continuing exploration of ancient Egyptian religion
How do you prepare for doing a ritual? What is “ritual purity“? To understand it, we need to understand W’ab. What is W’ab? “W’ab” is a term that is translated as “pure” or “clean.” ( If I understand correctly, the ‘ simply means the “a” has an “ah” sound, so it rhymes with “Bob” or…
My friend Devo has written a summary of how the ancient Kemetic priesthood operated, and some comparison on how priesthood is handled now, on The Twisted Rope blog: Kemetic Priesthood: Then and Now. She’ll do a post later with her ideas on it, and I plan to do a response here as well. What do you,…
As an update to Bes, the Little God. (Pagan Blog Project 2012 #3), I noticed that the Kalamazoo Valley Museum has this Bes standard. Presumably it would have been mounted on a pole and carried in procession.
The Forge of the Coppersmiths! Execration. It’s the more precise term for ‘curse.’ It comes from the Latin word “execrare.” “Ex” meaning “out” (as in exterior) and “sacrare” meaning to make sacred (as in consecrate.) Tomb curses The most famous ancient Egyptian curse is the one on King Tutankhamen’s tomb. The excavators ignored the warning:…
Shefytbast is a W’ab priest of Bast in Kemetic Orthodoxy. She’s participating in the Pagan Blog Project as well, and this is her latest entry. Highly recommended!
The ancient Egyptians went to a lot of trouble for their religion. Herodotus certainly thought so, and said they were “religious to a higher degree than any other people.” The temple complex at Karnak, dedicated to Amun, Mut, and Khonsu, covered 200 acres. It’s one of the largest religious sites in the world. There were…
Dry spells. The Fallow Times. Times when you have absolutely no contact with gods or goddesses. You don’t often hear about them unless you really dig in some of the forums. Why? They’re not that interesting to talk about. “I got nothing today” isn’t worth posting on a forum. It’s even too dull to use…
Wash before doing a ritual. In fact, do a ritual for washing! That’s the usual Kemetic practice. Before giving some specifics, let’s take a look at the reasoning behind it. Ritual is something that follows a pattern, and it’s done on a regular or semi-regular basis. Perhaps you have a ritual for turning on your…
In ancient Egypt, there was a well-established principle that a replica of something could be a magical stand-in for the real item. Tombs contained miniature houses and boats. Even servants- the ushabti, of course. In temples, the same principle applied. Menu lists of offerings, magically activated, could substitute for real ones if necessary. Important symbolic…
Geb and Nut.. and Shu, Ra, Ma’at, Duat, and Heka One of the striking things about Kemetic rituals is that it’s common to declare yourself as one of the netjeru. It’s difficult for us to wrap our minds around that and to actually say it. “I am Sekhmet!” “I am Djehuty!” Somehow you expect a…