Origin: Ancient Egypt.

Role: Mother Goddess, inventor of agriculture, inventor of literature, great healer and physician, great magician, the one who first established the laws of justice in the land, protector of women.

Commonly associated with: fertility, motherhood, magic, healing, marriage and childbirth, death and rebirth, the moon.

Other names: Great Mother Isis, Aset or Eset (Ancient Egyptian name), Queen of the Throne, Goddess of Ten Thousand Names, Mistress of Magic.

Name meaning: Comes from the Egyptian word, Aset or Eset, which means, “seat,” referring to her stability and the throne of Egypt.

Portrayal: selfless, giving, mother, wife, protectress, magician, healer.

Symbols: moon disk, cow horns, wings, the kite hawk, sycamore trees, scorpions, bird, sow, the Ankh—the modified cross that represented life, the Star Sept which indicated the coming of a new year as well as the flooding of the Nile.

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Isis is a major mother-goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She is the winged goddess of fertility, motherhood, magic, healing, marriage and childbirth, death and rebirth, and the moon. Isis was revered as the inventor of agriculture and literature, as a great healer and physician, and as the one who first established the laws of justice in the land. Like many ancient goddesses, Isis was revered as wise counselor and prophetess. She was invoked as a sage dispenser of righteous wisdom, counsel and justice.

Isis had many of the same attributes of other mother-goddesses found all over the world. She was revered as the great protector, prayed to for guidance, and beseeched for peace in the world. Isis is known today by her Greek name; however, the ancient Egyptians called her Aset or Iset. Her name translates to “She of the Throne”, referring to her stability and royalty, and reflected in her headdress, which is typically a throne.

 

Isis was also the daughter of the earth God Geb, and the sky goddess, Nut. She was the sister of the Gods Set and Nephthys, the wife-sister of the God Osiris (the ruler of the underworld) and the mother of Horus (protector of the Pharaoh). In earlier times she was not only the wife of Osiris, but his female counterpart, equal in all ways and powers. In the Legend of Osiris, it is she who travels the world to find all the pieces of his body and it is she who brings him back to life with the aid of Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing, magic, wisdom, sacred texts, mathematics, the sciences, knowledge and literature. But that is not the only time she is associated with Thoth. Together, it is said that they taught humans the secrets of magic, medicine, and agriculture.

 
 

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Isis was usually represented as a woman donning a long sheath dress and an empty throne as her headdress. The empty headdress represented the death of her husband and her role as the seat of the power of the pharaoh. In some scenes, she is seen as a woman with a headdress of a solar disc and cow’s horns. She is sometimes also depicted with the vulture headdress of the goddess Mut. In some rare scenes, she is a woman with the head of a cow. Isis is often represented holding the ankh, the Egyptian cross which represented life. She is also represented as the goddess of the wind, with outstretched wings. She is also often represented holding or nursing her son Horus. In the heavens, her symbol is the star Sept (Sirius), a star whose appearance symbolized the coming of a new year and the flooding of the Nile for fertility. The scared animals of Isis are the cows, snakes, and scorpions. She is also the patron of hawks, swallows, doves, and vultures.

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In some stories and inscriptions, Isis is depicted as a homeless woman, an old woman, a wife searching for and mourning her lost husband, a mother mourning a missing child, a woman fighting for her family—all of these stories identified her with the common people of Egypt and their darkest moments. Because of this, Isis became the goddess of all the people of Egypt, male and female, royal and common alike.

Isis and her priestesses carried a musical instrument called the Sistrum. Legendarily, the Sistrum contained the four elements of the universe: earth, air, fire, and water. Each is the opposite of the other, and they are all resolved into harmony within the body of the Sistrum. Nature was said to be released by the movements of Isis, vibrated into music and vision.

 

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Isis was initially an obscure goddess who lacked her own dedicated temples, but she grew in importance as the dynastic age progressed, until she became one of the most important deities of ancient Egypt. In the first millennium BCE, Osiris and Isis became the most widely worshipped of Egyptian deities, and Isis absorbed traits from many other goddesses. Rulers in Egypt and its neighbor to the south, Nubia, began to build temples dedicated primarily to Isis, and her temple at Philae was a religious center for Egyptians and Nubians alike. The cult of Isis subsequently spread throughout the Roman Empire, and Isis was worshipped from England to Afghanistan. Her cult became the most important mystery religion of Rome itself, and Isis with the Horus-child is reflected in the Roman Catholic worship of the Madonna and Child. Her worship knew no ethnic boundary.

Isis’s reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and have power over fate itself. She is still revered by pagans today. As mourner, she was a principal deity in rites connected with the dead; as magical healer, she cured the sick and brought the deceased to life; and as mother, she was a role model for all women.

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One of the most notable stories of Isis is the Legend or Myth of Osiris and Isis, in which the goddess rescued her husband’s lifeless body and, through her magical powers, managed to revive him and conceive their child, Horus.

From Geb, the sky god, and Nut, the earth goddess came four children: Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys. Osiris was the oldest and so became king of Egypt, and he married his sister Isis. Osiris was a good king and commanded the respect of all who lived on the earth and the gods who dwelled in the netherworld. However, Set was always jealous of Osiris, because he did not command the same respect. One day, Set transformed himself into a vicious monster and killed Osiris, then cut him into pieces and distributed them throughout the length and breadth of Egypt.

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Isis, who had great magical powers, decided to find her husband and bring him back to life. She transformed into a hawk, and together with her sister Nephthys, flew over Egypt, collecting the pieces of her husband’s body and reassembling them. Once she completed this task, she breathed the breath of life into his body and resurrected him. They were together again, and Isis became pregnant soon after. Osiris was able to descend into the underworld, where he became the lord of that domain.

Upon learning of her pregnancy, Isis ran to the marshes of the Nile delta to hide from her brother Seth, as she was afraid that her son might suffer the same fate. She gave birth to a divine child, the hawk-god Horus, and there she raised him, protected by seven guardian scorpions and the scorpion goddess Selket, until he was old enough to avenge his father.

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The story of Osiris’s revival was particularly inspirational to lower class individuals, not just in Egypt, but in Pompeii, as it gave them hope that there is life after death.

In Ancient Egyptian art, Isis and Nephthys are often depicted together, particularly when mourning Osiris’s death, supporting him on his throne, or protecting the sarcophagi of the dead. In these situations their arms are often flung across their faces, in a gesture of mourning, or outstretched around Osiris or the deceased as a sign of their protective role. As sister of Isis and Osiris, Nephthys is a protective goddess who symbolizes the death experience, just as Isis represented the birth experience.

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Isis is the embodiment of the Mother archetype, as she is portrayed as selfless, a healer, a protector and nurturer. She represents the maternal spirit in its purest form. She was worshipped as the divine life-giver, and honored as the mother of one of the most powerful gods, Horus. She was known as the “Mother of the Gods”, and was said to be the mother of all the pharaohs and entire Egypt. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. One of her main roles was to protect fertility, women, procreation and childhood.

Isis became known as a healer and magician after bringing her husband back to life, and a protector due to her ability to keep her son Horus safe, and helping him to eventually assume the throne of Egypt.

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Egyptologist Wallis Budge explained: “Isis was the great and beneficent goddess and mother, whose influence and love pervaded all Heaven and Earth, and the abode of the dead, and she was the personification of the great female, creative power which conceived, and brought forth every living creature and thing, from the gods in Heaven, to man on earth".

Isis is often portrayed seated on a throne, holding her son Horus on her knees, cradling him with her left arm, and providing him with her breast with her right hand. Scenes featuring the breast-feeding a young god or pharaoh have appeared since ancient times as the milk is considered a symbol of eternal regeneration. The symbolic image of divine milk as the spiritual nourishment carried over to early Christian iconography of the Middle Ages with the Virgin nursing the Child.

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A fundamental aspect of Isis’s embodiment of the Mother archetype is her role as goddess of agriculture and fertility. Many ancient agricultural societies worshiped divinities—usually feminine ones representing mothers—as representations of agriculture, earth’s fertility, the cyclical processes of nature and life, and nature or Earth herself. In Egyptian records, Isis is repeatedly referred to as the inventor of agriculture, and the one who offered Egyptians the knowledge of cultivation and the advantages of growing along the river Nile. In addition, the love of Isis is symbolic of regeneration and the promise of eternal life. Her ability to resurrect her husband Osiris, and nurture and protect her son Horus, are symbolic representations of death, rebirth, regeneration, and the cyclicality of Nature. According to Greek philosopher Plutarch “Isis is the female principle of Nature, and is receptive of every form of generation”.*

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The Greek historian Herodotus emphasized the fact that Isis could be identified with Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture, fertility and motherhood, and that the rituals of Demeter had been brought to Greece from Egypt. The ancient Greek historian Diodorus even stated that the Egyptians themselves understood Isis and Demeter as one and the same. It is believed that the annual inundation of the Nile was in fact the tears of Isis which came out because of her husband’s death, and was preceded by the appearance of the star Sept (Sirius) in the sky. This legend is known even today as the yearly celebration of “The Night of the Drop”.

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Isis as symbol of Nature and regeneration extended well beyond the times of Ancient Egypt. In 1793, after the French Revolution, statues and fountains were erected during the Festival of Unity, to celebrate the end of the monarchy. One of them, called “Fountain of Regeneration” or “Fountain of Isis”, erected on the ruins of the Bastille prison—whose fall signaled the beginning of the Revolution—was a statue Nature depicted as Isis. The statue featured the goddess flanked by two lions, with water springing from her breasts, offering her nourishing waters to the people. She represented the regeneration of the French people after the dark times of the monarchy.*

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The mysteries of Isis were religious initiation rites performed in the cult of the goddess Isis in the Greco-Roman world. They were closely connected to other mystery rites, particularly the Eleusinian mysteries in honor of the Greek goddesses Demeter and Persephone, and originated sometime between the third century B.C. and the second century C.E.

Mystery cults were voluntary, secret initiation rituals. They were dedicated to a particular deity or group of deities, and used a variety of intense experiences, such as nocturnal darkness interrupted by bright light, loud music or noise, fasting, pilgrimages, and the ingestion of psychoactive substances, that induced a state of disorientation and an intense religious experience.

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Greek writers viewed Egypt and its priests as the source of all mystical wisdom. They claimed that many elements of Greek philosophy and culture, including their own mystery rites, came from Egypt. The classicist Walter Burkert and the Egyptologist Francesco Tiradritti both argue that there is a grain of truth in these claims, as the oldest Greek mysteries developed in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, at the same time that Greece was developing closer contacts with Egyptian culture. The imagery of the afterlife found in those mysteries may thus have been influenced by that in Egyptian afterlife beliefs.

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As in many mystery cults of the Greco-Roman world, the Isaic mysteries involved the ritualistic reenactment of myths and stories related to Isis. During a four-day festival dedicated to Isis, devotees of the goddess would engage in a passion play that reenacted the death of Osiris and the magic of Isis returning him to life. During the first day, actors would impersonate Isis and her son Horus as well as various other gods as they searched across the world for the fourteen body parts of Osiris. The second and third days reenacted the reassembly and rebirth of Osiris and the fourth day was a wild rejoicing over the success of Isis and the coming of the newly immortal Osiris. The belief is that through worship of Isis and strong devotion, she will return you to life as well should you die and you shall experience eternal happiness under her nurturing care, just as Osiris was re-enlivened.

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The mysteries of Isis, like those of other gods, continued to be performed into the late fourth century CE. Toward the end of the century, Christian emperors increasingly restricted the practice of non-Christian religions. Mystery cults died out near the start of the fifth century. They existed alongside Christianity for centuries before their extinction, and some elements of their initiations resembled Christian beliefs and practices. As a result, the possibility has often been raised that Christianity was directly influenced by the mystery cults. Some scholars argue that Christian rituals such as baptism, fasting, and communion could have been influenced by the Isaic mysteries.

While the worship of Osiris and most Egyptian deities died out in the fifth century AD, Isis continues to be revered as a mother goddess. In 1976, Irishwoman Olivia Robertson founded the Fellowship of Isis. The organization respects other religious beliefs of its members but promotes love, beauty, and abundance, all qualities associated with the ancient Isis. The group has thousands of followers worldwide.

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The function of a mystery school is Anamnesis, a term coined by Socrates, meaning the remembering of our timeless divine nature which we have forgotten. Socrates spoke of the soul as immortal, repeatedly incarnating and maintaining spiritual knowledge, but forgets it all during the shock of birth. Remembering that our presence is a manifestation of the infinite universal source is the fruit of the spiritual path. Rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries, were said to reveal visions of the Eternal Light of the afterlife. An important point in Socrates and his student Plato’s philosophy was the existence of an archetypal “ideal” spiritual realm that connects with our material world, which we can access through certain practices.

 

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A mystery school could be called “a university of the soul.” To a seeker pursuing mastery, a curriculum that includes initiations, rituals, and meditation practices to develop skills can disclose mysteries of the spirit. Through self-discipline and devotion, the initiate merges with a higher consciousness, supported by the sacred group. An esoteric school can empower the seeker to recognize their inherent wisdom and self-guidance system. For those aspiring toward greater clarity and personal awareness, a mystery school can offer a committed spiritual training.

 

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Here, you will find simple practices, prompts and rituals that will help you connect with Isis, get in contact with her magic, and embody her qualities.

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This is a Spanda practice to get you in touch with the core underlying spark of aliveness pulsing inside of every cell in the universe. “Spanda is a Sanskrit word meaning “divine vibration”, pulse, scintillation, or throb. Spanda refers to the subtle creative pulse of the universe as it manifests into the dynamism of living form. This term is used to describe how Consciousness, at the subtlest level, moves in waves of contraction and expansion. Spanda is the core union of Shiva Shakti consciousness and energy that underlies the fabric of creation.

Begin your practice by getting quiet inside, tuning into the core of your aliveness. Underneath your feelings, your thoughts, your sensations, there is this core place that is just pure life, living in you. Begin to hum and vibrate, sensing and feeling into this core vibration of aliveness.

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When you hum, feel free to stay on one note or change tones. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stay vibrating for the duration of the practice (7+ minutes), even if it gets annoying. Keeping humming and vibrating!

As you continue humming, if there are other beings in the home you’re inside of—animals, people, plants—keep humming but sense into how this same spark of aliveness that you are resonating and vibrating with in yourself is the same spark in them, and let your humming begin to resonate with this core aliveness of the plants, animals, beings, people, who are sharing this space with you.

And now begin to sense out beyond the walls of your home—the water and trees, animals, plants, people that are just outside your walls. Sensing into the exact same spark, the core of aliveness that dwells in them, dwells in you, and vibrate and resonate with them.

And now, take your resonating out even further—the entire planet, the insects, the birds, the trees, the water, the people, all of the living beings, all of life—resonating and vibrating with the same spark, the same core. Resonate your core with them.

As your humming practice comes to an end, just rest in silence, feeling this one pulsation, this one breath, this one spark, that dwells in you and everything. Sensing into this place, allowing it to resonate, one note played throughout eternity. One song being sung. One existence living itself. Just rest in this place.

Practice by Maya Luna

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“Whales and redwoods both make us feel small and I think that's an important experience for humans to have at the hands of nature," says Roger Payne in Jonathan White’s Talking on the Water. He continues: “We need to recognize that we are not the stars of the show. We’re just another pretty face, just one species among millions more.” Purposefully seek out some places of grandeur in the natural world. Acknowledge your smallness in the vast scheme of things.

Philosophers describe this experience as the sublime. In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton writes: “The sublime is a feeling provoked by certain kinds of landscape that are very large, very impressive and dangerous. Places like the wide-open oceans, the high mountains, the polar caps. The Sinai Desert, the Grand Canyon. These places do all sorts of things to us. Around the end of the 18th century, philosophers started saying that the feeling these places provoke in us is a recognizable one and universal one—and a good one. It was described as the feeling of the sublime. What lies at the center of the experience of the sublime is a feeling of smallness. You are very small and something else is very big and dangerous. You are very vulnerable in the face of something else.

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Nature puts us all in our places. Being made to feel small isn't something we welcome when it's done to us by another person, but to be apprised of our essential nothingness by something so much greater than ourselves is in no sense humiliating. Our egos, exhaustingly aware of every slight they receive and prone relentlessly to compare their advantages with those enjoyed by others, may even be relieved to find themselves finally humbled by forces so much more powerful than any human being could ever muster.

See how small you are next to the mountains. Accept what is bigger than you and what you do not understand. The world may appear illogical to you, but it does not follow that it is illogical per se. Our life is not the measure of all things: consider sublime places a reminder of human insignificance and frailty.” (Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel)

—Spiritual practice by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat in Summertime and Living Takes Practice

 

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Ground and center, and visualize a round full moon. She is the mother, the power of fruition and of all aspects of creativity. She nourishes what the New Moon has begun. See her open arms, her full breasts, her womb burgeoning with life. Feel your own power to nurture, to give, to make manifest what is possible. She is the sensual woman; her pleasure in union is the moving force that sustains all life. Feel the power and generative life-force in your own pleasure. Feel the nurturing, unconditionally loving, all-encompassing, all-allowing mother in you.

Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk

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Ground and center. Take a deep breath. Feel the blood flowing through the rivers of your veins, the liquid tides within each cell of your body. You are fluid, one drop congealed out of the primal ocean that is the womb of the Great Mother. Find the calm pools of tranquility within you, the rivers of feeling, the tides of power. Sink deep into the well of the inner mind, below consciousness.

Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk

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Ground and center. Take a deep breath. Be conscious of the electric spark within each nerve as pulses jump from synapse to synapse. Be aware of the combustion within each cell, as energy releases and moves throughout your body. Let your own fire become one with candle flame, bonfire, hearth fire, lightning, starlight and sunlight, one with the bright spirit of the Goddess.

Fire teaches us that power results from combining and integrating, rather than fighting and dominating. Remember, there is ease and grace in true power. And you are powerful beyond measure.

Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk

 

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Dive deeper into the world of Isis, her magic, and Egyptian mythology, with these books, articles, podcasts and videos.

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Isis Magic: Cultivating a Relationship with the Goddess of 10,000 Names’
    by M. Isidora Forrest

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  • ✎ Book

    ‘When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt’
    by Kara Cooney

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Pagan Portals | Isis: Great of Magic, She of 10,000 Names’
    by Olivia Church

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Shamanic Mysteries of Egypt: Awakening the Healing Power of the Heart’
    by Nicki Scully & Linda Star Wolf

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘The Magdalen Manuscript: The Alchemies of Horus & the Sex Magic of Isis’
    by Tom Kenyon & Judi Sion

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt’
    by Geraldine Pinch

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt: Egyptian Mythology for Kids’
    by Morgan E. Moroney

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day’
    by Ogden Goelet & Raymond Faulkner (Translators)

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt’
    by Richard H. Wilkinson

    Read

  • ✤ Oracle Deck

    ‘Isis Oracle’
    by Alana Fairchild

    Explore

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Ancient Egyptian Magic: A Hands-On Guide’
    by Christina Riggs

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Ancient Egyptian Magic’
    by Eleanor L. Harris

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Magic of Isis: A Powerful Book of Incantations and Prayers’
    by Alana Fairchild

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Isis: The Eternal Goddess of Egypt and Rome’
    by Lesley Jackson

    Watch

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Isis: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God of the Dead’
    by Markus Carabas

    Read

  • ✎ Book

    ‘Circle of Isis: Ancient Egyptian Magic for Modern Witches’
    with Ellen Cannon Reed

    Read

  • ✦ Video

    ‘The Egyptian myth of Isis and the seven scorpions’
    by Ted-Ed

    Watch

  • ✦ Video

    ‘The Egyptian myth of the death of Osiris’
    by Ted-Ed

    Watch

  • ❉ Research Paper

    ‘Isis and Demeter: Symbols of Divine Motherhood’
    by Vincent Arieh Tobin

    Read