“Going forth of Seth son of Nut, to disturb the Great Ones (’as he wants to prove to himself his prowess’) Who check him in his town of Sw. Now these Gods recognized him, and They repelled his followers, none of them remained.” [c.c. and S.pap.]
I’ve been burnt to the ground
Ashes in a pile
But you found me in that mound
And you fashioned it a new home
Made of stone,
Made of bone
And iron
And the sound of storms.
Storms that raged and carried me forward
A whirl wind of your power
I no longer feared the lightening
For your thunder is my heart now.
You are before whom the sky shakes And I long to hear Your thunder Please hear my wish of a stormy night So that I may listen to You boom across the sky I am not asking for too hard a wind For tornadoes scare me with Your power But it has been so long since I have heard You Roaring into the skies with Your great strength Just the sound of rain and Your booming voice Will comfort me and know that You are here.
The Egyptians had an intensely personal relationship with their gods whom they constantly approached with prayer, offerings, and requests for assistance. The deities were beneficent, sympathetic, and often responsive to the pleas of their devotees. The diverse ways in which they could appeal to the gods reflected people’s confidence that the gods were accessible and could be trusted to assist them in matters of concern both large and small.
Gods were revered, but they were also seen in practical terms as patient problem solvers and mediators who could be counted on for help as long as they were revered, maintained by offerings, and shown proper respect though prayer and veneration. A remarkable feature of their contact with the gods was the confidence and boldness with which the Egyptians approached their deities, a reflection of the intimacy between humans and gods.
The texts show that the people were motivated to contact a deity by their desire for help with a range of personal issues, from the major – infertility, illness, grief – to the relatively minor – complaints about a neighbor or the theft of small items. The gods were always there for the petitioners, and they were a constant comfort to their flock.
The gods were rarely consulted on philosophical issues – practicality was the motivation for communication. In keeping with this practicality, prayers were often offered with a brisk, businesslike directness. Some texts show an individual trying to cajole a deity into action or even stretching the truth to get a god to act.
In a letter from late Dynasty 20, one man dared to scold a god who had been unwilling to help him:
When I was looking for you to tell you some affairs of mine, you happened to be concealed in your sanctuary…See, you must discard seclusion today and come out in procession in order that you may decide upon the issues involving seven kilts belonging to the temple of Horemheb and also those two kilts belonging to the necropolis scribe.
– P.220 – 222, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt, Emily Teeter.
“While people may view inscriptions in Greek or Latin as pretty, they still recognize their merit as text. Indeed, writings from ancient Greece and Rome are revered and considered classics of Western literature. Egyptian hieroglyphics, however, are often seen as mere decoration. Sometimes, the characters are literally used as wallpaper.
One reason is that schoolchildren and classicists alike have read Greek and Latin widely for centuries. But hieroglyphics and the stories they tell have remained accessible only to a handful of trained scholars. That’s one reason Penguin Classics has published Writings from Ancient Egypt in Great Britain (it will be available in the US in January), the first literary English translation of some of the texts that cover thousands of square feet of monuments and tomb walls.
Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson, a fellow of Clare College at Cambridge University, tells Dalya Alberge at The Guardian that the ancient Egyptian writing is just as compelling and layered as those written by the Romans. “What will surprise people are the insights behind the well-known facade of ancient Egypt, behind the image that everyone has of the pharaohs, Tutankhamun’s mask and the pyramids,” Wilkinson says.
The selections include stories like “The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor,” the text from the Tempest Stela and letters written around 1930 BC by a farmer named Heqanakht.
By the second century A.D., hieroglyphic script had been mainly replaced by Coptic, a Greek-based alphabet, according to Owen Jarus at LiveScience. But hieroglyphics were on the wain since Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., and Greek became the empire’s bureaucratic script. Humanity soon lost the ability to read hieroglyphics. That is until 1799 when French soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone, which contained lines of the same text in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphics. It was the first solid clue to understanding the writing, but it still took French scholar Jean-François Champollion to unravel the language in the 1820s. To do so, he had to understand that hieroglyphics is a complex collection of symbols that represent a mixture of objects, ideas and sounds.
Before this new volume, the Egyptian Book of the Dead has been the most widely available text from ancient Egypt. While that collection is interesting and includes spells that give instructions to the dead on how to make it to the afterlife, it’s not easy reading. Unlike Greek myths or Roman epics, it does not offer non-academic readers much insight into daily Egyptian life or thought.
Wilkinson hopes his new volume will make the Egyptians accessible to modern readers for the first time. While many of the texts included have been translated previously, Wilkinson points out that the original translations took place over a hundred years ago, which make them stilted and difficult to read for today’s audience. He hopes that these new translations can convey the complexity, subtlety and poetry found in hieroglyphics.”
Random thought – If getting into the Egyptian afterlife really is about how heavy your heart is weighted down by guilt and psychopaths don’t feel guilt – doesn’t that mean Osiris and the rest of the Egyptian pantheon are hanging around serial killers?
Read the myth of prince Setna and his son Sa-Osiri: there’s exact description of HOW the weighting is done.
You will see very detailed description of egyptian afterlife, without extra glamour. You may especially notice some things:
They
entered the seventh hall, and Setne saw the mysterious form of Osiris,
the great god, seated on his throne of fine gold, crowned with the
atef-crown. Anubis, the great god, was on his left, the great god Thoth
was on his right, and the gods of the tribunal of the inhabitants of the
netherworld stood on his left and right. The balance stood in the
center before them, and they weighed the good deeds against the
misdeeds, Thoth, the great god, writing, while Anubis gave the
information to his colleague.He who would be found to have more misdeeds
than good deeds [is handed over] to the Devourer, who belongs to the
lord of the netherworld. His ba is destroyed together with his body, and
he is not allowed to breathe ever again.He who would be found to have
more good deeds than misdeeds is taken in among the gods of the tribunal
of the lord of the netherworld, while his ba goes to the sky together
with the august spirits.He who would be found to have good deeds equal
to his misdeeds is taken in among the excellent spirits who serve
Sokar-Osiris. […]
– But, not everyone, who did
mode bad things than good things, is sent to be eaten by Ammit. Some of
the souls are being sent to “imprisonment in the Netherworld”, where
they experience punishment(you will see that on the example of the rich man in the story)
“Take
it to your heart, my father Setne: He who is beneficent on earth, to
him one is beneficent in the netherworld. And he who is evil, to him
one is evil. It is so decreed [and will remain so] for ever. The
things that you have seen in the netherworld at Memphis, they
happen in the forty-two nomes [in which are the judges] of Osiris,
the great god.”
Got to be honest, had that thought this morning when that episode of Supernatural was on and Osiris was telling Sam that it was up to Dean if he got punished or not.
Then I started thinking about the first time I was actually introduced to the concept. I can’t remember if it was a Sesame Street movie (made for tv) or just one of their episodes. But Big Bird and Snuffleupagus were in a museum when they met the ghost of a dead Egyptian boy. They helped him get into the afterlife and were even there for the judging. The boy’s heart was weighed and at first judged as being too heavy until Big Bird pointed out that of course his heart was heavy, he had been apart from his family and alone for so long that he felt unloved. Then he and Snuffy told the boy he was loved and the boy’s heart got lighter and he entered the afterlife and turned into a star. (I can’t be the only person out there who remembers this. Fucking Sesame Street characters talking to dead boys!)
Add to that the fact I’ve been trying to convince a librarian where I work to buy books about Ed Gein and copies of movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Idea for a Halloween display – pair a movie up with the books or books about the people they’re based on. Dracula, The Phantom Of The Opera, etc – Gein is the inspiration behind Leatherface along with several other horror movie villains) so serial killers/psychopaths were on my mind too.
Which led to this thought which I later realized is probably all screwed up cause unlike Greek and Norse mythology, Egyptian wasn’t really studied in depth in school.
“Pharaonic Egypt never developed a radical two-worlds theory comparable to Christianity, Judaism, and Gnosticism. The Judgement of the dead connects the norms of this world with the next. What is valid here will be valid there. The attitudes and behaviors that lead to happiness, fulfillment and success in this world will find favor in the next. Classical Egyptian texts make no mention whatsoever of the idea of inversion by which in the next life the poor shall be made rich and vice versa, or those that travail and are heavy laden will be compensated for everything they have been made to suffer. The judgement of the Dead is not the great divide between this world and the next quite the contrary; it binds both worlds together inseparably.”
This is something that I don’t think gets said enough on here, or in other pagan communities, and I wish I’d heard someone saying this when I was getting started in my worship, because I think too often we’re told to expect visions and signs simply because we ask for Them. We’re told too often that our deities will come into our lives and we’ll interact with Them. We’re told too often that we need these signs. So here goes:
I don’t worship the Theoi because They told me to. I don’t worship Them because I got signs and visions dragging me to Them. I don’t worship Them because I clearly hear Them, or see Them, or really ever get messages from Them. And I don’t need those things.
Sure, I get warm fuzzy feelings sometimes, and I feel like They’re here, in my life; but I don’t have any proof that isn’t just the chemicals in my brain. Sure, I get dreams sometimes and I feel like They’re trying to tell me something; but I don’t have any proof that I’m not having nyquil dreams.
I worship the Theoi because I love Them. Because I think They are beautiful. Because I think the faith built around Them is beautiful. Because I push myself to be a better person every day, so that I can honor Them.
I believe in the Theoi.
I have faith in the Theoi.
I don’t need validation. I don’t need proof. I don’t need confirmation of my beliefs. I have faith.
I’m going to summarize what Sobek-Ra conveyed to me last night because I feel like sharing, even though it’s kind of embarrassing. He says something along the lines of: “You sit around, not wanting to do the work. Instead you come to me and the others asking for help and hope. I’m not going to give it to you if you don’t make an effort. I know it’s hard, I know it drains you, but you have to do it. You have to try. You have to get off your ass and get moving in the areas of your life you want to improve. I’m NOT going to just hand it to you, that teaches you nothing. Learn, grow, work. Only then will you be rewarded. Only then will I help you. As my daughter I expect you to be doing your best, always, in all you do. You can fall, you can fail, I expect that, butget back up. Try again. Never stop trying. Make me proud.”
Goldnwulf 