M. Isidora Forrest's Blog, page 50

Are You Feeling Lucky? + Isis Magic Update

Do you believe in luck? Chance? Fate? Karma? Destiny?

For a minute, I thought that horseshoe on Lady Luck’s head was the Horns & Disk crown.

In some way or another, little or large, most of us do. We often discover the notion of good luck and bad luck as kids playing games. Grown ups playing games, such as sports figures, might have a lucky pair of socks or some other talisman they keep close by. As business people, we might wear a favorite suit to an important meeting; we look good in the suit, we feel more confident, and perhaps we boost our luck. And how many of us have not looked up our daily horoscopes from time to time to see what fate has in store for us?

As a general rule, I’m of the “you make your own luck” school. And yet I know people who don’t seem to be doing anything obviously wrong, but who have spectacularly bad luck—as well as those who seem to be doing everything wrong, yet stumble into some amazing piece of good luck.

Ancient peoples seem to have had a keen sense of luck or fate in their lives. Perhaps it was because they were living with a more constant awareness of their Deities, expecting Their intervention in both worldly and otherworldly matters. This tends to be true of very religious people today as well. And it tends to be true of those of us who have specifically invited the Deities into our lives.

The Seven Hathors

There are an number of ancient Egyptian Deities associated with luck and fate. At the birth of a child, the Seven Hathors would speak the various events (usually the bad ones) in the child’s life, They also declared her lifespan and manner of her death. Meshkhenet, the Birth Goddess, named the child’s fate and the work he would do. Renenutet, the Cobra Goddess, ordained how prosperous, she would be. The God Shai, “Destiny,” also ruled over the child’s lifespan and “what is ordained” for him. You may be familiar with the famous Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days in which one is advised not to even go out of the house on the bad-luck days. How seriously anyone took advice like that, we don’t know.

A small Roman statuette of Isis Fortuna; She’s looking a bit burdened under that headdress of abundance. She also carries the Wheel of Fate and, I think, a cornucopia.

In the wider Mediterranean world,  the Greeks invoked the Goddess Tyche as the Luck Goddess, while the Romans propitiated Her as Fortuna. We know of Tyche as a Goddess, not just a concept, as far back as the 8th century BCE. From that time on, She becomes more and more of a Divine personality. Both Tyche and Fortuna could be personal Deities, governing the life of the individual, as well as community Deities, ruling the fate and fortune of a city or empire. Every Roman emperor kept an image of Fortuna in his sleeping quarters in hopes of bringing good fortune to his reign.

Of course, not all fortune is good as any human being can tell you. Ancient epitaphs describe Tyche and Fortuna as perverse, cruel, and “hating the brave.” Nonetheless, there were always those who tried to steer chance or change a bad fate. They did this by appealing to the Deities, sometimes by undergoing Mystery initiations, and through the use of magic.

And here is where Isis comes into our story—as Goddess of Magic and Lady of the Mysteries. Over time, Isis came to be either associated with or assimilated to most of these Luck Goddesses and Gods. But as Goddess of Magic, Isis is never Blind Fate. She never demands one simply accept one’s given lot. Isis has the heka, the magical power, to move fate. The Goddess of Magic, the Lady of Mysteries is Fortune Who Sees; She is Destiny With Power. As the Great Enchantress, Isis is a major league Fate Changer.

This is reflected in the fact that Isis was invoked not merely as Tyche, Luck Itself, but as Agathe Tyche, Good Luck. In fact, of all the Goddesses in the Mediterranean world, Isis was the one Deity with Whom Agathe Tyche and Fortuna were most consistently assimilated.

Isis as Agathe Tyche and Osiris as Agathos Daimon, both in serpent form

As Agathe Tyche, Isis was considered the “luck” of a number of port cities, particularly Alexandria where She was paired with Agathos Daimon, “Good Spirit,” Who was identified with both Sarapis and Osiris. Legend had it that Tyche gave birth to a Divine figure called Isityche Who was said to symbolize the combination of Divine Providence and Chance. As you can easily see, Isityche is none other than Isis-Tyche. In this combined Divine figure, “Isis” represents the wise guidance of the Divine, while “Tyche” represents mere Chance. Isityche is once again a Fate Who Sees and it is the “Isi” part that makes that so.

Isis’ role as Savior Goddess also connected Her with Agathe Tyche. As far back as the 5th century BCE, the Greek poet Pindar calls Tyche a Savior Goddess, especially of those at sea. Isis Pelagia, “Isis of the Sea,” is also a savior as She brings Her charges to safe harbor, both literally and spiritually.

Do not mess with Nemesis

In some places, Tyche was associated with Nemesis, the Goddess of Divine Retribution. Thus Nemesis is the Goddess of Earned Fate. One of Isis’ many names was Nemesis and Isis Nemesis was commonly known by the 2nd century CE. There was a statue of Isis Nemesis on the holy island of Delos. And once again, Isis Nemesis is not a blind fate. If She sent ill luck your way, you probably deserved it.

As you might expect, Lady Luck was also connected with the heavens and with astrology. In a Mithraic document, reference is made to the Seven Tyches of the Sky, meaning the seven planets that rule astrological destiny. By the time of Isis’ famous Mysteries, the Goddess was known to rule the cosmos as She “of the black garments and seven stoles.” The seven stoles refer, no doubt, to the seven planets.

I mentioned earlier that initiation into the Mysteries was one way people might seek to change their fate. This was certainly true of the Mysteries of Isis. Since Isis rules fate, She can also change fate. In Apuleius’ tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, as Lucius is about to be rescued from his asinine state by a Priest of Isis with a garland of roses, Lucius sees the flowers not only as his salvation by Isis, “but, oh, it was more than a garland to me, it was a crown of victory over cruel Fortune, bestowed on me by the Goddess.”

Dear Isiacs, know that your Tyche, your Fortuna is Isityche and Isis Fortuna and that She is most decidedly not blind, although She will kick your ass when you need it. (And we all do now and then, don’t we?) And so, I wish you always, Good Luck.

We are scheduled to get a book proof next week. With our approval, the presses are scheduled and then start rolling. It will take a while for the actual book manufacturing process to be completed, then there’s shipping from the midwest. (Yes, we are printing in the USA.) Right now, we’re working on a website from which you’ll be able to purchase Isis Magic when it arrives. I can’t wait to see it!

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Aspects of Isis, Isis, Lady Luck, Pagan Spirituality, religion, spirituality

The Light of Isis

As the days grow longer, a certain soft joy fills me.

By no means has winter here in my part of the Pacific Northwest been harsh. Yet I find that the increasing light releases me, urging me to draw in deep breaths that I didn’t even know I longed for.

That is what Light can do.

Many of us have spent so much of our spiritual capital in “accepting our inner darknesses,” that we can forget to take the time to accept our inner illumination as well. If truth be told (and it shall be), it can often be easier to accept the beautiful Dark than to bathe in the brilliance of the Light. The Light gives us nowhere to hide. We are ultimately vulnerable before It, obliterated by Its beneficence. Now that’s scary.

Happily, our Goddess—while She is quite at home in the dark—is also a Lady of Light. And though She is quite capable of obliterating us with beneficence, She can also offer us Her Light as the spring sun offers its warm and persuasive light to the seeds and roots that are now awakening in the muddy earth.

Isis is associated with all the heavenly lights—as you likely know. Our Goddess is indeed a Sun Goddess. She is also seen in the light of Her holy star, Sirius, and even in the light of the moon, at least in later periods.

An oil lamp from Egypt, Roman period. It shows Isis and Harpocrates.

A festival calendar from the temple of Edfu records a summer procession of Isis the Brilliant. During that festival, the image of the radiant Goddess was carried among the people in Her sacred boat, coming to rest in Her boat-sanctuary. There, the calendar text tells us “every kind of good thing is offered to her.” Some modern Kemetic Orthodox groups celebrate this as the Aset Luminous Festival. Participants illuminate paper boats with candles and set them adrift to carry worshippers’ prayers to Isis. In accordance with the ancient traditions, offerings are also given to Isis at this time.

Isis’ temples in Italy may have been particularly well lit. Fifty-eight lamps were found in the temple at Pompeii. In that not-overly-large temple space, that many lamps would have provided a great deal of light. A personal Isis shrine in Pompeii had 20 lamps. Lamps were common votive gifts to Isis as well. In his ancient novel, The Golden Ass, Apuleius describes the lanterns, torches, candles, and “other kinds of artificial light” that were carried in a procession for Isis.

Isis as High Priestess and Goddess of Light from the Thoth Tarot Deck, art by Frieda Harris.

Surely not all of this illumination was purely practical. Indeed, Apuleius notes that the processional lights were symbols of the heavenly light of the stars in the Goddess’ heaven. He also uses many allusions to light and radiance in telling his readers about Isis. For example, the blessings brought by Isis are described as “radiant” (inlustre). The initiating priest in Apuleius’ story says that, unlike blind Fortune, Isis sees and “illumines the other gods too with the radiance of her light.”

It is also possible that Roman-period priests of Isis may have carried lighted lamps about in daylight as a symbol of the spiritual light bestowed by their Goddess. Seneca mentions a “linen-clad old man” (Isian clergy were notorious wearers of linen) who carried around a lighted lamp in broad daylight. J. Gwyn Griffiths, one of my favorite Isis scholars, thinks this may refer to a priest of Isis.

Just as light can literally dispel darkness, it is frequently a symbol of dispelling spiritual darkness. The Light of Isis illuminates the dark corners of our souls and shines light on our paths as we seek to understand the Divine Mystery. With our ancient sisters and brothers—initiates of the Mysteries of Isis—we can understand that the Light of Isis can help us grow in the brilliant Light of Her love, wisdom, and protection.

P.S. In googling for images for this post, I found Isis Lighting, Inc., a lamp store, and, of course, there’s a popular young adult sci-fi series, The Keeper of the Isis Light. What I love about stuff like that is that it demonstrates the consistent associations—ancient and modern, sacred and secular—that still cling to our Goddess.

Filed under: Goddess Isis

Medieval Isis

When the Christian Empire forcibly forbade the worship of the Pagan Deities, the Goddesses and Gods did not die, but They did go underground.

A carving of Isis from the Aquisgrana Cathedral in Germany. Note Her Isis knot.

One place They hid was euhemerism, which is the idea that the Deities are merely historical mortals who, because of their special talents or moral worth, eventually came to be worshipped as Goddesses and Gods. Euhemerus developed this concept in the third century BCE. It turned out to be a bad idea in that emerging Christianity could then ridicule Pagans as worshipping mere human beings. On the other hand, it did preserve the stories of the Goddesses and Gods far into the West’s Christian-ruled centuries. Since these stories were not really about Deities, you see, the stories could be told without being a 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.

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.

One of the writers who learned from the story of Isis 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.

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.

In a work called the Epistle of Orthea to Hector, de Pisan writes as the Goddess Orthea, a Goddess she created to represent the “Wisdom of Women,” to the young Trojan 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 from authors like Homer and Ovid. In one, 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. As She has so often been, Isis is The Goddess of the day.

While we Isiacs cannot claim that the worship of our Goddess 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, Isis 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.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Christine de Pisan, Medieval Isis

Isis Magic is going to the printer’s!!! Please share

I am not usually the triple exclamation point type. But I feel justified this time. As of this time next week, the new edition of Isis Magic will be at the printer’s going through all its “pre-production” processes.

Then, within about a month, we should have them available for purchase!!! (Oops, the exclamation points got away from me again.)

So here’s the plan. They’re going to be sold at the exact same cover price as (more than) 10 years ago—$29.95. Such a deal, right? We’re not selling them on Amazon (lots and lots of hoops). We will be selling them on our own site (which we will be constructing while the books are printing.) You’ll be able to get them via PayPal or with the credit card of your choice (you don’t have to have a PayPal account) at www.abiegnushouse.com. Right now, the site is under construction, as you will see if you go there.

Here is a picture of the new front and back covers. The front cover photo is of the Isis shrine that is in our very own backyard. The reason we chose this is to demonstrate that Isis is being worshipped today, now, right here, at this very moment, and yes, it’s all very real indeed (but, of course you already know that .

The new cover of Isis Magic in all its pre-printed glory. Click on the photo for a larger image.

I am also thrilled to have comments from Normandie Ellis and Donald Michael Kraig to grace the back cover. And that doesn’t count all the wonderful words from so many of you; there wasn’t enough room on the back, so we put them inside.

And just so you know, the 10th Anniversary Edition of Isis Magic contains new meditations and rituals. So even if you have the first edition, you might want this one, too. For instance, there’s a lengthy and important new rite for the Prophet/ess of Isis: The 12 Hours of the Night. Plus we corrected some things that I wasn’t happy with first time around. And there are new photos, illustrations, and diagrams. And of course, we will have additional information online, too. I really think you will like it.

Please do me a great big fat favor and share this with any of your friends and acquaintances who you think would be interested in owning a copy. We could only afford to print 2500 copies, so if you or someone you know wants one, please order right away. I will keep you up to date on availability right here on Isiopolis.

I’m pretty excited (as you might be able to tell). Please add your heka to Isis Magic and help spread the love of Isis…well, everywhere She wants to go!

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Goddess, Goddess Isis, Isis book, Isis Magic, Isis Magic the book, The Goddess

Religious Tolerance & Isis

Guess what? Religious tolerance is hard.

And it always has been. Even in a polytheistic world where people were used to dealing with a variety of religious expressions.

For instance, Greek comic playwrights often made fun of the religious practices of Egyptians, usually focusing on their reverence for animals as manifestations of the Divine. This 4th-century-BCE bit by Anaxandrides of Rhodes, who won many awards for his work, is an example. He writes as Demos (“the people”) to Egypt:

I couldn’t have myself allied with you. Our ways and customs differing as they do. I sacrifice to Gods; to bulls you kneel. Your greatest God’s our greatest treat: the eel. You don’t eat pork; it’s quite my favorite meat. You worship your dog, mine I always beat when he’s caught stealing. Priests stay whole with us; with you they’re gelded eunuchs. If poor puss appears in pain, you weep; I kill and skin her. To me, the mouse is nought, you see ‘power’ in her.

Some Egyptians, on the other hand, considered Greeks whipper-snapper-know-nothings when it came to religion and declared that anything that came out of a Greek mouth was just a lot of hot air.

Mummy portraits from Egypt’s Fayoum, an area where Greeks and Egyptians mixed freely and intermarried

Religious tolerance is hard precisely because our religion, our Deity or Deities, our practices, our beliefs and experiences are so close to our hearts. In many cases, they are cherished building blocks of our lives. If religion is central to our lives, it is also likely to be central to our self-definition. If someone attacks (or, in some cases, even questions) our religion, it seems they are attacking our core self. That not only hurts on a feeling level, it actually seems life-threatening. The chest tightens as the heart speeds up. Nerves jangle. The belly feels sick. Fight-or-flight kicks in—and we often find ourselves coming down on the side of fight. I know I’ve been there, too.

Yet, as far as I know, no wars were fought over Greek and Egyptian religious differences. The grandfather of Lycurgus (an Athenian politician from 338-326 BCE) may have been influential in bringing the Egyptian religion of Isis to Athens. Apparently his grandson suffered no discrimination on account of his family’s connection with Egyptian cult—apart from the jabs of the comics. Ancient priestesses and priests often simultaneously served very different Deities without betraying any of Them. The historian Herodotus was able to casually say that Isis “is called Demeter by the Greeks.”

That kind of syncretism, which happened to an astonishing degree with Isis, is one of the ways the ancient religion of Isis modeled religious tolerance. It wasn’t a matter of my-Goddess-is-better-than-your-Goddess; it was a translation of the Goddess from one culture to another. In the bustling world of the Mediterranean, people were used to translating languages. Why not translate Deities? And so they did. And so Isis became known as Isis Myrionymos, Isis of the Myriad Names. In Isis, with Her uncountable number of names, people could see THE Goddess—in all Her many expressions. Isiacism also modeled social tolerance in its acceptance of both women and men, rich and poor, slave and free. In late Isiacism, there was even a tradition of the freeing of slaves through a “sale” to Isis and Sarapis. Freedom and tolerance go hand-in-hand.

I like this a lot

The modern Fellowship of Isis maintains this type of wide-open religious tolerance. All one must do is to be able to accept the organization’s Manifesto to become a member. To some, this tolerance may seem too chaotic, too accepting; yet it has enabled this modern group to survive for many years, even as it has suffered through the types of internal struggles to which all groups seem inevitably subject.

How can we maintain the virtue (for virtue, it is) of tolerance—especially when faced with intolerance from others? What do we do when accused of “devil worship,” like the Isis devotees accused by some early Christians of Alexandria of worshipping “a dark, Egyptian devil?” Or, on a more contemporary note, what do we do when some members of the greater Neo-Pagan/Pagan/Polytheist/Heathen/Recon/Wiccan/Witch/or Designation of Your Choice community dismiss others for being “fluffy bunnies?”

I wish I had an answer for you. Heck, I wish I had one for me.

Friends and I sometimes play a game in which we choose one thing to change about the world and discuss the implications of that change. True religious tolerance is the magical change of heart that I often wish upon the world. By no means would it solve the world’s problems (poverty, war), but it might just give us enough space to get our heads out of our asses above water long enough that we could at least start to solve them.

Religious tolerance isn’t easy. In some cases, it doesn’t even seem possible. But that doesn’t mean we give up. We take some deep breaths. We remember that Isis lives. We explain it; again. Sometimes we walk away from an un-winnable argument. And we work for civil justice.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Goddess worship, Isis, Pagan Spirituality, Religious Tolerance

Bewailing Osiris: Lamentation & Magic

The Big Wailing Woman and the Little Wailing Woman lament the Osiris

Generally, lamentation—the sorrowful bewailing of death or tragedy, often public—is the job of women. This is because, stereotypically, women are more comfortable expressing sorrow with tears than are men who, stereotypically, tend to express their strong emotions with anger.

This was also true in ancient Egypt, but as was so often the case, Egypt was a little bit different. If we can believe Herodotus, both men and women offered dramatic demonstrations of grief. He writes that when someone in the household died, men, like women, would “gird their dress below their waist,” (meaning that they hiked up their garments to bare their legs?), go out into the streets, beat their chests in grief, and throw mud or dust upon their heads.

Isis lamenting; this mourning gesture refers to tossing dust or ashes on one’s head in sorrow

Osiris, of course, is the archetypal dead Egyptian and Horus models male grief in bewailing the death of His father in several ancient texts dealing with the subject. In a text known as the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus—which has been identified as part of the ceremonies of the ascension to the throne and is the script (more or less) for a dramatic enactment of the death of Osiris and the triumph of Horus—Horus laments: “I have embraced this my father who had grown weary, until he regained health.”

Ah ha.

Horus’ lamentation does not merely express grief. It is part of Osiris regaining health.

The sorrow of Horus for His father is powerful, yet the sorrow of Isis and Nephthys—and particularly of His Beloved Isis—is even more so. From time immemorial, two women take the vital roles of lead mourners in royal funerals: the Big Wailing Woman and the Little Wailing Woman; and from this very early time, they are identified with Isis and Nephthys and given the official title of the Two Djereti, the Two Kites.

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The mourners in the back fold their “wings” about the deceased as the mourners in the front cover their heads with dust

The Wailing Women lament the deceased just as the Goddesses lament the God, expressing grief and love and loss. I’ve written a bit about the ritual lamentations of the Goddesses here. The purpose of Their lamentation is stated in one of the ritual texts that “must be recited in every place belonging to Osiris, at each of his festivals, to delight his soul, to preserve his body, to lend breath to the nostrils of him whose throat has been throttled, and to bestow life, eternity, and prosperity on Osiris Taneterutj [a personal name].”

Thus the lamentations themselves are beneficial. The lamentations, in a way, take care of Osiris. This is expressed in another of the names of Isis and Nephthys: the Two Female Attendants, a designation that more properly means the Two Nurses. Like a baby at birth, Osiris at His rebirth needs the services of two Divine Nurses. Yet another of the Goddesses’ titles explains even more about the magic They’re working. They are also called the Two Eulogists Who Praise Osiris, a title usually given to a priestess worshipping her Deity. Thus here, Isis and Nephthys are Divine Priestesses Who are actually evoking Osiris. Their songs of lamentation call the God back to life by “glorifying” Him, a word that in Egyptian contains the meaning of making Him an Aakhu, a Shining One, a Glorified Spirit.

Isis in mourning with Her hands crossed at the heart

There are several gestures of lamentation seen in ancient Egyptian art that, I believe, refer to another aspect of the magic Isis and Nephthys work to revive Osiris. The Two Goddesses fold their wings (remember that They are Bird Goddesses—Two Kite Hawks) over Osiris. Their power magically protects Him, but it also enables Isis to fan the Breath of Life into Him. “I restored wind to his nostrils so that he would live” says Isis. “Isis provides thee with life” says the text.

In imitation of the Goddesses, Egyptian women in mourning can be seen making gestures that look like the folding of wings. The hands might be crossed over the heart, below the waist, or with one hand gripping the wrist of the other. All three are gestures that surround and protect with the arms, arms that in the Two Djereti would be winged and imbued with the magic of Life.

Just as the laments of the Two Goddesses are magically powerful, so our own human lamentation is both powerful and needful. When death or tragedy strikes, we must express our pain and allow ourselves the time to simply be in pain. The pain is real; there is no need to deny it. Yet at the same time, our lamentation, like that of Isis and Nephthys, eventually calls us back to life—which does go on no matter how utterly impossible that may seem.

Green Isis mourns using a modified “enfolded wing” gesture; the life-enhancing green-ness of the Goddess recalls the magic of Her mourning and helps call Osiris back to life

Filed under: Goddess Isis, Modern Paganism Tagged: Isis Mourning, Lamentations of Isis

Milk & the Magic of Isis

One of thousands of such beautiful Isis-nursing-Horus images that remain to us

You may recall that, to the ancient Egyptians, bodily fluids could be a way of moving magic or heka. Written spells could be licked from the papyrus in order to be taken into the human body. Magic could be eaten or swallowed. And we human beings know deep in our bones the magic and life power of both blood and semen.

Multiply the power of these magic-containing fluids to the nth degree when it comes to the Deities. Atum created His children, Shu and Tefnut, by spitting. The tears of Re created human beings. The Tiet, the Knot or Blood of Isis, protects the dead in the otherworld.

Isis Lactans, Isis the Milk-Giver

Yet of all these magical bodily fluids, it may be that milk, especially divine milk, is the queen of them all. To us at least, milk is the most pleasant—and palatable—of the magical body fluids. It is, after all, our first food. In fact, it is the perfect food and it gives us an intimate connection with our mothers. A child nursing at the breast of her mother is drinking Life Itself. No death has ever touched this pure milk. It comes from the mother alive. It is drunken alive. It becomes part of a living being.

Milk is indeed magic.

As Great Divine Mother and a Cow Goddess, Isis is the Egyptian Milk Goddess from a very early period. The Pyramid Texts say to the deceased, “Take the breast of your sister Isis the milk-provider.” Throughout Egyptian history, Isis is the mother and nurse of kings. A scholar who as studied the images of Isis Lactans (“Milk-Giving Isis”) observed that the idea that milk from the breast of the Goddess (Isis as well as other Goddesses) not only gives life, but also longevity, salvation, and even divinity is one that exists “in the mentality of the populations of the Delta from the earliest antiquity, and manifests itself in the official imagery of the Pharaohs.” (Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans: Corpus des monuments greco-romains d’lsis allaitant Harpocrate, Leiden: Brill, 1971.)

The Mother gives Her breast to the Horus Child

Egyptian art shows the king drinking this holy milk of the Goddess three important times: at birth, at his coronation, and at his rebirth. The symbolism is clear. Goddess milk provides life to the babe, royal power—and perhaps wisdom and a touch of divinity—to the new king, and renewal after death for the deceased king.

A daily ritual conducted in the temples at Thebes, Memphis, and Abydos was designed to confirm the power of the king. Pharaoh (or more likely, his representative) received the sa en ankh, life-energy, from his Divine Father, Amun-Re, by means of magical gestures. Then he received the power of the Goddess from his Divine Mother, Amunet, by means of drinking Her milk. Carved on temple walls, the Goddess invites the king to suckle the milk from both Her breasts. In Hatshepsut’s temple, Hathor’s milk gives the young Pharaoh “life, strength, health.” The Pyramid Texts have Isis bring Her milk to the deceased Pharaoh to assist in his rebirth: “Isis comes, she has her breasts prepared for her son Horus, the victorious.”

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A charming vessel in which to store “the milk of a woman who has borne a son”

But the king wasn’t the only one to benefit from the divine life magic of milk. Milk was also used for healing. The “milk of a woman who has borne a son” was a fairly common ingredient in Egyptian medicines.

Archeologists have recovered a number of small vessels in the shape of a woman pressing her breast to give milk or, as in the case of the vessel on the left, a woman nursing. They were designed to hold human milk, perhaps for making medicine, perhaps for later feeding of a child. The milk of the Divine Mother was also directly invoked for healing. In a formula for the relief of a burn, Isis says that She will extinguish the fire of the burn with Her milk. By applying Goddess-milk to the body of the sufferer, he will be healed and the fire will leave his body. In a New Kingdom myth, the Goddess Hathor uses gazelle’s milk to heal the eyes of Horus that had been torn out during one of His battles with Set. A spell from the Berlin Magical Papyrus instructs that if one takes milk with honey at sunrise, it “will become something divine in your heart.” Isn’t that just beautiful?

With all its magical properties, milk was common among the supplies buried with the dead and it served as a valuable offering to the Deities. At Isis’ Philae temple, wall carvings attest that milk was offered to all the Deities worshipped there. To help renew Osiris, milk was poured upon His tomb at Biggeh, a small, holy island visible from Philae. Every ten days, Isis Herself made these libations.

Milk being offered to a sacred image of a Goddess in India

The whiteness of milk also added to its sanctity in the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, for white was a color they associated with purity and joy. In tomb paintings and funerary papyri, Egyptians are usually shown wearing pure, white clothing. This also carried over into the later Isis cult where the wearing of white marked one as an Isiac initiate. Ritual implements were often made of white alabaster. Sacred animals were described as being white; and actual white animals—like the White Buffalo Calf of modern Native Americans—were exceptionally sacred.

The magic of milk was also understood in the wider Mediterranean world. The Greek Kourotrophoi, (“Child-Carrying” and Nurturing Goddesses), could confer hero status on a mortal by feeding him on Their milk. Mysteries, such as the Orphic-Dionysian Mysteries, envisioned a kind of baptism in milk.

It is widely understood that the Isis Lactans images of late Paganism became the models for the mother-and-child images of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus. Possibly as a result, early Christianity also had the concept of the blessings bestowed by divine milk. Eventually, it is Christianity’s male God Who becomes the Divine Nurse of worshippers, however. The 19th Ode of Solomon says,

Magical, beautiful milk

“The Son is the cup; the Father is he who was milked; and the Holy Spirit is she who milked him; because his breasts were full and it was undesirable that his milk should be released without purpose.”

Sigh. Yet this adoption of a Goddess power by a God of monotheism simply points, once more, to the potency of the symbol of milk—for all of us.

Milk IS magic. It is life, health, healing, resurrection, renewal, and salvation. For me, this holy, holy milk is always the milk of Isis, the Milk Provider, the Great of Magic and the Great of Milk.

It’s not Isis, but wow

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Isis & Milk, Isis Magic & Milk, Milk and Magic

Isis & Sophia

The connection between the Goddess Isis and the Goddess Wisdom (Sophia in Greek; Chokmah in Hebrew) is an interesting one. In fact, some scholars think that the figure of Sophia was patterned after Isis. And they may well be right.

In Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel painting, Wisdom (Sophia) nestles in the crook of God’s left arm

So first, let’s have a look at Sophia, especially as portrayed during the Hellenistic period, the time following Alexander’s death to the rise of Rome. This is a period when the religion of Isis was strongly spreading throughout the Mediterranean world.

It was during this time that most scholars believe the Book of Wisdom was written. The Book of Wisdom is one of the books of the Old Testament that is canonical to Roman Catholics and non-canonical to Protestants and Jews (though it may have been canonical earlier in Judaism). It is most likely that the Book of Wisdom was written in Greek, though it is stylistically patterned on Herbrew verse.

One of the interesting—and important—things that the book does is to personify Wisdom. In Hebrew, Chokmah is a feminine word and so Wisdom, when personified, is a Divine She. In Greek, the language of the Book of Wisdom, this Divine She is Sophia. Though monotheists may disagree, I feel quite comfortable referring to Sophia as a Goddess, and so I shall for the rest of this post.

Alex Grey’s powerful Sophia

In the Book of Wisdom, Sophia is seen to be very much like the Shekinah, the Presence of God. It is She Who “fashions all things.” She is Present from the beginning with God. If you wish to read more about Wisdom, here’s a link to the text. The best reading starts at about Chapter 6. (I take a certain amount of perverse pleasure in linking to a “safe for souls” Catholic site to offer you this ever-so-Goddessy text.)

So now we’ve met Sophia. Where does She meet Isis?

For most scholars, the meeting comes in Isis’ influence on the way in which Sophia is portrayed, particularly in the Book of Wisdom. They generally agree that the writer of Wisdom shows other influences of Hellenism in the work. Given the ubiquity of Isis at the time, it would have been strange had Her portrayal not influenced the portrayal of Sophia. Many of the attributes and epithets of Sophia were also attributes of Isis. Scholar W.L. Knox went so far as to say that Sophia was the Jewish answer to the popularity of Isis:

“Young Jews, seeking advancement under the Ptolemaic dynasty, might find it hard to resist the attractions of Isis. The personified Wisdom is the answer of orthodox Judaism: the source of order in creation and conduct is not Isis, but the Wisdom of God.” (W. L. Knox “Divine Wisdom,” JTS 38 (1937) 230-37.)

Raphael’s Sophia from the Vatican; note the two multi-breasted Goddess images on Her throne. These images of Artemis of Ephesus were identified as Isis by Raphael’s time.

Another place scholars look for the influence of Isis on Sophia is in the structure and content of the famous Isis aretalogies—the praises of the Goddess in which the Goddess speaks for Herself (I am this, I did that…). Some have made a case for the structure of the Book of Wisdom paralleling the structure of a number of the Isis aretalogies and they list the parallels in the epithets of Isis and Sophia. As is natural in scholarly circles, there are criticisms of all these approaches as well.

In an article in the Harvard Theological Review (“Isis & Sophia,” Vol. 75, No. 1, 1982), John Kloppenborg contends that the reason Sophia is so strongly personified in the Book of Wisdom is because of the challenge to Judaism presented by Isis. In his view, it’s not so much that the Wisdom writer directly borrowed things from the myths, aretalogies, or hymns of Isis, but rather that the writer felt the need to counter the Isiac qualities so prevalent in the culture with corresponding Sophic qualities. He believes the attributes of Sophia in Wisdom were especially chosen to take on, one-to-one, the attributes for which Isis was so well known at the time.

For example, the Book of Wisdom presents itself as advice to kings; as the Goddess Throne, Isis was intimately associated with the kingship. In the Book of Wisdom, Sophia functions as a Savior, just as Isis so famously does during this time. In older Jewish tradition, while Sophia is a life-giver and a wise counselor, She is not a Savior. Now—perhaps due to the influence of the Isis religion—She is.

A Sophia icon

Kloppenborg also notes the correlation of Isis’ cosmic power in the aretalogies, in Plutarch, and in Egyptian tradition with Sophia’s cosmic rule and regulation in the Book of Wisdom. Sophia’s guidance of Noah’s ark counters Isis’ role as Euploia, guide of ships and sailors. In Wisdom, Sophia is the spouse of God and of the king—just as Isis is spouse of a God and mother of the king. Sophia protects the “righteous man,” grants the ability to rule, and has “knowledge of all holy things.” Isis gives to “all who are righteous” great blessings (Hymns of Isidorus). As the Goddess Throne, She grants the right to rule, and She was always, always been the Lady of Knowledge. Kloppenborg significantly argues that the correspondences between Isis and Sophia gave the Jews of Alexandria a way to talk with their Pagan neighbors. Outside of the Book of Wisdom, for instance, we know of Jewish philosophers who compared their religion’s Mysteries with those of Orpheus and Isis.

This approach makes a great deal of good sense to me. At the time, Isis was THE Goddess for many people that it’s no wonder that She would serve as the model for the Hebrew Goddess Wisdom as well. Further, it is no wonder that Isis had and has a specific, strong, and eternal connection with the Goddess of Wisdom. Isis was always a Wisdom Goddess Herself. The Turin papyrus says of Her,

“Isis was a woman wise in speech, her heart more cunning than the millions of men, her utterance was more excellent than the millions of gods, she was more perceptive than millions of glorified spirits. She was not ignorant of anything in heaven or earth…”

Isis the Wise, teaching Hermes and Moses; this painting by the Renaissance painter Pinturicchio is from the Borgia family apartments

One of Isis’ Egyptian epithets is Rekhiet, the Wise Woman. She is also called Rekhit, Knowledge or Wisdom Itself. Many hundreds of years later, Plutarch continues to understand Isis as a Wisdom Goddess. He writes to his friend Klea, a priestess of Isis, that the search for Truth about the Gods shows a longing for the Divine and

“is a task well-pleasing to that goddess whom you worship, a goddess exceptionally wise and a lover of wisdom, to whom, as her name at least seems to indicate, knowledge and understanding are in the highest degree appropriate.”

Many of the names of Isis from the later show Her clear identity as a Goddess of Wisdom.

Anyone writing about a Wisdom Goddess and living in that culture would naturally look to Isis as a model. The writer of the Book of Wisdom seems to have done so as did the Gnostics who wrote about their own Sophia—and Whom we haven’t even touched on here.

But I’ve written enough for today so that will be a story for another day.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Goddess worship, Isis, Isis and Sophia, Isis worship today, Isis-Sophia