Salvete
I came across this information on Isis and Horus and I want to know to what degree this info is genuine. I know that there are some neopagan elements to be found within the text.
ISIS
Egyptian Moon Goddess, Great Mother and Giver of Life. With Osiris,
Isis and Horus (the divine child) made up a Holy Trinity. She is the
Goddess of marriage, motherhood, fertility, magick, healing,
reincarnation and divination, to name a few. Isis is the patroness of
priestesses.
One myth has Isis poisoning the Sun God Ra, offering to save him only
if he would reveal his secret name. At last, at the brink of
destruction, Ra gives Isis his heart, with the secret name it held,
and his two eyes (the Sun and the
Moon).
Isis quells the poison and ends up with Ra's supreme power. In time
the great Eye was passed along to her son Horus. Proclus mentions a
statue of her which bore the inscription "I am that which is, has
been and shall be. My veil no one has lifted." Hence, to lift the
veil of Isis is to pierce the heart of a great mystery. Isis, the Egyptian goddess of rebirth remains one of the most
familiar images of empowered and utter femininity. The goddess Isis
was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, the goddess
of the Overarching Sky. Isis was born on the first day between the
first years of creation, and was adored by her human followers.
Unlike the other Egyptian goddesses, the goddess Isis spent time
among her people, teaching women how to grind corn and make bread,
spin flax and weave cloth, and how to tame men enough to live with
them (an art form on which many of us would welcome a refresher
course!) Isis taught her people the skills of reading and agriculture
and was worshipped as the goddess of medicine and wisdom.
More than any other of the ancient Egyptian goddesses, Isis embodied
the characteristics of all the lesser goddesses that preceded her.
Isis became the model on which future generations of female dieties
in other cultures were to be based. As the personification of
the "complete female", Isis was called "The One Who Is All", Isis
Panthea ("Isis the All Goddess"), and the "Lady of Ten Thousand
Names".
The goddess Isis, a moon goddess, gave birth to Horus, the god of the
sun. Together, Isis and Horus created and sustained all life and were
the saviors of their people.
Isis became the most powerful of the gods and goddesses in the
ancient world. Ra, the God of the Sun, originally had the greatest
power. But Ra was uncaring, and the people of the world suffered
greatly during his reign.
The goddess Isis tricked him by mixing some of his saliva with mud to
create a poisonous snake that bit him, causing him great suffering
which she then offered to cure. He eventually agreed.
Isis informed Ra that, for the cure to work, she would have to speak
his secret name (which was the source of his power over life and
death). Reluctantly, he whispered it to her.
When Isis uttered his secret name while performing her magic, Ra was
healed. But the goddess Isis then possessed his powers of life and
death, and quickly became the most powerful of the Egyptian gods and
goddesses, using her great powers to the benefit of the people.
Isis was called the Mother of Life, but she was also known as the
Crone of Death. Her immense powers earned her the titles of "The
Giver of Life" and "Goddess of Magic". Her best known story
illustrates why she is simultaneously known as a creation goddess and
a goddess of destruction.
Isis was the Goddess of the Earth in ancient Egypt and loved her
brother Osiris. When they married, Osiris became the first King of
Earth. Their brother Set, immensely jealous of their powers,
murdered Osiris so he could usurp the throne.
Set did this by tricking Osiris into stepping into a beautiful box
made of cedar, ebony and ivory that he had ordered built to fit only
Osiris. Set then sealed it up to become a coffin and threw it into
the river. The river carried the box out to sea; it washed up in
another country, resting in the upper boughs of a tamarisk tree when
the waters receded. As time passed, the branches covered the box,
encapsulating the god in his coffin in the trunk of the tree.
In a state of inconsolable grief, Isis tore her robes to shreds and
cut off her beautiful black hair. When she finally regained her
emotional balance, Isis set out to search for the body of her beloved
Osiris so that she might bury him properly.
The search took Isis to Phoenicia where she met Queen Astarte.
Astarte didn't recognized the goddess and hired her as a nursemaid to
the infant prince.
Fond of the young boy, Isis decided to bestow immortality on him. As
she was holding the royal infant over the fire as part of the ritual,
the Queen entered the room. Seeing her son smoldering in the middle
of the fire, Astarte instinctively (but naively) grabbed the child
out of the flames, undoing the magic of Isis that would have made her
son a god.
When the Queen demanded an explanation, Isis revealed her identity
and told Astarte of her quest to recover her husband's body. As she
listened to the story, Astarte realized that the body was hidden in
the fragrant tree in the center of the palace and told Isis where to
find it.
Sheltering his broken body in her arms, the goddess Isis carried the
body of Osiris back to Egypt for proper burial. There she hid it in
the swamps on the delta of the Nile river.
Unfortunately, Set came across the box one night when he was out
hunting. Infuriated by this turn of events and determined not to be
outdone, he murdered Osiris once again . . . this time hacking his
body into 14 pieces and throwing them in different directions knowing
that they would be eaten by the crocodiles.
The goddess Isis searched and searched, accompanied by seven
scorpions who assisted and protected her. Each time she found new
pieces she rejoined them to re-form his body.
But Isis could only recover thirteen of the pieces. The fourteenth,
his penis, had been swallowed by a crab, so she fashioned one from
gold and wax. Then inventing the rites of embalming, and speaking
some words of magic, Isis brought her husband back to life.
Magically, Isis then conceived a child with Osiris, and gave birth to
Horus, who later became the Sun God. Assured that having the infant
would now relieve Isis' grief, Osiris was free to descend to become
the King of the Underworld, ruling over the dead and the sleeping.
His spirit, however, frequently returned to be with Isis and the
young Horus who both remained under his watchful and loving eye.
There are many other variations of this myth . . . in some Isis found
the body of Osiris in Byblos, fashioned his penis out of clay. In
others the goddess consumed the dismembered parts she found and
brought Osiris back to life, reincarnating him as her son Horus.
In one of the most beautiful renditions, Isis turns into a
sparrowhawk and hovers over the body of Osiris, fanning life back
into him with her long wings.
Regardless of the differences, each version speaks of the power over
life and death that the goddess Isis symbolizes. . . the deep
mysteries of the feminine ability to create and to bring life from
that which is lifeless.
To this day the celebration of the flooding of the Nile each year is
called "The Night of the Drop" by Muslims. . . for it used to be
named "The Night of the Tear-Drop" a remembrance of the extent of the
Isis' lamentation of the death of Osiris, her tears so plentiful they
caused the Nile to overflow.
The Egyptian goddess Isis played an important role in the
development of modern religions, although her influence has been
largely forgotten. She was worshipped throughout the Greco-Roman
world. During the fourth century when Christianity was making its
foothold in the Roman Empire, her worshippers founded the first
Madonna cults in order to keep her influence alive. Some early
Christians even called themselves Pastophori, meaning the shepherds
or servants of Isis. . . which may be where the word "pastors"
originated. The influence of Isis is still seen in the Christian
ikons of the faithful wife and loving mother.
Indeed, the ancient images of Isis nursing the infant Horus inspired
the style of portraits of mother and child for centuries, including
those of the "Madonna and Child" found in religious art.
The power of the goddess Isis in the "public arena" was also
profound. Her role as a guide to the Underworld, was often portrayed
with winged arms outstretched in a protective position. The image of
the wings of Isis was incorporated into the Egyptian throne on which
the pharaohs would sit, the wings of Isis protecting them.
The ancient Egyptian goddess Isis has many gifts to share with modern
women. Isis embodies the strengths of the feminine, the capacity to
feel deeply about relationships, the act of creation, and the source
of sustenance and protection.
At times Isis could be a clever trickster empowered by her feminine
wiles rather than her logic or brute strength, but it is also the
goddess Isis who shows us how we can use our personal gifts to create
the life we desire rather than simply opposing that which we do not
like.
The myths of Isis and Osiris caution us about the need for occasional
renewal and reconnection in our relationships. Isis also reminds us
to acknowledge and accept the depths of our emotions.
~author unknown
valete optime
Quintus