Thanks for this. I love the way in which we all burrow into our own rabbit holes while trying to explore thIs stuff. I remember going deep into Harvey and Bugs (speaking of rabbit holes) and ending up at The Lady if the Hare by John Layard.
Another place the Wake sent me was back to Phil Farmer’s Riverworld series, which I am convinced couldn't have been written without the Wake, beyond just the resurrection theme.
Riverworld leads into the Wake bay, then that stuff gets evaporated, raises into the atmosphere, floats as clouds over the land, and rains down into forests, glens, arroyos, sandhills, steppes, streams, estuaries, promontories, pingos, canyons, marshes, levies and urban centers...which all flow back to the river-worlds, and then the cycle repeats.
I find it interesting that "AI Overview" on Internet does not mention Osiris's genitalia. According to AI Osiris was "incomplete"! "Because he was incomplete, Osiris did not return to the land of the living"
Also, there is a science fiction movie named Osiris (2025) - A team of special forces commandos wakes up on an alien spacecraft with no memory of how they arrived. They soon find themselves in a fight for survival against bloodthirsty creatures that use humans as livestock.
Yea, AI tends to give a lot of wrong answers when I ask it the kinds of Qs that interest me, so I've pretty much given up even looking to see what It (aggregate of the "Mind" of the Internet) has to say. I feel like a fool asking It anyway: it seems like the wrong domain entirely. Let AI take absurdly large data sets in genetics, physics, chemistry, and math and have at it. Asking It to weigh in on the Humanities feels like a betrayal to all of us, and I feel like a schmuck and just won't anymore.
It was only after the initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries had passed victoriously through all the tests, had seen and touched the holy things, that, if he were judged strong enough to withstand the last and most dreadful secret, a veiled priest passed him at flying pace and uttered in his ear the enigmatic words: Osiris is a black god.
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC 1860
by ÉLIPHAS LÉVI
Lévi died the year AC was born so naturally he claimed he was EL in his previous life.
How Lévi knew this phrase was part of the Eleusinian mysteries is a mystery in itself.
Thanks for the Levi quote! Do you have a page number, off-hand?
I have a note around Osiris/Sirius: Eliphas Levi and "Osiris is a black god!"? So, I wasn't sure and I certainly had no citation. I must've been stoned when I made the note, because it's one thing to encounter a source and just write, "Eliphas Levi?" and not: "(Expert on history of Magic) says Eliphas Levin in (book)(maybe a page number)."
I have suspicions about origins that run similarly to the the lost-Greek manuscripts showing up in flowering medieval Islam high society, being translated, then cross-pollination with Knights Templars importing some idea into the "West" and especially French speculators, similar to the role played by early 19th c. Silvestre de Sacy and the hashishims and Hassan i Sabbah and the assassins.
Search the page for black god and there are two hits. These are strongly echoed by Crowley in Book of Thoth in talking about Atu XXI, identified with Saturn whose Sphere is Binah.
I suspect evoking the Eleusinian mysteries is fanciful, but perhaps not. I've read somewhere that Plutarch identified Osiris with Dionysus.
I have a great deal of trouble taking Kenneth Grant Siriusly.
Cool! I don't know how I missed this Rachel Nuwer article in Nature from 3 months ago. Thanx! I've had a bit of correspondence with Nuwer after her MDMA book, I Feel Love.
Rachel goin' all Uncle Fester on us in Nature:
>Ergot no longer grows in Greece—the modern climate is too dry—so Antonopoulos and his colleagues sourced the fungus from Germany, Austria, and Canada. They pulverized it into a powder and mixed it at different concentrations with lye of various pHs, which they made from wood ash and water. Next, they heated the mixtures at boiling point for variable lengths of time, testing 48 combinations.
>Based on laboratory analysis, just one of those combinations—a tiny bit of ergot soaked in lye with a pH of 12.5, boiled for 120 minutes—resulted in a product free from all toxic compounds, but with the psychedelic components.<
If the fungus growing on grain was BLACK? We got ourselves a new hypothesis.
Thanks for this. I love the way in which we all burrow into our own rabbit holes while trying to explore thIs stuff. I remember going deep into Harvey and Bugs (speaking of rabbit holes) and ending up at The Lady if the Hare by John Layard.
Another place the Wake sent me was back to Phil Farmer’s Riverworld series, which I am convinced couldn't have been written without the Wake, beyond just the resurrection theme.
Phil Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage" introduced me to the Wake. I loved the Riverworld books.
Riverworld leads into the Wake bay, then that stuff gets evaporated, raises into the atmosphere, floats as clouds over the land, and rains down into forests, glens, arroyos, sandhills, steppes, streams, estuaries, promontories, pingos, canyons, marshes, levies and urban centers...which all flow back to the river-worlds, and then the cycle repeats.
On other days it doesn't rain.
I find it interesting that "AI Overview" on Internet does not mention Osiris's genitalia. According to AI Osiris was "incomplete"! "Because he was incomplete, Osiris did not return to the land of the living"
Also, there is a science fiction movie named Osiris (2025) - A team of special forces commandos wakes up on an alien spacecraft with no memory of how they arrived. They soon find themselves in a fight for survival against bloodthirsty creatures that use humans as livestock.
Yea, AI tends to give a lot of wrong answers when I ask it the kinds of Qs that interest me, so I've pretty much given up even looking to see what It (aggregate of the "Mind" of the Internet) has to say. I feel like a fool asking It anyway: it seems like the wrong domain entirely. Let AI take absurdly large data sets in genetics, physics, chemistry, and math and have at it. Asking It to weigh in on the Humanities feels like a betrayal to all of us, and I feel like a schmuck and just won't anymore.
Yowza! What a shot of creative Shakti right to the dome!
The cascading chain reaction of connecting dots this has set off has me a bit light headed :)))
Here's a note from RAW from when he sent me a large cache of material making the case that Choronzon = The Pookha:
"[According to some damn book I lost (sorry!) Osiris really means Divine Hare --raw]"
It was only after the initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries had passed victoriously through all the tests, had seen and touched the holy things, that, if he were judged strong enough to withstand the last and most dreadful secret, a veiled priest passed him at flying pace and uttered in his ear the enigmatic words: Osiris is a black god.
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC 1860
by ÉLIPHAS LÉVI
Lévi died the year AC was born so naturally he claimed he was EL in his previous life.
How Lévi knew this phrase was part of the Eleusinian mysteries is a mystery in itself.
Thanks for the Levi quote! Do you have a page number, off-hand?
I have a note around Osiris/Sirius: Eliphas Levi and "Osiris is a black god!"? So, I wasn't sure and I certainly had no citation. I must've been stoned when I made the note, because it's one thing to encounter a source and just write, "Eliphas Levi?" and not: "(Expert on history of Magic) says Eliphas Levin in (book)(maybe a page number)."
I have suspicions about origins that run similarly to the the lost-Greek manuscripts showing up in flowering medieval Islam high society, being translated, then cross-pollination with Knights Templars importing some idea into the "West" and especially French speculators, similar to the role played by early 19th c. Silvestre de Sacy and the hashishims and Hassan i Sabbah and the assassins.
No page number, but:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70033/70033-h/70033-h.htm
Search the page for black god and there are two hits. These are strongly echoed by Crowley in Book of Thoth in talking about Atu XXI, identified with Saturn whose Sphere is Binah.
I suspect evoking the Eleusinian mysteries is fanciful, but perhaps not. I've read somewhere that Plutarch identified Osiris with Dionysus.
I have a great deal of trouble taking Kenneth Grant Siriusly.
A couple of historical researchers, Profs Ascough and Mosurinjohn, say they find no evidence for psychedelic use at Eleusis:
https://themicrodose.substack.com/p/myth-busting-psychedelics-in-ancient
Thanks for the link to Levi! I think Osiris has long been identified with Dionysus, and not just among the Greeks.
Looking forward to your book with Oz Fritz!
What?!? No magic in my kykeon would be very disappointing! I admit that I do want it to be true and am no expert. Interesting reading, thanks.
These guys are up for it though:
https://www.science.org/content/article/did-ancient-greek-priestesses-brew-mind-bending-potion-drunk-cicero-and-marcus-aurelius
Cool! I don't know how I missed this Rachel Nuwer article in Nature from 3 months ago. Thanx! I've had a bit of correspondence with Nuwer after her MDMA book, I Feel Love.
Rachel goin' all Uncle Fester on us in Nature:
>Ergot no longer grows in Greece—the modern climate is too dry—so Antonopoulos and his colleagues sourced the fungus from Germany, Austria, and Canada. They pulverized it into a powder and mixed it at different concentrations with lye of various pHs, which they made from wood ash and water. Next, they heated the mixtures at boiling point for variable lengths of time, testing 48 combinations.
>Based on laboratory analysis, just one of those combinations—a tiny bit of ergot soaked in lye with a pH of 12.5, boiled for 120 minutes—resulted in a product free from all toxic compounds, but with the psychedelic components.<
If the fungus growing on grain was BLACK? We got ourselves a new hypothesis.
I mean blackish, like a mummy after a spell.
Terrific piece. I have never finished reading even the shorter version of "The Golden Bough" (or "From Ritual to Romance"). Osiris seems a black god.