Episode Guide > MB04: Osiris and Isis, Part II

Episode Summary

Episode 4 aired on February 17, 1993, and completes the two-part reading on the Osiris myth begun in episode 3. Cooper continues through Manly P. Hall’s Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians, but where the previous night laid out the story itself, this episode is devoted to interpretation, and Cooper’s own commentary becomes far more aggressive in identifying the symbols with modern institutions.

The reading opens with Hall’s central equation: Osiris is the doctrine, Isis is the church. Osiris is the sun, Isis the moon shining by his reflected light, and the Egyptian institution of the Mysteries is the great Mother through whom initiates are born a second time. Cooper repeatedly pauses to remind listeners that he is reporting the beliefs of the Mystery Schools, not his own, and that the legend was never about real people or gods.

Typhon receives the most attention. In Hall’s text Typhon is the eternal adversary, ambition personified, the negative pole of creation, who strikes in the eighth month and murders the king when the sun enters Scorpio. Cooper layers his own identifications onto this: he asserts that in the modern doctrine of the schools Typhon stands for Christianity, which the societies regard as the usurper that destroyed their reign of truth. He also connects the text’s claim that Osiris was born in the seventh month to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July, claiming the founders, whom he calls Freemasons, chose the month deliberately.

Two long digressions interrupt the reading. In the first, Cooper gives his version of the origin of the Illuminati: Ignatius Loyola headed the Alumbrados in Spain, was arrested during the Inquisition, won an audience with the pope, and emerged as head of the new Jesuit Order; that order later trained Adam Weishaupt, the Ingolstadt professor who organized the Bavarian Illuminati and sent agents into the lodges of Europe. In the second, Cooper reinterprets the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff. The biblical Hiram, he notes, returned home to Tyre when the Temple of Solomon was finished, so the murdered Master Builder of the lodge ritual must stand for someone else. Cooper’s candidate is Jacques de Molay, the last Templar Grand Master. He stresses, here and elsewhere in the episode, that listeners who blame Jewish people for the conspiracy are mistaken, since in his account the membership cuts across every nation, race, and religion.

Cooper also offers his own origin story for the myth itself: the Mystery School was the priestly college of Nimrod at Babylon, scattered when Seth, son of Noah, defeated Nimrod and cut his body to pieces. The fourteen parts of Osiris, in this telling, are a memory of that event, and the missing part, the phallus, became the Lost Word of Freemasonry. From there the episode tours the obelisk as the symbol of that lost generative force, with Cooper listing the Washington Monument, the Vatican courtyard, Dealey Plaza, and Syon House in England as examples.

The closing stretch of Hall’s text reads the whole cycle as the program of a continuing institution. Isis is the widowed Mystery School searching through history for the lost doctrine, working through Sufis, Kabbalists, Eleusinian initiates, alchemists, and Rosicrucians. Horus is the collective body of perfected adepts, the widow’s sons of Masonic terminology, raised to avenge the destruction of wisdom. Cooper glosses the all-seeing eye of Horus as the eye on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, identifies the fish that swallowed the phallus with the Age of Pisces and Christianity, and claims the New Age mantra AUM conceals the three-lettered word of Freemasonry. He ends on the Great Work, which he defines as the elevation of man to the illumined man, numbered 666, and the establishment of a one-world totalitarian socialist utopia, the theme the next broadcast develops directly in episode 5.

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 that in the doctrine of the Mystery Schools, Osiris stands for the secret doctrine and Isis for the church or priesthood that transmits it.
• Cooper claims Typhon, the adversary of the myth, stands for Christianity in the modern teaching of the societies.
• Cooper claims the founders signed the Declaration of Independence in July because Osiris was said to be born in the seventh month.
• Cooper claims Ignatius Loyola led the Alumbrados before founding the Jesuit Order, and that the Jesuits later trained Adam Weishaupt.
• Cooper claims the Masonic figure Hiram Abiff actually represents Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar.
• Cooper claims the Osiris dismemberment legend preserves the memory of Seth, son of Noah, defeating Nimrod at Babylon and scattering his priesthood.
• Cooper claims the obelisk, including the Washington Monument and the Vatican courtyard obelisk, represents the lost phallus of Osiris and the Lost Word of Freemasonry.
• Cooper claims the term Illuminati simply means the collective body of the illumined and that the organization predates and outlived Adam Weishaupt.
• Cooper claims the Masonic headquarters in Washington stands exactly thirteen blocks from the White House.
• Cooper claims the New Age mantra AUM conceals the three-lettered word of Freemasonry.
• Cooper claims the theologians who developed the rapture doctrine were Freemasons who control the World Council of Churches.
• Cooper claims it is wrong to blame Jewish people for the conspiracy, asserting the membership spans all nations, races, and religions.

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 text Cooper reads throughout; see the sources and bibliography hub
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris (1st century)	Public domain	Scans on archive.org
The Book of the Dead (Budge translation, 1895)	Public domain	Scans on archive.org
G.S. Faber, The Origin of Pagan Idolatry (1816), quoted within Hall	Public domain	Scans on archive.org

From the Broadcast

“So, Isis is the Moon. Osiris is the Sun. And remember, remember what this means folks. He is the doctrine. She is the church.”

Cooper, MB04, February 17, 1993

“Lucifer through his agent Satan released man from the bonds of ignorance with the gift of intellect and through use of that intellect, man himself will become God.”

Cooper, MB04, February 17, 1993, describing what he presents as the doctrine of the Mystery Schools

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Mystery Babylon episode 4 about?

Episode 4 finishes the two-part reading on the Osiris and Isis myth. Hall’s interpretation casts Osiris as the secret doctrine and Isis as the institution that preserves it, and Cooper adds his own identifications, linking the symbols to Freemasonry, the Jesuits, and modern monuments. The Mystery Schools hub collects the related episodes.

When did Mystery Babylon episode 4 air?

It aired Wednesday, February 17, 1993, on The Hour of the Time over shortwave station WWCR, the night after Part I.

What book does Cooper read from in episode 4?

He continues reading Manly P. Hall’s Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians (1937), the same chapter on the Osirian cycle begun in episode 3.

Where can I listen to Mystery Babylon episode 4?

The full series audio is preserved at the archive.org Mystery Babylon collection. For the biblical passage behind the series title, see Mystery Babylon in Revelation.

Continue the Series

• Previous episode: MB03: Osiris and Isis, Part I
• Next episode: MB05: The New World Order and Freemasonry
• All 42 episodes: Mystery Babylon complete episode guide
• Topic hub: Mystery Schools and Ancient Religion
• Related hub: Freemasonry in the Mystery Babylon series
• Every dated claim in the series: Mystery Babylon timeline
• Books Cooper read from: sources and bibliography