Hi Mogg, I don't know that you can say "Isis doesn't have a veil" because it would depend on what period "Isis" you were talking about, who had depicted her that way and why. I mean there are examples of Roman sculpture of Isis with a veil, not over her face, but on her head. The Isis quote I was referring to derived from Plutarch (46 - 120 CE), so that's very late, it'd be a Graeco-Egyptian Isis, its obviously not Pharaonic period Isis. I think the veil is metaphorical, at least that's the way Neoplatonists like Proclus read it. Anyway... apparently this Graeco-Egyptian Isis was very prevalent in Hermeticism, as was Hermes, and I'm interested in Crowley's "re-vamping" of Isis, his "updating" of characters in his Egyptian-oid cosmology, but still within a Hermetic frame.
~Caroline.
---- mandrake <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Caroline Tully
>
> Not sure on the quote but Isis doesn't have a veil -
> Nevertheless her absent veil has an interesting history : )
>
> Crowley's Egyptology is often his own rather than the Egyptians -
> or at best comes from something misread in Wallis Budge -
> Hence "Liber Resh" doesn't quite make sense to me -
> (should be kephra for dawn, ra for midday and tum for sunset -
> Crowley has Ra for dawn - so has corrected the Egyptians and added a
> midnight sun which is interesting but not quite authentic??
> "Hadit" is another odd one - a mishearing of "Behedet" I suppose
> although there is a room at Edfu called "Houdit" which is
> nicknamed "Chamber of the Magician".
> Kenneth Grant's Egyptian stuff is also often slightly off, IMO, and
> benefits from a tweak
> (if you get the mythology right other things follow)
>
> "Love and do what you will"
>
> Mogg
>
>
>
>
> wrote:
> > Hi there, does anyone remember a post to this list (which I can't seem
> > to find at all in the archives, I'm probably a bad searcher) where in
> > regards to talking about S.L. Macgregor Mathers' Parisian Rites of
> > Isis someone - I think it was Morgan Leigh - mentioned a quote by
> > Aleister Crowley which seemed to be, from memory, a very sexualised
> > version of the supposed inscription in the Temple of Isis at Sais
> > which is often rendered:
> >
> > I am what is, and what will be, and what has been,
> > No one has lifted my veil.
> > The fruit I bore was the Sun.
> >
> > Crowley's version had something to do with lifting the veil and there
> > being a big penis, or something like that, maybe. I remember it was a
> > very sexualised rendition. (I'm not sure if it did even refer to Saite
> > Isis or not). I just want to know where the Crowley quote came from
> > and am asking here to save myself from having to leaf through every
> > Crowley book we have on or shelves (which, I accept, I will have to do
> > if I can't find out about the source in A.C.'s writings of this quote).
> >
> > I'm detecting a theme in Crowley's 'magickal cosmology' of replacing
> > Isis (mother of Horus), who was prominent in Hermetic renditions of
> > Egypt, with Nut (grandmother of Horus).. I mean there is the Aeons
> > (Isis being "old hat" according to Crowley etc). But I wonder if it
> > had anything to do with Crowley also rejecting Mathers (who was
> > Isis-friendly)? Maybe the sexualised version of the Saitic Isis quote
> > was another thumbing-the-nose at Isis/Mathers?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > From
> >
> > Caroline Tully.
> >
> > http://necropolisnow.blogspot.com/
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