djar-em-rekh:

anubianpagan:

deadlydeamonflashmob:

meritsabu:

dustyscarabs:

A page from “Ancient Egyptian Magic” by Eleanor Harris…… is this accurate information??? Because my gut is telling me no.

While all of this sounds iffy, I can pretty much disprove the last paragraph easily. There were a multitude of creator Gods in Ancient Egypt. In fact, who it was depended from location to location. Ptah was one. Amun was another. Heck, even Ra was a creator. Many of the creation myths overlapped.

Here is two versions of a creation myth
Another site discussing the creation myths
Wikipedia article, but it is a start

That “Ausar” they mentioned is another name for Osiris. Honestly, I don’t recall if he was ever a creator God. Someone please correct me if so.

Anyway, I’ll dig around and bring up more sources. I just want to clear this particular bit up.

Really not sure why this author seems to think you can’t have polytheism + a central creator God? So I mean, for that alone I find this pretty weird. The author seems a bit too hung up on modern religion in general, and that will probably affect the quality of info they give on Egyptian ‘magic’. 

If you’re interested in Heka and stuff though, a really good book on the subject is Magic in Ancient Egypt by Geraldine Pinch. I’ve also heard good things about The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practises by Robert k Ritner, although you’ll probably want to try and find a pdf version of that one 🙂

WHAT THE HECKIN HECK?!  Ok…lets unpack this…

“The Ancient Egyptians were peaceful, kind, and very aware of family values.  Their religious dealings reflected this in there were no persecutions in the name of religion”

What a beautiful fantasy.  Cults of different gods legit had gang wars and oppositions to eachother over which gods were better.  So this is entirely fictional.

“Ancient Egyptian religion is puzzling in that it resembles Judaisim, Islam, and Christianity in that it propounded a belief in a central God, the Creator, but it was also polytheistic”

They all took things from each other and adopted various things from interacting…This was inevitable.

“Whether monotheism grew out of polytheism or polytheism grew out of monotheism, will remain a mystery.  The evidence in the pyramid texts shows that, already in the 5th Dynesty monotheism and polytheism flourished side by side”

HHHOOONEYYYYY!!!!  Fucking where.  Monotheism wasn’t a thing in Ancient Egypt until Ankhenaten tried to make it a thing.  So…No.

“While the Egyptians had a pantheon of gods and goddesses, they believed in a central Creator, invisible, and eternal.  The one god that created all in-existence.  This god was divine, but had lived upon the Earth had had suffered a cruel death at the hands of his enemies.  He had risen from the dead and had become the God and Pharaoh of the world beyond the grave.  This god was Auser.”

Am I in the twilight zone?!

There’s several gods credited with creation of all existence…Atum, Ra, Ptah, Djehuty, the Ogdoad, Amun…notice they aren’t Auser…This isn’t monotheism…this is just the beginnings, which snowballed into the rest of the pantheon…not evidence of monotheism.  This author…seems to have littler understanding of the information here…This was painful to read.  0/10 would not recommend.

“The Ancient Egyptians were peaceful, kind, and very aware of family
values.  Their religious dealings reflected this in there were no
persecutions in the name of religion” 

Akhenaten was also so peaceful he shut down temples, disowned the traditional priestdom and kept an iron grip on his own religion (cause Atenism was in the end nothing else than a power grab by the pharaoh against Karnak).
Ancient Egyptians were so peaceful they did conquer a huge empire. The family thing is very true tho.

“Ancient Egyptian religion is puzzling in that it resembles Judaisim,
Islam, and Christianity in that it propounded a belief in a central
God, the Creator, but it was also polytheistic” 

Wrong timeframe. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are younger religions. At the core, if properly dug up, they inherited quite some stuff from the Ancients. Why not? Religions develop – I love to see them like onions: the result of many time layers. And new things on top.

“Whether monotheism grew out of polytheism or polytheism grew out of
monotheism, will remain a mystery.  The evidence in the pyramid texts
shows that, already in the 5th Dynesty monotheism and polytheism
flourished side by side” 

Read the One and the Many by Hornung on that discussion.

“While the Egyptians had a pantheon of gods and goddesses, they
believed in a central Creator, invisible, and eternal.  The one god that
created all in-existence.  This god was divine, but had lived upon the
Earth had had suffered a cruel death at the hands of his enemies.  He
had risen from the dead and had become the God and Pharaoh of the world
beyond the grave.  This god was Auser.”

Osiris, was never a creator God. He is a God of fertility, renewal and the earth (and the dead), but thats it. Yes, he also was one of the most important deities, but as @anubianpagan correctly writes, not the only important deity – there were many creator Gods, he is not part of them. I still think the author is mixing up a lot. 

Eleanor Harris, btw, is a no go for accurate information and writing.