Sacred Circles' Coven

Gods of the Black Land

by John Michael Greer

For many centuries, it's been recognized in Western occult traditions that the art of magick had its origins in the spiritual traditions of the land that we call Egypt, "The Black Land", and with its ancient inhabitants called Khem. While other peoples also made major contributions to the rich tapestry of Western occult theory and practice, it's nonetheless true that much of the Western magickal tradition had its roots on the banks of the Nile.

Understanding ancient Egyptian spirituality takes a certain amount of mental stretching for most people nowadays--even people who are a part of today's Pagan renaissance. The common assumptions of modern Paganism doesn't fit Egyptian traditions well at all. If this isn't recognized, the result can be endless confusion. For example, if you asked an ancient Egyptian Priestess about the Goddess, her first question would be, "Which One?". There are hundreds in Egyptian mythology, all different. If you went on to ask about the Earth Mother, the Priestess might wonder why you don't know the first thing about the gods, and patiently explain the Earth was the god Geb, not a goddess at all.

In the lore of ancient Egypt, the Earth is a god and the sky is the goddess. The Moon is usually male, and the Sun is often female. Gods and goddesses fuse, blend, and spin off aspects of themselves with a freedom that leaves familiar categories in tatters. For example, Atum the creator manifests himself as the sun god Re, but Re is also the manifestation of Amum, "The Hidden One", the double-plumed god of Thebes. Meanwhile, the Sun, which is Re, is also Horus, when it isn't the cat-goddess Bastet, or the lioness-headed Sekhmet, or the divine scrab beetle Khephera, or any of several other gods and goddesses, and so on and so forth.

Some of this splendid confusion comes from differences between local religious traditions in different parts of Egypt. In Heliopolis, the most important religious center in Egypt, the first of the gods was Atum, the Creator, whose active manifestation was Re, the Sun, the king of the gods. Thebes, the capitol during the Middle and New Kingdom periods, had its own creator-god Amun, who also manifested as Re, whose wife was the vulture goddess Mut, and whose son was the Moon god Khons. In Esna, the ram-headed Khnum was the creator; he was a potter-god who fashioned the universe on his potter's wheel, and his wife was the frog goddess Heket, who breathed life into everything Khnum created. In the Old Kingdom capitol of Memphis, the turn, the creator was Ptah, the divine patron of craftsmen, while in Sais it was Neith, the androgynous archer-goddess of wisdom.

No matter what he [or she] was called, the creator had the help of Thoth, god of writing, knowledge, and the Moon, whose sacred animals were the ibis and the ape, and who served as scribe, adviser, and prime minister to Re. Four other deities who served the creator were Maat, the goddess of justice and rightness; Heka, the god of magick; Sia, the godess of omniscient, knowledge, and Hu, the god of creative breath and voice. Also associated wit the creator was Tatenen, the primal mound of earth that rose from the deeps at the beginning, who was also a god in his own right and was especially linked with Ptah.

Myths written down by priestly scribes helped sort out the relationships amoung the dizzying array of powers. According to the theology of Heliopolis, for instance, Atum dwelt alone on the primal mound Tatenen, and then created a group of serpent gods, who helped him bring the universe into being. They then died and were mummified by Atum, becoming the first powers of the underworld.

Atum then masturbated into his hand, which gave birth to Shu, god of air, and Tefnut, goddess of moisture. Shu and Tefnut mated and engendered Geb, the god of the Earth, and Nut, the goddess of the sky. Meanwhile Atum took on a new form as Re, the Sun, and king of the gods. Nut became the wife of Re, but made love with her brother Geb, and gave birth to five children: Osiris, Isis, Aroueris, Nephthys, and Set.

Osiris married Isis and became king of Egypt, but he was slain by Set, resurrected by Isis, and then slain again and sent to the underworld to become king and judge of the dead. The myths, rituals, and traditions surrounding his life and death were central to much of ancient Egyptian spirituality. After his resurrection, Osiris mated with his sister-wife Isis, fathering Horus. Osiris also mated with Nephthys, Set's wife, fathering the jackel headed Anubis, the Opener of the Ways, god of funeral rites and messenger of Osiris in the latter's role as the lord of the underworld.

The falcon god Horus is amoung the most complex of the Egyptian gods, and he had many different aspects--Harsiese, the infant suckled by Isis; Harpocrates, the child upon the lotus; Horus the Avenger; who slays Set; Horakhte, "Horus of the Two Horizons, " who is the Sun and is identified with Re; and many more. Aroueris was a warrior god whose eyes are the Sun and the Moon; his relation to his nephew Horus the Younger is complex, and the two probably started out as the same very ancient solar god in Eqyptian prehistory. The wife of Horus was Hathor, whose name literally means "House of Horus". She was orginally the sky, but later became a cow-headed goddess of love, music, dance, and fertility.

Set, for his part, was not just the murderer of Osiris, but a powerful god in his own right, who stood guard on Re's boat to guard the Sun against attacks of its monstrous enemies. A heavy drinker and passionate lover of goddesses and gods alike, he was married to Nephthys but had no children.

There were many other gods and goddesses who had no relationship to the great family saga of Heliopolis. Sekhmet was the savage lionness-headed goddess of war and plague, who incarneted the killing of heat of the desert sun.. The cat-headed Bastet, patron of the city of Bubastis, was a solar goddess who protected pregnant women infants and banished the powers of evil. Another solar deity was Khephera, "He who becomes, " who took the form of the scrab beetle and was linked with the Sun at dawn.

Min was a fertility god whose immense erect penis was his most noticeable attribute. Bes, a minor god of the people who played no part in the priestly cult, was a grinning dwarf who served to drive away evil spirits, especially during childbirth. There were also countless minor deities whose names were simply ''the god or goddess of such-and such place.''

The gods and goddesses of the Black Land offer an extraordinary richness of possibilities for the modern Pagan revival, as well as useful corrective to attitudes that map one particular model of divinity onto all of Pagan spirituality. They are well worth our study, and our reverence.

For Furthur Study:

Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt. Erik Hornung, trans. John Baines Routledge & Kegen Paul, 1982.

Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods. Dimitry Meeks and Christine Favard-Meeks, trans. G.M. Goshgarian Cornell University Press, 1996.

The Mysteries of Isis. deTraci Regula. Llewellyn Publications, 1992.

Sacred Key to Ancient Egypt. Rosemary Clark. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2000.

Outside source link for additional research is located here

http://www.idolhands.com/egypt/neteru/

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