Catherine Maignant

Fellowship of Isis

FELLOWSHIP OF ISIS TIMELINE

1963:  Lawrence, Olivia and Pamela Durdin-Robertson created the Huntington Castle Centre for Meditation and Study.

1966:  Robert Durdin-Robertson first ”experienced an influx of Goddess energy.”

1972:  Robert Durdin-Robertson felt called to the priesthood of Isis.

1975:  Robert Durdin-Robertson published The Religion of the Goddess and Olivia Robertson published The Call of Isis.

1976:  The Fellowship of Isis (FOI) was founded and the FOI manifesto was released.

1977:  The first Iseum (U.K.) was launched.

1986:  The College of Isis was created.

1989:  The first FOI World Convention was held in London. The Noble Order of Tara was founded.

1992:  The  Druid Clan of Dana was founded.

1993:  Olivia Robertson was invited to contribute to the second Parliament of World Religions in London.

1996:  The first central website (London) went online.

1999:  The FOI was restructured and decentralized; the Archpriesthood Union was founded.

2004:  The Circle of Brigid was created as an advisory board.

2009:  The Union Triad came into existence.

2011:  Cressida Pryor, the founders’ niece was appointed as Olivia Robertson’s successor.

2013 (November 14):  Olivia Robertson died. Cressida Pryor became overall Steward of the Fellowship of Isis.

2014:  The FOI was reorganized and recentralized. The Circle of Brigid became central to the organization as its executive board.

2017:  Centenary celebrations were held for Olivia Robertson.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

The Fellowship of Isis was founded by Lawrence Durdin-Robertson (1920-1994), his sister, Olivia (1917-2013), and his wife, Pamela (1923-1987). Lawrence and Olivia were descended from the first Lord Esmonde, who had Huntington castle (Clonegal, Co Carlow, Ireland) erected in 1625 on lands granted by King Charles II. [Image at right] Lawrence Durdin-Robertson inherited the castle in 1945, three years before being ordained in the Church of Ireland. By 1957, he had tendered his resignation as Anglican minister, put an end to parish life and returned to Clonegal as a result of his religious conversion. He had become a “universalist,” believing in “the necessity of the Divine Feminine to balance the Divine Masculine.” Indeed, reading the Hebrew Bible, he had been struck by the fact that the term for the Hebrew God was not masculine and singular, but feminine, and plural: in his eyes, “Matriarchal Polytheism was visible in the Scriptures” and “it was practiced, sometimes as the established religion, all through the 400 years or so of the period of Kings” (Durdin-Robertson 1975:6). In 1963, Lawrence, his sister and his wife launched the Huntington Castle Centre for Meditation and Study. However, it was not until 1976 that they founded the Fellowship of Isis, following Lawrence Durdin-Robertson’s spiritual evolution. In 1966, he had, for the first time, “experienced an influx of Goddess energy” (Circle of Isis website. n.d., “Biographies of the Founders”), which led him to start writing about the Great Mother in 1970. Two years later, he felt called to the priesthood of Isis, to whom he devoted the rest of his life.

His wife, Pamela (Barclay), who had a Quaker background, was a mystic, a medium, a psychic, who had a special relationship with animals and plants. She could communicate with nature spirits and believed in the harmony and connectedness between all forms of life. To her, “Trees, people and animals [were] in reality part of one’s self” (Circle of Isis website n.d. “Biographies of the Founders”). To the present day, FOI highly respects all components of nature and even enrolls animals in the “Animal Family of Isis.” Pamela seems in fact to have geared FOI towards the veneration of the Goddess as the embodiment of Mother Earth and towards what may be called deep ecology, if not shamanism.

Lawrence’s sister, Olivia, who died in 2013 at age ninety-six, was the last survivor of the trio. [Image at right] She was presented as “the guiding force of the Fellowship since its inception” (Circle of Isis website. n.d. “Biographies of the Founders). She admitted to having had psychic gifts and mystical experiences since she was a child (Robertson 1975: chapter 1). Before she developed her awareness of the Goddess, she explored other religious or philosophical traditions: Christianity, Hinduism, Sufism and Theosophy.

As she was doing so, “she realized that the Goddess embodied the Divine Chalice, the Holy Grail,” in other words, that she was “a Symbol of the Divine Feminine Principle” (Circle of Isis website. n.d, “Biographies of the Founders”). She claims that she received her initial spiritual awakening from Isis in 1946, but she pursued her career as a writer and an artist until she felt called to guide others along the mystical path she had discovered. She is the author of the numerous liturgical texts of the Fellowship of Isis, which are a free creation, based on what she took to be ancient myths and rituals. Despite her age, Lady Olivia remained an indefatigable traveler until the end of her life, and she carried on the mission she felt had been ascribed to her: to contribute to “the progress of every creature to rebirth in Eternal Spiritual Reality” (Robertson. n.d. Isis of Alchemy, Transformation through the Goddess, VI., “The Opal Pylon of Uranus”). In the same liturgical text, she conveyed what she believed to be a divine message, which aptly summarized her and FOI’s aims:

We, the custodians of earth whom you call Deities, exist. We love. We intervene. You can help us. Bring about partnership between me and women, humans and animals, and harmony for all nature. Through harmony you will awaken from this dream of life, and in the eternal Spirit World, learn to co-create with the deities.

This extract echoes the initial motivations of the founders, since the original FOI manifesto pledged the movement to “provide means of promoting a closer communion between the Goddess and each member,” so as “to help the Goddess actively in the manifestation of Her divine plan.” From the first, the movement also aimed at ‘the promotion of Love, Beauty and Abundance’ and sought “to develop knowledge and wisdom.” It proclaimed its reverence for all forms of life and its respect for religious toleration. The freedom of conscience of its members was one of the founding principles of FOI (Fellowship of Isis. n.d. “The Fellowship of Isis Manifesto,” Version 1). As a consequence, the movement is fundamentally multi-religious, multiracial and multicultural.

The first issue of Isian News provides an insight into the nature of the first community of members. These were forty-four in number, most of them connected to the Durdin-Robertsons, either as relatives or friends. Most of them were neo-pagans of various denominations, some were adepts of Celtic Christianity, one was a Satanist, another, a UFO believer. There were a few Occultists, Wiccans and a number of artists or intellectuals, among whom two architects and the director of a cultural center. Recruitment was international from the start, and all pioneers belonged to the educated and cultured upper stretches of society. If we are to believe more recent documents issued by FOI, recruits still have the same type of social background but have more widely spread religious affiliations, including Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Sufism, on top of all sorts of neo-pagan religiosities.

The Fellowship of Isis has considerably developed since 1976, slowly at first, then more and more rapidly from the 1990’s. Its progress was particularly linked to the affiliation of otherwise independent temples or Iseums and the creation of daughter societies such as the Noble Order of Tara (1989), the Druid Clan of Dana (1992) or the Circle of Brigid (2004). It is quite striking that FOI founders should have found it natural to associate the Egyptian religion of Isis and Celtic neo-paganism. Lawrence Durdin-Robertson considered himself a druid as well as a priest of Isis. To him, the Great Goddess being universal, she could be venerated as Dana or Brigid in Ireland. Since the base of the movement was Irish, it appeared essential to anchor it in the native Celtic tradition. In the religious area as in many others, globalization and localization seem complementary in today’s world. We may suggest that FOI introduced an Irish dimension in its message in order to embody universal myths in the native Irish culture. This is no doubt an illustration of what Michel Maffesol”(Maffesoli 2004:40). In his estimation, new communities seeking new roots in the Mother Earth imagine founding myths for themselves and in so doing go back to origins. What is particularly interesting in this perspective, is the success of FOI outside Ireland and the local adaptations of this principle. The FOI groups in France, two of which were launched in 2011, are based in Brittany, a region of western France that claims Celtic roots, and they are associated with two local Goddesses of Gaulish origin (Belisama and Ana). Integration into local cultures was also accomplished outside the Celtic world. Thus, for instance, does Goddess Eka-Eyen of Ibibio Land feature as a tutelary deity for FOI members in Nigeria (Fellowship of Isis Central website, Rev. Vincent Akpabio. n.d. “The Divine Goddess Eka-Eyen”).

Such an approach necessarily implied a form of decentralization, which was made possible thanks to the College of Isis, founded in 1986. The creation of the College of Isis was no doubt a turning point in the history of FOI. It was a teaching center that, through the channel of Lyceums, started to offer courses for the initiation of magi and the training of priests all over the world. Internationalization was under way.

In 1989, the first FOI World Convention was held in London. In 1993, Olivia Robertson was invited to talk at the Second Parliament of World religions in London, which the adepts understood as an international recognition of the movement. If Clonegal remained at the heart of the organization as the Foundation Centre, FOI decentralized as it internationalized. The Temple of Isis, established in June 1996, in Geyserville, California, was legally recognized as a church in California, another sign of international recognition. As a result of a re-organization in 1999, the custodians of the movement’s legacy and its future rulers became the members of the international Archpriesthood Union, a tiny minority of whom only were Irish (two out of thirty-two). FOI also boasted several officially authorized global and regional websites, most of them based in the United States. Besides, each Iseum, Lyceum or daughter organization had its own website, webpage or blog, which rapidly gave the impression of an intricate communications network.

The development of the Fellowship of Isis, chronologically corresponded to that of the Internet, which is openly acknowledged. Starting from forty-four members in 1976, the movement increased to an estimated 5,000 in fifty-three countries in the mid-1980s (Drury 1985:85) and 21,000 in ninety-six countries in the first years of the twenty-first century (Partridge 2004:300). In 2010, it boasted 27,000 members spread across 123 countries (Barrett 2011:328), but Cressida Pryor is much less specific today, as she considers the organization to number “over 20, 000 members.” Vivianne Crowley (2017:158), herself a Wiccan priestess and FOI activist in France, suggests that not only is membership “difficult to ascertain,” but that “it may well be static or declining,” as is the case for other movements that came into existence at the same period. Yet, if we are to believe the Circle of Isis, the number of Iseums has considerably increased since 2009, as it passed from 178 in twenty countries (Maignant 2011:266) to 280 in twenty-six countries in 2018. Of these, only three are Irish, while five are based in Italy or Nigeria, thirty-seven in the United Kingdom and a massive 160 in the United States (forty-four in California alone) (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Listings – Fellowship of Isis Iseums”). This is clearly no indication that the movement is in any way losing ground, but comparing these figures to those put forward by Olivia Robertson in 1992 is confusing. Indeed, she noted in the original Fellowship of Isis Handbook (1992:2) that at a time (April 21, 1992) when “members numbered 11,241 in seventy-three countries” there were “362 Iseums in 32 countries,” which is hardly consistent with the previous data. Besides, recent developments of the FOI (see below) make it more difficult than ever to make serious estimations, and active membership can only be guessed at.

All Iseums and Lyceums are intimately connected through what Olivia Robertson called “the rainbow network.” Later organizational evolutions, and in particular the creation of the Union Triad in 2009, sought to take into consideration the weight of international affiliates as well as to rationalize the structure of the network. At the same time, the all-Irish Circle of Brigid was launched as an advisory board in 2004, to maintain a strong Irish dimension at the heart of the FOI historic center.

While it was believed in the early 2010s that the center of operations might eventually shift from Ireland to the United States, things dramatically evolved after Olivia Robertson’s death in 2013, when her appointed successor, Cressida Pryor, ordained to the priesthood in 2009, decided to re-centralize the organization. This move doesn’t seem to have gone unopposed. Indeed, in January 2015, the Circle of Isis, based in Isis Oasis, Geyserville, California and the Star of Tara, a group of people claiming they were a legitimate advisory board of the Fellowship of Isis, issued a statement criticizing the new leadership and pledging themselves to honor, safeguard and continue the legacy of the three co-founders unchanged (Circle of Isis. n.d. “Statement of the Star of Tara”). The Statement was supported by a few FOI centers in the United States, but also by FOI Germany or FOI London. Cressida Pryor’s scathing response (Circle of Isis. n.d. “Statement of the Star of Tara”) exposed the signatories as a disloyal unethical breakaway group, that had already attempted to form a “breakaway FOI” in 2004, and was now taking the opportunity of Olivia Robertson’s death to exceed their rights again. She consequently denied the legitimacy of their case, regretted what she saw as a split and reiterated her positions. In particular she expressed concern with the increased role of the Circle of Brigid, which the Star of Tara contested and she justified in the following way:

This function was described by Olivia in 2011 when she envisioned a world centre to coordinate otherwise potentially disparate parts at the unifying address of the Foundation Centre at Clonegal. The FOI is worldwide with thousands of members and has a responsibility to operate through an executive board that is not cumbersome or moribund (Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. The Circle of Brigid webpage).

Both sides based their claims on statements by the late charismatic leader, but Cressida Pryor’s ultimate argument, focusing on family or dynastic considerations was a reminder of the historical importance of heredity in the group’s understanding of leadership. However, the contents of the Isis Oasis website in 2018 do not appear to indicate that the rebellious leaders have renounced their claims and submitted (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Cressida Pryor, Update”).

Whatever the difficulties, the Fellowship of Isis warmly paid tribute to Olivia Robertson on the 100th anniversary of her birth in 2017, as did the neopagan community in the British Isles and beyond. Olivia Robertson was indeed a frequent and estimated visitor to such places as Glastonbury. A series of celebrations were held in FOI centres across the world and Caroline Wise, the co-founder with Olivia Robertson of the Star of Elen, the British advisory board of FOI, published a book, entitled Olivia Robertson A Centenary Tribute (2017) to pay homage to the work accomplished by “one of British and Irish Paganism’s most enduring figures.”

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

FOI is hostile to any form of dogmatism and may be defined as syncretistic. Its primary ambition is to correct the mistakes of the great monotheist religions so as to restore the supposed harmony and universality of the origins, which were based on the belief in archaic archetypes. Truth is not to be found in rival theories of the Churches about these archetypes, but in the archetypes themselves. As part of their quest, the founders thus revived and reinvented the cult of the Great Mother Goddess on a syncretistic basis, as is quite commonplace in New Age religiosities. This, Olivia Robertson justified in the following way:

The name Isis was chosen because this Goddess was known as Isis Myrionymous, “of the ten thousand names,” and was regarded in Graeco-Roman culture as the Goddess, or even the God under whatever other name might be used. In the Golden Ass by Apuleius, Isis appears to the hero and declares she is “the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses which are” (Apuleius. n.d.:Chapter 17).

Clonegal Castle bears witness to such syncretism as its Isis Temple includes chapels dedicated to all sorts of Great Goddesses imported from extremely varied pantheons: Isis and Ishtar, of course, but also Dana and Brigid, Pallas Athena and Lakshmi among others. The temple also testifies to the Robertsons’ will to find parallels between different traditions; indeed, various altars dedicated to the signs of the zodiac exhibit connections between these signs and various goddesses or gods. [Image at right]

Taurus is associated to American Indian divinities, Cancer to Juno, Capricorn to Brigid or Aquarius to Bast, for instance. The non-sectarian approach of the Fellowship of Isis also implies the possibility of venerating gods and not only goddesses.

Another interesting expression of the deliberate will to make visible the symbiosis between traditions and historical periods is to be found in the costumes worn by priests and priestesses. Describing a wedding ritual that was filmed for television in 1976, Olivia remembers that her brother was dressed as a priest of Isis, the groom as a Chinese mandarin, the bride as an eighteenth century lady. The bard, for his part, wore medieval clothes adorned with a Celtic motif (Robertson 1976). The taste for exotic disguise also points at the desire to identify with several others ‘’I’ is always somebody else. He is always elsewhere,” French sociologist Michel Maffesoli writes, talking about postmodern religious trends in general. “I” is a perpetual nomad, who enjoys wearing different masks as he explores “‘the plurality of worlds in the social space of polyculturalism” embodied in the polytheism of values. Absolute relativism is a must (Maffesoli 2004:169-70).

The framework is therefore no longer that of a classic religion in which the process of handing-down a coherent faith from generation to generation is central to the feeling of authenticity and truth that is conveyed. The Christian tradition has it that knowledge and its transmission are intimately connected with faith. In his Epistle to Romans, St Paul wrote:

How can [people] believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (…) Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ’ (Romans, 10:14).

Consequently, the mediation of priests or preachers is essential, hence the Church’s hostility to the translation of the Bible or its initial fear of the printing press during the Renaissance. These were resented as threats because they cast doubt on the necessity of mediation. They were instruments of freedom and emancipation as they modified the way knowledge was transmitted and implicitly allowed a personal and even critical approach of the contents of the faith. The Internet can be interpreted as an even more radical revolution since it frees individuals from all constraints, including everyday realities. Cyber-religiosities claim pluralism, the right to choose, the right to invent one’s religion. The message is everywhere that it is wrong to impose any form of dogma. FOI adepts can thus venerate any goddess or god they wish, and are encouraged to do so. “All goddesses and all pantheons are honoured there” one reads on the webpage of the Crossroads Lyceum of the College of Isis, as the great Goddess is “the Goddess of the Crossroads” (Crossroads Lyceum website n.d. “Introduction).

The ambition of FOI followers is not so much to venerate a given goddess as to celebrate life, symbolized by the ankh, Isis’ attribute. They seek rebirth in the one True Life and the one True Reality, which are invisible in the everyday life: To them, “the word ‘reality’ ironically relates to transient physical perception, rather than to underlying spiritual truth” (Robertson n.d. Sphinx, Goddess Myths and Mysteries, “Introduction”). The primary target of the Fellowship of Isis is to allow the individual to experience an alchemical transmutation, which gives access to a new awareness of reality through the channel of identification and communion with the divinity. The theorists of the movement claim that “the Fellowship of Isis provides a means of communication between the goddess and each individual member.” Whether they work as solitaries or as part of a specific centre, all are joined in the ever-expanding process of spiritual awareness (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website, Introduction to the Fellowship of Isis. n.d. “Harmony for the Earth and All Beings”). The effect of this process is defined as follows:

It may be understood as the alchemical transmutation of the soul, leaving the domain of air and sun and sinking through the Four Basic Elements. Air and Fire transmute to earth and water: spirit and thought gain knowledge of the practical sciences, the ability to feel and use the passions. This accomplished, totality of consciousness is experienced, and the soul, bringing with it understanding born from experience, ascends to its former state, in glory (Robertson. 1977. Rite of Rebirth of the Fellowship of Isis).

In the eyes of Michel Maffesoli (2004:146), “alchemy, mystery [and] collective effervescence,” feature as alternatives or answers to the inadequacies of modern thinking. The individual can then invent a new identity or dream he is born to a new life by identifying to or communicating with an archetypal figure. By so doing, FOI members become aware of their own divine nature, since all children of the Goddess are divine by essence. “We are not clones of the deities,” Olivia Robertson writes (2003) “but individual rational feeling beings, equal in essence to the Divine All.”  When undergoing a spiritual experience, she notes in a different passage, “We learn to escape from the unreal world of transient time and place into immortal reality, from boredom, pain and fear of death into realisation of our divinity” (Robertson. n.d. Psyche, Magical Journeys of the Goddess – Magical Star Journeys, “Introduction”).

As is often the case with new religious movements on the Internet, individuals are called to bear witness to their spiritual journeys. A member who calls himself Tigr Lotus SpiritBear thus explains that he felt “he was swimming below the waves” and once he was “at one with [his] ancestors, [his] Gods and [his] guardian spirits,” he learnt “to not forget what the Truth is” and “to hold onto [his] beliefs.” Throughout his vision, he felt he was home, “Where life began” (Crossroads Lyceum website, n.d. Rite of Abundance – Experiences, Tigr Lotus SpiritBear”). The personal myth is written down to be transmitted to the world as a witness’s testimony. Honestly told private experience matters much more than dogma. Through the channel of the Internet, the personal myth is integrated into an age-old universal myth, which gives the individual a privileged access to the personal spiritual path that will allow him to find his place in the cosmos. According to theologian André Beauchamp, this is an important characteristic of the postmodern age. Testimonies, he says are what matters; sincerity is more important than truth and appearances are more important than knowledge (Beauchamp 2001:18). Needless to say, the theorists of the transpersonal movement, who initiated this spiritual approach, disagree. In their opinion, myth is metaphor. According to Jean Bolen, for instance, “It’s the metaphor that’s truly empowering for people. It allows us to see our ordinary lives from different perspectives, to get an intuitive sense of who we are and what is important to us” (1985, quoted by Drury 1999:57). Myths, she thinks, are the bridge to the collective unconscious. To the members of the Fellowship of Isis, “as every great myth carries many meanings related to consciousness” (Robertson 2011, Rite of Rebirth of the Fellowship of Isis, “Introduction”), becoming part of the myth leads to rebirth in a truer life beyond our world of appearances.

For this reason, FOI may be said to contribute to the “new humanity” that is supposed to have emerged towards the middle of the twentieth century. This “tidal wave of new humanity,” is now presented as having the ability to change the world: “This breakthrough of cosmic consciousness was cumulative,” Lady Olivia argued:

A few enthusiasts in the fifties: hundreds in the sixties: thousands in the seventies: millions in the eighties. A dying Homo Sapiens doomed to planetary extinction, suddenly was faced with salvation through its successor (Robertson n.d. Sybil, Oracles of the Goddess, “Introduction”).

Consequently, the members of the Fellowship are called upon to take part in the great Goddess’s creative or re-creative mission by helping her save the planet. A certain Grainne, telling of her mystical experience of Isis, explains that she had a vision of the Goddess “floating in outer space with Her arms/wings wrapped around the planet,” then “opening and flapping them to clear the Earth of the poisons that pollute it” (Crossroad Lyceum website n.d. “Creation of a Shrine – Experiences, Grainne”). Ecology stands at the heart of FOI’s preoccupations in the framework of the New Age belief in the advent of the Age of Aquarius, which will bring peace and love to the world after the violent Age of Pisces. The new humanity is currently going through a transition period, one that will witness the passage from the mode of the God to the mode of the Goddess. “We have the honor of being incarnate at the time of the Great Change,” Olivia Robertson said, “when we move from one mode to another. A new humanity is being born, born through the love and strivings of the old humanity” (Robertson n.d. Melusina, Life Centres of the Goddess – Awakening the Psychic Centres, “Introduction”). The time has come “to co-create with the deities,” so as to protect the earth (Robertson n.d. Psyche, Magical Journeys of the Goddess – Magical Star Journeys, “Introduction”).

Even though FOI shares many features with most New Religious Movements, its anti-dogmatism and rejection of inherited religious constraints must be qualified. Comparing it to the cyber-neo-druidic movement Ar nDraiocht Féin, for instance, it is clear that the leaders of the Fellowship have a different approach to their archaic models. Answering the question: “Are Neo-pagan Druids ‘Real’ Druids? ADF answers:

Historically, there are no ‘real’ druids left. The Paleopagan Druids were wiped out centuries ago and only fragments of their traditions survived, despite the claims of some would-be con artists.

Spiritually, we believe that we are following the paths once trod by our namesakes and that no other name is nobler and suited to our modern intentions – and that makes us real as far as we are concerned (Neopagan.net website n.d.)

On the contrary, Olivia Robertson, who also contributed to the creation of the neo-druidic group of the Druid Clan of Dana in 1994, insisted that she had revived and adapted authentic ancient traditions. In The Fellowship of Isis Handbook (Robertson 1992), she even went so far as to claim that, far from having created their religion, she and her brother inherited the priesthood of Isis.

In the same way, FOI does not share ADF’s approach to priesthood. The archdruid of ADF write:

The only dogma promulgated by the group so far has been the ‘Doctrine of Archdruidic Fallibility’, requiring the members of ADF to accept that their archdruid makes mistakes – not a problem with their first one (myself) (Bonewits 1983).

By contrast, the FOI priesthood, which holds a central position in the structure of organization, believe they have access to Truth under the guidance of their charismatic leader or guru, who embodies the will of the Great Goddess. As in some established religions, the mediation of the priest is necessary to reach higher levels of consciousness, even if each adept may have his own intimate spiritual experiences of the deities.

There clearly is a mix of old and new in all this. The blend is innovating, but the founders of theFellowship of Isis have obviously drawn their inspiration from pre-existing similar movements. [Image at right] It appears to be one of the contemporary embodiments of the religion of Isis, which has regularly been revived, in different contexts, since the Antiquity. The cult of the Great Mother thus appealed to the Graeco-Roman societies before becoming one of the most resistant protections against the expansion of Christianity in the Early Middle-Ages. It was again revived in medieval times, during the Renaissance, and in the sixteenth century, when the theosophical and anthroposophical theories were first elaborated. Both Lawrence and Olivia Robertson studied theosophy when they were young, and their theses are most certainly derived from it, even if no reference is ever made to the founding text of Isis Unveiled, published by Helena Blavatsky in 1877. Parallels are many. Both Blavatsky’s and FOI’s theories reject established religions and scientific constructs. Both establish correlations between the esoteric tradition of Egyptian origin and Eastern philosophies. Both insist on the similarities between Christianity and other traditions, in particular by identifying Isis with the Virgin Mary, the mothers of two saviours, Horus and Jesus. Other common points include the choice of the ankh as their emblem, the taste for occultism and mediumity, the resort to magic to invoke the deity, the belief in reincarnation and in the distinction between the “inner” and “outer” man. Both finally proceed to the unveiling of Isis, understood as the symbol of life and truth. As all esoteric traditions of the same type, both appear to be fabrications based on the ancient religion of Egypt.

Such movements qualify as illustrations of what Swiss egyptologist Erik Hornung (1999) calls Egyptosophy, which is characterized by the desire to revive “an imaginary Egypt, perceived as the deepest source of occult knowledge.” This Egypt is eternal and a-historical. It inspires an intuitive and irrational esoteric thinking aiming at universal harmony and unity based on assumed links between all elements of nature. Egyptosophy is founded on mystery and magic, and its initiates believe they can reach higher levels of consciousness than ordinary people (Hornung 1999:13-14). The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, reporting in 2003, analysed the metaphysical component of New Age spiritualities as a new form of gnosis bto ased on esoteric and theosophical roots. It also underlined its psychological dimension, which proceeds from “the encounter between esoteric culture and psychology.” New Age, the report notes “thus becomes an experience of personal psycho-spiritual transformation, seen as analogous religious experience” (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue 2003:1-3). These comments no doubt apply to Egyptosophy. Taguieff (2000:210) and Introvigne (2000:265-67) also insist on the extra-religious nature of the New Age quest for the sacred and its deliberate use of transgressive methods, such as shamanism, magic, esoteric practices, which have always been condemned by Christianity, to achieve their aims.

The central question, however, is not so much the origins of such movements as the reason why they are so popular today. The expansion of the Fellowship of Isis is echoed by the success of comparable groups across the world. Comparing the different faces of reinvented Egypt in historical perspective, Hornung argues that each new generation of worshipers creates an Egypt of its own, which mirrors the anxieties, the fears and the hopes of its day and age (Hornung 1999, 2001:211). The contemporary avatar of the religion of Isis, of which FOI is a particularly interesting example, is connected to the prominent ecological preoccupations of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As was noted previously, the Great Goddess is essentially venerated as Mother Earth, which was not at all the case of Blavatsky’s Isis. In the same way, the Fellowship’s ideal of transparency, connected with the medium of the internet, identifies it as a product of the society of information and communication, far removed from traditional gnostic religions based on mystery and secret initiations.

Yet, what strikes the observer most about the movement may be its distinctively late modern perception of time and space, which appears to have a fundamental impact on the making of individual as well as collective identities. The timeframe is that of the modern age, since nineteenth century theosophy is never far behind, but in its ultra- (or hyper-) modern stage (“postmodern” being applicable only in its recent acceptations, which admit the existence of a continuity between modernity and post-modernity).

In this framework, space is reinterpreted in such a way as to comprise much more than the local and the global. The reference space is the cosmos, which explains why FOI appeals to UFO believers, especially those who think that the origin of the human race is to be found in the stars. The belief in cosmic consciousness implies the postulate that invisible spheres exist, and that they are more real than the tangible space of the visible world. As a consequence, the beings who inhabit these mysterious territories are no longer strangers but relatives or friends. In the oracle of the Goddess Dana, the deity thus says: “Naught is alien when all is known and loved. You are kin to all beings in the cosmos and all are kin to Me” (Robertson n.d. Oracle of the Goddess Dana, Rite of Dana – Druid Initiation, the Druid Clan of Dana).

To conclude, we might go as far as to suggest that the primary target of rituals is to ensure that deities, whatever their nature, become indistinguishable from the individual who communes with them. His/her identity is supposedly abolished as a result of the process, and he/she acquires a transcendental dimension. He/she experiences fusion with the absolute, which induces the abolition of time and space. Such experiments, Lady Olivia [Image at right] suggests, only seem strange to those who are unable to perceive the true reality of things. The only real strangeness is concealed in the everyday life of non-initiates. The territory that is unfamiliar and foreign to the New Humanity is the common ordinary world, where conformity and uninspired or unenlightened perceptions reign supreme. Only through communion with cosmic consciousness or anima mundi, can an individual have access to true life, which implies giving up his personal identity to be allowed to exist. In a passage of the rite of initiation, the priest thus invokes the Goddess in the following manner:

“Come to us, Holy Light, Divine Spirit. (…) Without Thee we are lifeless, devoid of true being. We exist in a transient world of appearances, entrapped in delusions (…)”.

And the oracle answers:

All spiritual and physical fires, whether animating the atom, the earth, the sun or the galaxies, emanate from My Eternal Flame. This is beyond both time and space. My Light is expressed individually through each creature, every atom: yet all are One in Me. Share your Light and Love with all and you will gain all (Robertson n.d. College of Isis Manual).

In this situation, the devotee no longer has an individualized life. His very existence relies on his connection to others since the overall target is to merge into what may be considered a kind of generic self as defined by Maffesoli (2004:129). The other makes the individual accede to real life. If the Isis wedding ritual thus reads “To find the Other is to find Oneself,“ any relationship “makes an additional knot in the tapestry of life” and helps one to reach “the eternal Sphere of Archetypes” (Robertson. n.d. The Isis Wedding Rite – the Eternal Knot, “Introduction”). Neither life, nor identity are given or inherited. They result from a deliberate initiative that finds its expression outside the family or traditional education. When the initiate merges into cosmic consciousness through communion with the Goddess, identity becomes plural and a new form of holism is born. In this sphere, the adept bears a new name of his/her own choosing, selects the Goddess with whom he/she wishes to identify and merges with the universal soul of his/her own volition. This late modern holism thus paradoxically rests on ultra-individualism. Old and new forms of humanism are at one, while the past, present and future merge into an eternal present. Rebirth is believed to induce a return to the original matrix, which allows FOI members to remember so as better to anticipate.

The New Humanity, which is growing from old ‘Homo Sapiens’, is developing a cosmic consciousness that allows full recall of the past, not as memory but as living reality. Also the same applies to the future: such people ‘remember the future’. How is this achieved? The secret is to travel through the spokes of the wheel of the spiral of Time and Space into the very hub itself. Here the soul in this divine awareness not only may relive the past of one’s existence, but have total recall of other lives through past cycles of Time and Space. It is a misnomer to use the word memory for such cosmic recall. Experience of past lives is as total, as real as present existence (Robertson. n.d. Panthea, Initiations and Festivals of the Goddess – Rites of Passage and Seasonal Ceremonies, “Introduction”).

Then, all norms and codes are inverted: “everything seems upside down. Sleeping brings about an awakened awareness,” Olivia Robertson commented, “so-called wakening seems now like a dull sleep. Values are different; new knowledge pours in without sanction from the rational mind” (Robertson. n.d. Rite of Rebirth of the Fellowship of Isis, “Introduction”). In that altered state of consciousness the New Humanity feels at home.

RITUALS/PRACTICES

Religious practice is highly ritualized. Rites are considered a key to communion with the goddess: “Ritual provides a means of uniting the physical with the psychic realm. As we participate in a Rite,” Lady Olivia wrote, “we find ourselves in connection with beautiful symbols that speak to us in the mysterious language of our souls” (Robertson n.d. The Isis Wedding Rite, “Introduction”). There are four main rites: baptism and naming, initiation, rebirth or experience of other spheres, and the funeral ceremony, ‘when the soul enters a new spiral of life through the matrix’ (Robertson. n.d. Panthea, Initiations and Festivals of the Goddess –Rites of passage and Seasonal Ceremonies, “Introduction”). However there are many others, among which eight are associated to seasonal festivals. Let us note, among others, a wedding rite, an ordination rite, an accolade rite, and a rite for solo worship. The latter is inspired by African goddesses Ngame and Isis, and it includes an oracle, prayers favouring vitality, visionary experiences and trances. Ceremonies are generally conducted by priests or priestesses, but may be led by ordinary members, ‘especially mothers and fathers to introduce ‘children of Isis’’ (Robertson 1992).

As stated above, Olivia Rjobertson composed all liturgical texts: twenty-two books or booklets of rituals are listed and can be accessed on the FOI website. Eight more ‘entry and consecration rites’ are added to the initial list. They are used for the consecration of adepts, Archdruid/esses, Dames or Knights, Hierophants, or Priest/Priestess Alchemists, but also for the Ordination of priests/priestesses. The two entry rites concern Companions of the Druid Clan of Dana and the Noble Order of Tara (Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. Liturgy List in Alphabetical Order).

Olivia Robertson also issued oracles and guided meditations. The transcript of a few of those organized in the United States is accessible on the Fellowship of Isis Central Website (Robertson 2009) as are a few oracles including an invocation and oracle of a series of goddesses (Airmed 2007; Niamh 2008;  Morgan 2010). Besides the above mentioned elaborate rituals, a small body of simple prayers for daily use is also accessible on the FOI website and a “prayer tree” was added to the “Healing Chapel” of the Temple of Isis at Clonegal castle for visitors and members far away to make or send their prayer requests and thus add ribbons to the tree as in the Celtic Irish tradition.

In a conversation transcribed on the Circle of Isis’ Central website, Olivia Robertson explained how she received her inspiration from Isis to compose the liturgical texts, sitting alone in her drawing room “with no-one else present besides Deity.” She also specified the sources she used, generally texts selected from the corpus of great religions and spiritual traditions of the world or writings by modern mystics:

I’ve had a wide education, and I do know the great religious writings. I use the Bhagavad Gita – the Ages of Brahma, the Incarnations of Vishnu. I have included passages from Homer, Plato, from African religions, ancient Egyptian writings, Sumeria –  the Descent of Ishtar. I have used the writings of St. Germaine and modern works by visonaries like AE and Yeats.  Usually it’s something old like the Irish epic “Lebor Gabala Erenn”, the Finnish saga “Kalevala”, or works by classical authors, Ovid, Pausanius or Hesiod. I like to use myths of the stars and planets.

Olivia Robertson further explains that “the time has come when Isis, the rainbow messenger, is forming a pattern of beauty from many faiths,” so that no religion may “dominate this earth and force rival faiths to be regarded as heresies.”

In the same document, in which are included quotes from the introduction to the book of rituals entitled Dea, Rites and Mysteries of the Goddess (Robertson n.d. Fellowship of Isis Online Liturgy), the co-founder of the Fellowship of Isis justifies the addition of colourful descriptions of elaborate “robes and headdresses” associated with rituals by the necessity to stimulate attendants’ or readers’ imagination, which helps the soul visualize “the energies being invoked.”

If the rituals are now all available online, they were from the start published in the form of booklets released by Cesara Publications (Robertson 1976 The Isis Wedding Rite; Robertson 1977 Ordination of a Priestess; Robertson 1977 Rite of Rebirth). Today the liturgy of the Fellowship of Isis is both available online and in book form, including the very last of Olivia’s works, Athena: Arcadian Awakening, published in November 2017. This book (144 pages) contains eleven rites of FOI and fifteen illustrations by Olivia Robertson, whose work as an artist was an important part of her contribution to the Fellowship of Isis. Its author meant it to deal with ”spiritual awakening through the arts,” in a multicultural and multi-religious perspective (Athena: Arcadian Awakening, 1; Magoland: Visions, “Introduction”). The outline of Alchemical Rite 12 that Olivia Robertson left unfinished was meant to be a mystery play, “inducing people all over the world to write their own story in their own language and culture. ” The Mystery is universal: such was her last message to the world.

On reading the extremely hefty liturgical and organizational contents of the Fellowship’s websites, one gets the feeling that Olivia and Lawrence Durdin-Robertson wished, from the start, to launch a true religion that they believed would survive them. The Fellowship of Isis actually appears to have higher ambitions than most of the vague alternative religiosities that rely on the Internet for their expansion, even if it is linked to some, particularly in the Celtic neo-pagan sphere. It should be clear, however, that FOI members do not consider themselves as neo-pagans but as members of a pagan religion venerating pagan gods.

Unlike many cyber-spiritualities, FOI also has a physical existence. Temples do exist; Lady Olivia traveled a lot and regular meetings occurred between members of the priesthood in various places across the planet. The many photographs and recordings on the website prove it. One could actually argue that there is an element of hyper-realism as defined by Baudrillard in these documents, as they make the whole construct appear more real than real even though places and people are obviously disconnected from everyday realities. The founders and the adepts, in their strange clothes, smiling away in front of their castle or their American Egyptian temples, look like a tribe apart, an interesting case in the perspective of Michel Maffesoli’s analysis of contemporary neo-tribalism. Yet, as in the case of most cyber-communities, meeting is not always possible, and it is a weakness of such movements. Indeed, the only common denominator between the members of loosely connected postmodern tribes, as sociologist Michel Maffesoli calls them, may indeed very well be their perception of a “sense of place,” which makes them adopt a territory (in this case Clonegal Castle or the other FOI centres) as part of their cultural and religious identity. The possibility of social connection rests on the existence of a common territory, he says. The territory thus binds together the members of a community (Maffesoli 2003:70-76).

Even if members are scattered around the world, the territory of the tribe does exist, however virtual it may appear to isolated members. Nevertheless, when physical meeting is impossible, it is essential to maintain a virtual link either through the Internet or through telepathy. Telepathy is an extremely important medium of communication for the initiates, who are invited to develop their intuition, their imagination and their aptitude to forget themselves so as to reach the upper spheres, where the Goddess will come to them. It is also used to perform key rituals: the daily “ceremonies of attunement.” Every morning and evening from 6:30 to 8:30 GMT, the members are invited to pray and connect with the group if they feel the need to do so. They all know that ceremonies are held in all centres throughout the world at that time and that they can commune with the Fellowship either in a group or alone. The efficacy of telepathy is not questioned, and it does play a part in the constitution of a feeling of unity and harmony. In the same way, rites, Olivia Robertson claims, lead to immediate and easily perceptible results, contrary to prayers in more classic religions such as Christianity, in which God’s response is always delayed. This specificity is put forward to justify the whole construct and confirm that, even though non-dogmatic, this movement leads to ultimate truth:

The rites in this liturgy are not subjective, though they have subjective elements. The powers described have been experienced, the visions seen, the effects gained through causes put into operation. And here we have the great division between those who have experienced magic through clairvoyance, clairaudience, levitation, telekinesis, mystical awakening –one or any of these- and those who have not. ‘Those who know’ cannot prove, cannot explain, cannot convince. All they can do is to provide a rainbow bridge whereby those who long for magical experience may attain some of this alchemical gold, obtained through transmutation of elements from one sphere to another (Robertson. n.d. Urania, Ceremonial Magic of the Goddess Fellowship of Isis Liturgy, “Introduction”).

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

The Fellowship of Isis is a non-profit organization, and accessible sources are totally silent as concerns the funding of its activities. It is specified in the FOI Manifesto that membership is free, that provision being only briefly removed from the document in the early 1990s. Becoming a member is simple as anyone aged eighteen or older can enroll. The applicant is only requested to submit very limited enrollment information and approve the principles of the FOI Manifesto (Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. FOI Enrollment).

According to the Manifesto, “the Fellowship is organized on a democratic basis. All members have equal privileges within it, whether as a single member or part of an Iseum or Lyceum.” However, its structure as defined by Olivia Robertson was extremely complex and a rigid hierarchy did exist when it came to structures, daughter organizations, levels of initiation and priesthood. In 2009, the structure of leadership reached its point of completion with the creation of the Fellowship of Isis Union Triad, comprised of three Unions: the Archpriesthood Union (FOI priesthood, created in 1999), The Archdruid Union (Druid Clan of Dana) and Grand Commander Union (Noble Order of Tara). The Triad was organized on an international basis, and its leaders were the numerous dignitaries of the three orders. All of them were granted elaborate titles and rights. They also became the “guardians  and custodians of the legacy of the Fellowship of Isis” (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis  Central website homepage). Olivia Robertson explained: “We have a triad of centres which embody the 3 primal Ethics listed in the Manifesto –Love, Beauty and Truth. These are shown forth through the Priesthood, the Druid Clan of Dana and the Circle of Tara” (Fellowship of Isis website n.d. “The Foundation Union Triad”).

Following Lady Olivia’s death, Cressida Pryor commented that “her huge well of creativity and love of drama fostered the development of these colourful and elaborate structures.” The new Steward’s fear was that “this complexity imbued with heraldic and Masonic overtones” might flatter egos. She thus set herself the task to simplify the structure and do away with the “complex hierarchical structures of “adepti,” the arch-priessthood, the grand orders with Knights and Dames Commanders” (Pryor 2014, “Reflections by Cressida Pryor, Lugnasad 2014”). Today, information provided on the Foundation Union Triad page of the FOI website is included “for historical purposes only” since “as of Samhain 2014 the Foundation Union Triad was dissolved” and “there are no longer any authorized Unions: Archpriesthood, Archdruid or Grand Commander.” This “radical decision” was justified by Cressida Pryor’s belief that these unions were “no longer relevant or appropriate.” And she went on to say:

How can some fellow member be a ‘grand commander’ over and above another? No, they served a purpose when created by Olivia a while back but the need for them has passed. We now stand shoulder to shoulder as companions along this divine Goddess path and are able to celebrate and serve as equals (Pryor. n.d.’‘Reflections by Cressida Pryor, Samhain 2014″).

In the same way, in the eyes of the new leader, the training of priests needed to be modernized and rationalized. A specific sub-committee of the Circle of Brigid was appointed to work on this question. In the days of Olivia Robertson, priesthood certainly rested on vocation and training, but other elements were taken into consideration. In the “Priesthood of Isis” section of The Fellowship of Isis Handbook, Olivia Robertson thus wrote: “Vocation is received from the Deities. Reincarnation brings memories of previous ministry. Initiation through an established priesthood is given through Rite or touch. Heredity gives family priesthood.”

The notion of heredity deserves further comment. Versions 2 to 6 (1992-1999) of the “Fellowship of Isis Manifesto” included the following sentence: “The Fellowship of Isis Priesthood is derived from an hereditary line of the Robertsons from Ancient Egypt” (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. “Fellowship of Isis Manifesto, Versions 1-6”). In The Fellowship of Isis Handbook (Robertson 1992), Olivia Robertson actually claimed that, far from having created their religion, she and her brother had inherited the priesthood of Isis. Referring to the medieval tradition of the Lebor Gabala Erenn, about the link between Egypt and Ireland, she stated that “the priestly line comes to Lawrence and Olivia Robertson from the Egyptian princess Scota (…), the daughter of the Pharaoh Cincris,” who was the hereditary daughter of Isis and Osiris. At one stage, Scota left Egypt and became queen of Scotland, which was named after her. The Gaelic race was founded by her son, Goadhal or Gaelglas. As Baron Robertson of Strathcloth, and thus related to the Saint Leger family according to Boethius’s History and Chronicle of Scotland (1540), Lawrence Durdin Robertson claimed descent from Scota in direct line. In this manner, not only did he no longer appear as the heir of an Anglo-Irish family who settled in Ireland in the seventeenth century but he embodied the connection between Egyptian and Celtic (hence druidic) cultures.

Since The Handbook insisted that heredity only granted family priesthood, those who wished to become priests or priestesses had to undergo a very strict training and rite of ordination through touch and oil. This was how hereditary priesthood was passed down to followers, as Olivia Robertson appeared very much concerned with transmission. She saw herself and her brother as the true heirs of Isis who had revived the College of Isis after a break of 1,500 years in order to perpetuate archaic beliefs that stood at the origin of absolute truth. Contrary to the Christian model, faith had not been handed down from generation to generation but through lineage. This may explain why Olivia Robertson appointed Cressida Pryor, her older sister Barbara (Marlborough) Pryor ’s daughter, as her successor. In the same way, and whatever her democratic ideals, the new leader of FOI has announced that the next Steward of the organization would be her cousin Pamela, and the Durdin-Robertsons, some of whom still live at Huntington Clonegal castle, maintain their hold on the Fellowship.

Yet the question of heredity is not mentioned in the current official version of the “Manifesto” as published on the website of FOI Foundation Centre, which only states that “Magi degrees may be conferred through Lyceums and the College” and stresses equality between members, who “are not subject to anyone.”

By contrast the Circle of Isis “breakaway” website has retained an older version of the “Manifesto,” in which the decentralized structure instituted in the early years of the twenty-first century remains: “The Archpriesthood Union of the FOI Priesthood, together with the Archdruid Union of the Druid Clan of Dana and the Grand Commander Union of the Noble Order of Tara (FOI Union Triad) are guardians to inspire the ideals of the Fellowship of Isis” (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis Central website. n.d. “Fellowship of Isis Manifesto”).

Whether or not one abides by the official regulations of the Fellowship of Isis, the structure of FOI still appears extremely hierarchical to the non-initiate, as the Magi degree system of the College of Isis still provides for thirty-three degrees, the last one “relating to spontaneous mystical awakening and kept as a private invitation.” Different seemingly hierarchical titles have also survived as Cressida Pryor has allowed all dignitaries to keep the titles bestowed on them by the late Lady Olivia (Pryor 2014, “Letter from Cressida Pryor”). Yet the recently updated (2014) ”Code of Ethics” explains that “Titles are merely descriptions of the type if work, service and responsibility undertaken within the FOI. (…) All members of the FOI, regardless of Titles or Degrees are equal” (Fellowship of Isis website n.d. “Code of Ethics”).

In spite of the efforts that have been made since 2014 to reorganize the Fellowship of Isis, the overall structure of the organization remains somewhat complex, as are the links between its different branches. The heart of the FOI is the Foundation Centre at Huntington Castle in Ireland and the Circle of Brigid, which comprises eight members, all Irish, among whom Cressida Pryor, who chairs its meetings. The group is the executive board of the organization. It is also in charge of “registering new FOI centers and titles,” and for “hosting the seasonal festivals at the Foundation Center Temple” (Fellowship of Isis. n.d. “Circle of Brigid webpage”). Among the listed associated FOI societies are the College of Isis, that includes Lyceums and supervises training, and the Spiral of the Adepti, or “Iseums of the Sacred Spiral,” of which Olivia Robertson said: ‘Iseums are not enclosed circles keeping members in and outsiders out; they are spirals reaching out to the cosmos” (Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. “Iseums of the Sacred Spiral webpage”). Other societies are the already mentioned FOI Priesthood, the Druid Clan of Dana (organized in groves and headed by Archdruids/Archdruidesses) and the Noble Order of Tara (an Order of Chivalry organized into Chapters and headed by a Grand Dame- or Grand Knight- Commander). The last of the associated groups is the Muses Symposium, created by Olivia Robertson in 2007 as a society of artists meant to “create a rainbow Bridge of Harmony from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, from brightest White to deepest indigo” (Fellowship of Isis website, n.d. “Muses Symposium webpage”).

To conclude, it may be useful to highlight the fact that the leaders of the movement, who maintain that they are adepts of a true religion and not of a vague religiosity, have clearly relied on the web to set up an internationally structured church since the 1990s. We may wonder that the self-proclaimed heirs of a mystery religion, requiring secret initiation in various phases, should provide online access to so many of their rites and liturgical documents. Yet the Internet is presented as the key to faith and worship. In the online booklet entitled Maya, Goddess Rites for Solo Use, Olivia Robertson wrote that “although apparently alone, the Devotee becomes more and more part of that rainbow network which brings Heaven on earth”” (Robertson n.d.). In the same way, it may seem paradoxical that FOI should place so much emphasis on a means of communication which is the very embodiment of contemporary technological progress since they condemn “scientific practitioners” on grounds that “their misused technology threatens the planet and all that dwell thereon” (Robertson. n.d. Sybil, Oracles of the Goddess, “Introduction”).

In that area, FOI is in reality an excellent example of the new religiosities that owe their success, their survival or even their existence to the Internet. It is true that the web theoretically embodies values that are opposed to those they preach. The realities of the dehumanised, polluted, all economic contemporary world are generally abhorrent to them. The paradox however is no more than superficial for it can be argued that the internet provides an ideal medium for those who are engaged in a quest for a transparent universe where a new disembodied, dislocated or rootless human species may be united in a universal soul. The web is a virtual space where science and religion meet, and where the cyber-faithful are given access to a new identity and a new form of social connection that are both entirely founded on the possibility to communicate and be informed. The Internet is in fact a place where rationality and irrationality have met ever since the early days of cybernetics, when Norbert Wiener and his disciples noted that communication and information naturally led to an ideal of transparency and truth.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

As the analysis of the history and organization of the Fellowship of Isis clearly suggest, the major challenge today proceeds from the death of the co-founder  Olivia Robertson and the subsequent decisions that were made by the new generation of leaders. It must be noted that Loreon Vigne, the founder of Isis Oasis and the Circle of Isis, who had been a close companion of Olivia Robertson, died soon after her in July 2014. The two historic leaders’ successors at the Irish Foundation Centre and The American Circle of Isis  have chosen opposite courses reflecting diverging understandings of their duty as regards the FOI legacy. Cressida Pryor, fearing that the Fellowship of Isis might remain in “Olivia Aspic” (Pryor 2014, “Reflections, Lugnasad 2014”), proceeded to immediate transformations based on her analysis of what was wrong in the earlier system. More conservative centers and in particular the three best established and most powerful ones, the Circle of Isis, FOI London and FOI Germany denounced these changes that made them lose some of the prerogatives that Olivia Robertson had granted to them. They wished to remain faithful to the untouched legacy of their larger than life and charismatic leader, Lady Olivia.

This conflict had the effect of exposing the incoherences of the co-founder’s decisions, in particular as concerns the issue of democracy and equality that has now become a central bone of contention between the new leaders. Using the metaphor of the plane, Cressida Pryor justifies her approach by saying that whereas the pilot was originally the Goddess and the co-pilot the co-founder, Olivia Robertson let so many people into the cockpit at the end of her life that the organization became ungovernable; she talks of 96 dignitaries to be consulted (Pryor 2014 “Reflections, Samhain 2014”). She adds: ‘the chief pilot indicated it was becoming unmanageable and potentially a distraction to the real task in hand and I was asked to create more space there for our safe onward flight’. She actually sees herself only as a chief Steward and not a co-pilot, and she insists that her “style is consultative” (Pryor 2014, “Letter from Cressida Pryor, October 31, 2014”).

Her opponents indirectly suggest that she is in reality attempting to take over the organization by denying the equality between centres that Olivia Robertson had instituted. Re-centralization, it seems, has led to a new style of hierarchy, in which the Foundation Centre feels authorized to claim ownership of the FOI legacy. As a consequence in January 2015, Cressida Pryor did not hesitate to accuse the Star of Tara/Circle of Isis  of “infringing copyright law if they reproduce any of the founders’ work without permission” (Statement Re-: the Star of Tara, January 2015). The controversy over copyright is still ongoing as all writings by founders still feature on the Circle of Isis website, together with a series of “letters from Rt Olivia Robertson Concerning the Contents of the fellowship of Isis Liturgy” as presented on the website. Among these letters, a document dated 2009, grants full permission to all global central websites of the Fellowship of Isis (Circle of Isis, Star of Elen, London, and FOI Germany) to publish Olivia Robertson’s works (Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis Liturgy Copyright and Corrections webpage). This website also maintains the Circle of Isis’ position as regards the organization bequeathed by Olivia Robertson.

One may wonder what the short and long term effect of this split will be on membership. The size and expansion of the community is more than ever difficult to assess, and even though apparently thriving, the Fellowship of Isis may have to face an uncertain future. Back in 1999, a Tarot reading about the future of the FOI in the new millenium had slightly frightened attendants at Isis Oasis as the last card to be drawn had been Death. The interpretation provided by Archpriest and Archdruid Michael Starsheen had been that the organization would have to transform or it would die. The obstacle card, the Lovers, had been analysed as symbolizing false hierarchies and the need for equality (Circle of Isis, ‘A Tarot Reading for the Future Role of the Fellowship of Isis in the New Millenium’). This incident retrospectively appears as strangely prophetic.

IMAGES
Image #1: Photograph of Huntington Castle, Clonegal.
Image #2: Photograph of Robert and Olivia Durdin-Robertson.
Image #3: Photograph of Isis Oasis in Geyserville, California, U.S.
Image #4: Photograph of  Olivia Robertson at  Huntington Castle.
Image #5:  Photograph of the book spines of Helen Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, 3rd printing, 1886.
Image #6: Photograph of Olivia Robertson.

REFERENCES

Apuleius, Lucius. n.d. Otherwise Known as the Golden Ass. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/isis—isis-appears-to-lucius on 11 January 2018.

Barrett, David. 2011. A Brief Guide to Secret Religions: a Complete Guide to Hermetic, Pagan and Esoteric Beliefs. London: Hachette, U.K.

Beauxchamp, André. 2001. La foi à l’heure d’internet. Quebec: Fides.

Blavatsky, Helena. 1877. Isis Unveiled. Accessed from http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu-hp.htm on 11 January 2018.

Bonewits, Isaac. 1983 [2001]. “Frequently asked Questions about Neopagan Druidism.” Accessed from http://citadelofthedragons.tripod.com/druidisim.html on 11January 2018.

Circle of Isis. n.d.  “Statement of the Star of Tara.” Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/statement-of-the-star-of-tara on 11 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Biographies of Founders.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis—biographies-of-the founders?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fapp%2Ftemplates%2Fprint%2F&showPrintDialog=1 on 11 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Cressida Pryor, Update.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/cressida-pryor on 12 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Fellowship of Isis Liturgy Copyright and Corrections.” Accessed from www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis-liturgy-copyright on 11 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Listings – Fellowship of Isis Lyceums.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/listings—fellowship-of-isis-lyceums on 7 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Fellowship of Isis Manifesto.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis-manifesto on 11 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis Central website. n.d., “Fellowship of Isis Manifesto, Versions 1-6.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis-manifesto—versions on 9 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. Rev. Vincent Akpabio, “The Divine Goddess Eka-Eyen.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis-history-archive—goddess-eka-eyen on 12 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. Rt. Rev. Starsheen, Michael, “A Tarot Reading for the Future Role of the Fellowship of Isis in the New Millenium.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis-history-archive—tarot-reading-new-millenium on 12 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Harmony for the Earth and All Beings.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis–Introduction. on 11 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website, n.d. “Listings – Fellowship of Isis Iseums.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/fellowship-of-isis-iseums on 7 January 2018.

Circle of Isis, Fellowship of Isis central website. n.d. “Message from Isis Oasis. ” Accessed from  http://fellowshipofisiscentral.blogspot.fr/2017/10/message-from-isis-oasis-northern.html on 7 January 2018.

Crossroads Lyceum website. n.d. “Creation of a Shrine – Experiences, Grainne.” Accessed from  www.crlyceum.com/memexp_cs.html#cs4 on 11 January 2018.

Crossroads Lyceum website. n.d. “Rite of Abundance – Experiences, Tigr Lotus SpiritBear.” Accessed from  http://www.crlyceum.com/memexp_ra.html#ra8 on 11 January 2018.

Crossroads Lyceum of the College of Isis website. n.d. “Introduction.” Accessed from http://www.crlyceum.com/intro.html on 11 January 2018.

Crowley, Vivianne. 2017. “Olivia Robertson: Priestess of Isis.” Pp. 141-60 in Female Leaders in New Religious Movements, edited by Inga Bårdsen Tollefsen and Christian Giudice. London, New York and Shanghai: Palgrave Macmillan.

Drury, Nevill. 1999. Exploring the Labyrinth: Making Sense of the New Spirituality. New York: Continuum.

Drury, Nevill. 1985. The Occult Experience. London: Robert Hale.

Durdin-Robertson, Robert. 1975. The Religion of the Goddess. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/religionofthegoddess.pdf on 11 January 2018.

Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. “Code of Ethics.” Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/ethics.html on 11 January 2018.

Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. FOI Enrollment. Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/joinform.html on 11 January 2018.

Felllowship of Isis website. n.d. “Iseums of the Sacred Spiral webpage.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/iseums.html. on 10 January 2018.

Fellowshiup of Isis website. n.d. Liturgy List in Alphabetical Order. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy.html on 11 January 2018.

Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. “Muses Symposium (FOI Special Project) webpage.” Accessed from  htt://www.fellowshipofisis.com/muses_symposium.html on 10 January 2018.

Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. The Circle of Brigid webpage. Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/circleofbrigid.html on 11 January 2018.

Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. “The Fellowship of Isis Manifesto.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/manifesto.html on 15 Jaunuary 2018.

Fellowship of Isis website. n.d. “The Foundation Union Triad.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/au.html on 13 January 2018.

Fellowship of Isis central website, College of Isis. 2005. “Creation of the Fellowship of Isis Liturgy.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/college-of-isis—creation-of-the-fellowship-of-isis-liturgy on 9 January 2018.

Hornung, Erik. 1999 [2001]. L’Egypte ésotérique. Paris: Editions du Rocher.

Introvigne, Massimo. 2000 [2005]. Le New Age des origines à nos jours. Paris: Editions Dervy.

Maffesoli, Michel. 2004. Le rythme de la vie – Variations sur les sensibilités postmodernes. Paris: La Table Ronde.

Maffesoli, Michel. 2003.  Notes sur la postmodernité – le lieu fait lien. Paris: Editions du Félin/Institut du Monde Arabe.

Maignant, Catherine. 2011. “Irish Base, Global Religion: The Fellowship of Isis.” Pp. 262-80 in Ireland’s New Religious Movements, edited by Olivia Cosgrove, Laurence Cox, Carmen Kuhling and Peter Mulholland. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars’ Press.

Neopagan.net website. n.d. “Frequently asked questions about Neopagan Druidism.” Accessed from  http://www.neopagan.net/NeoDruidismFAQ.html on 11 January 2018.

Partridge, Christopher, ed. 2004. New Religions: A Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. 2003. Jesus the Bearer of the Water of Life – A Christian Reflection on the “New Age.Accessed from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html on 11 January 2018.

Pryor Cressida. 2015. Fellowship of Isis, “Foundation Centre Statement Re: The Star of Tara by Cressida Pryor (January 27, 2015).” Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/staroftara.html on 8 January 2018.

Pryor, Cressida. 2014. “Letter from Cressida Pryor, October 31, 2014.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/letters/cressida10_2014.html. on 10 January 10 2018.

Pryor, Cressida. 2014. “Reflections by Cressida Pryor, Lugnasad 2014.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/letters/lughnasad2014.html on 10 January 2018.

Pryor, Cressida. 2014. “Reflections by Cressida Pryor, Samhain 2014.” Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/isiannews/isiannews11_14.html on 10 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. 2009. Fellowship of Isis Central website. “Lightening Flash of Isis.” Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisiscentral.com/olivia-Robertson-Lightning-Flash-of-Is-2009 on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. 2003. “On Receiving the Oracle” (Personal correspondence of April 9, 2003). Accessed from http://www.crlyceum.com/oliviaoracle.html on 11 January  2018.

Robertson Olivia. 1992. Handbook of the Fellowship of Isis. Original Edition. Huntington Castle: Cesara Publications. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/originalhandbook.pdf on 10 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. 1977. Ordination of a Priestess. Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Ireland: Cesara Publications.

Robertson, Olivia. 1977. Rite of Rebirth. Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Ireland: Cesara Publications.

Robertson, Olivia. 1976. The Wedding Rite. Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Ireland: Cesara Publications.

Robertson, Olivia. 1975. Isis of Fellowship: How the Fellowship of Isis was Founded. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/isisoffoi.html on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. 1975. The Call of Isis. Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/callofisis.html on 7 January 2018.

Robertson Olivia. n.d. Athena: Arcadian Awakening. Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/athenaintrorites.pdf on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. FOI Online Library. Dea, Rites and Mysteries of the Goddess. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/deaintro.html on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Goddess Rites for Solo Use. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/maya1.pdf on 10 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Isis of Alchemy, Transformation through the Goddess. Accessed from  http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/alchemy6.html on 7 January  2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Melusina, Life Centres of the Goddess – Awakening the Psychic Centres. Accessed from https://sites.google.com/site/fellowshipofisisliturgy/melusina—introduction-awakening-the-psychic-centres on 11 January 2018.

Robertson Olivia. n.d. Oracle of the Goddess Dana, Rite of Dana – Druid Initiation, the Druid Clan of Dana. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/danarite.html on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Panthea, Initiations and Festivals of the Goddess – Rites of Passage and Seasonal Ceremonies. Accessed from https://sites.google.com/site/fellowshipofisisliturgy/panthea—introduction on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Psyche, Magical Journeys of the Goddess. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/psyche.html on 11 January 2018.

Robertson Olivia. n.d.  Rite of Rebirth of the Fellowship of Isis. Accessed from httxp://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/rebirthintro.pdf on 11 January 2018.

Robertson Olivia, Sophia, Cosmic Consciousness of the Goddess. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/sophia.html on 7 January 7 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Sphinx, Goddess Myths and Mysteries – World Religious Myths. Accessed from https://sites.google.com/site/fellowshipofisisliturgy/sphinx-goddess-myths-and-mysteries on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Sybil, Oracles of the Goddess. Accessed from https://sites.google.com/site/fellowshipofisisliturgy/sybil-oracles-of-the-goddess—introduction on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. The Isis Wedding Rite – The Eternal Knot – An Introduction to the Ceremoxny. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/weddingintro.html on 11 January 2018.

Robertson Olivia. n.d. The Original College of Isis Manual. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/originalcoimanual.pdf on 11 January 2018.

Robertson, Olivia. n.d. Urania, Ceremonial Magic of the Goddess. Accessed from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/liturgy/urania.html on 11 January 2018.

Taguieff, Pierre-André. 2000 [2005]. La foire aux illuminés. Paris: Mille et une nuits.

Williams Liz. 2017. “Centenary Celebrations held for the Fellowship of Isis founder Olivia Robertson.” The Wild Hunt, April 26. Accessed from http://wildhunt.org/2017/04/centenary-celebrations-held-for-fellowship-of-isis-founder-olivia-robertson.html on 11 January 2018.

Wise, Caroline. 2017. Olivia Robertson A Centenary Tribute. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Post Date:
23 February 2018

Share