Isis and the Egyptian Magic

Isis the Goddess
of Magic

It was told that Isis tricked Ra into telling her his "deep name," by doing a snake to bite him, for which only Isis had the heal. Knowing the deep name of a god enabled one to have power of the deity. The use of close names became essential in many late Egyptian magic spells. By the late Egyptian early period, after the businesses by the Greeks and the Romans, Isis became the most essential and most powerful deity of the Egyptian pantheon because of her spiritual skills. Magic is central to the whole mythology of Isis, arguably more than any fantastic Egyptian deity.

Isis had a central role in Egyptian magic spells and ritual, specially those of protection and healing. In many patches, she also is completely united even with Horus, where conjurations of Isis are supposed to involve Horus's powers automatically as well. In Egyptian history the image of a hurt Horus became a frequent feature of Isis's healing spells, which typically raised the organic powers of the milk of Isis.

Isis and Osiris, (Myth)

Isis and Osiris

The myth of Osiris and Isis a tale of death and resurrection, was serious to Egyptian sacred beliefs and material all the crucial components of Egyptian funerary rites. No complete Egyptian simulate of the myth of Isis and Osiris exists, but the greatest ancient interpretation comes from Plutarch, a Greek priest at Delphi, who wrote De Iside Et Osiride about a.d. 100. The two principal gods, Isis and Osiris, were brother and sister and husband and wife. Their brother, Set, and their sister, Nephthys, were as well husband and wife. Osiris brought civilization to Egypt by presenting raising and cattle raising to the early habitant of the Nile Valley, and Isis taught the people the art of whirling and weaving. So prosperous was Osiris in his charge that he set out to bring growing and cattle producing to neighboring countries. He left Isis, the goddess of magic, to watch over the people of Egypt and to keep their bad brother Set in check. While her conserve was gone, Isis ruled the land wisely and controlled Set, who was secretly platting against his brother.

When Osiris returned to Egypt, Set, by trickery, held the exact body measurements of his brother Osiris and established a enjoyable wooden chest to his proportions. Set then invited Osiris to a lavish banquet and  offered  the  beautiful  chest  to  any  guest  who could  fit  inside.  Guest  after  guest  tried  and  failed. Osiris climbed into the bureau that fit him utterly. Set  immediately  sealed  it  shut,  swarmed  molten  lead over it, and made the chest into the River Nile. When Isis heard  of  her  husbands  death,  she  wept  and  began searching for the chest that held Osiriss body. During  a  bad  storm  at  sea,  the  chest  sticky  up  on the shores of Byblos in Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) and came to rest in the limbs of a tamarisk tree. In time the tree grew to unique size, and the trunk  encompassed  the  chest  with  the  dead  Osiris inside. While she was smart for Osiris, Isis had a vision and saw the chest in Byblos.

Isis and Hathor

Isis and Hathor

Through the  New Kingdom (1550-1069  b.c.), Isis and Hathor were close related because of their many similarities. Isis started to wear the Hathor crowncows horns with a sun disk staying between theminstead of her orthodox throne  crown. The  properties  of  the  two  goddesses became interlaced, and they widespread the titles Lady of  the  Heavens  and  Sovereign  of  the  Gods.  Isis first looks in the Valley of the Kings in the burial chamber of Tutankhamen.

Isis, heavy the orthodox throne on her head, and the goddesses Nephthys, Neith, and Selket all widespread their wings in security around the four faces of Tutankhamens sarcophagus. The said four goddesses also appear on the canopic shrine that holds the kings mummified pipe organs.

A shape of Isis straight behind  the  king  was finished when a portion of the tombs wall was dismantled during excavation to remove the large shrines covering the sarcophagus. In the prospect, Isis and Anubis welcomed  Tutankhamen  to  the  Netherworld,  and Hathor, the principal goddess of the west, proposed the king eternal life by holding an ankh to his nose.Isis, who plays an essential role in the myth of Isis and Osiris by seeing the took apart parts of  her  husbands  body,  reassembling  his  branches,  and breathing  life  into  his  body,  does  not  companion him  when  he  resurrects  in  the  realm  of  the  dead. Isis remains among the living, and it is Hathor who is associated with the west the land of the dead. Often it is hard to tell the departure between pictures of  Isis  and  Hathor  in  the  royal  tombs  because  Isis sometimes switches her throne headdress for the headdress  of  sun  disk  and  cows  horns  more  commonly affiliated with Goddess Hathor. The only way to tell them  apart  is  to  read  the  hieroglyphs  that  place the figures. When their personalities begun to blend they were sometimes called Isis-Hathor.

Isis's Tenacity and Guile

When her son came to maturity Isis had to fight serious in the law-court of the gods for the prize of his fitting inheritance of the Egyptian  throne.  In  this  respect  she uncovers  her  true  nature  as  clever  of tongue and  perseverance  against  obstructions put in her way by the almost powerful gods. The Broad Hall of Geb is the scene for the litigation between Gods Horus and Seth, the  proceeding  of  which  are  saved on a papyrus dating to twentieth dynasty. An base  motif  in  the  account  is  the kinship  between  Isis  and  God Seth,  her brother. The blood-bond is, on one function,  strong  enough  to  soften  the  goddesss answer on behalf of her son. When God Isis  has  harpooned  God Seth,  who  is  in  the form of a hippopotamus, he collections to her in  the  name  of  their  blood kinship  and she  releases  the  barb  from  his  flesh. However, this is only a shortened lapse. Two episodes will exemplify how Isis, by her  cunning  and  skill  in  magic,  humiliates Seth in advance of the gods presiding at the court.

Isis and the Seven Scorpions

Isis in a scorpion form

Afterwards the death of Osiris, Isis was confronted with many hard knocks. Her evil brother Set held Isis and the infant Horus captive in a house (See [Conflict between Horus and Set (Mythology)]). Thoth, the great god of wisdom and magic,  came  to  Isis  and  pepped up  her  to  escape  from Set and to hide her child in a papyrus brushwood in the fens of the Delta. Seven scorpions, who were a demonstration of Selket the scorpion goddess, guided Isis as she fled her vicious brother Set. As she traveled to the Delta, Isis sought shelter one night with the wife of  the  township  official,  but  when  the  woman  saw  the seven scorpions accompanying Isis, she shut her door and  rejected  them  refuge.  Angered  because  Isis had been treated so badly, six scorpions abandoned their poison on the tip of the tail of the seventh scorpion, and the seventh entered the house of the inhospitable woman and burned her son. The excited woman ran through the town crying and bitter, for she did not know if her child would live or die. Upon hearing the screams of the mother, Isis felt sad, for the child had done nothing wrong, and she visited to the woman, Come to me, for my speech has the power to pro-tect, and it has life. Isis settled her hand upon the child and radius, O poison of Tefen, come forth, and come out on the ground! For I am Isis the goddess, and I am the lady of language of power, and I know how to  work  with  words  of  power,  and  strong  are  my words! The poison left the child and he lived.

Then Isis said to the seven scorpions, I speak to you, for I am unique and my regret is greater than that of anyone in all the Nomes of Egypt. . . . Turn your faces down to the ground and lead me to the swamps and the occult places.

Isis as a Mother of Horus

Goddess Isis nursing Horus

It is in this  aspect that the goddess was regarded as the vital link between gods and royalty, since the king was the living Horus on  the  throne  of  Egypt.  In  the Pyramid Texts  it  is  stated  that  the  rule drinks divine milk from the boobs of his mother Isis.  This  is  the  mental imagery  of  the plethora of statuettes of Isis sat on a throne,  suckling  the  young  Horus  who sits on her lap. The goddess was thought to have given birth to her son at Khemmis in  the  Delta,  rewarding  the  connexion with the monarchy since the place name in its ancient Egyptian form of Akh-bity substance papyrus  thicket  of  the  king  of Lower Egypt. Her part as a goddess protective royal births is got in the Middle Kingdom account  in  the  Papyrus Westcar promising a dynastic change: Isis takes into  her  arms  all  of  the  first  three pharaohs of the Dynasty V as Ruddedet makes them birth.

Isis  intends  to  bring  up  Horus  in secret so that he might eventually avenge the character assassination of his father. This close holding of Horus from danger gets a  frequent  point  of  reference  in  magical texts  concerning  cures  for  children's ailments  leading  from  hazards  like scorpion  bites,  or  accidental  scalds.  Isis visited great of magic is evoked to come to the child's aid as if it were Horus himself.  A  spell  against  a  fire,  e.g.  is recited over a concoction of human milk, gum  and  cat  hairs,  to  be applied  to the separated child: in it Isis, narrated that her son lies  in  the  desert  hurt  from  a burn with no water to clear him, gives the assurances that her saliva and piss (which she euphemistically addresses  the River Nile flood between my thighs) feature the power to ease the pain.

Isis and Nephthys

Goddess Isis and her sister Nephthys mourned  the  death  of  Osiris, and while they shown their grief, the sisters cautiously made the body of Osiris for divine mummification.  As  protectors  of  Osiris,  they  became  the protectors  of  all  mummies.  Their  images  look  on coffins  and  on  canopic jar  boxes,  where  they  guard the mummified variety meats of the passed. Sometimes the sisters are represented as hucksters wearing their respective symbols on their heads: 8 Isis and 3 Nephthys, their  extended  wings  protecting  the  broken. In the Book of the Dead, Isis and Nephthys  come along with the sun God Ra when he checks for his annual  journey through the Netherworld.

Goddess Isis

Goddess Isis name

Goddess Isis

Goddess Isis was Egyptian goddess. In root she was possibly the prosopopoeia of the throne, considered as a (female) deity; and she admits on her head the  determinant  of  the  seat  of  agency. The  myth  tells  how  she  sought  out  her good brother and husband Osiris from whom  she  got  the child Horus; she forgot him and mourned him unitedly with her sister Nephthys. When, later, every dead person came to be discovered with Osiris, she became protector of the dead.  As  she  who  is  rich  in  spells (Urthekau)  she  was  accepted  into  the world  of  magic  and  sorcery.  From the Middle Kingdom forwards, her solar aspect  is  displayed  in  her  epithet  eye of Ra.

Beside that, Isis was the queen of Sirius, and Greek sources (e.g. Plutarch) represented her as a moon goddess. In the Hellenistic period, Isis got frequenter of sea-farers,  and  was  given  a  rudder  as property. She was, with very few exclusions, portrayed in human shape; the cows horns and the sun disc she bears on her head she owes to her concretion with the figure of Hathor.

The Roles of Goddess Isis:

• Isis as Sisterwife of Osiris
• Isis and Nephthys
• Isis as a Mother of Horus
• Isis and the Seven Scorpions
• Isis's Tenacity and Guile
• Isis and Hathor
• Isis and Osiris, (Myth)
• Isis and the Egyptian Magic

Isis as Sisterwife of Osiris

In the genealogy broken by the priests of Heliopolis, Isis was one of the children of God Geb and goddess Nut.  As  the  sister  whom Osiris  precious  on  earth she  devotedly serves him in the government of Egypt. In the  earliest  quotations  to  the  goddess  in the Pyramid Texts she looks to foresee his  murder  by  Set,  and  is  described  as sitting  black,  weeping  for  her brother.  After  his  death  she    and  her sister Nephthys  mourn inconsolably in the process of kites. She wearilessly seeks, and rules his body later her brother Set had set it into the Nile; she reassembles  Osiriss  remains  after  Seth  had  dismembered  it  and  broken  the  parts passim Egypt (see Osiris for more details of the myth). In the Great Hymn to Osiris on the stela of Amenemose (18th Dynasty) in  the  Louvre  Museum,  the  goddess  is imagined  as  a  kite  protectively  blending the god with her feather, the breeze created  by  her  wings  providing  breath  for him.  She  then  acts  as  a  hold  over  the god.  This  is  iconographically  read  in some statues by the goddess straight in human form, stretches forward her arms from which grow flies to flank the figure  of  Osiris  before  her a clear statement of how the Egyptians saw Isis as an example of supreme devotion to her husband. It is through her magic that Osiris names her pregnant  the god now leading Egypt for his purpose as Underworld Rex.

Goddess Imentet

Goddess Imentet name

Goddess Imentet greeting
King Horemheb (inside
his tomb)

Goddess Imentet, or Amentet, was a goddess of the dead, Amentet is the personification of  the  west,  the  home  of  the  gone.  Amentet, a sympathize with  companion,  helps  the  souls  of  the dead journey to their living direct in the Nether-world. From her home in the branches of a tree at the border of the desert, Amentet watched for the souls as they  approached  the  charm  to  the  Netherworld, or next world. Its positioning was believed to be in the western desert. Amentet extended bread and water to the beat souls, and if they accepted her hospitality, it  meant  they  walked  with  the  gods  and  would peacefully introduce the next world. The ancient Egyptian word amentet means the infrared place, the land of the going down sun, where the broken gained for their  trying  journey  through  the  12  hours  of  the Duat in the dedicated boat of the sun God Ra. Another translation of the myth states us that Amentet met the souls of the broken at the end of their journey  to  the  Netherworld.  Here  the  goddess  assisted with  the  rebirth  of  their  souls  and  admitted  them with food and drink.

Amentet  frequently  seems  in  the  company  of  other goddesses  connected  with  fertility  and  resurrection. Sometimes she is a winged goddess, on with Isis and  Nephthys  when  they  assist  with  the  magical resurrection  of  a  mummy.  When  Amentet  comes out with Hathor (Hathor-Amentet), she becomes a solar goddess  of  the  west.  She  is  often  in  the  company of  Re-Horakhty  (Horus  of  the  Two  Horizons). Together  they  received  the  souls  of  the  gone to  their  new  dwelling  place  in  the  Netherworld and  assisted  with  their  resurrection.  Amentet  besides sometimes came out with Iabet, who, as goddess of the east, was Amentets twin.

Goddess Hesat

Goddess Hesat name

Goddess Hesat

Goddess Hesat was a cow goddess  who  nursed  the  children  of the gods and who gave birth to the king in the make of  the  golden  calf.  As  the  goddess  of  milk,  Hesat satisfied the thirst of world when she provided her divine milk, the beer of the souls. During the Late period (747-332 b.c.), Hesat was seen to be the mother of the Mnevis Bull and was rewarded  in the bull furore.

Goddess Shesmetet

Goddess Shesmetet was a leonine goddess, probably a  expression of  Sakhmet. Shesmetet gives  birth  to  the  king  matching  to  the Pyramid Texts and with the democratisation of  Egyptian  feeling  becomes  the mother  of  the  deceased  in  funerary papyri. In a spell to be recited on the last day of the year the name of Shesmetet is invoked  as  a  magical  force against monsters  of  slaughter. There  is  a  clue  to the exotic origins of this goddess in her epithet Lady  of  Punt,  i.e.  the  cense region near the coast of modern Eritrea.