The Mysteries of Isis and Osiris

MYSTERY CULTS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON SECRET SOCIETIES AND ESOTERIC THOUGHT.

Untold millennia after the goddess’ was first invoked, the name of Isis still lingers in the mind of the West. Even after her cult was officially suppressed, she continues to hover like a wraith, persisting in the culture under other names and functions…

And it’s through esoteric sects arising during the Enlightenment (Rosicrucians, Freemasons) and flowering during the Victorian Era (Golden Dawn, Theosophy et al) that this archetype has seeped into mainstream culture.

And while clearly on the decline, the work of “alternative historians” — many of whom were either members of secret societies or deeply influenced by their propaganda — relit the goddess’ temple fires in the public imagination. Her name was dropped with wild abandon in Ancient Aliens, which as much as some alt.historians would wish otherwise, was the high water mark of their movement in the public mind.

More importantly, her dramas would later seep into the public culture in the fantasy and science fiction inspired by Freemasonry and Theosophy.

But who exactly was Isis to the ancients? Was she simply some tribal queen who over the years became mythologized into the Universal Mother? Is she nothing but the pagan vestige of a once-mighty nation, of interest only to historians and a handful of eccentrics?

The Egyptians knew Isis as Esi or Aset, whose name meant “throne” in the ancient Egyptian language, Kemetic. Isis first appeared in texts in the Fifth Dynasty, in the third millennium before Christ. But even then, Isis was simply a new incarnation of several older mother goddesses.

• As her worship became codified, Isis was seen as the daughter of Nuit, a personification of the sky and Geb, the Earth. She was one of four siblings.

• Her brother and husband was Osiris (a Greek rendering of the Kemetic Ausur or Wesir, meaning ‘strength of the eye’).

• Her sister was Nephthys (from Nebet-Het, meaning ‘mistress of the house.’)

• The brother and husband of Nephthys was Set or Seth, who name means ‘pillar.’

The term ‘Egyptian Religion’ is a misnomer. There were actually several religions that varied significantly from cult center to cult center. The Egyptians saw all of creation as the result of a single creator god, who birthed lesser gods as aspects of his personality. These gods came to be known as ‘the Nine’, or the Ennead.

Identities and assignations were constantly shifting and merging in the spiritual hothouse of ancient Egypt. The Ennead was composed of Atum, the creator, Shu and Tefnut (who were both aspects of the air), Geb, Nuit, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. And over the centuries, Isis marched on, assimilating the identities and functions of several older goddesses, just as her husband Osiris did with other gods.

In this pantheon, Osiris came to be seen as both the fertility god and the god of the dead.

This was understood to be consistent, since the ‘dead’ seeds of crops became the bearers of new life. Some trace this identification to the beginning of agriculture in Egypt. It has been suggested that perhaps a sheaf of wild barley was once buried with an ancient tribal king as an offering and when the seed sprouted and produced new plants, it was seen as the work of the spirit of the dead king.

As god of the underworld, Osiris was associated with the sunset, because it was believed that Sun would travel to the land of the dead — literally, under the world — when it set in the western skies.

Isis was the patroness of mothers and children, as well of magicians. Set represented the great storms of desert (sandstorms) and sea (cyclones), and Nephthys came to be associated with the night and death.

The supreme deity in Egypt came to be known as Amen-Ra, a merging of Amen or Amun, who was the Air, and Ra, who was the Sun. Later, Horus took Ra’s place as god of the Sun.

Soon Osiris came to be seen as the most important deity of ancient Egypt, since the entire society was focused on their eternal reward in the afterlife.

All kings became incarnations of Osiris upon their death, and a massive and complex infrastructure would be created to send their souls to the distant stars in so-called ‘Belt of Orion’, where Osiris awaited their arrival.

The Egyptian religions would be tremendously influential in the Mediterranean basin.

The ancient historian Herodotus would state unequivocally that Egyptian Ennead was the source of the Greek Pantheon. More importantly, the secret ancient cults known as the ‘Mystery Religions’ would spread like wildfire from the deserts of Egypt to the farthest reaches of the known world.

The Mysteries were seen as a more intimate and fulfilling alternative to the dreary official state cults of the ancient world. Mystery cults practiced arcane and ecstatic rites, sometimes in caves or in cellars, often at night. Whereas the state cults fostered piety and obedience to the king as a god on earth, the Mysteries offered communion with their deities, sometimes even possession by them.

The Mysteries of Osiris concerned death and the afterlife. They taught the concept of the immortality of the Ka, or soul. It is believed that the Great Pyramids of Giza were the sites of Osirian initiations and ceremonies. Some of the best-known Greek thinkers, including Plato and Pythagoras, were believed to be initiates of the Osirian Mysteries.

In his landmark work, “Isis and Osiris,” Plutarch described the Egyptian rites of Osiris :

Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and re-genesis. Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchers.

The Egyptians, as has already been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysus wake the God of the Mystic Basket. For this reason all who reverence Osiris are prohibited from destroying a cultivated tree or blocking up a spring of water.

Not only the Nile, but every form of moisture they call simply the effusion of Osiris; and in their holy rites the water jar in honour of the god heads the procession. And by the picture of a rush they represent a king and the southern region of the world, and the rush is interpreted to mean the watering and fructifying of all things, and in its nature it seems to bear some resemblance to the generative member.

The Mysteries of Osiris would travel to Greece, merge with those of a Thracian wine god and become known as the Mysteries of Dionysus. Plutarch himself identified Dionysus (“God of the Nysa Mountain”) with Osiris and identified the Osirian mysteries as the source of the more well-known Dionysian mysteries. Indeed, the two figures became known as a single figure; Osiris-Dionysus.

The Dionysians were often women called Maenads, who would intoxicate themselves with wine and perform ecstatic, often sexual, often violent rituals…