#Myth of Isis and Osiris

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Guide to Literary, Historical, Folklore and Alchemist Themes in "Nosferatu" (2024)

After my post about how the film itself debunks every "popular" view on “Nosferatu” (2024); and the ending explained through cast and crew interviews, (I did full breakdowns on here and on my personal blog), here’s a list of references in “Nosferatu” (2024):

Literary themes: "Dracula" by Bram Stoker (1897); and "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë (1847);

Historical themes: early 19th century (1838), Victorian era. Strict gender roles; views on female sexuality (sickness; contagious; sin) as a marital duty, owned and controlled by their husbands; sexual repression/liberation; Ellen’s mediumship medicalized as “hysteria” and “melancholia”; “love” and “passion” as opposite concepts;

Folklore themes: Changeling (European); Strigoi myth (Balkans); Șolomonari (Romanian); Nachzehrer (Germanic);

Occult themes: Agrippa; Angels and daemons; Enchantress; Babalon and the Beast (New Age of Aquarius);

Alchemist themes:"Sylph" and Paracelsus; Humorism (Humoral theory); Alchemical Gold (Chrysopoeia; Gold-making); Myth of Isis and Osiris.

Literary themes

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker

"The Threat of Female Sexual Expression": Based on 1980's Feminist Literary Criticism (Second Wave of Feminism). the physical figure of the "sick woman" as one of the principal ways in which female sexuality manifests as a contagious disease (Lucy Westenra and her degeneration into vampirism) - Ellen's character as seen by the Victorian characters (especially Friedrich Harding)

19th century "Contagionism" theory: Victorian medicine on disease origin. Disease spread from individual to individual (neglecting environmental issues like polluted water or unhygienic spaces)

"I thought it was agreed you were to keep the girls from her. You mustn’t be swept up in her fairy ways."

Subverted Themes:

Robert Eggers subverted every literary theme in “Dracula”, like he said in one interview: “My influences are all very clear, and Nosferatu is a remake, after all,” Eggers says, yet he plays with the canon, with expectations and clichés – “hopefully subverting them to do something unexpected.”

The Promise of Christian Salvation: This is a Anti-Christian story, at its core. Religious items have no power against Orlok; the fact he can’t enter the Orthodox convent has nothing to do with God (but with him not being given entrance); the God-fearing and religious character (Anna) is the first to die; and the female heroine Ellen not only rejects God (calls it “destiny) but also says she needs no salvation (rejecting Christian salvation, completely);

Madness: Neither Ellen, Professor Von Franz nor Herr Knock are “lunatics”, but the Victorian characters think they are. Knock is in full control of his mental capacities, he’s just a religious fanatic obsessed in discovering Orlok’s secret to immortality and he’s behaving the way he does because he wants to become a strigoi, too, and will stop at nothing to achieve it (even seeking a “violent death” to seal the deal);

The Consequences of Modernity: Ellen’s character and the medicalization of her supernatural gifts and mediumship by Victorian society;

Money: in the novel it’s associated with Count Dracula evilness; here with the Victorian characters. Friedrich Harding (the Victorian patriarch) is wealthy and loans money to Thomas, who drowns himself in debt, in his ambition to climb the social ladder and being “no longer a pauper”. Ellen, the female heroine, rejects money. Orlok gives Thomas a sack of gold in exchange for his signature in the “covenant papers” (the divorce papers) as he’s paying for Ellen’s dowery;

The Threat of Female Sexual Expression: Ellen breaks Nosferatu curse and “saves the day” by embracing her sexuality.

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

“I think that what ultimately rose to the top, as the theme or trope that was most compelling to me, was that of the demon-lover. In “Dracula,” the book by Bram Stoker, the vampire is coming to England, seemingly, for world domination. Lucy and Mina are just convenient throats that happen to be around. But in this “Nosferatu,” he’s coming for Ellen. This love triangle that is similar to “Wuthering Heights,” the novel, was more compelling to me than any political themes.”

Dream of Death: Robert Eggers on “Nosferatu” Interview

Love triangle between a free-spirited and medicalized woman (Catherine/Ellen) with a beastly men (Heathcliff/Orlok) and a gentleman (Edgar/Thomas);

Themes of the all-consuming, obsessive and self-destructive passion, wrecking the lives of everyone around them and only stops when they are both dead;

The Destructive Power of Love;

Blend of Hatred and Love;

Separated by death/United by death; couldn’t be together in life, united in death and reunited in the spiritual world.

Historical Themes

Historical context: early 19th century (1838), Victorian era

Strict gender roles: marriage and motherhood as a woman’s destiny; social reputation and provider as a men’s destiny; domestic (women) vs. public (men) spheres;

Infantilization of women: the ideal Victorian woman was a model of virtue, purity and modesty who obeyed their husbands; women were seen as innocent, ignorant and naïve about the world, and were thought to have no minds of their own; the average Victorian woman wasn't allowed to be educated nor possess knowledge outside of domestic life. A woman’s entire life revolved around men: obeying their fathers, preparing for marriage, seeking an husband and as a wife, living for her husband;

Women as their husbands' property; marriage was the institution where Victorian men fully accomplished their male responsibility and privilege: to form a household, provide safety and comfort, and exercise authority over dependents (wife and children) where the trademark of a successful man. This was also connected to their social and professional success, making them respectful in the eyes of other men. A man who couldn’t govern his wife was also seen as unfit, socially, professionally and morally; and the wife’s behavior would reflect on the husband (which is why Friedrich Harding accuses Ellen of being a social embarrassment to Thomas);

"I envy you. You’ve truly taken your father’s place now… it’s incredible."

Victorian views on female sexuality: female sexuality seen as a plague and a monstrosity in need of containment (sickness, contagious, wicked, sin); women should have no sexual desire whatsoever (Ellen's shame; "I'm unclean"); married heterosexual sex was the only socially acceptable sexual expression in the Victorian era, and everything else (masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution, etc.) was considered deviant, “sinful” and “evil”; sex was a marital duty women had to go through to have children and serve their husbands (women’s sexuality owned and controlled by their husbands);

Sexual repression/liberation, represented by her corset, as Linda Muir, the costume designer, reveals in her interview "The Costumes of ‘Nosferatu’ Are Gorgeous - They Also Tell a Story About Female Repression and Liberation": “Her [Ellen] true nature [takes over] in the end. She liberates herself by ripping herself open, ripping her striped dress open. She liberates herself by wearing the same garment over and over and over again when she’s staying at Harding’s home. So she’s liberated herself in that she doesn’t feel the need to dress up completely each and every day. And then she liberates herself completely in the end.”

“Love” and “Passion” as opposite concepts: Victorian love (Thomas) was meant to be chaste, modest and restrained, tempered devotion confined to the household; and the sacrament of marriage ("sacred") was meant to repress and contain "passion". Passion (Orlok), on the other hands, was erotism, sexuality and sexual desire, considered "animalistic" and corruptive.

"Find the dignity to display the respect to your caretaker. And for your husband’s sake, I pray you might learn to conduct yourself with more deference."

Ellen’s mediumship medicalized as “hysteria” and “melancholia”: Robert Eggers tells us: “[Ellen is a] victim to 19th-century society […] she can see into another realm, and has a certain kind of understanding that she doesn’t have the language for,” Eggers said. “But people are calling her melancholic and hysteric and all of these things.” and in another interview: “she [Ellen] has this understanding of this other world, and this other way of thinking that she doesn’t have language for, so she’s isolated. But the pull to it is very strong, and so people consider her melancholic and hysterical, and we can see her fighting within herself. I think having it stem from the realities of a woman who’s a victim of 19th-century society is something that makes it hopefully work."

And in another: “she’s [Ellen] as much a victim of 19th-century society as she is a victim of the vampire. People talk a lot about Lily-Rose Depp’s character’s sexual desire, which is a massive part of the character, of what she experiences — being shut down, and corseted up, and tied to the bed, and quieted with ether. Misunderstood, misdiagnosed. But it’s more than that. She has an innate understanding about the shadow side of the world that we live in that she doesn’t have language for. This gift and power that she has isn’t in an environment where it’s being cultivated, to put it mildly. It’s pretty tragic. Then she makes the ultimate sacrifice, and she’s able to reclaim this power through death.”

“She’s [Ellen] an outsider. She has this understanding about the shadow side of life that is very deep, but she doesn’t have language for that. She’s totally misunderstood and no one can see her […] this demon lover, this vampire, who is the one being who can connect with that side of her." (x)

 “Ellen’s husband loves her, but he can’t understand these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ feelings she’s experiencing, and he’s dismissive of her. The only person she really finds a connection with is this monster, and that love triangle is so compelling to me, partially because of how tragic it is.” (x)

The Victorian characters and Victorian society are the actual villains of the story; which subverts, another theme of the "Dracula" novel (where the titular vampire is the villain).

Folklore Themes

Changeling (European folklore)

"Father�� he would find me in our fields… within the forest… as if – I was his little changeling girl." 

“Changelings” are human-like creatures from European folklore. They are children kidnapped by fairies, elves or demons and a substitute child being left in their place. Ellen's father called her this because she she enjoyed playing and being in nature, when she was supposed to be indoors (domestic sphere).

Strigoi (Balkan Folklore)

Count Orlok: quintessential strigoi morti, a undead creature from Dacian mythology and, consequently, from Romanian folklore, who raises from its grave to feed on the living and must return to it before dawn:

Appearance: walking corpse; bald and leathery; skin infested with maggots, cracked and oozing with putrescence and decay; long, spidery fingers; fangs cannot be retracted (sores on his lips and chin); dressed in moldy, torn out clothing (the one he was buried in);

Cause of curse: Ellen resurrected Orlok and cursed him at the prologue (confirmed four times in the film). Connected with his tragic backstory Robert Eggers won't share with the public (but influenced Bill Skarsgård entire performance and gives meaning to the ending of the film); late 16th century voivoide (count) from Transylvania, was married (couple bedroom where he attacks Thomas) and had a family (multiple sarcophaguses on his castle cript);

Characteristics: "psychic vampire"; it's not blood he feeds on specifically, but souls (soul trapped in the blood), and that's what sustains him (and that's why Thomas had to be exorcised). Plague-carrier ("blood plague"); controls animals (rats and wolves); astral projection powers (shadow); and manipulation of dreams (nightmares to create fear).

Haunting: strigoi haunt the person they loved the most when they were alive, and drag them to their grave. Reincarnation theme.

Strigoi "repelling" blessings and tokens:

“Dau cu ustoroi de strigoi”

Ritual to locate a strigoi grave:

"The means of repelling and destroying vary greatly from region to region [...] Their efficacy is plainly unknown. Boiling wine, a spike of cold iron transpiercing the navel, decapitation, incineration…" Professor Von Franz to Dr. Sievers

A virgin girl on horseback will be attracted to the strigoi grave and locate it. Then the strigoi can be killed. Here with a spike of cold iron. This ritual is all wrong on purpose, because it’s usually a black stallion and done during the day (when strigoi are resting on their graves). No strigoi was killed in this scene because the Roma people work for Orlok (as in the "Dracula" novel) and he wanted Thomas to see this ritual.

Șolomonari (Romanian Folklore)

"A black enchanter he [Orlok] was in life. Solomonari. The Devil preserved his soul that his corpse may walk again in blaspheme."

Șolomonari are dark wizards from Romanian folklore, who were believed to ride a dragon (“balaur”) and control the weather (rain, thunder, storms), and usually lived as beggars. The were frequently recruited among the common people and taught black magic at the Solomonărie (or “Scholomance”, in the Germanic version); some call it “Devil’s school”, others “School of the Dragon”. They are said to be taught by the Devil himself, and their school was located underground, in the Carpathian Mountains, in Transylvania. The name Șolomonari is often associated with King Solomon and alchemy.

According to folklore, there were seven, ten or thirteen students, who didn’t saw the sunlight during the seven or nine years duration of their studies. Some accounts describe them as “strigoi vii” (living strigoi; wizards and witches); but this isn’t Orlok’s case otherwise Robert Eggers wouldn’t be so secretive about his backstory (the reason for his curse is something else). At the Solomonărie, they learned magic (spells), the secrets of nature and the language of all living things; as well as ride flying dragons and control the rain.

As their final assignment to become a Șolomonar, they had to copy their entire knowledge of humanity into a “Șolomonar’s book”, a book of wisdom, which would become the source of their power. Which is what we see in “Nosferatu” with the Șolomonar codex of secrets Professor Von Franz finds in Herr Knock’s office; it was written by Orlok himself.

At the end, it’s said one of the students was chosen by the Devil to be the “Weathermaker” and tasked with riding a dragon to control the weather. This dragon was said to be kept submerged in a mountaintop lake, south of Sibiu. While the other was selected to be servant to the Devil himself; which is what the Orthodox Nuns believe Orlok to be, as does Professor Von Franz.

“Our Nosferatu is of an especial malignancy. He is an arch-enchanter, Solomonari, Satan's own learned disciple.”

However, Orlok is no “devil worshipper”, because like his iconography tells us, he’s a Pagan enchanter, follower of the Dacian god Zalmoxis, owner of the secrets of life and death.

The "demonized Pagan": the connection between Zalmoxis worship and the folkloric Șolomonari began in the early 20th century by Romanian social scientist Traian Herseni, who proposed the “Dacian cloud travelers” and “Șolomonari weathermakers” are connected, and this myth has its roots in Dacian religion. Nowadays, this theory is openly embraced by xenoarchaeologist Jason Colavito. No matter the historic validity, this is the interpretation Robert Eggers is using in “Nosferatu” (2024).

Orlok sigil: an heptagram (seven-pointed star) surrounded by a Dacian Draco ouroboros (rebirth; reincarnation; immortality); the letters are cyrillic for “Zalmoxis”; the center is the alchemist symbol for blood; the symbols appear to be Vinča; archeological findings in Romania with these symbols being over 8,000 and 6,500 years old, and consider by many as the oldest form of human writing, but their meaning is still unknown (they are here either to show Orlok comes from an ancient bloodline; or he has known reincarnations throughout the ages)

Heptagrams are connected to the seven elements of Alchemy but aren’t represented like this. Heptagrams are also connected to divine feminine goddesses, like Babalon and Isis.

Nachzehrer (Germanic Folklore)

When Professor Von Franz discovers the Șolomonari book in Herr Knock's office, he also finds a cryptic writting: "His thunder roars from clouds of carcasses, I feedeth on my shroud, and death avails me not. For I am his.” 

This is based on Germanic folklore, where the "nachzehrer", also known as "shroud eater", is a sort of vampire who needs to devour both its burial shroud and body in order to survive. It's immortal, and lives off humans even after death. In folklore, it's believed the most common way for a person to become a nachzehrer is to commit suicide or die accidentally (which is what happens to Herr Knock and what he was seeking). It's also associated with disease, for in Germanic folklore, when a large number of people die because of a plague, the first people to have succumbed to it would be transformed into a nachzehrer.

Occult Themes

Agrippa

"He [Professor Von Franz] became obsessed with the work of Paracelsus, Agrippa, and the like [...] Alchemy, mystic philosophy… the occult."

Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was one of the most famous occultists in Europe in the 16th century. He was a versatile scholar, and knowledgeable in the fields of science, medicine, magic, philosophy and theology. However, he was dismissed as a charlatan and self-promoter by many, while others praised him for his pioneer role in the scientific revolution, especially due to his intellectual curiosity (in opposition to the church authority).  

His works incorporated elements of the cabala, numerology, mathematics and theology; a mix of Christianity, Neo-Platonism and occult science. His most notorious treaty is called “The Nobility of the Feminine Sex” (1532) where he asserts the natural superiority of women, and counterarguments Greek and Roman philosophers and even the Christian Bible, advocating for social gender equality.  

Professor Von Franz is probably based on Agrippa, mostly his “reputation” as a charlatan and self-promoter (he’s an outcast in Victorian society and considered a “lunatic”), and he's the only human character who recognizes and respects Ellen’s supernatural gifts, as well as her agency.

Angels and daemons

When Professor Von Franz tries to determine with whom Ellen is communicating with, he uses his Abraxas stone ring to compel her to speak, and he conjures both angels and demons during this scene:

"Who, damn you!? Speak!! I command you, hearken to my voice. By the protection of Chamuel, Haniel, and Zadkiel, impart your speech unto me. In the name of Eligos, Orabas, and Asmoday, impart your speech unto me."

Chamuel: Also known as Kamael, "One who seeks God", is the angel of peaceful relationships, and considered one of the seven Archangels (who have the honor of living in God's direct presence in Heaven) by Jewish Kabbalah and some Christians;

Haniel: "Joy of God", is the Archangel of joy who's known for taking Enoch to Heaven;

Zadkiel: "righteousness of God", is the angel of God's mercy;

Eligos: is a "Great Duke of Hell", ruling 60 legions of demons. He reveals hidden things and knows the future of wars;

Orabas: is a "Great Prince of Hell", with 20 legions of demons under his control. He answers questions and gives one power and control over others;

Asmoday: is the "King of Demons", in the legends of Solomon and the constructing of Solomon's Temple.

Abraxas stone rings were considered magical talismans or charms since the Middle-ages, connected to the Seven Olympic Spirits (Aratron (Saturn); Bethor (Jupiter); Phaleg (Mars); Och (Sun); Hagith (Venus); Ophiel (Mercury) and Phul (Moon)); and to Gnosticism (personal spiritual knowledge above organized religion), who considered Abraxas as “the God above all Gods”.

This is also connected to Agrippa, “Occult Philosophy”, book three, which covers the intellectual world of Pagan gods and spirits (including angels and demons), and gives magical procedures for invocation and communication with them, as well as with God (sigils, amulets, magical alphabets, sound, perfumes, etc.); and the kabbalistic tree of life (hierarchies of angels and Demons associated with each sephirot). The idea behind this conjuring is to infuse the lower angelic orders with the light they receive from God, as they instruct the orders.

Enchantress

Ellen has been a somnambulist since infancy, and she always had supernatural abilities; premonitions (“I know things”), as she would know what her Christmas presents were before opening them, and when her mother would die, which indicates she always had a connection to the spiritual world.

Professor Von Franz recognizes Ellen's spiritual power and ability to communicate with the spiritual world (“I believe she has always been highly conductive to these cosmic forces, uniquely so”). She's a medium (or a psychic); someone with the ability to connect with the spirits of deceased loved ones, spirit guides, and other non-physical entities.

What the Victorian doctors call “hysterical fits” and “epilepsies”, are, in fact, trance-like states of spiritual communication (trance mediumship), similar to Pagan priestesses. Like Von Franz tells the audience, Ellen inhabits the “borderland”, a peripheral area, a portal between the two worlds: the physical (matter) and the spiritual. And this is what Victorian society medicalizes in Ellen, and tries to restrain with drugs and corsets, not only her sexual nature, but her spiritual power, her own nature.

Orlok calls Ellen "enchantress". Historically, enchantresses were practitioners of feminine magic: oracles, healers, herbalists, midwives and shamanic shapeshifters. They were what’s commonly known as “witches”. These female magicians studied and practiced their art in goddess temples, mystery schools, alchemy schools and hedge schools. The alchemists of the Middle-ages studied these dynastic lineages of “wise women”, and they had several names: "enchantresses", "chantresses", "encantrices", or "incantrix". 

Ellen is, then, a "incantrix": uses words, incantations, songs, spells and prayers to shape reality. They were, also, the priestess of an old religion (as Professor Von Franz also calls her "great priestess of Isis"), gifted with magic power and authority to command the elements or the body by the power of their word.

Babalon and the Beast (New Age of Aquarius)

The birth of the New Aquarius was already the occult meaning of the original 1922 “Nosferatu”, because Albin Grau was a student of the occult and a member of the Fraternitas Saturni (German magical order devoted to Saturnian doctrines) under the magical name Master Pacitius. Within the occult leaders there was tension due to their beliefs, and Grau eventually sided with Aleister Crowley Thelema (which views we see in Eggers “Nosferatu”).

While Stoker saw Count Dracula as pure evil, Grau reinterpreted the vampire as a symbol of transformation through confrontation with darkness. Saturn, in esoteric tradition, represents restriction, death, and rebirth (the forces that initiate profound spiritual change). Grau viewed the vampire as a reflection of these principles, a shadowy force that compels the aspirant to face mortality, fear, and their own inner darkness. And his death symbolized the birth of the New Age of Aquarius (Saturn as ruler of Aquarius), a new era of collective awakening and innovation.

Robert Eggers included the divine feminine (Babalon), his heroine is already a dark character, as he describes his Ellen as “dark chthonic female heroine”, who makes the ultimate sacrifice to "reclaim this power through death". Chthonic = gods or spirits who inhabit the Underworld; and, in his version, Orlok gifts Ellen with immortality and rebirth (not death like in the original "Nosferatu").

When Ellen and Thomas are returning home, there’s a man in the streets rambling bits from the “Book of Revelations” (Apocalipse) from the Bible: “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, owith ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.” (Revelations, 13:1).

This passage is about Orlok arrival and his "blood plague", but there's a character (also from the "Book of Revelations") connected to this beast: the Whore of Babylon, the “Mother of Prostitutes and All Abominations of the Earth”, and she rides this Beast, which is the same as Crowley’s Babalon. What Crowley did was a positive reinterpretation of this biblical figure, symbolizing liberated female sexuality by embracing the powers of the Divine Harlot.

Initiatrix, Creator and Destroyer, Babalon is the “Great Mother” because she represents Mother Earth. Like Isis, she’s the Archetypical Mother, the Womb, the Great Sea and the Divine Blood itself. According to Crowley, the “whore/harlot” facet is about enjoying sex without the burden of reproduction; and the “mother of abominations” connects with destruction like natural catastrophes, plagues, etc. She’s the ruler of the cosmological sphere and both good and evil (as evil as elemental forces can be or are considered as). Babalon is the guardian of the Seven Principles of the Underworld, a place of darkness and transformation. Babalon is also the goddess of the liminal point, who can access other realms. As Goddess of vengeance, Babalon punishes when life is out of balance, and exerts violence and corruption upon those who are in the wrong. Ellen ("mother of abominations") unleashes Orlok onto the world, and we can interpret him bringing plague into Wisburg as Ellen’s reckoning against Victorian society, which ostracizes her and will never accept her.

According to the Thelema, Babalon is the “Sacred Whore”, and her primary symbol is the Chalice or Graal (symbolic womb). She’s a consort to the Beast, who has seven heads, which is symbolically represented in her heptagram sigil (parallelling Orlok's heptagram). To Crowley these are archetypes in his Sex Magick beliefs: the “Scarlet Woman” is the High Priestess, and the “Beast” is the Hierophant: Ellen (the priestess, enchantress) and Orlok (priest-shamam; enchanter). Orlok is described as a “beast” several times in the film, and he says Ellen’s passion is bound to him, like Babalon’s passion is united with the Beast.

All rites and initiations of the Underworld Goddesses include rites of sex and death. Which is what we see with Ellen at the end of “Nosferatu” (2024). By Thelemic occult tradition, she, the manifestation of Babalon, has sex with the Beast (Orlok), “representing the passion which unites them” and her womb (Holy Grail; cup) is “aflame with love and death” (sexual climax, orgasm, with an un-dead vampire), to give birth to the New Age of Aquarius.

Crowley described Babalon:

“She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of the sacrament of the Aeon”.

"the cup, the Holy Grail" = womb

"Aflame" = orgasm

"with love and death" = sex with undead Orlok

"sacrament of the Aeon" = the "aeon" in Thelema is a spiritual age, in this case it's Ellen's womb who gives birth to the New Age of Aquarius

Alchemy Themes

"Sylph" and Paracelsus

"Do extend my tardy congratulations to your wife. She is truly a… A nonpareil of beauty. Almost a sylph." Herr Knock to Thomas Hutter

A “sylph” is air spirit (or nymph) from the 16th century works of Swiss physician, alchemist and theologist Paracelsus, with roots in folklore. Sylphs are invisible beings of air (or air elementals), connected to fairies and pixies. On his “A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies and Salamanders, and Other Spirits”, Paracelsus described the four elemental beings, each corresponding to one: Salamanders (fire), Gnomes (Earth), Undines (water) and sylphs (air).

Sylphs are formed and live in air, and they have power over the air element, particularly the wind and the clouds, where they move freely. They do not fare well outside of their element; they burn in fire, drown in water and get stuck in earth. They are portrayed as the guardians of secret knowledge, and protectors of nature.

During the 19th century, there was a renewed interest in sylphs in European society, especially in theatre, where they appeared in several plays and operas as ethereal, graceful, charming and ultimately unattainable.  

Ellen is compared to a fairy three times in the narrative: by Herr Knock ("sylph"), by her father ("his little changeling girl") and Friedrich Harding ("her fairy ways"). We also see her floating at the prologue when she meets Orlok.

Humorism (Humoral theory)

“You [Dr. Sievers] have bled her to decrease the congestion? […] And her menstruations are also? [Liberal]. Too much blood. Too much.”

Professor Von Franz physically examines Ellen, as her trance is beginning, and determines she has “too much blood”: in connection to “Humorism” (or “humoral theory”) with possible origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine, and then used by Ancient Greeks and Romans. Hippocrates suggested that humors are the vital bodily fluids, and they are four: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This belief was common during Middle-ages in Europe.

Ellen having “too much blood” means she has a sanguine temperament (not a melancholic temperament); it was believed that, when in good health, “sanguines” are cheerful and loving; but when there’s an imbalance, they are “hysterical”, which is what Victorian doctors also diagnose Ellen as (“hysteria”).

The treatment is bloodletting (bleed the patient, drain their blood; a practice still used in the early 19th century), to remove the excessive blood; which is what Von Franz also advices in Ellen’s case. “Congestion”, in the medical sense of this time period, means “containing an unnatural accumulation of fluid”, in Ellen’s case it’s blood. This diagnose will come full circle when Thomas and Dr. Sievers discover that Orlok is with Ellen when they go to Grünewald Manor. Von Franz tells them “She wills it! Your wife wills it!” and Orlok himself “can’t resist her blood", which means Orlok cannot resist Ellen, herself.

Mutual healing theme: At the end, Orlok drains Ellen of her excessive blood, balancing her “sanguine temperament” and ending her “hysteria” and “melancholy” (he also gives her an orgasm, a nod to hysteria as repressed and frustrated female sexuality); and Ellen’s love and willing sacrifice sets their spirits free from the rotten vessel they were trapped in ("and freed them from the plague of Nosferatu"); as they are reunited in the spiritual realm, now fully healed.

Alchemical Gold (Chrysopoeia; Gold-making)

"I had nearly unlocked the final key of the Mysteriorum Libri Quinque. No… No matter. I miscalculated the stars. Hermes will not render my black sulfur gold this evening." Professor Von Franz to Dr. Sievers and Friedrich Harding

“Mysteriorum Libri Quinque” is part of a collection of mystic writings by mathematician, hermetic philosopher and astronomer Dr. John Dee (16th century). An avid learner of the secrets of nature, he made no distinctions between mathematical research and the supernatural (which he considered mere tools to achieve a transcendent understanding of divine forms underlying the visible world, called “pure verities”). In 1580, he began experimenting with evocations to contact and communicate with angels, and Edward Kelly joined him in this project in 1582. They both documented every interaction they had with angels and wrote about their language, which they called “Enochian”. This collection of esoteric writings was only found, by accident, after John Dee’s death.  

Alchemy, at its core, is the transmutation of base materials (lead, etc.) into noble materials (gold), and the pursuit of immortality (“philosopher’s stone”). Occultists reinterpreted this as a spiritual quest of self-transformation, purification and regeneration of the human soul. Hence physical death being seen as a gateway to another life (rebirth, reincarnation).

Both Ellen and Orlok evolve from a diseased and corruptive state (physical world; black sulfur) into regenerative and perfect state (spiritual world; gold), after being purified by fire (Sun). Their old selves are empty shells, as their spirits ascend. This also finds parallel in the myth of Isis and Osiris, as they both went from “daemons” to Gods in the Plutarch essay.

"I believe only you have the faculty to redeem us [...] You are our salvation."

At the end, Von Franz succeeds in transform black sulfur into gold, as he, too, emerges redeemed and avenged by Ellen’s fulfilling her covenant with Orlok.

In modern occult beliefs, alchemy is considered as a mystical system designed to transmute the soul from a “base” or “leaden” state of spiritual impurity to a “gold” or purified state of divinity, with the chemical procedures of alchemy being an elaborate metaphor for psycho-spiritual development. This idea was popularized by Carl Jung, among others.

In alchemy, this “gold” wasn’t like common gold, it was a miraculous, incorruptible substance, “the true and indubitable treasure”, which could only be perceived by those who can see with their mind’s eye: “Nolite dare sanctum canibus” (“Do not reveal what is sacred to dogs”) and “Neque mittatis margaritas vestra ante porcos” (“Nor cast your pearls before swine”).

Myth of Isis and Osiris

"In heathen times you might have been a great priestess of Isis."

The “Osiris Myth” is one of the major surviving pieces of Egyptian mythology. It’s a ancient tale, with its early versions dating back to the 5th Dynasty (c. 24th century B.C.). It has known several adaptations throughout Egyptian history. The most complete version is in “The Moralia” by the 1st-century scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea, a collection of essays about Greco-Roman culture; that became very popular during the Renaissance era (14-16th centuries) and the Enlightenment period (18th century) in Europe. 

Isis and Osiris were brothers, and according to Ancient Egyptian religion, they were in love with one another before they were born, and enjoyed each other in the dark before they came into the world. They eventually married. They had a brother, Seth (or Typhon in Plutarch essays), the God of deserts, storms, disorder and violence, who murdered Osiris to take his throne. He tricked Osiris into climbing into a wooden chest/coffin, shut the lid, sealed it shut, and threw it down the Nile River, knowing Osiris would never be able to survive. In some versions, it’s said Seth cut Osiris body into pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt.

Osiris had two facets as a God: in life, he was the God of fertility, agriculture, and vegetation, being considered a “Shepherd God”; in death, he was the God of the Underworld, the judge and Lord of Dead, the afterlife and resurrection. The pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were associated with Osiris in death, because as he rose from the dead, so would they unite with him and gain eternal life through imitative magic. Which is also the whole deal between Orlok and Herr Knock in “Nosferatu” (2024), as Knock seeks to gain immortality like Orlok, by serving him.

Isis is the epitome of the mourning widow in this myth, as she mourns Osiris’ death deeply. Here enters the symbolism of the lilacs in "Nosferatu", the symbolic flowers of Ellen and Orlok: in the Victorian era, they were associated with widows because they represented a memento of a deceased lover. Isis sought for Osiris’ mangled body and with help of tree other Gods (Nepthys, Thoth and Anubis), they sew Osiris’ body back together, and then wrapped it head to toe in strips of linen, creating a mummy. Orlok’s corpse appears almost mummified at the end of the story.

In the Osiris myth, Isis uses powerful magic (incantations and magic spells) to bring her dead lover back to life; similar to Ellen who resurrects Orlok with her summoning prayer. In one version, this happened on a night of the full moon; in “Nosferatu” (2024) we also have a full moon connected to Ellen and Orlok, in the prologue, when he reveals himself to her:

According to Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, it’s Isis sorrow, sexual desire and anger that empower her magic to be able to bring Osiris back to life. When Ellen prays for a companion of “any celestial sphere” in the prologue, she’s crying (sorrow), she’s upset because her father recoils from her now that she’s no longer a child (anger) and she’s in her teenage years/puberty (sexual desire). Like Isis with Osiris, it’s the combination of these emotions that power her magic to unconsciously resurrect Orlok. 

However, Osiris can’t remain among the living, because he has to return to the Underworld and become King of the Afterlife. But before he goes, Osiris and Isis conceive Horus, the God of the sun and the sky, who will restore peace and order to the universe.  In “Nosferatu” (2024), Professor Von Franz says that “with Jove’s holy light” before dawn, the plague will be lifted. “Jove” is Jupiter, the “King of the skies”, who’s connected with the Egyptian Horus. Horus and Ra are often merged together in Ancient Egyptian religion, making Isis and Osiris the metaphorical parents of the Sun.

In “Nosferatu” (2024), as Orlok and Ellen complete their covenant, consummate their wedding, the sun is also the metaphorical result of their union. As dawn breaks, the sunlight vanquishes them both from the physical world, as they both die in the material realm. After being buried by Isis, Osiris goes into the Underworld to rule over it. And from then on, Isis herself is also associated with funeral rites, as she would guide the souls of the dead, helping them entering the afterlife. Through her magic, Isis helped resurrecting the souls of the dead, as she did with Osiris, acting as a mother to the deceased, providing protection and nourishment. At the end of "Nosferatu" (2024) we see Ellen fulfilling her role as “priestess of Isis” (or as Isis herself?), as the Goddess of healing, who ends the Nosferatu curse, the blood plague in Wisburg, and also guides her dead lover Orlok with her to the Underworld.

[ascorian]

I had an assignment to make a comic retelling osiris myth. I rushed it hard so it sucks but brainstorming and sketching was fun 🥲 I'm a big Isida fan now. the last ones are actual comic panels

[ananke-xiii]

Sailing from Byzantium or Parents shouldn’t outlive their Children.

    As you set out for Byzantium…

Okay so. I’ve been writing illegibly scribbling about resurrection in SPN for over a month now, so I think it’s finally time to talk about Jack’s (first) resurrection in “Byzantium”. Let’s goooo, I really hope it’ll make sense! As usual, it’s gonna be loooong, without images and with baaaaad paragraphing so just FYI. Here we gooooo.

I’ve described S13 Castiel’s forbidden resurrection (Chuck didn’t want him back, Billie couldn’t care less, no other entities were interested in him being back, like, at all) as a team effort: Dean, Jack, Cas and the Shadow all worked, consciously or not (but mostly not), to get Cas’ ass back on Earth. I’ve also compared it to the myth of Isis and Osiris because, to me, this specific resurrection has some very, veeeery strong romantic undertones to it. Of course, it bears repeating, it’s my interpretation that Cas got back because he was immensely loved and he loved hard in return. The show doesn’t outright say it, but it strongly implies it, and I’ve picked up on that vibe. However, his resurrection was possible in the first place because Jack willed it and he willed it because he missed his father. So another strong theme here is parental love and I loooooooove this stuff. Let me explain.

I’ve elsewhere said that Sam failed Jack the moment he didn’t tell him that he was missing Mary and he wanted her back. If he did, Jack would have latched onto that like I don’t know what, because he understands what it means to miss a mother. A similar thing applies to Dean, although he’s way more emotionally (and brutally) honest with Jack than Sam is. However, what Dean doesn’t outright say is that he blames Jack for Cas’ death (I’ve talked about I many times and I don’t want to repeat myself here, but basically I think that it’s not about Jack per se but about Cas’ choice to leave them and go away with Kelly. In other words, it’s complicated and I can’t always write the same things over and over again, lol, so sorry if I oversimplify sometimes). The moment he does, when he yells in Sam’s face while Jack is eavesdropping, an-already-attuned-to-his-moth-Dean Jack finally understands Dean because Dean’s pain, like Sam’s, is also his.

This is no moral judgement of the characters but an interpretation of the little tragedy that the first episodes of S13 are: three people, closed-off in themselves like monads, who are all grieving and don’t have the tools and/or the strength to really sort through their own emotions. A scene that stuck with me is when Jack is in front of his parents’ fucking pyre and he doesn’t know what to say. It’s a brief scene that tells a lot: Jack’s lost everything the moment he was born and, of course, he doesn’t know what to do with that. Because he’s just born. He’s left with…. The Big Empty. But this is also what Sam and Dean are feeling, in their own ways, so basically if they all knew how to communicate they would have found out that Jack was THE person who could have understood/helped them the most.

But, of course, if that happened, there wouldn’t be any tragedy in the first place so that was the whole point.

Back to Jack’s eavesdropping. I don’t think Jack picks up on the reason why Dean’s out of his mind over Cas’ death because he doesn’t have the same picture that we do. But what’s important is that he understands Dean’s pain because he also feels a similar pain but, of course, in his case he’s missing Castiel as his father. Just like the Quest for Mary isn’t solely due to Jack’s tendency to appease Sam and Dean, the Resurrection of Castiel happens because Jack is attuned to Dean, absolutely yes, but also because he wants it for himself. As in: Oh Dean’s not okay and one of the reasons why is Cas, but wait! I’m also not okay and one of the reasons why is Cas! Because I was supposed to have at least one parent looking out for me and he’s not here for me.

To sum it up: Cas’ resurrection is spurred by romantic love but it’s actualized because of filial love.

I’ve had to say all this because Jack’s resurrection in "Byzantium" follows the same path but in reverse: it’s about parental love but it’s actualized because of… (a-very-twisted-but-here-we-are, let’s-just-say-it-and-be-done-with-it) eroticism. Yes, ‘cause, sure, Chuck has his pervy thing for Dean but the Shadow surpasses even God when it comes to Castiel. Cas is “Of the Shadow”. Because it’s either that or I am the weirdo that instantly associates “I’ll come when you let the sun shine on your face” to la petite mort, the little death. Eros and Thanatos, the usual. I mean, it could be that I’m the weirdo. Let’s see!

If Dean, Jack, Cas and the Shadow were all needed to resurrect Cas, in Jack’s case…

Lily, Jack, Cas… and the Shadow again are needed.

(lol, when I write “and the Shadow” I have that song in my mind, the one that goes “and your friend Steve, tutututuruduuduuuu, Steeeveee, lol)

((also… Dean and Mother Figures… one day I’ll also have to expand on that))

(((also II… I’m super aware that Sam is a VITAL piece in both Cas’ and Jack’s stories and you can find a little bit about it here. I’m soooo sorry to do my little giant dude so dirty by erasing him, but if I add Sam to the picture as well this post becomes a behemoth or something and I can’t have it, I’ll make up to him I sweeeear)))

(((( I know it’s taking so long but we’re going to Byzantium which is pretty far away, be patient))))

All Aboard!

What is Byzantium exactly? Well, “Sailing to Byzantium” and its following “Byzantium” are two poems by W.B. Yeats which constitute the foundation of… “Byzantium” in S14. I’ll be focusing mainly on the first poem because I think it’ll be enough but the two are strongly connected and should be considered together rather than separate.

That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song,

As we can see, one of the main themes in “Sailing to Byzantium” is old age vs “the young” and mortality (of the body) vs immortality (of the soul). These are the same themes of this episode which are translated for the show’s sake into the old theme of the “it’s not natural for parents to bury their children”.

In the bunker, after Jack’s death, Sam, Dean and Cas are lost and don’t know what to do:

[Cas, Dean, and Sam linger in the hallway outside Jack’s room] CAS: Maybe we should… start thinking about next steps. DEAN: Wake and a bonfire, Hunter style. It's what Jack would've wanted. [Sam says nothing, but storms off. Cas tries to stop him, but Dean stops Cas with a hand on his arm] CAS: Sam. [to Dean] Your brother's in pain. DEAN: Just let him be. If he needs his space, we're gonna give it to him.

They need to “bury” Jack and this triggers Sam into running away. Dean and Cas find him defeated in a forest: Sam wanted to gather woods for the pyre and made a whole mess out of it because he’s not okay and he feels like he hasn’t done enough. Like he has failed Jack. To that this is what Cas has to say:

CAS: This doesn't feel right. It's just not how I thought Jack's story would end. SAM: Yeah. None of us did. CAS: The certainty… of death, even for angels, it's always felt natural, but this doesn't. Jack being taken before his time. I mean, taken before me.

This scene establishes that Cas, maybe for the first time, understands relativity… deeply, into his own heart. Death is certain, it’s natural so how come Jack’s death doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel… natural? Jack’s being taken before his (Jack’s) time is not unnatural by definition, it’s unnatural by Cas’ relative notion of Time: Jack’s time (before HIS time) is defined by Cas’ time (before ME) and Cas, like all parents, simply logically refuses the idea or even the possibility of seeing his child being taken away before him. It’s not a law of nature but it’s a law of humanity: no parents should ever see their children die. If that happens, it means that something went wrong, that it wasn’t right. That is no country for old men and no country for parents outliving their children.

In “Ouroboros” when Cas is confronted with the finality of death again, he’ll try his best to reassure Jack and make him understand how time works differently for “things like them” compared to humans. He’s trying to be brave in front of Jack but he’s not reaching him because he doesn’t believe in his own words. He betrays himself when he says that “when Dean wakes up -- and he will wake up -- we just have to remember to appreciate the time that we all have together now”. Even if he’s telling Jack that he must accept Death, he’s not accepting it himself. WHEN Dean wakes up AND HE WILL wake up. PERIOD. This is thinking coming from the heart rather than the mind. And it’s… truer? More vulnerable? Honest?...Human? Maybe the greatest tragedy of humanity is not that we don’t accept our death but that we can’t even conceive of the death of our loved ones. When Death arrives and takes everything from you but… you. And Cas cannot accept either Dean’s not Jack’s death. He simply can’t.

Together with Sam, Cas contacts Lily Sunders, the same woman that wants to kill him to avenge her daughter’s death. Lily, we’re tactlessly reminded by Dean in case we hadn’t noticed lol, is… old.

SAM: Dean, you remember Lily Sunder. DEAN: L-- You got old. LILY: Did I? An unfortunate side effect of giving up magic, I suppose.

She’s old and almost soulless but she can, perhaps, “pull off a miracle” or… a trade. “Resurrection and a cure” in exchange for getting into Heaven… to see her daughter, May.

Old age and the soul is another theme in “Sailing to Byzantium”:

An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence;

The body decays but the soul lives and claps its hands and sings! Despite the “mortal dress” the soul can still be magnificent. In the character of an old(er) Lily Sunders the episode conflates all of its themes: parents and children, soul and mortality.

Yep, because there’s a little caveat in this trade and that’s Jack’s soul. Jack’s first resurrection doesn’t come for free, it has a price that he himself has to pay.

Now this is the point where I have issues with the episode and the series as a whole because “Byzantium” poses an interesting moral dilemma: your life or your soul? Sam, Dean and Cas all have their own take on the matter and the episode explores them. But what about Jack? Since, you know, it's his life and his soul.

Well, unfortunately I don’t think he’s given much of a choice and I think it was unfair.

When in Byzantium…

Yeah, okay, but WHAT is Byzantium? Well, Byzantium is, of course, Heaven. Crumbling empire under siege. Christian stronghold, holy city. Yeah, that’s Heaven right now in s14. So this means that people/entities will have to sail to Byzantium, aka Heaven, in this episode. Conversely, since Heaven is a place for the dead and the Angels, some other people will sail from Byzantium and back to life.

Heaven-Byzantium, however, has a little bit of a problem in the form of the Shadow storming its gates to take Jack’s… soul? The ghost of his Grace? His essence as Nephilim? I mean, I don’t know exactly what the Shadow wants because Jack belongs to two realms at the same time so I guess it wants its half. What I know is that it wants him in some capacity. Although, to be fair, for a cosmic entity that wants to sleep forever, going to great lengths to take one “soul” or whatever seems… weird? I don’t know, what I’m trying to covertly say is that, I think, the show has never really explored the Shadow/Empty and I think it was a shame. It wants to sleep forever but it storms Heaven’s gates for Jack, it wants Cas to suffer BUT it wants him to be happy AND it also wants to stay awake to come to Cas when he’s happy… The Shadow is confused, lol. Or, maybe, in love?? (Okay, now I’m joking but you must admit that the Shadow wants a lot of things. *In Lucille Bluth’s voice*: Good for her!).

Jack’s in Kelly’s heaven but they don't share much screen-time together. As a matter of fact, Jack’s not given much choice to begin with. The “life or soul” dilemma is left unexplored because the plot takes precedence: it’s 46,750,000,000 human souls vs Jack’s soul now. I like that, at first, Cas downright says no to Naomi when she tells him that he must help her stop the Shadow by handig over Jack. But then, when he finds Jack, he seems to change his mind a little:

CAS: Sam and Dean and I-- we found a way to bring you home. JACK: So, I'll be alive again? CAS: Yeah. But to do so, we-- we need to use magic that will draw on your soul. JACK: W-What do you mean, my soul? CAS: It'll be just a small piece. And I know it's too much to ask, but it's the only way. KELLY: No. I-I don't know. CAS: It's not just Jack's life that's at stake. It-- The Empty has invaded Heaven because it wants you.

Kelly going "No" and then "I don't know"... I love her so much, Queen of Messes.

Although Cas told Dean that Jack should have a say in the matter, he eventually decides for Jack and asks “too much” of him. Again, I want to say that this is a judgement-free zone, if I had the possibility to resurrect my dead child I would burn cities and commit genocides, ngl. This kind of prevarication, a prevarication out of love, is something that I can see fit in this episode because it relates to its foundational themes. What I don’t like and think takes something away from Jack is the “It’s not just Jack’s life that’s at stake”. Mmmm it doesn’t sit well with me. Fuck Heaven, fuck cosmic balance and fuck the Empty: if the cosmos can't do its work properly it's not my problem. Overriding personal dilemmas with imminent apocalypse-level threat is something that cannot be overused every other episode or it'll get boring. The stakes cannot always be so high, I need to see characters make their own choices and Dabb era takes this away from me! *Clenched fist raised to the sky for emphasis*.

Since Anubis has been literally summoned in this episode (the Egyptian myths, man... I've been saying... I've been saying) I think I can safely say that on his scale Jack’s soul weighed less than all those billions of souls. In other words, the Greater Good prevails. But what about Jack? Leaving aside whether I like it or not, he still doesn’t get a vote because the whole point is that the Shadow wants what it wants and it wants Jack. So Cas has to interfere and cuts a deal with it. And then we totally forget about Jack’s choice. It’s a given now because it’s the billions of souls and, ON TOP OF THAT, his father’s sacrifice. Even before becoming God Jack was asked to take on his shoulders such impossible burdens and… I don’t know, I actually feel very sorry for him.

So “Byzantium Delivered” by our very Castiel and him and Jack are ready to sail away. For one people leaving, one must arrive. Cas wasn’t the only one who made the sacrifice: Lily pays with her life and we know that her sacrifice is selfless because she manages to enter Heaven’s Gate. As Dean puts it, she couldn’t let anyone go through what she did: outlive their children. There’s a part of me that’s sad that she paid the price and died but another one is happy because now I can speak about something that I adore: parents saving their children.

Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Here Yeats is saying that once he’ll be “out of nature”, aka dead, he’ll never take another bodily form but he’ll become a work of art made of “hammered gold and gold enameling” that will set upon a “golden bough” to sing the past, the present and the future.

I have to tip my hat to Meredith Glynn here because this was awesome. As I’ve said she has used Yeats' poem to talk about parents going to other dimensions and making sacrifices for their children. This is the meaning of the “Golden Bough”.

The “golden bough” refers to an episode in the Aeneid where Aeneas goes into the underworld to meet the shade of his deceased father Anchises. In order to do so this, he must give a gift to Proserpina, the Queen of the Underworld and the gift is the golden bough itself.

I said this was awesome because Aeneas is the son that goes to another dimension to meet his father but in “Byzantium” it's a father and a mother who go to Heaven for their children!!! Which first of all, I think it’s BEAUTIFUL, second of all we have, AGAIN!, a reversal of myths at play here!!!

When I say that Castiel and Jack are exploding myths from the inside I’m not saying it because I’m crazy but that’s because this is what the show was telling me up until a certain point!

If you scratch and scratch and scratch, “Byzantium” is a retelling of the myth of Demeter and Proserpina, the mother going to the underworld to save her daughter (it's waaaay more than this but bear with me or this post'll never end). I mean, isn’t that awesome??? I fucking love it!

I swear I could go on and on (and I will!It's a threat!) but I think it’s high time we left Byzantium…

Goodbye stranger, it's been nice!

I hope I’ve made clear how Jack’s resurrection involved Lily, Cas and Jack himself (although he didn’t have much choice in the matter and that’s regrettable). I have to talk about the Shadow before I let you go of the insanity that is this post. So let’s end it with more insanity, shall we?

O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.

Now this is where my weirdness potentially shows: here Yeats is talking about his desire to meet the “sages standing in God’s holy fire… and be the singing-masters of [his]soul”. He wants his heart to be consumed and freed from the chains of the material body (“dying animal”) and be gathered “into the artifice of eternity”. Now Yeats, to me, is talking about a sort of transcendental and mystical experience which, as we all know, has very clear sexual undertones. And, I don’t know, I guess I see these (much darker) undertones in this episodes too? The Shadown is the master of Cas’ “soul”, it owns him, to it “years and eons” (the time of the heart for Cas) are nothing. Now or a billion years from now means nothing to something like the Empty. It wants to take Cas when he’s outside of time, in the moment of “happiness” which is the moment when things “happen” (“the artifice of eternity”), which, in turn, is a moment outside of the deterministic world of SPN.

It’s just like when, in “The Big Empty”, the Shadow tries to seduce Cas and persuade him to go back to sleep because, out there, there's nobody who loves him but here with it? There’ll be peace. Only, this time, the Shadow is pretty pissed and it’s like: I don’t want you now because you don’t want me so I want you to suffer now. Go back, live your life, one year, one thousand, it means NOTHING to me. You’re already mine. No, I want to own you to the point that I’ll come to take you the moment you will be happy, when you’ll be outside of time, I’ll come then and take you away with me. Because you’re mine in time and outside of it. Beyond eternity.

I mean, this is perverse and insane but also very erotic :D And, to be honest, it kinda makes sense because the energy of the “Eros” (not sex, "eros" in the psychoanalytical sense) must be involved in a process so delicate as the resurrection. One needs to want life to go back and make people go back to life, you know? And since we’re talking about resurrecting souls, Psyche if you will, you sort of have to have Eros? The two go together.

So to really sum it up this time: Jack’s first resurrection was another team effort. It required a lot of love as usual and this time it was the parental love for their children that pierced the veil and saved the day. But it also needed a bit of erotic sparkle to ignite it, the final, unseen ingredient of the spell. The Shadow provides this sparkle in a capricious way just like only very ancient cosmic entities can do. However, the price that they’ve all paid is very, very high: Lily’s life, Cas’ happiness and Jack’s soul. It’s a bittersweet victory that announces catastrophe.

Okay, I can’t believe I’ve made it but I’ve made it. If you’ve been with me until the end,  I thank you and hug you <3. I hope you enjoyed it!

[officialurban]

Isis & Osiris / Obelisk - “That Which is Lost”

[tomschoolwork]

Get this

So there are these guys on tiktok, RaisetheBread and MagicalWeave. RaisetheBread, or Asar, is a positivity poster, overall really nice and he posts a bread video every week. Personally, he makes my day, and also makes bread tutorials. He's like the Bob Ross of bread. He also answers all of the questions his fans have. Somebody asked if he has a kid, and he went on about how amazing and lovely his kid is, but he refuses to put the kid on screen because he doesn't want to shove a camera in his kids face for the enjoyment of strangers online and Asar knew his kid would hate that. Asar, really great guy, has like 2 million followers.

Then there's MagicalWeave, aka Aset. She makes blankets, sews clothing, does pottery, an all around creative channel. She also does crystal posts for when people are curious about the crystal collection on a shelf behind her weaving desk. Aset's also very sweet, giving out life advice, telling people easiest ways to get rid of stains, all in all being very helpful. She's at about 1.9 million followers.

Because of these two being very kind and great people, their followers are joking about them getting together. Then one day Aset embroiders some birds on a shirt, and Asar's kid loves birds. Asar is seen wearing that shirt later on, and off camera you can hear his kid laughing about his dad in a bird shirt. Then Asar makes some sourdough bread, and while yes it's common, he did it after a fan asked Aset her favorite and she answered sourdough. People are now theorizing, maybe they're dating, maybe they're in a situationship, who knows.

Until one day, Asar has his fiance make bread with him for the first time. Immediately, people are heartbroken. They thought he was a single dad and that he would get with Aset. But then, Aset joins him on screen. They were engaged the whole time, but they made separate videos to not force one into their interests. The kid? Aset gave birth to him. But Asar and Aset continue with their content, getting more followers and fans in general. Other creators talk about how cute they are, and they are THE internet couple.

Then out of nowhere, RaisetheBread gets suspended. Everybody's shocked, RaisetheBread was so big and got taken down without warning. Asar can't find a reason, and he refuses to use Aset's account to plead his case. He decided to stay back for a bit.

Aset on the other hand, refuses to take his account going down. She starts reaching out support hotlines, emailing the tiktok support center, and eventually, somebody links her to account called ReadySetGo. He's a gaming account with a small cult like following. And he HATES RaisetheBread and Asar for some reason. With a passion. ReadySetGo was the one behind the downfall of RaisetheBread. He sent his followers to start mass reporting the account, and his followers did. Aset kindly asked him to stop, and ReadySetGo immediately jumped to calling her horrible words, and saying he hopes RaisetheBread never comes back.

But Aset's other attempts worked, because 2 weeks after RaisetheBread went down, it was suddenly back up. Asar decided to make a YouTube account in case RaisetheBread went down again. Aset and Asar were happy about RaisetheBread being back up, but not long after, it was permanently banned. Aset was disappointed and all of her previous solutions didn't work the second time around, so Asar switched to YouTube instead.

Funnily enough during one of Aset's embroidery livestreams, Aset's kid called ReadySetGo "a dum dum bully" and it went viral, with ReadySetGo calling the kid horrible words and he lost a LOT of followers, lol

[the-crooked-library]

another Nosferatu detail that I personally consider delightful is that, toward the end of the movie, when Von Franz tells Ellen she could've been a great priestess in another age, the specific example he uses is a "priestess of Isis."

Isis, in Ancient Egyptian myth, is known for having reassembled her murdered husband Osiris from scattered body parts, reviving him (and making him the first mummy) as king of the afterlife.

Adding to that the lilacs, symbolizing rebirth, and a bright new dawn - I must admit, I struggle to understand the people who think that the finale is so simple as to exist within the limitations of single, tragic interpretation. It's not.

Death is also a beginning.

[comicaurora]

My bf told me he heard somewhere on your channel there was a version of Aphrodite who consorted with Typhon, and I'm trying to find info on that and am struggling. Do you know what that's about or where it came from?

So that doesn't sound familiar to me, and I scrubbed back through both my Aphrodite and Typhon videos and I can't find any reference to it in either one - although given the way my brain works and how small of a "fun fact" that is, it's entirely possible I ran into it somewhere, threw it into an older and less-diligently-researched video script as a one-frame wonder, and promptly forgot about it.

Attempting to reverse engineer the research process, I can't find any overt connection between Aphrodite and Typhon like that. Aphrodite is usually portrayed in the Typhon myth as fleeing for her life while shapeshifted into a fish, usually inspiring the Pisces constellation in the process. Hesiod's Theogony does indicate she was involved in his birth in some way, but it's entirely nonspecific as to how.

The closest I've been able to find to this idea is from Plutarch's "Isis and Osiris", where he's engaging in some very blatant syncretism and claims Nephthys is seen as the wife of Typhon, because he was conflating Typhon with the Egyptian god Set. Nephthys could conceivably have been syncretized with Aphrodite in this instance, especially since a lot of Egyptian deities got mashed together on the regular, but she'd be pretty low on the list of Egyptian goddesses that Aphrodite/Venus was notably syncretized with - Isis and Hathor were much more common, and I'm not sure Nephthys ever got that kind of billing. Still, I think this is the closest to a solid connection I can find.

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

"Priestess of Isis", "Enchantress" and "Sylph": Occult References in Ellen Hutter’s character in “Nosferatu” (2024)

In another post I analyzed Ellen Hutter’s character in the 2024 adaptation of “Nosferatu” through literary lenses of the Gothic female genre. Now, I want to dwell on her occult and mystical symbolism, and how this translates in her connection with Count Orlok, the undead demon of the story, who’s bound to her. But how and why? And what exactly is she in this story?

“In heathen times you might have been a great priestess of Isis.”

Von Franz tells this to Ellen in their last scene together, because he recognizes her spiritual power and ability to communicate with the spiritual world. Her “hysterical fits” and “epilepsies” also mirror the trance-like states of Pagan priestesses. She inhabits the “borderland”, a peripheral area, a portal between the two worlds: the physical (matter) and the spiritual.

“The pupil is expanded. It does not contract naturally to the light. […] A second sight. She’s no longer here. […] She communes now with another realm.”

“Somnambulists afflicted with these perversions [hysterics and lunatics] oft possess a gift: a sight into the borderland. […] I believe she has always been highly conductive to cosmic forces, uniquely so.”

Von Franz says demons usually obsess over “those whose lower animal functions dominate”, because they like them and seek them out. He elaborates: hysterics and lunatics. However, he says this before he actually gets to know Ellen, and he quickly realizes that’s not the case here. Because Ellen is the one who awoke Orlok from his centuries old sleep. Which is confirmed by three characters in the narrative: Orlok, Ellen herself and Von Franz.

O’er centuries, a loathsome beast I lay within the darkest pit… ‘til you did wake me, enchantress, and stirred me from my grave. You are my affliction.

Which leads me to the next topic:

Why Isis, of all deities?

Isis and Osiris

Isis is one of the major Egyptian deities. She’s more commonly known for her role as “Mother Goddess” of Horus, the Sun god. Isis had mighty magical powers, greater than that of all other gods, she governed the natural world, healing and wield power over Fate itself.

“Destiny!” Ellen cries out to Anna, while looking at the sea. “Providence!” Herr Knock screams throughout the narrative. “You run in vain! You cannot out-run your destiny!” Von Franz laughs in religious fervor as Thomas tries to save Ellen.

Isis is also connected with the themes of death, sex and rebirth in Egyptian cosmology, due to the myth of Isis and Osiris; which are also the core themes of Robert Eggers’ adaptation of “Dracula/Nosferatu”, so it’s not coincidental.

The “Osiris Myth” is one of the major surviving pieces of Egyptian mythology. It’s a ancient tale, with its early versions dating back to the 5th Dynasty (c. 24th century B.C.). It has known several adaptations throughout Egyptian history. The most complete version is in “The Moralia” by the 1st-century scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea, a collection of essays about Greco-Roman culture; that became very popular during the Renaissance era (14-16th centuries) and the Enlightenment period (18th century) in Europe.

Isis and Osiris were brothers, and according to Ancient Egyptian religion, they were in love with one another before they were born, and enjoyed each other in the dark before they came into the world. They eventually married.

Osiris had two facets as a God: in life, he was the God of fertility, agriculture, and vegetation, being considered a “Shepherd God”; in death, he was the God of the Underworld, the judge and Lord of Dead, the afterlife and resurrection. The pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were associated with Osiris in death, because as he rose from the dead, so would they unite with him and gain eternal life through imitative magic. Which appears to be the whole deal between Orlok and Herr Knock in “Nosferatu”, as Knock seeks to gain immortality like Orlok, by serving him.

On Earth, Osiris was believed to take on the form of a bull (the sacred bull Apis). What I find interesting here is that in both the 2016 script and the 2023 script of “Nosferatu”, Orlok’s physicality is actually compared to a bull:

Osiris became king of Egypt, and taught the people how to farm and live peacefully in their villages; he had a reputation for being a powerful and wise king, loved and respected by the Egyptian people. We don’t know exactly how Eggers’ Orlok was in life, other than him being a Romanian or Hungarian nobleman and a Solomonar sorcerer who sought to achieve immortality. But if we go by Vlad III (Drakule or Dracula, the infamous “Vlad the Impaler”) biography, he’s actually considered a Romanian national hero because he defended the Romanian people from foreigner invaders (Germanics and Turks, mostly). Just throwing this out there, because it’s unsure if this is intentional or not.  

Osiris and Isis had a brother, Seth (or Typhon in Plutarch essays), the God of deserts, storms, disorder and violence, who murdered Osiris to take his throne. He tricked Osiris into climbing into a wooden chest/coffin, shut the lid, sealed it shut, and threw it down the Nile River, knowing Osiris would never be able to survive. In some versions, it’s said Seth cut Osiris body into pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Interestingly enough, there’s a similar legend associated with Vlad the Impaler, who died in battle against the Ottomans, and, according to Leonardo Botta, the Milanese ambassador in Buda(pest), Vlad’s enemies cut his corpse into pieces, too. and his remains were never found.

Isis is the epitome of the mourning widow in this myth, as she mourns Osiris’ death deeply. Here enters the symbolism of the lilacs in "Nosferatu", the symbolic flowers of Ellen and Orlok: in the Victorian era, they were associated with widows because they represented a memento of a deceased lover.

Can this also be a nod to “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992) by Francis Ford Coppola? Where Dracula himself is the grieving widower because Elisabeta commits suicide? In the 1992 adaptation, Mina also speaks of “flowers of such frailty and beauty as to be found nowhere else”. What flowers is Mina talking about? It’s unclear, but Lilacs are native flowers to the Balkans, after all.

Isis sought for Osiris’ mangled body and with help of tree other Gods (Nepthys, Thoth and Anubis), they sew Osiris’ body back together, and then wrapped it head to toe in strips of linen, creating a mummy. Interestingly enough, Orlok’s corpse appears almost mummified at the end of the story.

In the Osiris myth, Isis uses powerful magic (incantations and magic spells) to bring her dead lover back to life; similar to Ellen who resurrects Orlok with her summoning prayer. In one version, this happened on a night of the full moon; in “Nosferatu” (2024) we also have a full moon connected to Ellen and Orlok, in the prologue, when he reveals his rotten corpse to her:

According to Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, it’s Isis sorrow, sexual desire and anger that empower her magic to be able to bring Osiris back to life. When Ellen prays for a companion of “any celestial sphere” in the prologue, she’s crying (sorrow), she’s upset because her father recoils from her now that’s she’s no longer a child (anger) and she’s in her teenage years/puberty (sexual desire). Like Isis with Osiris, it’s the combination of these emotions that power her magic to unconsciously resurrect Orlok.

However, Osiris can’t remain among the living, because he has to return to the Underworld and become King of the Afterlife. But before he goes, Osiris and Isis conceive Horus, the God of the sun and the sky, who will restore peace and order to the universe.  In “Nosferatu” (2024), Von Franz says that “with Jove’s holy light” before dawn, redemption will come to the people of Wisburg and the curse of Nosferatu will be vanquished. “Jove” is Jupiter, the “King of the skies”, who’s connected with the Egyptian Horus. Horus and Ra are often merged together in Ancient Egyptian religion, making Isis and Osiris the metaphorical parents of the Sun.

In “Nosferatu” (2024), as Orlok and Ellen complete their covenant, consummate their wedding and he drinks from her, the sun is also the metaphorical result of their union. As dawn breaks, the sunlight vanquishes them both from the physical world, as they both die in the material realm.

After being buried by Isis, Osiris goes into the Underworld to rule over it. And from then on, Isis herself is also associated with funeral rites, as she would guide the souls of the dead, helping them entering the afterlife. Through her magic, Isis helped resurrecting the souls of the dead, as she did with Osiris, acting as a mother to the deceased, providing protection and nourishment.

At the end of "Nosferatu" (2024) we see Ellen fulfilling her role as “priestess of Isis” (or as Isis herself?), as the Goddess of healing, who ends the blood plague in Wisburg, but also guides her dead lover Orlok/Osiris with her into the Underworld... where he'll rule as king? Unclear.  

Since we are discussing the Egyptian Gods, I have to mention Greta the Cat, Ellen’s domestic cat. Her name is an obvious homage to Greta Schröder, the actress who played Ellen Hutter in the original 1922 “Nosferatu”. Indeed, cats are predators to rats, however, the Egyptian Goddess Bastet is considered to be Isis’ daughter. She's the "cat goddess" for cats were considered sacred in Ancient Egypt. Bastet was associated with sun gods like Horus and Ra. Bastet was the goddess of pregnancy, childbirh, and protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.

Enchantress

Orlok calls Ellen “enchantress”, but what does this mean? “Enchantress” is not only a female archetype, but has root in historical realities. Enchantresses were practitioners of feminine magic: oracles, healers, herbalists, midwives and shamanic shapeshifters. They were what’s commonly known as “witches”. These female magicians studied and practiced their art in goddess temples, mystery schools, alchemy schools and hedge schools.

The alchemists of the Middle-ages studied these dynastic lineages of “wise women”, and they had several names: enchantresses, chantresses, encantrices, or incantrix. Many physicians who founded "medicine" and "science" studied these wise women, mainly healers and their use of medicinal plants and herbs.

Ellen’s character appears to fit that of a “incantrix”. Women who used words, incantations, songs, spells and prayers to shape reality. It’s the priestess of an old religion (as Von Franz also calls her); gifted with magic power and authority to command the elements or the body by the power of their word.

Heptagrams

Orlok seal (or sigil) meaning has already been widely discussed by others (symbols of Ancient Dacian religion, mainly the figure of Zalmoxis), but what I want to mention here is the heptagram itself, the seven-pointed star. Heptagrams have several occult meanings, including warding off evil which, for obvious reasons, doesn’t fit Orlok’s character. It has meaning in Alchemy, too, as representative of the seven planets and seven substances.

The heptagram, however, is used by Aleister Crowley in his occult system Thelema (from Ancient Egyptian text) to represent a goddess/archetype: Babalon, which is also connected with Isis, Nuit, Lilith, Kali, among other goddesses and deities. At its core, it’s a goddess of female empowerment and liberation, of divine feminine. According to this occult belief, Babalon has several manifestations (sort of incarnation) and is a spiritual gateway to wisdom and enlightenment through chaos and female sexuality.

In “Nosferatu” (2024), when Ellen and Thomas are returning home, there’s a man in the streets rambling bits from the “Book of Revelations” (Apocalipse) from the Bible: “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, owith ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.” (Revelations, 13:1).

Indeed this passage is about Orlok arrival and how he’ll spread plague among the town. However, we have a character in the “Book of Revelations” which is connected to all of this: the Whore of Babylon, the “Mother of Prostitutes and All Abominations of the Earth”, and she rides this Beast, which is the same as Crowley’s Babalon. What Crowley did was a positive reinterpretation of this biblical figure, symbolizing liberated female sexuality by embracing the powers of the Divine Harlot.

Also known as the “Scarlet Woman” and “Great Mother”, this complex and mysterious figure was established in 1904 in “The Book of Law”, however her roots are far older, and can be found in the Enochian tradition, a magical system by John Dee and Edward Kelly, dated from the late 16th century. In the 2016 script of “Nosferatu”, Orlok spoke Enochian, so it’s clear Robert Eggers is very much aware of all of this.

Initiatrix, Creator and Destroyer, Babalon is the “Great Mother” because she represents matter, Mother Earth. Like Isis, she’s the Archetypical Mother, the Womb, the Great Sea and the Divine Blood itself. According to Crowley, the “whore/harlot” facet is about enjoying sex without the burden of reproduction; and the “mother of abominations” connects with destruction like natural catastrophes, plagues, etc. She’s the ruler of the cosmological sphere and both good and evil (as evil as elemental forces can be or are considered as).

Crowley is a man who was born and raised in the Victorian era where sexuality was to be silenced and repressed, which provides context to his occultist beliefs and his “sex magick” theories. Victorian physicians and scientists were obsessed with classification of sexual perversions, too. “Hysteria” being one example among many. Which is the historical context for Eggers adaptation of “Nosferatu”/“Dracula”, so these references are quite fitting.

According to the Thelema, Babalon is the “Sacred Whore”, and her primary symbol is the Chalice or Graal (symbolic womb). She’s a consort to the Beast, who has seven heads, which is symbolically represented in her heptagram sigil. Crowley described her: “She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of the sacrament of the Aeon”.

To Crowley these were not actual beings but titles/archetypes (sort of speak) in his Sex Magick beliefs: the “Scarlet Woman” is the High Priestess, and the “Beast” is the Hierophant. This fits Ellen (the priestess) and Orlok (warlock, black sorcerer) in “Nosferatu” (2024). The “Scarlet Woman” is a gateway to both the moon and the sun, and we see both associated with Ellen.

Orlok is described as a “beast” several times in the film, including by himself and by Von Franz, who also mentions Ellen’s “dark bond with beast”, and how she gave her love to the beast: "and lo the maiden fair did offer up her love unto the beast, in close embrace until the first cock crow, her willing sacrifice thus broke the curse and freed them from the plague of Nosferatu."

Orlok says Ellen’s passion is bound to him, like Babalon’s passion is united with the Beast. Babalon as “mother of abominations” also fits with how Ellen unleashed Orlok and his blood plague onto the world, bringing destruction and apocalypse.

Your passion is bound to me. […] I cannot be sated without you. […] Remember how once we were? A moment. Remember?

Thelemic followers of the Beast have been trying to call into being an older, more primeval, female force that is lacking in the Modern Age. Interestingly enough, this was the reason why Orlok became interested in Ellen in the 2016 script (which was later changed, because in the 2023 version it’s Ellen who summons Orlok): “I have sought a creature from the depths. A Eve that remembers her Eden. You are such one.” Both Crowley but more notoriously Jack Parsons have tried a bunch of incantations to conjure Babalon into being.

Oddly enough, the conjuring ritual we see Herr Knock performing at the beginning of “Nosferatu” (2024) is very similar to one of the incantations of Babalon performed by Jack Parsons: Air dagger, blood and channeling of windstorms and the Air element, over a heptagram. He also compares Ellen to a sylph; a nymph of the air element from alchemy and hermetic literature. We are told by Von Franz this is Solomonari sorcery, but is it really?

In Ophidian Thelema, Babalon is the Goddess of magick (“Heka”), of the Liberation of the Spirit (ecstasy), of the Liminal Point, of the Underworld, of Vengeance and of the Principles of Life. Their priestesses use the female body (vulva and womb) to channel their power during their magic rituals. This is similar to Ellen’s “hysterical fits” when she’s communicating with Orlok in the spiritual world, especially since “hysteria” was considered a disease caused by “wandering womb”. In the film, we also see Ellen's womb being talked about between Von Franz and Dr. Sievers during her examination, when they say her menstruation is liberal and she has too much blood in her. 

The “liberation of spirit” is in the form of a Serpent, which manifests in the flesh. This notion was present in the “Book of Law”, where its said there’s the dove, and there’s the serpent, and a choice must be made. While the dove represents religion, the serpent represents the spirit. In one scene, Ellen says Orlok is like a serpent in her body; and he replies it’s not him, but her own nature, a nature she denies. Babalon says “my vocation is the serpent.”

The priestesses of Babalon are also in control of their “trances” when they access the spiritual world. In “Nosferatu” (2024) there’s a interesting scene between Ellen and Thomas (the infamous sex scene), when Ellen “comes back” from her transe when he says he’ll call for Dr. Sievers. Does this indicate Ellen is actually in control of her trance-like states?

Babalon is the guardian of the Seven Principles of the Underworld, a place of darkness and transformation. Orlok tells Ellen in the prologue “you are not for the living. You are not for human kind.” Babalon is also the goddess of the liminal point, who can access other realms. As Goddess of vengeance, Babalon punishes when life is out of balance, and exerts violence and corruption upon those who are in the wrong. Ellen unleashes Orlok onto the world, and we can interpret him bringing plague into Wisburg as Ellen’s reckoning against a society that ostracizes her and will never accept her.

All rites and initiations of the Underworld Goddesses include rites of sex and death. Which is what we see with Ellen at the end of “Nosferatu” (2024). By Thelemic occult tradition, she, the manifestation of Babalon, has sex with the Beast (Orlok), “representing the passion which unites them” and her womb (Holy Grail; cup) is “aflame with love and death” (sexual climax, orgasm, with an un-dead vampire).

I will work the work of wickedness; I will kill my heart; I will be loud and adulterous; I will be covered with jewels and rich garments; I will be shameless before all men; I will, for token thereof, will freely prostitute my body to the lusts of each and every living creature that shall desire it; I claim the Mystery of Mysteries, BABALON the Great, and the Number 156, and the robe of the Woman of Whoredomes and the Cup of Abomination. “The Great Beast: The Life of Aleister Crowley”, John Symonds, 2016

Orlok being the Beast and Ellen the manifestation of Babalon explains why she’s promise to him in the narrative, and was never meant to marry Thomas: in Thelemic tradition, the Beast is the consort of Babalon, after all. Orlok's interest in Ellen isn't predatory for its own sake; he sees her as his rightful and fated spiritual consort, which fits the "bride of Dracula" theme of the Bram Stoker original story.

This probably also mirrors the 1992 adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola, where Van Helsing calls Lucy the “Devil’s concubine”: "Hear me out, young man. Lucy is not a random victim attacked by mere accident. Do you understand? No. She is a willing recruit, a breathless follower, a wanton follower. I dare say, a devoted disciple. She is the devil's concubine! Do you understand me? Yet, we may still save her precious soul." In this adaptation, Lucy is full Crowley and Parsons “Scarlett Woman”, with red garments and red hair.

Orlok also gives Ellen three nights to accept him/her nature and complete their covenant. Some are mistakenly associating this with Jesus Christ. These “three days” are possibly connected with another Goddess associated with Babalon: Inanna (or Ishtar), the ancient Mesopotamian Goddess of love, war, fertility, sensuality and divine law. The most famous myth about this deity is her descent into the Underworld, where she spends three days and three nights dead, until she re-ascends (rebirth).

Ellen also goes through the “Myth of Inanna” in “Nosferatu” (2024), which is the theme of the heroine descending into the “Underworld”, to suffer, to be stripped bare, to die, and to be reborn in the aftermath. This is the primal Shamanic crisis. Ellen also goes through three days and nights of suffering and death (witnessing her friends and the townsfolk of Wisburg dying by the blood plague) until she joins Orlok and is reborn.

Ellen and Orlok are involved in sex magick, at the end, clearly. But with what purpose? Sex magick to Crowley has several purposes and strong creative power, conjuring, invocation, etc. He believed deliberate acts of sexual transgression were a radical form of super-human power that promised to explode the narrow boundaries of Western Christian society and open the way for a whole new era of human history. Which is probably what’s happening here? A symbolic ending to the sexually repressed Victorian era as Western societies moved toward a more open-minded and accepting view of sexuality? Or it’s Ellen reborn as a Goddess of the Underworld (return to spiritual state), after going through a initiation rite of sex and death, as she breaks free from her human form? Or both?

Or it can be a nod to Crowley idea of sex magick to unleash supreme creative power to generate a godlike child? This can mirror the Osiris and Isis myth, of Horus (the Sun) as their metaphorical child, like it is for Ellen and Orlok here, as the end result of their union.

Alchemy

Alchemy, at its core, is the transmutation of base materials (lead, etc.) into noble materials (gold), and the pursuit of immortality (“philosopher’s stone”). Occultists reinterpreted this as a spiritual quest of self-transformation, purification and regeneration of the human soul. Hence physical death being seen as a gateway to another life (rebirth); which is the symbolism of the final scene of “Nosferatu” (2024).

Both Ellen and Orlok evolve from a diseased and corruptive state (physical world) into regenerative and perfect state (spiritual world), after being purified by fire (the Sun). Their old selves are empty shells, as their spirits ascend. This also finds parallel in the myth of Isis and Osiris, as they both went from “daemons” to Gods in the Plutarch essay.

And this also finds parallel in the 1992 adaptation when Vlad/Dracula ascends to the Heavens and is reunited with Elisabeta’s soul. Is this intentional? Are we dealing with reincarnation themes in Eggers' adaptation, as well? According to occultists both Babalon and the Beast have had many manifestations (reincarnations) in the physical world throughout the centuries, after all.

Orlok asking Ellen to remember their shared past, is also an interesting nod to Vlad and Mina in the Coppola's adaptation (their OST is called "Love Remembered"): "I have crossed oceans of time to find you." and “I have sought a creature from the depths. A Eve that remembers her Eden. You are such one.” in the 2016 "Nosferatu" script. Which didn't change all that much in 2023, except we don't have an actual explanation for Orlok interest in Ellen, other than her waking him from his centuries old sleep (resurrection).

[apiswitchcraft]

the egyptian gods

MA'AT: the essence of harmony and balance

in the beginning, well, there were a lot of different beginnings,

AMUN/AMUN-RA: god of the sun and air, supreme king of the gods in some periods. some stories say that he created himself and then everything else in the universe

ATUM: sometimes considered another name for Ra, but when separated he represents the evening sun. he was the first of the Ennead to emerge from Nu, and was the supreme ruler of the gods, and creator of the universe and human beings

RA/RE: when separated from Atum, he represents the midday sun, but other stories say that his aspect changes as he advances his sun barge across the sky. also considered the supreme ruler and creator of the universe. later merged with Amun as he rose in popularity

PTAH: another creator of the universe, Ptah was lord of truth, and the patron god of sculptors and craftsmen (since he was considered to have sculpted the earth). he created the first mound of earth from Nu by imagining it in his heart and breathed life into things with his voice

KHNUM: said to have created everything on his potter's wheel. in a different story he created humans on his potter's wheel then raised them up to the sun so that Ra could breathe life into them

NEITH: a war and funerary goddess, she created all things from her innards. she invented birth, therefore considered the "mother goddess" and closely associated with life and living things

MUT: emerged from Nu and gave birth to the world on her own, or in other stories was the wife of Amun. she was a goddess of protection, guarding humans in life, and against demons in death

MEHET-WERET: celestial cow goddess that emerged from Nu and gave birth to Ra at the beginning of time. goddess of water, creation, and rebirth

then under Atum/Ra creation stories, there were the first gods, called the Ennead,

SHU: the primordial god of air, he was born from Atum/Ra with his sister Tefnut to create the world. it's said that after bein gone for so long, Atum/Ra sent the eye of Ra to search for them, and his tears of happiness at having them returned became humans

TEFNUT: the sister and wife of Shu, she was the primordial god of moisture and rainfall

NUT: child of Shu and Tefnut, she represented the sky, but her relationship with her brother Geb disturbed Atum/Ra so he pushed her high above Geb, decreeing that she could not give birth on any day of the year. however, Thoth then gambled with Iah (or Khonsu) winning five days of moonlight he transformed into days. On those five days, her five children were born

GEB: god of the earth and growing things

OSIRIS: child of Nut and Geb, he was lord and god of the underworld and afterlife. he was said to be the first god to die, after being killed by his brother Set, wherein Isis then resurrected him and they bore Horus.

ISIS: child of Nut and Geb, she was the goddess of the moon, healing, fertility, and magic

NEPHTHYS: child of Nut and Geb, she is the twin sister of Isis and wife of Set. she is considered a goddess of funeral rites, darkness (not in an evil sense), and protector of women.

SET/SETH: child of Nut and Geb god of war, chaos, and storms. although he was the first murderer, he was considered a necessary balance to the good of Osiris. he killed Osiris to usurp his throne, only to later be usurped by Horus.

However, sometimes Set was replaced with Horus in the Ennead,

HORUS: technically there were two Horuses, Horus the Elder, who was a child of Nut and Geb, and Horus the younger, who was the better known Horus. however, they ended up merging into one deity, a god of the sun, sky, and kingship

under the Amun (and sometimes Ptah) creation myth(s) there was the group called the Ogdoad, including Amun and

AMUNET: the female counterpart of Amun, together they represented forces unseen, including the wind and air

KEK: the god of the hours before dawn, he guided the sun barge of Ra from the underworld to earth

KAUKET: the female aspect of Kek, she represented the hours after sunset, and guided the sun barge of Ra into the underworld. Together these gods represent darkness (but not in an evil way)

HEH AND HAUHET: often not separated in any meaningful way, these two were the gods of infinity, eternity, and time

NUN AND NAUNET: personification of the primordial waters, from which everything was created. Naunet is only ever referenced when it comes to the Ogdoad

However, when Amun became revered as a god of creation, him and Amunet were sometimes replaced by

NIA AND NIAT: gods of the void

so then the rest of the gods,

THOTH: advisor of Atum/Ra, he was the god of wisdom, writing, and truth, and was associated with the moon. sometimes he is the child of Atum/Ra, other times he is the son of Horus. he gave humanity the gift of language and marked the passage of time

SESHAT: consort of Thoth, she was the goddess of writing, books, and measurements

ANUBIS: son of Nephthys and Osiris, he was the god of the dead and associated with embalming. he leads the souls of the dead to the Hall of Truth and weighs their heart to determine if they were good or evil

KABECHET/QEBEHT: daughter of Anubis and a funerary deity. she provides cool, pure water to the souls awaiting judgement in the Hall of Truth

BASTET: daughter of Ra, although her image has tempered over time, Bastet was often considered a defender of pharaohs and the hearth. goddess of cats, women, and fertility

SEKHMET: sister of Bastet, she was goddess of destruction, justice, and desert winds. after Ra became tired of the sins of humanity, he sent Sekhmet to destroy them. she ravaged the land until the other gods implored Ra to stop her, where he took beer dyed red (to emulate blood) and left it at Dendera. when she drank it, she fell asleep and woke as the benevolent goddess Hathor

MAAHES: solar god and protector of the innocent, sometimes the son of Bastet, sometimes Sekhmet

HATHOR: goddess of joy, celebration, love, women, drunkenness, and sometimes animals. in some stories she is the wife of Horus the elder, in some Horus the younger, and in some Ra

MA'AT: embodiment of the principle of ma'at, she was the goddess of truth, justice, and harmony

KHONSU: the son of Amun and Mut, god of the moon and healing

MONTU: a god of war and the vitality of pharaohs, he was later replaced by Khonsu as a child of Amun and Mut

TENENIT: goddess of beer and brewing, consort of Montu

HEKA: patron god of magic and medicine, but was also said to be present at the creation of the universe

HU: god of the spoken word, personification of the first word Atum/Ra ever spoke. represented the tongue

SIA: personification of perception and thoughtfulness who represented the heart

ANAT: goddess of fertility, sexuality, love, and war. sometimes she is a virgin goddess, others she is sensuous and erotic

APEP/APOPHIS: the celestial serpent that would assault the sun barge of Ra every night as it travels through the underworld

BA-PEF: god of terror

BES/BISU/AHA: god of childbirth, fertility, sexuality, humor, and war. he protected women and children, fended off evil, and fought for divine justice

TAWERET/TAURET: considered a consort of Set, goddess of childbirth and fertility. guarded children and invoked to help with pregnancy and birth

HRAF-HAF: the ferryman of the dead, he would carry good souls across the Lily Lake to the shores of paradise in the Field of Reeds

AMENET: consort of the divine ferryman, she welcomed souls of the dead to afterlife with food and drink

FETKET: cupbearer of Ra, patron of bartenders

MAFDET: goddess of justice, protected people from venomous bites, later replaced by Serket

SERKET: goddess of protection and funerals, protected people against venom

HEDET: goddess of scorpions and protector against their venom

IHY: son of Hathor and Horus the elder, he was the god of music and joy

IMHOTEP: the deified vizier of the king Djoser, god of wisdom and medicine

MESKHENIT: goddess of childbirth, created a person's ka (life force) and breathed it into them, creating their destiny

NEHEBKAU: joined a persons ka to their body at birth, and with the ba (winged aspect of the soul) at death. has always existed, and swam in the primordial waters before Atum rose

NEFERTUM: god of perfume and beauty, said to be born from the bud of a blue lotus flower at the beginning of creation. associated with rebirth and transformation due to his association with Atum

RENENUTET: goddess of nursing children and the harvest. she determined the length of a person's life and the important events that would occur, sometimes considered the mother of Osiris as consort of Atum

NEPER: son of Renenutet, god of grain and fertility

ONURIS/ANHUR: a son of Ra, god of war and hunting

SHAY: personification of fate, no one could alter her decisions

SHED: god who protected against wild animals and mortal enemies

SHEZMU: god of wine, perfume and plenty

SOBEK: god of water and medicine, namely surgery. lord of marshes and wetlands

SOTHIS/SOPDET: astral form of Isis, represented the star Sirius

SAH: astral form of Osiris, represented the constellation Orion

SOPDU: son of Sothis and Sah, astral form of Horus, guarded over outposts and soldiers on the frontier

TAYET/TAIT: goddess of weaving and associated with embalming

WENEG: held up the sky and maintained balance between the heavens and earth

WEPWAWET: the "opener of ways," a funerary and hunter god

KHENTYAMENTIU: the "Chief of the Dead," a funerary god believed to have created important funerary rites

and the sons of Horus, who get their own special spot,

DUAMUTEF: protector god of the stomach, he represented East

HAPY: protector god of the lungs, he represented the North

IMSETY: protector god of the liver, he represented the South

QEBEHSENUEF: protector god of the intestines, he represented the West

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A Few More Ancient Egyptian Art Vocabulary

for your next poem/story

Natron - a natural salt used in mummification

Necropolis - from the Greek meaning “city of the dead,” especially the large cemetery of an ancient city

Neith - “the terrifying one”; protector of the king and one of four goddesses who guard the coffin and the canopic box

Nemes - a royal headdress, probably of striped linen or perhaps leather, with lappets falling forward over each shoulder and with the fabric gathered and tied in back

Nephthys - sister of Isis, protector of coffins and canopic jars

Nut - the winged sky goddess; as a woman arching over the earth she is the personification of the vault of the heavens

Osiris - according to myth, Egypt’s first king; created by the gods, Osiris suffered a violent death, was made whole again magically by Isis, and became the ruler of the dead

Ostracon - a limestone or pottery flake used to sketch, practice writing, or make notes

Papyrus - the writing surface of Egyptian scribes, made from the pith of papyrus stalks separated into strips that were flattened and placed side by side, slightly overlapping. On top of this layer, another layer of strips was placed at right angles to the first. The surface was then repeatedly pounded to make it smooth. The plant juices released in the pounding caused the strips to adhere to each other permanently without the aid of glue. In art, images of papyrus plants symbolized the world, which arose from the primeval waters at the time of creation. The plant was also the heraldic symbol of Lower Egypt.

Ptah Sokar - creator god and patron of craftsmen; shown as a human without any indication of limbs

Re - meaning simply “sun,” the most important name of the sun god, who was later combined with many other gods; the creator and sustainer of the world, who travels in a bark through the sky by day and through the underworld by night

Re-Harakhty - falcon-headed god, fusion of Re and Harakhty

Red crown - red headdress, cylindrical in shape with a high back extension, symbolizing the sovereignty of the king over Lower Egypt

Sakhmet - ambivalent goddess of war, disease, and chaos, who could also cause such calamities to cease and, in her role as the sun’s destructive eye, could repel hostile powers threatening Egypt; usually shown with a lioness’s head and a lion’s mane

Sarcophagus - a coffin made of stone

Selket - goddess—shown in human form with a scorpion on her head—who, with Isis, protected Horus during his childhood and was one of the four goddesses who guard the coffin and canopic box

Serdab - an Arabic word for the statue chamber of a tomb

Seth - violent deity, murderer of his brother Osiris (who had been divinely installed to maintain order); shown in human form with the head of a strange doglike creature; associated with the desert, where the ordered world ends; nonetheless, Seth uses his powers to help protect the sun god during his nightly journey through the underworld

Sistrum - a sacred rattle consisting either of a metal hoop with crossbars to which metal disks are attached or of a rectangular centerpiece in the shape of a small temple gate with two metal bands at each side

Sledge - a platform on flat runners used to transport loads

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ Part 1 ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[alpaca-clouds]

Dead Gods in Mythology

Okay, another little write up that has been requested. (Note, yes, you can send me requests for mythological and historical contexts. I love talking about this stuff. Just send a DM or Ask, and I will see to it when I get time.)

This came from a discussion about Sekhmet in season 2 in Nocturne, where someone brought up: "Well, she cannot really have been a goddess if she died." And of course I had to go: "Well, actually..." At this. It ended with me promising a write up on this.

See, this is an idea that is prevasive in western culture, and gets brought up again and again in media: Gods don't bleed, and gods don't die. It has been brought up in The Road to El Dorado, The Epic Musical, and in Kaos. But this idea is actually mainly rooted in - drum roll please - Christianity of course. With the Christian God being a single god, who is supposed to be all mighty and eternal. Polytheistic cultures meanwhile tend to have a couple of gods who within the mythology die. Sure, some of them are revived by some sort of magic - or continue to exist in another plane (in those cases often becoming the guardians of some sort of plane of the dead, where all dead souls go) - but yes, the polytheistic mythologies that we know off tend to have at least one god who dies.

So, let's talk about some of them.

Ra

Given our starting point is Sekhmet, let's start with the Egyptian mythology. Here we have two big examples of gods that prominently die.

One example of this is obviously Ra. Ra's entire thing is that he does not only die in the mythology, but that he dies ONCE A DAY, which was the Egyptian mythology's explanation for why there is night and day. Ra dies at the end of the day, and he moved through the duat during the night. This is in fact part of the reason why we know so many details about the duat, as those are described in several mythological texts about Ra's journey through the world of the dead.

Of course, this might be strange example, because Ra obviously gets revived daily, too, but that does not change the fact that he dies once a day. And for a good chunk of Egyptian history (please keep in mind that Egyptian religion shifted during the 3000 years that Ancient Egypt was around) Ra was one of the most powerful gods in their pantheon so to speak.

Osiris

Then Egyptian mythology has probably one of the best known examples of a god getting killed. And that is Osiris. Like almost all of the old mythologies, the Egyptian deities were a lot into siblings marrying. And in Egyptian mythology there were noticable four siblings: Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys - the latter getting usually ignored by modern audiences for some reason.

Osiris married Isis, Seth married Nephthys. And of course, as it goes with godly siblings, Osiris and Seth had a lot of quarelling and rivalry going. Seth - of course - being a god of the desert and chaos. And eventually Seth manages to trap Osiris and kill him. Now, the details of this have shifted once more throughout Egyptian history. In some variations they aphyxiate him, in others Osiris gets hacked into 26 pieces. One way or another, Isis will look for her dead brother-husband, find his corpse or his corpse parts, revive him, get pregnant with Horus, and then they find out that because he was dead he has to become now the god of the dead, being turned into the god overseeing the souls moving into the afterlife.

Baldr

Then there is of course the myth of Baldr in Norse mythology. Another son of Odin and Frigg. And it was said that Baldr was the most beautiful of all the gods. And Frigg loved him so much, that she went around the world and made everything - every stone, every animal and every plant - promise that they would never hurt him. However, she did not get to ask the mistletoe, and Loki noticed this. And being the trickster that he is, he devised a plan. He tricks the blind god Höðr to shoot a mistletoe arrow at Baldr, which then obviously kills him. In the prose Edda this is the reason for Loki's punishment with the acid spitting serpent.

Baldr of course moves onto Hella - the place, not the goddess - and remains there.

It should be noted of course that in the Edda we also know that most of the gods eventually die during Ragnarök. Though this is also where we should note, that the Edda are of course a source that we should use with some care, given that it is not a first hand account by Norse people, but was written up by Christian monks. (Most notable, a lot of researchers doubt by now that Loki ever was an actual god in Norse mythology, but was invented by Christians to fill the roll of a satan-like figure.)

Zagreus

Where are my Hades peeps at? If you have played Hades, you obviously know that Zagreus has this habit of dying and coming back. And this game mechanic is actually based in mythology.

And this is the moment where we should speak about one important fact: We tend to act as if we know everything there is to know about Greek mythology, but actually we do not know this. We know a lot about the most important gods, because we have several written sources about this - but when it comes to smaller or local gods, we absolutely are loosely informed, given we often only have text fragments. At times several text fragments that are contradictory. Zagreus is one of these.

Zagreus is either an alternative name for Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, or the son of Hades. The latter aspect has been tried to explain by researchers with the fact that we are not sure if the three big gods (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) were always distinct entities or might have been for a long while different aspects of the same god.

One way or another: We have at least two different text fragments, in which Zagreus dies. Once he gets murdered by Titans, once he dies in an accident. One way or another he dies. And in the cases where he is a son of Zeus, this seems to be the explanation why he is bound to the Underworld.

The Hades game kinda mixed and matched with the mythology there xD

Lugh

There I go again, talking about another mythology that we are actually not quite as certain about as some people seem to believe we are: Gaelic mythology. Once more, our issue is that while some of this was written down, it was written down after the region had been Christianized, so there is a lot of Christian bias in those texts. In fact it is even more clear in this example, given that the written down accounts of the Gaelic mythology involve references to biblical events. And of course the Tuatha de Danann are in the written down accounts references more as amazing humans, rather than gods - though we are fairly certain they originally were deities, with Lugh in particilar being a god of justice and war.

In the variations of the story we know, Lugh kills another god named Carmait, as that other god had fucked one of Lugh's wives. And in revenge Carmait's sons end up killing Lugh, by spearing him on his own magic spear and then throwing him into one of the Lochs. So, yes, if you count, this story in fact involves two dead gods. Generally speaking, quite a few of the Tuatha de Danann end up dead, though, again, I will point out, that we are not fully sure how much of this is routed in the fact that these myths were recorded by later Christians, who might have wanted to make sure that everyone understands that the Tuatha de Danann were not actually gods.

Izanami

Technically we actually have a variety of Shinto gods (aka kami) who die. But I will focus maybe on the most widely known story, that pretty much everyone who ever played Persona might be aware of: Izanami. And if I recount the tale, you might in fact feel strangely reminded of other myths.

Izanami and Izanagi were the first kami that were created, and they created the land, and then the world around it, through the act of procreation with one another. Eventually Izanami gives birth to the fire god Kagu-tsuchi and he burns her to death. Her remains are buried, but the grief-stricken Izanagi cannot be without her. So he travels to the underworld, Yomi. Eventually he finds Izanami, but she tells him that she can no longer leave the underworld, as she has already eaten from the food of the underworld. He tries to convince her, but eventually he sees her face and realized that she has the face of death, and flees in terror. She gets angry at this, and curses him and the land of the living, before she remains in Yomi as the goddess of the dead.

Vritra

Vritra in Hindu mythology is one of the danava and serves as the personification of drought. In the mythology he once tries to block a river, of course with this causing a drought. The other gods cannot stand by this, and Indra, who sees Vritra as his nemesis, ends up slaying Vritra to stop the drought.

Note, here, too, that there are a couple of deities in Hinduism - as well as the religions that sprung off of Hinduism - that die at least for a shorter while.

If you have ever had the fun of talking to one of the very annoying atheists, you might have heard someone pointing out that Krishna dies and is resurrected in a way that is quite similar to Jesus. Because, yes, this general mythological concept is assumed to probably go back to the progenitor religion of the Indo-European cultures. While we do not know anything about that religion (because back then nobody wrote anything), anthropologists and comparative mythology researchers are fairly sure that there was a tale of a god dying and returning from the dead in that religion as well, which is why it shows up so often in religions of that cultural sphere.

Innana & Dumuzid

Now let's talk about another really old mythology, about which we know surprisingly much, because they have written a lot down - and we were able to translate it. And that is the ancient Sumerian mythology, in which we have Innana or Ishtar (who in Egyptian mythology later became Isis). Again, due to these also being within the realm of the Indo-European mythologies, you will find some similarities - though in comparison to other goddesses in the same role, Innana is a lot more proactive.

Innana is convinced by her brother to marry the shepard god Dumuzid, though it is fairly clear through the poems we have, that she and her husband never quite saw eye to eye. This makes her death also quite interesting. Because Innana dies by her own volition, because her sister Ereshkigal, who was made the goddess of the dead, misuses her position. So Innana dies to be able to travel to the Underworld and fight Ereshkigal to dethrone her. Enki at this point helps Innana to flee the Underworld and return to the world of the living. However, there needs to be balance in the world. So if she returns to the world of a living, someone else needs to take her place in the Underworld.

As she returns to the world of the living, she sees her servants having mourned her, while her husband, Dumuzid, just instantly went: "I am a widower? Sweet! I can fuck around with servant girls now!" And as we say: Fuck around and find out. So Innana goes: "That asshole has not even the decency to act as if he is mourning me!" So he tells the spirits of the Underworld to take him to take her place. And so they do and kill him.

Good for her!

Quetzacóatl

The very attentive of you might have noticed that all myths I have talked about so far (with the exception of Izanami, where anthropologists and comparative mythology people are still arguing about whether or not there was an influence there - mind you, I land very much on the side of "Yes, obviously, there is an Indo-European influence to Shinto-Myth!") are from the Indo-European influence sphere. So let's lastly talk about one other god, who just so happens to be probably important for Castlevania Nocturne as well: Quetzacóatl. Now, historians researching the Nahua, are fairly certain that this myth has come to be because there once was a Nahua ruler named Quetzacóatl after the deity, and that ruler died, which then in mythology got mixed up with the deity. Never the less: There definitely is written down myths about the death of Quetzacoatl.

The short of it is, that a couple of demons plotted to kill him, but knowing that they could not kill a god, they deviced a plan: They would feed him a beer that would drive him mad. While it took a lot of trickery, they succeeded, and drove the god mad, making him commit suicide by burning himself alive.

Maui

Okay, I know what some might say: "But actually is Maui a god?" I will answer: "That depends who you ask." Maui is a character that shows up throughout almost all the Pacifica cultures. He is always a trickster and a culture hero. At times he is a mortal, at other times he is a demi-god, and at yet other times he is a full god. Because those cultures were distant enough to have the myths shift around. So yes, maybe you will call this cheating. But fuck it, let me talk about Maui, because I kinda think his death is pretty darn cool.

So, if you have watched Moana, you know that Maui is a shape shifter. And he was very fond of humans. So, he decided that he wanted to make humanity immortal. His plan to do so was to go to the goddess of the Underworld and death, Hine-nui-te-pō, and reverse the birth by transforming into a worm and crawl into her vagina. However, she woke, and it turns out that her vagina had teeth - so she crushed him with her vagina teeth. Which is... pretty darn badass, I would say.

Lastly

Let me end this entire thing with the note that there probably are quite a few more gods that die within their respective mythologies. I know at least of two myths from North America in which Coyote dies (a lot of North American cultures have Coyote as a trickster god). And I personally am simply not well informed on South American mythologies or a lot of African mythologies. I do not know stuff about the Indigenous pre-buddhist mythologies of Southeastern Asia, and central Asia. So there is a good chance that there are gods that die - or die and get resurrected in those mythologies - but if there are, I simply do not know enough about them.

Generally speaking though: Gods rarely can be killed by normal mortals. Mortal half-gods might succeed at times. But other gods? Yeah, they sure can kill their fellow deities. And some deities also commit suicide to save other people. It is a common thing throughout mythology.

So, please, can we just stop claiming gods are truly immortal? They will usually not die of old age or anything like that, but they very much can be killed by other gods, magical weapons and such things.

[egypt-museum]

Statuette of Tutankhamun the Harpooner

Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62), Valley of the Kings, Thebes. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 60710

A gilded, wooden statuette of King Tutankhamun stands on a wooden boat that is painted to represent a papyrus boat. Its details are picked out in gold leaf. The king, wearing the Deshret Red Crown of Lower Egypt, holds a harpoon poised to strike an unseen enemy.

According to the myth of Osiris and Isis, the king here represents their son, Horus, who avenged his father, Osiris. His adversary, Seth, often portrayed as a hippopotamus or crocodile, is not depicted, as he is a potentially harmful image. The figure of the king holds a bronze coiled chain to bind the animal, representing Seth, after spearing it. The statue was found wrapped in linen in a varnish-blackened chest.

Read more

[antiquitiesandlabyrinths]

. . .Osiris

Osiris (Great and Beautiful is He) is the God of the Underworld; its King and Pharaoh ruling over the Duat. He is pictured here on the far left, His skin green and His body in mummiform. This is commonly how He is depicted; as a green-skinned, mummified man.

Son of Nut, the Sky Goddess, and Geb, the Earth God, Osiris was the first King of Egypt in accordance with Kemetic mythology, although there are stories that recount Geb, His father, being King before Him. There are a great deal of myths and stories that surround and involve Osiris, and I suppose it is important to at least skim over them before discussing hard facts about Him, as it gives some reference as to who He is and what the culture surrounding Him is like.

Osiris Myth

After the world was created, the Demiurge (who changes according to myth, and can be Neith, Ra, Amun, Ptah, or others) produces children; in the most popular form of this creation story, it is usually Ra who births the first Gods. They are Shu and Tefnut, Air and Moisture. Shu and Tefnut then form a union and birth two children of Their own: Nut and Geb, Sky and Earth. Nut and Geb were very much in love and refused to separate from each other, which, of course, caused a problem, because if the sky and the earth are eternally in contact, there is no space for anything to live and walk upon the earth. Ra made it so Nut and Geb were forever separated, by having Shu, air, stand atop Geb and hold Nut up as the sky. But Nut was already pregnant. When Ra discovered this, He was enraged, and forbade Nut from ever giving birth on any day of the year.

Nut cried to Djehuty (Thoth), and Thoth devised a plan. He went to Khonsu, God of the Moon, and set up a gamble, saying that every round of the game Senet Khonsu lost, He would have to give Nut some of His moonlight. Khonsu ended up losing so many times that Nut had enough moonlight for five days––five days that weren't in the calendar. This allowed Her to give birth on those five days, and on each day She had a different child; Ausir (Osiris), Wr-Heru (Horus the Elder), Sutekh (Set, Seth), Auset (Isis), and Nebet-Het (Nephthys). Nut and Geb were still forever separated by atmosphere (Shu), but the five Gods were birthed, and Osiris, as the eldest son, became King of the Living World.

As a side note, all Gods do have ancient Egyptian names which are different from Their Greek and now modern names. For convenience's sake, and to avoid confusion, I will use the names They are most known by; Their Greek/modern names. And as another side note, there are a lot of variations on this story. I will be piecing together a lot of different ideas but I will be leaving some things out for the sake of cohesion.

When Osiris came to Egypt, He found the people there to be chaotic and lawless. As King, He instituted laws and spread ma'at, which is truth, justice, harmony, and order. Egypt flourished under His rule and the people were incredibly happy, as all were equal, and with the fertility of the God-King, the crops were always bountiful and food was plenty. He brought not only law and prosperity, but also the right way to worship, and the teachings of agriculture.

Set, God of chaos, confusion, the desert, and of foreigners, and the youngest brother of the Ennead, grew to be quite jealous of His older brother. There are many variations and the most popular variation of this story comes from the end of the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC), where Set fashions a fabulous coffin in the perfect measurements of Osiris, throws a party, and tells the party-goers that whomever the coffin fits may have the coffin as a gift. When Osiris fits perfectly, Set quickly shuts and bolts the coffin and throws it in the Nile (this version of the myth gives an origin to the idea that people who drowned in the Nile were holy). His coffin drifts downstream and into the Mediterranean, where it washes ashore in Phoenicia, in Byblos. The coffin wedges itself into a growing tamarisk tree, a tree which envelops the coffin. Eventually the tree is cut down and used as a pillar in the palace in Byblos.

Isis, Osiris' wife and sister, searched far and wide for Her husband, and did eventually find Herself in Byblos. The story is quite long and complicated, but in the end She convinced the King to give Her the pillar, and when she returned to Egypt, She hid Osiris in a swampy area of the Nile delta, and bade Her sister, Nephthys, to watch over Him while She went in search of healing herbs. But Seth heard that Osiris was back, and so after interrogating His sister-wife, Nephthys, He found Osiris, cut His body into pieces, and threw them into the Nile.

Isis was horrified at what transpired in Her absence, but She immediately set to work on finding the many pieces of Her husband with the help of Her sister, Nephthys. They managed to find every piece of His body except His phallus, which had been eaten by an oxyrhyncus fish, a fish that was thus forbidden to eat.

With the pieces of Osiris reassembled, and the healing powers of Isis in full power, Osiris was brought back to life, but incomplete. Isis assumed the form of a kite, and from above drew out the seed of Osiris, impregnating Herself with Their child: Horus the Younger. But Osiris, still incomplete, could not properly rule over the land of the living any longer.

This is why He is the ruler of the dead––He was once the king of the living, was killed, and was resurrected, and this is what every ancient Egyptian expected and hoped would happen to them: that they would die and be resurrected. In tombs and mortuary temples you will always see Pharaohs associating themselves with Osiris.

But this long myth I have just told you is not the only version of the story, and in my opinion, it is definitely the longest version of the story. Back in the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom there were several different versions; for example, Set's motive is different, ranging from revenge for Osiris kicking him, to revenge for Nephthys (Seth's sister-wife) sleeping with Osiris (which eventually births Anubis). Some texts claim that Seth took on the form of a wild animal, such as a crocodile or a hippopotamus, and killed Osiris that way. In others, Osiris is drowned. In some, the steps surrounding the coffin are skipped, and Osiris is simply cut up, and His pieces scattered around Egypt; a version which explains the many cult centers of Osiris claiming to be a place where Osiris is buried. Osiris' resurrection is also often helped along by other Gods such as Thoth (God of wisdom) and Anubis (God of embalming). In some versions, Set is killed for His actions. In most He is simply defeated and driven from the land, as chaos is necessary for balance and harmony, and thus cannot be killed. And the story that I have told is from the Late Period, recorded by Plutarch, and does not really go along with many Egyptian accounts, which often find Osiris' penis intact.

So that is the Osiris myth with all of its' intricacies and changing rhythms over the course of 4,000 years of Egyptian history. It embodies a huge amount of cultural practices and religious ideas within ancient Egypt, including the idea of truth, harmony, and justice, as well as resurrection, the afterlife, healing, and the workings of the cosmos. I've decided to leave out the later parts involving Osiris' son, Horus, and His fight with Set, for now because this does not directly involve Osiris, and that is our topic for this post.

Tradition, History, and Culture

Worship of Osiris dates back to the Old Kingdom, but the idea of Osiris is likely older than this. Before Osiris was actually Khentiamenti, an agricultural God centered in Abydos, a city which would later become the cult center of Osiris. Khentiamenti means 'Foremost of the Westerners', a title for the ruler of the dead, as the dead resided in the west, where the sun set each day. But Osiris Himself is not found mentioned in any texts or carvings until the 5th Dynasty, where He is depicted as a man wearing a divine wig. Later on He would take on the form we know Him best in––wrapped in a white mummy shroud, wearing an atef crown with ostrich plumes on the sides.

The mummy shroud He is depicted in forever associates Him with death and with the essential story behind Him, which is why I found it so important to start off with the Osiris Myth. This myth is also why He consumed and took the place of Khentiamenti; the name Khentiamenti, Foremost of the Westerners, instead became a title for Osiris as the King of the blessed dead. Another common epithet/name of Osiris is Wennefer (Omnophris), meaning 'The Beautiful One', 'The Beneficent One', and more archaically, 'One Whose Body Did Not Decay'. Among these names He was also called 'The Lord of Love', 'The King of Living', and 'The Eternal Lord'. From the Early Dynastic Period up until the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, when Rome conquered Egypt, Osiris was one of the most highly worshipped and revered Gods of Egypt.

Osiris was associated with the Nile river, with its' renewal and life-giving abilities, as one of Osiris' domains and powers was fertility, as well as rebirth. Another of His duties, evidence of which originates in the New Kingdom, was to act as judge of the dead; being King, He sat on the tribunal with the 42 Judges in the famous Weighing of the Heart ceremony. In this ceremony, which took place in the afterlife, the deceased would have to stand before the court and place their soul up for judgement. If it weighed lighter than the feather of Ma'at, representing all justice, truth, and harmony, then the heart acted well in life and would be allowed eternal happiness in the Field of Reeds. If not, the heart, and thus the person, would be consumed by Ammit and committed to nothingness. So Osiris would sit in on this tribunal and judge who entered His kingdom, as it was His domain. In this role, and in His role as King of the Living, as well, He was the embodiment of harmony, law, and justice.

"Most of his appeal was based on his embodiment of the cosmic harmony. The rising Nile was his insignia, and the moon’s constant state of renewal symbolized his bestowal of eternal happiness in the lands beyond the grave. In this capacity he also became the model of human endeavors and virtues..." (The Complete Gods And Goddesses Of Ancient Egypt, p.307)

As I mentioned earlier, Abydos became His cult center, as it was the cult center of the God who came before Him, whose traits He subsumed. It became a very popular burial site, as legends would say that Abydos was where Osiris was truly buried, and the people wanted to be buried as close as possible to Osiris. At one point they believed an ancient tomb there––which was actually the tomb of an Early Dynastic King––to be the tomb of Osiris, which they much revered, and left so many offerings in clay pots that Arabs would later call the site 'Umm el Qa'ab'; Mother of Pots. But this was not the only burial site of Osiris; since many variations of the myth include Set chopping up and dismembering Osiris into many parts, ranging from 14 to 42 different parts. These parts were scattered across Egypt, so many cities and nomes could claim that they had a part of Osiris buried in their domain. For example, far in the south, the island of Bigah claimed to be the burial site of Osiris' left leg, and thus the source for the yearly Nile inundation.

Going back to the Osiris Myth, after Osiris died and became the ruler of the dead, His son took His place as King of the Living: the falcon God, Horus (Heru the Younger). After the brief bout of chaos brought about under Set's rule, Horus took over (after much deliberation from the Gods) and order was restored. Because of this story, Pharaohs would not only associate themselves with Osiris in death, but with Horus in life. Each Pharaoh, as they came to the throne, would become the living embodiment of Horus on earth, the son of Osiris. In this way, Isis was also the mother of every Pharaoh, and their protector. And, to added extent, each Pharaoh would have a personal name, and then a Horus name granted to them when they ascended to the throne.

"It is for this reason that Osiris is so often depicted as a mummified pharaoh; because pharaohs were mummified to resemble Osiris. The image of the great mummified god preceeded the practice of preparing the royal body to look like Osiris... The king's appearance as modeled after Osiris' extended throughout his reign; the famous flail and shepherd's staff, synonymous with Egyptian pharaohs, were first Osiris' symbols as the flail represented the fertility of his land while the crook symbolized the authority of his rule." (Osiris, World History Encyclopedia, Joshua J. Mark)

Osiris can also be represented by a number of physical symbols, such as the crook and flail that He carries in almost all representations of His earthly form. The crook, which is the striped hook He carries, represents power/authority, and is a symbol of the Pharaoh. The flail, which is the instrument in His other hand, represents the fertility of the Nile, and as an extension, the fertility of Osiris Himself. But the crook and flail, though both seen typically as symbols of Pharaonic power, are actually the tools of a shepherd. There is reasonable evidence, thusly, to suggest that the physical origins of the idea of Osiris may not be that of a great King, but of a ruler of a shepherd tribe in the Nile Delta, whose rule was so beneficent that it led to him being worshipped as a God. For Egyptologists, this theory comes from His association with Andjety, a predynastic God-King worshipped in the Delta who also bore the crook and flail as His symbols. This, however, has not and likely cannot be fully proven. But the postulation is still interesting nonetheless!

Osiris' ba soul had its' own culture of worship, a practice of soul-worship that is prevalent in the cults of several other Gods, such as Hathor (HwtHer). In this form, Osiris was known as Banebdjedet, meaning 'The Ba of the Lord of the Djed,' which in English terms means 'The Soul of the Lord of the Pillar of Continuity', as ba means soul, and djed is the symbol for a pillar, which represented the backbone of Osiris. Interestingly, the name Banebdjedet is feminine, as the letter t denotes a feminine word or name in ancient Egyptian; although there are also variations on this name that exclude the t in favour of the alternative, Banebdjed. Banebdjedet, Osiris' ba soul, was worshipped mainly in Mendes, a city in Lower Egypt, in the Delta.

This leads to an interesting point concerning the androgyny of Osiris, a subject I found while researching for this post. Osiris' fertility comes from His castration and then being healed by the mother Goddess, Isis. Not only that, but both men and women identified themselves with Osiris in death. Then the name for His ba personified as another God is feminine, although representations of Banebdjedet are overwhelmingly male. Before anyone attacks me, I am not claiming that Osiris is a genderless God or King––just that He has some traits of androgyny, which I find interesting and love to study in ancient cultures, and I thought it would be good to mention for anyone else similarly interested.

Worship, Festivals, and Cult Activities

When it comes to the practices surrounding Osiris' cult, we actually know a good deal of information regarding the activities of worshippers and priests. Osiris' cult and worship was so widespread and lasted long enough that it could be recorded by the earliest Greek historians, and remained carved in temple walls for thousands of years. Among the most well-known cultic tradition is the Osiris Bed.

The Osiris Bed is rather well documented, as it was an object placed in tombs. It was not a bed for the deceased to lie in, but instead a box made of wood or clay, moulded into the shape of Osiris, in which the fertile Nile soil was placed and seeds were planted. These boxes were then wrapped in white mummy linens, and the seeds sprouted through, representing the resurrection and fertility of Osiris, and the crops that grew each year in cycles. One of the most famous of these beds was found in King Djer's tomb, a King from the Early Dynastic Period; the 2nd King ever of the unified Egypt. Coincidentally (or, perhaps, not so coincidentally) King Djer's tomb was the tomb which pilgrims believed to be Osiris' burial site.

While the Osiris Bed is far from the only practice and tradition of the Osiris cult, it does show the rich cultural practices and symbolism present in His worship. Let's look at some other examples of the practices of Osiris' cult.

Similar to the Osiris bed were Osiris gardens, which were essentially the same concept; fertile soil was planted inside a vessel shaped into the form of Osiris, and seeds were settled within to grow. These beds were tended to during festivals instead of being buried in a tomb.

There were a great many festivals, and each of them quite popular according to their time period, dedicated to the story and symbolism of Osiris. Some festivals started with recounting the mournings of Isis and Nephthys, Osiris' sister-wife and sister, in the form of a drama acted out in a call-and-response format. Another drama acted out for the glory of Osiris was more in the form of an actual fight that anyone could participate in; it was modelled after The Contendings of Horus and Set, which I briefly mentioned as a long and drawn-out argument between Horus and Set over who deserved Osiris' vacant throne after He had died. On this occasion, people would battle out and reenact the events of the story until the side of Horus finally won and victory was achieved. Afterwards, the celebrations commenced in honoring the restoration of order, and the gold-encased shAwyt-nTr (the Holy Statue) of Osiris would be taken out and lavished with offerings. Osiris, in the form of this statue, would be paraded throughout the city of Abydos before being placed in a shrine outside, where He could participate fully in the festivities, and be admired by the commoners who would usually never behold the face of Osiris. This emergence of Osiris from the dark temple's inner sanctuary to the light of the city resembled and represented His resurrection from death into life again. Although this particular festival was celebrated mainly in Osiris cult center of Abydos, it was also celebrated in other cities such as Bubastis in the Delta, Busiris, Memphis, and Thebes, in Upper Egypt.

The Mysteries of Osiris was a series of plays performed annually, and in dramatic, passionate form. It was one of the most popular observances of worshippers, and it told the story that I first told to you––of Osiris' life, His death at the hands of His brother, His resurrection at the hands of His sister-wife, and His ascension into the role we now know Him for. The roles in this reenactments were often taken up by high-ranking officials, and afterwards, the Contendings of Horus and Set would take place, which I just mentioned. These plays would take place over several days.

One festival was called The Fall of the Nile. During this time, the waters of the Nile would recede, and the worshippers of Osiris would go into mourning. One of Osiris' representation on earth was the Nile, and the Nile represented His fertility and life.

Another festival was celebrated on the 19th day of Pakhons, one of the months in the Egyptian calendar, which is roughly equivalent to May in our Gregorian calendar. On this day, the followers of Osiris would go to the river with shrines containing vessels of gold and metal, and would pour water into the Nile, exclaiming, "Osiris is found!" Mud and spices were mixed and moulded into the shape of Osiris, as well, to celebrate His return. Another festival similar to this one was called The Night of the Tear, and took place during modern-day June.

The last festival pertaining to Osiris that I will mention is the Djed pillar festival, held in modern-day January. The Pharaonic court and family would participate, raising djed pillars to welcome Osiris and the harvests that coincided with His return.

One last and interesting tradition that may seem familiar to Christians, at least in a small way, was the baking of bread in the shape of Osiris; bread as the flesh of the God, a sort of predecessor of communion wafers. But in reality the traditions of the Osiris cakes are completely different, and there were several different ways of going about it, depending on which nome you were from. In Dendera, wheat-paste models were made in the shape of each of the 16 dismembered parts of Osirs, and each model was sent out to the town where each respective part of Osiris was found by Isis. In Mendes, figures of Osiris were made of wheat and paste. On the day of the murder, they were placed in a trough, followed by water being added each day for several days. Afterwards, this mixture was kneaded into a dough, put into a mold of Osiris, and buried on the temple grounds.

Conclusion

This has been a somewhat brief glimpse into the cult, history, and traditions surrounding the Great God, The Beautiful Lord Osiris. If I can clarify anything please let me know and I will do my best!

[inanaincarneetinsidus]

Bharani : the birth of Venus.

Part 1

Let's talk about ancient godesses of love and Bharani nakshatra.

I will base my research on the legend of the dead and resurrected god present in many religious myths coming from the middle east (ps : i'm sorry in advance for the grammar, syntax or spelling mistakes that you may find in this post, english is not my first language)

Bharani, situated in the heart of the rashi of aries is governed by Shukr: Venus but also by Yami and Yama in vedic mythology who are twins and gods respectfully of life and death.

Yama, the main deity of Bharani is said to be one of "8 celestial gatekeepers, who guards eight directional doorways or exits through which souls travel from an earthly plane to other planes of existence" making him the lord of Dharma since at one's death, he decides basing on his actions in what plane should one reincarnate.

Since Yama is responsible for directing the flow of life on Earth the association between bharani and the yoni becomes evident: the female reproducting system serves as a portal for souls to take on a physical form. So bharani as Claire Nakti perfectly described it relates to the feminine ability to receive, hold, nurture and ultimately transform through the womb.

Because Bharani aligns itself with all the feminine qualities by excellence it makes sense as to why Venus is it's ruler.

Venus is the roman name for the goddess Aphrodite: in greek mythology. She is said to be the goddess of love and beauty at large but also the goddess of war and sexuality. First because the ancient greeks saw the duality that links love to war and how they seem to come together through sex.

Also, Aphrodite is said to be born from the sperm of Ouranos when his testicules got cut by his son Saturn as he was always feconding Gaia, the Earth and causing her distress: he was acting cruel regarding their children. The sperm of Ouranus got mixed up with the foam of the Ocean creating Aphrodite which means "risen from the foam". So it was interesting to see that as Shukr also means sperm in sanskrit and it shows the origin of Venus as a fertility goddess too.

This conception of Aphrodite directly links her to ancient goddesses of love such as Ishtar or Inana in Mesopotamian/summerian mythology or Isis in egyptian mythology. Most of the time, these goddesses are the female counterpart of a god that was once mortal, got cursed, died and then came back to life for them to form an immortal couple.

In the case of Ishtar, her consort is Dumuzi or Tammuz and Osiris is the consort of Isis.

In Mesopotamian mythology :

Ishtar or Inana in sumerian is the goddess of love and sexuality, beauty, fertility as well as war because of her status as a " bloody goddess" mostly refering to her character in plenty of myths.

For example: in one story, she became infatuated with the king Gilgamesh, but the latter knowing her fierce reputation, refused her advances. As a result she got furious and unleashed the celestial Bull on Earth which resulted in 7 years of plagues. This celestial bull was later defeated by Gilgamesh and Endiku, and its corpse was throwed in front of Inana. Blinded by rage, she decided that as a punition Enkidu must die and sad at the death of his bestfriend Gilgamesh began his journey to find a cure to Death.

Bharani is a fierce or Ugra nakshatra meaning that its nature is agressive, bold and assertive in pursuing their goals. They are ruthless in the process of accompling what they desire the most and are inclined to extreme mood swings that can result in them to be "blinded" by their extreme emotions perfectly expressing the passionate character of Venus and her other equivalents in differents pantheons of antiquity.

Inana/ Ishtar's story with Dumuzi/Tammur begins as she was convinced to chose him by her brother Utu. Then she got married with the shepphard Dumuzi instead of whom she prefered the farmer: Enkinmdou. During the courtship, Inana prefered the fine textile of the farmer and his beer rather than the thick wool and milk of Dumuzi. The preference for the shepphard illustrates that at the time the Mesopotamian civilisation was known for their proliferent agriculture with the egyptians in the region, so this myth encapsulate the opposition between nomads and sendatary people at this specifific time period.

By the way, another symbol of Bharani is the cave and traditionnaly, the cave was used as a storage room for food. Also Bharani's purpose is Artha so these individuals are motivated to accumalate resources and provide safety and security, so Bharani can be linked to the exploitation of natural ressources like the soil illustrating the preference of Ishtar for the farmer. This is reinforced also by its Earth element.

So coming back to the myth, in a mesopotamian text called Inana's Descent to the Underworld, the goddess goes to Kur (hell) with the intent of conquering it, and her sister Ereshkigal who rules the Underworld, kills her. She learns that she can escape if she finds a sacrifice to replace her, in her search, she encounters servants who were mourning her death however she finds Dumuzi relaxing on a throne being entertained by enslaved girls. Enraged by his disloyalty she selects him as a sacrifice and he is dragged to the Underworld by demons.

He is eventually resurrected by Inana and they become an "immortal couple" as he may only come back to life for half of the year, being replaced by his son (?) who is also his reincarnation for the other half of the same years, so describing the cycle of regeneration of life.

Other mythologycal stories of goddesses in the near east describe a similar patterns:

The goddess Asherah is described as being the mother and the lover of her son Adonis.

The goddess Cybele in the phrygian pantheon takes the form of an old woman as she described as the mother of everything and of all. And at the same time she is the consort of Attis who his her own son (wtf ?)

Also, Yama and Yami are implicated in a incestuous entanglement where his sister Yama wanted to lay with him however he refused establishing himself as a god with an infaillible moral campus.

All of these representations illustrate the relation between the masculine and the feminine, life and regenration which are all topics related to Bharani nakshatra. Women by their capacity to give life are seen as the source of life and therefore are eternal as they are able to regenarate themselves through daughters which are identical to them whereas man who is unable to reproduce by himself, is therefore mortal feels the need to associate with her to resurrect through a son who is identical to him. Bharani exiting as the embodiment of the link between "the father and the offspring" which is the feminine vessel.

So this is certainly part 1, I think that these ancient myths are where Claire Nakti found her inspiration for her series on Bharani.

[talonabraxas]

Ra (Egyptian God) Talon Abraxas

Ra as Creator

Ancient Egyptian mythology gives credit to a number of different gods for establishing order and making the world, but those most often featured in creation myths are Ra, Atum, Ptah, and the goddess Neith. Whichever gods are named, they always have the same characteristics and power as Ra, and it is thought that Ra was present – and alone – at the birth of creation no matter what name he was known by later. Although the priests of Ptah might claim it was their god who created all things, therefore, the Ptah they cite would actually be Ra. In the case of Atum, he was essentially Ra only by another name, and the same could be said for Neith in her creative capacity.

In the best-known version of the story, there was nothing but swirling waters at the beginning of time when the primordial mound (the ben-ben) rose as the first dry land and Ra the Self-Created stood upon it. He cut his penis open and, from the drops of blood, created Hu (authority) and Sia (mind), and then became aware of his solitude and mated with his own shadow to give birth to Shu (god of air) and Tefnut (goddess of moisture) who left to establish the world. The two were gone a very long time and so Ra sent the Eye of Ra to search for them. When the Eye brought his children back, Ra was so grateful he shed tears of joy which fell on the fertile ben-ben and became men and women.

Recognizing these people had nowhere to live, Shu and Tefnut mated and gave birth to Geb (earth) and Nut (sky). Geb and Nut gave birth to Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, and from these gods, all the others followed. Heka, among the oldest of the gods, is, as noted, thought to have been present already at the act of creation. Each of the gods was given their own sphere of influence so that order would be strictly maintained, and, in today’s parlance, there would be no duplication of services. The gods would henceforth care for the people and, in gratitude, the people would worship and obey the will of the gods. This relationship produced balance and harmony between the people, their gods, the earth, and the afterlife all of which emanated from Ra.

[deinemuddalutscht]

Just me rambling about the husbands of Nephthys

The belief that Nephthys was the wife of Set largely comes from the writings of the Greek author Plutarch. Plutarch was a prolific writer and a priest at Delphi who likely obtained his information about Egypt during his travels to Alexandria. Although he accurately recounts much of Egyptian mythology, his writings are influenced by his philosophical views. By the time Plutarch wrote in the 2nd century CE, religious traditions had begun to merge, especially in Alexandria, where the cult of Isis was extremely popular.

Plutarch recounts a story in which Osiris unknowingly fathers a child with Nephthys, believing she was his wife, Isis. Nephthys, afraid of her husband Set's reaction, abandons the child, and Isis later finds and raises him as Anubis, who becomes her guardian. Interestingly, Plutarch also refers to a tradition where Nut’s children have different fathers: Horus and Osiris are Ra's sons, Isis is Thoth's daughter, and Nephthys and Set are the only children born in wedlock with Geb. Wikipedia states that Horus the Elder is a form of Horus that is the son of Geb and Nut, but this is only partly true: This claim comes from Plutarch, but Plutarch also claims that Horus the Elder is a son of Osiris and Isis, conceived by Isis and Osiris in the womb of Nut, and then born alongside the other children. Essentially, Plutarch tried to explain the multiple origin stories of Horus by stating that Osiris and Isis had supposedly three sons, all named Horus, and early Egyptologists somehow accepted this explanation. According to Plutarch, the three half-brothers also have different hair colors: Osiris has black hair, Horus white, and Set red. Additionally, Plutarch recalls a festival where Egyptians insulted red-haired people to mock Set's power on Earth. This has nothing to do with Nephthys’ marriages, but it's too amusing not to mention.

Overall, Plutarch paints a rather negative picture of Nephthys: Not only is she an adulterous wife who cheats on her husband, but she also has nonconsensual sex with Osiris, abandons her child in the desert, and even betrays Isis by revealing where she is hiding with her dead husband and child to Set. Plutarch also refers to Nephthys as Aphrodite throughout the text.

While many early sources link Nephthys and Set as a couple, there is little concrete evidence from ancient Egyptian texts directly confirming their marriage. Osiris, Nephthys, Set, Horus, and Isis are the core figures in the Osiris myth, and they all interact with one another inside th myths, except for Nephthys and Set. However, they are paired in other contexts, such as in descriptions of the Ennead. For example, in the Pyramid Texts, Nephthys and Set are paired together for specific roles, but they are not explicitly called a married couple. Some texts from later periods refer to Nephthys as Set’s wife, or mention Set having a wife, though these accounts are often times ambiguous and don't firmly establish this as a widespread early tradition. Therefore the tradition reported by Plutarch, in which Nephthys is the mother of Anubis by Osiris, finds little support in indigenous Egyptian sources, though it was likely not entirely invented by him.

As far as I can tell, we currently have no Ancient Egyptian texts that name Nephthys as Anubis’ mother, either by Set or Osiris. I know Wikipedia lists Anubis and Wepwawet as sons of Nephthys and Set, but no actual source is given for this information. Anubis is sometimes regarded as the son of Nephthys and Ra, though. The only real Egyptian source for Nephthys abandoning Anubis that I could find is in the Papyrus Jumilhac (“Nephthys, her bravery existed with him [Horus]. She had him [Horus] hidden as a small child in papyrus. His name is Anubis and his image is as Mehit-imyut.”). However, we should note that it is unclear whether Nephthys hid her son Horus-Anubis as Isis hid her child, or if she helps Isis hide the baby Horus-Anubis. In this text, Nephthys hiding her child is framed positively, not as the action of an adulterous woman abandoning her illegitimate child for selfish reasons.

Nephthys was sometimes regarded as Osiris’ wife in the underworld, just as Isis was on earth. Osiris and Nephthys are depicted as a couple in some contexts, as seen in the statue of Ramose from the Louvre (E 16378). Nephthys is sometimes given the title Onnophret, the feminine form of the Osirian epithet Onnophris or wn.nfr, meaning "the beautiful existent."

Interestingly, an erotic spell from the 4th century, mostly written in Greek with some Old Coptic passages, tells the story of how Isis goes to Thoth (specifically identified as her father in this version) and tells him about Osiris sleeping with Nephthys. Thoth then gives her a love spell to win Osiris back. However, it is unclear whether Isis is upset about Osiris taking a lover or a second wife. Alternatively, Nephthys could even be Osiris' first wife in this scenario, with Isis as the jealous sister.

There is one text I found that names Nephthys and Set as a married couple within the context of the Osiris myth. It's called the Ptolemaic Berlin Papyrus 8278, and it contains a story that goes as follows:

The first nine lines of Pap. Berlin P. 8278 are quite damaged. However, the main topic is the expulsion of Set from Egypt. The first readable paragraph tells how Set will be kept away from Egypt for the rest of his life. The text refers to him as a donkey, which is a very late interpretation of the Set animal. Then, there is a dialogue between the men of Horus and the men of Set. They discuss the punishment inflicted on Set. The men of Set would like the men of Horus to set him free. Set is described as copulating, drunk, and dead of thirst. From an explanatory gloss, we learn that Set went to an oasis with the Eye of Horus and swallowed it, leading to his drunkenness. Then, an unidentified speaker states that he has shown the way to Horus. After this, the god Thoth insists that Set is drunk and accuses him of harming Osiris. It is mentioned that Set "has been seized" and "has failed." All the gods start speaking to him, pointing out his failure. Finally, it is Isis’ turn to insult Set. She accuses him of taking water "in his own hand" (an explanatory gloss equates water with Osiris). Set is called "camel, pig, hippopotamus," and "the Failed One." Set speaks for the first time but avoids the accusations, instead lamenting his failed attempt to have anal sex with Nephthys, likely due to his drunken state. He recalls grabbing Nephthys' tail and trying to copulate with her ("Voice of Set: [The] female donkey was taken when I was seizing her tail. I was given deceit… Nephthys was taken when I was on her anus… although she belongs to me as a wife").

Nephthys was also sometimes regarded as Horus' wife, as seen in the magical stela of Nesamun ("All fertile lands, all deserts, all mountains, and all waters and what is in them are united under the feet of Horus, son of Osiris, with whom Isis was pregnant and with whom Nephthys is married. May they dispel your feverish heat, may they remove your inner restlessness."). Papyrus Ramesseum IV even speaks of an unnamed daughter of Horus and Nephthys ("Hemen slept with his mother Isis after he had impregnated his aunt Nephthys with a daughter").