The Statue of Liberty is one of the world’s most famous symbols. Based in New York Harbor, the robed and crowned “Lady Liberty” holds her torch high to welcome arrivals through the country’s front door.
We’ve all heard the story that the statue was a gift from France. Designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, it was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and has been an enduring symbol of freedom ever since. The statue’s true name is “Liberty Enlightening the World.”
But there’s also a contingent of people who believe there’s another story to the statue, one that’s hiding in plain sight. So put on your tinfoil hat — and get ready to have your world rocked.
The story goes like this: The Statue of Liberty is really a statue of Isis, the pagan goddess. It’s an inside joke, a Freemason’s proclamation of the secretive organization’s sovereignty over the US.
It seems that Bartholdi was originally seeking a commission to construct a giant statue for the Suez Canal. A Freemason, he visited Egypt and allegedly was inspired by the monuments he saw there to produce a giant statue. As envisioned, the statue was to be a robed woman holding a torch aloft.
There were some complaints from clergymen of the era that the “gift” was really a pagan symbol…
The Suez deal didn’t happen. So the enterprising Bartholdi approached his fellow Masons with a new idea: give the statue to America. He managed to raise a significant amount of money, and the statue arrived in New York Harbor on board the French frigate Isere. (Perhaps a further inside joke). The completed statue was presented as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic Republic.
The statue’s meaning didn’t fool everybody. There were some complaints from clergymen of the era that the “gift” was really a pagan symbol.
Why Isis? The official line is that “Lady Liberty” supposedly was derived from the Roman goddess Libertus, a benign symbol of freedom. But the Freemasons, whose origins trace to ancient Egypt’s builders, prefer those gods.
Isis has a darker side, which is probably the reason any association was covered up. Known as the “divine mother” of ancient Egypt, she was the goddess of magic. She raised her dead husband Osiris back to life, and although considered a virgin, gave birth to Horus, the Egyptian god of the sun. As such, she is often crowned with a halo of sun streaks (sound familiar?). There are any number of depictions of Isis, but the myths generally have her at the center of magic doings as the mother figure of mankind.
The real back-story concerning Isis can be found with the Fellowship of Isis — an organization with chapters in the UK, US, Ireland, and Germany. The Fellowship offers an instruction in the rituals and rites of Isis.
The rituals and related Isis wisdom are allegedly revealed only to the enlightened few, sort of like Scientology. In Isis’s case, there are “great spiritual truths” to be revealed by those blessed with the torch of enlightenment.
Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, those truths can now be obtained by Googling “Statue of Liberty is Isis.” There are only slightly over 500,000 entries, so take your time.
