The Mysteries of Osiris, also known as Osirism, were religious festivities celebrated in ancient Egypt to commemorate the murder and regeneration of Osiris. The course of the ceremonies is attested by various written sources, but the most important document is the Ritual of the Mysteries of Osiris in the Month of Khoiak, a compilation of Middle Kingdom texts engraved during the Ptolemaic period in an upper chapel of the Temple of Dendera. In Egyptian religion, the sacred and the secret are intimately linked. As a result, ritual practices were beyond the reach of the uninitiated, as they were reserved for the priests, the only ones authorised to enter the divine sanctuaries. The most unfathomable theological mystery, the most solemnly precautionary, is the remains of Osiris. According to the Osirian myth, this mummy is kept deep in the Duat, the subterranean world of the dead. Every night, during his nocturnal journey, Ra, the solar god, came there to regenerate by temporarily uniting with Osiris in the form of a single soul.
After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the city of Abydos became the centre of Osirian belief. Every year, a series of public processions and secret rituals were held there, mimicking the passion of Osiris and organised according to the royal Memphite funeral rituals. During the first millennium BC, the practices of Abydos spread to the country's main cities (Thebes, Memphis, Saïs, Coptos, Dendera, etc.). Under the Lagids, every city demanded to possess a shred of the holy body or, failing that, the lymph that had drained from it. The Mysteries were based on the legend of the removal of Osiris' corpse by Set and the scattering of his body parts throughout Egypt. Found one by one by Isis, the disjointed limbs are reassembled into a mummy endowed with a powerful life force.
The regeneration of the Osirian remains by Isis-Chentayt, the "grieving widow", takes place every year during the month of Khoiak, the fourth of the Nilotic calendar (straddling the months of October and November). In the temples, the officiants set about making small mummiform figurines, called "vegetative Osiris", to be piously preserved for a whole year. These substitutes for the Osirian body were then buried in specially dedicated necropolises, the Osireions or "Tombs of Osiris". The Mysteries are observed when the Nile begins to recede, a few weeks before the fields can be sown again by the farmers. Each of the ingredients used to make the figurines (barley, earth, water, dates, minerals, herbs) is highly symbolic, relating to the main cosmic cycles (solar revolution, lunar phases, Nile flood, germination). The purpose of mixing and moulding them into the body of Osiris was to invoke the divine forces that ensured the renewal of life, the rebirth of vegetation and the resurrection of the dead.
European Egyptosophy
In ancient times, Greek authors such as Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch and Jamblicus developed the idea that Egypt, with its ancient civilisation, was the original cradle of all theological, mythological and ritualistic knowledge. This view is sometimes referred to as 'Egyptosophy', a word blend from the terms 'Egypt' and 'philosophy'. Since the Renaissance, this approach to the history of religions has had a major impact on Western culture. Its influence is particularly evident among those involved in Hermeticism, esotericism and pseudo-sciencism.The influence of Egyptosophy on Western culture has been studied by the Swiss Egyptologist Erik Hornung in his book L'Égypte ésotérique: le savoir occulte des Égyptiens et son influence en occident, Monaco, Éditions du Rocher, 2001, 274 p. Egyptosophy has thus influenced spiritual currents of varying degrees of occultism such as alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and theosophy. Since the decolonisation of Europe, Egyptosophy has also had a major influence on Western culture. Since the decolonisation of Africa, this idea has also become the cornerstone of Afrocentrist and Kemitist theorists, the latter seeking an "African renaissance" based on a return to the ancient Egyptian teachings.
From the second half of the seventeenth century onwards, the cliché of "Egypt, land of mysteries" spread throughout the Europe of the Lumières. This commonplace was most perfectly displayed in the opera The Magic Flute by W. Mozart and E. Schikaneder, first performed in 1791. In the middle of the work, the initiates Tamino and Pamina see their vision of the world turned upside down by their initiation into the Secrets by Sarastro, high priest of the Kingdom of Light and worshipper of the gods Isis and Osiris.Isis, Osiris, send down the spirit of your wisdom upon the young couple who yearn for the light of the temple. You who guide the pilgrim's steps, arm them with courage in trial and make the price of virtue shine in their eyes. At the same time, the Freemasons believed they had discovered the existence of a dual religion in the "Egyptian mysteries". Within a false polytheistic religion reserved for the common people, there was a true monotheistic religion reserved for a restricted circle of initiates. For the mass of uneducated people, religion was centered on piety, festivals and sacrifices to divinities. These are merely customs designed to maintain social peace and the continuity of the state. At the same time, in the subterranean shadows of the crypts beneath the temples and pyramids, Egyptian priests would have provided moral, intellectual and spiritual training to the elite in their quest for truth, during initiation ceremonies.The place of ancient Egypt and its alleged dual religion in the thinking of Freemasons has been studied by Egyptologist Jan Assmann in two of his books:
L'Égypte ancienne entre mémoire et science, Paris, Chaire du Louvre, 2009, 341 p.
Religio duplex: Comment les Lumières ont réinventé la religion des Égyptiens, Paris, Aubier, 412 p.
The Mysteries and Egyptology Science
Textual sources
Since the 1960s, scientific knowledge of the Egyptian mysteries has progressed considerably thanks to the careful study of inscriptions left on papyrus or on the walls of temples and tombs. Numerous philological and archaeological contributions have challenged European cliches about the "Mysteries of Osiris", revealing the true nature of the rituals and the actual practices of the Egyptian priests. In the 1960s, the Egyptology community brought several major texts to the attention of the general public: firstly, Émile Chassinat's translation into French of the Rituel des mystères d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak, a compilation of Tentyrite inscriptions (this work dates back to the 1940s but was only published posthumously in 1966 and 1968, in two volumes, by the Institut français d'archéologie orientale-IFAO); then the major publications of Papyrus N.3176 by Paul Barguet in 1962, Papyrus Salt 825 by Philippe Derchain in 1964-1965 and the Cérémonial de glorification (Louvre I.3079) by Jean-Claude Goyon in 1967. This work has since been supplemented by more recent works such as the exhaustive publication of the texts of the Osirian chapels atDendera by Sylvie Cauville in 1997, Catherine Graindorge thesis on the god Sekeris at Thebes in 1994 and the contributions of Laure Pantalacci (1981), Horst Beinlich (1984) and Jan Assmann (2000) on Osirian relics. At the same time, the archaeology of remains linked to the cult of Osiris has enriched our knowledge of the spaces dedicated to mystery rituals, such as the catacombs of Karnak and Oxyrhynchus.
Mystery ritual of the Osireion of Dendera
In the academic world of Egyptology, knowledge of the "Mysteries of Osiris" is based mainly on late inscriptions from temples dating from the Greco-Roman period. Among these, the texts of the six chapels of the Osireion of Dendera (located on the roof of the Temple of Hathor) are the most important source. Our understanding of the ritual, its local variants and its religious context is based primarily on the Ritual of the Mysteries of Osiris, engraved at the very end of the Ptolemaic period. This source is rich in detail, but often confusing, as it is a compilation of seven books of different origins (Busiris and Abydos) and different periods (Middle Kingdom and Ptolemaic period). The inscription takes the form of a succession of one hundred and fifty-nine hieroglyphic columns arranged on three of the four walls of an open-air courtyard (the first eastern chapel). The first major translation into French was by Victor Loret in 1882, under the title Les fêtes d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak. However, Émile Chassinat annotated translation, Le Mystère d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak (834 pages), published late in 1966 and 1968, remains the standard work. In 1997, this translation was modernised, albeit almost unchanged, by Sylvie Cauville in her exhaustive publication with commentary of the texts of the Osirian chapels of Dendera.
The nature of Egyptian mysteries
Secret rituals
Egyptian civilisation undeniably had secret rites. Most of the rituals performed by the priests were carried out behind the walls of the temples, in the absence of the general public. The general public usually had no access to the temple. On feast days, crowds were allowed into the forecourts, but never into the sanctuary's holy of holies. In the Egyptian mentality, djeser ('sacred') and seshta ('secret') are two notions that go hand in hand. The word 'sacred' also means 'to separate' or 'to keep apart'. In essence, then, the sacred is something that must be kept separate from the profane. Divine power is not confined to heaven or the beyond. Its presence also manifests itself on Earth among human beings. Temples, for the gods, and necropolises, for the ancestors, are places where priests exercise their role as mediators between humankind and the forces of the invisible. They are places apart, kept away from the majority of the living, and their access is subject to restrictions of all kinds, such as bodily purity, fasting and the obligation of silence.
This clear distinction between sacred places and the profane world led the ancient Egyptians to endow sacredness with a strong obligation of secrecy. The priests who performed the rites in the temples were therefore bound to silence. They must not say anything about what they are doing. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased priest congratulates himself on having taken part in the cult ceremonies in the country's main towns and emphasises that he has disclosed nothing of what he has done, seen or heard.
"The Osiris N By convention, in the translations, the letter N replaces the name, profession and honorary titles of the deceased. will say nothing of what he has seen, the Osiris N. will not repeat what he has heard that is mysterious"
—Book of the Dead, chap 133. Translation by Paul Barguet.
Cosmic secrets
Solar journey The two greatest divine powers, the most secret and most inaccessible, are Ra, the Sun god and Osiris of Abydos, the ruler of the dead. In his treatise The Mysteries of Egypt, devoted to the Egyptian and Babylonian religions, the Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus, summarizes in a short formula the two greatest mysteries of Egyptian belief: If all things persevere in immobility and renewed perpetuity, it is because the course of the sun never stops; if all things remain perfect and complete, it is because the mysteries of Abydos are never revealed.
— Iamblichus, The Mysteries of Egypt, VI, 7.