Egyptian Cosmology & Lucifer Rising:

‘Although it maintains a contemporary focus, Lucifer Rising is also a return to ancient mythology. It still uses dynamic clashes, but also features the alchemical “union of irreconcilables”, connecting the elemental binaries of sun and moon, water and fire. Images of nature’s power predominate, along with the ruins of ancient Egypt and visions of its re-animated gods…The film opens with the natural magic of volcanic eruptions and lava flows, manifesting the element of fire. Fire joins with sea, land and sky in an elemental conjunction to prepare for Lucifer’s rise. The rising mud and the hatching egg of the crocodile suggest the Nile’s fertility before Horus is born.’ (The Occult: A Torch For Lucifer, page 92-93 by Anna Powell)

‘The film opens with the natural magic of volcanic eruptions and lava flows, manifesting the element of fire.’ The volcano represents far more than the Fire element. The volcano is the primordial and chaotic beginnings of life through the forces of destruction. It has been posited that the extinction of the dinosaurs was due to volcanic force. Fire is life through destruction.

‘The rising mud…’ Our word ‘Alchemy’ comes from the Arabian phrase “al-khemia,” which literally means “from the black soil of the Nile Delta.” Significantly, Egyptian Alchemists had used the term “khem” to refer to the First Matter or life force, which they believed was carried by the fertile, black dirt in the delta.

‘…the hatching egg of the crocodile suggests the Nile’s fertility before Horus is born.’ The crocodile was one of Egypt’s most dangerous animals and it is not difficult to see why the creature held an impressive degree of religious and mythological status…

‘In the form of Horakhty, Horus may appear as a falcon or even as a falcon-headed crocodile…’ (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, page 202 by Richard H. Wilkinson)

Ammut: The Ammut was a composite mythical creature whose head- and therefore most essential aspect- places her with crocodile deities. Her name meant ‘female devourer’ or more fully, ‘female devourer of the dead’ In this role, as an underworld deity, she was also called ‘great of death’ and ‘eater of hearts’…

Sobek: was venerated from at least the Old Kingdom times, and while the name of the god means simply ‘crocodile’, he was regarded as a powerful deity with several important associations. In the pyramid texts he is said to be the son of Neith and called the ‘raging one’ who ‘takes women from their husbands whenever he wishes according to his desire’ but who also makes green the herbage of the fields and river banks-tying him to both procreative and vegetative fertility. He was, quite naturally a god of water (it was said that the Nile issued from his sweat) and of areas such as marshes and riverbanks…He was linked with the cults of certain other gods, such as Amun, Osiris and especially that of the sun god in the form of Sobek-Re. (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, page 218-219 by Richard H. Wilkinson)

The crocodile deities represent another example of death and / or destruction and life / fertility; death as forbearance to life, and the intrinsic duality of nature.

‘Visual Rhymes are a key structural element in the overall grand design. Among these we connect the sun in the sky and a volcano on earth; the opening eye of a crocodile and a mud bubble; an ankh carved in stone and the implement in the hand of Isis.’ (The Occult: A Torch For Lucifer, pages93-95 by Anna Powell)

The origin of the glyph for copper and Venus is the symbol for the life force used by the Egyptians. Known as the ankh, it depicts a circle over a cross, denoting the emergence of the solar archetype from the cross of the elements or the triumph of spirit (life force) over matter. Our word “veneration” literally means to “pay homage to Venus.” Venus is the brightest star in the sky and appears as both the ‘evening star’ and the ‘morning star’ Venus is a goddess of both birth and death-the Goddess of Generation involved in the complete cycle of being…The religion of Venus, just as in the Hermetic tradition of Alchemy, promised a sacred marriage (the Conjunction) through which the initiate could escape the cycle of rebirth and be reborn on a whole new level of reality. Death was thus seen as a transformative event and became associated with ecstatic sexual climax. (Sorcerer’s Stone, page 92-93 by Dennis William Hauck)

‘The juxtaposition of paired opposites is a portentous conjunction. Isis is paired with her consort, Osiris, then with her opposite, Lunar Lilith.’ (The Occult: A Torch For Lucifer, page 95 by Anna Powell)

Nut and Geb gave birth to Osiris and to Isis, and their brother Seth and sister Nephthys. Osiris became the first King of Egypt and the creator of civilization, and his sister-wife Isis ruled in his absence. However their brother Seth was jealous and conspired to kill Osiris. He constructed a chest and tricked Osiris into lying inside it, whereupon the lid was nailed shut and it was thrown into the Nile. The chest floated to the coast of Byblos and lodged itself in the branches of a tree, which grew up around it and enclosed it. The tree was so beautiful that the king and queen of Byblos had it made for their palace.

Isis was stricken with grief and started to search for the chest. Disguising her divinity she waited by a well in the city of Byblos. She befriended some of Queen Astarte’s maidens and braided and perfumed their hair. When the maiden returned to the palace the queen sent for the person who had created such a wonderful fragrance, and made her the nurse to her child. Isis gave the child her finger to suck instead of her breast and each night placed him in a fire to remove all his mortality. Meanwhile she transformed herself into a swallow and flew around the pillar. One night Astarte entered the room and was horrified to see her son lying in the fire. At this, Isis revealed her true identity and asked to be given the pillar. The king and queen agreed.

Taking the chest containing the body of Osiris, Isis set out for Egypt. While she was in the boat she took the form of a kite, hovered over her husband and conceived their sun Horus. Then she hid the chest and went to Buto to raise her child. However, Seth discovered the chest one night while he was out hunting; he tore the body into 14 pieces and scattered them around the country. When Isis discovered what Seth had done she searched for the pieces, aided by their sister Nephthys and her son, the jackal headed Anubis. Isis found every part of Osiris’s body except his penis, for which she made a replica. When she fanned the reassembled body with her wings Osiris came to life again, to become the ruler of Eternity judging the souls of the dead.

This myth shows the interconnections between the human world, the realm of the Gods and nature. Osiris dies with the parched land, the withering grain, the waning moon and all that is destructive. He returns to life in the rising waters of the Nile, the growing grain, the waxing moon and the affirmative nature of human beings. Osiris is brought to life by Isis. The creative force of Osiris, as the flooding of the Nile, and Isis, as the earth, is interrupted by the necessary element of death and destruction, represented by Seth: from death comes life, and in life there is death. Both are part of the same cosmic unity. This primal Egyptian myth demonstrates the human connection with both the natural world and the spiritual realm of the gods; all are interlinked in the magical process of life and death.

‘Isis is paired with her consort, Osiris, then with her opposite, Lunar Lilith.’

Lilith (Marianne Faithfull): Many other Goddesses, as well as a Great Mother Goddess, are venerated. Some, such as Lilith, embody the dark and death as well as more obvious life-giving and nurturing qualities. Lilith, a hybrid bird woman, was Adam’s first wife, but she refused to lie beneath him, and, uttering the magical name of God, flew away to the wilderness where she gave birth to demons. God sent three angels to bring her back to Eden, but she refused to return. Lilith is perhaps the source of ideas about strix, striga, or striges, the owl like creatures in classical and European folklore, and later the prototypes of the diabolical witch a stereotype created and fostered by the established Christian Church. She is considered by some to be the original feminist.

The visceral beauty and intensity as seen through the eyes of a visionary can not be underestimated. Anger is not the first or only artist to recognize magical art as catalyst for change, but he is unique in his mastery of his choice of medium. One should also keep in mind that Anger is the ultimate sub- cultural sponge soaking up the ideology, fashions, and music of the youth’s zeitgeist amalgamating his system of beliefs with theirs. During the making of Scorpio Rising he was at least 33 years of age and by the time he began Invocation of My Demon Brother he was around 40 years of age. Anger’s Lucifer in Invocation of My Demon Brother, Bobby Beausoleil, was a mere 21 years old. Bobby was a beautiful, blue eyed misguided baby. Mick Jagger was in his mid-twenties and Marianne Faithfull was in her early twenties.