The djed is an ancient Egyptian symbol for stability which features prominently in Egyptian art and architecture throughout the country’s history. `Stability’ should be understood to mean not only a firm footing but immutability and permanence. The symbol is a column with a broad base which narrows as it rises to a capital and is crossed by four parallel lines. The column and the lines are sometimes brightly painted and other times monochrome. The djed first appears in the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000-3150 BCE) and continues through the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BCE), the last dynasty to rule Egypt before it became a province of the Roman Empire.

The god Ptah carried a sceptre which combined the djed and the Ankh (symbol of life) and is referenced as “The Noble Djed” in ancient inscriptions. The Djed Pillar Festival was held annually at which an actual djed pillar was built and raised by the local priesthood on the first day of the harvest season. Raising the pillar may have originally symbolized the grains rising from the earth but, in time, came to represent the god Osiris returning from the dead.

With the rise of the cult of Osiris, the djed came to be firmly associated with him and, especially, with the tree of Byblos which enclosed him and the pillar made from that tree. The djed also symbolized the backbone of Osiris in that, just as Osiris rose from the dead, the deceased would rise from their body after death. In the same way that the human backbone allowed one to sit up and stand and walk, the spiritual image of Osiris’ backbone would encourage the soul to rise up from the body and move toward the afterlife.

The story of Osiris was one of the most popular in ancient Egypt, especially in the period of the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE). The story details the death of the god, his resurrection by his wife Isis, and descent to the underworld to reign as Lord of the Dead.

Initiates of the Egyptian Mysteries were sometimes called scarabs; again, lions and panthers. The scarab was the emissary of the sun, symbolizing light, truth, and regeneration. Stone scarabs, called heart scarabs, about three inches long, were placed in the heart cavity of the dead when that organ was removed to be embalmed separately as part of the process of mummifying. Some maintain that the stone beetles were merely wrapped in the winding cloths at the time of preparing the body for eternal preservation. The following passage concerning this appears in the great Egyptian book of initiation, The Book of the Dead: “And behold, thou shalt make a scarab of green stone, which shalt be placed in the breast of a man, and it shall perform for him, ‘the opening of the mouth.'” The funeral rites of many nations bear a striking resemblance to the initiatory ceremonies of their Mysteries.

From the writings of Anana, 1320 B. C.:–“To the Egyptians the Scarabaeus beetle is no god, but an emblem of the Creator, because it rolls a ball of mud between its feet and sets therein its eggs to hatch, as the Creator rolls the world around, thereby causing it to produce life.”

Ra, the god of the sun, had three important aspects. As the Creator of the universe he was symbolized by the head of a scarab and was called Khepera, which signified the resurrection of the soul and a new life at the end of the mortal span. The mummy cases of the Egyptian dead were nearly always ornamented with scarabs. Usually one of these beetles, with outspread wings, was painted on the mummy case directly over the breast of the dead. The finding of such great numbers of small stone scarabs indicates that they were a favorite article of adornment among the Egyptians. Because of its relationship to the sun, the scarab symbolized the divine part of man’s nature. The fact that its beautiful wings were concealed under its glossy shell typified the winged soul of man hidden within its earthly sheath. The Egyptian soldiers were given the scarab as their special symbol because the ancients believed that these creatures were all of the male sex and consequently appropriate emblems of virility, strength, and courage.

The Book of the Dead suggests that Sobeks, the crocodile God’s closeness to Horus can be traced back to his participation in the birth of this god. Sobek was responsible for calling Isis and Nephthys to aid in the protection of the dead. He was the God from the Dark Water. Sobek may have been an early fertility god or associated with death and burial.

He was at once an aggressive and dangerous god, but also linked to procreation and vegetative fertility, the latter by being obviously linked to the Nile and its fertile green banks and fields. Partly for this reason, Sobek is often linked to the colour green. Sobek is said to be the son of Neith or Nuit, another very ancient goddess deity.

The kings and queens of the 13th dynasty particularly favored the cult of Sobek, and kings and queens alike would incorporate the name of the god in their titles, for example Sobek-hotep (Sobek is merciful or satisfied). In this connection, Sobek was closely related to the Royal god Horus and there are a number of depictions of Sobek as a crocodile with the head of a falcon adorned with the double crown.

According to ancient visitor, Strabo, writing in the 1st century BCE records his visit to the shrine of Sobek accompanied by the then Roman Prefect of Egypt. He visited the Temple that housed the sacred crocodile. As with all Sobek temples there was a small pool where the living Sobek could lie at leisure. When visitors arrived for a godly consultation, they would be required to call upon his name, “Suchos! Suchos!”. If the animal responded and turned towards the visitor this was considered a fairly good sign.

The art of healing was originally one of the secret sciences of priestcraft, and the mystery of its source is obscured by the same veil which hides the genesis of religious belief. All higher forms of knowledge were originally in the possession of the sacerdotal castes. The temple was the cradle of civilization. The priests, exercising their divine prerogative, made the laws and enforced them; appointed the rulers and controlled than; ministered to the needs of the living, and guided the destinies of the dead. All branches of learning were monopolized by the priesthood, who admitted into their ranks only those intellectually and morally qualified to perpetuate their arcanum. The following quotation from Plato’s Statesman is apropos of the subject: ” In Egypt, the King himself is not allowed to reign, unless he has priestly powers; and if he should be one of another class, and have obtained the throne by violence, he must get enrolled in the priestcraft.”

Candidates aspiring to membership in the religious orders underwent severe tests to prove their worthiness. These ordeals were called initiations. Those who passed them successfully were welcomed as brothers by the priests and were instructed in the secret teachings. Among the ancients, philosophy, science, and religion were never considered as separate units: each was regarded as an integral part of the whole. Philosophy was scientific and religious; science was philosophical and religious and religion was philosophic and scientific. Perfect wisdom was considered unattainable save as the result of harmonizing all three of these expressions of mental and moral activity.

While modern physicians accredited Hippocrates with being the father of medicine, the ancient therapeutæ ascribed to the immortal Hermes the distinction of being the founder of the art of healing. Clemens Alexandrinus, in describing the books purported to be from the stylus of Hermes, divided the sacred writings into six general classifications, one of which, the Pastophorus, was devoted to the science of medicine. The Smaragdine, or Emerald Tablet found in the valley of Ebron and generally credited to Hermes, is in reality a chemical formula of a high and secret order.

Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician, during the fifth century before Christ, dissociated the healing art from the other sciences of the temple and thereby established a precedent for separateness. One of the consequences is the present widespread crass scientific materialism. The ancients realized the interdependence of the sciences. The modern people do not; and as a result, incomplete systems of learning are attempting to maintain isolated individualism. The obstacles which confront present-day scientific research are largely the result of prejudicial limitations imposed by those who are unwilling to accept that which transcends the concrete perceptions of the five primary human senses.

ALCHEMY, the secret art of the land of Khem, is one of the two oldest sciences known to the world. The other is astrology. The beginnings of both extend back into the obscurity of prehistoric times.

The earthly body of alchemy is chemistry, for chemists do not realize that half of The Book of Torah is forever concealed behind the veil of Isis (see the Tarot), and that so long as they study only material elements they can at best discover but half of the mystery. Astrology has crystallized into astronomy, whose votaries ridicule the dreams of ancient seers and sages, deriding their symbols as meaningless products of superstition. Nevertheless, the intelligentsia of the modern world can never pass behind the veil which divides the seen from the unseen except in the way appointed–the Mysteries.

What is life? What is intelligence? What is force? These are the problems to the solution of which the ancients consecrated their temples of learning. Who shall say that they did not answer those questions? Who would recognize the answers if given? Is it possible that under the symbols of alchemy and astrology lies concealed a wisdom so abstruse that the mind of this race is not qualified to conceive its principles?

The Chaldeans, Phœnicians, and Babylonians were familiar with the principles of alchemy, as were many early Oriental races. It was practiced in Greece and Rome; it was the master science of the Egyptians. Khem was an ancient name for the land of Egypt; and both the words alchemy and chemistry are a perpetual reminder of the priority of Egypt’s scientific knowledge. According to the fragmentary writings of those early peoples, alchemy was to them no speculative art. They implicitly believed in the multiplication of metals; and in the face of their reiterations both the scholar and the materialist should be more kindly in their consideration of alchemical theorems. Evolutionists trace the unfoldment of the arts and sciences up through the growing intelligence of the prehistoric man, while others, of a transcendental point of view, like to consider them as being direct revelations from God.

Many interesting solutions to the riddle of alchemy’s origin have been advanced. One is that alchemy was revealed to man by the mysterious Egyptian demigod Hermes Trismegistus. This sublime figure, looming through the mists of time and bearing in his hand the immortal Emerald, is credited by the Egyptians as being the author of all the arts and sciences. In honor of him all scientific knowledge was gathered under the general title of The Hermetic Arts. When the body of Hermes was interred in the Valley of Ebron (or Hebron), the divine Emerald was buried with it. Many centuries afterward the Emerald was discovered–according to one version, by an Arabian initiate; according to another, by Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. By means of the power of this Emerald, upon which were the mysterious inscriptions of the Thrice Great Hermes–thirteen sentences in all–Alexander conquered all the then known world. Not having conquered himself, however, he ultimately failed. Regardless of his glory and power, the prophecies of the talking trees were fulfilled, and Alexander was cut down in the midst of his triumph. (There are persistent rumors to the effect that Alexander was an initiate of high order who failed because of his inability to withstand the temptations of power.)

The Story of Osiris

In the beginning of time, shortly after creation, the gods Osiris, Isis, Set, Nepthys, and Horus were born of the union between Geb (earth) and Nut (sky). Osiris, as the eldest, was given reign of the earth and took his sister Isis as his wife and queen. Set grew jealous of Osiris’ success and trapped him in a coffin which he then threw into the Nile River. The coffin floated to the Phoenician city of Byblos where it became lodged in a tamarisk tree by the shore. The tree quickly grew around and enclosed the coffin within it. The king and queen of Byblos noticed the tree and that it gave forth a sweet scent and so had it cut down and brought to their palace to decorate the court as a central pillar.

Isis, in the meantime, had gone searching for her missing husband and finally arrived at the court of Byblos. Disguised as an older woman, she ingratiate herself to the royal family by teaching the handmaidens how to plait their hair and became nursemaid to the young princes. Isis was particularly fond of the younger child, Dictys, and tried to make him immortal by burning away his mortal part in a flame. When the queen found her doing this one night she became upset and Isis threw off her disguise to reveal herself as a goddess. The royal couple begged her mercy for their affrontery and promised her anything she wanted; Isis claimed the tree which held her husband.

She freed Osiris’ body from the tree and brought him back to Egypt to revive him but, while she was out gathering the necessary herbs, Set found the body, cut it into pieces, and scattered it across the land. When Isis found her husband had been dismembered she instantly set about collecting his remains with the help of her sister Nepthys. They found all his body parts, except for his penis which had been eaten by a fish, and he was brought back to life. Isis transformed herself into a kite and summoned the seed from Osiris’ body by flying around him, drawing the seed into herself and becoming pregnant with a son, Horus. Osiris, since he was not complete, could no longer rule the living and descended to the underworld as Lord of the Dead. Horus grew to maturity and then challenged Set for rule, defeating him and restoring order to the land. The myth illustrated the importance of Ma’at (harmony) and the triumph of order over chaos.

The Osiris myth, with its emphasis on resurrection, immortality, and order from chaos, expressed some of the most highly valued concepts in Egyptian culture and Osiris became one of the most often invoked gods. His wife, Isis, rose to even greater prominence to eventually become the only deity in Egypt worshipped by everyone regardless of their location or duty to other gods. Isis was associated with the symbol of the tiet (also tjet, the `knot’) representing fertility and was often paired with the djed, especially on Egyptian coffins. Osiris is often represented with the lower par, of his body enclosed in a mummy case or wrapped about with funeral bandages. Man’s spirit consists of three distinct parts, only one of which incarnates in physical form. The human body was considered to be a tomb or sepulcher of this incarnating spirit. Therefore Osiris, a symbol of the incarnating ego, was represented with the lower half of his body mummified to indicate that he was the living spirit of man enclosed within the material form symbolized by the mummy case.

There is a romance between the active principle of God and the passive principle of Nature. From the union of these two principles is produced the rational creation. Man is a composite creature. From his Father (the active principle) he inherits his Divine Spirit, the fire of aspiration–that immortal part of himself which rises triumphant from the broken clay of mortality: that part which remains after the natural organisms have disintegrated or have been regenerated. From his Mother (the passive principle) he inherits his body–that part over which the laws of Nature have control: his humanity, his mortal personality, his appetites, his feelings, and his emotions. The Egyptians also believed that Osiris was the river Nile and that Isis (his sister-wife) was the contiguous land, which, when inundated by the river, bore fruit and harvest. The murky water of the Nile were believed to account for the blackness of Osiris, who was generally symbolized as being of ebony hue.

Isis

Isis is the ancient Egyptian goddess of magic, fertility and motherhood, and death, healing and rebirth. She is the first daughter of Geb (the god of the Earth) and Nut (the goddess of the sky) born on the first day of the first years of creation. She is the sister of Osiris, who later became her husband, as well as Set and Nephthys. She bore a son by Osiris in the person of Horus. In Egyptian, she was known as Auset, Aset or Eset, words that were often associated with the word throne.

She became the most powerful of all the gods and goddesses in ancient Egypt – a throne originally held by the Sun god, Ra. Ra, depicted as the uncaring god, caused great suffering to the people during his reign. Aware of this, Isis – being the people’s goddess who helped her people in many ways, devised a plan to usurp the throne. She mixed some of Ra’s saliva with mud and created a very poisonous snake. The snake bit Ra that caused him great pain and suffering. Isis offered a cure for his predicament to which Ra eventually agreed. Isis told him that she would need his true name to perform the ritual. Reluctant at first, Ra gave in and as the goddess was performing her magic, she uttered his true name. Ra was healed yet the power over life and death was transferred to the goddess making her the most powerful of them all. This great power was used to the benefit of the people.

An inscription at the shrine of Isis at Sais where the Goddess tells us that:

“I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.”

The veil of Isis so indicated refers to the raising or opening of the veil of the material world, thus obtaining a state of true spiritual awareness concerning the mysteries of nature.

In the Book of the Dead, Isis was described as She who gives birth to heaven and earth, knows the orphan, knows the widow, seeks justice for the poor, and shelter for the weak.

Isis is the image or representative of the Great Works of the wise men: the Philosopher’s Stone, the Elixir of Life, and the Universal Medicine.

The World Virgin is sometimes shown standing between two great pillars–Jachin and Boaz of Freemasonry–symbolizing the fact that Nature attains productivity by means of polarity. As wisdom personified, Isis stands between the pillars of opposites, demonstrating that understanding is always found at the point of equilibrium and that truth is often crucified between two thieves of apparent contradiction.

Isis became the most important and most powerful deity of the Egyptian pantheon because of her magical skills. Magic is central to the entire mythology of Isis, arguably more so than any other Egyptian deity.

Isis is sometimes symbolized by the head of a cow; occasionally the entire animal is her symbol. Occasionally Isis is represented as a bird. She often carries in one hand the crux ansata, the symbol of eternal life, and in the other the flowered scepter, symbolic of her authority.

Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, the founder of Egyptian learning, the Wise Man of the ancient world, gave to the priests and philosophers of antiquity the secrets which have been preserved to this day in myth and legend. These allegories and emblematic figures conceal the secret formulæ for spiritual, mental, moral, and physical regeneration commonly known as the Mystic Chemistry of the Soul (alchemy). These sublime truths were communicated to the initiates of the Mystery Schools, but were concealed from the profane. The latter, unable to understand the abstract philosophical tenets, worshiped the concrete sculptured idols which were emblematic of these secret truths. The wisdom and secrecy of Egypt are epitomized in the Sphinx, which has preserved its secret from the seekers of a hundred generations. The mysteries of Hermeticism, the great spiritual truths hidden from the world by the ignorance of the world, and the keys of the secret doctrines of the ancient philosophers, are all symbolized by the Virgin Isis. Veiled from head to foot, she reveals her wisdom only to the tried and initiated few who have earned the right to enter her sacred presence, tear from the veiled figure of Nature its shroud of obscurity, and stand face to face with the Divine Reality.

Isis was venerated first in Egypt – the only goddess worshiped by all Egyptians alike, and whose influence was so widespread that she had become completely syncretic with the Greek goddess Demeter. After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, and the Hellenization of the Egyptian culture initiated by Ptolemy I Soter, Isis eventually became known as Queen of Heaven.

Following the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great the worship of Isis spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Tacitus writes that after Julius Caesar’s assassination, a temple in honour of Isis had been decreed; Augustus suspended this, and tried to turn Romans back to the Roman deities who were closely associated with the state. Eventually the Roman emperor Caligula abandoned the Augustan wariness toward what was described as oriental cults, and it was in his reign that the Isiac festival of the Navigium Isidis was established in Rome.

Roman perspectives on cults were syncretic, seeing in new deities, merely local aspects of a familiar one. For many Romans, Egyptian Isis was an aspect of Phrygian Cybele, whose orgiastic rites were long-naturalized at Rome, indeed, she was known as Isis of Ten Thousand Names. Among these names of Roman Isis, Queen of Heaven is outstanding for its long and continuous history. Herodotus identified Isis with the Greek and Roman goddess of agriculture, Demeter and Ceres.

In later years, Isis also had temples throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. An alabaster statue of Isis from the 3rd century BCE, found in Ohrid, in the Republic of Macedonia, is depicted on the obverse of the Macedonian 10 dinars banknote, issued in 1996. The male first name “Isidore”means in Greek “gift of Isis” (similar to “Theodore”, “God’s gift”). The name, which became common in Roman times, survived the suppression of the Isis worship and remains popular up to the present Ð being among others the name of several Christian saints. The Isis cult in Rome was a template for the Christian Madonna Cult.

The Druids of Britain and Gaul had a deep knowledge concerning the mysteries of Isis and worshiped her under the symbol of the moon. Godfrey Higgins considers it a mistake to regard Isis as synonymous with the moon. The moon was chosen for Isis because of its dominion over water. The Druids considered the sun to be the father and the moon is the mother of all things. By means of these symbols they worshiped Universal Nature.

The figure of Isis is sometimes used to represent the occult and magical arts, such as necromancy, invocation, sorcery, and thaumaturgy. In one of the myths concerning her, Isis is said to have conjured the invincible God of Eternities, Ra, to tell her his secret and sacred name, which he did. This name is equivalent to the Lost Word of Masonry. By means of this Word, a magician can demand obedience from the invisible and superior deities. The priests of Isis became adepts in the use of the unseen forces of Nature. They understood hypnotism, mesmerism, and similar practices long before the modern world dreamed of their existence.

Plutarch describes the requisites of a follower of Isis in this manner: “For as ’tis not the length of the beard, or the coarseness of the habit which makes a philosopher, so neither will those frequent shavings, or the mere wearing [of] a linen vestment constitute a votary of Isis; but he alone is a true servant or follower of this Goddess, who after he has heard, and been made acquainted in a proper manner with the history of the actions of these Gods, searches into the hidden truths which he concealed under them, and examines the whole by the dictates of reason and philosophy.”

During the Middle Ages the troubadours of Central Europe preserved in song the legends of this Egyptian goddess. They composed sonnets to the most beautiful woman in the world. Though few ever discovered her identity, she was Sophia, the Virgin of Wisdom, whom all the philosophers of the world have wooed. Isis represents the mystery of motherhood, which the ancients recognized as the most apparent proof of Nature’s omniscient wisdom and God’s overshadowing power. To the modern seeker she is the epitome of the Great Unknown, and only those who unveil her will be able to solve the mysteries of life, death, generation, and regeneration.

During the formative centuries of Christianity, the religion of Isis drew converts from every corner of the Roman Empire. In Italy itself, Egyptian religion was an important force. At Pompeii, archaeological evidence reveals that the cult of Isis was prominent. In Rome, temples were built and obelisks erected in her honor. In Greece, traditional centres of worship in Delos, Delphi, Eleusis and Athens were taken over by followers of Isis, and this occurred in northern Greece as well. Harbors of Isis were to be found on the Arabian Sea and the Black Sea. Inscriptions show followers in Gaul, Spain, Pannonia, Germany, Arabia, Asia Minor, Portugal and many shrines even in Britain.