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Manetho (Epitome of Physical Doctrines) and Diodorus Siculus (Library of History I xi) tell us that the Egyptian priests learned the myth of Isis and Osiris by careful observation of the Sun and Moon. That the myth refers to the month is also, of course, suggested by Thoth stealing the Moon's light to enable the "birth" of the gods. I had completely ignored that interpretation before, since I wanted to focus on Empedocles, but I thought it might be instructive to spend a little while on it.

We will start by following Manetho and Diodorus by assuming that the Sun is Osiris and the Moon is Isis. Plutarch adds (in his fourth explanation of the myth, Isis and Osiris XLIV) that Set is the eclipse and the fourteen pieces in which Osiris was divided are the fourteen days of the waning Moon. Now, the lunar month is twenty-nine-and-a-half days long, and we know that Egypt rounded it off to a 30-day civil month, and that it began once the Moon was no longer visible to the eye, which occurs approximately a day prior to the astronomical New Moon that we now use. This should give us enough to go on, and I've made a chart of the Moon's phases over the course of the month as an aid to following the touch points between the myth and the month (read it counter-clockwise from the top):

1. On the first day of the month, the Sun (Osiris) shines but the Moon (Isis) is invisible. If we regard Osiris as the soul and Isis as the body, then this is the golden age, where Osiris reigns in Egypt and the soul is pure and has no need of a body.

2. On the second day of the month, the astronomical New Moon occurs. It is possible on such days for a solar eclipse to occur, and this would fit the part of the myth where Set kills Osiris and hides him in a box (e.g. the Sun is obscured).

3. On the third day of the month, the Moon is still not yet visible. This is when Osiris's box floats down the Nile, and when Pan and the Satyrs see it and notify Isis. After this, for the remaining of the first half of the month, the Moon waxes and Isis wanders as a fugitive.

16. On the sixteenth day of the month, Isis finally recovers Osiris, which represents the Moon going full (which occurs approximately a day before the astronomical Full Moon), which is when the Moon reflects the Sun as perfectly as it is capable of and the full descent of soul into body. During the waxing Moon, the soul takes on various "incomplete" or "lower" forms of bodies, but now it is capable of manifesting itself in matter as perfectly as matter is capable of, in the human body which is capable of rational thought and reflective consciousness.

17. On the seventeenth day of the month, the astronomical Full Moon occurs. It is possible on such days for a lunar eclipse to occur, and this would fit the second appearance of Set in the myth, out hunting "by the light of the Full Moon" and chopping Osiris into fourteen pieces (the remaining fourteen days of the month, representing the various lives the soul has in a human body). At the same time, Horus (the individual soul) is born: while the soul lived in lower forms, it was as a part of a group soul; now, it is an individual and capable of making its own choices (for better or worse).

25. As the Moon wanes, the soul grows in power relative to the body (which shines ever less completely). On the twenty-fifth day of the month, the Moon becomes a waning crescent, which indicates that the soul is now more powerful than the body (as the fraction of the Moon which is dark is now greater than the fraction of the Moon which is bright). This is represented in the myth as Horus defeating Set the first time, Isis being beheaded and given a cow's head (with horns, representing the now-crescent Moon).

    Eclipses are often portrayed as serpents or dragons; I wonder if Horus's men slaying the serpent, or Apollo slaying the Python, is simply a reiterated reference to the defeat of Set (that is, the resolution of the events which the eclipse originally "brought" into motion).

30. As the Moon continues to wane, the body loses it's hold over it, and the soul gains pre-eminence. At some point during this part of the cycle, Horus defeats Set for a second time, and the soul lives free of matter.

1. Finally, when the Moon is no longer visible, the Sun is again alone and the individual has rejoined its Source, Osiris rules in Egypt, and the cycle begins again.

I don't think any of these points change the interpretation of the myth at all, but based on the above, it is certainly reasonable to say the lunar cycle is woven throughout the myth, and may well indeed be its source. Further, it ties the myth to Plutarch's explanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries (On the Man in the Moon XXVII ff.), suggesting Egyptian authority behind Plutarch's secondhand account of the Mysteries (though in that case, Horus would be the Moon, while Isis would be the Earth).

Let's tie this to another myth, that of Europa and Zeus. Without considering the lunar cycle, it didn't quite line up—Isis becomes a cow at the end of the myth, while here, Zeus becomes a bull at the beginning—but, of course, the Moon has a crescent both when it waxes and when it wanes, and so the Europa myth lines up pretty easily.

Europa (εὐρύς-ὤψ "wide-faced," referring to the surface of the Earth) is Isis, Zeus is Osiris, and Minos is Horus. Europa being from Phoenecia but ending up in Crete shows the transmission of the myth. Zeus's transformation into a bull is representative of the waxing crescent Moon as Europa (the body) is snatched away from home (the spiritual world) to Crete (e.g. the material world)—here, there is no Set, no enemy, no sin: the "snatching away" is the normal, intended course of creation. In Crete, Zeus transforms back from a bull (e.g. the Moon is full and no longer crescent), and Europa has a son by him, Minos, who, like Horus, communed with his father from the spiritual world and was so righteous that he was appointed judge over the dead.

But wait, wasn't Minos a jerk who demanded human sacrifice of Athens every nine years? Well, Plutarch (Life of Theseus XVI) implies, and Diodorus Siculus (Library of History IV lx) says explicitly, that there were two Minoses: this myth concerns the first, who was righteous (like Horus); while the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur concerns the second, who was wicked (like Set), and presumably represents a further transmission and development of the myth (e.g. from Crete to Athens).

Earlier this year, I spent a month or so going over the Corpus Hermeticum. I didn't think a whole lot of it at the time; I had just figured it was something worth studying to round out my exploration of Hellenistic philosophy a little. But my angel pulled my attention back to it a couple weeks ago: some of the images it contains helped to crystalize my thoughts concerning the myth. I suppose this should not be so surprising, since Hermetism developed out of a blending of Egyptian (including Heliopolitan), Greek (including Pythagorean), and Assyrian religious sensibilities... consider, for example, the following in light of my last post:

I saw an endless vision in which everything became light—clear and joyful—and in seeing the vision I came to love it. After a little while, darkness arose separately and descended—fearful and gloomy—coiling sinuously so that it looked to me like a snake. Then the darkness changed into something of a watery nature, indescribably agitated and smoking like a fire; it produced an unspeakable wailing roar. Then an inarticulate cry like the voice of fire came forth from it. But from the light a holy word mounted upon the watery nature, and untempered fire leapt up from the watery nature to the height above. The fire was nimble and piercing and active as well, and because the air was light it followed after spirit and rose up to the fire away from earth and water so that it seemed suspended from the fire. Earth and water stayed behind, mixed with one another, so that earth could not be distinguished from water, but they were stirred to hear by the spiritual word that moved upon them.

(Corpus Hermeticum I "Poimandres" iv–v, as translated by Brian P. Copenhaver.)

The plunging of fire above into water below, being infused with a holy word, and rising again above earth and water sounds quite a bit like Empedocles's separation and recombination of roots, does it not? Indeed, in his summary of Empedocles, Hippolytus gives us (Refutation of All Heresies VII xvii) the elegant image of the Demiurge acting as a blacksmith, taking souls as if they are irons and successively plunging them into fire and water in order to temper them. With all that successive expansion and contraction, is it any wonder that mortal life is so stressful?

We have talked about how Osiris is Fire; Set, Air; Isis, Earth; and Nephthys, Water; but we have not talked about what the roots really are. I think there's good reason for that: nobody knows. This is not to be critical of any commentator in particular, but rather simply because we are speaking about the gods, and the gods are beyond human comprehension: you can't categorize the gods because they're the categories! So the best we can do is to classify phenomena in terms of the gods, as Fiery or Airy or Earthy or Watery; this will help us to sketch broadly some of the meanings of the myth, but of course the myth has as many different meanings as the gods themselves do.

One of Empedocles's fragments gives a poetic illustration of the properties of some of the roots which can help us:

ἠέλιον μὲν λαμπρὸν ὁρᾶν καὶ θερμὸν ἁπάντῃ, [...]
ὄμβρον δ' ἐν πᾶσι δνοφόεντά τε ῥιγαλέον τε·
ἐκ δ' αἴης προρέουσι θελυμνά τε καὶ στερεωπά.

the Sun, bright to look on and hot in every respect, [...]
and rain, in all things dark and cold;
and there flow from the Earth things dense and solid.

Our old friend Proclus further provides a rigorous classification scheme (Commentary on the Timaeus III xxxviii–xliv), describing the roots in terms of three properties: ὀξύτης "sharpness" (vs. ἀμβλύτης "bluntness") indicating that Fire pervades the other roots and suffuses the cosmos; λεπτομέρεια "fineness" (vs. παχυμέρεια "coarseness"), indicating that Fire and Air are spiritual while Water and Earth are material; and εὐκινησία "ease of motion" (vs. ἀκινησία "stasis"), indicating that Earth is bound by inertia while the other roots are not. Each root varies from the next densest root by the presence or absence of exactly one property, as follows:

This classification scheme is Proclus's, but there's support for it elsewhere in the tradition: Plato (Timaeus 56A ff., 58B ff.) and Aristotle (On Generation and Corruption II iii) make the distinction between sharp Fire and the other roots; Hippolytus (Refutation of All Heresies VII xvii) summarizes Empedocles by calling Water and Earth material, but Fire and Air immaterial; etc.

There are other traditional schemes of classifying the elements—Aristotle, for example, famously classifies them as secondary to the properties hot, cold, wet, and dry—but Proclus demonstrates that these disagree with Empedocles and so I will ignore them.

In light of these properties and the metaphysics they imply, let me hazard a rough guess at one possible way of interpreting what the gods refer to in the myth, with the understanding that there are surely many others that are all valid.

Osiris, as Fire, is (among other things) energy and light. I have in the past equated light with the soul, and I think that applies here, with a caveat. Osiris is what the Greeks call νοῦς "Mind," but this isn't what we normally think of today as the mind, the thing that thinks; it is more like pure, unreflective consciousness (hence why Osiris is naive and innocent). Susan Brind Morrow (The Dawning Moon of the Mind I) says that his name (𓊨𓁹, Ꜣusjrj) means "the seat of the eye," presumably whatever that thing is that "sits behind the eyes." (This strikes me as a very curious conception, since I don't think one's consciousness sits anywhere, but it seems that I am unusual in this regard.) When Plato and Proclus say that Fire is "sharp," they are saying that it is able to penetrate through the other roots, suffusing the entire cosmos with Light and Life (an image also evoked by Air and Water being transparent). Pythagoras tells us that the Monad is Fiery; Plotinus tells us that the Mind is unitary; and the Poimanders corroborates:

[Poimandres said,] "I am the light you saw: mind, your god [...]. The light-giving word who comes from mind is the son of god. [...] This is what you must know: that in you which sees and hears is the word of the lord, but your mind is god the father; they are not divided from one another for their union is life."

Thus I suppose there is only one Fire—that is to say, there is only one consciousness, and our experience of individuality is merely that consciousness "seeing" through individual bodies, the same as a single Fire emits many rays of light. Presumably consciousness is universal and indivisible because meaning is separate from judgement: Osiris does not discriminate good from bad, but considers everything as good and right just as it is (which is why everything is joyful and perfect at the beginning of the myth when he rules in Egypt). But, just like Osiris's "essence" is born as Horus, so too does the universal Mind contain "the light-giving word," the individual soul, within it. This is reiterated by Aetius, who tells us (Doxographi Graeci CCCXCII) that Empedocles says "that soul and mind are the same thing:" Fire is what animates the cosmos, and there is no corner so dark that it does not penetrate to.

Set, as Air, is (among other things) the world of Hesiod's golden race (and the righteous part of the lower races) and which Plotinus cryptically describes as vast and diverse. It is perhaps unsurprising that our notions of this world are vague, as Air is, of course, invisible and sparse. Air mediates between energetic Fire and dense matter: it is therefore, somewhat paradoxically, separatory from the perspective of Fire (hence why it is Set that tricks Osiris into a box and chops him into pieces) but unitive from the perspective of matter (hence why Set is also the protector of Ra in his underworld journey).

Isis, as Earth, is (among other things) the familiar Material Cosmos which gives form and structure to things, and of which your body makes up a very tiny part. It is her skirt that the Western scientific tradition has spent the last four hundred years trying (and failing) to peek under. (This failure is because Earth, being a god, is ever-fecund: the more Fire works upon her, the more she brings forth. This is why Plotinus calls Nature infinitely-divisible and why scientists find more and more subatomic particles the closer and closer they look.) I had noted previously that her name in Egyptian (𓊨𓏏, Ꜣusat) simply means "the seat;" I think this is because Earth, as the densest root, is the foundation of the world upon which all else rests. Isis is depicted as stern and severe because Earth is static: Nature's laws cannot be broken—woe unto them who attempt it—and it is for this reason that she and Demeter are both called θεσμοφόρος (thesmophoros, "law-giving").

Nephthys, as Water, is also matter but of a much more subtle sort: she is (among other things) the Underworld, the world of Hesiod's silver race (and the unrighteous part of the lower races), the substance of dreams, mental imagery, ghosts, etc., and of which your "lower soul" ("astral body") makes up a very tiny part. Empedocles's commentators all call Water "nutritive" because it connects dense Earth to the all-pervading light (energy, vitality, etc.) of the immaterial, and it is for this reason that while Isis is the mother of Horus, Nephthys is said to be his nurse; this association is echoed by Homer (Odyssey XI) when Odysseus first offers a libation of milk to the dead.

Those are the gods in macrocosm. In the microcosm, we have the Fiery, Airy, Watery, and Earthy parts of one's self, and I personally have been wondering if this is where Plato got his tripartite theory of soul: one's Fiery part is the λόγος (logos, usually translated "reason," but also "word," as in the Poimandres, above), the seat of consciousness; one's Airy part is the θυμός (thumos, "passion"), the seat of emotion; and one's Watery part is the ἐπιθυμία (epithumia, "desire"), the seat of appetite, since Empedocles says that desire is caused by a lack of nutrition. (One's Earthy part is of course the body, the seat of sensation, and hence is not counted as a "part of soul" at all.) I think we should be careful of words like "reason" for Fire: we think of "reason" as one's capacity for discursive or logical thought, but Empedocles is emphatic that thinking occurs in the blood because it is as close to a perfect mix of the roots in the body as possible: thought involves all of one's capacities. Instead, I think "word" is meant in the sense of "the expression of an idea:" the soul is the expression of a unique idea in the divine Mind, which is just what Horus is with respect to Osiris.

It is interesting to compare (my interpretation of) Empedocles's roots with Plotinus, since while there are broad similarities, we have a few differences, too. Empedocles's roots are co-eval, while Plotinus's hypostases are explicitly ordered. Empedocles's roots all co-exist and indeed seem to mix to various degrees, while Plotinus's hypostases seem much more discrete and separate from each other. Plotinus separates Mind and souls and makes them eternal, while Empedocles equates them and makes them merely immortal. Plotinus considers the Mind to be the demiurge ("Creator"), while Empedocles assigns this role to Strife (as the force that brings beings into becoming) rather than Fire. I haven't spent a lot of time unpacking these differences, but I think doing so would be worthwhile; my "Bayesian prior," so to speak, is to assume that Plotinus is a refinement of Empedocles, since while we don't know what became of Empedocles—certainly, he didn't jump into Etna!—we have on unimpeachable authority what became of Plotinus! Alas, it's impossible to know what the Egyptian priests throughout the millennia believed and taught (and, indeed, what may have become of them).

With those keys in hand, let's proceed to the mysteries of Isis. Hesiod gave us the authoritative Greek version of the theogony, but the authoritative version of the Demeter myth comes from the Homeric Hymns, and this is what I have compared Plutarch with. The two agree so closely that the relationship between them is certain:

This part of the myth has two broad sections: B1–14 and 26–7 (which describes Isis wandering), and B14–25 (which describes Isis instituting her mysteries). The Osiris part of the myth also has a section on the institution of his mysteries, and while it is very brief, we could probably reconstruct a bit from the comparable Assyrian, Phrygian, and Greek mysteries (no doubt there were lots of penises involved). The Horus part of the myth lacks such a section: I suppose that it must have existed but any details are lost to us.

While the Isis myth and the Demeter myth both share nearly identical structures, I think that they have very different meanings. The latter is, of course, about the descent of an individual soul into matter due to desire and getting stuck in the cycle of reincarnation. But Osiris isn't an individual soul: Horus is, and he will not be seen until the end of the Isis myth's sequel. This myth, then, is universal in scope: it is about the descent and loss of consciousness in matter in its entirety, and the slow, slow process by which material bodies are evolved to be capable of admitting the reascent of souls at all. That is, we are speaking of the creation of humanity.

Initially, Osiris rules Egypt, teaching the Egyptians all good things. Egypt is the spiritual world of Fire and Air: Osiris is Fire itself and the Egyptians are Empedocles's daimons, the denizens of Air which Osiris "illuminates"—that is, gives life and consciousness to. Hesiod seems to imply, and Plotinus says explicitly, that some great souls never descend into the material world of Water and Earth at all; I think the myth teaches the same thing, since Osiris teaches them to refrain from cannbalism, which is what Empedocles says causes daimons to fall. In the same way, in the Demeter myth, Nysa is the spiritual world and the Oceanids are those souls that do not fall. Egypt and Nysa are both the sky, and the Egyptians and Oceanids (the daughters of the heavenly Ocean) are, of course, the stars. (Indeed, because of the ease of identifying Egypt and the Egyptians, or Nysa and the Oceanids, with the stars, I wonder if my previous association of Nut with Love was incorrect: perhaps Nut is simply the spiritual world of Fire and Air, while Geb is the material world of Water and Earth. Something to consider further—alas, so many of my speculations raise more questions than answers!)

Plotinus tells us that the reason for the descent of souls is that the Mind endeavors to be comprehensive, conscious of all that it can possibly be conscious of. This is why Osiris desires the box and allows himself to be tricked into it: the descent of souls isn't an individual sin so much as a universally necessary byproduct of the Mind's comprehensivity: it is not man that falls, but Man—or, perhaps, the entire category of beings of which humanity constitutes but a small part. The Nile is the Milky Way, the "bridge" by which the divine (the greater world, the galaxy) connects to the material (the smaller world, the solar system). Byblos is the Earth. So Osiris being sealed in Set's box, dumped in the Nile, coming to rest in Byblos, and being encased in a stalk of heather shows Mind being encased first in Air, then in Water, and finally in Earth: matter is not initially capable of supporting consciousness, and so Mind in the lower world is lost, incapable of expression, "dead."

And that is just why Isis wanders and frets so over Osiris: there need to be forms such that the Mind can express itself in Earth as completely as possible, but Earth is so solid and fixed that it is difficult to contort it into a shape that makes this possible, and so it takes long, long ages of time to accomplish. That is, Isis's wandering represents the process of evolution. We think of this as a modern notion invented by Charles Darwin, but several of Empedocles's fragments discuss it, saying that the first creatures appeared out of the earth parthenogenically, and gradually combined and mixed into ever-more sophisticated forms which can exemplify, however imperfectly, the attributes of the higher world:

οὐλοφυεῖς μὲν πρῶτα τύποι χθονὸς ἐξανέτελλον,
ἀμφοτέρων ὕδατός τε καὶ εἴδεος αἶσαν ἔχοντες·
τοὺς μὲν πῦρ ἀνέπεμπε θέλον πρὸς ὁμοῖον ἱκέσθαι,
οὔτε τί πω μελέων ἐρατὸν δέμας ἐμφαίνοντας,
οὔτ' ἐνοπὴν οὔτ' αὖ ἐπιχώριον ἀνδράσι γυῖον. [...]
ᾗ πολλαὶ μὲν κόρσαι ἀναύχενες ἐβλάστησαν.
γυμνοὶ δ' ἐπλάζοντο βραχίονες εὔνιδες ὤμων,
ὄμματά τ' οἶ' ἐμπλανᾶτο πενητεύοντα μετώπων[, ...]
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ μεῖζον ἐμίσγετο δαίμονι δαίμων,
ταῦτά τε συμπίπτεσκον, ὅπῃ συνέκυρσεν ἕκαστα,
ἄλλα τε πρὸς τοῖς πολλὰ διηνεκῆ ἐξεγένοντο. [...]
πολλὰ μὲν ἀμφιπρόσωπα καὶ ἀμφίστερνα φύεσθαι,
βουγενῆ ἀνδρόπρῳρα, τὰ δ' ἔμπαλιν ἐξανατέλλειν
ἀνδροφυῆ βούκρανα, μεμιγμένα τῇ μὲν ἀπ' ἀνδρῶν
τῇ δὲ γυναικοφυῆ, στείροις ἠσκημένα γυίοις.

First there came up from the Earth whole-natured outlines
having a share of both Water and Heat;
Fire sent them up, wanting to reach its like,
and they did not yet show any lovely frame of limbs,
nor voice nor again the male "limb." [...]
Then sprouted up many heads without necks
and arms wandered naked, bereft of shoulders,
and eyes roamed alone bereft of brows[, ...]
But when daimon mixed more with daimon,
and these things came together as each happened to meet
and many others in addition to these were constantly emerging. [...]
Many grew with two heads or two torsos;
oxen with the heads of men, and others arose as
bull-headed men, and still others with mixed male
and female natures and so rendered sterile.

Note the presence of chance in Empedocles's description and reproductive fitness in this process: many bizarre and useless combinations are produced, but as Aristotle (Physics II viii) comments, "wherever all the parts came about as if they had been appropriately designed to, such creatures survived; but those which grew otherwise died out, just like Empedocles says his 'oxen with the heads of men' did."

In the Demeter myth, Persephone—the individual soul—already exists and is fully-formed in the mind of god before she falls; but in the Egyptian myth, it is universal Osiris who falls, containing Horus the Elder—the potential for individual souls—within him. Note also how Empedocles speaks of "daimon mixing more with daimon:" the Neoplatonist conception of souls as individual, discrete atoms clearly can't apply if they are capable of mixing! Instead, I wonder if the teaching here is that soul descends en masse like a cloud of fog, and it is only when it has reached the ground does the water vapor begin to condense into droplets, some greater, some less, which can finally reascend as unified wholes. Thus when Isis wanders aimlessly and when Empedocles speaks of chance, this seems to be saying that the descending soul is amorphous and that the individual soul that will eventually arise doesn't necessarily have a fixed form or unique place in the cosmos from the outset: it is only when Isis brings Osiris back to the Egyptian coast, which represents the creation of material forms (like humanity) that are on the very edge of the upper world and capable of individuation and reascent, that the amorphous group soul can begin to differentiate and individual souls begins to form. Until that point, we're dealing with something more akin to an undifferentiated continuum of soul-stuff; while Osiris is always one, it is Isis, in a sense, which draws the lines between which parts of Osiris go into one kind of creature and which go into another, and thus what eventually constitutes the "individual soul." It is uncomfortable for me to give chance much of a place in a universe ruled by Providence, but Plotinus says that happenstance is involved in the sublunary world, and perhaps this is the reason why Isis is said to invent while Osiris is said to teach: what Isis brings forth by chance, Osiris imbues with purpose? Certainly, it at least makes good sense of Iamblichus's and Proclus's argument that a human soul can't reincarnate as a beast: once the human part of the soul-continuum has differentiated, it is no longer the right "shape" to fit in bodies adapted to other parts of the soul-continuum. In any case, once Horus—whose purpose is to take flight—is born, it is hard to see how lower bodies can further that purpose, so even if it is possible, it must be impractical.

As a consequence of the above difference between the two myths, I think Demeter's wandering must mean something different from Isis's. Hesiod tells us (Theogony, l. 713) that "a brazen anvil falling down from Heaven nine nights and days would reach the Earth upon the tenth;" that is, nine days is presumably how long it takes for her to get from Heaven to Earth. As soon as she reaches the Earth, she meets with Hekate and Helios, the Moon and Sun, also suggesting this. But if this is so, her quitting Olympus in a huff afterwards seems to be confused: did she not already quit it?

Speaking of Hekate, we have not yet discussed Anubis, her counterpart in the Isis myth. By being the child of bright Fire and dark Water, he is obviously native to both the upper and lower worlds simultaneously, which of course is why he is said to be a psychopomp. But I think there's another side to it: Fire is the first of the roots while Water is the last, hence Anubis is the child of cause and effect; that is to say, he is the link between them, or karma. (He sits in judgement in Duat because one reviews their conscious actions (Fire) when they are dead (Water), as any number of near-death experiencers can tell you.) The dogs that lead Isis to Anubis are, as Pythagoras tells us, the planets, which are the mechanism by which karma operates: the circumstances or energies that cause us to have experiences (and to develop experience) in the lower world. Hippolytus (Refutation of all Heresies I iv) says that Empedocles believed that evils only existed in the sublunary world, and this is why Anubis attends to Isis—what we call "evil" is simply the consequences of selfish action. The equivalent of Anubis in the Demeter myth is Hekate, who follows Demeter (representing natural law generally) and eventually clings to Persephone (representing individual karma); the general Greek equivalent is Artemis (sibling of Apollo in the same way Anubis is the sibling of Horus): consider the myth of Actaeon, who is devoured by his own dogs (that is, his own deeds). Artemis and Hekate are both associated with the moon because this is where their influence begins.

The remainder of the myth concerns the institution of the mysteries themselves, and I think that this part switches gears significantly, since it appears to no longer be speaking of cosmic processes, but rather of the "ground rules" of the mysteries that initiates must abide by. No longer is Isis, Earth; or Osiris, Fire; etc.: Isis is now the initiator, Osiris is the mystery teachings themselves, Astarte and Malkander are the initiate, Diktys and the unnamed younger son are the initiate's personal Horus (soul) and Anubis (karma), etc.

Malkander is most likely a Greek transliteration of Phoenecian Melqart ("King of the City"); Astarte and Melqart were the local Isis and Osiris of Tyre. Indeed, Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite and Dumuzid/Hadad/Baal ("King")/Adonis ("Lord") were the local Isis and Osiris of many different cities in the Near East, just as Demeter and Zeus were at Eleusis. I think all this syncretism is because the mysteries were intended to be as tolerant and anti-dogmatic as possible; indeed, we see many, many local reflections of the myth: most of the heroes (ahem, Horuses) of Greek myth have echoes of the Isis myth in them, suggesting that they weren't historical kings but rather the names attached to local mystery cults. My favorite example of this is Achilles: Pseudo-Apollodorus (Library III xiii §6) tells us how Thetis would feed him ambrosia by day and burn him in a fire at night to make him immortal, but Peleus's outcry halted this. (He even says that the etymology of Achilles is ἀ-χεῖλος "without lips," indicating that Thetis never nursed him with her breast, just like Isis.)

What are these "ground rules?" Isis speaking to nobody and making-over Astarte's maids teaches how the mysteries did not proselytize, but how people were supposed to come to them of their own volition, whether by seeing the effects they had on other initiates (as here in the myth), or by being so directed in a dream (cf. Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece X xxxii; Apuleius, Golden Ass XI), or by intense personal drive (Apuleius, Apology §§53–6). Malkander making Osiris into a pillar in his house indicates that the initiate should take the mystery teachings into their heart (and, indeed, make them of central importance). Isis suckling Diktys with her finger rather than her breast indicates feeding one's soul spiritual food rather than indulging in material pleasures. Isis burning Diktys in the fire indicates meekly bearing material misfortunes. Astarte's outcry depriving Diktys of immortality is a censure of discussing the mysteries: one is only to contemplate them within their heart. Isis lamenting Osiris and killing Astarte's younger son thereby indicates that one must not bewail their lot: one can only become immortal by embracing their karma as a friend and guide, rather than a curse. Diktys peeking in the box to see Osiris and dying is a censure of trying to pry into the mysteries without having been legitimately initiated.

Isis's homeward journey with Osiris seems to me to be something of a reference to overcoming the elements: the heather stalk is earth, the Phaedrus river is water, the wind coming off the river is air, and Osiris himself is fire. But I don't think these are the actual Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, but rather merely the vulgar forms those principles take when reflected in Earth: the passage through them represents the mystery teachings giving one authority to overcome, or even command, the material world, just as Empedocles says:

φάρμακα δ' ὅσσα γεγᾶσι κακῶν καὶ γήραος ἄλκαρ
πεύσῃ, ἐπεὶ μούνῳ σοι ἐγὼ κρανέω τάδε πάντα.
παύσεις δ' ἀκαμάτων ἀνέμων μένος οἵ τ' ἐπὶ γαῖαν [· ...]
καὶ πάλιν, ἤν κ' ἐθέλῃσθα, παλίντιτα πνεύματ' ἐπάξεις· [...]
ἄξεις δ' ἐξ Ἀίδαο καταφθιμένου μένος ἀνδρός. [...]
εἰ γὰρ καὶ ἐν σφ' ἁδινῇσιν ὑπὸ πραπίδεσσιν ἐρείσας
εὐμενέως καθαρῇσιν ἐποπτεύσεις μελέτῃσιν,
ταῦτά τέ σοι μάλα πάντα δι' αἰῶνος παρέσονται,
ἄλλα τε πόλλ' ἀπὸ τω-νδε κτήσεαι· αὐτὰ γὰρ αὔξει
ταῦτ' εἰς ἦθος ἕκαστον, ὅπῃ φύσις ἐστὶν ἑκάστῳ.

All the potions which there are as a defence against evils and old age
you shall learn, since for you alone will I accomplish all these things.
You shall put a stop to the strength of tireless winds, [...]
and again, if you wish, you shall bring the winds back again, [...]
and you shall bring from Hades the strength of a man who has died. [...]
For if, thrusting [my words] deep down into your crowded heart,
you gaze on them in kindly fashion, with pure meditations,
absolutely all these things will be with you throughout your life,
and from these you acquire many others, for these things themselves
will expand to form each character, according to the nature of each.

Finally, there's one last thing I'd like to mention. When she becomes aware of Osiris's death, Isis puts on a mourning garment. As far as I can tell, this was a black linen cloth which was tied with a rope or long shawl, which went around the neck and arms as was tied between the breasts, supporting them, keeping the garment secure, and shaping it to the body. This girdle, I think, is the tyet knot of Isis, representing the shaping or binding principle, which is the property of Earth. The heather stalk that Osiris was contained within and which grew to prodigious size thereby is, of course, the djed pillar, representative of Mind as a quickening (erm, penetrating) principle, which is the property of Fire. When you combine the form of the tyet with the rigidity of the djed, you get an ankh, which is the symbol of Horus as the union of Earth and Fire, the individual soul, and that greater Life which it might aspire to. I think these three—a small knotted cord, a stalk of heather, and an ankh of reed or something—were made, perfumed, wrapped in linen, and given to initiates as mementos, in order to encourage them to contemplate the mysteries in private long after their initiations.

𓎬 𓊽 𓋹

Empedocles writes,

All the potions which there are as a defence against evils and old age
you shall learn, since for you alone will I accomplish all these things.
You shall put a stop to the strength of tireless winds, [...]
and again, if you wish, you shall bring the winds back again, [...]
and you shall bring from Hades the strength of a man who has died. [...]
For if, thrusting [my words] deep down into your crowded heart,
you gaze on them in kindly fashion, with pure meditations,
absolutely all these things will be with you throughout your life,
and from these you acquire many others, for these things themselves
will expand to form each character, according to the nature of each.

That is, if you learn the true nature of things, you will gain all manner of magical powers and other things besides. Personally, I find the pursuit of power uninteresting, but the old magus isn't wrong: meditating on his poem has, indeed, given me other things, to my mind of far greater worth than mere magic. I'll be talking about some of these once I get my next Isis and Osiris post together, but in the meantime, let me share one of them with you that's tangential to that myth.

Empedocles's four roots are not mere elements; in fact, I think:

1. Fire, Air, Water, and Earth are all gods. (Thus we are firmly in polytheistic territory.)
2. Fire and Air are spiritual, while Water and Earth are material.
3. Fire is (among other things) νοῦς "Consciousness." There is only one Consciousness but that Fire emits Light, and every ray of Light is a ψυχή "soul." Since there is only one Fire and nothing can be experienced apart from it, there is a sense in which it is not only a god, but the god. (Thus we are also firmly in monotheistic territory.)
4. Air is mediate between Fire and the material world. It is (among other things) the substance of θυμός "emotion" and home of the higher category of daimons.
5. Water is mediate between the spiritual world and Earth. It is (among other things) the subtle matter of the underworld, "the stuff dreams are made of" [NB: video link], the substance of ἐπιθυμία "desire," and home of both the lower category of daimons and the dead.
6. Earth is (among other things) the dense matter of the waking world, the substance of the body and sensation, and home of the living.

I've mentioned that I think this model is Egyptian in origin and imported to Greece several times; we see versions of it used all through classical philosophy, from Plato to "Hermes Trismegistus" to Plotinus. One of these imports was by Pythagoras, from whom Empedocles got it. I think another was by "Orpheus" (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History I xxiii), from whom Hesiod got it, and I would like to consider my favorite statement of theology, Hesiod's Ages of Man (Works and Days ll. 106–201) in light of it. The poet says that his story is about "how gods and mortals come from the same source," and so I think he is speaking of the nature and placement of beings in the cosmos in the above model.

If you wish, I shall recapitulate another story, correctly and skillfully, and you lay it up in your spirit: how the gods and mortal human beings came about from the same origin.

Let me give some preliminary keys first. Remember that Zeus is Fire, Hades is Air, Nestis is Water, and Hera is Earth. The Cyclopes gifted Zeus his thunderbolts, which are the rays of Light emitted by Fire (e.g. souls). They also gifted Hades his cap of invisibility, which is the incorporeality of Air and its denizens. When Hesiod speaks of "the immortals who dwell on Olympus," he is referring to the gods (e.g. roots) collectively. When he speaks of Zeus, he is referring to Fire specifically; the "time of Zeus" is the world subordinate to Fire; e.g. the material world of Water and Earth. When he speaks of the "time of Cronus," he is referring to the world of Zeus; e.g. the spiritual world of Fire and Air.

Golden was the race of speech-endowed human beings which the immortals, who have their mansions on Olympus, made first of all. They lived at the time of Cronus, when he was king in the sky; just like gods they spent their lives, with a spirit free from care, entirely apart from toil and distress. Worthless old age did not oppress them, but they were always the same in their feet and hands, and delighted in festivities, lacking in all evils; and they died as if overpowered by sleep. They had all good things: the grain-giving field bore crops of its own accord, much and unstinting, and they themselves, willing, mildmannered, shared out the fruits of their labors together with many good things, wealthy in sheep, dear to the blessed gods. But since the earth covered up this race, by the plans of great Zeus they are fine spirits upon the earth, guardians of mortal human beings: they watch over judgments and cruel deeds, clad in invisibility, walking everywhere upon the earth, givers of wealth; and this kingly honor they received.

The immortal, happy, and carefree golden race are Empedocles's δολιχαίωνες δαίμονες "daimons with lives a mile long." These are the beings that natively inhabit Air and never needed to descend into the material world at all to actualize their purpose. They are immortal since Fire and Air are spiritual substances. (They "die as if overpowered by sleep" if they violate the oaths of Necessity and thus fall into the material world.) They are "clad in invisibility" because they are made of Air. They are happy because Air is the substance of emotion; they are carefree since, without a Watery or Earthy component, they do not have appetites or needs. The overall description of the race is, presumably, what life is like in the world of Air (at least to the degree we can comprehend it).

Afterward those who have their mansions on Olympus made a second race, much worse, of silver, like the golden one neither in body nor in mind. A boy would be nurtured for a hundred years at the side of his cherished mother, playing in his own house, a great fool. But when they reached adolescence and arrived at the full measure of puberty, they would live for a short time only, suffering pains because of their acts of folly. For they could not restrain themselves from wicked outrage against each other, nor were they willing to honor the immortals or to sacrifice upon the holy altars of the blessed ones, as is established right for human beings in each community. Then Zeus, Cronus's son, concealed these in anger, because they did not give honors to the blessed gods who dwell on Olympus. But since the earth covered up this race too, they are called blessed mortals under the earth—in second place, but all the same honor attends upon these as well.

The long-lived but foolish silver race are those beings that natively inhabit Water and never needed to descend into Earth to actualize their purpose. They are long-lived since Water is much more mobile than Earth, but are mortal since Water is material. They seem unaging until just before they die since, not having an Earthy component, they have no fixed form. People who have near-death experiences report that beings appear to support and assist them and that these beings always conform to one's expectations or beliefs: Greek pagans might meet Vestal daimons, Christians might meet Jesus or St. Peter, Buddhists might meet a Boddhisatva, etc.; this is presumably because these beings are members of the silver race and because Water always takes the shape of its container. Similarly, the overall description of the race might be what our sojourns are like in the world of Water.

(Regarding those Vestal daimons, note that Latin Vesta is Greek Hestia, who I have hypothesized is Egyptian Nephthys and Empedocles's Nestis, who is Water. Thus Vestal daimons are precisely the ones we should expect to meet when we die.)

Zeus the father made another race of speech-endowed human beings, a third one, of bronze, not similar to the silver one at all, out of ash trees—terrible and strong they were, and they cared only for the painful works of Ares and for acts of violence. They did not eat bread, but had a strong-hearted spirit of adamant—unapproachable they were, and upon their massive limbs grew great strength and untouchable hands out of their shoulders. Their weapons were of bronze, bronze were their houses, with bronze they worked; there was not any black iron. And these, overpowered by one another's hands, went down nameless into the dank house of chilly Hades: black death seized them, frightful though they were, and they left behind the bright light of the sun.

When the earth covered up this race too, Zeus, Cronus's son, made another one in turn upon the bounteous earth, a fourth one, more just and superior, the godly race of men-heroes, who are called demigods, the generation before our own upon the boundless earth. Evil war and dread battle destroyed these, some under seven-gated Thebes in the land of Cadmus while they fought for the sake of Oedipus' sheep, others brought in boats over the great gulf of the sea to Troy for the sake of fair-haired Helen. There, the end of death shrouded some of them, but upon others Zeus the father, Cronus's son, bestowed life and habitations far from human beings and settled them at the limits of the earth; and these dwell with a spirit free of care on the Islands of the Blessed beside deep-eddying Ocean—happy heroes, for whom the grain-giving field bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing three times a year.

If only then I did not have to live among the fifth men, but could have either died first or been born afterward! For now the race is indeed one of iron. And they will not cease from toil and distress by day, nor from being worn out by suffering at night, and the gods will give them grievous cares. Yet all the same, for these people too good things will be mingled with evil ones. But Zeus will destroy this race of speech-endowed human beings too, when at their birth the hair on their temples will be quite gray. Father will not be like-minded with sons, nor sons with their father, nor guest with host, nor comrade with comrade, nor will the brother be dear, as he once was. They will dishonor their aging parents at once; they will reproach them, addressing them with grievous words—cruel men, who do not know of the gods' retribution!—nor would they repay their aged parents for their rearing. Their hands will be their justice, and one man will destroy the other's city. Nor will there be any grace for the man who keeps his oath, nor for the just man or the good one, but they will give more honor to the doer of evil and the outrageous. Justice will be in their hands, and reverence will not exist, but the bad man will harm the superior one, speaking with crooked discourses, and he will swear an oath upon them. And Envy, evil-sounding, gloating, loathsome-faced, will accompany all wretched human beings. Then indeed will Reverence and Indignation cover their beautiful skin with white mantles, leave human beings behind and go from the broad-pathed earth to the race of the immortals, to Olympus. Baleful pains will be left for mortal human beings, and there will be no safeguard against evil.

The remainder of the races all refer to those beings who descended all the way to Earth (e.g. incarnated as humans). The brazen race are the unrighteous, who after they die live in the world of Water for a time before reincarnating: they are thus, in a sense, the non-native inhabitants of Water, living beside and under the guidance of the silver race. The heroic race are the righteous, who after they die transition through the world of Water and go on to the Blessed Isles ruled by Cronus (e.g. the world of Air): they are thus, in a sense, the non-native inhabitants of Air, living beside and under the guidance of the golden race. The brazen race precedes the heroic race because it takes many lifetimes for one to develop and grow. Finally, the iron race are those who are presently living in the world of Earth. Their hard labor is because of the density and rigidity of Earth. They grow gray at a younger and younger age as the soul grows more and more world-weary every time it reincarnates. That they seem abandoned by the gods and must seek their own justice may be seen all around us: it is an injunction to accept the labors of this world and become as a hero from it.

Per Plotinus and Proclus, I presume some of us mortals have tutelary daimons of the golden race, while others of us have tutelary daimons of the heroic race. Whichever they are, may we follow them whole-heartedly...

In Isis and Osiris III, Plutarch exhorts his friend Clea, who has just recently become an initiate, to deprecate outward forms and instead cultivate the mysteries in her heart, because

it is a fact, Clea, that just like having a beard and wearing a coarse cloak does not make one a philosopher, neither does dressing in linen and shaving one's hair make one a votary of Isis; rather, the true votary of Isis is the one who, when they have legitimately received what is set forth in the ceremonies of these gods, uses reason in investigating and in studying the truth contained therein.

And this is exactly what makes the mystery cults so foreign of a religious sensibility to us, today: they didn't proselytize, they taught no dogma, and they enjoined silence upon their initiates, so that those initiates were forced to continually contemplate the symbols in their hearts and develop their own personal meaning from them. I think we've had ample lesson, measured in blood, of the dangers of dogma and the practical wisdom of this approach over the last millennium, but I think the real reason the Egyptian priests instituted this approach is that one only grows by making effort. The point of the mysteries isn't to cleverly find the right answer to a test; it is to continually push against them and thereby develop meaning within one's own soul. In that sense, it doesn't matter what one's understanding of the mysteries ends up being, so long as one is ever attempting to refine it.

Because of that, it was foolish of me to get sidetracked; however, it proved valuable nonetheless, since by going back to the beginning, I think I've found a more profitable avenue to explore. It is one that I hinted at previously, but actually taking the time to investigate it seriously has taught me a lot, and I will endeavor to communicate what I've learned as clearly as I can.

(But, of course, be warned that in doing so I may be robbing you of finding your own meaning by pursuing the course I've laid out! In studying and contemplating my way through the myth, I've been of two minds whether or not to post what I've learned: the gods of the mysteries castigated Numenius for revealing their secrets, but seem to have regarded Plotinus most highly for doing the same. In the end, for various reasons, I've opted to proceed; but please exercise judgement in reading on if you wish to follow the old paths for yourself! For whatever it's worth, though, I am in all of this only following antecedents of my own, and joining myself—as a very weak link indeed—in that golden chain which binds heaven and earth: if that extra couple inches puts it within reach of anyone, and it doesn't break when they grab ahold, then I consider it to have been worth the effort!)

The ancient Egyptians held a tradition that their priests looked at the heavens with awe and reverence, and through much study of them came to learn of the gods underlying the Sun and Moon, whom they called Osiris and Isis, respectively (Manetho, Epitome of Physical Doctrines; Diodorus, Library of History I xi; the correction "underlying" from Pseudo-Plutarch, Stromateis). Over time, the understanding of these gods deepened, and the priests wished to codify it so that it might better be passed on, and so they instituted the mysteries in order to do so while still making their students work for their understanding. These were either first or most successfully instituted at the great temple of Heliopolis (modern Cairo), but they soon spread throughout Egypt, Assyria, and the Mediterranean, evolving as they went (Pseudo-Lucian on the Syrian Goddess II).

A couple thousand years later, a youth from the island nation of Samos, named Pythagoras, was very devoted to learning and went to study under the greatest Greek mind of the time, Thales of Miletus. Thales taught him everything he could, but finding the youth unsatisfied, urged him to continue his studies in Egypt. Samos was an ally of the Black Land, so Pythagoras secured a letter of introduction from his king, Polycrates, and went to pharaoh Amasis II, asking to learn from their priests. The pharaoh assented and sent Pythagoras to the priests of Memphis; but they, neither wishing to disobey the pharaoh nor initiate a foreigner, passed him into the care of the priests of Thebes (modern Luxor); who in turn passed him into the care of the priests of Heliopolis; who, having nowhere else to send him, instead enjoined him with extreme austerities, hoping that he would become discouraged and leave. Pythagoras performed those austerities so readily, however, that he won their admiration and finally became an initiate. He eventually established a sort of guild, the Pythagorean brotherhood, which served as a vehicle for teaching Pythagoras's interpretation of the mysteries: while he almost certainly introduced innovations (especially regarding the use of numbers), on the whole it appears to have been fairly faithful, and maintained the strict code of secrecy that the mysteries demanded. (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris X; Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII i §3; Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras VII–VIII.)

A couple generations later, a youth from Acragas in Sicily (modern Agrigento), named Empedocles, was very devoted to learning and went to study under the Pythagoreans. He wrote a very famous poem, after which he was expelled from the brotherhood under the charge of revealing their mysteries in writing (Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII ii §2). Because of this, and because his poem, like the mysteries, concerns the descent and reascent of the soul, it seems that his poem was a more-or-less faithful discussion of them and that it is likely a fruitful place to look for keys to unpacking the mysteries.

Alas, scarcely a tenth of Empedocles's poem survives to our time, mere scraps and tatters quoted by ancient commentators. (There is perhaps no other single work from antiquity which I wish we possessed complete today!) But because we have so little of it, we will be forced to tread tentatively and consider what the ancient commentators say in order to attempt to sketch Empedocles's worldview.

After Plutarch recounts the myth of Isis and Osiris, he considers the myth from various angles and gives Clea different tools to try and reason about what it may mean. In the second of these considerations (XXV ff.) he explicitly relates the wandering of Isis to Empedocles's poem, quoting him concerning the exile of souls:

ἔστιν Ἀνάγκης χρῆμα, θεῶν ψήφισμα παλαιόν,
ἀΐδιον, πλατέεσι κατεσφρηγισμένον ὅρκοις·
εὖτε τις ἀμπλακίῃσι φόνῳ φίλα γυῖα μιήνῃ
[...] ἐπίορκον ἁμαρτήσας ἐπομώσει
δαίμονες οἵτε μακραίωνος λελάχασι βίοιο,
τρίς μιν μυρίας ὧρας ἀπὸ μακάρων ἀλάλησθαι,
φυόμενον παντοῖα διὰ χρόνου εἴδεα θνητῶν
ἀργαλέας βιότοιο μεταλλάσοντα κελεύθους.
Αἰθέριον μὲν γάρ σφε μένος Πόντονδε διώκει,
Πόντος δ' ἐς Χθονὸς οὖδας ἀπέπτυσε, Γαῖα δ' ἐς αὐγάς
Ἠελίου φαέθοντος, ὁ δ' Αἰθέρος ἔμβαλε δίνῃς·
ἄλλος δ' ἐξ ἄλλου δέχεται, στυγέουσι δὲ πάντες.
τῶν καὶ ἐγὼ νῦν εἰμι, φυγὰς θεόθεν καὶ ἀλήτης,
Νείκεϊ μαινομένῳ πίσυνος. [...]

There is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal, sealed with broad oaths: if one of the daimons who are heir to long life stains his dear limbs with blood or perjures himself through his misdeeds, then he shall wander apart from the blessed for thrice ten thousand seasons, being born meantime in all sorts of mortal forms, changing one bitter path of life for another. For mighty Aither pursues him Seaward, and Sea spits him forth onto the threshold of Earth, and Earth casts him into the rays of the blazing Sun, and Sun into the eddies of Aither, each receiving him in turn, all hating him.

I, too, am now one of these: a fugitive from the gods and a wanderer, at the mercy of raging Strife.

Teaching the citizens of Akragas that we humans are exiled divinities and urging them on the path of return appears to be Empedocles's primary purpose in writing his poem. In support of this, he spends quite a bit of time on metaphysics, describing that there are exactly six primary divinities (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies VII xvii; Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics), four "roots" and two "forces" which cause those roots to combine and disperse in various ways to produce all we see around us, even all other gods:

τέσσαρα γὰρ πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε·
Ζεὺς ἀργὴς Ἥρη τε φερέσβιος ἠδ' Ἀιδωνεύς,
Νῆστις θ' ἣ δακρύοις τέγγει κρούνωμα βρότειον. [...]
ἐκ τῶν πάνθ' ὅσα τ' ἦν ὅσα τ' ἔστι καὶ ἔσται ὀπίσσω,
δέδρεά τ' ὲβλάστησε καὶ ἀνέρες ἠδὲ γυναῖκες,
θῆρές τ' οἰωνοί τε καὶ ὑδατοθρέμμονες ἰχθῦς,
καί τε θεοὶ δολιχαίωνες τιμῇσι φέριστοι. [...]
καὶ ταῦτ' ἀλλάσσοντα διαμπερὲς οὐδαμὰ λήγει,
ἄλλοτε μὲν Φιλότητι συνερχόμεν' εἰς ἓν ἅπαντα,
ἄλλοτε δ' αὖ δίχ' ἕκαστα φορεύμενα Νείκεος ἔχθει.

First, hear of the four roots of all things:
shining Zeus and life-giving Hera and Aidoneus
and Nestis, who wets the springs of mortals with her tears. [...]
From these all things were and are and will be:
sprouting trees and men and women,
beasts and birds and water-dwelling fish,
even long-living, most-exalted gods. [...]
And these never cease from constantly alternating,
at one time all coming together into one by Love,
and at another again all being borne apart by the hostility of Strife.

Most ancient commentators (following Plato and Aristotle) consider these in purely physical terms, hence the "classical elements" as we know them today. However, I think this is a mistake: Empedocles calls them first by the names of gods and only later refers to them by other names. (And in these he is not consistent: sometimes he calls Love, "Friendship," "Joy," "Harmony," or "Aphrodite;" Fire, "Light," "the Sun," or "Hephaestus;" etc. So he is certainly speaking of something beyond mere physical experience.) Every self-important smartass from ancient times to today (erm, including myself, oops) has their own opinion of how to associate the gods and the elements in order to fit their preconceptions, but the preponderance of ancient sources (e.g. Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII ii; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies VII xvii; Stobaeus, Eclogues I x) tell us that Zeus is Fire; Hera, Earth; Aidoneus, Air; and Nestis, Water. Rather than continuing in my folly, I have endeavored to follow the tradition to see what it can teach me; while I initially found it confusing, in the end I think it makes good sense of Plutarch's myth.

Empedocles describes a process of the roots all, originally, being held together in a state of Love, but peeling off from each other, one at a time, under the influence of Strife. Hippolytus (Refutation of All Heresies I iii), in fact, describes that original Fire as the Pythagorean Monad, the original unity from which all arises from and returns to:

Empedocles came after [the Pythagoreans] and wrote a great deal about the nature of daimons too, how they dwell in and administer affairs all over the earth, being very numerous. He said that the principle of the universe is Strife and Love and that god is the intelligent Fire of the Monad and that all things are constructed from Fire and will be dissolved into Fire.

Thus, I think Empedocles's cosmology is, in fact, describing what the Pythagorean tetractys symbolizes: the step-by-step expansion of the cosmos from Fire to the physical world. Let's take a look at it for a moment.

In the past, I have used the tetractys to symbolize Plotinus's cosmology, but I think Empedocles's system is different: he has no conception of hypostases ("planes of being"), but rather all things (except the roots and forces) exist within the temporal cosmos, and are thus subject to the changes in that cosmos over time as Love and Strife give way to each other in turn. As far as I can tell, Empedocles never speaks of eternal things: he always calls gods and daimons δολιχαίωνες, "long-lived;" and this seems to me to match the Egyptian conception, since even the mighty Ra grew old and senile. Where Plotinus provides an ontological ordering of the One, the Intellect, Soul, and Nature, Empedocles calls his roots co-eval, and this too seems to match the Egyptian conception, since the Egyptian Bremner-Rhind papyrus says that the four gods come forth "in one birth." So because of all this, I think we are to see the rows of the tetractys as the unfolding of the cosmos in time rather than ontologically.

So, in the first row, all is joined in Love and there is only the Monad, the "intelligent Fire" in which all exists. In the second row, Strife has interposed herself a little bit and Fire has separated out from the other roots, producing the Dyad. (It is for this reason that Empedocles calls Fire "destructive Strife" (Plutarch on the Principle of Cold XVI), since it is the beginning of separation. Similarly, Plotinus calls the One, "Love," and the dyadic Intellect, "Strife" (Enneads V i §9).) In the third row, Strife's influence has increased and separated Air, producing the Triad. Finally, in the fourth row, Strife's influence has reached it's peak, causing Water and Earth to separate and produce the Tetrad. The tetractys ends here, but Empedocles says that eventually even this stage comes to an end, and the cosmos squishes back together under the increasing influence of Love. I think it is of peculiar interest that Water and Earth separate out into their pure forms simultaneously: this matches how, despite using a different model, Plotinus says that the Watery "lower soul" and Earthy body come into being simultaneously. Something curious about that is that while Earth is the heaviest and most dense root, at least one commentator (Philo of Alexandria, On Providence) says that Empedocles says that the roots separate out in the order of Fire, then Air, then Earth: Water, due to its nature, just sort of passively takes up whatever space is left to it. (Perhaps this is why Empedocles calls Water "tenacious Love" (Plutarch on the Principle of Cold XVI), since it is the end of separation and the beginning of recombination.)

With all that in mind, let's take a fresh look at the myth.

I've mentioned previously that Apuleius tells us that there are three mysteries. However, I divide the myth into four: the theogony, the wandering of Isis, the separation and recombination of Osiris, and the contending of Horus and Set. I am doing this because I don't think the theogony is a mystery at all: Herodotus discusses it (Histories II iv), but (as an initiate) he is generally reticent concerning the mysteries (Histories II clxx ff.); Diodorus discusses it openly from multiple sources (Library of History I xiii) but elsewhere calls out secret teachings (Library of History I xxi); Manetho apparently discussed it, but as the high priest of Heliopolis, it seems unlikely that he would disclose its mysteries publicly; and it was apparently the explanation for and popular basis of the civil calendar.

Today, we're just going to revisit the first part, the theogony. As a part of taking a fresh look at it, I've gone ahead and revised my summary, placing it side-by-side with the equivalent Greek myth, which runs as follows:

This, I think, describes in mythic terms the process of cosmic expansion just as I did, above: Sky (Egyptian Nut, Greek Kronos) is the state of the cosmos where all is held together in a state of pure Love, while the Sun (Egyptian Ra, Greek Helios) is the force of Love itself, which keeps the roots together in the womb of Sky; while Earth (Egyptian Geb, Greek Rhea) is the opposing state of the cosmos where all is held apart in a state of pure Strife, while the Moon (Egyptian Iah, Greek Selene) is the force of Strife itself. This is reminiscent to me of what Proclus and Wolfram talk about: pure order (Sky, Love) and pure chaos (Earth, Strife) are both uninteresting, since order is too crystalline and static for any event to occur, while chaos is too random and mobile for anything to have being, and so it is their intercourse that produces the cosmos.

Then, the gods are born. I think it is quite easy to see the relationship of the Kronos myth and the Nut myth, and it is straightforward to equate Isis with Demeter; Nephthys (𓉠 nebet-hut, "lady of the house") with Hestia; and Horus with Zeus (though Zeus is properly Horus the Younger, who battles Set and becomes king, his birth is confabulated with Horus the Elder's), though the association of the other gods is a bit trickier. We can also see that the Kronos myth is self-contained, in a sense, covering also Zeus's fall to earth, growth in skill, and battle to become king, which is (as we shall see) what Horus's myth is about. It is also interesting, I think, how Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are said to divide the sky (Air), sea (Water), and land (Earth) between them, which seems to echo Empedocles's roots somehow, though the relationship between gods and roots seems garbled. (At least, I can't make good sense of it.)

But this is a separate transmission of the myth into Greece from the one I want to talk about, which is Empedocles's. Ignoring Horus for a moment, since he is not a child of Sky and Earth, we have Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys, explicitly ordered and yet also said to be born simultaneously. Given the order, I think it is easy to associate Osiris (Empedoclean Zeus) with Fire, Set (Empedoclean Aidoneus) with Air, Isis (Empedoclean Hera) with Earth, and Nephthys (Empedoclean Nestis) with Water; and since the gods are all "of equal age," their "births" on successive days represent not their coming into existence but their gradual separation under the influence of Strife. Because of Aristotle's influence, I think we moderns are used to thinking of the classical elements cyclically and "marrying" those of opposite qualities (bright Fire and dark Water, ephemeral Air and solid Earth), but the pairing of Fire with Earth and Air with Water, as here, has parallels in Plato's Timaeus and in the Geomantic tradition. It is also, of course, reasonable to associate Osiris with Zeus (as king), Set with Hades (as the one who snatches away souls from heaven), Isis with Hera (as the wife of Osiris/Zeus), and Nephthys with Persephone (as the begrudging wife of Set/Hades).

But if the roots are straightforward enough, we will need to make an effort on Horus since we have exhausted Empedocles's six principles, and I think the key to making sense of him is that there are two Horuses, an elder and a younger, which are certainly distinct (for example, they are shown side-by-side on the Metternich Stela), but their roles in myth are confused and conflated: in a sense, they are both two and one. Considering all this, I think Horus is one of Empedocles's daimons (indeed, the prototypal daimon) which has perjured themselves, is exiled from the gods, and after many trials is restored to their ranks. (Consider that his name in Egyptian, 𓅃 heru, is simply the word for "falcon," a bird which soars high up into the sky on thermals, a lovely image of a soul on its heavenly ascent.) Horus the Elder doesn't have any significant role in the myth, and I think he represents the passive potential of a soul, it's mere being or Platonic Form which exists within Osiris. After Strife has reached it's peak, Isis magically "draws from [dead Osiris] his essence" (that is, Horus the Elder) and using it gives birth to Horus the Younger, who is the actualization of that potential, the living soul which wills and acts.

Hesiod parallels Empedocles's "oracle of Necessity" in the Theogony (ll. 793–804):

ὅς κεν τὴν ἐπίορκον ἀπολλείψας ἐπομόσσῃ
ἀθανάτων οἳ ἔχουσι κάρη νιφόεντος Ὀλύμπου,
κεῖται νήυτμος τετελεσμένον εἰς ἐνιαυτόν·
οὐδέ ποτ' ἀμβροσίης καὶ νέκταρος ἔρχεται ἆσσον
βρώσιος, ἀλλά τε κεῖται ἀνάπνευστος καὶ ἄναυδος
στρωτοῖς ἐν λεχέεσσι, κακὸν δ' ἐπὶ κῶμα καλύπτει.
αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν νοῦσον τελέσει μέγαν εἰς ἐνιαυτόν,
ἄλλος δ' ἐξ ἄλλου δέχεται χαλεπώτερος ἆθλος·
εἰνάετες δὲ θεῶν ἀπαμείρεται αἰὲν ἐόντων,
οὐδέ ποτ' ἐς βουλὴν ἐπιμίσγεται οὐδ' ἐπὶ δαῖτας
ἐννέα πάντ' ἔτεα· δεκάτῳ δ' ἐπιμίσγεται αὖτις
εἴρας ἐς ἀθανάτων οἳ Ὀλύμπια δώματ' ἔχουσιν.

For whoever of the immortals, who possess the peak of snowy Olympus, swears a false oath after having poured a libation to [the Styx], he lies breathless for one full year; and he does not go near to ambrosia and nectar for nourishment, but lies there without breath and without voice on a covered bed, and an evil stupor shrouds him. And when he has completed this sickness for a long year, another, even worse trial follows upon this one: for nine years he is cut off from participation with the gods that always are, nor does he mingle with them in their assembly or their feasts for all of nine years; but in the tenth he mingles once again in the meetings of the immortals who have their mansions on Olympus.

In those terms, I think descending Horus the Elder is the god sleeping as if in a coma in that first year, and ascending Horus the Younger is the god in exile for the nine following years. As we'll see much later, Horus the Younger is the Greek Apollo, who was himself exiled to earth and forced to serve Admetus for nine years before returning to Olympus, and so is the prototype or king of those daimons who have come before us, reascended, and now aid us in following them. (Small wonder, then, that Apollo is the special friend and helper of mankind!) Since the interplay of the two Horuses is at the core of the myth, we'll be talking about them much more as we proceed.

In addition to the sketching the cosmos, I think the order of the birth of the gods is a representation of their rank or pre-eminence: Osiris is of central importance all throughout the myth, initiating all the action in each stage of the story, and so is of first rank; Horus's ascent and victory is the outcome and purpose of the story, giving him second rank; Set's constant antagonism is responsible for both the fall of Osiris and the restoration of Horus, giving him third rank; Isis is the protagonist of part of the myth and the great initiator, giving her fourth rank; and poor Nephthys is hardly mentioned at all, taking the last place remaining. Ordering them in this way thus not only conceals an esoteric meaning (in the unfolding of the cosmos) but also has a practical exoteric meaning (in giving honors to the gods in the holiday calendar, and embedding their relative importance into folklore).

Finally, there is Thoth (Greek Hermes, Hesiodic Metis), who is representative of wisdom, skill, or experience, which is the very thing which differentiates the potential of Horus the Elder from the actualization of Horus the Younger. Here, it is Thoth who kicks off the introduction of Strife into the cosmos to create the opportunity for the roots to separate and for the daimons to actualize; later, we shall see that it Thoth who again allows the actualized daimons to reascend. In Egyptian myth, Thoth is said to be the husband of Maat, who I think is Empedoclean Necessity or Fate (Plutarch on the Generation of the Soul in the Timaeus XXVII; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies VII xvii; Porphyry, quoted by Stobaeus, Eclogues II viii), which brings us full circle: it is the strict rule of Necessity that forces the daimons into exile for breaking their oaths and brings them back again when their debt has been paid in full, which is only accomplished when their Strife-riven roots are brought back into unity by means of Love. This is equivalent to the Egyptian image of Thoth weighing the dead person's heart against Maat's ostrich feather on a scale, and, if the two are exactly in balance, allowing the person to proceed on their journey home.

Phew! What an exhausting six weeks it has been since starting the myth back over, but it's been profitable. I think it's amazing how much depth these myths possess, but I hear my shoulder-Plotinus saying that the depth was already within me the whole time.

Here on this blog, I spend so much time on the philosophers and their metaphysics that it may surprise you to hear that my own personal theology is mostly drawn from Hesiod's Ages of Man. I didn't expect, in studying the Egyptian myth, to learn anything which would expand on that, and yet we've seen a couple parallels already: the theogony and the exile of daimons. Surely you all know by now how fond I am of the golden race, yes? So it must be no surprise to hear that my ears perked up when I heard Hippolytus saying, "Empedocles [...] wrote a great deal about the nature of daimons too, how they dwell in and administer affairs all over the earth, being very numerous." I had noted before that I despaired of being able to trace Hesiod's daimons back any further than Greece, and yet, with so many other precedents in Egyptian myth, perhaps the daimons, too, have theirs?

Now, I am not very far into reading Egyptian literature, but there seem to be a lot of Horuses: Horus himself, Horus of the Two Lands, Horus of Behdeti, Horus of the Horizon, and so on. Is it possible that "Horus," used in this way, simply refers to a daimon? That is, is Horus of the Two Lands the tutelary daimon of the unified state of Egypt? Is Horus of Behdeti is the tutelary daimon of the city of Behdeti? Is pharaoh identified with Horus because, like a tutelary daimon, it is his responsibility to guide and protect Egypt? It seems like it might be a profitable avenue of research to explore Egyptian myth with an eye towards such an interpretation...

Find the right way down through the maze, to the food, then find the exit. Push the exit button. If the food tastes awful, don't eat it, go back and try another way.

They want the same thing that you do, really, they want a path, just like you. You are in a maze in a maze, but which one counts? Your maze, their maze, my maze. Or are the mazes all the same, defined by the limits of their paths? [...]

There is only one path and that is the path that you take, but you can take more than one path. Cross over the cell bars, find a new maze, make the maze from it's path, find the cell bars, cross over the bars, find a maze, make the maze from its path, eat the food, eat the path.

(Greg Kirkpatrick, Marathon Infinity XVII "Eat the Path")

Unpacking the mysteries is like navigating a maze: you take the path you think is right, but sometimes you hit a dead end and need to double-back; usually you don't have to double-back too far, and so you can catch it before you draw your line on the page, but sometimes the dead end is very deep and you need to erase the line you already drew. But, of course, I'm posting these essays online as I go, and they're written in ink, and I can't erase them.

This is all to say that while my unpacking of the myth so far seems to be internally consistent, I ran into two things this week that caused me to doubt my analysis, and the issue is fundamental enough that I think I need to backtrack quite a bit.

The first is that I spent a good while examining the etymology of all the names mentioned in both the Isis and Demeter myths, but especially those of Isis and Osiris. These are made complicated by the fact that Egyptian linguists have been arguing over etymology for over a century and are no closer to a solution than they were when they started, due to (it seems to me) a combination of institutional inertia and overspecialization. My guesswork is speculative, and yet it led me somewhere interesting nonetheless:

• English Isis is from Greek Ἶσις, which is from Egyptian 𓊨𓏏 (Ꜣusat), which is the logogram of a throne with a feminine noun suffix: hence Isis is "the seat."

• English Osiris is from Greek Ὄσιρις, which is from Egyptian 𓊨𓁹 (Ꜣusjrj), which is the logogram of a throne with the verb "to create, to do:" hence Osiris is something approximating "the creation or action of the seat."

The second is that I found a haunting few lines in a third century BC hymn to Isis inscribed in her temple at Philae:

For she is the Lady of Heaven,
Her man is the Lord of Duat,
Her son is the Lord of the Earth.

Think about those for a moment.

Both of them point to something much more akin to Plotinus's emanationism than what I have been working with: taking the soul as "the seat" of consciousness, then Isis is a god, the prototype of the human soul; Osiris is the emanation of Isis, a daimon, and the prototype of the human imagination (Plotinus's "lower soul," Porphyry's "pneumatic vehicle"); then, finally Horus is the emanation of Isis via Osiris, a human, and the prototype of the human body. We might say that Isis is symbolised by Sirius (cf. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XXI), which is the brightest star of Heaven and, to the Egyptian, brought the flooding of the Nile and life; Osiris is symbolized by the planet Venus (cf. Joachim Friedrich Quack, The Planets in Ancient Egypt), which is the brightest planet of Duat and lives an amphibious life as a morning star (when alive) and an evening star (when dead); Horus is symbolized by the role of Pharaoh, who is the first among humans, but is not himself a man but rather a succession of men invested with the role, some better, some worse.

If that's right, we start to see where the philosophy of the ancients comes from: every individual is a reflection of these prototypes, being composed of a single god illuminating an dual daimon illuminating an indefinite sequence of humans until philosophy fills up the god and allows them to pull their daimon back together into one piece... which is really a just sketch of what the myth is all about anyhow. I had been hesitant to read such a thing into Isis and Osiris, since I had been working on the assumption that Plotinus was doing his own weird thing and reading it all into Plato, but now it seems to me that there was at least some amount of continuity of tradition going back millennia, and it's plausible to use such a model for interpreting the myth. Unfortunately, this means that my analysis of the theogony at the beginning, and everything stemming from it, is flawed. So I am going to have to sit with it awhile, feel my way through my doubts, and see where I'm led. Clearly, I am being led somewhere, though, as in hindsight it is obvious that my angel fed me Sallustius in preparation for Plotinus, and Plotinus in preparation for Plutarch!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with something I was wondering about. Diodorus says (in the Library of History I xcvi) that the mysteries of Demeter are just the mysteries of Isis with the names changed, and having read both myths, I was inclined to agree... until I ran across that hymn. See, in Egypt, the soul (Isis) and the imagination (Osiris) were married and the body (Horus) was produced by them, together: not a thing to be reviled, but rather celebrated (though, of course, raised and educated with great care). In Eleusis, however, the soul (Demeter) stood apart and the imagination (Persephone) and body (Hades) were uneasily married, making the body something of an enemy to be fought and ultimately defeated. That difference in emphasis seems to me very significant. It crept into Greek philosophy and, from there, spread all throughout the Western worldview. I wonder whether the shift in the mythic family structure was intentional or accidental. I wonder what good it has done, weighed against what harm it has done...

I suppose apprehending such great mysteries are too much for a man. I will content myself in trying to apprehend my little, lesser mystery: it is enough. May you all have a contemplative Autumnal equinox tomorrow, as Osiris and Kore descend again.

Why do we read books from beginning to end, anyway? The real world doesn't happen linearly, however we like to pretend it does: sometimes, many things happen at once; sometimes, things that happen before only make sense in light of things that happen later; sometimes, it is more useful or entertaining to pause the story for an aside. (You all know how much I adore footnotes by now, yes?) Sometimes I wonder if we read them from beginning to end just so we don't lose our place: a lot of bookmarks get unwieldy pretty quickly.

So, after spending a lot of time with Isis and Osiris, it seems to me that the best way to approach it is not from beginning to end, but rather thematically. Plutarch presents it as a narrative, but as Sallustius tells us, myths never happened but always are; we're not speaking of a sequence of events, but of eternal principles. So I will jumping around the narrative a bit as we dig in, in order to tease apart the various threads in the hope that we might follow them more easily. Today, I will be focusing on the gods presented in the myth. Who are they? What are we to learn from them?

As we embark on exploring this myth, I must hasten to remind you that my goal is not factual correctness: I am not an Egyptologist, don't believe the actual beliefs and worldviews of the ancient Egyptians are accessible to us moderns at all, and don't believe they would much avail us even if they were. The goal for all souls is to develop meaning within their own unique context: when a Zen master asks a student, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" there is no correct answer; the goal is for the student to "hear" the unique sound within their own unique soul. Such a sound, being specific to the hearer alone, cannot be communicated; but if the master is worth his salt, then he will recognize when the student has heard whatever it is.

Because of all this, I am purposefully trying to limit myself to studying the myth itself in isolation, and not draw in the larger context of Egyptian religion. (For example, I am trying to base my understanding of Isis strictly on her characterization within the myth itself, ignoring all of the academic and esoteric discussion of her over the last few centuries.) It is possible—indeed, likely?—that in so limiting myself, I draw further away from the bigger picture and walk down a blind alley which is entirely valid within the context of the myth and entirely invalid within a larger context. That is fine: my project is to try and hear the unique resonance of the myth within myself, not to uncover whatever it may have meant either to the Egyptians or to Plutarch. So please do not treat my assessments as correct or incorrect, for we are trying to journey to that place which is beyond such judgements. I merely hope that my endeavors are pleasing to Divinity and, perhaps, helpful to you in your own seeking.

1. [§12] Heaven [Kronos=Nut] and Earth [Rhea=Geb] continually have intercourse.

The myth begins with a theogony [θεο-γονία, "birth of the gods"], describing several "generations" of gods. There were several theogonies present in Egypt throughout the millennia, and this one comes from Heliopolis [Ἡλιούπολις, "city of the Sun"]. We've dug up a fair amount of information about the city's cult and evidently the geneology goes back some generations further (looking suspiciously like Plotinus's theogony), but Plutarch has elected to begin our myth with Heaven and Earth. Why?

I think what is going on is, just as Plato's Athenian stranger discusses in the Epinomis, that astrology is the beginning of wisdom. Beginning here emphasizes two related points: first, that this is ultimately an astrological myth, describing phenomena which can be seen to occur in the heavens; second, that Heaven and Earth are intimately connected, that the things we see in the heavens aren't merely pretty to look at, but are reflected here on earth. "As above, so below:" we can learn about ourselves through careful observation of the heavens, and just like Ariadne gives Theseus the clew to navigate the labyrinth, the myth exists to provide hints or keys as to how to discover the answers to those Big Questions which haunt and devour men.

We know that by the time they reached Greece, the mysteries had come to be seen as a means of salvation in and of themselves, but I think this is a perversion: the Minotaur wasn't, after all, slain by Ariadne. The mysteries can't save you: they can only teach you how to save yourself, and the means of that salvation will (and must) vary for each individual: Theseus had his sword, Orpheus his lyre, etc. That is to say, just as you need a key to unpack the myth, the unpacked myth is, itself, merely your own personal key to a greater myth: the world itself.

2. The Sun [Helios] sees them and curses Heaven to be unable to give birth during any month of the year.

3. Thoth [Hermes] takes pity on Heaven and takes a seventieth part of the Moon's [Selene's] light and fashions it into five intercalary days which he adds to the year, allowing Heaven to circumvent the curse.

Of course it is silly to think that the Sun is jealous or scandalized by Heaven and Earth's constant intercourse. The Sun's "curse" is that he illuminates the earth at the expense of heaven, which is what allows us to live a material life at all; but, if we wish to go beyond this and pursue the spiritual life and the awareness of the gods, then our work of observing Heaven must circumvent this.

I think the references to the Sun, Moon, and five extra days of the year give us a hint as to how. Because the solar year isn't an even multiple of the lunar month, the lunar calendar rapidly drifts away from solar calendar, making it difficult to make use of the month for timekeeping. This problem can be fixed with intercalation, but how do you know when to insert extra days or months? The simplest solution is to track the heliacal rising and setting of stars: that is, which stars appear on the horizon just before the Sun rises, or just after the Sun sets. (The dates on which various stars rise or set change over time, too, but only very slowly and so are much less of a problem.) So, if you fix the start of your year to a particular star's heliacal rising, simply adding extra days or months at the end of the year until you see it rise again, then your lunar and solar calendars will always stay synchronized. (And this is just what the Egyptians did with Sirius, the "dog star." woof woof)

So the Sun's "curse," the day, is the material life; and the night is the spiritual life. But the spiritual life is too remote, too detached to understand directly: the mechanics of the heavens and the life of the gods are too complex for us to comprehend without some contrivance. We need to use the twilight carefully if we wish to make an approach, and as we shall see this is shown in detailed observation and record-keeping, which is why it is Thoth who breaks the curse.

4. On the first day, Heaven gives birth to Osiris.

6. [Skipping ahead,] on the third day, Set [Typhon] bursts out of Heaven's side.

7. On the fourth day, Heaven gives birth to Isis, wife of Osiris.

8. On the fifth day, Heaven gives birth to Nephthys, wife of Set.

Here, we have our second generation of gods. But who are they? What does it mean for them to be the children of Heaven and Earth?

I think the marriages are the key to unlocking this section. Marriages describe polarizations: the spouses represent the two complementary halves of a greater whole. In the example we've seen already, Heaven and Earth are the two halves of the Cosmos: Heaven contains stars which remain ever the same, while Earth contains bodies which are always changing. So I think Heaven and Earth represent the axis of animation: Heaven is the negative ("female") pole of stasis, while Earth is the positive ("male") pole of animation.

Because Heaven is static, she can't change: her "giving birth" isn't a thing that happens, but rather refers to an ontological relationship. Therefore, we may suppose that the children of Heaven and Earth should be intermediate between the two, possessing some characteristics of eternal stars and other characteristics of mortal bodies. Obviously, these must be the planets, which look like stars but move; but they remain eternal, since their motions are repetitive and orderly, rather than the irreversible, chaotic motions of earthly bodies. These characteristics are enough to sketch a realm in between Heaven and Earth where such beings live: this is Duat, the astral world.

As I have said above, heliacal rising and setting is crucial to identifying the gods. (It is noteworthy that Duat is related to the word duau, "dawn.") We also have the hint that Osiris and Isis, and Set and Nephthys, are married. These both seem to point to Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys being, collectively, the planets Mercury and Venus, since these planets can only be seen at dawn and dusk, and each has a morning star and evening star aspect. Can we identify them more closely?

Osiris is easy: as the firstborn and king of the intermediate world, he must be Venus, the brightest star in the sky; and as the gentle bringer of civilization, he must be associated with beginnings, and thus a morning star. Since he is married to Isis, she must be Venus as an evening star, and this fits with her mythic characterisation of grieving and killing (which are both associated with endings), and also explains why Osiris and Isis are said in the myth to alternate ruling Egypt (since only one of them can be in the sky at a time).

Set and Nephthys, then, are the planet Mercury. Set, being associated with destruction and sterility (as he has no children), must be an evening star; Nephthys, who gives birth and is more beneficent than Set, should be a morning star. Set bursts from his mother's side in imitation of a viper as a metaphor for his treacherous character. It is appropriate for Isis and Set to both be evening stars, as we are told that Set can't cause mischief while Isis is keeping an eye on him, and this occurs when both planets are in the sky in the evening. Similarly, Osiris and Nephthys have liasons, which can occur when both planets are in the sky in the morning.

While we can see these planets in the sky on nearly any clear day, their behavior only becomes clear if we carefully track their positions over years (which is why it is Thoth, above, who "allows" them to "be born"). We see that, while they exist in Duat, they frequently descend as if to visit Earth. We see that Osiris and Isis, and Set and Nephthys, are linked: that their appearance is the same, and that only one is present while the other is absent. We see that Osiris and Isis travel at a measured and stately pace, while Set and Nephthys move much more frenetically.

5. [Skipping back,] on the second day, Heaven gives birth to Horus the Elder, who was born to Isis and Osiris in Nut's womb.

16. [§14. After Osiris dies, grieving Isis wanders in search of his body and] meets Nephthys. Seeing a token of sweet yellow clover belonging to Osiris on her, Isis discovers that Osiris had accidentally slept with her, believing her to be Isis; Nephthys bore a child by him and exposed it in fear of discovery by Set.

17. Isis searches for the baby. Dogs lead her to it and she raises the baby, Anubis, to be her guardian and attendant.

45. [§19. After Osiris is resurrected, he] and Isis conceive Horus the Younger, but he is born premature and lame.

And here, we have our third generation of gods. Given the associations I gave to their parents, I think the case can easily be made that these three are the outer planets, for a few reasons:

• First, as children of beings in Duat, these three must also be present in Duat, and there are exactly three more planets present there.

• Second, when their motions are tracked relative to the Sun (e.g. at heliacal rising or setting), these planets exhibit a very different sort of motion than the inner planets do: rather than meander around exclusively in the morning or evening, they travel in something of a straight line; rising in the morning, shooting across the sky, and setting in the evening. In a sense, they seem much more "purpose-driven" or "single-minded" than the inner planets; so it is reasonable to consider them somehow different or lesser than them, and I think this is done by making them a separate "generation."

• Third, rather than "disappearing" for significant stretches of time, the outer planets are always somewhere in the sky, except for those weeks where they are conjunct the Sun itself.

Identifying which planet is which god is more difficult than it was with their parents, since of the three, only Horus the Elder is given any significant characterization in the myth. Nevertheless, let's hazard it.

Horus the Elder is Jupiter. He is the child of Osiris and Isis because Jupiter is very close in general color and appearance to Venus, being only slightly dimmer. He is born after Osiris and before Set, Isis, and Nephthys because Jupiter is the second-brightest star in the sky. He is conceived "in the womb of Nut" because Isis and Osiris are never together in the sky, so they must have been together when neither is in the sky (e.g. when Venus is conjunct by the Sun). When his motion is tracked over time, he seems to be born, converse with Osiris in the east, and then race across the battlefields of the sky in order to attack Set in the west, which is just what we see him do in the myth.

Anubis (woof woof) is Saturn. He is the child of Nephthys because his appearance is like Mercury, being very swift, grayish or brownish, and dim. We see him fly from Nephthys in the morning (being her child) across the sky to Isis in the evening (being her attendant).

Horus the Younger is Mars. Mars is unusual compared to the other planets: he is red in color, variably bright (he is as bright as Jupiter at best, but the dimmest planet on average), and when viewed relative to the Sun seems to creep very slowly across the sky. We are told nothing of Horus the Younger except that he is lame and sickly, and I think these characteristics of Mars are why.

Let us step back and look at this section of the myth as a whole. What does all this mean to us? Why does identifying the gods in the sky matter? Well, Heaven and Earth are married, and so the great lives of these children of Heaven and Earth are linked to our small lives: their endlessly-repeating dance in Duat is reflected, so far as is possible, in us. The myth is a key, a hint to understanding what we see in the sky, and what we understand from it can tell us something about ourselves. For example, just as the denizens of Duat are the children of two worlds, so too are we; and just as they descend to Earth for a time and then return above to Duat, so too do we...

But, exploring such things in detail will need to wait until next time. In the meanwhile, some comments on this section:

It is not essential to the myth, but I found it surprising that my bilingual edition of Isis and Osiris capitalizes Helios [Ἥλιος], but does not capitalize Selene [σελήνη], as if only the former is a proper noun! (What punks!) This would not be a distinction of Plutarch's, since lower-case letters were only invented some eight centuries after he died, so my complaint must lie with some scribe or scholar. In any case, I've capitalized the Moon in my summary out of respect to she of the long wings and lovely hair...

I have mentioned in the past that I think the Isis and Osiris myth really got around the Mediterranean. I had only been talking about underworld mysteries, but in studying this part of the myth, I think the associations are far more widespread than I had thought:

• Reading this myth, it is very hard not to see a reflection of it in Hesiod's myth of Kronos and Rhea in the Theogony (ll. 453 ff.): after all, Kronos has five children in his belly, which are prevented from coming out of it, and are only finally released through the aid of Metis [Μῆτις, "skill"]. For centuries, the Greek philosophers underwent many contortions to contrive how Kronos, most wise king of the Golden Age, could be so wretched as to eat his own children (eventually culminating in Plotinus' self-contemplating Intellect); how ironic if it were all merely because, when the Egyptian myth reached Greece, the nearest local analog to Nut was masculine?

• Nobody knows where the name "Apollo" comes from. Now, I'm no linguist, but I conjecture that Apollo is none other than Heru-ur, Horus the Elder, transliterated through at least a couple Mediterranean languages. Not only do they share the myth of slaying a serpent who was chasing a fertility goddess, but both gods are the special shepherd of humanity (Horus taking over this role from Osiris), and both are associated with similar domains (like war, protection, and healing).

• Similarly, nobody knows where the name "Hephaistos" comes from, but I conjecture that Hephaistos is none other than Heru-pa-khered, Horus the Younger, transliterated through at least a couple Mediterranean languages. (Certainly, "Hephaistos" is no worse a transliteration than "Harpokrates!") Horus is given very little characterization in the myth; but both gods are born lame; and determined, cold Mars is certainly the appropriate planet for all-work-and-no-play Hephaistos...

I woke up this morning with the myth of Osiris ringing in my head, trying to correlate it with other myths I've read. After breakfast, my daughters and I were out looking at various garage sales in town; one of them had a complete children's encyclopedia set, and since we home-school our daughters, I thought it might be worth investigating. I picked up and opened a volume at random, and the page fell open to a mosaic of Dionysus, riding on his leopard. Funny, I thought, since Dionysus is Osiris, and I was just thinking about that... I then picked up a second volume and opened it at random, and the page fell open to the entry for Plutarch (who wrote Isis and Osiris and whose name I was very surprised to see in a children's encyclopedia).

Well!

"They have a saying in Chicago, 'Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; the third time, it's enemy action.'" I haven't managed to make headway for a while on Proclus, and it seems that my angel would like me to try something else... so let's do it!

I have hypothesized that the Isis and Osiris myth is the original mystery teaching, and that most (all?) of the other ancient mystery schools of which we are aware are either degenerations or imitations of it.

This is an obviously (and deliberately) grandiose claim which is quite literally unproveable, since any evidence we possess for or against it is scanty, existing as it does in the twilight realm of early recorded history, where records exist but are fragmented and sparse. However, it is at least plausible, for a few reasons:

• First, the earliest references we have to the myth are from the enigmatic Pyramid Texts, the earliest of which date to the fifth dynasty. We don't really know when this was, but even in the worst case (c. 2400 BC) would give us centuries before any foreign myths we have evidence for, for example the Inana and Dumuzid myth (Sumer, c. 2100 BC), the Gilgamesh and Enkidu myth (Sumer, c. 2100 BC), the Theseus and the Minotaur myth (Crete, c. mid-1000s BC?), and the Attis and Cybele myth (Asia Minor, c. 1250 BC).

• Second, foreign sources readily acknowledge their debt to Egypt. (I think, here, of Herodotus' Histories, Plato's Timaeus, and Pseudo-Lucian's On the Syrian Goddess.)

• Third, while it is foolish to assume Egypt was unified under a single theology at all, let alone for its entire millennia-long history, the Isis and Osiris myth demonstrates a remarkable durability (attestations exist over the span of millennia) and a remarkable degree of influence and popularity (exoteric celebrations of the myth persisted all over Egypt and even outside it, and it is attested more widely, and in a wider range of styles, than all other myths).

• Fourth, the myth seems to have penetrated very far afield at a very early time. Many Greek myths, for example, are obvious degeneracies of different parts of the Isis and Osiris myth mapped onto local deities, and date as far back as Hesiod, the very beginning of Greek mythography.

Because of all this, it seems to me that the Isis and Osiris myth is foundational to Western thought. Consider that modern materialism is a degeneration of Christianity; Christianity is a repurposing of Greek philosophy; Greek philosophy is a fusion of Mesopotamian and Egyptian mystery teachings (through various intermediaries); and, of course, the Mesopotamian mystery teachings themselves are a reimagining of those of Egypt. It is difficult not to see Hesiod's Ages of Man in all this: we were once much wiser, but we get more stupid and sickly as time goes on, and in another couple thousand years, it seems a wonder that we will be able to survive at all.

Nonetheless, we live in the age we do by the hand of Providence, and we are here to learn the lessons appropriate to our age. (At any rate, we've already survived a couple thousand years longer than Hesiod expected us to!) As Matsuo Basho tells us,

古人の跡を求めず、
古人の求めたるの所を求めよ。

Seek not the paths of the ancients—
Seek that which the ancients sought.

We cannot recover the ancient wisdom and would not be able to understand it even if we did; but this is irrelevant: we develop and grow by seeking, not by understanding. The seeking is enough: Heaven watches over Her own.

With all this in mind, I am going to attempt a deep dive into the Isis and Osiris myth. (I've read it before, of course, but have not spent much energy contemplating it.) Such a deep dive is necessarily fraught: our Egyptian sources for the myth are cryptic and fragmentary (it was a secret teaching reserved for the elite, after all), and our Greek sources are quite late and similarly fragmentary: Herodotus keeps mum in keeping with his oaths (as was an initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries, and considered the Isaic mysteries to be "close enough" that speaking of them would be impious) and Diodorus Siculus jumps around like a grasshopper, interspersing parts of the myth with Egyptian history and unrelated anecdotes, and so his recording is both fragmentary and confused. The only comprehensive source we have for the myth is Plutarch, and while he was among the greatest sages of his time, he was not an initiate of the Isaic mysteries (or he would not have wrote about them), he was a Platonist and tended to read Plato into everything, he omits details from the myth that he perceives as superfluous, and he was writing at least two-and-a-half millennia after the fact. I will be following his version of the myth, but no matter what, we will be required to fill in gaps, ourselves.

What is worse, I myself am no interpreter of mysteries: I am a dummy compared to Plutarch, to say nothing of the Egyptian sages, and am—to my torment—befitting of the sorry age in which I live. So while I will attempt to grapple with the myth, be you certain that my interpretations are those of the Peristyle: I cannot, at present, hope to penetrate into the Naos. You will not find the True Ancient Wisdom here, only conjecture. I can barely read even basic Greek, and I have not studied Ancient Egypt in any depth: my only qualification is that peculiar badge, the love of Divinity, which renders one unfit to live among men. I can only hope that by seeking I may eventually attain, and that my attempts to explore the ancient wisdom may please those Divinities which I love.

I seem to remember a story—perhaps in one of Alan Watts's books?—in which some English poet or other was asked, "What is heaven?" He got up from his chair, crossed to the window, opened the curtain, and gestured to the children playing in the field across the street. "That," he said, "that is heaven." I wish I could locate the reference today.

The Bhagavad Gita describes three paths ("yogas") to divinity: the path of action, the path of knowledge, and the path of devotion. These three paths don't seem to be described in classical sources, but it seems to me that the myth of Discordia and Her golden apple does an adequate job of mythologizing it: Discordia throws the apple between the three goddesses (symbolizing the split nature of our appetition, here in the sensible world) and Jove (symbol of divine law) delegates adjudication to Paris (who represents the human soul). Which goddess does he give the apple to?

Juno, here, represents power and action, and Her path to divinity is to live one's entire life as a form of prayer or offering. I think this is visible in her mythic champion Hercules and the path is classically exemplified by Diogenes.

Minerva, here, represents reason and knowledge, and Her path to divinity is the training of the mind to go beyond material concerns. Given that Athens was especially dedicated to Her, this is the path most heavily emphasized in classical times, and we have our pick of exemplars, from Pythagoras to Plato to Proclus.

Venus, here, represents love and beauty, and Her path to divinity is explicit devotion or love to some divinity. The Greeks generally and the philosophers specifically were pretty negative on Venus—as seen in the myth, no good comes of Paris giving the apple to Her—and yet I still think we see this path exemplified by Plotinus and Porphyry (though perhaps it's fairer to say of those two that they divided the apple between Venus and Minerva).

Socrates makes an interesting case study, here as elsewhere, as it seems to me that he balanced all three paths in roughly equal measure.

I've noted before how these three relate to Plato's faculties of the soul. While I think that model has its issues, it's certainly natural to assume that souls tend towards the path that plays to its specific strengths.

It occurs to me that the judgement of Paris can be used as an analogy for Plato's tripartite nature of the soul: Hera is power, Athena is reason, Aphrodite is desire. Eris presents the false choice of any one over the other. Zeus demonstrates just handling of the situation and Paris its unjust handling, with the Epic Cycle showing its result.