Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday, so we
Speaker 2: are heading into the vault for an older episode of
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is part one of
Speaker 2: our series on Osiris and the Cult of Osiris, originally
Speaker 2: published on April second, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: That's right, let's geek out on some Egyptomania.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And in this episode, we're going to be diving into
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian mythology once more to discuss an important deity
Speaker 1: connected to the topic of resurrection, which I think was
Speaker 1: probably on my mind over the weekend due to first five.
Speaker 1: It was the Easter holiday. Also on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: which is of our Friday episode in the Stuffed Blue
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed, we talked about doctor FIBs rises. Again,
Speaker 1: I did not think about this in terms of the
Speaker 1: holiday at all. I didn't think, oh, this is our
Speaker 1: Easter selection. But then I noticed our social media posts
Speaker 1: about it on Easter Sunday, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about the rise of doctor Fibb's He's rising again.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, wow, we sort of accidentally nailed
Speaker 1: it there.
Speaker 2: It's a movie that has so many resurrections. It has
Speaker 2: Doctor Fhibes himself coming out of a sort of a
Speaker 2: chemically induced slumber where at the end of the first
Speaker 2: movie he replaces his blood with embalming fluid and then
Speaker 2: goes to sleep in a giant glass contraption under the floor.
Speaker 2: At the beginning of this movie he wakes up again.
Speaker 2: So that's one sense of rising, though I guess it's
Speaker 2: questionable whether he technically died or not there, so he
Speaker 2: rises at the beginning of the movie. There. The rest
Speaker 2: of the movie is about him trying to live, literally
Speaker 2: resurrect his wife Victoria played by Carolyn Monroe from the dead.
Speaker 2: She sort of spins the whole movie in a glass
Speaker 2: display case, and he is going to take her to
Speaker 2: a temple in ancient Egypt under which lies the secret
Speaker 2: to resurrection and eternal life. And he departs the end
Speaker 2: of the movie on a barge, singing somewhere over the
Speaker 2: rainbow to take Carolyn and row down there and bring
Speaker 2: her back to life. And I would mention a third
Speaker 2: resurrection in the film, which is that the character Vulnavia,
Speaker 2: which is melted like sort of a robot clockwork organism.
Speaker 2: We're not exactly sure. From the first movie, it's Doctor
Speaker 2: Fibes's hinchwoman who helps him commit his quote amazing murders.
Speaker 2: She is melted by acid at the end of the
Speaker 2: first movie, and then just inexplicably comes back in the
Speaker 2: second movie. Also, they resurrect Terry Thomas, remember he bites
Speaker 2: it in the first movie, and then he just comes
Speaker 2: back playing a totally separate character in the second movie.
Speaker 2: And I think that motif of coming back in bodily
Speaker 2: form but playing a different character, maybe maybe may it
Speaker 2: may have some thematic resonance. That's right.
Speaker 1: So what we're gonna be We're gonna be talking about Osiris. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't think Osiris came up in Doctor five Rises again,
Speaker 1: maybe they made passing reference to him. I think I
Speaker 1: made passing reference to Osiris when we were talking about
Speaker 1: the film. But this is a deity best known for
Speaker 1: his connections to fertility, to the ancient Egyptian underworld, and
Speaker 1: to rights of mummification.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I've seen lots of depictions of the
Speaker 2: god o Cyrus before I was familiar with the imagery
Speaker 2: associated with him. But something I had never noticed until
Speaker 2: I was reading up in preparation for this episode is
Speaker 2: that while on the top half of his body, he
Speaker 2: is often depicted, you know, looking kind of like a
Speaker 2: like a king or a pharaoh, you know, very stately
Speaker 2: with a beard, with his with his face exposed under
Speaker 2: the crown and all that, if you looked down at
Speaker 2: the lower part of his body, apparently his legs are
Speaker 2: depicted wrapped together in the in the wrappings of mummification,
Speaker 2: so it's like the bottom half of his body is
Speaker 2: already mummified. That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I invite listeners who are in a position
Speaker 1: to do so safely to go ahead and look up
Speaker 1: some images of of of historical depictions of Osiris from
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. Yeah, he's generally depicted as a mummified king,
Speaker 1: you know, bounds as in the wrappings of mummification. His
Speaker 1: skin as is exposed, you know, in his face and
Speaker 1: neck and hands, is apparently either black or green. I
Speaker 1: tend to find more images of green color choices, though
Speaker 1: that may have at one point signified putrification and death,
Speaker 1: but came to symbolize his connection to the cycle of
Speaker 1: death and life, of resurrection and rebirth, particularly resurrection and
Speaker 1: rebirth linked to that of plant life. On top of this,
Speaker 1: he is generally depicted as wearing a crown and he
Speaker 1: brandishes a crook and a flail, so strong agricultural vibes already.
Speaker 2: But also with power and authority. You know, it's the
Speaker 2: crook and the flail and the autaf crown, the crown
Speaker 2: I think of Upper Egypt. This is the imagery of
Speaker 2: a king.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so. He is very much like an embodimentimum
Speaker 1: of a mummified king. So let's get a little bit
Speaker 1: into the myth of Osiris. Now standard caveat with mythology,
Speaker 1: you know, as usually as the case, we're not dealing
Speaker 1: with a singular idea from a singular time and place,
Speaker 1: but rather a figure and associated narratives that stirred in
Speaker 1: the minds of ancient peoples for thousands of years. We
Speaker 1: have various accounts of Osiris to go off of, but
Speaker 1: our understanding of Osiris is also incomplete, and indeed we
Speaker 1: don't know with one hundred percent certainty what his name
Speaker 1: even means. It might well mean the Mighty One, but
Speaker 1: I think there are some other ideas out there. There's
Speaker 1: plenty that experts have had to piece together about Osiris
Speaker 1: that is not explicitly, you know, obvious in the source material. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the books that I that I turned to
Speaker 1: for this episode is the two thousand and two book
Speaker 1: Egyptian Mythology by Geraldine Pinch. Pinch also points out that
Speaker 1: we don't know when, how and where Osiris was first worshiped.
Speaker 1: He might have kicked things off as kind of a
Speaker 1: deified pre dynastic king. He might have been an old
Speaker 1: vegetation spirit, a jackal god, or even a mother goddess.
Speaker 1: And I'm also assuming based on this that you know,
Speaker 1: there might have been some interplay between these concepts, you know,
Speaker 1: various varied possible origins, gods that are combined into new
Speaker 1: gods and so forth. Now, Pinch summarizes the sort of
Speaker 1: the what you might think of as the canonical rise
Speaker 1: and fall and resurrection of Osiris, pointing out that first
Speaker 1: of all, he's generally thought to have been born with
Speaker 1: a crown on his head. So taking that concept of
Speaker 1: born king that is theay referenced in Christian hymns, sometimes
Speaker 1: referring to Jesus, but taking it to a literal degree.
Speaker 2: Ah. So, whereas a lot of kings, say, might be
Speaker 2: born with a right to the throne that has then
Speaker 2: recognized in a coronation by placing the crown upon their head,
Speaker 2: that this king is born with the crown already there, like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't need to be recognized.
Speaker 1: Exactly king at his birth literally because he's look, he's
Speaker 1: wearing a little crown, and I guess maybe the crown
Speaker 1: grows with him. I mean, he's a god. He can
Speaker 1: do these things. And fortunately his mother was also a god,
Speaker 1: so he was the eldest son. It is that of
Speaker 1: the earth god Geb and the sky god as Newt.
Speaker 1: So in many respects, he is the place where earth
Speaker 1: and sky converge. He's the very horizon now. Pinch shares
Speaker 1: that some accounts allude to him overcoming his father in
Speaker 1: a vicious dynastic struggle for rule, and one late text
Speaker 1: claims that he died for the first time during this struggle. However,
Speaker 1: she stresses that no accounts of Osiris's rule and his
Speaker 1: death survive from before the Greco Roman period concerning this issue.
Speaker 1: So but one way or another he comes to reign
Speaker 1: over Egypt with his sister consort Isis at his side.
Speaker 1: But of course this rule does not last according to
Speaker 1: the pyramid texts of the Late Old Kingdom, so these
Speaker 1: are for more than four thousand years ago. Osiris was
Speaker 1: murdered by his brother Seth or set who we've talked
Speaker 1: about on the show before, in part because there is
Speaker 1: some mystery and disagreement on what the set animal or
Speaker 1: Seth animal is that his iconography is based upon. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we have this. Yeah, this brother Seth strikes his brother
Speaker 1: down and tramples him and or drowns him in the
Speaker 1: Nile River, and Pinch writes that a double death may
Speaker 1: have been deemed necessary to kill a god.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, one way or another, either drowned in the
Speaker 2: water or trampled or both, Osiris is dead.
Speaker 1: That's right, He's overthrown. He's been murdered. And one way
Speaker 1: or another, Osiris's dead body becomes fragmented, either via a
Speaker 1: deliberate chopping up of his corpse by Seth or possibly
Speaker 1: due to decomposition. In either event, the dead body of
Speaker 1: Osiris becomes divided. Into in some cases fourteen pieces, though
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like forty two pieces. A certain number of
Speaker 1: pieces of the Dead God come into circulation here, and
Speaker 1: I think this varies from something that happens right away again,
Speaker 1: like I've killed you and now I'm going to chop
Speaker 1: you up, to something that Seth does later comes and
Speaker 1: despoils the corpse of Osiris, or something that happens naturally
Speaker 1: later on. In any case, the pieces are either scattered
Speaker 1: or become scattered.
Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, that's something I don't know if I
Speaker 2: ever understood before. Do the pieces come apart as something
Speaker 2: that his enemy does to him? Is it kind of
Speaker 2: a William Wallace situation or is it more kind of
Speaker 2: a some kind of magical principle at work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Based on my understanding of the different accounts that
Speaker 1: are looking at here, it looks like it does vary.
Speaker 1: And it also seems to vary whether those pieces stays
Speaker 1: to some degree scattered or are truly brought together. Again,
Speaker 1: I guess it kind of depends on what sort of
Speaker 1: concepts are important to the story. That may make more
Speaker 1: sense when I start talking about specifics here in a minute,
Speaker 1: But in any event, it falls to Isis to gather
Speaker 1: the pieces of the fallen Osiris and seek his resurrection
Speaker 1: via powerful magic, with the aid of Annibus, an underworld
Speaker 1: deity and thought a god of magic who we've also
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before. Now Isis herself was
Speaker 1: the mother and throne goddess, so each Egyptian king is
Speaker 1: her child. It falls to her to find and gather
Speaker 1: the pieces of slain Osiris, to assemble him and hold
Speaker 1: a long vigil over the corpse along with their sister Nephthus,
Speaker 1: and they use a spoken magic, Pinch says, to drive
Speaker 1: away Seth the disturber. So I guess there's this idea
Speaker 1: that even as they are trying to bring him back,
Speaker 1: Seth is trying to disrupt their attempt.
Speaker 2: Almost like a scavenger or predatory animal circling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, during this reassembly Osiris is he's described by Pinch
Speaker 1: as the inert one. So all of the pieces of
Speaker 1: Osiris are either in teared together or assembled into a
Speaker 1: hole except for his fallas. And remember again that Osiris
Speaker 1: is also a god of fertility, and by this fallus
Speaker 1: or depending on the story, by a flash of divine fire,
Speaker 1: whatever the case isis becomes pregnant with the Sun by
Speaker 1: the deceased God, and this Sun is going to be Horace,
Speaker 1: the Sun destined to overcome Seth. So she raises Horace
Speaker 1: in the marshes. She has to raise him in safety
Speaker 1: and secrecy until he is old enough to challenge his
Speaker 1: father's usurper, which he does. He defeats Seth and he
Speaker 1: becomes the new ruler.
Speaker 2: Now, I think you're going to get into this in
Speaker 2: a minute, but that part of the myth is important
Speaker 2: because this will come to have a great significance for
Speaker 2: the succession in the real world of divine kingship as
Speaker 2: a concept in Egypt.
Speaker 1: Right now, Another interesting part here is that despite Osiris's
Speaker 1: connection with the concept of resurrection by many definitions or
Speaker 1: in certainly sort of modern interpretations and I guess like
Speaker 1: dungeons and dragons to interpretations, he is not truly resurrected
Speaker 1: at this point. He does not become a living flesh again.
Speaker 1: He is not resurrected into this world.
Speaker 2: Right and this will be an important point of contention
Speaker 2: for a question that I think we're going to get
Speaker 2: into in part two of this series about the concept
Speaker 2: of resurrection in ancient religions. But yeah, Osiris is not
Speaker 2: thought to be raised back to the form and the
Speaker 2: place where he originally lived. There is a instead, he
Speaker 2: goes on living, but it is in a new form
Speaker 2: in a new world. There is in a sense a
Speaker 2: new Osiris.
Speaker 1: That's right. So basically, the higher powers and other powers
Speaker 1: of note here decide that okay, Osiris, you were just,
Speaker 1: but your death was not just. So therefore he's permitted
Speaker 1: to leave his now mummified body and become the Lord
Speaker 1: of the dead in the afterlife, the judge and ruler
Speaker 1: of the kingdom of the dead. And it seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty cool gig to have a Pinch points out that.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: At all periods. There are a few texts that describe
Speaker 1: Osiris as a terrifying figure who dispatches demon messengers to
Speaker 1: drag the living into the gloomy realm of the dead.
Speaker 1: So inert but not powerless by any means, and he
Speaker 1: is just. He is an appropriate judge. He said to
Speaker 1: rule over the dead as when enifer, which either means
Speaker 1: the one whose body did not decay, and we see
Speaker 1: that again his connection to mummification and rites vocation, though
Speaker 1: I think it's also according to Pinch, sometimes translated as
Speaker 1: the beneficent one. Uh. This was also apparently the title
Speaker 1: for the high priest of Osiris in you know, religious traditions.
Speaker 1: These are like the basic core myths concerning Osiris to consider,
Speaker 1: but you know, we always go deeper than that, Like
Speaker 1: what are we to make of these myths? What do
Speaker 1: people think they meant? What did they signify? Why did
Speaker 1: they have such you know, cultural significance. And again we
Speaker 1: have to realize that understandings and interpretations change over time.
Speaker 1: Middle Kingdom rituals seem to associate the body of Osiris
Speaker 1: with barley and the trampling seth. Again, remember the trampling
Speaker 1: being part of the murder of Osiris. Uh, there seems
Speaker 1: to be a strong case for associating that trampling with
Speaker 1: the donkeys that would thresh the grain via trampling, thus
Speaker 1: linking his death and resurrection in this earliest known example
Speaker 1: to the cyclical reaping and sowing of crops.
Speaker 2: Yes, and again asterisk on the word resurrection there. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's an interesting thing how people often do
Speaker 2: associate religious ideas of resurrection with the cycles of life,
Speaker 2: in the cycles of plant life in the seasons. But
Speaker 2: when you were talking about donkeys threshing grain. You know,
Speaker 2: I made another kind of association there, which is that
Speaker 2: the grain begins as something that is from the living plant,
Speaker 2: but then when it is is put through agricultural processing,
Speaker 2: it is in a way reborn, and it doesn't go
Speaker 2: on to live again as a plant, but instead it
Speaker 2: goes on to live in a different way. It becomes
Speaker 2: something else, which is grain and ultimately food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these different sort of phase changes occur. It has
Speaker 1: also pointed out that you would have these i the
Speaker 1: phallic figures of Osiris that would would be planted with crops,
Speaker 1: so they would have like a representation of the god
Speaker 1: planted with the the grains planted with the seeds that
Speaker 1: you know, that would that would help enable everything to
Speaker 1: grow into its next form.
Speaker 2: If if phallic, does that mean that's a representation of
Speaker 2: the God with an erection?
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the literal. Different definition though. I was looking
Speaker 1: at an image of one of these figures in the
Speaker 1: British Museum's website and and I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 1: really as pronounced in this image, but but that is
Speaker 1: that is all. That's how it's classified.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I see it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's well compared to it's not as it's not
Speaker 1: as as obvious as one might expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly not as obvious as you might see.
Speaker 2: And like some other statuary from the ancient world.
Speaker 1: Well, I assume the thing is Osiris is wrapped in bandages,
Speaker 1: so it's like it's he's not naked.
Speaker 2: I get you. Now.
Speaker 1: There were also New Kingdom period traditions that link o
Speaker 1: Cyrus to water, with all the liquids of his putrefying
Speaker 1: body being linked to the annual inundation of the Nile,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily just putrefying liquids, like you know, just
Speaker 1: the various liquids of the body, but also like putrification
Speaker 1: liquids thrown in there. So I don't want to make
Speaker 1: it sound like it's all gross or anything. And at
Speaker 1: least one tradition holding that his body parts are buried
Speaker 1: at scattered sites throughout Egypt and the tomb of the
Speaker 1: left Leg on the Nile island of Baiga. I've also
Speaker 1: seen this place referred to simply as the tomb of Osyrius. Anyway,
Speaker 1: different traditions hold that this is the source of the inundation.
Speaker 1: Now I'm thinking about the underworld and the cosmos of
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians, which I think on one hand it's
Speaker 1: easy to think of that, Okay, these are the worlds
Speaker 1: beyond our world, but also they're kind of tied to
Speaker 1: to what is seen and what is not seen but
Speaker 1: kind of implied, and they The one area I want
Speaker 1: to touch on here is the idea of the sun barge,
Speaker 1: the manget, the boat of millions of years that travels
Speaker 1: through the sky with the sun and then down each
Speaker 1: night over the horizon and then through the underworld to
Speaker 1: emerge once more on the other side. And of course
Speaker 1: there's there's fighting that takes place. It is like a
Speaker 1: kind of a it's a perilous journey for the sun
Speaker 1: through the underworld to come back again when the sun rises.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a whole quest. It's a whole quest line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is which is at once again very epic
Speaker 1: and otherworldly, but also tied directly to what we observe
Speaker 1: occurring with the sun. Like the sun goes here and
Speaker 1: then it goes under seemingly and comes back. What's going
Speaker 1: on there? And then we have this mythic extrapolation of that.
Speaker 1: But according to Pinch.
Speaker 2: It's singing somewhere over the rainbow.
Speaker 1: According to Pinch, the New Kingdom under and the New
Speaker 1: Kingdom Underworld books specify that during the darkest hour of
Speaker 1: the night, the god that is is driving the sun
Speaker 1: barge ray or raw passes through the underworld chamber where
Speaker 1: the body of Osiris rests, and in this moment may
Speaker 1: become one soul, and this allows Osyrus and all the
Speaker 1: dead to live again. So, now that we've established some
Speaker 1: of the basics about this underworld fertility god, I wanted
Speaker 1: to get into the cult of Osiris a bit more. Again,
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly when, where or how Osiris was
Speaker 1: first worshiped, or indeed the earliest form or forms that
Speaker 1: he took in these ancient Egyptian belief systems, but over
Speaker 1: time he becomes vitally linked with the cycle of life
Speaker 1: and death, with crops, with the inundation, with mummification, and
Speaker 1: the promise of resurrection.
Speaker 2: And just a note on terminology. When we talk about
Speaker 2: things like the cult of Osiris, cult in that sense
Speaker 2: does not have the negative connotations that cult has in
Speaker 2: the modern world. That's just the term you use for
Speaker 2: any any group in the ancient world that is devoted
Speaker 2: to the care and worship of a god.
Speaker 1: Now, one topic that I was really taken with was
Speaker 1: discussion of the popularity of Osiris, and to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: the overall popularity of the ancient Egyptian religion, because, on
Speaker 1: one hand, I don't remember where I read this, but
Speaker 1: I know I've read commentary that the ancient Egyptian religion
Speaker 1: was something very much all of the desert of this
Speaker 1: nile nourished region and something that just did not travel
Speaker 1: well and was not picked up by other cultures in
Speaker 1: a meaningful deeper way. But on the other hand, the
Speaker 1: trappings of ancient Egypt clearly have fascinated other cultures for
Speaker 1: an exceedingly long period of time, often in these waves
Speaker 1: of Egyptomania, as it's sometimes termed. So I really wanted
Speaker 1: to get into this latter idea a bit more so.
Speaker 1: I turned to various sections dealing with Osiris in the
Speaker 1: excellent twenty sixteen book Egyptomania, A History of Fascination, Obsession,
Speaker 1: and Fantasy by Ronald H.
Speaker 2: Fritz.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Fritz mentions that the aforementioned pyramid texts from
Speaker 1: more than four thousand years ago refer to differing ideas
Speaker 1: about life and death but also they bring up the
Speaker 1: rising popularity of Osiris within the pantheon, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this as well. This is I think this
Speaker 1: is something interesting to observe in religion, that it's mostly
Speaker 1: within these polytheistic traditions that you really get to see
Speaker 1: or in the and or imagine this idea of the
Speaker 1: rise and fall of particular gods and goddesses, as well
Speaker 1: as the more like straightforward adoption of foreign originating gods
Speaker 1: into a given pantheon. You know, we've discussed examples of
Speaker 1: this before, but there's not there's either no room for
Speaker 1: this or not as much room for this in monotheistic traditions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on the specific
Speaker 2: monotheistic religion, but yes, like growing up a lot of people,
Speaker 2: this is another one of the many ways that if
Speaker 2: you grow up in a certain religious context, you might
Speaker 2: just assume that all religions are similar to your religion.
Speaker 2: So like growing up in a Christian context, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people think that all religions have a
Speaker 2: quote jealous God, like the like the Abrahamic faiths. Do
Speaker 2: you know a God who says you shall worship me
Speaker 2: and me alone? And there's basically one right way to
Speaker 2: have a religion, and it's it's the one you've got,
Speaker 2: whereas with a lot of polytheistic religions it's it's much
Speaker 2: more free form. You know that you can add gods
Speaker 2: on to the list of gods that you worship, you
Speaker 2: can remove gods, you can sort of like just shift
Speaker 2: your focus wherever you think it is best. And that
Speaker 2: doesn't compute. Like a lot of Christians look back on
Speaker 2: the pagan context of the Roman Empire, say, and they
Speaker 2: don't realize that. Like when you would be preaching about
Speaker 2: Jesus to Roman pagans, to a lot of them, they
Speaker 2: just be hearing about this is well, this is another god.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got Apollo, and I've got Jupiter and
Speaker 2: these other gods that I worship, and here somebody's talking
Speaker 2: about a new one. Oh, except this is weird. They're
Speaker 2: telling me that if I worship this new one, if
Speaker 2: I worship Christ, I can't worship any of the others anymore.
Speaker 2: That would be weird and different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like downloading apps for your phone, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what's this one due? This is a new one? Sounds useful.
Speaker 1: I'll get it too. Whoa, this one says, I can't
Speaker 1: use any other apps. I've just I've got to use
Speaker 1: this one universal app for everything. Yeah, does it work?
Speaker 1: Is what it sounds like. If it's promises to do everything,
Speaker 1: it probably doesn't do them as well as these specialized
Speaker 1: apps that I already had.
Speaker 2: But to come back to your your original example, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sort of the rise and fall in the popularity of
Speaker 2: various gods within these polytheistic pantheons, where you can believe
Speaker 2: in multiple gods and devote whatever time and care you
Speaker 2: think is appropriate to each one of them. I guess,
Speaker 2: you know, the institution of a monotheistic faith like Christianity
Speaker 2: would be an outlier there where it's like suddenly you
Speaker 2: pick that, you pick the new God, the Christ, and
Speaker 2: you can't believe in any of the others anymore. That
Speaker 2: one goes right to the top. But with the others, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you do get to see these fluctuations over time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like some of the Christian examples we've looked at
Speaker 1: in the past, it's like, oh, your God, actually it
Speaker 1: can be part of this religion. But I'm sorry they're
Speaker 1: a demon now, Yeah, the demons were rebel angels that
Speaker 1: our God defeated. So but yeah, we can work them
Speaker 1: in as that. But then again I was thinking about this,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, well, we've also looked at examples where,
Speaker 1: you know, in various Greek myths where something that was
Speaker 1: once a deity for a particular time in place then
Speaker 1: later on becomes more of a supporting character or a
Speaker 1: monster or something to that effect. So it's something that
Speaker 1: takes place just in general, I guess, and is not
Speaker 1: particular to monotheistic or polytheistic one way. I kept thinking
Speaker 1: of those kind of like if you had like a
Speaker 1: stock ticker for belief, you know, it's like polytheism, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of different stocks that are going up
Speaker 1: and down, but under monotheism, like you're supposed to just
Speaker 1: have the one stock. Yeah, and you're either all invested
Speaker 1: in that or people are falling out of interest of that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not a perfect way of thinking
Speaker 1: about it, but it does seem like, certainly with the
Speaker 1: polytheistic religions of the Greeks and the Romans, there is
Speaker 1: a lot more openness to hey, there's a new god
Speaker 1: this other country has. Let's take a look at. Let's
Speaker 1: see what worshiping this god is like, what's going to this.
Speaker 2: Cult Like, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of just absorption
Speaker 2: of other figures. One example that I was just reading
Speaker 2: about earlier today again, I think we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about this more in the second episode, is there's a
Speaker 2: Greek figure sometimes referred to as a god. He was
Speaker 2: like a mortal lover of Aphrodite named Adonis, who is
Speaker 2: very much thought to have been derived from from other deities,
Speaker 2: other ancient Near Eastern deities like Mesopotamian agriculture gods such
Speaker 2: as Tammuz or DEMUSI. So it's just here, here's a
Speaker 2: cult figure from one part of the world is absorbed
Speaker 2: into the number of gods believed in in a different
Speaker 2: part of the world.
Speaker 1: I just want to add a quick note since we
Speaker 1: are talking at least briefly here about monotheism and polytheism,
Speaker 1: and in an episode that deals with ancient Egyptian religion,
Speaker 1: where we're not going to have time to get into
Speaker 1: discussion of at and Autanism here. But of course that
Speaker 1: has been like a discussion I think we've touched on
Speaker 1: in the past. Where as some experts agree or disagree
Speaker 1: on whether Autanism is truly a monotheistic religion or should
Speaker 1: be thought of as such. So that's a whole different
Speaker 1: subject for another time.
Speaker 2: The short version is one ancient Egyptian king tried to
Speaker 2: elevate a particular deity from the Egyptian pantheon above all
Speaker 2: others and make that the exclusive focus of state worship.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you can read more about that if you
Speaker 2: go look up Auten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and basically after that king's death, everyone's like, well,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the other thing we were telling
Speaker 1: where maybe not as into the sun disc as we
Speaker 1: were pretending to be anyway, back to o Cyrus here. So,
Speaker 1: Fritz writes that the Old Kingdom, so this is roughly
Speaker 1: twenty seven hundred to twenty two hundred BCE, was more rigid,
Speaker 1: was more formal, but that the Middle Kingdom to follow,
Speaker 1: also known as the Period of Reunification from twenty forty
Speaker 1: to seventeen eighty two BC, it was more balance, more sympathetic.
Speaker 1: There's greater literacy, there was more of a melding of
Speaker 1: sort of high mythology and the folklore of the people,
Speaker 1: and the rulers of this period promoted the worship of
Speaker 1: Osiris and the cult s emphasis on resurrection, and the afterlife. Now,
Speaker 1: I think it's easy to take this last bit for granted,
Speaker 1: because if you adhere to a religion, or you're closely
Speaker 1: aligned with one or one or more religions via your culture,
Speaker 1: your upbringing, or just your general interests, then the continuation
Speaker 1: of the soul is not a radical concept. It's like
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to put yourself in a mindset where
Speaker 1: someone is coming at you with some radically new concept
Speaker 1: of religious continuation of the soul, of some sort of
Speaker 1: immortality of the soul, someone saying, hey, guess what, you
Speaker 1: know that part of you that feels special inside your
Speaker 1: consciousness and heart and all of that. What if that
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be annihilated when you die? And I
Speaker 1: have to stress I say this as someone who was
Speaker 1: raised in a Protestant church that even now sometimes for
Speaker 1: me it's more challenging to exercise or entertain a worldview
Speaker 1: in which there is no continuation of the human soul
Speaker 1: after death. And that's regardless of logic or reason. It's
Speaker 1: just such a huge part of not only the Christian
Speaker 1: worldview view but also the mainstream worldview that of course
Speaker 1: what we have is special, and that somehow it continues
Speaker 1: on in one form or another, either directly aligned with
Speaker 1: some sort of belief system or just you know, in
Speaker 1: sort of the general pop culture sense of like spirits
Speaker 1: and angels and like there's just something that must live
Speaker 1: on after we die in our physical bodies. And there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that concept, I think, at least just
Speaker 1: when it's employed in a way that gives us hope
Speaker 1: and peace, though of course it can also be used
Speaker 1: for opposite aims. But to bring us back to this
Speaker 1: period in which like the cult of Osiris is rising
Speaker 1: and it's becoming more and more popular, imagine a religious
Speaker 1: world and a worldview in which the afterlife is largely unavailable.
Speaker 1: It exists, but it's not for the common people. It
Speaker 1: is not for most people. It is for a very
Speaker 1: small percentage of people. It is like the equivalent of
Speaker 1: like extreme opulent wealth in our world, you know, like
Speaker 1: it is the SuperMansion with the apocalypse bunker. You know,
Speaker 1: this is only for a very small, very slender portion
Speaker 1: of society. It is not for you. But during the
Speaker 1: Middle Kingdom you have this ongoing democratization of the afterlife
Speaker 1: where it describes and this was enhanced by the Cult
Speaker 1: of Cyrus. So I want to read a passage from
Speaker 1: Fittzer where he goes through an example of this quote.
Speaker 1: Prior to the Middle Kingdom, Egyptians believed that all people
Speaker 1: possessed a ka, or a soul or life force, but
Speaker 1: only rulers possessed a ba, which was the individual uniqueness
Speaker 1: that constitutes a personality. It required the ka and the
Speaker 1: ba to be kept united or at least in close
Speaker 1: proximity for immortality in the afterlife. When the people of
Speaker 1: the Middle Kingdom came to believe that all humans had
Speaker 1: a ba, they were conceding that everyone could enjoy the
Speaker 1: after life if the proper burial rituals were followed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so suddenly it's available to everyone who at least can
Speaker 1: undergo the proper rituals. And so you saw certain rituals
Speaker 1: become more popular and are more present in the archaeological record,
Speaker 1: such as the use of shabti statues. They begin to
Speaker 1: appear in more tombs. These would have been like little
Speaker 1: representations of servants, servants that would work for the deceased
Speaker 1: in the afterlife, like this will be buried with you,
Speaker 1: and now you will have a servant to help you
Speaker 1: in the afterlife, this sort of general idea we see
Speaker 1: in various other religions as well. Okay, and so Osiris
Speaker 1: becomes very popular within Egypt. But then eventually the ancient
Speaker 1: Greeks and then the ancient Romans they also get a
Speaker 1: whiff of Osiris and they're like, oh, we would like
Speaker 1: some of that as well. He points out that, yeah,
Speaker 1: the ancient Greeks and Romans were some of the initial egyptomaniacs.
Speaker 1: And while the Greeks found on the whole that the
Speaker 1: religion of the Egyptians was profoundly different from their own,
Speaker 1: they were intrigued by its systems of magic and by it,
Speaker 1: you know, its deities, just as we are intrigued by
Speaker 1: these things today. And they did recognize some fundamental similarities.
Speaker 1: He writes that the Greeks frequently attempted to synchronize the
Speaker 1: gods of other cultures with their own, and they certainly
Speaker 1: did this with the Egyptians. So and actually, for some
Speaker 1: Greek writers, these fundamental similarities were incredibly important.
Speaker 2: Right. So they might say, actually, we're talking about the
Speaker 2: same god when we say this god and they say
Speaker 2: that god. But we just have different names for the
Speaker 2: same one here.
Speaker 1: Right, and they seem to take it even a step
Speaker 1: beyond that, because there's one thing to say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I have my concept of God and you have yours,
Speaker 1: but we're really on the same you know, we're really
Speaker 1: on the same wavelength. But it's another to say yours
Speaker 1: came first. I'm pretty sure mine's just a knockoff of yours,
Speaker 1: you know, And we kind of see this. According to Fritz,
Speaker 1: so fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus concluded that knowledge
Speaker 1: of the gods spread from Egyptian origins to the Greeks.
Speaker 1: So it's like, well, the Egyptians discovered the gods first,
Speaker 1: and we just followed. We learned of this from them,
Speaker 1: and anyway, he ends up drawing numerous lines between Greek
Speaker 1: gods and possible Egyptian word origins, though Fritz points out
Speaker 1: that there are clear exceptions to this line of thinking,
Speaker 1: such as Poseidon, who was apparently brought to Greece more
Speaker 1: from the direction of Libya. Still, others made these connections.
Speaker 1: To Plutarch made these connections, so there seems to have
Speaker 1: been at the very least like a recognized heritage in
Speaker 1: all of this. Now that and certainly the Greeks and
Speaker 1: the Romans were particularly taken by not only of Cyrus,
Speaker 1: but also Isis. Here's another bit from Fritz that I
Speaker 1: want to read.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: Although in the modern stereotype the Egyptian religion is depicted
Speaker 1: as mystical, mysterious, and magical, Greek and Roman visitors did
Speaker 1: not see it in this way. Plutarch's staunchly defended Egyptian
Speaker 1: religion as rational and ethical, rather than merely superstitious. Herotogus
Speaker 1: went so far as to credit the Egyptians with the
Speaker 1: invention of the common practices of ancient religion, such as altars, statues,
Speaker 1: and temples dedicated to the various gods. The cult of
Speaker 1: Isis became so populated that it spread throughout the lands
Speaker 1: of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire.
Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, ancient Egypt was simply so ancient,
Speaker 2: like there were there were these remnants of great civilizations
Speaker 2: that had been around for so long. We've mentioned this
Speaker 2: on the show before, but the astounding fact that to
Speaker 2: the Romans, like Plutarch, the you know, the old Kingdom
Speaker 2: of Egypt, the pyramids were older to them than the
Speaker 2: Roman Empire is to us. The distance of history there
Speaker 2: is is crazy to believe. So so there's there. On
Speaker 2: one hand, ancient Egypt was just so evidently ancient as
Speaker 2: a great civilization, you could imagine things, many things you
Speaker 2: had might have come from it. But then also as
Speaker 2: you're saying, there's just this clear spread of say the
Speaker 2: cult of isis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at the same time, yes, sometimes attributing things
Speaker 1: to the Egyptians that that they probably didn't invent. Like
Speaker 1: Fritz mentions that that Diodorus credited of Cyrus with the
Speaker 1: invention of great cultivation and ultimately wine making, though there
Speaker 1: does not seem to be evidence of this, you know
Speaker 1: that they're that wine and great cultivation has an Egyptian
Speaker 1: origin now, but eventually we do see more of a
Speaker 1: full on appropriation and recreation of Egyptian concepts. And in
Speaker 1: one of the strong examples of this, and one that
Speaker 1: concerns of Cyrus is the god so Rapists. This would
Speaker 1: have been a Greco Egyptian syncretic deity. So it's it's
Speaker 1: like an amalgam of both Cyrus and in Oppus, as
Speaker 1: well as aspects of various Greek deities, Like I think
Speaker 1: there's a little Zeus and Hades in there. This would
Speaker 1: have been a being that would have that would have
Speaker 1: become popular on under the the Ptolemaic rule. But still
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that, for instance, that doesn't really seem
Speaker 1: to impact Isis. Based on what I've read, the worship
Speaker 1: of Isis may have spread even more in Roman culture.
Speaker 1: Worship of Isis would travel along trade routes through the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean world, into Spain and even to the British Isles,
Speaker 1: so I think there I've read articles about archaeological evidence
Speaker 1: of Isis worship, like ancient Isis worship in London. So
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like later periods of Egypt Domania
Speaker 1: where you had occultists and so forth bringing in the
Speaker 1: concept of Isis, but kind of like original Isis worship,
Speaker 1: if you will. But then again to the point, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to go through all the examples of
Speaker 1: Egypt Domania. I do recommend everyone check out that book,
Speaker 1: because this is a book that deals not only with
Speaker 1: like ancient Egyptian religion and culture in its origin, but
Speaker 1: also these various levels of Egypt Domania from like you know,
Speaker 1: dealing with examples from say the Victorian world and the
Speaker 1: Renaissance on up through like trashy b movies give like,
Speaker 1: you know, brief breakdowns of some really bad mummy movies.
Speaker 1: But they are examples of at least the reverberations of
Speaker 1: international and multicultural interest in ancient Egypt. And it may
Speaker 1: in many cases it might not be that deep. You know,
Speaker 1: it might be just like, oh, I kind of like
Speaker 1: how this looks and this sounds weird to me, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a horror movie. But it's still, you know,
Speaker 1: reverberations are the same energy. But we'll mention one really quickly.
Speaker 1: So during Renaissance Egyptomania, there was there was still a
Speaker 1: fair amount of pull toward Osyrus. There's a character that
Speaker 1: was an Italian who was originally named Giovanni Nani who
Speaker 1: lived fourteen thirty two through fifteen oh two, went by
Speaker 1: the name Viterbo, and he made various connections between Etruscan
Speaker 1: traditions and the Egyptians. But he even went so far
Speaker 1: as to claim that the Boreses were the descendants of Osiris.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what sort of supporting material he made
Speaker 1: for that, but in anyway, Osiris would continue to serve
Speaker 1: as a central figure in various waves of Egyptomania. Moving forward, So,
Speaker 1: Osiris is invoked in various occultist movements, and Osiris is
Speaker 1: definitely invoked by various ancient astronaut writers. And you also
Speaker 1: see the use of Osiris in the movements of Afrocentrists
Speaker 1: and also Afrofuturists. It's just I mean, he is a
Speaker 1: powerful figure mythologically, and of course he's going to We're
Speaker 1: going to keep coming back to him and finding new
Speaker 1: ways to sort of think about him and new ways
Speaker 1: to invoke him.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I think maybe that will do it for
Speaker 2: part one of our series on Osiris, but we've got
Speaker 2: more to talk about next time. That's right.
Speaker 1: We shall return in a part two and that will
Speaker 1: be on Thursday. In the meantime, certainly write in if
Speaker 1: you have feedback on this episode, other examples of Osiris
Speaker 1: or isisigyptomania that you want to bring up. Everything is
Speaker 1: fair game, but just reminder stuff Blow your Mind is
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail. On
Speaker 1: Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and on Fridays
Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
Speaker 1: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
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