The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

By Denise Thomas



This paper appeared in a different form in Cup of Wonder Issue Number Five



The ancient Egyptians are an endless source of wonder, mystery, and inspiration for archaeologists, anthropologists, students of history, artists, poets, scholars of religion and of magick. Unfortunately, a great deal of utter nonsense, especially in regard to alleged religious practices and mythos, is also attributed to or falsely drawn from, ancient Egypt as explanations of her greatness, her architecture, her Gods, her magick. One need only consider the theories of survivors of Atlantis and or extraterrestrial aliens being the founders of Egypt and other ancient societies, to understand what I mean by nonsense, and to understand how those of us who feel called by the ancients or the Gods, also feel obligated as part of our studies and practices to counter said nonsense. Those of us today who believe themselves called by the Ntr have a great deal of work to do in presenting the civilization of AE and the religion of the ancestors in a way which honors both the ancient Gods and those who first worshiped them.



Kemeticism

Kemeticism (after Kemet or Kmt, an ancient word meaning "black land" or "black soil," and one of the words the Egyptians called their land) is a re-creation of the religion of ancient Egypt, aspects of its culture, such as art and literature, its belief systems, its spirituality. Kemeticism is a belief in the Neteru and a way of life, a way of living in and upholding ma’at. It is a reconstructionist religion which utilizes scholarly methods to recreate the structures and practices of the ancient religion, and apply these to contemporary times. Its religious practices are based on modern scholarly and academic research.



Kemeticism is not a modern "New Age" interpretation of the beliefs of ancient Egypt, nor is it an extrapolation based on any Western religio-magickal traditions or systems such as Wicca or Ceremonial Magic, but rather the actual religious practices as observed and recorded by the ancient Egyptians.



The practice of the Kemetic religion today strives to be a living revival of the religion of the peoples of ancient Egypt. And, as the ancient Egyptian religion may be considered one of the African Traditional Religions, which come from similar geographic and sociological sources, many Kemetics share styles and approaches to religious experience, rituals and life with such religions. (taken from the "Definition of Kemeticism" of the International Network of Kemetics, with minor variations.)



Conceivably, there could be said to be "denominations" of Kemeticism, though I feel many Kemetics would disagree. This is in addition to what are referred to as the cults of a God--or nowadays, the Temples or Houses of particular Ntr (Gods). An example of a Kemetic denomination is Kemetic Orthodoxy, a term used by, and which I and others reserve solely as a descriptive phrase for the members, students, and religious philosophy of the House of Netjer in Chicago. I refer to myself and other Kemetics, such as students of Akhet Hwt–Hrw, and others not studying or affiliated with any House or Temple, simply as Kemetics or Kemetic Reconstructionists.



There are some Kemetic groups and individuals who define themselves as practitioners of an African Traditionalist Religion or consider themselves simply as practitioners of ancient Egyptian religion. One of the latter appears to be the Temple of Khem in Great Britain which, according to their material, treats Kemeticism as a mystery religion and magickal tradition, but unlike ceremonial magickal lodges, the Temple says it uses scholarly texts, and ". . . the bulk of (the Temple’s) teaching (are) taken from early texts, rather than the later Greek works of the Hermetica . . . " which is quite different than most CM groups and philosophies.



There are groups who claim, or believe themselves to be practicing ancient Egyptian religion, but which are actually practicing Wicca, or performing Wiccanesque or ceremonial magick rituals, and using theologies and liturgies similar to those of such religions and systems. The ancient Egyptians, whether as individuals at home shrines, families and villages in festivals, or the priesthood in Temple, did not have a duotheistic philosophy or theology, did not study Qabala, call directions, cast circles for rites, etc.



Ma’at

Ma’at, or ma’at, Ntrt (Goddess) or force, is the foundation of all of ancient Egyptian culture, its political system, art, literature, and religion. Ma’at is balance, and order, certainly, but it is a nearly untranslatable term, as so many ancient Egypt concepts are. To quote from Egyptian Religion by Siegfried Morenz, Cornell University Press: "Maat is right order in nature and society, as established by the act of creation, and hence means, according to the context, what is right, what is correct, law, order, justice and truth. This state of righteousness needs to be preserved or established, in great matters as in small. Maat is therefore not only right order but also the object of human activity. Maat is both the task which man sets himself and also, as righteousness, the promise and reward which await him on fulfilling it" (page 113).



Ma’at came into being at creation, known as the First Time, or Tep Zepi, and there is an eternal struggle on every level of existence to maintain ma’at. From the cohesion and integrity of the universe itself, to the functions and events of the natural world and of the whole of human society right down to the relations between family members, all is of ma’at. All beings, human and divine work together to maintain ma’at. This was and is the charge of the Gods/Ntr, of kings and priests, of all of human society and of religious rite.



Neter/Ntr

Neter/Ntr translates loosely as "god" or "force of nature" (Hornung: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many), and is the term Kemetics use.



Most of us first heard of the ancient Egyptian Gods by Greek names. Greek Osiris is actually Asir, or Wesir, etc. Heru we know in the Greek as Horus, Anpu as Anubis, Djehuti as Thoth or Tehuti, etc., and the most troubling for many, Aset/Isis. Troubling because the Goddess/Ntrt we know as Isis may not be, and in the view of many Kemetics, is not the Ntrt Aset. Isis, a Greek "translation" of Aset, actually refers to a highly syncretized Goddess Who retains little of the same authority and areas of power Aset which possesses.



Some Mythos

There are a multitude of divine myths, in fragments and in whole, available to us. The various creation myths are a case in point. The main three are: the Heliopolitan or that of the city of On and Ra–Atum; the Hermopolian, or that of the city of Khmnw and the Ogdoad or Heh Gods and Djehuti; and the Memphis Theology, with Ptah as the source of all creation. All begin with primeval waters—the Nun—from which the Creator emerges.



The Heliopolitan says that from the void, the waters, Nun first forms, then Atum arises, becomes Ra–Atum, creates Shu (air, space) and Tefnut (moisture) by masturbating or spitting. These two are the parents of Geb (earth) and Nut (sky), who in turn are the parents of Asir, Aset, Sutekh and Nebt–Het (these make the Ennead). Human beings don’t come into the picture until Shu and Tefnut become lost in the Nun, separated from Atum Who sends His Eye out to find them. When They return, Atum weeps tears of joy from which humankind springs.



The Hermopolian Cosmology claims to be the oldest, and Khmnw, like many sites, claimed to be the site of the primeval mound or Benben stone. Again the primeval waters are the beginning, but contain the Ogdoad, the 8 Heh Gods. These are the 4 divine pairs of boundlessness, darkness, chaos, infinity—all frightening concepts to the ancient Egyptian—which create the world, then "die" and take up abodes in the underworld where They continue to cause the rising of the sun, and the flowing of the Nile.



Other variations of the Hermopolian Cosmology include that of the celestial goose, or Great Cackler, which lays a cosmic egg of creation. In some versions this bird is an ibis, pointing to Djehuti as a symbol of a supreme creator, self–begotten and source of the Heh Gods.



The most familiar variation is of a lotus emerging from the Nun, which opens to reveal a male child, Ra, or a scarab, then the child form of Ra, Whose tears create humankind.



The final major creation myth is that known as the Memphis Theology. This is a late creation myth which actually posits the supremacy of Ptah Tatenen, or Ptah of the Primeval Mound. In the myth, Ptah is considered to be the source of everything, as Nun He is the father of Atum, as Naunet, the mother of same. Source of all the Gods, Ptah is the "heart" or intelligence, and the "tongue" or creative power of the Ennead of On, and by His will, word and intellect, created everything.



Theology

Egyptologists and religious scholars continue to explore the issue of whether the ancient Egyptians were monotheistic in our sense of the term, or a variant termed monolatrous, seeing individual Ntr as the Names of God, individual but not (and thus worshiping a single God, but not denying others exist)— faces shown to humans by an overarching Creator. Some see the ancient theology as a variation of tolerant pantheistic, or even as purely polytheistic (the latter writers often dolloping on the disapproval taught by their own brand of religion). Certainly they were henotheistic, accepting a multiplicity of Gods, yet having those or one which was theirs as individuals or members of a family, work group, nome, etc. For myself, my view is polytheistic, to be sure, as I experience and know Ntr as individual Beings, but I am henotheistic, feeling no obligation to "deal" with those, Ntru or other Gods, Who show no interest in me. And never do I deny the reality and validity of the Gods of other places and other religions.



The practice of the religion: Rituals and observances

(My knowledge of religious practice is based on the lessons of Akhet Hwt–Hrw and some independent research.)



In ancient times, the grand rites were observed, and the daily needs of the Ntr of a nome or large city were seen to in the temples by the priesthood. Only the king or his proxy, the Jmjr Hm ("high priest") of a temple could approach the sh–ntr (Greek: naos) of the Ntr Whose House it was. (The sh–ntr is the holy inner sanctum of the temple, the cabinet in which the Ntr’s image was kept.) Vast numbers of priests saw to the needs of the Ntr Whose temple they served in, to the needs of the Ntr in smaller shrines given space in the larger temple, to the bookkeeping and supplying and overseeing of planting and related agricultural activities. Like Xtian churches, the temple was/is the House of (the) God, and, being Hir House, all things in it and land surrounding it were directed to its functioning.



The temple was not a center of public worship. The church as we commonly know it today is essentially designed around the congregation. In ancient Temples, aside from courtyards, or other specific areas, the public did not enter the temple. The middle classes, and the working people, would have their own temple shrines or small shrines within their household for communion with the Ntr. Of course, the middle classes would also have been priests, but their ‘jobs’ would be in the temple, not at home. And everyone would observe or take part in some part of the numerous feasts and festivals which seem to have packed the calendars of ancient Egypt. But there were no public rituals or any thing like that with which most of us would be familiar.



My point here, beside supplying some background information, is that while we cannot recreate the ritual and social structure of ancient Egypt (and really wouldn’t want to live in a theocracy, in any case), we can adapt and recreate the religious observances on an individual and small group scale. We can recreate a liturgy, a structure for rites and communion with Ntr, which pleases us, pleases Ntr, and upholds ma’at.



In keeping with ma’at and the recreation of Tep Zepi, purification of the body, of the mind, heart, and of the temple area is the beginning of any rite. Concepts of purity in ancient Egypt were different than what we often consider "pure" today, for instance, virginity was not a pre-requisite for a woman to be "pure." Purity was a matter of adherence to certain prescripts, and of primary importance was the cleanliness of the body. Priests bathed in sacred man–made lakes of the temple, so today we bathe (or shower) after a ritually cleansing of our eyes, mouths, ears, throats, and reciting declarations of the purity of the water and natron we use, and thus of all that is cleansed with it. (Natron is a naturally occurring compound which ". . . chemical composition varies from one place to another, but the best is more or less half sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and about the same of sodium carbonate (washing soda), with sodium chloride (table salt) and sodium sulfate as ‘impurities’" (from "Ancient Egypt Discovery Case" located at: www.rom.on.ca/egypt/case/about/burial1.html#natron).



After bathing and dressing in one’s ritual garb (clean clothing which is used for no other purpose, white is best), the temple area is purified. Temples and temple areas are rectangular or square. There is NO casting of circles, no circular temple rooms, etc. Again, water and natron is used, after having been appropriately declared pure. Then incense, always pleasing to Ntr, is lit with the proper declarations and supplication. Incense is an offering, one that is made for all simple rites, and is offered to all the Ntr, according the declarations:



"The fire is laid, the fire shines;

The incense is laid on the fire, the incense shines.

Your perfume comes to me, You Neteru;

May my perfume come to You, You Neteru.

May I be with You, You Neteru;

May You be with me, You Neteru;

May I live with You, You Neteru;

May You live with me, You Neteru.

I love You, You Neteru;

May You love me, You Neteru." (Utt. 269, Pyramid Text via Akhet Hwt–Hrw "Daily Rite")



A lamp or candle is lit and the individual Ntr is greeted/invited into the image or statue that is now uncovered, or sh–ntr/naos opened. Meditations and chants are done, offerings made, requests spoken. Then Ntr is ‘dismissed’ with all respect and the image again covered, or the sh–ntr closed. The light is extinguished and one respectfully bows and leaves the area.



Of course, the level of complexity of Rites varies according to one’s training, and preferences. The attention paid to preparation of the Image, the number of offerings and their meaning, etc., can be as simple or as complex as one desires, or is led or drawn to do.



What does the modern Kemetic do other than rites? We research, meditate, test revelation and personal gnosis. We divine by methods ancient or modern. We explore the nature of the Ntru, of ourselves, and of the universe— just as in any religion or spiritual practice—with our hearts and minds turned toward Ma’at and holding on to common sense and a love of knowledge as talismans.



© 2001-02 by Denise Thomas