Episode Guide > MB03: Osiris and Isis, Part I

Episode Summary

Episode 3 of the Mystery Babylon series aired on February 16, 1993. Almost the entire hour consists of Cooper reading aloud from Manly P. Hall’s 1937 book Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians, specifically the chapter that retells Plutarch’s first-century essay on Isis and Osiris. Cooper interrupts the reading constantly with his own commentary, and those interjections, more than the text itself, carry the episode’s argument: that the Osiris myth is the master allegory of what he calls the Mystery Religion of Babylon.

The myth as read runs as follows. The goddess Nut, cursed by Ra so that she could give birth in no month and no year, is rescued by Thoth, who wins five extra days from the moon at gaming. On those five added days Nut bears Osiris, the elder Horus, Typhon (Set), Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris becomes king of Egypt, teaches agriculture and law, and travels the world converting nations by persuasion rather than force. In his absence Typhon recruits seventy-two conspirators, builds an ornate chest fitted exactly to his brother’s body, tricks Osiris into lying in it at a banquet, seals it with nails and molten lead, and throws it into the Nile. The text dates the murder to the seventeenth day of the month of Athyr, when the sun was in Scorpio.

Isis cuts her hair, puts on mourning, and searches for the body, which has drifted to Byblos and become enclosed in a tamarisk tree that the local king cut down for a palace pillar. She recovers the chest, but Typhon finds it again and tears the body into fourteen parts, scattering them across Egypt. Isis recovers every part except the phallus, which was swallowed by three fishes, and fashions a replacement in gold. Horus, grown to manhood, defeats Typhon in battle. A final son, Harpocrates, is born after Osiris has already passed into the underworld; he is depicted with a finger to his lips, the gesture the Greeks and Romans read as a command of silence, and his statues stood at temple entrances as a sign that initiates were bound to secrecy.

Cooper’s interjections fall into a few recurring moves. He tells listeners to write down the numbers in the story, seventeen, twenty-eight, seventy-two, and the 360 days of the older Egyptian calendar, claiming they recur with hidden significance throughout the secret societies. He glosses the three fishes as ignorance, superstition, and fear, and also as the church, the state, and the mob, which he presents as the declared enemies of the Mystery Schools. When Hall’s text reaches the Synesius passage about two pairs of eyes, Cooper reads it as the core method of the Mysteries: an exoteric teaching shown to the public and an esoteric teaching reserved for initiates.

Hall’s own argument, which Cooper endorses and extends, is that Plutarch was an initiated priest who would never have published the real secret, so the surviving fable must be a veil. The chapter marshals the Greek philosophers as evidence that something substantial lay behind the Egyptian rites: Thales directing Pythagoras to Egypt, Pythagoras spending twenty-two years there in initiation, and Democritus deriving his doctrine of atoms from Egyptian priests. Cooper adds a claim of his own, that Plato was initiated inside the Great Pyramid, lying three days and nights in the sarcophagus.

The most consequential commentary comes near the end. Cooper states flatly that Osiris, Isis, and Horus were never real people, gods, or visitors from elsewhere. In his telling they are symbols: Osiris stands for the sun, and the sun in turn stands for the light, the intellect, which he identifies with Lucifer. The real object of worship in the Mystery Schools, he claims, is the human intellect, through which the initiate believes man will become god. He also follows Hall into the Atlantis material, claiming the tradition entered Egypt through an Atlantean Mystery School, and adds that Freemasons named Atlanta as a new Atlantis. Along the way he claims that his own organization, the Citizens Agency for Joint Intelligence (CAJI), has placed informants inside Masonic lodges. The episode closes with Hall’s sketch of a lost Golden Age ruled by priest-kings, a benevolent despotism that Cooper says the societies intend to reestablish, a thread he picks up two nights later in episode 5 on the New World Order and Freemasonry.

Key Claims Made in This Episode

Documented from the broadcast. The site records these claims; it does not endorse them. Dated claims also appear in the series timeline.

• Cooper claims the recurring numbers in the Osiris myth (seventeen, twenty-eight, seventy-two, 360) carry hidden significance throughout the secret societies.
• Cooper claims Osiris, Isis, and Horus were never real people or gods but symbols concealing the Mystery Religion’s actual doctrine.
• Cooper claims the true object of worship in the Mystery Schools is the intellect, symbolized by the sun and identified with Lucifer.
• Cooper claims Plutarch, as an initiated priest, deliberately veiled the real meaning of the Osiris myth in his essay.
• Cooper claims Plato was initiated into the Mysteries inside the Great Pyramid, lying three days and nights in the sarcophagus.
• Cooper claims Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in Egypt being initiated into the Mysteries, citing Iamblichus.
• Cooper claims Democritus obtained the foundation of his atomic doctrine from Egyptian priests.
• Cooper claims the mystery tradition entered Egypt from an Atlantean Mystery School symbolized by Isis, and that Freemasons established Atlanta as a new Atlantis.
• Cooper claims the initiates of antiquity were known as the Brotherhood of the Snake and wore a snake emblem on their headdress.
• Cooper claims his organization CAJI has infiltrated Masonic lodges with members taught to take the oath in a way he says is non-binding.

Primary Sources Cited in This Episode

Source	Status	Where to read it
Manly P. Hall, Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians (1937)	Not public domain; quoted only	The main text Cooper reads on air; see our sources and bibliography hub for publication details
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris (1st century, Squire translation 1744)	Public domain	Scans on archive.org
Synesius, On Providence (c. 400 AD)	Public domain (ancient text)	Translations on archive.org
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History (1st century BC)	Public domain (ancient text)	Translations on archive.org
Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras (c. 300 AD)	Public domain (ancient text)	Translations on archive.org

From the Broadcast

“Now, try to remember these numbers if you can. Jot them down, but these numbers will prop up again and again and again.”

Cooper, MB03, February 16, 1993

“They’re like all the other symbols of the Mystery Religion for the public, for the profane. They are the exoteric, and you may make of them what you wish.”

Cooper, MB03, February 16, 1993

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Mystery Babylon episode 3 about?

Episode 3 is the first of two parts on the Osiris and Isis myth. Cooper reads Plutarch’s account of the myth as retold in Manly P. Hall’s Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians and argues the story is an allegory concealing the doctrine of the ancient Mystery Schools. See the Mystery Schools topic hub for the surrounding episodes.

When did Mystery Babylon episode 3 air?

It aired Tuesday, February 16, 1993, on The Hour of the Time, broadcast over shortwave station WWCR. It was the fourth broadcast in the series, following the introductory Dawn of Man lecture and episodes 1 and 2.

What book does Cooper read from in episode 3?

Nearly the whole episode is read from Manly P. Hall’s Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians (1937), which itself summarizes Plutarch’s essay Isis and Osiris and quotes Synesius, Diodorus, and Iamblichus.

Where can I listen to Mystery Babylon episode 3?

The complete series audio is preserved on the Internet Archive. You can stream this episode at the archive.org Mystery Babylon collection. The series takes its name from Revelation 17; see Mystery Babylon in Revelation for that background.

Continue the Series

• Previous episode: MB02: Antiquities (Egyptian Magic)
• Next episode: MB04: Osiris and Isis, Part II
• All 42 episodes: Mystery Babylon complete episode guide
• Topic hub: Mystery Schools and Ancient Religion
• Every dated claim in the series: Mystery Babylon timeline
• Books Cooper read from: sources and bibliography