
I don’t know how to attribute these AI illos, but this one gets something of Her power; here’s the link
This last title likely refers to Isis’ status among the Deities—a Great Ba among Great Bau. But I wonder if we might also take it as a reference to Her care of the human bau, souls, who are under Her wings.
It is Isis Who initiates the human ba into its new, transformed existence without the living body of the deceased. She is the Lady of All in the Secret Place—the Otherworld—and She is asked by the deceased in the Coffin Texts to, “spiritualize me, O You who split open my mouth for me and Who guide my soul on the paths of the Otherworld.” We are told that “Isis rejoices when She sees you (the deceased)” in the Otherworld and reciprocally, that the dead (as Osiris) rejoice when they see Her, for they know they can count on Her help in their renewal.
Isis in protective posture
Isis also bestows upon the deceased power and awe so that enemies of the deceased are easily fended off. The dead are told that they are possessors of “the fear (awe or power) that went forth from Isis to Horus.” While the texts do not explicitly say so, it seems to me that Isis may have endowed the deceased with some of Her powerful and “awe-full” ba-power. In another Coffin Text, the deceased is told that “the power of Isis is your strength” and that the dead one is “more spirit (akh)-like and more soul (ba)-like” than the Southern or Northern Gods.
From Pompeii, a Mystery fresco
Isis’ concern with souls continued as Her worship entered the Graeco-Roman world. She becomes known as a Mystery Goddess—and the Mysteries were always about the Mysteries of death, rebirth, and often, the saving of souls. In Isis’ famous Mysteries, initiates learned what lay before them in the afterlife so that they lost their fear of death and could live more fulfilling lives on earth. In fact, Isis was specifically known as a Savior Goddess, which not only pertains to Her ability to initiate our souls into the Mysteries of Death and Rebirth, but also to Her saving grace in our day-to-day lives.
In a Hermetic treatise, the Kore Kosmou (“Virgin of the Universe”), Isis continued to be associated with souls. (Read more about the Kore Kosmouhere, and here, and here.)
The always Mysterious sphinx
In this text, Isis describes for Horus how human souls were created and how She and Osiris devised the “magic of the prophet-priests” so that our souls could be nurtured by philosophy and our bodies could be healed by the magical arts. Other Hermetic texts depict Isis teaching about reincarnation and the true nature of our souls.
From the earliest to the latest periods, Isis has been the Lady of Souls. She has, and is, an extremely powerful ba Herself and always, always maintains Her concern with and knowledge of souls.
I’m taking the holiday weekend off, so here’s a repost of what I think is an important connection.
Warning: this post refers to rape in myth.
Boy and girl Divine Children, enwrapped in the protective coils of Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathos Daimon
During the excavation of Hathor’s temple at Denderah, an interesting statue, now in the Cairo Museum, came to light. It shows two children, one male, one female, standing within the protective coils of two serpents. On the boy’s head is a solar disk with an Eye of Horus on it. The girl has a lunar disk with an Eye of Horus.
The statue appears to be a votive gift, and may have originally come from the shrine of Isis-Thermouthis, believed to be not far from Denderah. According to experts, the serpents are most likely Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathos Daimon.
Isis as Agathe Tyche and Osiris as Agathos Daimon in serpent form
In the Ptolemaic period, Isis and Serapis/Osiris were frequently depicted as Divine Serpents. The Isis serpent can sometimes be the combined Goddesses Isis and Renenutet as Isis-Thermouthis. Other times, She can be Isis Agathe Tyche, Good Fortune. In both forms, She is partnered with Serapis/Osiris Agathos Daimon, or Good Spirit.
Unfortunately, there is no writing on the statue to help with the identification of the Divine Children. One possibility is that They are the well-known twins, Shu and Tefnut. There are things in myth and at the site that could support this interpretation. But as you might guess, I like a different possibility.
Harpokrates with Mom Isis and Dad Serapis
The male child has the Horus lock, so He is probably Harpokrates, in Egyptian Hor-pa-khred, Horus the Child. Harpokrates was very popular during this time period. He is the child of Isis and Serapis and is frequently shown with a sun disk on His head. The fact that the Child God is protected by Isis and Osiris serpents, strengthens the identification. But if the boy is Harpokrates, Who is the little girl?
We don’t know of a twin sister of Harpokrates from either Egyptian or Greek sources. Some have wondered whether the lunar girl is supposed to be a form of Isis. Indeed Isis is called the Female Horus (Hor-et or Horit) in Egyptian sources. Several other Goddesses and a number of queens are called by the name as well. The Oxyrhynchus Hymn to Isis, written in Greek, calls Her Harpokratin, which is just Harpokrates with the Greek feminine ending. Translators have taken this to mean something like “the darling-girl of the Gods,” but it can just as easily be simply “Horet the [Girl] Child.” What’s more, by Ptolemaic times, Isis was indeed connected to the moon, even though She was not in earlier Egyptian sources.
Nevertheless, I stubbornly like the idea that the Divine Girl could be Horus’ twin sister, Horet. While this is the only statue we know of that shows the Harpokrates Twins together, during the Ptolemaic period, there are a few other baby girl statues that have been identified as Girl Harpokrates. We have no evidence of Her before this time, but we know that the Egyptians always did have a penchant for name-sharing male-female pairs of Deities, such as the Deities of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis.
Now, there is a Goddess Horit Who shows up in late Egyptian sources, specifically in what is known as the Delta Mythological Manual. Scholars aren’t sure where the manual came from, but they date it to about the 26th dynasty—though the material may be much older. It contains myths having to do with 12 of the nomes in the Egyptian delta. It could have come from a temple cache or been in the possession of a priest or maybe even a priestess. In this manual, we meet Horit. She is a daughter of Osiris, but we do not know Who Her mother is.
And…then things get bad.
You see, Horit bears sons fathered by Her father Osiris. The Delta Manual is pretty darned cryptic, but we learn that when Her father raped Her, it was Her “first time” and that when She learned She was pregnant, She “sat down and mourned.” What’s more, there was something wrong or unusual about the birth of the resulting child. The text isn’t super clear, but Horit may have either chosen abortion or miscarried. The child, being Divine, did not die, but instead left the premises immediately.
Tefnut in Her lioness form
After this, Horit functions as a wife to Osiris and bears four more children, the last one after suffering a rape by Set. The manual (again very cryptically) tells stories about each of these sons of Horit—all forms of Horus. Strangely, there is even one called The Child of Isis. Of the third of these sons, the manual tells us that after Set murders Osiris, Horit raises Their son to be His father’s avenger; very Isis-like indeed. There is even an incident of decapitation just as there is in the story where Isis grants mercy to Set, which so enrages Horus (the two Gods are battling at the time) that He decapitates Isis, a state of affairs that wise Thoth fixes right away.
In the Delta Manual, the identities of all the Goddesses are very fluid; quite confusingly so. They are associated, joined, or become each other frequently. Horit is identified with Hathor and it is said that “She is the Divine hand of Re,” which is specifically a vagina. (In this version of the story, Re replaces Atum Who uses His Goddess-Hand to masturbate, producing Shu and Tefnut.)
Tefnut is not happy
Many of the myths in the Delta Manual, and most of Horit’s, have to do with boundary-crossing sex among Deities, consensual or not. In addition to Hathor, Horit is associated with Bast, Who is said to “come forth as Horit.” At Sebennytos and Behbeit (Isiopolis!), Horit is joined with Tefnut and the myth of the Raging/Distant/Returning Goddess (which is an important myth for another day). Sebennytos and Behbeit are in the 12th delta nome. There, the myths relate that Tefnut-Horit is raped by Her son Geb and imprisoned. The rapist is eventually punished and the Goddess freed, which becomes a cause for festival in the nome. So now, in addition to the rape of Horit the daughter by Her father Osiris, we also have the rape of Horit-Tefnut the mother by Her son. Some of you may know that there is similar tale in which Horus rapes His mother Isis and Her tears fall into the water.
WTF? Is it any wonder that Horit is among the raging Goddesses? And what the heck are we to supposed to make of all this anyway? We certainly do not approve. But neither did the ancient Egyptians. After all, Geb (and Set in other tales) is punished for His rape. And yet, the Egyptians retained these stories and, no doubt, tried to make sense of them.
Goddess and Son? God and Daughter?
I have speculated, in Isis Magic, about the possible meaning of the rape of Isis by Her son. It goes like this: What if that story, and others like it, are merely the very misunderstood remnants of a different and very ancient story; indeed, perhaps the oldest story? The Goddess Comes Into Being; of Herself, by Herself. She gives birth to a Child, a son. He grows to maturity. Then, in order to start the multiplication of life on earth, Divine Mother and Divine Son mate, not in a rape, but because They are All That Is. Could the same be said of the Divine Father and Divine Daughter? Obviously, I don’t know the answer to these questions. But it’s a way I can try to make it make some sense in my own head.
As for Harpokrates and His twin sister, I doubt we can make a direct connection between Horit and the Girl Harpokrates of the votive statue. And yet, and yet, and yet. Osiris has a son, Hor, and a daughter, Horit. (Different mothers? Same mother?) Hor and Horit make a perfect Egyptian name-sharing male-female pair. Horit’s myths come from the delta, including from Behbeit, where Isis’ great delta temple once stood.
I wonder whether we will some day find stories about Horit and Her mother? And if we do, what will Her name be?
We know quite a lot about the history of the Great Goddess Isis. For instance, we know that She was already important by the time of the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, 5th-6th dynasties). We know fairly clearly how Her worship spread throughout Egypt. We know how She came into Nubia and the Mediterranean. And we know how She went underground with the rise of Christianity in the Mediterranean and the West…staying alive in the magical traditions. Today there are few who do not at least know Her name.
Yet, what we don’t know for certain is where Her worship originated. So far, it is one of Her Mysteries.
Oh, there are theories. The one I am most seeing lately is that She is originally from some small city in the Egyptian delta of Lower Egypt. But strangely, no town in ancient Egypt, Upper or Lower, claimed to be Her “birthplace.” Since She became Egypt’s most famous Goddess, you would think someone would claim Her as their own.
The Egyptian delta. The arrow points to the location of Isiopolis. You can see Heliopolis above Cairo (Caire).
Others attribute Upper Egyptian origins to Her, especially given Her important Upper Egyptian temple at Philae (now on Agilkia island). However, the oldest evidence we have of Isis worship on Philae is from the 26th dynasty.
On the other hand, the consensus of researchers today is that what would become ancient Egypt was first populated by Paleolithic people moving from south to north. So if proto-Isis was already known to these people, perhaps She did come from what would eventually be Upper Egypt. And Abydos, an important Osirian cult center, is in Upper Egypt.
On the other, other hand, Isis and Osiris are incorporated into the Heliopolitan myth cycle. And Heliopolis is about 20 miles north of Cairo and in the delta. What’s more, there was another famous Isis temple right there in the middle of the delta at Isiopolis. We may eventually find that it (or its predecessor on the site) is, in fact, the oldest temple of Isis. (Yes, of course, I asked Her. She told me, “delta.” But that is decidedly UPG, “unverified personal gnosis.”)
Some very pretty skulls and bones from an Egyptian tomb
I recently came across a paper by Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond, an Egyptologist serving as Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department at Villanova University, that makes a new and interesting contribution to the possible origins of Isis. She focuses in on the title of a female funerary ritualist. The title is “demdjet” and the demdjet can appear as a human ritualist, but also sometimes as a Divine ritualist. We find her—very infrequently—from the Old Kingdom to the New. Egyptologists used to group this particular ritualist under the general category of “mourning women,” but it appears the demdjet or Demdjet may have had a more specific function.
The root of the word has to do with collecting or assembling. And since the title is a feminine active participle, the title demdjet is “she who collects or assembles.” If you’re at all familiar with the ancient Egyptian funerary texts, you may recall that there is quite a lot of emphasis on making sure the deceased have all their bones, bits, limbs, heads, etc. collected or assembled for them as well as ensuring none of those things are disassembled or lost. Since Isis is the collector of bits and pieces par excellence—at least when it comes to Osiris (and thus the deceased)—Diamond suggests that this ritual role may play a part in Isis’ origins.
The demdjet (top) and the kenut (bottom) offering nu pots
One of the Pyramid Texts (PT 2283) refers to a Demdjet Vulture. It says, “Osiris Neith, accept Horus’ Eye, which Seth hid—THE HIDDEN VULTURE, which he joined—THE JOINED [Demdjet] VULTURE…” This Demdjet Vulture is involved with stretching or spreading something. We cannot say whether the Demdjet Vulture is supposed to be Isis, but at least we may have an early attestation of a Divine Demdjet. Of course, Isis can take vulture form, but it is not Her most common bird form. Yet, as a winged Goddess, She is often shown stretching or spreading Her wings over the deceased.
We also find the Demdjet in the pyramid temple of Senwosret III where She gives life and protection. From the Middle Kingdom, there are demdjets in the papyrus Ramesseum E. Some scholars think that the contents of that papyrus may date back to the 3rd dynasty (there are archaisms in the text). If true, it would be the oldest mention of a demdjet.
In this papyrus, we learn that the demdjets are present throughout the funerary rites. At some point, the demdjets move simultaneously, perhaps in ritual motion or dance. They are there when the deceased is summoned to revivification. And they have speaking parts. In the New Kingdom, we have several more instances of demdjets. They are shown as two kneeling women with nu water pots and they are watering “the desert necropolis.” In one case, one woman is labeled menkenu and one demdjet. (Alan Gardiner suggests menkenu is a title of Isis, while demdjet is a title of Nephthys.) In another case, one is called demdjet and one is called kenut (menkenu and kenut may be different versions of the same title).
Same offering, different labels: The Great Kite and the Lesser Kite
But here’s where it gets more interesting for Isiacs. In the last New Kingdom example (tomb of Paheri, if you must know), we find the same scene—women kneeling with nu pots, dressed in the same way—but this time, They are labeled Djeret Weret (Great Kite) and Djeret Nedjeset (Lesser Kite). In this time period, we know Who the Great Kite and the Lesser Kite are; They are Isis and Nephthys. So, the women depicted may be human ritualists portraying the Goddesses, which we know was done in Egyptian ritual. In additional—but very damaged—scenes in two of these tombs, we see the demdjet no longer kneeling, but standing with her/Her right arm raised, elbow bent, and fist clenched while her/Her left clenched fist is placed at her/Her chest. It reminds me of the henu gesture, but standing.
The henu gesture
She is labeled Djeret Weret Demdjet, the Great Kite Demdjet. The gesture s/She makes is thought to be associated with transfiguration, the recitation of holy words, and glorifications for the dead.
In the Book of the Amduat, a Goddess named Demdjet appears in the 7th and 8th Hours of the Night where She helps protect Re and the Sun Barque as it journeys through the Otherworld. In the 7th Hour, She is with three other Goddesses: She Who Cuts, She Who Punishes, and She Who Annihilates. In the 8th Hour, Demdjet is with three other mummiform Goddesses: She Who Veils, She Who Decorates (?), and the Dark One. Interestingly, the 7th Hour is the same Hour in which Isis and the Elder Magician work Their powerful magic to subdue Apophis. So in this case, with Isis in Her Great of Magic form, it seems to me it would be a bit of a stretch to consider this Demdjet, a minor Hours Goddess, to be a form of Isis.
The Djeret Weret Demdjet making a gesture of transfiguration; we can see the feet of (probably) another demdjet (the Djeret Nedjeset Demdjet?) above this one, but this part of the tomb is damaged.
Nevertheless, with its core meaning of She Who Collects, Assembles, and Puts Together, we can find in the Demdjet an important harmony with one aspect of Great Isis: She Who searches, finds, reassembles, and gives new life to Osiris.
Some researchers have suggested that there may have been a very early Egyptian funerary custom in which important dead persons were disarticulated and then put back together for rejuvenation. It’s a highly controversial topic, but if so, perhaps the original Demdjet may have been the female ritualist who did this reassembly. Perhaps she was serving as a priestess of the Great Renewing Mother. And perhaps, just perhaps, this Great Mother Regeneratrix was the Demdjet Weret—(proto) Iset Demdjet—She Who collects our bones for us that we may be made whole in preparation for our rebirth.
We’re not quite there yet, but I thought you might like to have this small rite early in case you’d like to find a special outdoor place to celebrate the coming solstice.
In Egypt, about 3000 BCE, at the latitude of ancient Memphis, the summer solstice coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the star of Isis, the beginning of the all-important inundation, and the coming of the new year. It was a time of joy as people anticipated the coming harvest and other blessings from the Divine Ones.
In this rite, we celebrate with gratitude the fullness of summer in the dawning light of our closest star, the sun. Yet we also know that the ba of Isis—in Her holy star Sirius—is also present with us, though still unseen by most of us in the northern hemisphere.
For this rite, you’ll need Nile water and a vessel, a flowery incense and something to safely burn it in, your sistrum, and a ripe avocado or sweet, juicy fruit like a peach, and something to cut it with. You’ll be eating the fruit in offering communion with Her, so make it something you like.
Your Temple Space
Ideally, this is an outdoor space where you can see the sun rise on summer solstice. Make sure you arrive before sunrise. If not possible, you can also do this indoors, visualizing the sunrise.
Arising
Rattle your sistrum softly at your heart. As you see the sun rise, stand and open your arms like the wings of Isis.
Ritualist: (Vibrating softly) ISET-RE, ISET-SOPDET! (Speaking softly) I welcome You with open heart into Your abode (moving your hands to cross upon your heart).
Purifying the Heart
Pour the Nile water into the vessel. Sprinkle water upon your own body, paying special attention to your heart.
Ritualist: Purify, purify, purify, purify! I am purified by the Mother of Rivers, the Lady of the Living Waters. Into Her care I release al pain, all anger, all frustration, all regret—all the sorrows of my heart. (Breathe deeply and repeat until you feel that it is so.)
The temple of my heart is made new, purified and opened unto Isis, the Lady of Abundance.
Awakening the Heart
Take up the sistrum again, light the incense. Rattling the sistrum softly at your heart (so much the better if you can feel the vibrations of the sistrum), say,
Ritualist: In the name of Isis-Re, in the name of Isis-Sothis, my heart awakens. (Breathe deeply and repeat until you feel that it is so.)
Be seated comfortably. Now listen and hear. Listen to the dawn and find the heartbeat of the Great Goddess Isis. Her noble heart beats all around you. In the awakening song of birds. In the wind moving through grass and trees. In the waters. In the deep earth.
Find the heartbeat of Isis.
Now, touch a pulse point on your own body and find your heartbeat.
Attune your heartbeat to Hers, slowing or speeding up as needed. (Just do the best you can; it doesn’t have to be perfect.)
Ritualist: (Speaking softly to yourself and to the Goddess) Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart.
I am aware in my heart. I am in power in my heart. I am aware and in power in my heart, which is the heart given to me by my mother (stating the name of your human mother)—and by my Great Mother Isis.
Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart.
I am intelligent in my heart. I am compassionate in my heart. I am intelligent and compassionate in my heart, which is the heart which drums in rhythm with the heart of Great Isis.
Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart.
I am alive in my heart. I am full in my heart. I am alive and full in my heart, the center of all Being, the beginning of all Becoming. I am alive and full in my heart, and my heart knows all the joys and pleasures of my life.
In the fullness of my Being, I am Becoming joyful. Isis arises—all is well. Isis comes—peace returns. I am sitting in the Throne of Abundance. Once again, I attune my human heart to Her Divine heart (pausing to do this).
Now speak aloud at least ten things for which you are grateful. If you can name more than that, do so. Let yourself feel joy, satisfaction, pleasure, or pleasant surprise as you name each thing. Take time to re-attune your heart to the Goddess’ heart between each thanksgiving. When you are finished, continue:
Ritualist: Iset Ib, my heart’s desire. Her heart. My heart. I am aware in my heart and I am grateful in my heart. You have blessed me, Isis, and I bless You. Amma, Iset. Grant that it ever be so.
Communion of the Heart of Isis
Take out the avocado (or other fruit) and look upon it.
Ritualist: This fruit is the fruit of the holy persea tree, sacred unto Isis. It is the fruit of the tree from between whose branches rises the Soul of Isis—Sothis—and the Face of Isis—the Sun. The wise say that the sacred persea bears the Heart of Isis (elevating fruit), therefore when I hold this persea fruit in my hands, I hold the Heart of the Goddess. Rich and sweet, the persea fruit is indeed the Heart of the Beautiful One, the Heart of Abundant Summer.
Cut the fruit into five pieces and lay them upon the altar like the five-rayed Star of Isis.
Ritualist: O Isis-Re, O Isis-Sothis, You shared with me Your sacred heart (eating one piece of fruit). Spirit is joined to spirit (eating another piece of fruit). Mind is joined to mind (eating another piece of fruit). Soul is joined to soul (eating another piece of fruit). Body is joined to body (eating the last piece of fruit). Heart joined to heart (crossing your hands over your heart).
Closing
Take up the sistrum and, beginning at your heart, rattle it in the four directions, above you and below you.
Ritualist: O Isis, You have filled my heart. You are indeed the Lady of Abundance.
Take up the vessel of water. Holding it at your heart, sprinkle water in the four directions, above you and below you.
Ritualist: O Isis, I ask that my heart remain open to Your heart, this day and every day. Amma, Iset. Grant that it be so.
Face east and the rising sun and the hidden star. Open your arms like the wings of Isis, then close them over your heart. Remove all traces of your presence, then depart in peace.
NOTE: This is a shortened version of the summer solstice rite from Isis Magic. For the more complete rite, see pages 344-351 in the second edition.
