|
the secret teachings of all ages
Isis, The Virgin Of
The World
CHAPTER v
manly p. hall
IT is especially fitting that a
study of Hermetic symbolism should begin with a discussion of the
symbols and attributes of the Saitic Isis. This is the Isis of
Sais, famous for the inscription concerning her which appeared on the
front of her temple in that city: "I, Isis, am all that has been,
that is or shall be; no mortal Man hath ever me
unveiled."
Plutarch affirms that many
ancient authors believed this goddess to be the daughter of Hermes;
others held the opinion that she was the child of Prometheus. Both of
these demigods were noted for their divine wisdom. It is not improbable
that her kinship to them is merely allegorical. Plutarch translates the
name Isis to mean wisdom. Godfrey Higgins, in his Anacalypsis, derives
the name of Isis from the Hebrew ישע, Iso, and the Greek ζωω, to
save. Some authorities, however, for example, Richard Payne Knight (as
stated in his Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology),
believe the word to be of Northern extraction, possibly Scandinavian or
Gothic. In these languages the name is pronounced Isa, meaning
ice, or water in its most passive, crystallized, negative
state.
This Egyptian deity under many
names appears as the principle of natural fecundity among nearly all the
religions of the ancient world. She was known as the goddess with ten
thousand appellations and was metamorphosed by Christianity into the
Virgin Mary, for Isis, although she gave birth to all living
things--chief among them the Sun--still remained a virgin, according to
the legendary accounts.
Apuleius in the eleventh book
of The Golden Ass ascribes to the goddess the following statement
concerning her powers and attributes: "Behold, * *, I, moved by thy
prayers, am present with thee; I, who am Nature, the parent of things,
the queen of all the elements, the primordial progeny of ages, the
supreme of Divinities, the sovereign of the spirits of the dead, the
first of the celestials, and the uniform resemblance of Gods and
Goddesses. I, who rule by my nod the luminous summits of the heavens,
the salubrious breezes of the sea, and the deplorable silences of the
realms beneath, and whose one divinity the whole orb of the earth
venerates under a manifold form, by different rites and a variety of
appellations. Hence the primogenial Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, the
mother of the Gods, the Attic Aborigines, Cecropian Minerva; the
floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Diana
Dictynna; the three-tongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; and the
Eleusinians, the ancient Goddess Ceres. Some also call me Juno, others
Bellona, others Hecate, and others Rhamnusia. And those who are
illuminated by the incipient rays of that divinity the Sun, when he
rises, viz. the Ethiopians, the Arii, and the Egyptians skilled in
ancient learning, worshipping me by ceremonies perfectly appropriate,
call me by my true name, Queen Isis."
Le Plongeon believes that the
Egyptian myth of Isis had a historical basis among the Mayas of Central
America, where this goddess was known as Queen Moo. In Prince Coh the
same author finds a correspondence to Osiris, the brother-husband of
Isis. Le Plongeon's theory is that Mayan civilization was far more
ancient than that of Egypt. After the death of Prince Coh, his widow,
Queen Moo, fleeing to escape the wrath of his murderers, sought refuge
among the Mayan colonies in Egypt, where she was accepted as their queen
and was given the name of Isis. While Le Plongeon may be right, the
possible historical queen sinks into insignificance when compared with
the allegorical, symbolic World Virgin; and the fact that she appears
among so many different races and peoples discredits the theory that she
was a historical individual.
According to Sextus Empyricus,
the Trojan war was fought over a statue of the moon goddess. For this
lunar Helena, and not for a woman, the Greeks and Trojans struggled at
the gates of Troy.
Several authors have attempted
to prove that Isis, Osiris, Typhon, Nephthys, and Aroueris (Thoth, or
Mercury) were grandchildren of the great Jewish patriarch Noah by his
son Ham. But as the story of Noah and his ark is a cosmic allegory
concerning the repopulation of planets at the beginning of each world
period, this only makes it less likely that they were historical
personages. According to Robert Fludd, the sun has three
properties--life, light, and heat. These three
vivify and vitalize the three worlds--spiritual, intellectual, and
material. Therefore, it is said "from one light, three lights,"
i. e. the first three Master Masons. In all probability, Osiris
represents the third, or material, aspect of solar activity, which by
its beneficent influences vitalizes and enlivens the flora and fauna of
the earth. Osiris is not the sun, but the sun is symbolic of the vital
principle of Nature, which the ancients knew as Osiris. His symbol,
therefore, was an opened eye, in honor of the Great Eye of the universe,
the sun. Opposed to the active, radiant principle of impregnating fire,
hear, and motion was the passive, receptive principle of
Nature.
Modern science has proved that
forms ranging in magnitude from solar systems to atoms are composed of
positive, radiant nuclei surrounded by negative bodies that exist upon
the emanations of the central life. From this allegory we have the story
of Solomon and his wives, for Solomon is the sun and his wives and
concubines are the planets, moons, asteroids, and other receptive bodies
within his house--the solar mansion. Isis, represented in the Song of
Solomon by the dark maid of Jerusalem, is symbolic of receptive
Nature--the watery, maternal principle which creates all things out of
herself after impregnation has been achieved by the virility of the
sun.
In the ancient world the year
had 360 days. The five extra days were gathered together by the God of
Cosmic Intelligence to serve as the birthdays of the five gods and
goddesses who are called the sons and daughters of Ham. Upon the first
of these special days Osiris was born and upon the fourth of them Isis.
(The number four shows the relation that this goddess bears to
the earth and its elements.) Typhon, the Egyptian Demon or Spirit of the
Adversary, was born upon the third day. Typhon is often symbolized by a
crocodile; sometimes his body is a combination of crocodile and hog.
Isis stands for knowledge and wisdom, and according to Plutarch the word
Typhon means insolence and pride. Egotism,
self-centeredness, and pride are the deadly enemies of understanding and
truth. This part of the allegory is revealed.
After Osiris, here symbolized
as the sun, had become King of Egypt and had given to his people the
full advantage of his intellectual light, he continued his path through
the heavens, visiting the peoples of other nations and converting all
with whom he came in contact. Plutarch further asserts that the Greeks
recognized in Osiris the same person whom they revered under the names
of Dionysos and Bacchus. While he was away from his
country, his brother, Typhon, the Evil One, like the Loki of
Scandinavia, plotted against the Sun God to destroy him. Gathering
seventy-two persons as fellow conspirators, he attained his nefarious
end in a most subtle manner. He had a wonderful ornamented box made just
the size of the body of Osiris. This he brought into a banquet hall
where the gods and goddesses were feasting together. All admired the
beautiful chest, and Typhon promised to give it to the one whose body
fitted it most perfectly. One after another lay down in the box, but in
disappointment rose again, until at last
Osiris also tried. The moment he was in the chest Typhon and his
accomplices nailed the cover down and sealed the cracks with molten
lead. They then cast the box into the Nile, down which it floated to the
sea. Plutarch states that the date upon which this occurred was the
seventeenth day of the month Athyr, when the sun was in the
constellation of Scorpio. This is most significant, for the Scorpion is
the symbol of treachery. The time when Osiris entered the chest was also
the same season that Noah entered the ark to escape from the
Deluge.
ISIS, QUEEN OF HEAVEN.
From Mosaize Historie der
Hebreeuwse Kerke.
Diodorus writes of a famous
inscription carved on a column at Nysa, in Arabia, wherein Isis
described herself as follows: "I am Isis, Queen of this country. I was
instructed by Mercury. No one can destroy the laws which I have
established. I am the eldest daughter of Saturn, most ancient of the
gods. I am the wife and sister of Osiris the King. I first made known to
mortals the use of wheat. I am the mother of Orus the King. In my honor
was the city of Bubaste built. Rejoice, O Egypt, rejoice, land that gave
me birth!" (See "Morals and Dogma," by Albert Pike.)
Plutarch further declares that
the Pans and Satyrs (the Nature spirits and elementals) first discovered
that Osiris had been murdered. These immediately raised an alarm, and
from this incident the word panic, meaning fright or
amazement of the multitudes, originated. Isis, upon receiving the
news of her husband's murder, which she learned from some children who
had seen the murderers making off with the box, at once robed herself in
mourning and started forth in quest of him.
At length Isis discovered that
the chest had floated to the coast of Byblos. There it had lodged in the
branches of a tree, which in a short time miraculously grew up around
the box. This so amazed the king of that country that he ordered the
tree to be cut down and a pillar made from its trunk to support the roof
of his palace. Isis, visiting Byblos, recovered the body of her husband,
but it was again stolen by Typhon, who cut it into fourteen parts, which
he scattered all over the earth. Isis, in despair, began gathering up
the severed remains of her husband, but found only thirteen pieces. The
fourteenth part (the phallus) she reproduced in gold, for the original
had fallen into the river Nile and had been swallowed by a
fish.
Typhon was later slain in
battle by the son of Osiris. Some of the Egyptians believed that the
souls of the gods were taken to heaven, where they shone forth as stars.
It was supposed that the soul of Isis gleamed from the Dog Star, while
Typhon became the constellation of the Bear. It is doubtful, however,
whether this idea was ever generally accepted.
Among the Egyptians, Isis is
often represented with a headdress consisting of the empty throne chair
of her murdered husband, and this peculiar structure was accepted during
certain dynasties as her hieroglyphic. The headdresses of the Egyptians
have great symbolic and emblematic importance, for they represent the
auric bodies of the superhuman intelligences, and are used in the same
way that the nimbus, halo, and aureole are used in Christian religious
art. Frank C. Higgins, a well-known Masonic symbolist, has astutely
noted that the ornate headgears of certain gods and Pharaohs are
inclined backward at the same angle as the earth's axis. The robes,
insignia, jewels, and ornamentations of the ancient hierophants
symbolized the spiritual energies radiating from the human body. Modern
science is rediscovering many of the lost secrets of Hermetic
philosophy. One of these is the ability to gauge the mental development,
the soul qualities, and the physical health of an individual from the
streamers of semi-visible electric force which pour through the surface
of the skin of every human being at all times during his life. (For
details concerning a scientific process for making the auric emanations
visible, see The Human Atmosphere by Dr. Walter J.
Kilner.)
Isis is sometimes symbolized by
the head of a cow; occasionally the entire animal is her symbol. The
first gods of the Scandinavians were licked out of blocks of ice by the
Mother Cow (Audhumla), who symbolized the principle of natural nutriment
and fecundity because of her milk. Occasionally Isis is represented as a
bird. She often carries in one hand the crux ansata, the symbol
of eternal life, and in the other the flowered scepter, symbolic of her
authority.
Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, the
founder of Egyptian learning, the Wise Man of the ancient world, gave to
the priests and philosophers of antiquity the secrets which have been
preserved to this day in myth and legend. These allegories and
emblematic figures conceal the secret formulæ for spiritual, mental,
moral, and physical regeneration commonly known as the Mystic Chemistry
of the Soul (alchemy). These sublime truths were communicated to the
initiates of the Mystery Schools, but were concealed from the profane.
The latter, unable to understand the abstract philosophical tenets,
worshiped the concrete sculptured idols which were emblematic of these
secret truths. The wisdom and secrecy of Egypt are epitomized in the
Sphinx, which has preserved its secret from the seekers of a hundred
generations. The mysteries of Hermeticism, the great spiritual truths
hidden from the world by the ignorance of the world, and the keys of the
secret doctrines of the ancient philosophers, are all symbolized by the
Virgin Isis. Veiled from head to foot, she reveals her wisdom only to
the tried and initiated few who have earned the right to enter her
sacred presence, tear from the veiled figure of Nature its shroud of
obscurity, and stand face to face with the Divine Reality.
The explanations in these pages
of the symbols peculiar to the Virgin Isis are based (unless otherwise
noted) on selections from a free translation of the fourth book of
Bibliotèque des Philosophes Hermétiques, entitled "The Hermetical
Signification of the Symbols and Attributes of Isis," with
interpolations by the compiler to amplify and clarify the
text.
The statues of Isis were
decorated with the sun, moon, and stars, and many emblems pertaining to
the earth, over which Isis was believed to rule (as the guardian spirit
of Nature personified). Several images of the goddess have been found
upon which the marks of her dignity and position were still intact.
According to the ancient philosophers, she personified Universal Nature,
the mother of all productions. The deity was generally represented as a
partly nude woman, often pregnant, sometimes loosely covered with a
garment either of green or black color, or of four different shades
intermingled-black, white, yellow, and red.
Apuleius describes her as
follows: "In the first place, then, her most copious and long hairs,
being gradually intorted, and promiscuously scattered on her divine
neck, were softly defluous. A multiform crown, consisting of various
flowers, bound the sublime summit of her head. And in the middle of the
crown, just on her forehead, there was a smooth orb resembling a mirror,
or rather a white refulgent light, which indicated that she was the
moon. Vipers rising up after the manner of furrows, environed the crown
on the right hand and on the left, and Cerealian ears of corn were also
extended from above. Her garment was of many colours, and woven from the
finest flax, and was at one time lucid with a white splendour, at
another yellow from the flower of crocus, and at another flaming with a
rosy redness. But that which most excessively dazzled my sight, was a
very black robe, fulgid with a dark splendour, and which, spreading
round and passing under her right side, and ascending to her left
shoulder, there rose protuberant like the center of a shield, the
dependent part of the robe falling in many folds, and having small knots
of fringe, gracefully flowing in its extremities. Glittering stars were
dispersed through the embroidered border of the robe, and through the
whole of its surface: and the full moon, shining in the middle of the
stars, breathed forth flaming fires. Nevertheless, a crown, wholly
consisting of flowers and fruits of every kind, adhered with indivisible
connexion to the border of that conspicuous robe, in all its undulating
motions. What she carried in her hands also consisted of things of a
very different nature. For her right hand, indeed, bore a brazen rattle
[sistrum] through the narrow lamina of which bent like a belt, certain
rods passing, produced a sharp triple sound, through the vibrating
motion of her arm. An oblong vessel, in the shape of a boat, depended
from her left hand, on the handle of which, in that part in which it was
conspicuous, an asp raised its erect head and largely swelling neck. And
shoes woven from the leaves of the victorious palm tree covered her
immortal feet."
The green color alludes to the
vegetation which covers the face of the earth, and therefore represents
the robe of Nature. The black represents death and corruption as being
the way to a new life and generation. "Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) White, yellow, and red
signify the three principal colors of the alchemical, Hermetical,
universal medicine after the blackness of its putrefaction is
over.
The ancients gave the name Isis
to one of their occult medicines; therefore the description here given
relates somewhat to chemistry. Her black drape also signifies that the
moon, or the lunar humidity--the sophic universal mercury and the
operating substance of Nature in alchemical terminology--has no light of
its own, but receives its light, its fire, and its vitalizing force from
the sun. Isis was the image or representative of
the Great Works of the wise men: the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of
Life, and the Universal Medicine.
THE SISTRUM.
(From Plutarch's Isis and
Osiris.)
"The sistrum is designed * * *
to represent to us, that every thing must be kept in continual
agitation, and never cease from motion; that they ought to be mused and
well-shaken, whenever they begin to grow drowsy as it were, and to droop
in their motion. For, say they, the sound of these sistra averts and
drives away Typho; meaning hereby, that as corruption clogs and puts a
stop to the regular course of nature; so generation, by the means of
motion, loosens it again, and restores it to its former vigour. Now the
outer surface of this instrument is of a convex figure, as within its
circumference are contained those four chords or bars [only three
shown], which make such a rattling when they are shaken--nor is this
without its meaning; for that part of the universe which is subject to
generation and corruption is contained within the sphere of the moon;
and whatever motions or changes may happen therein, they are all
effected by the different combinations of the four elementary bodies,
fire, earth, water, and air--moreover, upon the upper part of the convex
surface of the sistrum is carved the effigies of a cat with a human
visage, as on the lower edge of it, under those moving chords, is
engraved on the one side the face of Isis, and on the other that of
Nephthys--by the faces symbolically representing generation and
corruption (which, as has been already observed, is nothing but the
motion and alteration of the four elements one amongst
another),"
Other hieroglyphics seen in
connection with Isis are no less curious than those already described,
but it is impossible to enumerate all, for many symbols were used
interchangeably by the Egyptian Hermetists. The goddess often wore upon
her head a hat made of cypress branches, to signify mourning for her
dead husband and also for the physical death which she caused every
creature to undergo in order to receive a new life in posterity or a
periodic resurrection. The head of Isis is sometimes ornamented with a
crown of gold or a garland of olive leaves, as conspicuous marks of her
sovereignty as queen of the world and mistress of the entire universe.
The crown of gold signifies also the aurific unctuosity or sulphurous
fatness of the solar and vital fires which she dispenses to every
individual by a continual circulation of the elements, this circulation
being symbolized by the musical rattle which she carries in her hand.
This sistrum is also the yonic symbol of purity.
A serpent interwoven among the
olive leaves on her head, devouring its own tail, denotes that the
aurific unctuosity was soiled with the venom of terrestrial corruption
which surrounded it and must be mortified and purified by seven
planetary circulations or purifications called flying eagles
(alchemical terminology) in order to make it medicinal for the
restoration of health. (Here the emanations from the sun are recognized
as a medicine for the healing of human ills.) The seven planetary
circulations are represented by the circumambulations of the Masonic
lodge; by the marching of the Jewish priests seven times around the
walls of Jericho, and of the Mohammedan priests seven times around the
Kabba at Mecca. From the crown of gold project three horns of plenty,
signifying the abundance of the gifts of Nature proceeding from one root
having its origin in the heavens (head of Isis).
In this figure the pagan
naturalists represent all the vital powers of the three kingdoms and
families of sublunary nature-mineral, plant, and animal (man considered
as an animal). At one of her ears was the moon and at the other the sun,
to indicate that these two were the agent and patient, or father and
mother principles of all natural objects; and that Isis, or Nature,
makes use of these two luminaries to communicate her powers to the whole
empire of animals, vegetables, and minerals. On the back of her neck
were the characters of the planets and the signs of the zodiac which
assisted the planets in their functions. This signified that the
heavenly influences directed the destinies of the principles and sperms
of all things, because they were the governors of all sublunary bodies,
which they transformed into little worlds made in the image of the
greater universe.
Isis holds in her right hand a
small sailing ship with the spindle of a spinning wheel for its mast.
From the top of the mast projects a water jug, its handle shaped like a
serpent swelled with venom. This indicates that Isis steers the bark of
life, full of troubles and miseries, on the stormy ocean of Time. The
spindle symbolizes the fact that she spins and cuts the thread of Life.
These emblems further signify that Isis abounds in humidity, by means of
which she nourishes all natural bodies, preserving them from the heat of
the sun by humidifying them with nutritious moisture from the
atmosphere. Moisture supports vegetation, but this subtle humidity (life
ether) is always more or less infected by some venom proceeding from
corruption or decay. It must be purified by being brought into contact
with the invisible cleansing fire of Nature. This fire digests,
perfects, and revitalizes this substance, in order that the humidity may
become a universal medicine to heal and renew all the bodies in
Nature.
The serpent throws off its skin
annually and is thereby renewed (symbolic of the resurrection of the
spiritual life from the material nature). This renewal of the earth
takes place every spring, when the vivifying spirit of the sun returns
to the countries of the Northern Hemisphere,
The symbolic Virgin carries in
her left hand a sistrum and a cymbal, or square frame of metal, which
when struck gives the key-note of Nature (Fa); sometimes also an olive
branch, to indicate the harmony she preserves among natural things with
her regenerating power. By the processes of death and corruption she
gives life to a number of creatures of diverse forms through periods of
perpetual change. The cymbal is made square instead of the usual
triangular shape in order to symbolize that all things are transmuted
and regenerated according to the harmony of the four
elements.
Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom believed
that if a physician could establish harmony among the elements of earth,
fire, air, and water, and unite them into a stone (the Philosopher's
Stone) symbolized by the six-pointed star or two interlaced triangles,
he would possess the means of healing all disease. Dr. Bacstrom further
stated that there was no doubt in his mind that the universal,
omnipresent fire (spirit) of Nature: "does all and is all in all." By
attraction, repulsion, motion, heat, sublimation, evaporation,
exsiccation, inspissation, coagulation, and fixation, the Universal Fire
(Spirit) manipulates matter, and manifests throughout creation. Any
individual who can understand these principles and adapt them to the
three departments of Nature becomes a true philosopher.
From the right breast of Isis
protruded a bunch of grapes and from, the left an ear of corn or a sheaf
of wheat, golden in color. These indicate that Nature is the source of
nutrition for plant, animal, and human life, nourishing all things from
herself. The golden color in the wheat (corn) indicates that in the
sunlight or spiritual gold is concealed the first sperm of all
life.
On the girdle surrounding the
upper part of the body of the statue appear a number of mysterious
emblems. The girdle is joined together in front by four golden plates
(the elements), placed in the form of a square. This signified that
Isis, or Nature, the first matter (alchemical terminology), was the
essence- of the four elements (life, light, heat, and force), which
quintessence generated all things. Numerous stars are represented on
this girdle, thereby indicating their influence in darkness as well as
the influence of the sun in light. Isis is the Virgin immortalized in
the constellation of Virgo, where the World Mother is placed with the
serpent under her feet and a crown. of stars on her head. In her arms
she carries a sheaf of grain and sometimes the young Sun God.
The statue of Isis was placed
on a pedestal of dark stone ornamented with rams' heads. Her feet trod
upon a number of venomous reptiles. This indicates that Nature has power
to free from acidity or saltness all corrosives and to overcome all
impurities from terrestrial corruption adhering to bodies. The rams'
heads indicate that the most auspicious time for the generation of life
is during the period when the sun passes through the sign of Aries. The
serpents under her feet indicate that Nature is inclined to preserve
life and to heal disease by expelling impurities and
corruption.
In this sense the axioms known
to the ancient philosophers are verified; namely:
Nature contains
Nature,
Nature rejoices in her own nature,
Nature surmounts
Nature;
Nature cannot be amended but in her own
nature.
Therefore, in contemplating the statue of
Isis, we must not lose sight of the occult sense of its allegories;
otherwise, the Virgin remains an inexplicable enigma.
From a golden ring on her left
arm a line descends, to the end of which is suspended a deep box filled
with flaming coals and incense. Isis, or Nature personified, carries
with her the sacred fire, religiously preserved and kept burning in. a
special temple by the vestal virgins. This fire is the genuine, immortal
flame of Nature--ethereal, essential, the author of life. The
inconsumable oil; the balsam of life, so much praised by the wise and so
often referred to in the Scriptures, is frequently symbolized as the
fuel of this immortal flame.
From the right arm of the
figure also descends a thread, to the end of which is fastened a pair of
scales, to denote the exactitude of Nature in her weights and measures.
Isis is often represented as the symbol of justice, because Nature is
eternally consistent.
THOTH, THE DOG-HEADED.
From Lenoir's La
Franche-Maconnerie.
Aroueris, or Thoth, one of the
five immortals, protected the infant Horus from the wrath of Typhon
after the murder of Osiris. He also revised the ancient Egyptian
calendar by increasing the year from 360 days to 365. Thoth Hermes was
called "The Dog-Headed" because of his faithfulness and integrity. He is
shown crowned with a solar nimbus, carrying in one hand the Crux Ansata,
the symbol of eternal life, and in the other a serpent-wound staff
symbolic of his dignity as counselor of the gods.
THE EGYPTIAN MADONNA.
From Lenoir's La
Franche-Maconnerie.
Isis is shown with her son
Horus in her arms. She is crowned with the lunar orb, ornamented with
the horns of rams or bulls. Orus, or Horus as he is more generally
known, was the son of Isis and Osiris. He was the god of time, hours,
days, and this narrow span of life recognized as mortal existence. In
all probability, the four sons of Horus represent the four kingdoms of
Nature. It was Horus who finally avenged the murder of his father,
Osiris, by slaying Typhon, the spirit of Evil.
The World Virgin is sometimes
shown standing between two great pillars--the Jachin and Boaz of
Freemasonry--symbolizing the fact that Nature attains productivity by
means of polarity. As wisdom personified, Isis stands between the
pillars of opposites, demonstrating that understanding is always found
at the point of equilibrium and that truth is often crucified between
the two thieves of apparent contradiction.
The sheen of gold in her dark
hair indicates that while she is lunar, her power is due to the sun's
rays, from which she secures her ruddy complexion. As the moon is robed
in the reflected light of the sun, so Isis, like the virgin of
Revelation, is clothed in the glory of solar luminosity. Apuleius states
that while he was sleeping he beheld the venerable goddess Isis rising
out of the ocean. The ancients realized that the primary forms of life
first came out of water, and modem science concurs in this view. H. G.
Wells, in his Outline of History, describing primitive life on
the earth, states: "But though the ocean and intertidal water already
swarmed with life, the land above the high-tide line was still, so far
as we can guess, a stony wilderness without a trace of life." In the
next chapter he adds: "Wherever the shore-line ran there was life, and
that life went on in and by and with water as its home, its medium, and
its fundamental necessity." The ancients believed that the universal
sperm proceeded from warm vapor, humid but fiery. The veiled Isis, whose
very coverings represent vapor, is symbolic of this humidity, which is
the carrier or vehicle for the sperm life of the sun, represented by a
child in her arms. Because the sun, moon, and stars in setting appear to
sink into the sea and also because the water receives their rays into
itself, the sea was believed to be the breeding ground for the sperm of
living things. This sperm is generated from the combination of the
influences of the celestial bodies; hence Isis is sometimes represented
as pregnant.
Frequently the statue of Isis
was accompanied by the figure of a large black and white ox. The ox
represents either Osiris as Taurus, the bull of the zodiac, or Apis, an
animal sacred to Osiris because of its peculiar markings and colorings.
Among the Egyptians, the bull was a beast of burden. Hence the presence
of the animal was a reminder of the labors patiently performed by Nature
that all creatures may have life and health. Harpocrates, the God of
Silence, holding his fingers to his mouth, often accompanies the statue
of Isis. He warns all to keep the secrets of the wise from those unfit
to know them.
The Druids of Britain and Gaul
had a deep knowledge concerning the mysteries of Isis and worshiped her
under the symbol of the moon. Godfrey Higgins considers it a mistake to
regard Isis as synonymous with the moon. The moon was chosen for Isis
because of its dominion over water. The Druids considered the sun to be
the father and the moon the mother of all things. By means of these
symbols they worshiped Universal Nature.
The figure of Isis is sometimes
used to represent the occult and magical arts, such as necromancy,
invocation, sorcery, and thaumaturgy. In one of the myths concerning
her, Isis is said to have conjured the invincible God of Eternities,
Ra, to tell her his secret and sacred name, which he did. This
name is equivalent to the Lost Word of Masonry. By means of this Word, a
magician can demand obedience from the invisible and superior deities.
The priests of Isis became adepts in the use of the unseen forces of
Nature. They understood hypnotism, mesmerism, and similar practices long
before the modem world dreamed of their existence.
Plutarch describes the
requisites of a follower of Isis in this manner: "For as 'tis not the
length of the beard, or the coarseness of the habit which makes a
philosopher, so neither will those frequent shavings, or the mere
wearing [of] a linen vestment constitute a votary of Isis; but he alone
is a true servant or follower of this Goddess, who after he has heard,
and been made acquainted in a proper manner with the history of the
actions of these Gods, searches into the hidden truths which he
concealed under them, and examines the whole by the dictates of reason
and philosophy."
During the Middle Ages the
troubadours of Central Europe preserved in song the legends of this
Egyptian goddess. They composed sonnets to the most beautiful woman in
all the world. Though few ever discovered her identity, she was Sophia,
the Virgin of Wisdom, whom all the philosophers of the world have wooed.
Isis represents the mystery of motherhood, which the ancients recognized
as the most apparent proof of Nature's omniscient wisdom and God's
overshadowing power. To the modern seeker she is the epitome of the
Great Unknown, and only those who unveil her will be able to solve the
mysteries of life, death, generation, and regeneration.
MUMMIFICATION OF THE
EGYPTIAN DEAD
Servius, commenting on Virgil's
Æneid, observes that "the wise Egyptians took care to embalm
their bodies, and deposit them in catacombs, in order that the soul
might be preserved for a long time in connection with the body, and
might not soon be alienated; while the Romans, with an opposite design,
committed the remains of their dead to the funeral pile, intending that
the vital spark might immediately be restored to the general element, or
return to its pristine nature." (From Prichard's An Analysis of the
Egyptian Mythology.)
No complete records are
available which give the secret doctrine of the Egyptians concerning the
relationship existing between the spirit, or consciousness, and the body
which it inhabited. It is reasonably certain, however, that Pythagoras,
who had been initiated in the Egyptian temples, when he promulgated the
doctrine of metempsychosis, restated, in part at least, the teachings of
the Egyptian initiates. The popular supposition that the Egyptians
mummified their dead in order to preserve the form for a physical
resurrection is untenable in the light of modern knowledge regarding
their philosophy of death. In the fourth book of On Abstinence from
Animal Food, Porphyry describes an Egyptian custom of purifying the
dead by removing the contents of the abdominal cavity, which they placed
in a separate chest. He then reproduces the following oration which had
been translated out of the Egyptian tongue by Euphantus: "O sovereign
Sun, and all ye Gods who impart life to men, receive me, and deliver me
to the eternal Gods as a cohabitant. For I have always piously
worshipped those divinities which were pointed out to me by my parents
as long as I lived in this age, and have likewise always honored those
who procreated my body. And, with respect to other men, I have never
slain any one, nor defrauded any one of what he deposited with me, nor
have I committed any other atrocious deed. If, therefore, during my life
I have acted erroneously, by eating or drinking things which it is
unlawful to cat or drink, I have not erred through myself, but through
these" (pointing to the chest which contained the viscera). The removal
of the organs identified as the seat of the appetites was considered
equivalent to the purification of the body from their evil
influences.
So literally did the early
Christians interpret their Scriptures that they preserved the bodies of
their dead by pickling them in salt water, so that on the day of
resurrection the spirit of the dead might reenter a complete and
perfectly preserved body. Believing that the incisions necessary to the
embalming process and the removal of the internal organs would prevent
the return of the spirit to its body, the Christians buried their dead
without resorting to the more elaborate mummification methods employed
by the Egyptian morticians.
In his work on Egyptian
Magic, S.S.D.D. hazards the following speculation concerning the
esoteric purposes behind the practice of mummification. "There is every
reason to suppose," he says, "that only those who had received some
grade of initiation were mummified; for it is certain that, in the eyes
of the Egyptians, mummification effectually prevented reincarnation.
Reincarnation was necessary to imperfect souls, to those who had failed
to pass the tests of initiation; but for those who had the Will and the
capacity to enter the Secret Adytum, there was seldom necessity for that
liberation of the soul which is said to be effected by the destruction
of the body. The body of the Initiate was therefore preserved after
death as a species of Talisman or material basis for the manifestation
of the Soul upon earth."
During the period of its
inception mummification was limited to the Pharaoh and such other
persons of royal rank as presumably partook of the attributes of the
great Osiris, the divine, mummified King of the Egyptian
Underworld.
OSIRIS, KING OF THE
UNDERWORLD.
Osiris is often represented
with the lower par, of his body enclosed in a mummy case or wrapped
about with funeral bandages. Man's spirit consists of three distinct
parts, only one of which incarnates in physical form. The human body was
considered to be a tomb or sepulcher of this incarnating spirit.
Therefore Osiris, a symbol of the incarnating ego, was represented with
the lower half of his body mummified to indicate that he was the living
spirit of man enclosed within the material form symbolized by the mummy
case.
There is a romance between the
active principle of God and the passive principle of Nature. From the
union of these two principles is produced the rational creation. Man is
a composite creature. From his Father (the active principle) he inherits
his Divine Spirit, the fire of aspiration--that immortal part of himself
which rises triumphant from the broken clay of mortality: that part
which remains after the natural organisms have disintegrated or have
been regenerated. From his Mother (the passive principle) he inherits
his body--that part over which the laws of Nature have control: his
humanity, his mortal personality, his appetites, his feelings, and his
emotions. The Egyptians also believed that Osiris was the river Nile and
that Isis (his sister-wife) was the contiguous land, which, when
inundated by the river, bore fruit and harvest. The murky water of the
Nile were believed to account for the blackness of Osiris, who was
generally symbolized as being of ebony hue.
back to top |
