Egyptian Mythology
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Written by Christine Breese, D.D., Ph.D. and Sean Michael Smith
Plutarch, a Greek historian, has written most of what we know about the story of Osiris. Osiris was one of the greatest gods in the Egyptian Pantheon. Most other stories from Egyptian legends and myths are lost, except for snippets and incomplete stories that managed to be remembered. Most of Egyptian myth was never set down in writing. Only the story of Osiris is the best preserved in the writings in Egyptian tombs.
Long before the first hieroglyphs, the people of the Nile valleys lived in tribes and each tribe had its own God. This god incarnated as an animal, bird or an inanimate fetish of some sort. Animal deities eventually gave way to human deities in human form, and nothing of animal worship is left except the animal’s head being worn by a man or woman. These were the gods and goddesses.
At first these were lone gods, but then Egyptians saw fit to create a family of gods and goddesses, for they could not fathom the idea of how lonely it must be for a god not to have a wife and children. So, they created goddesses and children of these deities. Egyptians became farmers instead of hunters. However, each town, no longer a nomadic tribe, still had its own god which oversaw the affairs of that particular group of people. From the second dynasty on, this was the form of divinity until the end of paganism (religions containing multiple gods in charge of different affairs).
Egyptians also worshipped the divinities of nature, the sky the earth, the sun, the moon, and of course the Nile River, believed to be the source that created Egypt. The sky was considered feminine and thus was a goddess who barely touched the earth with her fingers and toes. Sometimes they saw the sky goddess as a cow with all four feet planted firmly on the ground. Also they imagined that the night sky, with all its stars, was the belly of the goddess. Another image associated with the sky goddess is that of the head of a falcon who opened and closed its eyes alternately, thus the day and the night. This goddess was called Nut or Hathor.
The earth was considered masculine. It was portrayed as a man laying face down on the ground with vegetation growing up out of his back, supporting all of life. This god was called Geb.
The sun had a lot of names and had many varied interpretations. The sun was called Aten and was considered masculine. Depending on where the sun was in the sky, this god was called different names to denote different positions. These names were Khepre, Ra and Atum. Horus was another widespread name for the sun. Some interpretations say that the sun was a suckling child of the sky goddess, and was reborn every day. Other interpretations say that he was a golden egg laid daily by a great goose. Most often he was referred to as a giant scarab rolling the globe of the sun before him the way that a regular scarab rolls dung.
The moon also had many names. It was called Aah, Thoth, Khons and sometimes simply called the son of Nut, the sky goddess. He was thought of as the left eye of a great hawk whose right eye was the sun.
Beyond the gods, the creator of the gods themselves was believed to be Demiurge. Demiurge was supposed to have created the gods with his voice, when he spat, excreted waste, sweated, or cried. Another belief was that mankind and the animals had simply risen from the mud of the Nile. It was believed that Demiurge had created them on a potter’s wheel out of the mud.
The tomb of Thuthmosis III denotes a list of seven hundred and forty gods, most of whom we only know the names of, and nothing else. It was quite clear from studies of the hieroglyphs that there were many gods, and that many things were explained by the existence of these gods. The Egyptians were fond of inventing gods, and seemed to invent one whenever something needed explaining.
The most popular and most documented gods are the ones from the Ennead of Heliopolis, a major metropolis and large civilization in Egypt. This is a much taught cosmological system taught by the priests of this city. Other large concentrations of population might have had completely different stories or names, but these are not well documented by the scribes of old, or the records have simply not been found.
Egyptian Gods & Goddesses
Nun (Nu): Nun is chaos, the soup in which lay the raw material of all things and all beings. This one is considered the father of all gods but remained a concept and had no temples or worshippers. He is represented as a man up to his waist in water holding up his arms with all the gods that had issued from him supported by his arms. He was the Egyptian personification of the watery abyss that existed at the beginning of time and which contained the potential for all life. According to one tradition, the sun god Atum rose from Nun in the form of a hill, a primeval mound, and gave birth to Shu, god of air and Tefnut, goddess of moisture.
Atum (Tum): this one is considered formless and the sum of all existence. This god is considered the spirit of Nun, living inside Nun with no form. He teamed up with Ra, and thus was born creation. In later text, he is portrayed as the setting sun and the moment before rising sun. Atum was considered the ancestor of the human race in particular. Atum was supposed to have borne the first divine couple without the aid of a wife. Only later he was given a spouse, in fact, two wives, who also bore gods of their own.
Ra (Re or Phra): He was the supreme manifestation of the solar logos. Ra was considered the creator god, the sovereign god of the sky. Originally worshipped in Heliopolis, Ra was a hugely important member of the Egyptian pantheon. He was said to have come into being on the primeval mound that rose out of Nun and proceeded to plan creation. Sometimes he was depicted as a divine child floating out of a lotus flower. The Egyptians believed that each day the sun god was reborn, perpetually governing by a day and battling Apep at night. The Pharaohs called themselves “Sons of Ra” because Ra was said to have created order out of chaos. Ra was usually depicted as a falcon or falcon headed man crowned by the bright red sun. Ra was omnipotent, his body containing the entire cosmos.
Ra first manifested himself as the central stone of the city Heliopolis, an obelisk called Benben. The temple around this stone was called Het Benben, “palace of the obelisk.” The obelisk was considered a petrified sun’s ray.
Ra bore Shu and Tefnut who then bore Geb and Nut (Earth and Sky) who in turn bore Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys. These are the eight great gods who with their chief god Ra Atum formed the Ennead Of Heliopolis.
Later Ra was given his spouse Rat, which is his own name in the feminine form. When Ra was young, he reigned over all gods and men. Later he was depicted as an old man with a drooling mouth. Isis plotted against him in his old age, and even men plotted against him. Ra retaliated against these men, but did not obliterate the entire human race. However, he developed a distaste for men and the world after this betrayal and withdrew beyond reach. He left earth for the heaven life. Thus, he became the sun.
Ra was reborn each morning as a child who grew until midday and declined into death at night. He was also portrayed as a bull named Merwer. Sometimes he was represented by the bird Bennu. Ra had many more names, in fact one tomb depicts seventy-five different names for this god. However, Ra, in all areas of Egypt, was considered the sovereign god, the creator and ruler of the world with whom all the other gods were identified. Even the pharaohs called themselves the sons of Ra. It was believed that the god Ra entered the body of the husband of the queen in order to create the child who would be the next ruler.
Apep or Apophis: This was the eternal enemy of Ra, the primordial supreme being of the Egyptian pantheon. A terrifying serpent, Apep symbolized chaos and destruction. Each day, as the sun god, Ra, crossed the sky in his boat, Apep would viciously attack the vessel. Occasionally during a total eclipse, he was believed to have swallowed it whole. Despite his ferocity, Apep never gained victory over his enemy, yet neither was he ever completely conquered. However, the reddening of the sky at dusk was said to demonstrate that the serpent had been overcome by the sun's strength. According to one story, Apep was created when Neith, the mother goddess associated with war and hunting, spat into Nun, the primal watery chaos. In later times Apep was said to be kept in control by Seth in the underworld. Apophis is his Greek appellation.
Khepre (Khepera): This is the one considered the rising sun. Khepre was the god of transformations and life renewing itself. He is sometimes portrayed as a man with a scarab head or simply a scarab itself.
Shu: With Tefnut, his twin sister who was the goddesss of moisture, they became the first divine couple of the Ennead. Shu comes from the Egyptian verb “to raise” or “he who holds up.” His name is sometimes translated as "emptiness.” He is the equivalent of Atlas in Greek mythology but he holds up the sky. He slipped between the two children Geb (Earth) and Nut (Sky) and separated them. Shu was the god of air, or emptiness. He, however, had no temples or cult following. He is represented as a man who wears an ostrich feather. He succeeded Ra as king on earth, but like his father, experienced the betrayal of men. He vanquished his betrayers, but disease polluted him so that even his followers left him. Tired of reigning, he took to the skies after a tempest that lasted nine days.
Tefnut: This one was not considered a real person, but she was considered Shu’s twin sister and wife. She may have been paired also with another god named Tefen, but nothing is known about this god except the name. She was the goddess of the dew and rain and she worshipped in the form of a lioness. She is depicted as a lesser copy of Shu and she helps him support the sky.
Anhur: He is a warlike personification of Ra, and is the equivalent of the Greek god Ares, god of war and was considered a protector. He was adorned with a headdress with four tall feathers covered by a long robe, brandishing a lance. Sometimes he is depicted with a cord, leading the sun across the sky. He was called the “saviour” or “the good warrior.” He enjoyed a long term following. Eventually he received a wife named Mehit, a copy of Tefnut with a lion head.
Geb (Sed, Keb): With Nut, he and she were the second divine couple of the Ennead. He was the earth god, the foundation of the world, but he had no following. Once he was separated from Nut by Shu, he was unhappy and inconsolable. His cries could be heard night and day and his distress was said to cause earthquakes. He lies at the feet of Shu, against whom he struggled to defend his wife, Nut. He was considered the father of the gods however, bearing with his wife the Osirian gods. Occasionally he was accompanied by a goose or portrayed as a bull. Geb, the father of the gods and Nut, their mother, begat Osiris, Isis, Nepthys, and Seth. The kings of Egypt called themselves Heirs of Geb, Kings of the Earth.
He was usually regarded as a beneficent deity who provided humanity with crops for their fields and who healed the sick with medicinal herbs. However, it was also feared that he might trap the dead within his body and thereby prevent them from entering the underworld. The god is usually depicted as a bearded man, often lying under the feet of Shu. He was sometimes colored green to indicate that vegetation grew from his body.
He was Shu’s successor to the throne, one of the first three kings of earth, but his reign was also intercepted, but not by men or betrayal. He opened the golden box of Ra in which Ra kept the Uraeus (his fiery crown that killed and burned his enemies) and a lock of his hair. When the box was opened, all of Geb's companions were killed and Geb himself was badly burned. Only the lock of Ra’s hair could heal Geb by applying it to the wound. (When this lock of hair was later dipped in the lake of At Nub it turned into a crocodile.) This is why the crocodile is considered sacred in Egypt. Once Geb was healed, he handed his kingdom over to his eldest son, Osiris.
Nut: She was goddess of the sky. It is not certain whether or not she had a following or a cult. She was Geb’s twin sister and married him secretly against the will of Ra. This is why Ra had the couple separated by Shu, the god of air and emptiness. The couple was not permitted to have children. However, Thoth had pity on them and created five extra days of the year for them (the Egyptian calendar only had 360 days) so that they could be together for that time. She had five children, Osiris, Haroeris (Horus), Set, Isis, and Nephthys.
One myth tells how Nut helped Ra to distance himself from human beings when he became disillusioned with their ways. Taking the form of a cow she raised the great god upward on her back. However, the higher Nut rose, the dizzier she became, until she had to summon four gods to steady her legs. These gods became the pillars of the sky.
The sky goddess was considered the daughter of Ra, yet at the same time she was considered the mother of Ra, supporting his birth and death cycle each day. She is often portrayed as a woman with a vase on her head. She is also considered the protectress of the dead and she is seen holding the deceased in her arms. Over the inside of the lid of the coffin, or sarcophagi, the stars of her belly are above the mummy watching over him. Nut is the universal night sky in starry radiance, the place where the gods were born.
Apis: He was the sacred bull of Egypt. He was worshipped at Memphis, where his temple lay opposite that of the great creator god Ptah. Apis, in the form of an actual black bull, was believed to be the reincarnation or “glorious soul of Ptah.” Ptah was said to have inseminated a virgin cow in the form of fire, and to have been born again as a black bull. Each day, Apis was let loose in the courtyard of his temple and the priests would use his movements for divining the future. Usually, the Apis bull was allowed to die of old age, but if the bull reached age 25, they drowned it in a fountain. The bull was twice assassinated by Persians.
Ptah's priests recognized the next holy bull by discovering certain markings on the creature's body, including a white triangle on his forehead and a crescent moon on his right side. (This idea of special markings for identifying a reincarnation of an adept is also found in Tibetan Buddhism in the searches for the next Dalai Lama.) The extent of the reverence with which the sacred bulls were regarded can be gauged by the fact that their mummified bodies were buried with great ceremony in huge underground burial chambers. This reverence for bulls and cows is also found in Eastern Indian beliefs, particularly Hinduism.
Osiris: At first, Osiris was considered a nature god, the spirit of vegetation that is reborn after winter. Later he was worshipped as the god of the dead and reached the most important rank among gods because of this.
Osiris is the first son of Geb and Nut and was declared the “universal lord.” Ra was happy that he was born, in spite of the curse he put on Geb and Nut, and proclaimed Osiris as heir to his throne. Osiris was handsome, taller than most men, and dark skinned. When Geb retired to the heavens, Osiris became the king of Egypt and took Isis, his sister, as his wife, declaring her queen. He abolished cannibalism and taught his still primitive subjects how to farm and create food from the earth. He also taught them how to make bread, wine and beer. He laid down just and fair laws. There were not many gods before this, and Osiris encouraged the idea of other gods. He also invented flutes, two in particular that were to be used in ceremony. He created the first temples and carved the first sculptures. He gave people laws and he was known as Onnophris “the good one.”
He wished to do more than just civilize Egypt, and wanted to spread his ideas and rulership throughout the world. He left the local government to Isis and moved toward Asia. He took Thoth with him, and also Anubis and Upauaut. Osiris was against all violence and it was through gentleness that he conquered country after country, winning the inhabitants by songs and musical instruments. His success was largely due to the fact that everyone he encountered was immediately transfixed by his charisma. He returned to Egypt only after he had spread civilization throughout the whole world. When Osiris returned to Egypt, many festivals were held in his honor. Upon his return, he found his kingdom in good shape for Isis had governed wisely. However, he soon became the victim of a plot organized by his brother Set, who was jealous of Osiris’ influence and power to be covered shortly. In short, he was killed by his conspirators. However, his wife found him and took him back to Egypt. Through sorcery and the assistance of Thoth, Anubis and Horus, she restored her husband’s body to life. Osiris then stood “trial” in the face of Set’s accusations and vindicated himself.
He could have continued to reign, but he decided that he would rather retire to the Elysian Fields where he could welcome the souls of the “good” and reign over the dead. As a god of the dead, Osiris enjoyed his greatest following and popularity. He gave his devotees an eternally happy life in another world ruled by a just and good king. He became part of a trinity and was worshipped with the other parts of the trinity, his wife Isis and his son, Horus.
Osiris is depicted standing, sometimes seated on a throne, as a man in tight white mummy wrappings. His face was greenish and he had a high white miter with two ostrich feathers, which was called Atef, the crown of Upper Egypt. His hands, not in the mummy wrappings, hold a whip and a scepter in the form of a hook.
The names of Osiris are many. In the Book of the Dead, he has a hundred names. He also liked appearing in various incarnations. He appeared as various animals, the bull Onuphis, the sacred ram of Mendes, the bird Bennu, and also in a fetish called the Djed, which was his primitive form when he led his early followers into battle. The Djed was the trunk of a fir or some other conifer. Osiris was usually depicted as a bearded man wrapped in mummy bandages and holding a hook and flail to symbolize his kingship. He demonstrates the regenerative powers of the natural world and the hidden or Otherworld (amentet).
Isis: Isis is represented by a woman who has a throne on her head. Later, her headdress is depicted by a disk set between cow’s horns that are flanked by two feathers. Sometimes she is a woman with a cow’s head. She is often seen standing beside Osiris who she helps and protects with her winged arms.
She is usually depicted with huge sheltering wings and is often regarded as the personification of the throne. The hieroglyph denoting Isis is a throne and her lap was seen as the cradle-delta of Egypt. She is the mother of the lesser Ennead, lead by Horus, her eldest son. Within her image as a winged throne is a secret reference to the merkaba, the throne that flies. Her wings are said to be rainbow hued in many texts and she is called the goddess of ten thousand names. Isis became so famous throughout Egypt, and absorbed the qualities of all the other goddesses. She was a mother goddess, a bird goddess, a patroness of magic and medicine, a goddess and guide to those in the underworld who could resurrect the dead. She was also a primordial goddess of the infinite primeval waters. This is the power of Isis transformed from goddess and embodiment of the astral realm into the infinite Gnostic expanse of the universal divine consciousness. This transformation was celebrated and taught as a mystery religion in Egypt, later Greece and the Roman Empire. Her cult and many of her images passed directly onto the figure of the Virgin Mary, especially the Gnostic Black Mary. The famous images of Virgin Mary with the child Jesus are directly taken from images of Isis suckling Horus as a young child. The predominate myth of her religion was the story of resurrecting Osiris, the god-principle and destroying Set, the diabolical principle.
She was originally a modest divinity of the Delta, a protective deity. She was said to have been the fourth born in the swamps of the Delta to Geb and Nut. Soon she was given as a wife to Osiris, the god of a nearby town. Her popularity grew with his. She helped him with the work of civilizing Egypt, teaching women to grind corn, spin flax and weave cloth. She also helped men learn how to cure disease and get used to domestic life.
Isis was devastated when she learned that Osiris was assassinated by her violent brother Set. She set in search of the coffin her husband was put in and which was cast into the Nile. It was carried out to the sea and came to rest, finally, at the base of a tamarisk tree. The tree grew so fast that the coffin was enclosed in its trunk. Malcandre, the king of Byblos, ordered that the tamarish be cut down in order to prop up the roof of his palace. When this was done the tree gave off such a beautiful scent, and the story was told so much that it reached Isis’ ears. She knew what it meant and went to Phonecia and retrieved the coffin from the trunk of the tree and took it home to Egypt.
She hid the coffin in the swamps of Buto. Set found it though and ordered Osiris’ body cut into fourteen pieces that he scattered far and wide. Isis searched for the fragments. She put all the fragments together again and performed specific rites that restored the murdered god to eternal life. She was assisted by her sister Nephthys, Anubis, Thoth and Horus, the son she conceived by union with her husband’s corpse. Isis retired to the swamps of Buto in order to escape Set and raise her son Horus until the day he would be old enough to avenge his father.
Isis was a potent sorceress and even the gods were vulnerable to her magic. She persuaded the god Ra to tell her his secret name. She took advantage of the fact that Ra was now an old man with senility and a drooling mouth. She created a venomous snake that bit Ra, and he was incapable of curing himself of a wound he did not understand. Isis refused to take away the poison until Ra told her his true name. He told her this not through a word, but through an energy that passed from his heart to hers.
The cult following of Isis grew and grew until she absorbed all the qualities of almost all the other goddesses. Her following even crossed into the Graeco-Roman era and worship of Isis was found even as far as the banks of the Rhine River. She became a divinity of travelers, even well into the Christian era. It was not until her temples began turning into churches that she began to lose her following.
Set (Seth, Sutekh): The Greeks called him Typhon. He embodied the spirit of evil, which eternally opposes the spirit of good, his brother Osiris. He is also the son of Geb and Nut and he was prematurely born on the third day of the five days of freedom Geb and Nut had. He came forth from the womb violently and he was rough and wild, his skin white, his hair red, and was an abomination to the Egyptians. He was considered the darkness, the arid lifeless desert, and drought. All that was life giving and blessing came from Osiris, and all that was destruction and perversity came from Set. He was the Egyptian god of storms and chaos who came to signify evil, although he was held in high esteem and worshiped in pre-historic times. Later, during the reign of the Ramessid pharaohs he was worshipped again. Seth was the son of the earth god Geb and sky goddess Nuit (Nut).
Originally, Set seems to have been the ruler of Upper Egypt but was overthrown by the worshippers of Osiris. However, more than one version of the story says that Set was jealous of Osiris and wanted the throne. In order to get it, he needed accomplices so he rounded up seventy-two of them, to be exact. He invited his brother to a banquet and had a coffin brought in. This coffin, he joked, belonged to whoever fitted it best. Osiris, not realizing that he was being duped, took his turn with the others and laid in the coffin without any suspicions that anything terrible was about to happen to him. At once, the conspirators closed the lid and nailed it shut. They threw it into the Nile. Later, he happened to find it again after Isis brought it back and this time ordered Osiris cut up into fourteen pieces. This way he could be sure of his possession of the throne.
Seth’s wife, Nephthys, left him and joined the party of Osiris, as most of the other gods had done. She escaped from his cruelty by taking refuge in the bodies of various animals. When the right moment arrived, Horus, son of Isis and avenger of Osiris, went into battle against Seth and overcame him. After debate and reasoning amongst the gods Seth was officially deposed and Horus instated as Earth's Rightful Ruler. In one version Seth then leaves with Ra to live in the sky. It is unknown what creature is the head of Seth.
It was not until the twenty-second dynasty that Set, the assassin of Osiris, began to undergo punishment for his crime. His statues were broken and his features were smashed with hammers. He was banished from the Egyptian pantheon and was made “god of the unclean.” He became a devil, an enemy of the gods. He and his cohorts sought refuge in the bodies of desert animals, like the scorpion, to escape the conquering Horus. Set is depicted as having the features of a terrible beast with a thin curved snout, square boar’s ears, and a forked tail. It was called a Typhonian animal.
Nephthys: She is the second daughter of Geb and Nut. Her name means “beautiful mistress of the house or palace.” The goddess was sometimes regarded as symbol of the desert edge; often barren, but occasionally, after a flood, fruitful. Set took her as his wife, but she had no children. She wanted a child by Osiris, her older brother. She got Osiris drunk and made love to him, bearing Anubis. When Set murdered Osiris, she left Set in horror and helped her sister Isis rejuvenate Osiris. She and her sister Isis are often called “the twins,” and watch over the bodies of the dead together. They can be seen on coffin lids and the walls of tombs standing or kneeling with their winged arms in a posture of protection. She actually loved Osiris anyway and should really be regarded as Osiris' second wife, especially after his resurrection and placement as god of the Otherworld. Nepthys took up residence in the palace of Osiris in the Otherworld.
Horus: There is a little confusion in texts as to who Horus really was the son of. Some say he was the son of Geb and Nut, others say he was the son of Osiris and Isis, or that Isis had him with the help of Geb and Nut, for her husband was dead when she conceived him. There are twenty different concepts of who Horus was. Some depict him as Horus the Elder (Haroeris), some called him Hor Behdetite, Horus of Edfu, and Horus son of Isis who avenged his father.
Haroeris, Horus the Elder, was worshipped under the name Horkhenti Irti “Horus who rules the two eyes” (of the falcon whose two eyes are the sun and the moon). In pyramid texts, he is the son of Ra and brother of Set, with an eternal struggle between darkness and light. It is symbolized by the endless battle where Set tears out the eyes of Horus, while Horus hounds his implacable enemy. Later, a tribunal of the gods rules in favor of Horus, and Horus was called Hor Nubti “Horus the Vanquisher of Set.”
Behdety (Hor Behdetite) “He of Behdet,” is another name for Horus. He was worshipped at Behdet, a district of Edfu. Behdety is represented in the form of a winged solar disk, and his image is often above temple gates. He is often portrayed as a falcon headed god leading others into battle against Set.
Harakhtes is a Greek version of Harakhte, meaning “Horus of the Horizon.” He was early confused with Ra and took all Ra’s roles until later Ra became sovereign again over all of Egypt and became Ra-Harakhte.
Harsiesis is the Greek rendering of Hor-sa-iset, “Horus, the son of Isis.” In this version of Horus’ existence, he was conceived by Isis by magical means after her husband was already dead. Horus was brought up in seclusion in order to protect him from Set. He was weak because of premature birth and managed to survive only because of his mother’s sorcery. As Horus grew, Osiris often appeared to him and instructed him in the use of weapons so that he could reclaim his inheritance and avenge his father.
The wars waged against Set are well documented on the walls of the temple at Edfu. The wars dragged on until finally a tribunal of the gods was summoned. Set said that Horus was not really the son of Osiris, that Horus was a bastard child, but Horus somehow proved the legitimacy of his birth. The gods condemned Set and restored Horus’s kingdom, declaring him the ruler of the two Egypts, the upper and the lower Egypt.
Horus then re-established the authority of Osiris and erected temples in which he had his stories engraved. He reigned peacefully and became the father of every pharaoh after him. Each pharaoh took the title of “the Living Horus.”
Horus was worshipped throughout Egypt, along with his father and mother. He was part of trinities of all sorts in many sanctuaries, either as chief, prince consort, or divine infant. His companion during his reign was Hathor, the mistress of Dendera. Later in the legend of Horus, he welcomes the deceased into the presence of this father Osiris “the Good One” and helps Osiris weigh the goodness of the incoming soul.
Hathor (Athyr): The Greeks identify this goddess with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Hathor is depicted as a cow-headed goddess, her sacred animal. She is also embodied in a fetish, the sistrum, a musical instrument that drove away evil spirits. Hathor was the protectress of women. She was the goddess of joy and love. She was the mistress of merriment and dance, music and song. Her temple was a place for intoxication and enjoyment.
Later, she became another protector of the dead, welcoming them with bread and water. Her sanctuary was at Dendera where she was worshipped with Horus with her son Ahi jingling the sistrum at her side. New Year’s Day, her birthday, was celebrated in Dendera with great enthusiasm. The priestesses of the temple would bring Hathor’s image out on the patio to be exposed to the rising sun, and the rejoicing of the people was the beginning of the great festival that would follow, and the day would end in music and intoxication.
She was a goddess of the Hurrians who was referred to as the Queen of Heaven. She was the wife of the tempest god Teshub and was usually given equal status with her husband. She became the sun goddess of the Hittites where she is depicted standing upon a lion or on her throne.
Anubis: He is identified with the Greek Hermes as the Conductor of Souls. Anubis opens the roads to the other world for the dead. He is depicted as a black jackal with a bushy tail, or as a black skinned man with the head of a jackal or of a dog. Anubis presides over embalmment, and funeral prayers were directed toward him. According to some pyramid texts, he is the fourth son of Ra and his daughter was Kebehut. Later, he was adopted by the Osiris family, because Nephthys bore him through adultery with Osiris.
He was abandoned by Nephthys so Isis, not perturbed by Osiris’ infidelity, raised him up from infancy. Some say that he was not abandoned but instead, when Anubis was born, Nepthys hid the child in the marshes of the Nile delta in order to protect him from her husband Seth. The infant god was discovered there by Isis, the mother goddess of magic, who subsequently brought him up. When he grew up, he accompanied Osiris on his quest to civilize the world, and when Osiris was murdered, helped Isis and Nephthys bury him. This was when he invented funeral rites and wrapped Osiris in mummy wrappings to protect him from the elements. Osiris was the first mummy. He was known as “Lord Of The Mummy Wrappings.” From then on he presided over funeral proceedings. He also made sure that offerings brought to the deceased actually reach him or her. He is often depicted as taking the hand of the deceased and leading him or her into the presence of the sovereign judges who weigh the souls of the dead.
His completely canine form was called Wepwawet, Lord of the Opening of the Ways who opened the gates to various parts of the Celestial and Other worlds. Anubis had a universal following as the god of the dead and eventually he was named Hermanubis by the Greeks because of his association with the Greek god Hermes, who was their version of the “conductor of souls.”
Upuaut (Ophois Wepwawet): This character is sometimes confused with Anubis but is a wolf headed god known as “he who guides the way.” He guides warriors into enemy territory. However, he also transformed into a god of the dead. He was an ally of Osiris and assisted in the civilizing of the world. See Anubis.
Thoth: He was worshipped throughout Egypt as a moon god, a patron of science and literature, wisdom and inventions, and was the spokesman of the gods and the keeper of records. Another name for him was Djehuti, which means “he of Djehut.” He was "Lord of the Sacred Words.” He was sometimes said to be the sun god Ra's eldest son. Thoth is usually regarded as the vizier and scribe of Osiris. Because he was associated with secret knowledge, Thoth was able to help at the burial of Osiris. He also helped to look after Horus when Isis was bringing him up.
He is portrayed as a man with the head of an ibis, a type of bird, with a crescent moon. Sometimes he was portrayed as a dog-headed ape, which leads to the possibility that he was derived from two different lunar deities who were blended together into what now is known as Thoth. One of these deities was a bird and the other was an ape.
In some pyramid text, he is portrayed as the oldest son of Ra, sometimes the child of Geb and Nut, the brother of Isis, Set and Nephthys, but he does not belong to the Osirian family and is only the advisor of Osiris. Thoth was usually depicted as an Ibis or a baboon. It was said that Thoth wrote a Book of Magic, known as the Book of Thoth said to give the reader power over the gods. This Book of Thoth is known as the Tarot today.
He remained faithful to Osiris, even after he was murdered, and helped to resurrect him. He then helped Horus prevail against Set. When Horus left his earthly kingdom, he bestowed his throne to Thoth. Thoth remained the peaceful ruler for 3,226 years.
Thoth invented the arts and sciences, arithmetic, surveying, geometry, astronomy, soothsaying, magic, medicine, surgery, music with wind instruments and strings, drawing, and writing. He was the inventor of hieroglyphics and was called “Lord of the Holy Words” He was said to have commanded the forces of nature and the gods themselves.
After his long reign on Earth, he went to the skies where he continued to be an innovator. He was the moon god. He was the one who figured out how to achieve five extra days for Geb and Nut so that they could be together and bear children. (How this fits in with the fact that he inherited the throne from the children that supposedly weren’t born yet, well, this is unclear.) He was the divine regulative force with his calculations. He was the keeper of the divine records and the patron of history. He noted all events in history and served as a clerk of the gods. He was also called on to help judge the souls of the dead and record it.
Some texts show him partnering with Maat, the goddess of truth and justice. However, they are not found together in any temple. They did have children together, though, named Seshat and Nehmauit.
Seshat (Sesheta): She was Thoth’s spouse and she was also the goddess of writing, history and was Thoth’s double. She measured time and invented letters. She was called “mistress of the house of books” and “mistress of the house of architects.” She was considered a secretary. She was a scribe to the kings and verified the amounts and quantities of their captured booty from enemies.
Nekhebet: She was the protectress of childbirth. She is sometimes portrayed as a vulture with a bald head and claws holding a whisk and a seal, and other times as a woman wearing the crown of Upper Egypt with the vulture image engraved in the crown. She was said to suckle the royal children, and even the pharaohs themselves. Nekhbet: She was the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt. She was usually depicted with her wings outspread, holding the symbols of eternity in her claws. Nekhbet was widely regarded as a mother goddess who looked after the ruling Pharaoh, along with the Wadjet, the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt.
Amon (Amun, Ammon): He is called the king of the gods, and the Greeks identified him with Zeus. Amon appears as a bronzed human with a headdress of two tall parallel plumes. He is also represented with the head of a ram. He was often called “his mother’s husband” and was the god of fertility. He was sometimes called Amon-Ra, for he became such a powerful and widespread ruler that he was seen as the father of all that is. He was extremely prosperous and was called on in prayer to assist one in gaining wealth. His wife was Mut.
He grew in importance to become the god who looked after the most splendid of the pharaohs. . By the 18th dynasty, in the second millennium B.C. Amon had become the supreme god of the whole of Egypt and was identified with the primordial logos and sun god Ra as Amon-Ra, although Ra retained his own separate following. The Pharaohs Tutmosis III (the actual personage of King David spoken of in the Bible) and Amenhotep III (the actual King Solomon of the Bible) described themselves as “sons of Amon” and claimed that the god brought them victory over their enemies. During the time of these Pharaohs, Egypt was extended far into Palestine, encompassing all of Jerusalem, and well into Africa and Arabia. During the reign of Amenhotep's son Akhnaten (the Biblical Moses), worship of Amon was forbidden while worship of Aten was declared as true. However, in 1361 B.C., the succeeding Pharaoh Tutankhamun reinstated Amon, calling himself Living Image of Amon. Worship of Amon spread beyond Egypt into Ethiopia and Libya.
Through Coptic Christianity, Amen becomes the suffix to prayers in the Christian church with the double meaning of Amon's aspects. As a seal to the prayer in the sight of God in the congregation, Amen means secret, hidden, and concealed, but also “so be it” or “may it happen” from the tradition of Amon-Ra, the hidden Logos as the creator of the universe, i.e. the cosmic Christ.
Aten: Aten was a sun god who came to pre-emminence in the 14th century B.C. under Amenhotep IV, a Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. Aten was the vehicle of Ra, the energetic emanation of the solar disc rather than an anthropomorphic depiction of a god. Amenhotep built temples to Aten close to those of the supreme god Amon and, to the disgust of Amon's priests, piled Aten's temple high with gifts. Four years into his reign, the pharaoh pronounced that the religion of Aten was the only official faith and that the god was to be worshipped as the exclusive creator of humankind. Worship of all other gods, epecially Amon, was forbidden. In an attempt to spread the religion of the Aten throughout the empire, Amon's temples were closed and his images defaced. The pharaoh changed his name from Amenhotep meaning “Amon is Satisfied” to Akhenaten meaning “Glory to the Aten” or “He who is devoted to Aten.” He also relocated his capital from Thebes to a city known today as el-Amarna, which he had built specially to glorify Aten. Aten is always depicted as an enormous red disc, from which rays of light emanate. The rays, ending in hands, were believed to extend the beauty of Aten to the ruler. When Akhenaten died, Amon and the other gods were reinstated by Tutankhamun, and Aten's rays were sliced through to prevent his beauty from reaching Akhenaten.
Mut: She was Amon-Ra’s wife and was identified by the Greeks with Hera. She is called “Mother.” She is vague and not much is known about her, however. Her reputation and popularity rose as Amon-Ra’s did. She was sometimes portrayed as a cat, whose form she sometimes assumed.
Khons (Khensu): No one understands why the Greeks associated him with Hercules. He was considered by Egyptians to be the “Navigator.” He was adopted by Amon and Mu and became part of their triad. He was known as an exorcist and healer. He healed the possessed and sick. He was also considered a moon god. One of the months of the year was named after him.
Sebek (Sobek): He is a crocodile divinity. He sometimes shared Set’s evil reputation and is thought to have aided Set, the murderer of Osiris, by helping Set to hide in the body of a crocodile. He was the Egyptian crocodile god, represented either as the reptile itself or as a man with a crocodile's head. Sebek's following was greatest at Crocodilopolis, capital of the province of Fayum. A live crocodile called Petsuchos, said to be an incarnation of the god, was kept in a lake attached to Sebek's main sanctuary. Sebek's devotees sought protection by drinking water from the pool and by offering the crocodile delicacies. Sebek was a very popular god, worshipped alongside Horus and Ra.
Ptah: Ptah of Memphis, the old capital in northern Egypt where the Pharaohs were crowned, was the protector of artisans and artists. He united life, stability and omnipotence. He became the third god of importance, only being preceeded in importance by Ra and Amon, and his particular priests thought that he was the Demiurge, the creator of the world. His priests declared he created the world with the power of the Word, although he probably originated in a fertility cult. He is the inventor of the arts, and he was also a designer and smelter of metal and a builder. He was said to have molded the gods and kings from metals. He directed architects and masons. Some records depict him as “fair of face” but others say that he was a deformed dwarf with twisted legs. Ptah is usually depicted wearing a tightly fitting linen wrap and skull cap while holding the scepter of dominion.
Sekhmet: She was the dreaded goddess of war. Her name means “the Powerful.” She hurled herself on the men who rebelled against Ra, taking the form of a lion, and vanquished them. Ra begged her to stop because he did not want her to obliterate the entire human race. She would not stop, so Ra had to figure out a way to stop her. He placed across the battlefield seven thousand jugs of beer and pomegranate juice. Mistaking it for blood, she drank it and became too drunk to continue her carnage. The human race was saved. She was also called “the beloved of Ptah” and bore him a son, Nefertum. Also in her cult were bone setters who cured fractures.
Bast (Bastet): She was also called Bast and was the local goddess of Bubastis, or House of Bastet, the capital of a province of Lower Egypt. She was usually regarded as the daughter of the sun god Ra, although she was sometimes said to be his sister and consort. Later, she became the wife of the creator god Ptah. According to some accounts it was Bastet, rather than Nepthys who was the mother of Anubis. Originally, she was a lioness goddess symbolizing both the warmth of the sun and the rage from the sun god's eye, around 1000 B.C. Bastet came to be represented as a cat, or cat headed woman. However in some stories she continued to possess the qualities of Sekmet, the lion headed goddess. Usually a benevolent goddess, Bastet protected humanity from diseases and evil spirits. Most importantly she was a goddess of fertility, sex and love, and enjoyed music and dancing. In the 4th century B.C. fertility festivals were held in her honor at her temple at Bubastis. Cats were venerated as Bastet's sacred animals, and their mummified bodies were buried at her sanctuaries.
Originally, this was a lioness goddess, but later her sacred animal was the cat. She is the one who is most often represented as a cat headed woman. She is sometimes confused with Sekhmet because of her feline inclinations, and also because she was another wife of Ptah. Like Hathor she was a goddess of pleasure, music and dance. She beat time with the sistrum decorated by the figure of a cat. She also protected men against contagious disease and evil spirits. People came from all over the region to celebrate in the annual festival at her temple in Bubastis. Cats became very sacred and venerated animals, and she was considered the cat goddess.
Hru: In Hebrew and Egyptian magic, Hru is the angel set over oracles and works of the sacred Tarot. Hru is the guardian of Heka and appears as the god's Ba soul in the astral realms. The Magus invokes Hru to oversee any works of divination or of esoteric research.
Imhotep: This means “he who comes in peace.” He was the most celebrated of the ancient sages. He was one of the first men to become deified and considered a God. Imhotep was King Zoser’s greatest architect and Zoser was the architect of the oldest of the pyramids, who ruled in the third millennium B.C. Imhotep wrote the “Book of Temple Foundations” and was very famous. It was claimed that Imhotep was not born of human parents, but of Ptah himself. He was called “the son of Ptah” and displaced Nefertum. He is portrayed with a shaven head as a simple man usually reading from a roll of papyrus across his knees. He was a patron of the scribes and protector of those interested in the sciences and occult arts. He also became the patron of doctors. He became the demi-god of medicine to the ordinary people. Toward the end of paganism, he seemed to outrank his father Ptah and became the most venerated god of Memphis.
Imhotep designed the first pyramids, personally overseeing their construction. Imhotep's step pyramid at Saqqara was the first monumental stone building ever constructed. The sage was also credited for ending a seven year famine by advising the king to make offerings to Khnum, the god who controlled the flood waters of the Nile. Admired in his lifetime, Imhotep gradually came to be celebrated as a god. According to some tales, he was the son of the god Ptah. The patron of the scribes, he is usually depicted as a priest with a shaven head. He was also the patron of doctors.
Sirius: One of several stars crucial to Egyptian religion, Sirius is one of the brightest stars in the sky and held great magical significance for the ancient world. Once representing Osiris, its helical rising and falling over the horizon corresponded to the Nile's yearly floods. The celebrations and commencement of the Osirian mysteries occurred at this time. There is also the implication that Osiris originally inhabited that star system or that it is his celestial abode, as Orion is the original place of Sati and Heka. When the Sirius cluster went under the horizon Isis was searching for Osiris in the Otherworld. The Egyptians set their calendars to Sirius. Due to this, the first days of summer were New Years Eve in Egypt. Sirius forecast the annual flooding of the Nile River. Sirius means "burning" in Greek due to its status as brightest star in the late spring sky. The saying "the dog days of summer" comes from the Roman observation that the hottest days of summer followed the helical rising of what they called the "Dog Star,” their name for Sirius. Sirius was seen as a gateway to the Otherworld and as an abode of Osiris and many other gods. The temples on the funerary side of the Nile were built to align with Sirius' sidereal path.
Ba and Ka: Ba and Ka were believed by the ancient Egyptians to be the soul and spirit, or vital essences, of a dead person. The Ba was the astral soul, able to move through the hidden planes and worlds of existence. It was depicted as a bird with the head of the person it belongs to. The Ka was universal life force and was said to sometimes appear in the form of a blue phoenix and was believed to return to the tomb, where it ate food left by relatives and priests. So deeply entrenched was this belief that menus were sometimes inscribed on the walls of tombs.
Sphinx: This is an Egyptian magical creature which has the head of a god or pharaoh and the body of a lion. It represents the akhu, the sense of "I" which is aware of divinity, yet still has functions and connections to the lower worlds. It also represents the divinity of this structure as well, serving as a guardian to the “Pyramid” apex of higher consciousness as self awareness becomes truly divine. The sphinx can have wings as well; yet always will have a god's head such as the goat head of Khnum or the face of a Pharaoh along with its lion body. The most famous Sphinx is the Guardian of the Giza Pyramid Complex.
Khnum: An Egyptian creator god, he was said to have fashioned the world on his potter's wheel. His name means Moulder. The god is usually depicted as a ram headed man sitting before his potting wheel looking at the human he has just created. Khnum made the gods and the people. He was said to control the annual inundation of the Nile.
Maat: She was the Egyptian goddess of truth, cosmic harmony, balance and justice. A daughter of the sun god Ra, she ruled over the judgment of the dead in the throne room of Osiris. Each person, when they died, had to appear before the 42 Judges of the dead and declare their innocence or guilt in relation to 42 different crimes. The soul of the dead person would be weighed against the goddess on a pair of scales; on one scale the victim's heart and on the other a single Ostrich feather. The heart was checked against the weight of Maat's feather by Anubis, Lord of the Gates of the Dead and their verdict was recorded by Thoth, the consort of Maat. If the heart was heavier than the feather because of being weighed down by crimes, the terrifying female monster Ammut would devour the dead person. If the deceased lived in the Way of Maat in life, their heart would be light and free of injustice, light as a feather, and he or she was then transformed into a radiant spirit to live amongst the gods and battle with the celestial dragon serpent Apep (Apophis). Maat was depicted crowned by the single feather of Judgment. She was the "Breath of Life" and was often pictured ministering to Pharaohs by holding the Ankh, the original cross, a symbol of immortal life, to their noses. The Ten Commandments of the Old Testament were only ten of the 42 ways of Maat. The text the 42 ways of Maat says, "All human beings are intended to live by Maat, in Maat and for Maat." Her hieroglyph was simply her feather or an image of the goddess in profile.
Min: An ancient and popular Egyptian god. He was always depicted with an erect phallus and with a flail raised in his right hand. On his head he wore a crown decorated with two tall, straight plumes. It is thought that Min may originally have been worshipped as a creator deity, but in classical times he was the god of roads and travel through the desert. Min was also a god of fertility and growth, a protector of the crops.
Wadjet: The cobra goddess of lower Egypt, she was usually represented as a cobra about to strike, although occasionally she appears as a Lioness. Both Wadjet and Nekhbet were believed to protect the Pharoah. The Wadjet Eye was the Eye of Ra with the Cobra upon it, signifying the power of the Pharaoh and the magic of the Egyptian Orders.
Neith: She was the Great Mother of the Egyptians, originally the local goddess of Sais, situated in the Nile Delta of Lower Egypt. She was also a warrior goddess and a protectress of homes. She was the mother of Sobek, the crocodile god, and was said to have created the terrible cosmic serpent Apep. Neith came to be regarded as the mother of all Egyptian Gods, in particular Ra, and was often shown as the celestial cow, Mehueret, who gave birth to the cosmic sky before life began.
Tarot: In Egypt the earliest Tarot would be done with statuettes of the gods representing the major and minor keys painted in their elemental colors. Thoth transmitted this system into two different esoteric systems. The first was Egyptian Magical Chess, the game of the gods, and the second was the Book of Thoth. The Book Of Thoth translated the Tarot into Hieroglyphic Representations on 78 leaves and was perpetuated first in Egypt, then in Serapeum in Asia Minor at the temple of Hermes-Thoth Trismegistus, and then by the Gypsies all over the world. Thoth also left several key instructions on Merkaba, perhaps up to 30,000 texts from Atlantis and the Realms of the Gods. Of all the Egyptian pantheon Thoth still visits the Earth plane of Geb the most. Thoth was called Tahuti, his Coptic name, in Western Africa and Ethiopia when he and Ra, Anubis and Osiris established the half-god, half-human King Ori as King of all Aden-Sheba (which stretched the entirety of Southern Nubia, Ethiopia, and Arabia).