The Good-doing Osiris was away ordering the universe for: "...neither does the universe mindless and reason-less and guidance-less float in "That which acts of its own will,' nor is there one Reason [only] that rules and guides, as though with rudder as it were and bits obedient to the reins; but that [the universe] is many things and these a blend of evil things and good. (29)

While Osiris was away, evil Typhon determined to do away with him, but Isis held the power in his absence and prevented it. Like Tiamat of Mesopotamia, Typhon has a serpent's body and like Leviathan after him Typhon is the Great Serpent of evil. Also like Leviathan Typhon is indispensable to the order of the world, so long as he keeps to his place. When the opposites, thesis and antithesis, were synthesized in the Womb of Rhea, Typhon kept to his place, but when the harmony was disturbed Typhon rose up like Leviathan and like Teli the Dragon, who usurped Paradise and cast out Adam and Eve. Typhon usurped the throne of Good-doing Osiris and cast him out. Typhon, Tiamat and Teli may have been patterned on Draco, the constellation of the Dragon.

The Egyptians tell a myth about Zeus (Typhon) that, as in consequence of his having his legs grown together, he could not walk, for shame he lived in solitude; and so Isis, by cutting in two and separating these limbs of his body, made his going even-footed. (30)

When Good-doing, good-looking Osiris returned from ordering the universe, he mistook his sister Nephthys for Isis and slept with her. As a result, Nephthys brought forth Anubis, the jackal-headed embalmer god of the Egyptians.

Isis learned of Osiris' mistake when she saw the wreath of honey-clover that fell from him and was left behind in the bed. Isis went in search of Anubis, the child of this union.

Typhon would never have known of the union of Osiris and Nephthys had not Osiris left behind the wreath of honey-clover. The plant appears 4 times on Side 2 of the disk; 3 times with a dog that probably represents Anubis.

And when the Nile exceeds its boundaries and overflows more than usual, and [so] consorts with the extreme districts, they call it the union of Osiris with Nephthys--proof of which is given by the springing up of plants, especially the honey-clover, for it was by its falling [from Osiris] and being left behind that Typhon was made aware of the wrong done to his bed. Hence it is that Isis conceived Horus in lawful wedlock, but Nephthys Anubis clandestinely. (31)

There is, then, for the worshippers of Anubis some [mystery] or other that may not be spoken of. (32)

When Nephthys gave birth to Anubis, she exposed him out of fear of Typhon but Isis was guided by dogs to the baby and saved it.

Typhon, plotting to kill Osiris, built a coffin-chest in which to entrap him. A chest, in Pythagorean terms, is an odd-ly ordered rectangular encasement. (33)

But that after measuring out for himself in secret the body of Osiris, and having devised, according to the size, a beautiful and extraordinarily ornamented chest, brought it into the banqueting hall. (34)

All in the banqueting hall were delighted with the coffin-chest. Typhon offered to give the coffin to anyone whom it fit perfectly. At this time Osiris had been king for 28 years. (35) (There is a correspondence here to tarot cards, which were said to originate with old the Osiris sect. Path 28, D21 on the curtain of space-time and energy-matter, is correlated to The Star card in tarot. This path is the portal to the inner cosmos--the inner way. The journey Osiris takes while inside the chest symbolizes this inner journey.)

When Osiris got inside the chest and laid down, Typhon quickly sealed it. Then he and his cronies threw Osiris in the coffin in the Nile. Nothing is so precious to Egyptians as the Nile. (36) Osiris now becomes involved in a journey of purification--and we will accept that as the purpose of our own journey for the moment.

The pictograph representing the open coffin of Osiris appears 3 times on Side 2; twice on Side 1. The Nile sign appears 4 times on Side 2, twice on Side 1. After Typhon trapped Osiris in the chest and threw him into the Nile, the Pans and Satyrs living in Panopolis told the population the dire fate of Osiris, whereupon a "panic," derived from the name Panopolis, broke out. (37) Upon hearing of Typhon's terrible deed, Isis, all distraught, cut off one of her curls, put on a mourning dress and wandered everywhere asking all whom she met if they had seen the chest containing Osiris, but no one could help her, even though she was the queen and held the queen's sceptre.

In modern Hermeticism of the 20th century, from The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Isis is seen holding a similar sceptre (left, Illus. 2).

Anubis helped Isis, the woman who had saved him from an early death. He told her of Typhon's evil deed and showed her where the body of Osiris had been thrown into the Nile. The eleven dogs on the disk also represent Hermes-Thoth, the Watcher, who like the dog is always alert even while sleeping. (38) The dog represents Isis, her soul being called Dog by the Greeks. (39) The dogs represent Sothis, also called Dog, (40) meaning the star Sirius of the Great Dog (Canis Major).

In olden times, indeed, the dog enjoyed the highest honors in Egypt; but seeing that when Cambyses slew the Apis and cast it out, no [animal] approached or touched its carcass but only the dog, he [thus] lost the [distinction of] being first and most honoured of the rest of the animals. (41)

The dog is honored on the Phaistos Disk because the artifact was created about 1100 years before Cambyses conquered Egypt (525 BCE) and slew the sacred Osiris-bull.

When Isis, Lady of the Heart and Tongue, learned of the deed done to Osiris, it broke her heart. The tree sacred to Isis was the Persea, because its fruit resembles a heart and its leaf a tongue. (42) This fruit appears twice on Side 2 of the disk. In remembrance of the sorrow of Isis when she mourned the loss of Osiris, Egyptian priests shaved their heads and wore linen clothing.

Now, as far as the 'many are concerned, even this commonest and smallest [secret] is hid from them--namely, why the priests cut off their hair, and wear linen robes; for some do not at all care to know about these things, while others say that they abstain from [the use of] the sheep's wool, as they do from its flesh, because they hold it sacred, and that they shave their heads through being in mourning, and wear linen things on account of the colour which the flax in flower sends forth, resembling the aetherial radiance that surrounds the cosmos. (43)

Appearing on Side 1 of the disk are two priests, the figure 8 on their cheeks perhaps symbolizing the curl that Isis cut from her hair. Beside each priest on Side 1 is a flax flower. The flower at the center of Side 1 represents the aetherial radiance that surrounds the cosmos." Three flax flowers are seen on Side 1; one on Side 2. The sacred sheep, which appears once on Side 2, is the symbol of Hermes (Thoth), the good Shepherd of Men. The ram with curved horns was widely recognized in Egypt to represent the god Amun.

Statues of Hermes Kriophoros, or Hermes with a ram or lamb standing beside him, or in his arms, or on his shoulder, were one of the most favourite subjects for the chisel in Greece. We have specimens dating to the archaic period of Greek art. (44)

After Anubis showed Isis where Typhon and his friends had thrown Osiris and his coffin into the Nile, she set out in her papyrus skiff (baris) (45) to look for him. The papyrus skiff appears 5 times on Side 2, twice on Side 1.

The coffin of Osiris was "wave-tossed out to Sea" to Byblos, a city in the Papyrus Swamps of the Delta. (46) The coffin came to rest against a heather-bush, (47) that grew into a hearty and beautiful heather-tree because of the body of Osiris inside its trunk. The king of that country so admired the magnificent heather-tree that he cut it down and installed it in his palace as a pillar in the roof. (48) He left behind a tree-trunk with 5 branches. (49)

Seen 6 times on Side 2 of the disk and 5 times on Side 1 is the "chen-Osiris" or "Osiris-plant," the ivy consecrated to Osiris. (50) The plant has 5 branches because it also represents the five-branched heather-bush that grew around the coffin of Osiris. From the ancient Chaldaean mystery-tradition of the Fire, 'five-branched' would thus mean man, or rather purified man, and the saying referred to the pruning of this tree. (51) Osiris in the Nile is the archetype for purification by baptism in sacred water. To the ancient Egyptians who farmed the Nile Delta, Osiris literally was the Nile.

The number five also is sacred because it symbolizes the hypotenuse of the "perfect" 3-4-5 triangle, the right triangle of the Pythagorean Theorem, divinized here 1200 years or so before Pythagoras proved it.

For the 'three' is the first 'odd' and perfect; while the 'four' is square from side 'even' two; and the 'five' resembles partly its father and partly its mother, being composed of 'three' and 'two.' (52)

We must, accordingly, compare its (right triangle) perpendicular to male, its base to female, and its hypotenuse to the offspring of both; and [conjecture] Osiris as its source, Isis as receptacle, and Horus as result. (53)

And panta [all] is only a slight variant of pente [five]; and they (the Egyptians) call counting pempasasthai [reckoning by fives]. (54)

Isis arrived in Byblos and met the people there, who noticed right away that her breath, hair and skin smelled like ambrosia. (55) Isis planned to retrieve the damaged coffin and body of Osiris from inside the heather-tree in the palace, and she entered the palace when the queen of Byblos employed her as a nurse for her baby son Diktys.

And they say that instead of giving it the breast, Isis reared the little one by putting her finger into its mouth... (56)

This sign of Isis Unveiled, Isis pre-eminently meaning "Nurse" in Greek, a further intensification of "suckle," (57) shows Isis nursing Diktys by placing her finger in his mouth. In mourning for Osiris, she "beats her breast." Because Isis cut off a curl and put on her mourning dress, whence the city to this day bears the name Kopto," (58) meaning "I cut or beat the breast, as a sign of her mourning. (59) The Isis-Diktys sign appears twice on each side of the disk, in each instance exactly equidistant apart.

I am all that has been and is and shall be, and no mortal has ever re-vealed my robe. (60)

Isis, her true identity unveiled or revealed, cut open the trunk of the heather-tree, exposing the damaged coffin containing Osiris. She placed it in her skiff and sailed away on the River Phaedrus. The damaged coffin sign appears twice on Side 1, once beside the open coffin.

The Egyptians celebrated the Burials of Osiris by cutting a tree-trunk and making it into a crescent-shaped coffin like the one containing the coffin and body of Osiris in the skiff of Isis. (61)

On Side 2 of the disk is the crescent-shaped coffin (damaged area) beside the skiff. The dots inside the crescent sign probably once numbered 28, the number of years Osiris reigned and the number of the lunar cycle.

The skiff of Isis is said to symbolize, in one respect, the body--the vehicle of the soul--which evil, symbolized by Typhon, pursues. In support of this, the skiff sign is found once in combination with the Typhon sign.

Isis, with Diktys traveling with her, sailed back to Egypt. It was on this journey home that Diktys fell headfirst overboard when reaching for the onions, as portrayed on the maze mosaic.

When Isis arrived in Egypt, she hid the coffin containing Osiris in the marsh swamps of Buto. (62) Because there was a full moon, Typhon was out hunting pigs with his hunting dogs. Typhon saw the body of Osiris and hacked it into 14 pieces (63) with his hatchet. Because of this, to eat the pig was taboo. (64) The pig and the dogs are on Side 1, and Typhon's hatchet is on Side 2.

Typhon cut up the body of Osiris into 14 pieces and scattered them abroad. The pieces of Osiris appear 15 times on the disk, the additional piece perhaps representing an additional symbolism. This symbol may also be imiut, the ancient Egyptian term given to the fetish consisting of a headless animal skin hung on a pole that was stuck into a pot, for protection. The pieces may be the early, and probably first, representation of the Archons, the planetary rulers whose flayed and stretched out skins form the sky in much the same way the body of the Egyptian goddess Nut formed the sky. Egypt had a mystical astrology which included fantastic figures scattered across the skies, and this is portrayed by the disk, whereon the numerous signs are scattered across the skies of both the Northern (Side 2) and Southern (Side 1) Hemispheres.

Once again, Isis set out in her skiff, this time through the marsh swamps of the Delta, to collect the 14 pieces of Osiris that Typhon had scattered.

And Isis [they say] on learning this, searched for them in a papyrus skiff sailing away through the marshes; whence those who sail in papyrus hulls are not injured by the crocodiles, either because they fear or rather revere the Goddess. (65) Three signs of the marsh appear on Side 2; one appears on Side 1.

As Isis found the pieces of Osiris, she put them in the skiff. Seen twice on Side 2 and twice on Side 1 is a piece of Osiris beside the skiff. After Isis collected the 14 pieces, she distributed images of Osiris, as though she were giving them the whole body, (66) to the cities of Egypt. With so many Burials of Osiris, never again would Typhon discover the body of Osiris and desecrate it. Egyptians celebrated the Burials of Osiris by cutting a tree-trunk and making it into the crescent-shaped coffin.

Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, was the avenger of his father, and his coming forth is his birth. The plumes upon his head are Isis and Nephthys when they go forth to set themselves there, even as his protectors, and they provide that which his head lacketh... (67)

The hieroglyph for Horus was the falcon on the perch, seen 3 times on the disk, once on Side 2; twice on Side 1. Horus is represented also by the golden hawk, who flies nearest the sun, and gazes upon it with unwinking eye. (68) (From whence may have come the Cretan legend of Icarus, son of Daedalus, who put on wings and flew to the sun to gaze upon it. The sun melted his wings and he fell to earth. By these correspondences, if Icarus is Horus, then the mysterious Daedalus is Osiris.)

The hawk carries in its claw the "Bone of Horus," (69) the naturally occurring magnet called the lodestone and bone of the sea-hawk. (70) The golden hawk with the lodestone grasped in its claw appears 5 times on Side 1 in combination with the snake, an ancient symbol of electromagnetism.

Isis found all the pieces of Osiris that Typhon had scattered, except for his generative member. Unfortunately, it was eaten by the Nile crab and the "sharp-snout fish, . As a result the crab and the sharp-snout were venerated by the Egyptian priests and declared taboo to eat.

Now, the only one of the parts of Osiris which Isis did not find was that which causes awe; for that it was cast straightway into the River...and the sharp-snout ate it up--which [they say] among fishes are considered specially expiate... (71)

...for as they venerate the sharp-snout fish, they fear that the hook is not pure when 'sharp-snout' is caught by it... (72)

Their priests, upon the other hand, abstain from all; and [even] on the ninth of the first month (September), when every one of the rest of the Egyptians eats a broiled fish before his front door, the priests do not taste it, but burn their fishes to ashes before he doors [of the Temple]. (73)

The Nile crab appears once on Side 1, and the sharp-snout appears four times in Side 2; twice on Side 1.

The phallus of Osiris is represented by the tall stalk of the papyrus plant, which "is supposed to resemble in its nature the generative member. (74) Kronos (Thoth) entrusted Pamyle, the wet nurse of Osiris, to keep the mystic rites in his honor, similar to the Phallephoria" (75)­ (Phallus-bearing). (76)

And when they keep the feast of Pamylia, which is phallic, as has been said, they bring out and carry round an image having a phallus three times the size of it. (77)

The tall papyrus is seen 3 times on Side 2, twice with an Osirian "heaven-walker," and once with one of the 3 right-hand signs symbolizing North, of both the cosmos and of Egypt. (78) "To ancient people the hand was a symbol of creative power." (The God and Symbols of Ancient Egypt, Manfred Lurker, Thames and Hudson, 1974, p. 57)

And there is a sacred dirge made on Kronos (Nile)--and it laments 'him who is born in the left-hand and died in the right-hand parts.' For Egyptians think that the eastern [parts] of cosmos are 'face,' the northern 'right hand,' and the southern 'left hand.' The Nile, accordingly, since it flows from the southern [parts] and is consumed by the sea in the northern, is naturally said to have its birth in the left hand and its death in the right hand. (79)

The right hand symbolizes Upper Egypt, and the left hand Lower Egypt. (80) The papyrus also symbolizes 'southern climate' of the cosmos, (81) or The Southern Hemisphere. On Side 1, the papyrus appears 3 times, each time with a heaven-walker.

Isis constructed a very good facsimile of the phallus of Osiris after the original was eaten by the sharp-snout and the crab. From the facsimile she got Harpocrates, Horus the Younger.

After his death, Osiris, coming to Horus out of the Invisible, worked through him and trained him for the fight (82) (with Typhon), which lasted for many days and Horus won." Before the fight began:

And it was said that as many were changing over to the side of Horus, Thueris, Typhon's concubine, came, too; and that a certain serpent pursuing after her was cut in pieces by those round Horus. And today on this account they cast down a small rope and cut it in pieces for all to see. (83)

On Side 2 of the disk the pieces of the serpent that pursued Thueris appear once, beside the plumed head of Horus. On Side 1 they appear 5 times, each time beside the golden hawk of Horus. The hawk fighting the snake symbolized the battle of Horus and Typhon. Horus was often portrayed as having a hawk's head and a snake's body--a sacred serpent-bird.

"At Hermes-city, however, as image of Typhon, they show us a hippopotamus on which stands a hawk fighting a snake... (84)

Another legend involving this serpent is that of Apophis, the serpent with the severed head. In this image from the tomb of Inkherka, "the great cat" is beheading the serpent in order to save the Persea tree it has wrapped itself around.

Each morning and evening the serpent demon threatened the son-god and thus endangered world stability. The 'huge serpent' was the embodiment of the oppo­nent of God and a symbol of the powers of darkness. Therefore Apophis was equated with Seth (Typhon), the enemy of the gods. Each morn­ing, when the son emerged from the nether-world, and each evening at the beginning of its nightly voyage, the sun barqoe was attacked by the serpent. This caused the sky to be dyed red with the blood of the defeated and wounded Apophis. The serpent also tried to hinder the sun's journey with its coils, described as 'sandbanks'. Several extant ritual texts refer to the 'overthrowing of Apophis' and provided magical protection, of which it was written 'it really saves him (i.e. the protected person) from all evil.' (Lurker, p.29)

The snake also symbolizes a star because it does not age, and moves without limbs with ease and pliancy. (85) In this respect, the snake may symbolize the constellation Serpens Cauda

In Egypt, feasts celebrating the immortality of Osiris begin with a procession of the priests headed by a water-vase, symbolizing the Water of Life. The water-vase is seen twice on Side 2.

And they call not only the Nile, but also without distinction all that is moist, 'Osiris efflux;' and the water-vase always heads the processions of the priests in honor of the God. (86)

At the festivals of Osiris in Greece, the celebrants carry thyrsuses, (87) symbolic wands, generally cane-like or knotted like a bamboo, and sometimes wreathed with ivy or vine leaves, with a pine-cone at the top. (88) Two thyrsuses are seen on Side 2; two more on Side 1, one of them quite long.

In Greece is celebrated the Mysteries of Dionysus (Osiris), (89) and the women invoke him by praying for the god with the bull's foot to come to them. The bull's foot appears twice on Side 2, both times upside-down and both times in combination with an Osirian heaven-walker, symbolizing Osiris as the Apis-bull. It also may symbolize the constellation Taurus. The upside-down bull's foot, the upside-down pig, the vertical Nile and the Starship are reminders that the artist(s) of the Phaistos Disk intended it to be comprehensible only to initiates into the mystery-myth, who would know it right away for what it was.

A symbol is meant to direct the initiate to something higher and to reveal it to him at the same time, but it must also conceal this from the ignorant. Knowledge of the meaning of images was not accessible to everyone. (Lurker, p.9)

The women of Greece gave Dionysus (Osiris) the epithet of "bull-born and call(ed) him up out of the water with the sound of trumpets...they hid in thyrsi. (90) The trumpets are the legendary deep-toned (bellower) pipe of Idaean Kuretes. (91)

The water-vases on Side 2 appear each time beside what may be the "Cosmic House of Horus," (92) which may represent the procession of the priests. The Cosmic House of Horus also may represent a structure in the constellation Bootes.

And [they say] that when Isis had gone a journey to her son Horus, who was being reared at Boutos... (93)

Boutos or Buto may also mean the constellation Bootes, the Ploughman, (94) symbolized by the yoke. In this Egyptian mystery-myth staged in the heavens, it is only natural for the supernal Isis (Sirius) to travel the celestial Nile to various constellations, as seen from Cheops.

Alternately, Isis (Sirius) is called the "Cosmic House of Horus." At the level of subjective-nonordinary representation, this "house," indicated by the second "E" may symbolize the Egyptian World-Building, (95) the metaphysical template upon which their temples were said to be modeled. At the supernal level, the Cosmic House of Horus (cosmos) is Isis (World Soul or Nature).

The World-Building was called "Sophia Above" by the Gnostics, "Heavenly Jerusalem" by the Jewish Gnostics, and wacah chan xaman waxac na--World Tree House of the North--by the Maya. This World-Building-Cosmic House bears a resemblance to Mayan astronomy glyphs.

The 11 walkers representing Osiris walking around the world, also are priests with shaved heads. They are heaven-walkers,"knowers of things divine, and the heavens they walk are both the outer cosmos of objective-ordinary reality and the inner spheres of the Ogdoad in subjective-nonordinary reality. (96)

...in those days [of ancient Egypt] of initiate kings and rulers and sages who occupied themselves with the Sacred Science, when the clear Aether spake face to face with them without disguise, or holding back aught, in answer to their deep scrutiny of holy things...In those days so great was their love of the holy mysteries, so high their virtue, that they left the earth below them, and in their deathless souls became 'heaven-walkers' and knowers of things divine. (97)

At death, the heaven-walkers ascend the 8 spheres of the vortex-portal, represented concentrically on both sides of the disk, by traveling inward along the downward spiraling Shamanic tunnel, symbolized by the disk. Heaven-walkers re-enter the astral or causal level of being, the "quantum domain level of the highest levels of light," (98) described in those days of ancient Egypt as the soul soaring across the awful chasms of the unfathomable depths to far-off Sothis, the Land of Eternal Dawn, to the Ante-chamber of the Infinite Morning. (99)

The heaven-walkers hoped to attain the Ogdoad, the Heaven-Sphere of the layered architecture of the celestial realms. The Ogdoad lies above the Hebdomad of the lower 7 spheres (see the curtain of space-time and energy-matter) of the planets and visible universe.

In this dramatic statement of polarity, the Ogdoad, symbolized by the 8-petaled flax flower at the center of Side 1, is the 8th level of heaven and Thoth's celestial City of Eight, in which were 4 pairs of divinities, each male and female, positive and negative, and active and passive. (See the curtain.)

The Ogdoad also is called the 13th Aeon (P1 on the curtain of space-time and energy-matter), believed by the ancients to be the Pleiades. (100) The 13th Aeon (an Aeon is a supernal power in its eternal realm) corresponds to the fixed stars above the 7 heavens of the planets (101) called the Hebdomad, symbolized by the original Hermetic Star concealed on the Phaistos Disk. In Trismegistic literature, adepts would enter into immortality and come to understand the Ogdoad, the destination of souls after death when the material body is abandoned and the soul re-ascends the planetary spheres, finally attaining to the Ogdoad to become one of its Powers--one of its Aeons--and to merge with the dead god-man Osiris and with God. This is the goal to which Hermetic gnosis aspired.

The 14 plumed profiles of Horus are reminiscent of the 7 pole-lords of heaven who make the axis turn. (102) They are like the Primal Creatures turning their spheres with sound. (103) Each one of the 8 spheres of the disk contains at least one Horus, one pole-lord or cosmic Aeon turning the sphere.

Thoth's city within, also called New Jerusalem in Kabbalistic Gnosticism, had its counterpart in Egypt's Khemennu, City of the Eight Gods. Thoth's temple at Khemennu was Het Abtit, House of the Net. (104)

Mystically it (the Net) signified the Veil (curtain) of the Universe, studded with stars, the many coloured Veil of Nature, the famous Veil or Robe of Isis, that no 'mortal' or 'dead man' has raised, for that Veil was the spiritual nature of the man himself, and to raise it he had to transcend the limits of individuality, break the bonds of death, and so become consciously immortal." (105)

Thoth's Net, which we will see later on ancient Sumerian cylinder seals, is the curtain of space-time and energy-matter as it was mystically perceived and recorded by artists of the period. The priests and priestesses of Thoth, who convened deep within Cheops, were called Beings of Light because, as mortals, they unveiled Isis, they re-vealed her robe. While still in the body they lifted the curtain of space-time and energy-matter and gained enlightenment from The Boundless Light. During the initiations into the mystery religion, the initiates were hood-winked with the hood of a robe, and were given two robes, the Robe of Isis, symbolizing the veil of Isis, which they wore openly, and the Robe of Osiris, which they put away. (106) The two hood-winks of the two robes appear on Side 2.

Wherefore when they have once and once only received this [robe], they treasure it away and keep it from all eyes and hands; whereas they use those of Isis on many occasions." (107)

After the initiation the Divine Mysteries were slowly revealed to the Select, and the priests and priestesses worked to elevate the initiates, called Mortals, to the grade of Intelligences, or those who had received the Nous (Mind), known to them as Thoth. At the center of the mystery-myth was the Ritual of the Portal and the means by which the physical person received in Divine Marriage a Heavenly Partner. The Nous or Heavenly Partner brings the Gnosis and the direct knowledge of the inner way to Thoth's celestial City of 8, the 8th sphere (Ogdoad) and infinity, symbolized perhaps by the figure 8's on the cheeks of the priests, by the 8-petaled flax flower, by the figure 8 shape of the Bone of Horus and by the Figure 8 shield formed by placing together Sides 1 and 2 of the disk. When the 8th sphere was attained, the initiates were no longer Mortals but Intelligences who merged themselves with Thoth and with Osiris, with Mind and Idea, for Osiris:

Himself is far, far from the earth, unspotted and unstained, and pure of every essence that is susceptible of death and of decay. Nor can the souls of men here [on the earth], swathed as they are with bodies and enwrapped in passions, commune with God, except so far as they can reach some dim sort of a dream [of Him], with the perception of a mind trained in philosophy. But when [their souls] freed [from these bonds] pass to the Formless and Invisible and Passionless and Pure, this God becomes their guide and king, as though they hung on Him, and gazed insatiate upon His Beauty, and longed after it-[Beauty] that no man can declare or speak about. It is with this the ancient tale makes Isis e'er in love, and, by pursuit [of it], and consort [with it], makes [her] full-fill all things down here with all things fair and good, whatever things have part in genesis. (108)

Let us do as Isis did. Let us re-member Osiris.

Remember Sirius.