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