3.2.10. The Veil of Isis

“I am all that has been and is and shall be; and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle.”

— Inscription on the Temple of Isis at Sais (as recorded by Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride)

I find there is a quiet awe that arises whenever we speak of veils — those delicate boundaries between what is seen and what remains hidden. In this chapter, we approach perhaps the most mysterious of these: the Veil of Isis. It is a symbol that calls together many strands of ancient wisdom, spanning Egyptian, Greek, Gnostic, and Buddhist thought. With tenderness and patience, I hope to illuminate why this veil is not merely poetic, but points to one of the most profound thresholds on the alchemical path.

I begin by picturing a veil in the most ordinary sense: a thin, semi-translucent cloth draped across the eyes. It dims and softens whatever lies beyond, but also shrouds the one who peers through it. This is how the Veil of Isis functions in our inner world. Isis — or Athena, as Plutarch sometimes names her — is more than a goddess; she is a living symbol of the divine feminine, the principle of Wisdom (Sophia), who is both captive and liberator of the mundane. In Kabbalah, she is Chokmah, radiant with understanding.

The Buddhist Map of This Veil

Bringing this into our Buddhist framework, we see that the Veil of Isis corresponds to the deeper architecture of perception. We have already explored how suffering arises because we compulsively construct conceptual realities — little thought-worlds we are then forced to inhabit. This habit is so ingrained that it seems the very definition of being alive.

Each act of cognition splits experience into two: a subject that perceives and an object that is perceived. This is not limited to sights and sounds (the six sensory and mental consciousnesses), but is crowned by a seventh — the mind that reflects on “what it all means to me.” Every ripple of perception casts a shadow, an illusory sense of reality that seems solid and autonomous. This is the shadow of phenomena.

The Reflection of Phenomena

Even when an arahant or a Bodhisattva on the Path of Seeing has stripped away the sense of personal self, they still witness the arising of these shadows. They see through their emptiness and so no longer chase after them with grasping or aversion. Yet the veil itself remains: they perceive the shadow, though no longer fooled by it. This is the domain of the Veil of Isis.

Why Isis? Why a Mother?

I suspect this entire tendency toward splitting experience into “subject and object” is evolutionarily primed by the primordial intimacy between mother and child. In those bonds, there is a jhānic concentration that is tender, self-sacrificing, forgiving, and vast — the very qualities we ascribe to Chokmah, Sophia, or the Daoist mother of the ten thousand things.

We encounter hints of this in Tibetan texts on the Bardo, which speak of “mother and child luminosities.” Liberation occurs when these luminosities reunite, transcending the ancient divide. Likewise, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is simply another face of Isis, reminding us that the profoundest wisdom is inextricably tied to unconditional love.

Table: Consciousness and the Veil

Beyond Thought, Beyond Samsāra

Until this point, we might have assumed that the pinnacle of being is to exist as a thinking, aware subject. But here the alchemical path turns sharply: to be a sentient, thinking being is still to dwell in Saṃsāra. Nirvāṇa is not another mode of thought; it is the absence of all compulsive cognition.

Thus the arahant or Bodhisattva on the Path of Seeing regards Saṃsāra with gentle detachment, recognising it as a conditioned display. They stand poised before the Veil of Isis — seeing it clearly, yet not yet able to lift it.

The Fall of the Veil

Only at the eighth bhūmi, the culmination of Citrinitas, does the Bodhisattva finally dissolve the last of the innate afflictive obstructions. Then, the Veil of Isis falls away entirely. The shadow of phenomena no longer arises. For the first time, they perceive reality directly: objects appear luminous and slightly translucent, precisely as our physics might predict.

What follows is a near-automatic process. The remaining cognitive obstructions — the faintest residues laid down by endless past experiences — begin to fade. Soon after, omniscience emerges. By this stage, there is scarcely need for instruction; the process unfolds inevitably.

And so we come to understand why no mortal has ever lifted the mantle of Isis: so long as we dwell in Saṃsāra, driven by the machinery of thought, we remain bound by this subtle veil. But the Bodhisattva who pierces through at Citrinitas is mortal no longer in the conventional sense. They stand on the threshold of becoming a tathāgata, transcending time, thought, and every last echo of suffering.

This text is excerpted from the upcoming book Citrinitas: A Course in Modern Alchemy. The complete volume will include additional study guides, glossaries, and extended teachings. Learn more about the book here.