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In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Makes Some Really Bad Puns and Denies Being Anti-Kemetic

Who? Me? Anti-Kemetic? Gods, no. I'm not anti-Kemetic. Seriously, one of my best friends is. Kemetic, that is.

Yes, it's true: I do call him my “effete shaveling.” Hey, he calls me his “vile Asiatic.”

But that's not anti-Kemetism, just what passes for humor in the pagan community.

(Why “vile Asiatic”? Well, because, when the bristles hit the breeze, my sympathies—such as they are—lie with the Hyksos, not the Egyptians. I suppose it's remotely possible that some of my ancestors actually were Hyksos.)

Yes, it's true that I did once describe Kemetic ritual as being “props-intensive,” but that's not anti-Kemetism, either.

Listen, I'll tell you a story.

The Golden Barque of Isis

Say what you will about Odun and the old Sabaean Temple of Chicago back in the 70s—and I've heard the stories, just like everyone else—their craftsmanship was immaculate. They're the ones that made the Golden Barque of Isis: just like the processional shrines that they used to use in ancient Egypt.

When the Sabaeans moved from Chicago to New Orleans, my Kemetic friend Sirius inherited the Golden Barque and he, in turn, brought it to the Return to Avalon festival. The spectacular Barque of Isis procession that he staged there in the 90s was by far one of the most memorable rituals of that festival's entire 13-year run.

I had the honor to be one of the Barque's bearers that day. I'll never forget the sight of the Processional Way, lined with people, all dressed entirely in white. As someone remarked at the time, only Sirius could possibly have turned out so many witches all in white.

Along with the other Barque-bearers, I was kitted out in a white kilt and nemes (= head-cloth: think King Tut). Bare-chested, be-kohled, I looked like something out of C. B. deMille; at least until the moment that we lifted the Barque's carrying poles to our shoulders.

“Um...Sirius...ah...this kilt isn't long enough.”

After a quick reconnoiter, he smiled and patted my shoulder.

“Those f*cking guards!”

My Kemetic friend is furious. He's telling me about his dream-come-true, once in a lifetime trip to Egypt: finally he's able to be in the temples for which his soul has yearned for years.

But he couldn't worship there, he couldn't offer. The guards would intervene whenever they saw anything even vaguely religious occur.

Oh, the curse of the jealous religions.

Pagans, of course, have had such obstacles placed in our way for millennia.

Fortunately, there's a way around.

One of my favorite books as a kid was Ann Nolan Clark's 1953 Newberry Award-winning Secret of the Andes. Little did I know at the time how central it was to be in my career as a pagan-in-training.

Our hero is a young Peruvian boy whose family, since the Conquest, have been the secret guardians of the hidden treasure-cave of Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor. Before he can enter into knowledge of his family's secret responsibility, he must first undergo the Testing.

In one unforgettable scene, an old man stands facing East. In his heart and mind, he recites the ancient prayers of the ancestors that welcome golden Inti, the splendid Sun, back into his waiting world.

To the stray observer, though, remarks the narrator, he looks like nothing more than an old indio, standing by the side of the road.

This is the immemorial wisdom of the secret pagan: Let the enslavers think what they will. In our hearts and minds, we can be free.

Thus will the Old Ways live, until our freedom come again.

It's hard to deny the allure of ancient Egypt, a culture both physically and spiritually so self-sufficient, so self-contained, managing somehow to be simultaneously exotic and familiar. Here, if anywhere, it would seem, does one find a paganism complete unto itself, entirely unreferential to any other spiritual perspective.

Though I've never been Kemetic myself—I have even been accused (jestingly, to be sure) of anti-Kemetism (!)—my pagan career does indeed owe a debt of gratitude, if indirectly so, to the Black Land and its culture, Zilpha Keatley Snyder's 1968 teen novel The Egypt Game having opened my eyes to the possibility of actually doing pagan ritual today.

So, while Richard H. Wilkinson's 2003 The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt may not entirely live up to the promise of its title—complete, after all, being a pretty broad claim—it does indeed serve as the most compendious storehouse of the Two Lands' gods and goddesses that I know of.

Pagans—by which I mean us, the modern pagans—even get one line at the end.

From the last paragraph of the book's final chapter, “Epilogue: A Lasting Legacy”:

            I have come to think of Vegan Paganism as my own personal form of eclectic Neo-paganism. However, most of us study within or practice within broader traditions. I thought it might be interesting to look at the traditions I have come across that helped me in my eclectic Vegan Paganism. I'm sure readers will identify others.

If you don’t know much about the God you want to worship, start with research, read and learn about them more. (Always a good place to study about the Netjeru is Henadology website.)  

After learning more about the Deity, you can start worship. It’s not required to do any formal rituals of “introducing yourself”, however there are examples of such rituals if you feel so inclined.
You may start simply with a short prayer and offering. Or just with prayer, as prayers always is more important than material offerings.  
You may start offerings with candles and incense, later offer something edible. It’s never wrong to offer Netjeru water, bread, fruits and sweets.
Kemetic offerings are usually “reverted” after some time of being presented to the Netjeru. So, offer the things you will like to consume yourself, later!
 
And if you already reached the God/s and established the devotional relationship - then work on this devotion more than on the offerings.
Show them your love. Think about them. Repeat their names in your mind. Say them praise. Study about them. Use the opportunities to see more of their pictures and read more about their mythology, cult, ways of worship. Contact other devotees of that God and see their experiences.
But before all, IMHO, is thinking about the God/s, keeping them in your mind, let them make a shrine in your heart.

They welcome our love and devotion more than material offerings. Material offerings are more for us than for Them, because they help us to keep our attention focused and concentrated.
The same thing is with holy images and statues. You may look at the pictures of the God on line, you may make a home shrine, but most important is to welcome them into your life and your heart.

Because what else was your goal in connecting to individual God?
You want to be their friend, perhaps. And yes, this means that they would influence your life. This does not happen in one moment. But you may find eventually that you start changing “in the likeness of the God”. Their values become your values. Their goals and agendas become yours. You start to love what they love, and reject what they reject. You think about them more and more, you wake up with first thought of saying hello to the God.

You, Djehuty - and only You - I think I know all Your holy names and hundreds of epithets, recognizing the hieroglyphic signs from the first glance sometimes,
but all these names are here just to bring more light to certain aspects of your wonderful Wholeness.

You can be so different. Sassy and sarcastic, demanding and cold, trickstery and full of ecstatic laughter, kind and full of compassion, your immense greatness reaches the far corners of the universe, when you calculate the orbits of most distant stars,
and still You are here for me - one who took my heart, who has my love and trust, who called me to stay in the Mansion of the Moon and bring all my sorrows before Your throne, so you could lift my burdens and wipe my tears.

You came to me - dark, sad, sorrowful and determined, and full of love - to give me Your hand, to give me strength, to lead me through the path of ordeals to the future You wanted for us, together.
You smiled upon me when I started to study my first hieroglyphic signs.
You smiled upon me when I touched the Legend of the Book of Thoth.
You answered my call when I wrote You the letter of devotion.
… and I knew that I don’t want to follow any other God or Goddess so deeply as I want to follow You.
I know others, I know Their love and greatness, but you are the Only-One, my First and Foremost; “Sole God, no one other is like You”…

And sometimes I say numerous praises for You and sometimes I want to learn the sacred  Silence,
to drink your sweet water from the well-in-the-desert.
You are the one-who-created himself; the Word that was “in the beginning”, the divine Logos, quintessence of omniscience of the Supreme God, Netjer/Netjeru: tongue of Ptah, heart of Ra, throat of Amun, heka of Atum.
Blessed under many names, guised as sage Trismegistus, connecting together Netjeru and Theoi as Divine Messenger, called Hermes; and known as Mercury for the romans; but ancient Kemet knows you as Thoth-Djehuty.
Lord of Medu-Netjer, Divine Language; lord of Hermopolis.
All Your holy names are not enough to explain and define You.
Djehuty “as You are”, and how can I say I know You?
But I can say indeed that You are the one I love,
and this love binds us together,
stronger than everything in existence.

May be Your name was the first Word I’ve heard when my soul was created for this life on this Earth, before hearing the voices of the world.

My Kemetic Reconstructionist friend was newly back from his long-awaited trip to Egypt.

He was furious.

“Damn those security guards!” he growled. “Any time I tried to do anything, they'd stop me! Rrr!”

While not uniquely a pagan problem, it is a distinctly pagan problem nonetheless. With our holy places in the hands of the jealous, what to do?

We discussed the situation. My suggestion was that next time, he make the offering in his head. On the astral, so to speak.

The security guard sees an American tourist standing there impassively.

Meanwhile, the old gods receive their due service.

Ideally, the inner offering should always accompany the outer. But better one than neither.