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DEFINING TRADITION - PART III

5/14/2019

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THE HERMOPOLITAN OR OSIRIAN PATH
The Osirian legend is the most well-known of the Egyptian myths despite the fact that the only detailed narrative is that of Plutarch’s Greek version.  The authentic Egyptian references are ‘dispersed over several different periods and offer only a nebulous of disjointed facts’ (Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods) while one ‘curious and poorly documented legend’ Geb is forced to slay his own son (Osiris) in self-defence.   The Osirian cult forms the bridge between the nine deities of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis and the more modern, devotional approach of the Hermopolitan Path.
 
Osiris [E=Aser]
As Hamlyn points out in Egyptian Mythology, ‘perhaps more than in the case of any other god, the legend of Osiris underwent great changes through the course of history’.   And  as  all  students  of mythology are aware, the mysteries of the ‘dying god’ tradition were a focal point of religious belief in the Tigres-Euphrates and Nile valleys, i.e Osiris (Egypt), Attis (Phrygia) and Adonis (Greece).  Osiris was originally a god of the vegetation which died, re-seeded and flowered again following the inundation of the Nile, thereby symbolising the Egyptian concept of re-birth.  As Gardiner points out the Osirian myth had ‘never been deeply spiritual but it had recounted the triumph of good over evil and had told of widely devotion and filial piety’.  It was also accessible to the common people in terms of understanding and identification.
 
The dying god concept had to be credible to the simple man. To have a divine being dying each year by accident would have eventually  led  to  a  total  lack  of  ‘street-cred’;  death by disease or decay was also out since who in their right mind would identify with a weak and sickly god?  The only alternative was for Osiris to be killed and as the image of Set was still creating a problem for the priesthood, he could be disposed of once and for all by being named as the murderer of his brother. 
     
​Magically speaking, the death and resurrection of Osiris are comparable  to  the  later  mystery  traditions  of  Ishtar/Tammuz, Cybel/Attis, Demeter/Persephone, Mithra and Christianity rather than the more sanitised version with which he is so frequently aligned. In view of later ‘dying god/king’ cults (including the killing of the pagan king William Rufus by Walter Tyrrel in English folk-lore when the king’s blood ‘watered the earth’ all the way to Winchester) it also endorses the theory that Set’s involvement was originally that of ‘divine slayer’ rather than the murderer of Osiris [Tyrrel has never been reviled as a murderer]. The fact that the mortal remains of the dead god should come into contact with the earth indicates that this was a custom belonging to the age of agriculture; life had been taken out of the ground by the crops, so life had to be put back in again.
 
Praise be to Osiris!
Adorations be given to him!
Smelling of the earth to Un-Nefer!
Prostrations to the ground to the
Everlasting Self-Created Sun God!
 
It would be unwise, however, to look upon the Osirian Path with sweetness and light since the knowledge drawn upon to resurrect the god were magical powers that the uninformed would be quick to label ‘black’.  One of the best sources of information for students of the Osirian Tradition is the two volume Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection by Sir Wallis Budge which provide sufficient working material to satisfy even the most avid of scholarly magi.  For the modern magician, the Set/Osiris Mysteries have been more fully explored in The Setian by Billie Walker-John, where the relationship between the so-called rivals can be seen in its proper perspective of balancing opposites.
    
Represented  by  corn  and  vine,  Osiris’s other most familiar emblem is the djet.  From the beginning of the New Kingdom this was considered to be a portion of the backbone of the god and venerated as one of the his relics.  Because of its symbolic value, the hieroglyph appears often in scenes and texts associated with the knot or buckle [tjet] of Isis.  Located in the centre of the Pillar of Equilibrium, Tiphareth is the sphere of the dying god - the Tarot symbolised by Death and The Hanged Man.  Osiris is petitioned for strength during suffering and adversity and a belief in what is to come. His image is one of fertility and growth and it would be a mistake to look upon him as a death-god.
 
Isis [E=Aset]
Attributed with all the qualities of the perfect wife, mother and goddess - the mother of all things, both spiritual and temporal.  She is almost inter-changeable with Hathor and Bast on the more earthly levels but it is as the goddess of magic that Isis comes into her own. To enable her to posthumously bear her son, conceived by the union with her husband’s dead body, Isis resorted to the skills of the necromancer. “For she was a potent magician and even the gods were not immune from her sorcery.”   
    
Isis represents the rich plains of Egypt, made fruitful by the annual Inundation of the Nile.  She is represented as a woman who bears the hieroglyph of a throne as her head-dress, or a solar disk between cow’s horns which identifies her with Hathor.  By the time of the Greek occupation of Egypt, Isis had adopted virtually all the attributes of the female pantheon — and some of the male ones as well.  Netzach is her sphere on the Tree of Life and her image is The High Priestess of the Tarot.  Her colours are blue and silver.  Because she became the embodiment of every other goddess in the Egyptian  pantheon, this  collective power  makes her a very powerful focus for female energies in magical terms.
 
Nephthys [E=Nebthet]
The fourth sibling in the Osirian group represents the flooding or high water mark of the Nile.  She represents hidden lunar depths and can be invoked as a protector; she was supposed to possess great magical powers like her sister, Isis but she is the personification of darkness and of all that belongs to it, her attributes being of a passive rather than active nature.  This idea stems from the legend that having taken a fancy to her brother-in-law Osiris she slipped into his bed under the cover of darkness.  As a result him of mistaking her for Isis, Anubis was the result of this adulterous union.  She is therefore the mistress of illusion.  Nevertheless  the  two  goddesses  are  inseparable, Isis representing  the  part of  the world that is visible, with Nephthys representing that which is invisible.  Nephthys is always represented by the head-dress of a house and basket but never appears to have been the object of an independent cult since no temples or shrines have yet been discovered that are dedicated to her alone.
 
Horus the Younger [E=Hor]
The son of Isis and Osiris (there are some 20 of this name in the Egyptian pantheon) who was born posthumously and later avenged the death of his father by doing battle with Set.  During the fighting, Horus lost an eye, the symbol of which has become a powerful tool in magical working although it is often confused with the more ancient ‘eye of Re’. Like Horus the Elder, he is depicted as falcon-headed and holds in his right hand the ankh. 
    
Despite the happy-family picture, Horus and Isis were often at logger-heads, the son even decapitating his mother after particularly violent argument.  Later Pharaohs associated themselves with the younger Horus and thus became identified the son of Osiris - which added another layer of confusion to the earlier texts where Pharaoh was descended from the sun-god.  He could aptly use The Aeon as a point of focus in the Tarot, with many of the attributes normally associated with Horus the Elder.
 
Tauret [E=Twrt]
She  grew  to  prominence  as  the  popular  goddess  of childbirth, maternity and suckling during the New Kingdom.  She is represented as a pregnant hippopotamus with pendulous breasts, standing upright and holding the hieroglyphic sign of protection, ka, a plait of rolled papyrus.  Enjoying great popularity at Thebes amongst the middle classes, who gave her name to their children and decorated their homes with her image, she could also be called upon as an avenging deity when she would appear with the head of a lioness brandishing a dagger.
 
Bes [E=Bs]
Also a popular household deity from the New Kingdom who presided over all aspects of the home from marriage and child-birth to protection against evil spirits.  He was a grotesque dwarfish figure, jovial and belligerent, fond of dancing and fighting.  The middle classes  kept  statues  of  him  in  their  homes and named children after him.
 
There are, of course, hundreds more deities in the Egyptian pantheon than those featured above and the Adept choosing to follow either  the  Primitive,  Heliopolitan  or  Hermopolitan  Paths can expand   his  or  her  knowledge  of   those  appertaining  to  the appropriate Path by studying academic text books for the period.  The Pyramid  and  Coffin  Texts  and  The  Book of the Dead are important historical guides to the deities of ancient Egypt and some later versions of The Book of the Dead list up to 500 separate identities.
    
The later Triad system, a group of three gods usually consisting of a divine family of parents and child who were worshipped at a particular cult centre set the precedent for the trinity-concept in other religions emerging outside Egypt.  As the Dictionary defines, the Triad was often a convenient method of linking together three formerly independent deities of an area to form an easily identifiable religious context for worshipping or political purposes.  Among the most important were Amun-Mut-Khons at Thebes;Ptah-Sekhmet/Bast-Nefertem at Memphis; the Winged Horus-Hathor-Horus the child at Edfu; Khnum-Satet-Anuket at Elephantine  and  Osiris-Isis-Horus  who  were  not  associated  with  any specific cult-centre.  The Dictionary suggests that this appears to have been ‘primarily a theological development of the New Kingdom’ but it was a convenient method of bringing several different attributes of the deities under one temple roof.
 
 
The Otherworld
The regions to which the dead departed were called the dwat or Amenti (Osiris is sometimes referred to as Khenti-Amenti in earlier texts); the latter a dark gloomy place, containing pits of fire and dreadful monsters, flanked by a river and lofty mountains.  In the later Osirian cult the souls of the dead had to pass through to the dwat, an equivalent of the Elysian Fields [sekhet hetepet] where Osiris and his company could be found among the 15 regions in the Field of Reeds [sekhet aaru].  The dwat was situated in the heavens, at the furthest reaches of the Eastern Desert where the mummified body of the sun-god waited while the scarab beetle, Khepri, deity of the rising run, pushed the solar disc out of the dwat into the new day. Amenti is the darkness into which the sun descends over the mountains of the Western Desert.
 
Like most things connected to Egyptian religious thought, the dwat had an equivocal meaning insomuch that the texts sometimes refer to the negative aspects of Osiris as a malevolent deity.  In this guise  the  petitioner  could  invoke  the  protection  of  Re,  so  the deceased could make the journey in the light rather than the darkness. Initially, in the Pyramid Texts, the dwat was represented by a star within a circle; the place in the sky where the sun and the stars re-appeared after having been invisible; in later times it began to represent the Otherworld whether celestial or subterranean (the latter being more recent in Egyptian culture).
    
The Egyptian fondness for obscure mythological allusions make it extremely difficult to discover any specific details about Otherworld since most spells are for the life in the hereafter rather than about it (JEA - Vol 58).  “As a rule, the magical incantations that make up the bulk do not specify the exact circumstances under which they are to be used, nor can these be easily deducted from their contents.”  According to Dieter Muller early copies of The Book of the Dead display ‘great variability in the choice and order of their chapters’.  The Pyramid Texts at the other end of the spectrum show a certain degree of consistency, while the Coffin Texts pose a particularly complicated problem.  Having preserved much valuable information on the purpose of the spells and their application they nevertheless exhibit certain conflicting preferences for the location and order of the text.
    
The Texts consist of a heading followed by a section in which the deceased has to pass an unspecified number of gates.  At each gate a conversation ensues, in which he reveals his familiarity with the name and character of the door-keeper and receives permission to advance: “You who have come spiritualised, my brother: proceed to the place about which you are informed’.  The same pattern is followed to placate the ferryman who will take him across the river separating these gates from the Field of Reeds.  The text concludes with an invocation and a docket promising freedom of movement and arable land in the Field of Reads to anyone who knows this spell [Reference JEA - Vol 58].
    
The Egyptians often referred to the desert [E=deshret] the ‘red land’ as a place of death; the Western Desert was regarded as the entrance to Amenti.  Set was considered the ‘red god’ and lord of the desert wilderness, while other deities such as Min and Hathor were patrons of travellers in the desert regions.
    
Like all mythologies, there are strange creatures inhabiting the Otherworld such as Ammut who consumes the hearts of those whose evil deeds made them unfit to proceed into the afterlife.  She is usually shown waiting beside the scales in the Hall of Judgement, with the head of a crocodile, the foreparts of a lion and the rear of a hippopotamus.  Apophis, the snake-god of the underworld, who symbolises the forces of chaos and evil; it is Set who defeats  this  adversary  of  Re  but  at  a  later  period  Set  himself became identified with Apophis. 
    
The realms of the Otherworld were inhabited by a ‘fantastic array of beings’ but the most feared were the ‘messengers of Sekhmet’ which appear to be irritating and deadly spirits thought to be prevalent at the end of the year and very much part of the ‘real’ world.   They caused sickness, sleeplessness and general discontentment and can be dealt with by invoking Sekhmet herself to get rid of them.  The demons of the netherworld are the creatures of the darkness, probably similar to those encountered on the astral, who hound and harry the dead as they make their way through Amenti.
    
Magically, Amenti is the darkness of the Otherworld - the place to which the Adept can descend in the process of exploring the astral since this is where all things that are hidden are finally revealed.  The dwat is the ‘starry place’ - the darkness behind the sky.  It doesn’t matter which deity the Adept chooses providing she or he  maintains a strict adherence to the cosmic, natural or universal law - the law  of opposites that governs all areas of magical working - ‘As  Above, So Below’ - which takes into account this world and the next, whether it be the physical world, Amenti or the dwat.
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DEFINING THE TRADITION – Part II

5/1/2019

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Heliopolitan Path and the Theban Triad - Part II
 
Generally speaking, the Egyptians could be classed as religious but never  mystical  simply  because  their  belief  system  was  strictly utilitarian - a reverence for those two natural forces that made their existence possible: the Sun and the Nile. In fact, according to F. Gladstone Bratton (A History of Egyptian Archaeology) their entire religious and cultural history was determined by these two forces.  “They have left us little or no abstract thought.  Their belief was defined by the dualism of light and darkness, aridity and fertility, night and day, life and death.  Just as there was no twi-light in Egypt, neither was there any middle ground of thought.”
    
This observation, however, is refuted by T G H James (BM - Collections) who finds that between the simple religious beliefs of humble Egyptians and the elaborate theological doctrines of the great state-cults, there is a further level of religious thinking which can occasionally be glimpsed through rare personal tomb inscriptions and literary compositions.  James believes that these examples, which appear in Old Kingdom tombs  at Saqqara, offer an insight  into the most ‘profound religious thinking manifested in ancient Egypt’, particularly those discovered in tombs of certain high officials of Dynasty VI.   These ‘new’ ideas of responsibility and retribution appear as Egypt was facing its first major social and political upheaval; the unnamed Great God, invoked as part of the funerary rites, illustrates that the Egyptians could think about divinity ‘without investing it with concrete form’.  
    
In the years since Bratton’s book was published in the late 60s, however, the cults of Ptah and Amun have been found to show a distinctly more mystical approach to religious thought.  Both were originally regional gods whose worship remained constant until the great surge of popularity towards the end of the pharaonic dynasties.  These are the deities to appeal to the intellect since they offer intellectual concepts rather than religious personification but for the ordinary ancient Egyptian who preferred more clearly defined expressions there was nothing to write home about.   James also identifies  the  First  Intermediate Period  as  the  time  when a new attitude to religious matters developed and the first ‘semi-philosophical texts were composed’.
 
Ptah [E=pth]
As Emery explains, although the cult of Ptah sought after a higher level of religious thinking and spirituality, originally he was widely regarded as the protector of artisans and artists, and inventor of the arts.  He was at the same time designer, smelter of metal and builder.  His high priest at Memphis bore a title analogous to the ‘Master Builder’ of the European medieval cathedrals.  It was Ptah who directed the architects and masons during the construction of a temple and appears to have retained the same characteristics from Dynasty II right down to later times.  He is usually represented as a bearded man with a blue skull cap, wrapped in a shroud-like garment carrying the symbol of stability.  As Ptah-Seker he represents the union of creative power with that of chaos or darkness.

After the extinction of the New Kingdom rulers, Ptah became the third most important deity in both stature and wealth.  His new-found glory elevated him to the position of ‘the Universal Demiurge who had with his own hands fashioned the world, the other gods being mere personifications of aspects of Ptah’.  He was said to have saved the city from attacking Assyrians by raising an army of rats, who forced the enemy to flee, having gnawed their bowstrings, quivers, and the leather thongs of their shields—a myth later found in the Old Testament.
 
His  more  human  attributes  give  him  the  appearance  of  a Buddha-like figure and his worship is more concerned with the building and perfection of the temple, i.e. the mind and body that earthly pursuits.  The Adept who leans towards the mystical rather than the magical may find an ideal focus in the concept of Ptah, the universal architect.  His name in the Tarot and the Tree of Life signifies ‘admirable or hidden intelligence’ - the four aces which represent the roots of the four elements.  He is The Hierophant or The Universe and Yesod (the Foundation).
 
Bast [E=Bastet]
The local goddess of Bubastis but she became the great national divinity when the city became capital of the kingdom in Dynasty XXII.  With Ptah and their son Nefertum they formed a triad.  She personified the fertilising warmth of the sun, represented by a cat, or cat-headed woman.  Like Hathor she was a goddess of pleasure, music and dance and was often shown with a sistrum. 
 
She also gave protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.  Her devotees buried the carefully mummified bodies of cats which, during their life-times, had been venerated as animals sacred to Bast - see below.  Her festival took place in April and May and is celebrated with dancing, drinking and song.  Like Isis and Hathor she sits in the sphere of Netzach and can be represented by The High Priestess in the Tarot.
 
Ma’at
Depicted as a woman standing or sitting on her heels, wearing an ostrich feather on her head, which is the symbol of her name - truth order and justice.   In reality, Ma’at was a ‘pure abstraction deified’ but in the Book of the Dead she becomes a beautiful woman presiding over the weighing of the heart in the Hall of Judgement.  Her name means ‘that which is straight’ and among the Egyptians it implied anything that was true, genuine or real. In the Old Kingdom the name referred to national order under the dominance of the sun-god; in later times it meant moral order, the realm of universal values. 
 
She can be attributed to Adjustment or Temperence in the Tarot and her name can be used in an oath or promise that can never be broken.  In later times she was named as wife to Thoth, or as the female embodiment of his attributes.
 
Seker
Probably another localised vegetation god before he became the god of the dead in the Memphis necropolis.  Usually depicted in the form of a greenish hawk-headed mummy, he was worshipped in the sanctuary called ro stau - ‘the doors of the corridors’ which communicated directly with the Underworld.  His worship was quickly submerged within the Osirian cult although he continued to be worshiped at Memphis as Seker-Osiris.  In later times he became the great funerary divinity as Ptah-Seker-Osiris despite the fact that he belongs very firmly within the Memphian cosmogony.
 
Amun [E=imn]
One of the most important but enigmatic gods in the Egyptian pantheon; his worship having a close alignment with the higher spirituality of the Heliopolitan Path than the purely devotional Hermopolitan Path.  Originally, he was the principle god of Thebes and a member of the Ogdoad, the group of eight primeval deities worshipped at Hermopolis. 
    
His name, means ‘what is hidden’ and although classed as one of the primeval  gods of Egypt it wasn’t  until much later that his votaries began to exercise the enormous power, which they finally wielded throughout the land.   He was first mentioned Dynasty II Pyramid Texts and later Dynasty XI texts imply that Amun is a god who cannot be viewed by mortal eyes, invisible and inscrutable.  It is worth noting that the Cairo Calendar makes no mention of Amun and the Theban triad since these gods only came to prominence during the New Kingdom.  
    
In Dynasty XII, in the process of re-organising the kingdom and solidifying its control of the entire country, Amun was transformed from an obscure god into a national and dynastic divinity; calling on the powerful solar theology of the Memphian dynasty of ancient Egypt as an obligatory step’ (Hierogylphics).  Lewis Spence suggests that it isn’t “difficult to see that the conception of such a deity would speedily win favour with a priestly and theological class, who might strain after a form of god-head less crude than the purely symbolic system that held sway in the country.” 
     
When the princes of Thebes rose to power, Amun rose with them and became the prominent god in Upper Egypt.  Osiris, as the popular god, could not be replaced but Amun as the more spiritual being fused with Ra; the high-priest of Amun-Ra was raised to royal power instituting Dynasty XXII, or the dynasty of priest-kings, the influences spreading far and wide into neighbouring countries.  His temple at Karnak is the best surviving religious complex of the New Kingdom.  He is represented in human form wearing a high double crown, or either as a ram or a goose.  The Romans  later  worshipped  him  as  Jupiter-Amon  and  consulted oracles at his temple.  An apt Tarot symbol could be The Hanged Man or The Wheel of Fortune, signifying all the various changes and sufferings undertaken before emerging triumphant.  
 
Mut [E=mwt]
The female counterpart in this amalgam was the ‘world-mother, lady of heaven and queen of the gods’ who was attributed with all the female attributes of the mother oriented goddesses in Egypt and represented by a vulture. With their son Khons, they comprised the Theban Triad.  Khons is a moon-god usually depicted holding a sceptre and flail and wearing the Sidelock of Youth with a lunar head-dress.  The triadic structure (or structural element) was used in Egypt to answer the problem of divine plurality and unity (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology - Vol 57). 
According to H. Re Velde in Egypt the triad was an extremely suitable structure for connecting plurality and unity, “because the number three was not only a numeral, but signified the indefinite plural.  Thus the triad was a structure capable of transforming polytheism into tritheism or differentiated monotheism”. The third card in the Tarot, The Empress would be an ideal focus for Mut.
 
The Triad was often a convenient means of linking together three formerly independent gods of an area, and seems to have been a primarily a theological development of the New Kingdom. Although the Osiris-Isis-Horus family grouping fits into the triad principle at first glance, the Theban Triad is a much more exalted form of worship, best suited to mysticism and the Mysteries than the religion of the common man.  Of all the gods in the Egyptian pantheon, the concept of Amen-Ra is probably best suited to 20th century since it does not require an acceptance of all the trappings of legend and mythology to produce a precise identification on god-head.
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Defining the Tradition

4/11/2019

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The experienced Adept working with more primitive god-forms will instinctively be drawn to the correspondences which ‘feel’ right for that particular deity.  Again for the sake of simplicity, the Egyptian Mystery Tradition has been divided into three distinctly separate categories or Paths, and only the more important of the principal deities have been included. 
    
Primitive Path deals with the primeval/primordial forces of the universe usually aligned with ritual magic; the Heliopolitan Path offers a more intellectual, spiritual or mystical approach; while the Hermopolitan Path concentrates on the purely devotional aspects and the ability to move between the worlds, i.e. different planes of consciousness. An intimate knowledge of Egyptian myth is essential for the effective practise of magic at a higher level of awareness; a knowledge that has to extend beyond these stereotypical deities of popular Egyptology to embrace a wider and loftier range of supernatural beings. 
    
This is why it becomes so important to successful magic that the Adept throws him- or herself into an intensive study programme to enable him/her to differentiate between the different levels of magic, historical influence and religious emphasis that mark the subtle shifts of importance between the Paths.  The Qabalistic and Tarot correspondences given for each deity are not hard and fast rules, since each Adept should design and complete his/her own Tree  of  Life  to  correspond  with  the  inner  messages  that  each individual receives direct from the Guardians of the Path.  Likewise, the images from the Tarot will often convey contradictory messages from one Adept to another - there is no one true Way, since neither Qabalah nor Tarot existed for the priest of Khem.
 
Primitive Path (Naqada Tradition] PART I
The seeker after primitive sources will find it necessary to dissect later renderings of the classic texts which are, unfortunately, pre- occupied with the Osirian legend.  For the serious student of the Primitive Path, the eye will instinctively  be drawn  to the obscure references relating to Set and Horus the Elder, which can then be extracted from the conflicting Osirian mythos. 
    
This Path is more closely aligned with the raw natural energy that comes from the bowels of the earth or the furthest reaches of the universe.  The deities, many of whom are in the creator/destroyer mould, equate with the mighty gods of other religions (Pan, Lilith, Tiamat, Asthoreth, Kronos, etc) who were eventually demonised by subsequent social and cultural changes because they were too powerful to eradicate.
    
The Primitive Path requires a certain amount of courage and daring normally associated with Western Ritual Magic, since when unleashing primordial power it is necessary to maintain a firm control over it.  As in Ritual Magic, the Magus summons the demon or archangel to do his bidding, the Adept of the Primitive Path must show no fear when directing his magical operations within the spheres of primitive power.  Many of the early Egyptian deities are associated in some way with death and rampant sexuality which is, in itself, the strongest method of raising power for magical use. 
 
Atum-Re:
The solar aspect is the distinguishing and all-important feature of all the creator-gods.  Following the rebellion of mankind, Atum withdrew to the heavens, abdicating his power to his only son Shu; in the form of Re or Re-Harakhti he remained visible and the solar cult continued through to the end of Dynasty XXX. He is the Divine Father and the following hymn taken from the Book of the Dead (Chapter 15) can be used a prayer to the all-mighty creator:
 
“Hail to you, Re, at your rising, and to you, Atum, at your setting.  You rise every day, you shine brightly every day, while you appear in glory, king of the gods.  You are lord of the sky and Lord of the earth, who has created the creatures above and those below.  Sole god who came into being on the first occasion, who made the land and created human beings, who made the Nun and created the Nile, who created the waters and imparted life to what is in them, who raised up the mountains and bestowed existence upon men and herds ... Divine youth, heir to eternity, who engendered himself and gave birth to himself, unique one with many forms.”
 
There are many forms Atum-Re can take and whichever god-form you chose to pay homage, it is advisable to have an image of the Divine Father in your temple even if it does not pay a dominate part in your working.   A sphinx, obelisk, scarab or winged solar disk are all representative of Atum-Re or Re-Harakhte.  He can equates with Kether on the Tree of Life and The Sun or The Universe in the Tarot.  Magically speaking, as The Universe represents the Celebration of the Great Work accomplished, to which we all aspire, it can be a useful card to use in meditation.  His colours correspond to the white, shimmering gold of electum or platinum.  Because he is the all-seeing, omnipotent Divine One he can be petitioned at any time but traditionally his ceremonies would be carried out at dawn.
 
Set [E=Sutekh] (above)
The most ancient and powerful deity in the Primitive Tradition is, of course Set and here it is necessary to strongly enforce the point that this is neither black magic nor devil worship.  Since, as Professor Emery point out, Set could neither be assimilated nor ignored, he remained a deity apart,  much the  same  as  the  diminished stature of the Great God Pan in Greek mythology.  In both cases, it was easier to belittle and malign a deity than to be rid of him all together.  The majority of modern day occultists still shy away from working with Pan/Set god-forms because of the sheer power of the primeval earth forces that are unleashed by these time-less beings. 
    
As Geraldine Pinch explains, Set was the force of chaos, but it was not until  a late stage  in Egyptian culture  that he  was seen as totally evil; and even then he still might be invoked since like should be fought with like. “When something dangerous and chaotic had to be overcome, a being who possessed those qualities needed to be enlisted on your side,” she observed.  This form of magical energy is not for the inexperienced or the faith-hearted since it has been generating suppressed power for over 5000 years.”  As an added safety precaution against this radio-active energy, invoke Nut to act as a shield and mediator.
 
Set is called upon as a guide and protector from the darkness and all that it conceals, i.e. ignorance, hypocrisy and superstition; he is the Path to hidden knowledge, wisdom and understanding and can equate with Daath on the Tree of Life. It is in his negative form he represents confusion and social/cosmic disorder and his unrestrained sexual behaviour is often mentioned  in spells and stories, so anything connected  with passion can benefit from his attention. His colour is red and ideally any workings in his name should be carried out on either a Tuesday or Saturday under the planetary influences of Mars or Saturn.  Tarot: Chariot and The Devil.  He responds well to a libation of vintage port!
 
Horus the Elder or Re-Harakhte (below)
Magically speaking, Horus and Set, although normally considered as opponents, are combined into a single deity; brothers who are at the same time both enemies and inseparable. Historically speaking these were two distinct and irreconcilable cults, which only became temporarily united at the close of Dynasty II as a matter of political expediency.  The cult of Horus the Elder flourished and divided; on one hand he was reduced to the son of Osiris and Isis, on the other he retained his solar image and was identified in the living image of Pharaoh. For magical purposes it makes sense to pay homage to Horus the Elder as an amalgam of the two ancient sun-gods in the combined identity of Re-Harakhte and discard the later more modernised persona.  His emblem is the solar disc around which is coiled the sacred cobra. Horus in this guise can also be looked upon as a champion and protector, equated with the balancing elements of Geburah on the Tree of Life and sharing The Chariot in the Tarot with Set, or The Sun with Atum-Re.  Depending on the purpose of the ritual, any workings carried out in his name should be performed on a Sunday or Tuesday. His colours are orange and bright gold.
 
Nut [E=Nu]
The sky-goddess is represented as a woman with an elongated body, touching the earth with toes (east) and finger-tips (west), while her star-spangled belly forms the arch of the heavens.  Her origins as a mother-goddess stem from the re-birth of the sun each morning; the rosy colour of dawn was supposed to be the blood which she shed giving birth to the sun.  Nut and her brother/consort Geb, belong to the third generation of gods; their parents being Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture), the son and daughter of the creator-god.  For those with eyes to see, and urban street-lighting permitting, the Milky Way can often reveal the goddess as she spreads her protection over the darkened earth. In later times, her image was painted on the inside of coffin lids as a protective symbol.  She is represented by the hieroglyph of a rounded vase and The Star in the Tarot. Her colours are dark blue and gold and is best petitioned during the dark on the moon when her figure can be clearly observed in the Milky Way.
 
Geb [E=Seb]
Can be called upon as the ancient god of vegetation and his image is usually of a handsome man, coloured green; his son Osiris was often depicted with green skin, having inherited his father’s ‘kingdom’.  Geb was looked upon as the third divine Pharaoh having succeeded his father Shu, who handed over sovereignty to his son and ascended to heaven as Re’s herald and arbiter of the gods.  As Geb was one of the divine Pharaohs, and all the human Pharaohs claimed to be descended from him, the royal throne was referred to in the Pyramid Texts as ‘the thrones of Geb’. It would be a mistake to depict Geb as a passive god, since several texts record him as being as rampant and quarrelsome as the rest of the Ennead - there even being a charge of rape against him.  He is the uncontrollable essence of nature, typified by The Fool in the Tarot as his gentle image is an illusion.   (to be continued)
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An Ancient Form of Divination: Icosahedron

4/4/2019

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A unique limestone icosahedron was discovered at the Dakhlish Oasis and probably dates to the first century AD. In contrast to other examples known from Graeco-Roman Egypt, this one is not inscribed with Latin or Greek letters or numbers, but with 20 Egyptian divine names in Demotic script. It was presumably used in an oracular procedure intended to establish which deity would provide help to the petitioner [EES Journal 2007 Vol.93]
 
This rare find is formed by 20 equilateral triangles – with 20 divine names written on the sides – is imperfectly made, as most of the faces are uneven.  It has been suggested that it was produced by an Egyptian who might not have had much practice in shaping this sophisticated Greek form.  On each of the faces a divine name is written in black ink with the sides outlined in the same.  The gods’ names are as follows:
 
  1. Imn – Amun
  2. P3-Re – Pre
  3. Pth – Ptah
  4. Dhwtj – Thoth
  5. Itm – Atum
  6. Hprj – Khepri
  7. Gb – Geb
  8. Wsjr – Osiris
  9. Hr – Horus
  10. 3s.t – Isis
  11. B3s.t – Bastet
  12. H‘pj – Hapy
  13. T3-Rpy – Triphis*
  14. Sy – Shai
  15. Nb.t-H.t – Nephthys
  16. Nj.t – Neith
  17. Spsy.t – Shepshit
  18. Mn – Min
  19. Hnsw – Khonsu
  20. Mw.t – Mut
 
NB: *Triphis is depicted as a lioness-headed woman wearing a crown with disk, horns and plumes like that of Hathor . Her consort is Min and Triphis is sometimes depicted standing behind Min, touching with her hand the flail which appears over his upraised hand, indicating their intimacy as well as her participation in Min’s power.
 
 
An icosahedron can be carved from a variety of materials such as steatite, faience, serpentine, limestone, calcite and rock-crystal – all of which can be viewed in several museum collections. The Egyptian pantheon provides no obvious pattern for distributing the twenty names over the Dakhlish version; what mattered was the result obtained when the die was thrown and which god was identified in the process.
 
Numbered icosahedra were used in Alexandria in games of chance but evidently someone whose pantheon was Egyptian adopted this foreign form, presumably to function as an oracular device.  The deity identified by throwing a die could be a possible solution to the problem. It was suggested that the ‘Egyptian’ icosahedron could perhaps be linked with the ‘oracular spells’ in the Greek and Demotic magical papyri, although they are later in date; in these an array of different gods are called upon to assist the practitioner and the icosahedron could have been used to decide which deity or which spell might be used.
 
Martina Minas-Nerpal suggests that divination seems to have been the most likely purpose of the Dakhlish icosahedron. “An Egyptian might have taken a liking to the Greek form and found it useful to write 20 divine names on it … While praying he might have moved the die in his hand, rather as is done with a rosary … Because its faces are uneven and non-equilateral, some deities would – in practice – never have been selected by a throw of the die.”
 
 
Our student responded:
‘I have obtained a wooden icosahedron and have inscribed it with the names of the 20 deities as instructed in the lesson. I do feel that this will be a useful divinatory and magical tool and oracular device. I feel that some helpful preparatory work to using the icosahedron would be to ground oneself with a good understanding of the various attributes and characteristics of the individual deities named on the icosahedron. This would help increase one’s overall intuitive response to any oracular-type questions asked of a particular deity using the device and would also help focus intention upon an appropriate deity when one is throwing the device and calling on the deity to intercede and communicate.
 
‘I also think that the icosahedron promotes an individualist approach to divination and the interpretation of correspondences/symbols, in that it is more intuitive to the particular circumstances of a given situation/petition, rather than being confined by the more traditional set of correspondences. I think it is also noteworthy that the icosahedron’s shape is one that is found commonly in the natural world and as such it carries the symbolism of sacred geometry within its form. The icosahedron could also therefore be a strong meditational aid, particularly for contemplating the nature and geometry of the cosmos, which was important to the magical practitioners and temple builders in ancient Khem. My icosahedron actually smells very woody, and this sensation facilitates the feeling of being out in nature and contemplating the patterns of the cosmos.’
 
Reproduced with the kind permission of Temple of Khem student SW.
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THE UNVEILING OF THE COMPANY OF HEAVEN

4/2/2019

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Even in this high-tech computer age of space exploration, the magical lure of Pharaonic Egypt still retains its hold on the imagination.  The sun-drenched kaleidoscope of palm-fringed temple complexes, statues and obelisks, pyramids and tombs can generate a quickening of the blood in all but the most jaded of travellers.  But more than mere landscape, it is the enduring power of ancient god-forms that probe the hidden corners of mystical awareness. 
 
Multitudes of Egyptian deities parade in anthropomorphic and animal likeness, but strangely devoid of the demonising qualities usually reserved for such bizarre portrayals from other lands.  So why are we still drawn by the haughty grandeur of these majestic beings from another world? From a magical point of view, Murry  Hope  gives  her  opinion  that  people respond to what she terms as the ‘Egyptian cosmic ray’ either readily and happily, or view it ‘with a suspicion bordering on unease’. These attitudes, she believes, stem from the subconscious and can be traced back through an individual’s psychic roots. 
 
S. G. Brandon on the other hand, writing in Man, Myth & Magic, felt that two,  more simple factors conspire  to give ancient  Egypt a unique appeal - its religion and the fact that the climate has preserved the relics of this belief system intact.  Religious observance permeated the whole life both of the individual and society, finding expression in such rich variety of forms that it is impossible to separate the actual religion from the magic and mythology of the people.  The sheer volume of detail about the magico-religion of Pharaonic Egypt also provides a concise introduction to the historical aspects of this unique Nile Valley culture which spans an immense time-scale unparalleled by any other civilisation.
 
“Almost  every aspect  of religious faith  and practice is found in this ancient religion: polytheism (worship of a plurality of gods); henotheism (the worship of a single god; monotheism (belief that there is only one God);  mythology,  magic,  ritual,  divine  kingship,  mighty temples  and mysterious tombs, a professional priesthood, illustrated religious texts, a wisdom literature and religious scepticism.  It also embraced the most elaborate funerary cult, magical resurrection and a complex after-life, and the earliest concept of a judgement after death.”  [S. G. Brandon - Man, Myth & Magic]
 
As the history and social structures of the country shifted and changed, so did the religion but few people were able to look at the Egyptian religious system objectively in the early days of scientific archaeology.  One possible exception was Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, formerly Keeper of Department of Assyrian & Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, who wrote extensively on the subject of the religious doctrines and magic.  Today, in the age of computerised assimilations,  Budge’s  work  is  dismissed  as  inaccurate,  fanciful  and romantic but whatever the criticisms levelled at his interpretations by  modern  students  of  Egyptology,  Budge  still has the power to invoke the power and mystery of the gods for the student of Magic.
    
So, too, does Margaret Murray.   Although  better  known  in  pagan circles for her books on European witchcraft, her reputation as an Egyptologist was gained studying under the great Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie at University College, London.  The Splendour That Was Egypt realistically points out that social conditions affect religion  as  much  as,  perhaps  more  than,  religion  affects social conditions; and as those conditions change, the spirit and therefore the outward form of religion changes also.   As with neighbouring cultures in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, these social changes eventually  submerged  the  original  primitive  deities  of  the  people and re-introduced a god-form that appealed to the general populace rather than just the ruling classes.
    
Therefore to follow the Path of the modern Egyptian Mystery Tradition it is essential to have an understanding of the chronology of Pharaonic Khem.  Few people have the opportunity or time to undertake a lengthy study of the science of Egyptology but it is relatively easy to put the history of this ancient kingdom into some sort of present-day perspective.  As a guideline, Egyptologists have imposed their own system of dating which has been based on a royal dynastic  framework taken  from several  ancient ‘king lists’ discovered in tombs and temples at Karnak, Abydos and Saqqara, in addition to the Royal Canon of Turin papyrus and the Palermo Stone.   Since only rarely can a historical date be definitely established with any accuracy, suffice to say that an identifiable religion was already in existence during the pre-dynastic period some 4000 years BC.
    
Just as all civilisations have developed from small tribal states, each with their own separate kingdoms and deities, so the mighty kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt began as independent provinces or nomes [E=sepat] scattered along the banks of the Nile.   The early deities  of  the  individual  provinces  reigned  supreme  in  their allotted districts and had little, or no influence outside their own region.  During the course of time, either through marriage or war, some districts merged into another and weaker deities were  either added  to the existing  pantheon or  degraded, often becoming ‘demonised’ in the process.  As Murray points out, however, the basic  Egyptian  religion  was  not  confused  until  the  foreign conquerors - Persian,  Greek  and  Roman  -  “forcibly  altered  the  condition  of  the country”.
    
For the aspiring Adept it is not enough to have a personal affinity for the images of Egypt.   It is not a culture on which we can impose our 20th century prejudices and restrictions; neither should we view the past with benign sympathy for what it never experienced and feel ourselves in any way superior.  It is the wise man who steeps himself in the history of his faith - the fool who tries to draw it forward into his own time to fit comfortably within an  uncomplicated  and  familiar  framework  of  established social interpretation.   To truly walk with the Old Ones the Magus need to become Egypt; to understand it by going back in time, and so the first step is to begin a spiritual journey with a history lesson as an exercise in virtual reality ...
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THE CALENDAR OF ANCIENT EGYPT

4/1/2019

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This ‘Book of Days’ has been compiled from Temple Festival Calendars of Ancient Egypt bySherif el-Sabban; the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri lodged in the British Museum; the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris; the Staatliche Museum in Berlin; the Rijksmuseum in Leiden; and the Sallier Papyrus IV (No.10184) and The Cairo Calendar (No.86637) currently lodged in the British and Cairo Museums. The latter, (translated into English by Abd El-Mohsen Bakir, a former Professor of Egyptian Philology at Cairo University), shows that although the document itself was made during the time of Rameses II (Dynasty XIX), it was a ‘reprint’ of much earlier material. Parts of all the documents are missing because the texts are riddled with lacunae (probably caused by white ants burrowing into the papyrus).  The papyri list the names of the gods and goddesses whose anniversaries take place on every day of the year including special spells that were devised for protection on the ‘Epagomenal Days’.
 
Every day was considered to have some magical significance, which caused it to be ‘good, bad, or partly good and partly bad’ and this calendar was compiled for purposes of religious observance. By consulting the lists of lucky and unlucky days, each individual could protect himself and his family against the danger of the day. The Egyptians also had a more liberal attitude to death and the Otherworld, believing that, ‘To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again. It restoreth the breath of life to he who hath vanished’, and consequently there are numerous feast days dedicated to the Ancestors.
 
That unknown and long-dead scribe who compiled The Cairo Calendar alluded to the ‘mythological entries’ as being ‘collected by Thoth in the great house in the presence of the Lord of the Universe’. ‘They were,’ he added, ‘an introduction to the manifestation feasts of every god and every goddess on their fixed days’. Also, in strict conformity with ‘what has been found in the writings of ancient times’ which, ‘have been deposited in the library in the rear house of the Ennead etc.,’ etc. The texts were principally based upon the beliefs of Memphis and Heliopolis – older traditions so firmly implanted in the minds of the people that they had survived the religious revolution of Dynasty XVIII.
 
The original calendar entries were arranged, first according to chronological sequence, and second according to the deities and divine objects or sacred place names in the text. They give us (in the words of that ancient scribe), an introduction to ‘the beginning of infinity and the end of eternity which the gods and goddesses of the shrine and the assembly of the Ennead have made and which the Majesty of Thoth has gathered together in the great house in the presence of the Lord of the Universe. Which has been found in the library in the rear-house of the Ennead. House of Re, House of Osiris, House of Horus [i.e. temples or shrines of the gods].’ Professor Bakir adds this footnote to his translation:
 
“At first sight it seems surprising, in view of the fact that this is originally a Memphite composition, that Ptah does not figure in this basic introductory formula. One is tempted to interpret the roles of Re, Osiris and Horus in the light of the well-known statement where Re is equated with tomorrow, Osiris with yesterday, and where Horus is the successor of Osiris and is so equated virtually with today. The relevance of the triadic concept to the calendar lies in the fact that the fate of people in the present and in the future is related to the experiences of the gods in the past, and the suggestion is that the calendar is applicable to all future ages.”  [Editor’s emphasis in bold. MD]
 
Nevertheless, The Calendar of Ancient Egypt provides an insight into both the religious and everyday aspects of ancient Egyptian life. It also introduces the seeker to genuine religious texts (in the form of prayers or invocations, including prayer times), and offers a general overview of Egyptian belief that makes it possible to see a living, breathing people – not just exhibits in a museum. This new edition of the Calendar has been extended to include mini-biographies of the deities whose feast-days are being celebrated on each particular day, details of ritual offerings, holy places and sacred sites – not to mention the gossip and harem scandals that were recorded on ostraca – fragments of pottery shards - that were scattered the length and breadth of Egypt.
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The Calendar of Ancient Egypt, compiled by Melusine Draco is published by Ignotus Press UK. ISBN: 978 1 78876 583 1 is the revised and expanded version of the original Egyptian Book of Days and available direct from
https://www.feedaread.com/books/The-Calendar-of-Ancient-Egypt-9781788765831.aspx

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THE SETIAN

3/12/2019

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A Memory of Light
 
Billie Walker-John wrote to me because of Kha’m-uast, the High Priest of Ptah from Memphis. Because of my researches into the obscure magical backgrounds of Dion Fortune and Charles Seymour, I had expected that Kha’m-uast would have been known to some of the more grey-haired members of the Fraternity of the Inner Light. But I didn’t expect to find him well-known to this young American woman, living in south Wales, who had been working with this inner contact privately and personally for many years. In her turn, she had been stunned to read in my book, Dancers To The Gods, of the others who had also been working with this being, decades before she was born.
 
Billie was … different. No one who met her had any doubt that this woman really was a reincarnation of someone from the very heart of ancient Egypt, whose everyday consciousness often spent more time there than it did in our present world. Neither of us was particularly interested in past lives, oddly enough, but then neither did we doubt that at some period in the long, long history of Egypt, we had been siblings. Think of her as a ‘Mistress of the House of Books’ in the Temple of Thoth. A precise, necessarily fussy, and immensely learned individual who cared only about Knowledge, and its preservation, and the creation of those links which would help us become illumined by our own researches.
 
My partnership with Billie during the writing of our Inner Guide to Egypt was one of the most fruitful and rewarding of my life. She made it easy for me to evoke the images. She provided the power. She could have written the book without me: I could never have done it without her. I had only to think: I need such-and-such a piece of information and it would arrive by post the next day, or she would raise that very topic in a phone call, and give me what I needed. In those days, on various levels and differing ways, Kha’m-uast was very close to both of us.
 
She was also one of the kindest, loyal and most generous of people. Never well off, nevertheless she must have spent a small fortune sending me (and many others) books, items, and magazines which she felt might strike a cord - not all of it relating to Egypt. Sometimes, embarrassed by her generosity or the obliqueness of her gift, I was crass enough to wonder: Why has she sent me this? Yet without fail, it quickly proved itself to have an exquisitely apt if unexpected purpose. In the last two years of her life, she started working almost exclusively with Set, the Lord of Darkness. In fact, the same energy/entity came through to me at exactly the same time, although it was some months before we spoke of this to each other. Originally she hoped to do a book about Set with artist Judith Page, but that fell through.
 
And then we talked about doing a very small one between us, which we called simply the Inner Guide to Set. Billie did a lot of sample essays with the idea that we look at Set through the personalities of differing people from differing classes in Egypt. The idea was that I would then ‘magick’ the prose in the same way as before. It was never going to make money, or even be understood, but it would be a labour of love for what most regard as this most unlovely of gods. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented us both from going too far with this project. Quite simply, the Setian energies we invoked transformed both our lives, made us live our insights, and taught us about Darkness - yet brought us both (in differing ways) towards a newer cycle of Light.

So her writing about Set consisted of numerous articles, which she sent to me, or that éminence grise, John Crabtree, the insightful editor of Liongate; and these were eventually sewn together by Mélusine Draco, who was the real force behind this production, and who has more knowledge of these arcane areas than I will ever have. It should have been her name on the original cover, not mine. I am not being falsely modest (because I’m an arrogant bastard by nature): I am stating a simple fact.
 
Because the text was written as separate pieces, there are small elements of repetition within the prose that we were tempted to take out at first, for purely stylistic reasons. On reflection, however, these repetitive images and details serve to evoke the image of Billie herself, almost jabbing her finger down at the page as if saying: Listen. Look. This figure is more important than I can openly say. This detail contains magick. See? And you will see. Because as soon as you become aware of Set, then Set becomes aware of you: the more you learn, the more he teaches you.
 
So I never managed to ‘magick’ more than a short introduction for that limited edition and I always felt that I had failed her in this respect. Yet that short piece was, I know, something that pleased her immensely and lifted her spirits during some bleak times. So if there is one way in which I can publicly honour her memory, and start to give back just a portion of the wealth she gave me, it is by seeing that work finally come to fruition.
Alan Richardson
 
Introduction to The Setian by Billie Walker-John
 
This is a book about the ancient Egyptian god named Set. It is also a book about exploring the equally ancient shadows within ourselves. As the Lord of Darkness (to give him but one of his titles, Set has been reviled and feared for thousands of years; everything that ever went wrong, every nasty, cruel, depraved and vicious act was seen as having the hallmark of Set. In time, by juggling about with name-origins and quasi-histories, Set the Lord of Darkness, came to be seen as the proto-type of Satan, the very Prince of Darkness, and thus the root of all Evil.
 
The purpose of this book, however, is to learn how to work within the heart of Set’s ‘darkness’, to see the outlines of his shadow on the earth and so find our way to those sources of ‘light’ which actually create him, and are part of his very Mystery. In short, it is a book about Darkness as a necessary corollary to the Light; about shadow as a means of defining existence; about those magicks of the Dark and Night which have nothing to do with Evil and everything to do with balance, renewal and - surprisingly - healing.
 
This is not a question of inverting morality and taking the crass stance of ‘Evil be thou my Good’. Or of trying to win through to purity by indulging our atavistic urges and then conquering them. And even less does it relate to summoning depraved entities from the pit of our subconscious. Dire warnings have always been given out to those who have wanted to invoke Set. Yet in almost all cases, the would-be summoner is moved by entirely the wrong impulse - while those giving the warning are invariably ignorant of the true nature of Set’s energies.

So what we will say now is this: If you work with Set, then the first thing you might experience is Chaos. Your world could be shaken and turned inside-out. Everything might seem to fall apart. Now why anyone might still what to work with Set after learning this, and why it can be seen as a primal magical path, is one of the themes that we will discuss in due course. But in practise, Set usually comes to the fringes of the psyche when there is no other spiritual option, and he becomes that energy which can break chains, and smash down barriers, and set you free …

To reduce everything to its root, we would argue that over the aeons a distortion crept into the way we look at the binaries of existence:
 
Horus/Set
Order/Chaos
Light/Darkness
Positive/Negative
Active/Passive
Day/Night
Life/Death
 
… and so on. The distortion came through adding Good/Evil to this list. Thus the qualities of Darkness, Chaos, Night and so forth, were all seen as expressions of Set and so linked with the quality of Evil. Yet as we shall see, this was never an aspect of Set’s original nature, for the Lord of Darkness (Set) is an inseparable partner to the Lord of Light (Horus). The ancient Egyptians gave no moral dimensions to Set’s role in their earliest Mysteries. This was added much later.
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The history of religion is, of course, the history of propaganda, using the standard tools of misinformation, disinformation, manipulation and deceit. The venom that came to be directed toward Set became so intense that any fair-minded researcher eventually pauses to ask whether any deity could be that bad - or whether in fact, something else was going on behind the scenes. Any serious study of archaic Egypt inevitably unearths fragments of worship from times when Set was the deity of choice for the common folk, long before the usurper Osiris came on the scene. They worshipped him, not because they feared his power, but perhaps because they understood the qualities of Night and Darkness better than we do today.
 
Long ago, before there was even an ancient Egypt as we know it from popular histories, there was a prehistoric proto-kingdom in what is now Southern or Upper Egypt, called Nubt, of which Set was the ruling deity.
 
Set the Golden. Set the Mighty. Set of Nubt.
 
Although Set of Nubt, the primal Lord of Night, is largely unknown to us, we can glimpse him through the images his subjects and followers made of him. One of these images showed a mysterious animal that no one has been able to satisfactorily identify. In fact, we can use this odd and often disturbing beast, the so-called Set-animal, as our guide as we follow Set’s journey through time and place.
 
We can watch with amazement as the image shape-shifts and assumes many different forms, including that of a human being. This ability to change form means that people often see many different Sets. Yet behind the changing shape and the unidentifiable animal head, there is always the one Set.
 
Set the Golden. Set the Mighty. Set of Nubt.
 
The aim of this book, then, is to follow this strange and misunderstood deity and tell his story through his subjects and his fabled Companions: the Shayu Net Set. These people lived at different times and in different places, but the one thing they had in common through the millennia was that they were Set’s people, his shayu, his Companions. Through them and the stories they have to tell we will not so much unmask Set as allow him to reveal himself to us, and through him we will learn to practice that magic of the Dark which will give our own inner light a truer focus and effect ...
 
The Setian by Billie Walker-John has been re-published by Ignotus Press UK in paperback : ISBN: 9781786971395 : Available direct from the printer at a reduced price https://www.feedaread.com/books/The-Setian-9781786971395.aspx
 
And also in ebook format from Kindle 

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NAQADA: ToK EGYPTIAN MYSTERY TRADITION

3/4/2019

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/templeofkhemNAQADA/
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Welcome to the ToK facebook page for those who are more interested in the magical and mystical aspects of the Egyptian Mystery Tradition. Those operating the page are full members of Temple of Khem and have completed (or about to complete) the lengthy study course in the Egyptian Mysteries. Anyone wishing to join the group should have a degree of competence in, and a basic understanding of ancient Egyptian history, general magical and occult principles and practice.
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Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Modern World

2/27/2019

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As Principal of the Temple of Khem, Mélusine Draco has tutored Egyptian Mystery Tradition students since the organisation was formed in 1996.  This extract is from her book, The Atum-Re Revival: Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Modern World.
 
The interest in the religion and spirituality of the Egyptians is increasing steadily as people begin to realise that it is possible to follow this ancient belief in the 21st century. This religion is the oldest recorded belief system in the world, having just entered its sixth millennia - and can still teach us how to live in both earthly and cosmic harmony.  But first, we need to put things into some sort of perspective …
 
In Egypt, the actual worship of the gods was performed by a professional high priesthood with two main functions: the god’s daily offering ceremony (which was a private affair) and the periodic public festivals.   At the next level there were the lower ranks of the priesthood who performed other tasks within the temple precincts at different levels of importance: men and women of letters who maintained the order within the establishment.
 
On a popular level, the seasonal festivals commemorated various events in which the people could participate, i.e. New Years Day, the sowing and the harvest, and the Inundation of the Nile. Ordinary Egyptians only participated in temple ritual if it linked their destiny or well-being with that of Pharaoh or State (which was one and the same thing), but no doubt they all turned out in force at the great temples when Pharaoh fulfilled his obligations on the principle feast-days. Historical records show that even the poorest were given to celebration and feasting whenever the opportunity allowed, although neither the public nor the lesser priesthood were admitted within the precincts of the inner temple.
 
To overcome this exclusion ordinary people set up their own sacred areas for worship, which have been found on the periphery of the temples, in their homes and tombs. These rites, whether celebrated in the outer courts of the temple, or in a private personal space, were all considered a divine act of worship in favour of their particular god. If they required a spell casting or a magical talisman made, they went along to the appropriate temple and the priest provided whatever was necessary.
 
 
Let’s make no bones about it, today’s Egyptian interpretation belongs to a revivalist tradition and should not claim to be anything else.  Nevertheless, the system needs to be as close as it can to the beliefs of ancient Egypt without falling into the trap of lumping all the gods together in one ageless pantheon … and expecting their heka to work!  In order to follow the Old Ways, it is easier to understand if we use three separate approaches:
 
  • the Stellar Path that deals with the primeval/primordial forces of the universe usually aligned with ritual magic and inner temple working;
 
  • the Solar Path that offers a more intellectual, spiritual or mystical approach;
 
  • the Lunar Path, which concentrates on the purely devotional aspects and the ability to move between the worlds, i.e. different planes of consciousness.
 
This three-fold approach needs to be understood from the start, but so does the enormous time span of Egyptian history, which always tends to complicate matters when identifying with a particular deity or Dynasty.  For example a pre- or early dynastic Egyptian would probably not have a clue who Isis or Osiris were if they did not live in the particular province or nome, of which these were merely localised deities.  Conversely, a New Kingdom priest would look upon Neith as simply a minor funerary goddess, when in her hey-day she was the mighty hunter-warrior goddess of the pre- and early dynastic Egyptians.
 
A fundamental study is necessary because not everyone works magically or mystically, at the same level. Some take longer to realise that an intimate knowledge of Egyptian myth and its attendant politics is essential for the effective practice of magic/mysticism at a higher level of awareness.  A knowledge that has to extend beyond the stereotypical deities of popular Egyptomania to embrace a wider and loftier range of supernatural beings; and to accept that the deities are not real ‘gods’ at the student’s beck and call.  This is why it becomes so important to successful magic to be able to differentiate between the different levels of magic, historical influence and religious emphasis that mark the subtle shifts of importance between the different Paths. And to do so safely.
 
It may appear that this is merely massaging a system that purports to be all things to all men, but this is not the case. The original Egyptian religion was stellar based. Early texts refer to the stairway to heaven, and the alignment of the mortuary temples situated toward the north (the direction of the circumpolar stars) reveal the importance of the Imperishable Stars within the Mysteries. According to Egyptologists, the architectural changes in pyramid design reflect the shift from a stellar cult to one that was fully solar as the religious ideology changed and the newer priesthood gained power. As each new centre became the focus of power, so the religion altered and a new set of myths were created to attest to the local gods’ supremacy over the Old Ones.
 
These shifting influences on Egyptian history meant that reference texts fell roughly into two separate categories. Firstly, actual magical, religious and mythological sources written by the early native priesthood for the Egyptian people and secondly, later accounts of magic, religion and mythology translated by Greek and Roman historians and philosophers, who recorded information as told to them by latter-day Egyptian priests, since they were unable to read the texts for themselves. And by the time of the Graeco-Roman invasions the priesthood were themselves extremely vague and uncertain about the early dynastic religion of their own country. Subsequent translations indicate that they did not really understand the rudimentary principles of the archaic religious system, the primitive stellar-cult, or the nature of its symbolism.
 
Unfortunately, many present-day writings on the Egyptian Mystery Tradition make no attempt to unravel the tangled skeins of this magico-religious evolution. Rather, they impose some over-simplified form of order on the chaos created by the multitude of dual-purpose gods from different periods of history. But there is no way of simplifying this complicated tapestry because of the immense time span from pre-dynastic times to the Battle of Actium, which sealed the fate of the last ruling Great House of Egypt. Cleopatra, in terms of dating, was nearer to man landing on the moon than to the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza (Old Kingdom).
 
In the days of Egyptian antiquity, however, many of the gods were abstract concepts rather than actual anthropomorphic god pictures familiar to us today.  Many of the later fully-morphed deities were originally theological concepts represented by a distinctive hieroglyph, very similar to the correspondences used in modern ritual magic. As the need for a controlling religion grew, so did the spiritual need for more tangible forms on which to focus the common people’s devotions.
 
The common man’s mind dwelt on the concrete, not the abstract and so the gods took on those easily recognisable animal-human shapes to satisfy the religious-teaching-by-pictures demands of less scholarly folk.  The images recorded in tomb paintings, bas-relief and statuary were intended to represent living forms of the gods themselves, or Pharaoh as a god.  There was a simple reason behind this. Egyptian life, magic and religion were inextricably intertwined, one simply could not, and did not exist, without the other. God, or a male/female/multiple concept of that god, was manifest in everything animate and inanimate.
 
By the Middle Kingdom, the attributes of the major gods were subsequently extended to create a whole pantheon of relatives and helpers. For example, the concept of Ma’at as the symbolic terminology for cosmic order, and earthly truth and justice, was depicted in the Pyramid Texts by an ostrich feather. This concept later metamorphosed into a beautiful woman, who sat in judgement on those in the Underworld; she was sometimes shown as the wife of Thoth, or the female embodiment of the god himself.  In fact, the popular form of Egyptian religion, as most people know it today, is fundamentally a Greek interpretation.
 
Egyptian religion developed over thousands of years, with each deity assuming many forms under the influence of the many different religious movements and/or foreign invasions. Each form also developed its own positive and negative aspects, which responded in various ways to different people, and so it is impossible to be dogmatic about how the gods of those different theologies relate and blend.  It is also important to realise that the original religion was never an earth-bound concept since the priesthood explored mysticism on a cosmic scale: their spirituality extending to the stars and beyond. The Egyptian civilisation took over 3000 years to fully evolve and a further 2000 years to decay, which is why the Egyptian Mystery Tradition cannot be encapsulated into convenient modern packaging.
 
What the Temple of Khem’s teaching attempts to do is to offer a complete guide to practising the ancient system of belief based on sound archaeological and anthropological evidence combined with proven [modern] magical techniques. With its own authentic temple calendar providing a daily framework of observance and dedication, it becomes possible to follow in the actual footsteps of the ancient people of the Nile Valley.
 
This new ‘Egyptian Book of Days’  has been compiled from the various Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri lodged in the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Staarliche Museum in Berlin and the Rijksmuseum in Leiden; the Sallier Papyrus IV (No 10184) and The Cairo Calendar (No 86637) currently lodged in the British and Cairo Museums.  The latter reveals that although the document itself was made during the time of Rameses II (Dynasty XIX), it was a ‘reprint’ of much earlier material.
 
The calendar lists the names of the deities whose anniversaries take place on every day of the year including special spells (prayers) that were devised for the protection on certain ‘unlucky’ days.  Every day was considered to have some magical significance, which caused it to be “good, bad, or partly good and partly bad”.  By consulting these lists of lucky and unlucky days, each individual could protect himself and his family against the danger of the day.
 
By viewing the Egyptian Mystery Tradition as a continuing and expanding faith, with its own temple calendar, established history and ‘futuristic’ thinking, it is possible to see that this very ancient wisdom has a very positive place in the modern world.
 
 
The Atum-Re Revival is published by Axis Mundi Books ISBN 978-1-78099-437-6 : paperback : price £14.99/US$24.95
www.axismundi-boks.com - www.facebook.com/AxisMundiBooks
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Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Modern World

2/27/2019

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    Melusine Draco
    ​Jan Malique

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