Naturalistic Paganism

The evolving cultural entity of Isis exists in symbiosis with her devotees, meeting their needs in exchange for replication.

– by B. T. Newberg

Big History is the entire story of the universe.  In the scale of cosmic time, human life can and perhaps should feel dwarfed – it puts us in perspective.

At the same time, the story is not complete till it’s told right down to the human level of individual daily life, else it is not relevant.  Thus, this series concludes with how the story of Isis unfolds in the life of one Contemporary Pagan: myself.

This is the final installment in a series exploring the myth of Isis in the context of Big History.  For part 1, tracing the story from the Big Bang to the rise of agriculture, go here.  Part 2 is here, and Part 3 here.  For a proposal of Big History as the narrative core of naturalism, including HP, go here.

Isis of imagination

Drawing of the Veiled Isis as seen in my journey.

Despite the prevalence of Isis in popular culture, I had no interest in her at all till one evening as I lied down for a “journey.”  It was a technique from Michael Harner’s core shamanism*, my first introduction to Contemporary Paganism.

I followed the technique: visualize a spot in nature which leads downward, follow it down, then allow the spontaneous imagination to take over as you emerge into some new place.  It becomes something like a waking dream.  This is what came to me that evening:

I found myself falling down, down, deep down.  Finally, I hit dirt in a place completely devoid of light.  I could only feel around with my hands.  It was a chilly, uncomfortable place which immediately suggested “underworld,” and “get out of here as quickly as possible.”

There in the darkness, a brilliant female figure, shining from within with bluish-white light, approached me.  She wore a white Greek chiton or robe of some kind, and over her face was a white veil.  A subtle wind lifted the veil up, but underneath was only more inky darkness.

The instinct to kneel immediately overwhelmed me.  Never had I felt such a commanding presence, nor ever since.  At the same time, out of compelling curiosity and naivete, I asked, “Who are you?”  The glowing figure answered with a quiet, echoing hiss, “Isis.”

Later, I sketched the figure I had seen.  For some reason, I felt moved to depict her offering her breast, even though it was not part of the original vision.

Over the next several days, I researched this “Isis” figure.  Some elements of the journey appeared to check out, while others did not.  The veil clearly linked with the historical veil motif ultimately deriving from an inscription at Isis’ temple at Sais.  The offering of the breast linked with portrayals of Isis nursing Horus, carried over in the iconography of Mary and Jesus.  These two elements “checked out.”  However, other parts of the vision, including the Greek chiton, the cold underworld setting, and the figure’s aloof character, seemed inconsistent with Isis’ myths, closer to the Greek Persephone.

The simplest explanation was, of course, that I had been exposed to the veil and nursing motifs earlier without realizing it.  Meanwhile, the Persephone imagery resembled a certain tarot card I owned.  It seemed my mind had pieced together scattered scraps of mythology.

Nevertheless, the experience became profoundly meaningful to me as a personal vision.  It perfectly symbolized my agnostic attitude toward religion, embodying the apparent impossibility of gaining knowledge of what lied “beneath the veil.”  The more time went on, the more I kept returning to it and seeing new meanings in it.

I have found living with the myth of Isis rewarding, and it’s changed my behavior for the better.  She plays on my human biology in order to meet my modern needs, and in return she gains replication.

Isis of biology

Biophilia: We are instinctively attracted to the sensations of nature.

The myth of Isis exploits human biology in the ways recounted in part 1: through  hypersensitivity to agents, supernormal stimuli, costly signals, the mammalian mother-child bond, a preference for modestly counterintuitive agents, and a need for large-scale group cooperation.  In addition, the myth of Isis takes advantage of a few more features of my species.

Since she symbolized nature, I felt encouraged to spend time hiking, biking, and exploring the woods.  The result was calm and joy, as often experienced by those who spend any length of time in nature.  These positive feelings were then associated with Isis, increasing my bond with her.  Thus, she exploited what E. O. Wilson calls biophilia, the “urge to associate with other forms of life.”

Isis’ association with the moon, in particular, became important to me.  I timed my devotions to its phases, changing the robe adorning her statue to a color befitting the waxing, waning, full, or new moon.  This caused me to spend time gazing at the moon, associating its natural beauty and glow with Isis, and her maternal nurturing love with it.  I began to respond emotionally to the phases of the moon.

Mainstream Western society does not necessarily devalue emotion, but suffice to say Paganism places greater value on it as a source of deep meaning.  It is no surprise, then, that an expanded, more fulfilling emotional life bonded me deeply to Isis.

Isis of modern needs

Isis and Osiris, by Olivia Robertson of the Fellowship of Isis

The Christian idea of a transcendent deity with an exclusive claim to Truth no longer appeared plausible in an age of science and multiculturalism.  The exclusively male image of deity as well as the devaluation of nature and the sensual body were sore spots, too.  My needs were not being met by the Christian myth.

After a long period of searching, a new myth came along that was more fit for the environment of my heart and mind.  Isis offered a vision in which nature, sexuality, and the feminine were sacred.

Moreover, her story appeared plausible, since I’d come to her by naturalistic routes.  Having entered Paganism under the impression that myth and ritual manipulated inner psychological states, it seemed scientifically believable that devotion to her could make a difference in my life (I later learned this was a minority view in Paganism, but the “damage” was done: I had become a naturalist).

The way I lived my life began to change.  Since Isis was, for me, embedded in a way of life (i.e. Paganism), integration of her myth had wide-reaching effects.  Not only did I take up rituals and devotions, but my behavior toward the environment, society, and my own body transformed.  The moon felt overlaid with emotional value, as did every tree and river.  Hiking and biking became big parts of my life.  I was motivated to clean up trash beside the river, often almost everyday.  Family became important to me, as did learning the life stories of deceased relatives.  Giving to charity was, for the first time in my life, a priority.  Poetry flowed out of me.  And my sexual body was no longer a bundle of urges to be pacified, but a wonder of nature to be explored.

All these concrete, empirical changes flowed, in part at least, from living with the myth of Isis.  Put simply, my needs were better met.

Isis of symbiosis

Original drawing of Isis as the Egyptian Aset, dreaming of her lover Wesir (Osiris).

Meeting my needs has paid off in dividends for Isis.  As a cultural meme, her sole “interest” is the same as that of genes: replication.  To propagate, she needs to leap from mind to mind, and she’s gotten me to help her do that.

By exploiting my biology and meeting my needs, she became so meaningful to me that I’ve felt moved to spread her story through artwork, poetry, conversation, and writing – including the present series of essays.  I don’t proselytize, but I’m not shy about sharing either.  Articulating a mythic path both scientifically plausible and morally responsible is quickly becoming my life’s work.

So, in evolutionary terms, she and I have developed a mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship.  She gets what she needs by helping me get what I need.

This symbiosis is surprisingly close to how ancient peoples viewed their relationship with deity: reciprocity.  They made public offerings to deities in the belief that such pleased them, and requested blessings in return.  The Romans formulated it as do ut des, or “I give so that you may give.”

Astonishingly, they were actually pretty close to the truth.  Myths do need public displays in their honor, in order to leap from mind to mind.  To encourage such behavior, they did bless humans, by helping them meet their needs.  Reciprocity was unconscious symbiosis.

Myths in Big History

To conclude: What is Big History?  It’s the tale of the whole universe, as pieced together through the best evidence of modern science.

What does that have to do with myths?  Well, let me answer a question with a question.

Have you ever read a forum comment out of context, only to see it in an entirely different light when you go back and read the whole conversation?  Myths are the same.  They demand to be read in their natural context.

Myths are cultural phenomena that have emerged, like all other phenomena, through the unfolding of natural evolutionary processes.  In this context, they bear the following features.  Myths are:

1. historically contingent
2. cultural entities,
3. emerging from within the nested systems of the cosmos (physics > chemistry > biology > psychology > culture),
4. evolved through cultural selection
5. to exploit features of human biology (such as susceptibility to supernormal stimuli and counterintuitive agents),
6. and to express or fulfill human needs in order to maximize the likelihood of being passed on.

When a myth becomes meaningful in one’s life, most of the reasons tend to be unconscious.  There may be a sense of the myth “resonating”, or of feeling “drawn” to it.  There may be some awareness of consistency with personal values.

The deeper underlying causes, though, are the myth’s exploitation of biology and meeting of bio-psycho-social needs.  Ultimately, it’s a function of the evolutionary forces of Big History.

Thus, even everyday interactions with myths are part of the greater story of the universe.  Without this context, myths may seem quaint at best.  With it, myths become meaningful, consequential parts of nature.

Embedded in Big History, myths become real.

*shamanism.  I can’t bring up this topic without also acknowledging the issue of cultural appropriation.  It’s a complicated matter with no clear-cut answers, but every introduction should at least acknowledge the issue.  The class that introduced me to it did not, which was one reason I quickly left Contemporary Shamanism for other Pagan paths.

Evolutionary history makes sense of the appeal and transformations of Isis, including this art nouveau rendition by Barrias from 1899.

– by B. T. Newberg

What happens when a myth goes through an extinction event?

Pagan cults were stamped out as far as possible under Christian domination, but Isian strains survived through radical adaptation.

This post is the third in a 4-part series exploring the myth of Isis in the context of Big History.  For part 1 go here, for part 2 here.  For a proposal of Big History as the narrative core of naturalism, including HP, go here.

Isis of the Middle Ages

The iconography of Isis and Horus was carried over as Mary and Jesus.

By the late Roman period, Isis had become Isis of Ten Thousand Names, enveloping virtually every other goddess (at least in the eyes of her followers).  In this way, she came to reflect and reinforce the very principle of empire itself: infinite dominion.  The only type of myth better suited to the task was monotheism, the Christian version of which finally out-competed the cult of Isis.

The myth of the one Christian God could not save the Roman Empire, which was slowly imploding, but it did survive it as a spiritual empire of sorts.  The one church under the Pope gave unifying structure and common meaning to the disparate feudal kingdoms of the Middle Ages.  To survive, Isis had to adapt to the environment of that new meaning.

One element of her myth, the supernormal mother figure, survived by mutating into Christian form: the iconography of Isis suckling her child Horus became Mary with the baby Jesus.  The cult of the Virgin was readily disseminated by missionaries.

Another element survived by sidestepping competition with the Christian God.  No longer competing for worship, pagan* deities became allegories for aspects of the natural world.  They had already been seen as allegories by some, as we saw in part 2, but now they were exclusively so.  Isis, drawing in no small part on “DNA” acquired through identification with Artemis of Ephesus, endured the Middle Ages as an allegory for material nature.

In both cases, Isis survived by subordinating herself to the dominant myth, thereby reinforcing it.  In the first case, she assumed the role of a human woman who submits to a male God with a graceful fiat or “let it be done to me.”  In the second case, she represented an order inferior to that of its Creator, the natural under the supernatural, in the terms of Thomas Aquinas.  In this way, she helped the Medieval mind understand what was real – a dualistic universe under a patriarchal order – and what mattered – cooperation under a hierarchy of male dominion.

Male dominance was not new to the world; the Greeks and Romans had been quite patriarchal.  But subordination was new to Isis.  Gone was the fierce Aset who tricked the male Ra into telling her his true name with a scorpion sting only she could cure.  Gone was the Roman cult whose sexual ethics (possibly trumped up for political reasons) incurred censure by Augustus and Tiberius, and which empowered wives and even prostitutes to withhold sex during periods of ritual abstinence.  The new Isis survived by bolstering the new patriarchy, at the same time that it agitated against it by preserving the sacred feminine.

Isis of the Renaissance

Genius Unveiling a Bust of Nature.

Another way in which Isis survived was through esoteric mysticism.  The Hermetic Corpus, a collection of 2nd-century texts rediscovered in the Renaissance, preserved Isis as mother and teacher.  In the minds of mystics, pagan deities went from allegories of natural phenomena to powers imbuing nature.

Hermetic, alchemical, and proto-scientific currents swirled in the Renaissance, producing an environment fertile for a new adaptation of Isis.  The goddess as an allegory for nature became associated with an enigmatic fragment from Heraclitus: “nature loves to hide.”  This in turn cross-fertilized with a report from Plutarch of an inscription on her temple at Sais: “I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.”  These elements fused into the veil of Isis motif, a metaphor for the concealment of nature’s inmost secrets.

The image was tantalizing.  Nature loves to hide; she veils herself, but – so interpreters hoped – the knowledgeable might be able to glimpse what lies beneath.  The masculine sexual fantasy it evoked was probably no coincidence, reflecting and reinforcing the patriarchal social order.

Isis of the Enlightenment

Science Unveiling the Beauties of Nature to the Genius of America, by John James Barralet, 1814.

As modern science took its first bleary-eyed steps in the Renaissance, then learned to run in the Enlightenment, the myth of Isis found a rich environment.  Scientists saw their experimental procedures as peeping into nature’s forbidden secrets.

In the scientific enthusiasm of the Enlightenment, atheists began to thrive openly, but this was not particularly adverse for Isis.  She was already an allegory for the natural order subordinate to the supernatural order; subtract the supernatural and the natural remained.  Thus, Isis thrived in the climate of scientific naturalism.

Further, her veil offered a meaningful metaphor for the pursuit of science itself.  The gaze of science, still quite male, extended to all nature.  It held dominion over it, an empire of knowledge.  Matter was conceived as inert, passive before the active penetration of science.  The submissive character would later be captured by Barrias’ art nouveau sculpture, Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science.  Meanwhile, Deists, who believed in a Creator who set nature in motion but thereafter did not interfere in her working, sought nature’s secrets not as her own but as reflections of the mind of God.  Isis thus helped a more scientifically-minded society see what was real – nature, with or without a Creator above it – and what mattered – cooperation under reason and empirical enquiry.

At the same time that scientists embraced the veil motif, so did the Romantics and Freemasons.  For the Romantics, the unveiling of nature was not so much a discovery of knowledge as a glimpse of ineffable mystery.  For the Freemasons, Isis came to represent a sort of cosmotheism, a truth reserved only for the carefully prepared initiate.  As a result of these contributions, the myth of Isis’s veil developed an emotional dimension of wonder and terror, anguish and pleasure.

Isis Today

A modern rendition of Isis by Susan Boulet.

Since the Enlightenment, science and technology have led to extraordinary advances in health and wellbeing, eradicating or eliminating many serious diseases.  They have also facilitated the return of birth control methods, known in the ancient world but mostly lost in the West, making a gender-equal society possible by empowering women to control their own bodies.

At the same time, the spread of locomotion and communication across the globe has brought an unprecedented level of multicultural collision, yielding disorientation that has manifested in racism, colonialism, and bloody wars.

Advances have also enabled massive population surges, natural resource depletion, and rampant pollution.

With all these rapid changes, new myths are desperately needed.  Isis is playing a role in attempts to address these challenges.

Early 20th-century alternative spiritualities inherited the veil motif, as clear in the title of Blavatsky’s book of Theosophy, Isis Unveiled, and in the ceremonial magic technique called the Sign of the Rending of the Veil.  Golden Dawn occultist Dion Fortune drew on Apuleius’ Isis to assert that all gods were one god and all goddesses one goddess.  This duotheistic image would become widely disseminated through the Contemporary Pagan movement, especially Wicca.  Meanwhile, feminist influences would spur the rise of Goddess spirituality, which saw godhead as female, with Isis as one of its expressions.  Finally, reconstructionist polytheisms would attempt to restore the individuality of historical goddesses, such as Isis.  In this way, the sacred feminine is beginning to throw off subordination.

As a symbol of nature, Isis lends herself well to current environmental concerns as well.  Images of such supernormal mother figures mapped onto nature are inspiring green spiritualities and activism.  Meanwhile, science is gradually rediscovering nature, no longer passive but now active, self-organizing, and inherently creative.

Finally, as a polytheistic deity, Isis helps make sense of the cacophonous pluralism of modern society.  Divine multiplicity better captures the growing valuation of multiple perspectives, orientations, and lifestyles.

Contemporary Pagan debates over whether deities are metaphors or something more, involving a spectrum of views from naturalism on the one hand to hard polytheism on the other, address questions of plausibility.  Naturalists may understand what’s real by linking myths metaphorically to perceptions of nature consistent with mainstream science, while hard polytheists may do so by linking myths to perceptions of historically-accurate styles of belief.  Meanwhile, ambiguity on the point in most Pagan discourse may enable myths to serve in multiple situations and moods without apparent conflict, much as it may have done in ancient Egypt (see part 2).

At the present moment in history, Isis remains a minor influence in mainstream society.  Nevertheless, she is helping a growing segment of the populace re-envision what’s real – the power and consequences of nature – and what matters – intercultural cooperation to address humanitarian and environmental concerns.

Isis of the future

Looking to the 21st century, the Internet may do more than anything in recent history to shift the environment for myths.  It now provides instant access to virtually every variation of Isis’ story, from every age of history, to everyone.  Of course, competing myths enjoy the same advantage.  Whichever fare best in a digitized world will proliferate.  Whether Isis’ myth will be one of those remains to be seen.

This narration of Big History is not quite complete.  The Big Bang must make it all the way to the daily life of the individual, else it is not relevant.  The final installment of this series will explore the enduring appeal and meaningfulness of Isis as manifest in the life of one Contemporary Pagan.

*pagan.  The word is lower case here in its historical meaning as a non-Abrahamic faith.  It is capitalized wherever it stands for a specific way of life, as in Contemporary Paganism.

Isis appealed to ancient peoples as a supernormal mother figure, among other things.

– by B. T. Newberg

Last time, the conditions were set for the rise of the myth of Isis.  This time, let’s explore how she emerged and adapted over time to fit the shifting environment of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman peoples.

This is one brief attempt to reconstruct a difficult history.  The historical claims presented here are open to challenge and revision.

This post is the second in a 4-part series exploring the myth of Isis in the context of Big History.  For part 1, tracing the story from the Big Bang to the rise of agriculture, go here.  For a proposal of Big History as the narrative core of naturalism, including HP, go here.

Isis of the Egyptians

Winged Isis with throne above her head, from tomb of Seti I

Groups that can work together generally out-compete those who cannot, and agricultural Egypt demanded large-scale cooperation.  Thus, stories facilitating organization, such as the myth of Isis, benefited from cultural selection.

Every year, just after the heliacal rising of the star Sothis (Sirius), the Nile river flooded, fertilizing a narrow strip of land on either side.  Managing the water systems needed to farm it required cooperation under a strong central leadership.  Stories legitimating this institution facilitated the rise of a divine ruler, the pharaoh, lord over both upper and lower Egypt.

The origins of Isis are uncertain, but she was connected to the pharaoh by the Old Kingdom at least.  Aset was her name in Egyptian, which meant “throne.” Her iconography bore a throne above her head.  Sometimes she was depicted in theriomorphic (animal) form, as a kite or a woman with wings.

Along with her sister Nephthys, Isis assisted the deceased pharaoh in ascending to eternal life.  By supporting the pharaoh’s otherworldly authority, she supported his this-worldly authority as well.  Though Isis was a relatively minor deity in the Egyptian pantheon at the time, she* played a role in legitimating centralized power.  Through myths such as hers, Egyptians understood what was real – the divinity of the pharaoh – and what mattered – cooperation under his rule.

Like most mythic deities, Isis behaved more or less as a person, but with superhuman powers.  In cognitive science terms, she was a modestly counterintuitive agent, fascinating for her difference but still readily understandable to the average person.  This helped myths such as hers spread more rapidly than less interesting or more intellectually-complicated stories.

In the Middle Kingdom, centralized government weakened, and salvation in the afterlife began to extend beyond the pharaoh to nobles as well.  Supporting the afterlife hopes, and thus authority, of the local nobles was the goddess Hathor, with whom Isis would become identified.  Her appeal thus attracted greater strata of society, eventually including the common people.

Isis with Hathor’s cow horns and sun disk, beside Osiris; from Temple of Seti I at Abydos

By the New Kingdom, Isis had started to become identified with numerous other goddesses, such as Maat, Neith, Sekhmet, and particularly Hathor.  In the latter identification, she acquired Hathor’s role as mother of Horus (including the pharaoh as the living Horus).  In this role, she became a supernormal mother figure.  She also acquired Hathor’s association with the star Sothis, the rising of which heralded the Nile’s flooding, making her appeal to all those hoping for a good harvest (i.e. all people, regardless of class).

By this time, if not earlier, Isis was spouse to Osiris, an afterlife deity with whom the deceased pharaoh was identified.  This pairing would give rise to dramatic stories of love, loss, and struggle.

With each change, the myth of Isis became more hardy and well-adapted to the environment of human psychology in general and Egyptian culture in specific.  It appealed to a wider range of people for a wider range of needs.

The specific manner in which Egyptians believed in Isis defied modern categories of naturalism and supernaturalism.  Ideas resembling both blended seamlessly.  On the one hand, deities were given gifts and cared for extravagantly in a manner suggesting belief in literal person-like beings.  On the other hand, a more metaphorical line of thought is evident in Isis’ personification of the throne and, as Maat, the principle of order, as well as her identification with the star Sothis and the kite.  Medical science at the time was consistent with this attitude, employing empirical methods alongside magical ones, perhaps without self-conscious differentiation.  Most likely, the undifferentiated attitude worked to the advantage of myths, enabling them to determine what was real and what mattered in a variety of different situations and moods without the perception of conflict.

By the Late Period, Isis was a leading goddess in Egypt.  She held powers of magic, protection, healing, seafaring, motherhood, eternal life, and more.  She was the mother of the pharaoh; her husband Osiris was the past pharaoh and her son Horus the current one.

The drama of her story was deeply meaningful to the Egyptian people: her husband’s murder and dismemberment by Set, her tears which annually flooded the Nile, her wandering to recover his dismembered pieces, her magical coupling with his reconstructed corpse to conceive a son (Horus), and that son’s struggle to regain his rightful place on the throne from the usurper Set.  It reflected something universal in the human condition – love, loss, seeking, strife.  It also reflected and reinforced the local social order – rule by a rightful heir to the throne.  Through it, Egyptians understood that they must cooperate under the order of the pharaoh, even as they also made sense of nature, their own personal struggles, and their hopes for an afterlife.

Isis of the Greeks

Left to right: Isis, Serapis, Harpocrates, and Dionysos

So impressive was the Egyptian legacy that the Greek historian Herodotus thought his own culture’s gods must have come in ancient days from Egypt.  He and others began to identify Isis’ story with that of their own deities, including Demeter, a grain goddess, Artemis, a goddess of wild nature, Io, a wandering goddess, and Agatha Tyche, the personification of good fortune.

For some Greeks, this must have lent their relatively young culture a venerable pedigree.  It also made sense of cultural diversity: in an increasingly intercultural Mediterranean, the Greeks saw that other cultures, despite apparent differences, were in some sense like their own.  The interpretatio graeca proposed that Greek and foreign deities were the same beings by different names.

The story of Isis thus began to fulfill human needs beyond the reach of the Nile.  As she adapted to this new audience, her character changed dramatically.

When developments in Greek thought sparked the beginnings of theoretical science, and questions about the world began to be asked in naturalistic terms, myths became implausible as literal representations of the world for many (though not all).  They no longer conveyed what was real and what mattered; that role was taken over by philosophy.  To resolve this crisis, myths began to be read allegorically, which restored their power by linking them with the new reality.  This had consequences for all mythic deities, including Isis.  Plutarch (a much later Roman writer) would come to see Isis’ myth as an allegory for Platonic truths.

Alexander the Great’s march into Egypt heralded the end of the the Egyptian pharaohs.  Thereafter, a Greek family called the Ptolemies reigned, and they needed a new myth to legitimate their power and unite their peoples.  Suddenly, Isis’ story was in trouble.  The environment had shifted, and the story was no longer fit.  It had to change, or risk ceasing to be told.

An adaptation emerged that became even more successful.  Isis’s story transformed through the re-imagining of her relations.  Osiris and the Apis bull combined into Serapis, a deity with mixed Egyptian and Greek associations.  Serapis became Isis’ new husband.  Meanwhile, her son Horus transformed into the child Harpocrates.  Depictions in animal form became more rare, as non-anthropomorphic gods seemed implausible to the Greeks.  This hybrid of Egyptian and Hellenistic influence served the Ptolemies well.  It showed what was real – one reality with different cultural expressions – and what mattered – cooperation in a new, more multicultural Egypt.  It also increased the ease with which the Isian cult spread overseas, throughout the Hellenistic world.

Isis of the Romans

Isis (right) welcomes the Greek goddess Io (left); fresco from Pompeii

When Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria, he found a living Isis, a daughter of the Ptolemies by the name of Cleopatra.  She was Isis in the same way the Egyptian pharaohs had been Horus.  She was the last of this status, however.  After her suicide, Egypt fell to Roman governors.  Myths of pharaonic power were doomed to extinction.

Yet, Isis thrived.  Her story was told throughout the Mediterranean by a priesthood garbed in white linen.  Daily rituals, annual festivals, and periods of abstinence functioned as costly signals displaying the commitment of her followers.

It was not the original Aset, though, but an increasingly Greco-Roman deity who enveloped one goddess after another.  The fierce, cunning Aset was now a more nurturing, universal goddess.  By the time Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, she was Isis of Ten Thousand Names.  All goddesses were one goddess, and her true name was Isis.

In late antiquity, Isis posed a serious threat as competition to the new Christian faith.  The latter prevailed, however, and the cult of Isis died in the flames along with the Great Library burned at Alexandria.

It’s hard to kill a good story, though.  Through radical transformations, Isis survived into the Middle Ages and onward…

The series continues in part 3, which follows the Middle Ages to the modern era, and Part 4 which concludes with a look at how all this relates to the daily mundane life of one Contemporary Pagan.

* “she.”  I will often refer to the myth of Isis as Isis herself, to underscore the point that, from the perspective of Big History, she is her myth.

Evolutionary history makes sense of the appeal and transformations of the myth of Isis, including her association with Sothis (Sirius), the brightest star in the night sky.

– by B. T. Newberg

Last time, I ended with a controversial claim: For naturalists, myths are meaningless outside Big History.

Let that sink in – myths, including the deities of which they tell, are not real in and of themselves.

The reality of a myth comes from understanding what it really is: an evolving cultural entity embedded in natural history.

Without Big History, myths are quaint stories.  They become meaningful – in the sense of being consequential – only when placed in the network of causes and effects throughout history and daily life.

So, what does that look like?  To get an idea, let’s explore Big History from the perspective of a myth whose career has been particularly full of changes and transformations: the myth* of Isis.

The following is one way to tell the story in brief, emphasizing cognitive science and evolutionary approaches to religion.  Claims remain controversial and eternally open to revision.

This post is the first in a 4-part series exploring the myth of Isis in the context of Big History.  This is not a telling of the myth itself, but a context that reveals the appeal of different tellings throughout the ages.  For a proposal of Big History as naturalism’s narrative core, within which myths become meaningful, go here.

Isis of matter

Isis. Image courtesy of Rev. J. Whitfield, from relief at Abydos.

Isis’ story, like our own, goes all the way back to the beginning of time.  The conditions that set the stage for the myth of Isis give vital context for understanding it.

From a bright burst arose spacetime.  An inarticulate dust of light elements coalesced into stars; then from supernovae rained the heavy elements necessary for life.  Thus were set the conditions for all matter, including organic life and culture.

The sun and the star Sothis (Sirius), which appeared from Earth to rise before the annual flooding of the Nile, would later be seen as symbols of order and transcendence in connection with Isis.

On one planet (at least), certain large carbon-based molecules began replicating themselves.  Natural selection coaxed these into complex living organisms.  The generation of life would come to be seen as a key characteristic of nature, eventually symbolized by Isis.

Isis of life

Crucial to all but the most simple forms of life was the twin task of perceiving the environment and responding appropriately.  This let creatures avoid threats and exploit opportunities.  Thus, determining what’s real and what matters became urgent concerns.  The conditions for myths, which would later aid humans in these endeavors, were already set: they needed to be plausible as depictions of reality, and relevant in terms of moral decision-making.

In most cases, accuracy of perception was advantageous for living creatures.  However, other factors could be more important than accuracy if they led to greater reproductive fitness.  Thus, a practical depiction of reality was more adaptive than a factual one.

This affected one of the most important tasks: perceiving agents in the environment, such as predators hiding in the brush.  Creatures developed a hypersensitivity to agents, preferring to perceive beings in each movement of grass, even if it was only the wind, rather than risk missing a predator.  The practical value of this outweighed its factual inaccuracy.  This would later pave the way for the inference of invisible spirits and deities lurking in the natural environment.

Another development was the evolution of behaviors triggered by the perception of certain stimuli, with a stronger stimulus yielding stronger behavior.  The moth, for example, navigates by following the sun or moon, but is drawn astray when it encounters the much stronger light of a fire.  The imagery later employed by deities would take advantage of such supernormal stimuli by invoking larger-than-life figures of parental authority, power, and fertility.  All of these would contribute to the appeal of Isis.

Healthy, strong individuals made better mates, so some creatures developed costly ways of displaying their selling points.  Bower birds, for example, spend precious time and energy building “bowers” to attract mates.  It says, in effect, “I’m healthy enough to afford this expense.”  Among social creatures, those who could draw on group support made stronger mates.  To gain group support, individuals engaged in costly signals to distinguish themselves from free riders who might abuse group resources.  It implied, “I value the group enough that I’m willing to expend this.”  These behaviors would later manifest in humans as time and resources spent in displays of religious devotion to the group’s favored myth.

Isis of mammals

Mammals developed an affective bond between mother and young, later leading to images of supernormal mother figures.

After the extinction of the dinosaurs, a branch of organisms called mammals rose to prominence.  They had developed complex emotions, which encouraged mothers to care for their young, and young to stick by their mothers, throughout an extended apprenticeship.  This would lay the foundation for empathy and a whole range of nuanced emotions evoked by myths.

The affective bond between child and mother, in particular, would later prove fertile for stories of supernormal mother figures such as Isis.

Isis of culture

A particular species of mammal developed language.  Stories were told, some more than others.  The stories changed to become more likely to be passed on.  Natural and cultural selection coaxed them into narratives increasingly well-adapted to human biology as well as psycho-social needs.

Stories featuring modestly counterintuitive agents, such as persons who could be omnipresent or weather patterns that could think and act like humans, balanced fascination with understandability.  Thus, they out-competed less interesting or understandable stories.  Tales of spirits and deities spread.

As human groups rose in size, they needed to find new ways to work together.  This was accomplished through stories.  Stories making a common authority seem sensible helped groups cooperate better than those without them.  Groups who could work together out-competed those who could not, so stories bolstering a social order, such as that of Isis, proliferated.

Isis of agriculture

Agriculture changed stories and how they spread.

Some groups learned to cultivate crops.  The ensuing change of lifestyle rewarded large families to work the fields, so their populations gradually out-bred those of hunter-gatherers and nomadic herders.  The stories of agricultural communities spread along with their peoples.

Meanwhile, the storage of grain surpluses created a tempting target for raids.  This, along with an expanding population demanding ever greater territory and resources, led to increased military needs. Stories justifying centralized authority became even more urgent.

Eventually, one agricultural people, that of the Egyptians, began to tell stories of a deity called Isis.

The series continues in part 2 with Isis’ myth as it adapts to meet the changing needs of humans throughout the Ancient period.  Part 3 follows the Middle Ages to the modern era, and Part 4 concludes with a look at how all this relates to the daily mundane life of one Contemporary Pagan.

*In HP, myth generally refers to historical traditions of stories, which have come down to us from specific cultures, and which involve pantheons of gods and sometimes other fabulous creatures and beings. For example: Greek myths of Dionysos and Persephone, Norse myths of Freya and Odin, Irish myths of the Dagda and Cerridwen, etc.  Loyal Rue sometimes use myth to mean a grand narrative or “narrative core”, but to avoid confusion I’ll reserve myth for the meaning above.