Embodying Osiris by Cavalli Thom F;

Author:Cavalli, Thom F;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quest Books
Published: 2010-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

8

SOLVE ET COAGULA

Upon returning to Egypt, Isis hides her husband’s coffin in the papyrus marsh. But Seth, while out hunting, discovers it, and in his rage he cuts Osiris’s body into fourteen pieces. He scatters the body parts throughout Upper and Lower Egypt. Again Isis transforms into a kite and along with her sister, Nephthys, goes in search of her husband’s severed limbs. Wherever she finds one, she performs sacred funerary rites. She collects all but one of Osiris’s body parts, his penis. Thoth comes to her aid and discovers that the member had been cast into the Nile, where it was eaten by a fish. Thoth recovers the penis, and Isis reassembles her husband’s body. She then spreads her wings and magically reanimates Osiris just long enough to be inseminated by him. In this way, their son, Horus, is born. Isis and Nephthys then sit in vigil, protecting and mourning Osiris, while Anubis embalms his father’s body and Horus lives on into maturity.

If any doubts remain that Seth is evil incarnate, then this scene surely raises an important question—is he purely evil or is he, as I’ve suggested, the necessary catalyst that ultimately causes Osiris to assume his position as lord of the underworld? Despite Seth’s despicable acts, I still submit that Seth is not evil, but that another character, who does not appear in this myth, is a much better candidate for the role of devil—Apopis. In fact, we learn in the Pyramid Texts that Seth, the dark god of limits, kills this destroyer of consciousness. Additionally, we should not forget that Seth is part of the Ennead. Nor should we ignore the fact that it was Osiris who seemingly instigated Seth’s wrath by sleeping with his wife. For now, we will delay judgment and await the trial of the gods to decide the fate of both Seth and Osiris.

The Osiris myth stands out against a mythic background that shows Ra sailing through the night sky battling monsters and demons to restore the light of consciousness to the world. Ra’s archenemy is Apopis, whose only ambition is to snuff out this light and render the world lifeless—an empty shell cast back into the sea of Nun. If true evil is unconsciousness, then Apopis is this devil that is the agent of annihilation. Seth’s motives are far closer to being human. He is filled with hate, envy, and murderous impulses, to be sure, but these are emotions that temper and define their opposites. By contrast, Apopis is a serpent of the lowest order—blind to the motives of men and women, acting out of destructive impulses that lack human emotion and reason.

Whereas Seth takes humans to the outermost limit of humanity, Apopis seeks to end humanity altogether. And yet, these dark gods each belong to a powerful complex that defines the limits of human consciousness, delineating a limen that separates order from chaos. While they draw us back into darkness, countervailing forces remain to prevent total collapse. Certainly Isis, using

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