The Veil of Isis: the Evolution of an Archetype Hidden in Plain Sight Steven Armstrong, M.A., M.A

The Veil of Isis: The Evolution of an Archetype Hidden in Plain Sight Steven Armstrong, M.A., M.A. Hum., F.R.C.

he image of the Veil of Isis has persisted Bas-relief sculpture of the Roman goddess through the centuries from ancient Minerva (Athena) re- TEgyptian Saïs—where Athena and covered from the ruins Isis were identified as one—to the present day. of Herculaneum (Area Originally, a symbol of wisdom, initiation, Sacra Suburbana), ca. first century BCE—first and the Mysteries, it has successively become century CE. Collection an image of protection, of the secrets of nature, of the Herculaneum of hidden history and truths to be revealed. In Deposito Archeologico. Photo by Ken Thomas/ each historical context the Veil is an invitation Wikimedia Commons. to delve further into the truths which have been hidden in plain sight from the eyes of those who war, but more will not see. importantly, since her name can mean The origins of the Veil of Isis are lost in “water,” she was identified with the primordial the mists of time, however, we can pick up the waters out of which all manifestation arose— trail of the story in the important late dynastic the Mother of all things. Because of this, Egyptian city of Saïs, where the Divine she was also patroness of the household arts, Feminine was very much revered and active. especially weaving, of nursing mothers, as she Saïs, the provincial capital of the fifth is the “nurser of crocodiles,” and of wisdom. Nome of ancient Egypt in the western As “The Weaver” she weaves all of the Nile Delta near the Mediterranean, was manifested cosmos into being on her loom. In dedicated to the Goddess Neith. Saïs rose to her role as the primordial source of all things, prominence in the Twenty-fourth Dynasty she transcended gender to encompass all.1 (eighth century BCE) and during the Twenty- Assimilation of the Goddesses into One sixth Dynasty (seventh-sixth centuries BCE), to which it gives its name: The Another claim to fame of Saïs was Saite Dynasty. the nearby “grave of Osiris,” and Osirian Saïs’s patroness, Neith, Mysteries were carried out on an adjacent was known as a goddess of island in the delta. It was natural therefore for The Goddess Neith, Lady of Saïs, Saite Isis and Neith, both very ancient goddesses, to Period (664-525 BCE). Although be assimilated to one another. Further, Greek missing her arms, which were made visitors to Saïs such as Herodotus, Plato, and separately, this is one of the finest representations of the Goddess. The Diodorus Siculus also identified this Neith- shape of her body and the smile on her Isis with Athena, holding that Athena built face betray her date as during the Saite the city before she founded Athens, and that Period, when she was venerated as the Goddess of the Egyptian Capital. when Athens and Atlantis were destroyed by From the Collection of the Rosicrucian the great flood, Saïs survived. Thus the triple Egyptian Museum.

(c) 2014 Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC. All Rights Reserved. Page 51 Virgin was seen in the Church of Blachernae spreading her veil over The City in protection from invasion and epidemics. 4 A feast-day was established for this “Protection of the Theotokos (God-Bearer)” on October 1, and has become one of the most popular feasts among Slavic Byzantine (Orthodox and Catholic) Christians, still celebrated today, called Pokrov, or Holy Protection. Modern-day Greeks have also moved and adapted the feast to commemorate the protective Veil of the Virgin over Greece on “Ochi Day,” October 28, when, in 1940, Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas Russian Icon of the Holy Protection rejected Mussolini’s ultimatum to allow Axis (Pokrov), late fourteenth century. soldiers to enter Greece, marking Greece’s Goddess Neith-Isis-Athena was worshiped at entrance into World War II on the side of the goddess’s shrine at Saïs, a combination of the Allies.5 2 very ancient feminine divinities. Whatever the occasion, the troparionor Plutarch, in commenting on the truths theme-prayer of the feast day is reminiscent hidden in Egyptian religion, recounts that this of ancient prayers to the Universal Isis for aid shrine contains a most striking inscription: and comfort, with a Christian adaptation: “And the shrine of Athena at Saï(whom Today the faithful celebrate the feast with they consider the same as Isis) bears this joy inscription, ‘I am all that hath been, and illumined by your coming, O Mother of is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has God. hitherto raised.’”3 Beholding your pure image we fervently This ties together the universality of the cry to you: divinity of Isis—consonant with her identity “Encompass us beneath the precious veil of with Neith, the Primordial Source of all that your protection; is, with the evocative symbol of the Veil of Isis, deliver us from every form of evil by concealing unglimpsed mysteries. It is that entreating Christ, your Son and our God that He may symbol, the Veil covering the Source of All 6 from our gaze, that has inspired philosophers, save our souls.” mystics, and artists for two millennia. This icon of the protective veil of the Virgin seems to The Veil in Religious Symbolism have also spread In religious imagery, the Veil of Isis to Western was translated into Christian terms, easily Duccio di Buoninsegna, understandable given the substantial Virgin of the Franciscans parallels between both the Egyptian and (Virgin of Mercy), ca. the Universal Isis, and the Virgin Mary. 1280. The first known version of this image A particular example of this veil imagery in the West. National Rosicrucian occurred in the capital of the Roman Empire, Gallery of Sienna. Digest Constantinople. On several occasions, in the Photo: The Yorck No. 1 Project/Wikimedia 2010 ninth, tenth and fourteenth centuries, the Commons.

Page 52 Europe and Roman Catholicism in the “Virgin of Mercy” image, showing the Virgin Mary spreading open her cloak/veil which covers and protects those who are kneeling beside her. The first known instance of this image is from Italy in Landscape with fisher and a 7 priest offering in front of the about 1280. sarcophagus of Harpocrates, ca. The Veil of Nature first century BCE – first century CE., Roman fresco from the While we might temple of Isis in Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, expect the use of the Naples. Photo by Wolfgang Veil of Isis to continue Rieger/Wikimedia Commons. in religious imagery, it has also become an union with nature, in order to discover her image of the secrets of nature, philosophy, secrets through an initiatic gnosis. and history. As Pierre de Ronsard wrote: Even in ancient times, there was Filled with the divine fire that has heated controversy over how to describe nature my heart, and nature’s secrets. Heraclitus reputedly 8 I wish, more than ever following in taught “Nature loves to hide itself.” Orpheus’ steps, Although there are a number of options To discover the secrets of Nature and the as to the exact translation of the original Heavens.13 Greek text mentioned here,9 this is the way that Heraclitus’s axiom was understood Artemis of Ephesus throughout most of antiquity. Even so, One further ancient Goddess was destined throughout the classical period and into to be assimilated to Isis at the dawn of the late antiquity, Aristotelians, Platonists, and modern world. From as early as the Bronze Neoplatonists continued to debate whether Age, the Goddess Artemis (Diana for the the scientific study of nature should be Romans) was worshiped at her magnificent allegorized in myth, as the Orphic Theogonies temple in Ephesus (near modern-day Selçuk did, or in more direct and clear language, as in Turkey). The Temple was one of the Seven in the scientific treatises of Aristotle, such as Wonders of the World, and contained a 10 his Physics and Lucretius’s On the Nature statue of the goddess which undoubtedly pre- 11 of Things, which, although it is written in dated Hellenic culture, to which great cultic verse, is a straightforward philosophical and significance was attached.14 scientific work. She is covered by dozens of milk-giving Pierre Hadot, a modern philosopher and breasts—polymaston15—indicating that she cultural historian, identifies two approaches is the source of all life.16 The Greco-Roman prevalent throughout the Western European manifestation of this Goddess is probably an Medieval, Renaissance, and modern periods, assimilation of the older Anatolian “Mistress for discovering the “secrets of nature.”12 The of Nature and Life” who was worshiped in “Promethian” approach was seen as “stealing the same area.17 We can consider the parallel Nature’s secrets,” much as the mythic Titan imagery with the ancient Egyptian Neith, stole the Fire of the Gods. Along this path is the Primordial source of all Being, “nurser mechanistic technological work, which seeks of crocodiles.” Today, all that is left of the to dominate nature. The “Orphic” approach, Temple are a few foundations; however, on the other hand is one of creative, artistic the concept of the image was widespread

Page 53 throughout antiquity, and continued to Cover page of Volume II captivate the imagination. of Athanasius Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus, At the beginning of the sixteenth 1664. Orpheus and century, this representation of Artemis as Hermes Trismegistus (Mercury) are pointing an allegory for Nature resurfaces in the art the student toward Isis- of the Italian Renaissance. Raphael uses the Artemis as the source polymaston Artemis of Ephesus figure in his of wisdom. Photo by Badseed/Wikimedia 1508 “Philosophy,” as part of his Stanza della Commons. Segnatura in the Vatican. Niccolò Tribolo 20 creatred his marble “Nature” with this design or by nature.” in 1529 at the Château de Fontainebleau The writers of in France. the seventeenth and Scholars, artists, and esotericists from the eighteenth centuries were quick to adopt this sixteenth century to the nineteenth century association. The Jesuit esotericist Athanasius followed the identification of Artemis and Kircher refers to the Veil of Isis as a symbol Isis (already the Universal Goddess of the of Nature’s Mysteries in Oedipus Aegypticus 21 Isis Mysteries) made in the ancient world to (1650s), and uses the image of the represent Nature.18 This identification was polymastic Isis/Artemis in the frontispiece well attested in the ancient world. to his Mundus Subterraneus, Volume II (1664).22 This example is followed by many, For example, in the Pythagorean including Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the discipline of Arithmology,which established Third Earl of Shaftesbury, whose Chacteristics the correspondences between numbers (1714) employs this iconography for Isis/ and metaphysical concepts and beings, Artemis/Nature,23 and Romeyn de Hooghe, Iamblichus (ca. 245-ca. 325 CE) the Assyrian who in 1735 describes Isis/Artemis as a Neoplantonist and Pythagorean, associates Goddess with many breasts, a tower on her the Dyad with Isis, Artemis, and Nature, head, with a veil, in his Hierogyphica.24 sealing their identities together.19 Hadot suggests that Kircher’s reference In the fifth century CE, Ambrosius to Isis’s Veil as Nature’s Secrets is at the Theodosius , a Roman African Neoplatonist very foundation of the Egyptomania of (fl. 395-423), describes a statue of Isis in his the Romantic and modern periods.25 By Saturnalia: the middle of the eighteenth century, this “Isis is the earth identification was complete with all its parts: or nature that is Nature, all nurturing, in the figure of an under the sun. This Egyptian Goddess covered by the Veil of Isis, is why the goddess’s hiding her secrets.26 entire body bristles The identification of the universal with a multitude Goddess is now complete, with the Egyptian of breasts placed and Universal Isis, Neith, Athena, and close to one another Artemis (manifesting her even more ancient because all things are Anatolian Goddess predecessor) as the Source nourished by earth of all, Veiled in mystery as Nature itself. Artemis of Ephesus, marble and bronze. Roman copy The Unveiling of Isis of an Hellenistic original of Rosicrucian the second century BCE. The next stage is the process of the Digest Albani Collection. Photo Unveiling of Isis, which will take several No. 1 by Marie-Lan Nguyen / forms. 2010 Wikimedia Commons.

Page 54 As the seventeenth and eighteenth the key to understanding nature is intuition, centuries progressed, and the exploration of grasping the all: science grew rapidly in Western consciousness, Nature gives all with generosity and it was a natural step to conceive of this benevolence. as “Removing the Veil.” One of the first She has no pit instances of this image in art is in Gerardus Or shell 27 Blasius’s Anatomy of Animals(1681). Hadot She is all at once31 describes the frontispiece: And in another place: “Here we see Science, represented in If you succeed in making your intuition the form of a young woman with a flame First penetrate within, above her head, symbol of the desire for 28 Then return toward the outside, knowledge, a magnifying glass, and a scalpel Then you will be instructed in the best in her hands, unveiling a woman who has way.32 four breasts on her chest. Nature also bears the symbols of the seven planets on her chest. Goethe uses the phrases offenbares Geheimnis On her right arm, which bears a scepter, and öffentiliches Geheimnis, more or less a perches a vulture, a reminder of the first “secret in broad daylight,” reminiscent of types of images of Nature, discussed earlier. “Hidden in Plain Sight”: Other animals are gathered around her, and O mountain of unexplored bosom, at her feet we see two putti, the symbols of Mysterious in broad daylight, scientific labor: one of them is dissecting an Above the astonished world.33 animal; the other examines entrails while And, 29 looking at Nature with admiration.” Nothing is within, Nothing is without, This basic imagery would set the stage for What is inside is also outside. the respectful unveiling of Isis, revealing the Seize, then, with no delay, Secrets of Nature. This would be repeated in The sacred mystery in broad daylight.34 various designs by Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1687), Peter Paul Rubens (1620), as well as The Universal Isis many others. The artistic tradition continued Through the romantic period of the through the end of the nineteenth century, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Veil culminating in Louis-Ernest Barrias’s Nature of Isis and Unveiling Nature through intuition Unveiling Herself Before Science(1899) for the and Gnosis continue to be important themes Paris and Bordeaux Medical Schools, a work with such writers as Rousseau, Kant, Schiller, 30 of sensuality and symbolism. and Schelling.35 Yet we are not finished Hidden in Plain Sight For civic celebrations in 1814 and 1825, the philosopher and polymath Goethe used an emblem created by the Weimar drawing school, Genius Unveiling a Bust of Nature. The symbolism of Nature was clearly the same as the polymastic Isis. For Goethe,

Genius Unveiling a Bust of Nature, 1825, Weimar, Germany. Collection of the Frankfurt Goethe Museum.

Page 55 nature can be experienced and stated only in its manifestations, the ‘colorful reflection’ of the polytheistic divine world. “The predication ‘the One who makes himself into millions’ means that God, by creating the world, transformed himself into (or manifested himself as) the totality of divine forces which are operative in the creation and maintenance of the world and that all of the gods are comprised in the One. “It is more than probable that the corresponding predication of Isis as ‘the one who is all’ translates and continues this form Icon of the Unburnt Bush, sixteenth century, of predication….meaning that all the other Moscow School, Nizhny Novgorod. The central goddesses are absorbed or united in her figure of the Virgin is holding in one arm the Christ in a pose reminiscent of Horus, and in divine being. She is also called myrionyma, the other a male figure with a crown and halo. ‘with innumerable names,’ which means Photo by Shakko/Wikimedia Commons. that all divine names are hers and that all with surprises, as Isis becomes an important other deities are merely aspects of her all- Masonic figure. encompassing nature. This idea occurs also Karl Leonhard Reinhold, a Masonic in the Corpus Hermeticum: all names are writer, writing on the Hebrew Mysteries, those of one god.”37 follows a well-known Masonic theme: the It is not without awe that one encounters Hebrew Mysteries are actually the Egyptian this Isis who is All. The experience of the Mysteries in a new manifestation. In this numinous, of encountering the Divine, process he identifies the Isis of Saïs (“I am was well known in eighteenth and all that hath been, and is, and shall be”) with nineteenth century Romanticism.38 One YHVH in the Burning Bush who proclaims might paraphrase the Hebrew Proverbs to 36 “I am Who Am.” In the English version encapsulate this experience “The Fear of the of the passage in Exodus, the parallel is not Divine is the Beginning of Wisdom” (Prov. as clear, however, in the Septuagint Greek 1:7). This is not abject or craven fear, but version, created by the Jewish initiates in rather, the life-changing experience of the Alexandria in the second century BCE, the numinous, the encounter with the Source of identification is more obvious, as the Voice Being itself. from the Burning Bush says, “Ego eimi ho It is interesting to note in connection On,” “I am Being.” with Reinhold’s and Assmann’s remarks, Unusual as this may sound to that the Eastern Orthodox Christian Icon conventional monotheists, it is well attested type “The Unburnt Bush” (Neopalimaya as far back as Ancient Egypt, as a modern Kupina), depicts a stylized mandala of the scholar of Egyptian religion points out: flames, within which, unconsumed, is the “That is the situation in Ramesside Virgin Mary holding the Christ child, much theology. The unity of God is realized as as an Isis-Horus image. The Icon’s Feast neither preexistence nor a (counter-religious) Day is September 4.In Byzantine Christian Rosicrucian mono-theistic concept, but as latency, as a Tradition, the Burning Bush of Exodus is Digest No. 1 ‘hidden unity,’ in which all living plurality identified with the Theotokos who “contained 2010 on earth has its origin and whose inscrutable God,” within her womb.39

Page 56 A Revolutionary Religion The Universal Isis, Image of Nature and of all Existence, next became the focus of a revived religion of Isis during the French Revolution. “The Isis religion, which had once been the last major opponent of early Christianity, enjoyed another heyday in the French Revolution, recast as the cult of the goddess Jacques-Louis David, The Fountain of Regeneration, 1793. of reason or of nature, intended to replace Napoleon and Pope Pius VII in July 1801,44 Christianity…There were also quite concrete the elements of Isis as Universal Mother and speculations about a connection between Isis keeper of the Mysteries did not disappear. and the name Paris, and it was believed that In the version of the inscription at Saïs the cathedral of Notre Dame was built on reported by the fifth century Neoplatonist the ruins of an earlier Isis temple. [Charles- Proclus (412 – 485 CE) continued to exert François] Dupuis interpreted the cathedral great influence on philosophers, artists and itself as an Iseum. Under Napoleon, mystics. Isis would become the tutelary goddess I am what is, and what will be, and what of Paris.”40 has been, On the location of the ruins of the hated No one has lifted my veil. Bastille Prison, Jacques-Louis David erected The fruit I bore was the Sun.45 his Fountain of Regeneration in 1793, an Erik Hornung, a leading modern scholar Egyptian style Isis from whose breasts flowed of Egyptian religion and its continuing cleansing waters. She wore the insignia of a influence, comments on the importance of Pharaoh, and was the embodiment of Nature these lines: sustaining her children.41 The Primordial waters of Neith flowed through her “Schiller again used this text, which was once again. found ‘on a pyramid at Sais,’ in his essays ‘The Mission of Moses’ (1790) and ‘On the To the north east, plans began to convert Sublime.’ And in his ‘Critique of Judgment’ the Cathedral of Strasbourg into a Temple of (1790), Kant states, ‘Perhaps there has never Reason, and a polymastic Isis-Artemis statue been a more sublime utterance, or a thought was erected as the first step in the conversion more sublimely expressed, than the well- of the Sacred Space. At the same time, the known inscription upon the Temple of Isis Revolutionary Calendar was being devised, (Mother Nature): “I am all that is, and that strikingly similar to the ancient Egyptian was, and that shall be, and no mortal hath calendar of twelve months, each made up of raised the veil from before my face.”’ For three ten-day weeks and an intercalated five- Beethoven, who had it standing framed on day week to adjust to the solar year. In the his desk, and for many other contemporaries, ancient Egyptian Calendar these were the this quotation was the embodiment of Epagomenal days, while during the French Egyptian wisdom.”46 Revolution, they were called sans-culottides,42 named for the poorest members of the Next, this veiled Isis would once again Third Estate.43 be a metaphor for hidden wisdom; however this time, the secrets would be historical, While the Revolutionary Religion of linguistic, and esoteric. Isis ended with the Concordat between

Page 57 Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions. Higgins’ quest was to show the unities of all religions, under the name he coined, Pandeism, “a most ancient and Auguste Puttemans (1866- 1927), Statue of Isis. The statue universal religion from which was given to President Herbert all later creeds and doctrines Hoover by the people of sprang:” Belgium in 1922. It is currently located at the Herbert Hoover “All this seems to confirm the National Historic Site in very close connection which there West Branch, Iowa. Photo by Ammodramus/Wikimedia must have been in some former Commons. time, between Siam, Afghanistan, The Hidden History of the World Western Syria, and Ireland. Indeed I cannot doubt that there has been Beginning in the nineteenth century, really one grand empire, or one Universal, certain writers and researchers began to one Pandæan, or one Catholic religion, with amass large amounts of historical, linguistic, one language, which has extended over the religious, and cultural information, available whole of the world; uniting or governing at more readily in their times due to very well the same time....”48 provisioned libraries and the more rapid The work inspired many to similar feats, spread of information. but Anacalypsis remains, in many opinions, Characteristic of these works is their the most detailed and well-researched of this massive size, detailed erudition, and genre. Sadly, Higgins died before he was able alternative view of history. They also shared to finish his final chapter on Christianity. a common imagery of “Lifting the Veil of The Universal Religion Isis” to discover the truth that had been lying in plain sight, but ignored by standard William Winwood Reade (1838-1875) historians and researchers who were blinded was a Scots philosopher, historian, and by their sectarian biases. explorer. His entry in the quest to find the Drawing Aside the Veil original human spirituality was The Veil of Isis; or, Mysteries of the Druids (1861). He The first of these authors was Godfrey too found religious syncretism throughout Higgins, “an archaeologist, Freemason and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, humanist, social reformer,” and reputedly a Druid.47His massive work was a two-volume treatise, published posthumously in 1833. Commensurate The Fountain of Diana (Artemis) of Ephesus, at the with the size of Villa d’Este in Tivoli, seventeenth century. The the writing was palatial Villa was the project of Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, son of Alfonso I d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia, the title itself: and grandson of Pope Alexander VI. It was based Anacalypsis: on ancient Roman principles, ancient iconography, An Attempt to and hydraulic engineering, exemplified by the nearby Villa Adriana, built by the Emperor Rosicrucian Draw Aside Hadrian in the second century, and much of the Digest the Veil of the older villa’s statuary was brought to the new project. No. 1 Saitic Isis or an The tradition of Isis continues in every generation. 2010 Photo © 2006 Yair Haklai/Wikimedia Commons.

Page 58 history, and yearned for the return of the unified, simplified, direct prisca theologia: “There is no study so saddening, and none so sublime as that of the early religions Bust of Cybele, first of mankind. To trace back the worship century CE, Gallo- Roman bronze, of God to its simple origin, and to mark found near Tours- the gradual process of those degrading en-Vimeu, Picardy, superstitions, and unhallowed rites which 1754. Collection of the Bibliothèque darkened, and finally extinguished His Nationale de presence in the ancient world. France, Paris. Photo by Marie- “… They silently adored this Great Soul LanNguyen/Wikimedia in the beginning, and spoke of Him with Commons. reverence, and sometimes raised their eyes timidly to His glittering dwelling-place on the Veil of Isis’—for Isis is but the symbol of high. … As yet they worshipped only the nature. But, they see only her physical forms. sun, the moon, and the stars-and not as Gods The soul within escapes their view; and the but as visions of that Divine Essence, which Divine Mother has no answer for them. alone ruled and pervaded the earth, the sky, There are anatomists, who, uncovering to and the sea.” 49 sight no indwelling spirit under the layers of muscles, the network of nerves, or the He too saw Isis as the Universal Goddess, cineritious matter, which they lift with the known throughout the world: point of the scalpel, assert that man has no “Isis also received the names of Islene, soul. Such are as purblind in sophistry as Ceres, Rhea, Venus, Vesta, Cybele, Niobe, the student, who, confining his research to Melissa—Nehalennia in the North; Isi with the cold letter of the Kabala, dares say it has the Indians; Puzza among the Chinese; and no vivifying spirit. To see the true man who 50 Ceridwen among the ancient Britons.” once inhabited the subject which lies before Isis Unveiled him, on the dissecting table, the surgeon must use other eyes than those of his body. Certainly, the best known of these So, the glorious truth covered up in the historians of the hidden history of the hieratic writings of the ancient papyri can world was Helena P. Blavatsky, esotericist be revealed only to him who possesses the and mystic. Her two volume Isis Unveiled: faculty of intuition—which, if we call reason A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and the eye of the mind, may be defined as the Modern Science and Theology (1877) sought eye of the soul.”51 to trace the shortcomings of both science and religion as they attempt to solve the mysteries She sought to find the ancient balance of existence. In their place, she champions a between the material and the spiritual, and more exoteric approach, which, she works to to struggle against the increasing materialism demonstrate, would be more consistent with of her society. In the second volume on true science and true spirituality. theology, she equally rails against dogmatism in modern religion, and seeks to demonstrate Her criticism of modern science and the ancient origins of true spirituality. philosophy harkens back to Goethe’s call for intuition in order to truly understand the Ancient Egypt: Light of the World Mystery of existence: Gerald Massey, (1828-1907) was a “… our present-day philosophers ‘lift British poet and self-taught student of

Page 59 All. Today, she is present practically everywhere one would look. A simple Google internet search on her name yields 21,900,000 sites or pages dealing with myriad aspects of Isis, from neo-Egyptian religious groups, to clothing lines. This is a respectable total for a divinity whose last ancient temple at Philae was closed almost 1500 years ago. Wikipedia lists sixty- one possible references for Isis (in Inside the Temple of Philae, from Description De L’Egypte, 1809-1829. English alone), from the Goddess Egypt. Almost completely ignored today herself, several Rock Bands, Science by academic Egyptology, his three major Fiction characters, to an academic journal treatises continue to inspire esotericists and and many other uses. alternate historians. He first published The The Loving Mother of Horus, the Savior Book of the Beginnings in 1881, followed by Goddess, the Queen of Heaven: Isis still The Natural Genesis (1883). His last and holds her Veil protectively over her children most significant work is Ancient Egypt: The after thousands of years. No one has lifted Light of the World(1907). the Veil because there is no need to. The As a socialist and freethinker, Massey Mysteries the Veil conceals are Hidden in sought to find the parallels between ancient Plain Sight, open to all those who have eyes Egyptian religion and modern religion, to see and ears to hear her message through particularly Christianity. His goal was to the ages, as true today as in ancient Saïs: free modern peoples from the biases of I am what is, and what will be, and what dogmatism of all kinds. He particularly has been, noted the similarities between Horus and the No one has lifted my veil. Christ in the two mythic cycles. As his motto The fruit I bore was the Sun. was “They must find it hard to take Truth for Authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth,”52 he often disturbed the more dogmatic parts of society with his findings. Isis is present throughout his work, and in particular Ancient Egypt, where he meticulously discusses her role in Egyptian religion, including the sacramental virtues of the blood of Isis. Here the universal Goddess Michel Erhart or Friedrich Schramm, has returned to her roots in the oldest Virgin of Mercy, from Egyptian myths. the Church of Our Lady in Ravensburg, Isis Today ca. 1480, limewood, original colors with Throughout the journey of millennia, Isis some over-painting. has taken on many forms, and incorporated Photo by Andreas Rosicrucian Praefcke/Wikimedia Digest all of the Divine within her, ultimately Commons. No. 1 becoming the manifestation of the Source of 2010

Page 60 208: “Nature loves to hide.” See also William Harris, “Heraclitus, the Complete Fragments,” available at http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/ heraclitus.pdf. 9 See the discussion in Pierre Hadot, The Veil of Isis (Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 2006), 7-14. 10 Many of the Treatises of Aristotle are available at http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index-Aristotle.html. 11 Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BCE- ca. 55 BCE), On the Nature of Things, available at http://onlinebooks. library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=785. 12 Hadot, Veil of Isis, 91-98. 13 Pierre de Ronsard, “Hymne à l’Éternité: À Madame Marguerite, sœur du Roi,” in Œuvres complètes, vol. 8, Les Hymnes (1555-1556), ed. . Laumonier (Paris: Hachette, 1936), 246. Cited and translated in Hadot, Veil of Isis, 96. 14 Robert Fleischer, Artemis von Ephesos und der Isis in the Guise of a Sycamore Tree Suckles the Pharaoh Thutmose III, Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. erwandte Kultstatue von Anatolien und Syrien. Études 1426 BCE), tomb of Thutmose III. The traditional préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire founding of the Rosicrucian tradition dates from romain, 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973). the Pharaohs Hatshepsut and Thutmose III uniting 15 “many breasted” all of the priesthoods and Houses of Life under 16 Hatshepsut’s Vizier Hapuseneb. “Temple of Artemis at Ephesus” at Wikipedia, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_of_Ephesus. 17 Armand Delatte and Philippe Derchain, Les intailles magiques gréco-égyptiennes (Paris: Bibliothéque ENDNOTES Nationale, 1964), 179. 18 Hadot, Veil of Isis, 236-237. 1 “Neith” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neith. 19 Ibid., 236. And see Hadot’s references: , In Nicomachi 2 For more information, see “Saïs” and “Neith” at Arithmeticam Commentaria, . H. Pistelli (Stuttgart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sais and http://en.wikipedia. B.G. Teubner,), 12-13; Theologoumena Arithmetica, . org/wiki/Neith, to which these introductory paragraphs V.Falco and U. Klein (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner,), 13- are indebted. 15. R.E. Witt,Isis in the Graeco-Roman World (London: Thames and Hudson, ), 149-150. 3 Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 9, 354C (From the 20 Moralia). Available at The Internet Sacred Texts Macrobius, Saturnalia 1, 20:18, translated in Archives http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plu/pte/pte04. Hadot, Veil of Isis, 236. Isis ... quae est vel terra vel htm. natura rerum subiacens soli. Hinc est quod continuatis uberibus corpus deae omne densetur, quia vel terrae vel 4 See “Protection of the Mother of God” at Orthodox rerum naturae altu nutritur universitas. http://penelope. Wiki http://orthodoxwiki.org/Protection_of_the_Mother_ uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Macrobius/ of_God. Saturnalia/1*.html. 5 See “Protection of the Mother of God” at Orthodox 21 Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegypticus,vol. 1 (Rome: Wiki http://orthodoxwiki.org/Protection_of_the_Mother_ 1652-1654), 191. of_God and “Ochi Day” at Wikipedia, http:// 22 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochi_Day. Hadot, Veil of Isis, 237. 23 6 Troparion of the Feast of the Protection at Orthodox Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Third Earl of Wiki http://orthodoxwiki.org/Protection_of_the_Mother Shaftesbury, Characteristics (1713,), vol. 3, Miscellany _of_God. 1, Chapter 1, figure 6. Discussed in F. Paknadel, “Shaftsbury’s Illustrations of Characteristics” in Journal 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protection_of_the_ of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 37 (1974), Mother_of_God. 290-312, plate 71d (in Hadot, Veil of Isis, 372 n. 24). 8 Heraclitus Fragment 123; see also Fragment Available online at http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.

Page 61 php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperso 41 Ibid., 133 n=3785&Itemid=28. 42 Ibid., 134. See also “Egyptian Calendar” at http:// 24 Romeyn de Hooghe, Hieroglyphica (Amsterdam: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_calendar and “French 1735); German translation (Amsterdam: 1744), 159, Republican Calendar” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ plate 75,3. See Hadot, Veil of Isis, 236-237. French_Republican_Calendar. 25 Hadot, Veil of Isis, 237. 43 See “Sans-culottides” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 26 See Jean-Baptiste Boudard, Iconologie tirée de divers Sans-culottides. auteurs (Parma: 1759); second edition, vol. 3 (Vienna, 44 Hornung, Secret Lore, 134. 1766), 1; and H. Lacombe de Prézel, « Nature » in 45 Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus 1, 30, translated Dictionnaire iconologique (Paris: 1779); cited in Hadot, in Hornung, Secret Lore, 134. Veil of Isis, 372-373, n. 28 and 29. 46 Hornung, Secret Lore, 134. 27 Gerardus Blasius, Anatome Animalium(Amsterdam, 47 “Godfrey Higgins” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 1681), Frontispiece Engraving. Godfrey_Higgins. 28 Hadot, Veil of Isis: See A. Goesch, Diana Ephesia 48 Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis (1836), 439-440. (Frankfurt; New York: P. Lang, 1996), 224, citing 49 Caesare Ripa, “Intelleto,” in Iconolgia (Padua: P. P. William Winwood Reade, The Veil of Isis (1861), Tozzi, 1611), available at http://emblem.libraries.psu. Book 1. Available at www.sacred-texts.com/pag/motd/ edu/Ripa/Images/ripatoc.htm. motd.htm. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._ Winwood_Reade. 29 Hadot, Veil of Isis, 239. 50 Ibid. 30 Ibid., figures 10-11; p 239-243. 51 Helena P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled,vol. 1 (Pasadena: 31 J.W. von Goethe, “Certainly: to the Physicist” in Theosophical University Press, 1877), 16. God and the World, Goethes Werke, 1, 3, (Weimar: 52 1887-1919), 105. Translation in Hadot, Veil of Isis, “Gerald Massey” at www.gerald-massey.org.uk/. 253. 32 J.W. von Goethe, “Genius Unveils the Bust of Nature” in Goethes Werke, 1, 4, pg. 127. 33 J.W. von Goethe, “Winter Journey in the Harz” (1777). Translated in Hadot, Veil of Isis, 256, from J.-F. Angelloz in H. Carossa, Les pages immortelles de Goethe(Paris: Corréa:1942), 125. 34 J.W. von Goethe, Epirrhema in Goethes Werke, 1, 3, pg. 88. and translated in Hadot, Veil of Isis, 256. 35 Hadot, Veil of Isis, 263. 36 K. L. Reinhold, Die hebräischen Mysterien oder die älteste religiöse Freymaurerey (Leipzig, 1787), 202; See Assmann, Moses the Egyptian (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), -199; See also Ernst , Language and Myth, . S.K. Langer (New York: Harper, 1953), 96-97. In Hadot, Veil of Isis, 267-268. It is interesting to note that the Eastern Orthodox Icon type “The Unburnt Bush” (Neopalimaya Kupina), a stylized mandala of the flames, within which, unconsumed, is the Virgin Theotokos (Mary) holding the Christ child, much as an Isis-Horus image.The Icon’s Feast is September 4. 37 Corpus Hermeticum 4:10; Asclepius, 20. 38 Hadot, Veil of Isis, 269-283. 39 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush#Views Rosicrucian _of_Eastern_Orthodoxy. Digest 40 Erik Hornung, The Secret Lore of Egypt (Ithaca: No. 1 Cornell University Press, 2001), 132-133. 2010 (c) 2014 Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC. All Page 62 Rights Reserved.