Isis, sex, ritual, & participation in  the Negative Confession

A missing insight into one of the most ancient rituals known to man  Liselott Fagerskold

My route to the ritual of Isis was not  through any particular interest in Isis as a goddess, or in Egyptian religion.

Any interest I do have came when I realised that people may have missed the point of one of the historically known rituals. I arrived at that only through noticing that there was something in it that corresponded something in me. I felt, to my astonishment, as if I might be able to shed some light on what is one of the oldest rituals known to man. And that light comes from my own feelings, quite independent of anything to do with Egypt, about which I knew more or less nothing, and certainly nothing of Isis.

My insight into this though came from something in me that is so dark and forbidden that it always has to remain hidden, and can only come out when I know I am allowed - the taboo surrounding it gets only ever stronger, so that even to speak of it only is likely to bring condemnation and misunderstanding in ways that for me seems quite inappropriate, and on entirely the wrong level.

What I know and feel within myself, although it may appear bizarre or unusual, or even perhaps uniquely perverse, is to me instead, a fundamental and archaic aspect of sex, which as I say, becomes only more forbidden with time, and yet for me is the essence of lust and desire. In fact it seems to me that it is the very essential elements of lust and desire that attract condemnation- because they are too violently different from the thoughts and feelings we accept in our minds otherwise.

The ritual in the Egyptian religion that I refer to is called the Negative Confession. It is most commonly found in the funeral ceremonies of the Book of the Dead, but there it is said on behalf of the deceased and it really there as a shadow of its more common manifestation, which is the confession before Maat(the god of justice) said during life, at various times, and it seems during various ceremonies involved in the worship of Isis.

Isis and Osiris briefly explained- putting a desecrated god back together again – a divine Humpty Dumpty

Isis was one of the principle female deities and she was the wife and sister of Osiris. The meaning of their story can easily be perceived- the story, briefly is this- Egypt was a chaotic and bad place and nothing made sense, until Osiris became king and made good laws and organised things in a benevolent way, so that all was well for everyone. Then his brothers who were jealous of him tricked him to lay in a box, and then nailed it down and threw it into the Nile. Isis who was both his sister and his lover, went searching for him, and she let him out of the box. But the brothers caught him again and cut him into pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis spent many years searching for them, in order to put them back together again, and she found all the parts, all except for his cock. Naturally she didn't let it rest at that and went to great trouble to find it, because ...well she really wanted that bit as well,- she found it after searching far and wide, some say it had been eaten by a fish, and then she put his dead body together again, you know as Egyptians do with dead bodies, they take great care of them. She put it all back together again.

Anyway, Isis' main task was yet to come, as the whole point was to reassemble goodness that had been scattered, and then to ensure that it continued into the future. This is similar to the Jewish idea of Tikkun as described by Walter Benjamin:

Jewish mysticisms Kabbalistic precept is that the work of the holy man is an activity known as Tikkun. According to the Kabbalah, God's attributes were once held in vessels whose glass was contaminated by the presence of evil and these vessels had consequently shattered, disseminating their contents to the four corners of the earth. Tikkun was the process of collecting the scattered fragments in the hopes of once more piecing them together. Here we have the idea of Isis removing evil from the world, from the god, from the king, by reassembling him after he had been desecrated and scattered.

Anyway, what Isis did next was that She sat astride him, dead as he was, and took his cock, that was now part of him again, and took it up inside herself, and fucked herself with it, until his sperm went into her, and she was impregnated. And thus the future of Egypt and of civilisation was ensured. That's the story basically.

The confession ritual

Now we come to the Confession, which I believe ought to be seen in the light of her previous role just described- then it makes sense.

What happens is that when the confession is made the high priestess of Isis, in memory I think, of her goddess she serves, takes the sperm of the man making his confession, into her mouth and by doing so removes evil from him. Those are the essentials of it.

Now there are a few things to be said about it. One is the nature of the confession, which is very interesting, the other is about the role of the high-priestess in this,(tediously enough this is probably what passes for controversial to modern puritans, and this is the part I have something to say about that is perhaps new or unique.)

The confession first. Its marvellously long, and involves a long list of sins. It is called the negative confession because the one making the confession doesn't actually say he has done them he says he hasn't, but this I think is a mere technicality- it is a list of transgressions that attempts to catch out most sinners. It is at any rate a fairly impressive list as it is subtle and urbane and gives a picture of the level of self awareness in Egyptian society, that compares very well indeed with the list of 10 sins from Moses that come probably at a much later date. The ten commandments seem cruder and less comprehensive- although we can see it is serving a different purpose to be fair.

The Egyptian list has 42 sins, here they are

…...

One can presume that the list was recited either by another on behalf of the confessor, or that the cock sucking didn't occur until after he had managed the list, as its hard to imagine most men keeping an erection while having to navigate this daunting list of possible sins they have to search their conscience to deny!

Now to the sexual aspect from the priestess' point of view...

This is the point that I believe is missed by most people, because it seems unacceptable to them.

We tend to see this function as indeed a cleansing function, a sort of moral hygiene, or a mystical good deed, on the part of the priestess, who kindly relieves the men of their accumulated sins, by this act. It's a sex act because, well..isn't that what sacred prostitutes did in the temples of ancient religions? and because sex is a part of religious ritual (sometimes). All of which is true, but I don't think it covers it and certainly not until we meditate on exactly why sex is part of religion- when it is.

But what we don't conisder is what is in it for the woman? Maybe we forget to wonder because she is not just a woman but she is the high-priestess,and I think we presume that for her what's in it is the honour and religious satisfaction of having such a position. But we might also ask why she wants to be in that position, maybe history tells us she has no choice and she is put there by someone else, her parents for example who want to bask in her glory?

We forget that the centre of the woman centre of the ceremony is. For she doesn't just receive the confession of one man, but of many, it seems around 40. Let us, though, set aside the advantages of that, and concentrate on the single act. She receives the man's sperm, and also in doing so, at that same moment receives his evil, his sins. Why would anyone want to do that? Would anyone want to do that?

Well, I can tell you, maybe not just anyone would, but I would. I certainly would. For me precisely that is one of the chief objects of my lust. And furthermore, some form of that has always been an element in my lust, for as long as I can remember, from as soon as I started having sex.

Am I hearing right? you may be saying. Does she really mean what she seems to be saying? Yes I really mean it, I want to take the man's evil into me in the moment he comes into me. Not because I want it to make me evil, but because I want to experience the evil entering me, even though when I receive it I know it is leaving him, and entering me, and not affecting me, it doesn't make me evil, so it is therefore disappearing. I do remove it, as the high-priestess does, but I do feel it, I lust for it, I want it, in that moment, it is the ultimate of sex, or one of them. It is the aspect of opposites which is central to sex, which is why a woman has to be the one to absorb and remove the evil of the man, just as she accepts his cock into her, she accepts his evil. Why evil? Because the man lusts to put his evil into her, it is not goodness he longs to put into her, sex is naturally an aggressive act, and he lusts to force his cock into her, the act of sex is one of aggression, and humiliation, he longs to degrade and defile her  (This may seem an outrageous propostion to some readers, but it would be odd, wouldnt it, if the man had such a high opinion of himself that he felt that putting a part of his body  into a woman, and then shooting liquid into her, was some sort of benevolent kindness adding goodness to her otherwise immoral body. If I was to suggest that  I would be derided , but I suspect that saying sex is an essentially hostile act against me and that  I like it that way, will also get me into trouble!) And it is the woman's lust to be defiled. I certainly long to be defiled by the man's sperm, and I like to regard the sperm as bad, stinking, disgusting and even sick, and then to take it into me.

These are what I believe to be the essential elements of pure sex, (not of love making), and they are the elements that can be expressed in so many ways- but the Egyptian ritual is a perfect image of it, and one of the deepest mystical expressions of it. Why mystical? Because it is an enactment through sex of one of the biggest mystical events of all, the transformation of evil into good, the cleansing of a man's soul, on the one hand, and the absorption of evil on the other. For the woman, the opportunity given by the ritual is even greater than the mere corrective offered to the man. Hers is to accept life, including darkness and evil, and by doing so, by accepting it and absorbing it, to transform it into the best aspect of life-goodness. For me a longing, a lust for the moment of accepting and absorbing into me, of evil, even as it is, to get rid of it, is a moment of acceptance of life, and if lust is anything it is a feeling of transcending the limits that separate us from life, lust in sex is an experience of the utmost aliveness. For this reason, I long to accept a man's sperm, in the moment he is thinking of his sins, and thinking of expelling them into me. And if this is a train of 40 men then it is 40 times better. When the man comes to me with his lust and his evil and his sins I open my mouth to him, and when he comes and shoots his sperm and his sins and his evil into me, I take it willingly into my mouth and I close my mouth upon it and swallow it and absorb it into me.

It is crucial for me that the man for his part, is driven by lust, and that his lust is part of the ritual. It would be less effective for me if he decorously seeks to fulfil the process of getting rid of his sperm and sin by chanting his confession, and feels no lust, for then it is empty for me. He must look at me and long to defile me with his sperm and his sins, his lust for me must drive him to want to shoot his sin and evil into me. When he feels that and when I feel what I have described then it is a moment of great combined lust, or transcendence and finally of transformation, a great mystical moment, and one I am very willing to participate in and offer myself for.

I will do this for as many men who want to do it in a group, or I will do it for individuals on their own. This is not an offer of sex. It is much more than that. It is a mystical experience, and probably a unique one. The whole point of it is that the man understands and immerses himself into the full meaning of what we are doing, obviously. This is not about chanting embarrassing fay ritualistic liturgies, or waving wands or dressing up. It is about the true essence and experience of what sex really is, and about the mystical thrill of unbound thoughts. If we do it, it takes place in the house and in the presence of Isis. We try to summon through our act, the spirit of a 3500 year old ritual, one of the oldest known to man.

The house, an old and beautiful house, is right on the south coast of England, about an hour from London by train.

If you want to participate, to make a confession to me as a Highpriestess of Isis in the conditions described above, please contact me using the form below. Please in your message, would you write a letter of introduction about yourself, and describe your interest in this activity.