Osiris The Greek name for Ousir, the Egyptian god who enjoyed his greatest popularity as god of the dead. Originally, Osiris was a nature spirit, embodied in the crops that die in harvest and are reborn again each spring. According to the legend of his transformation as god of death, Osiris was a handsome king of Egypt who married his sister, ISIS. The Symbol of Osiris was the SUN, while the symbol of Isis was the Moon. In a treacherous plot, Osiris’s brother, Set, murdered him and hacked his body to pieces. Using Magic, Isis reassembled the body and breathed life back into him. In some versions of the story, Set murdered him again. Osiris preferred to remain in the domain of the dead rather than return to his throne. He served as king and judge of the dead; the Book of the Dead has approximately 100 litanies to him. Osiris is often portrayed with Isis and their posthumous son, Horus, in a trinity. In the Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, his passion, death, and resurrection were reenacted in a fertility drama. The Romans absorbed Osiris’s cult and spread it throughout the Roman Empire. Osiris is a major figure in the magical rites of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, particularly for the grade of Adeptus Major. His myth is the foundation of an alchemical formula of transmutation to immortality and to magical power. The formula is expressed as I.A.O., Isis, Apophis, Osiris, birth, death, resurrection. Osiris died and then rose through the birth of Isis and the Higher Genius of Thoth to become the avenger son Horus. According to the mysteries, the initiate can only obtain true and lasting power when he submits the Self to the guidance of the Higher Self. Osiris reconciles the Lower Selfhood in which birth and death are unnecessary—the Bornless One (see Bornless Ritual). The initiate becomes unified with Osiris.
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The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley Copyright © 2006 by Visionary Living, Inc.