In a letter to me, "John" wrote:

" As Her Holiness Tamara L. Siuda stated...Netjer WANTS us to communicate....with their ACTUAL names (Sekhmet...not Sachmis, my friend...). "

(The ellipses are his).

"Sachmis" is the Greek form of "Sekhmet". I'm not quite sure of where it is, that Kheru got the idea that the name of Sekhmet was a subject that modern Hellenists spent much time thinking about. Prior to my first visit to the Netjer boards, I had never even heard of either "Sekhmet" or "Sachmis". However, since he has seen fit to bring up this non-issue, over and over, let us address it.

The "actual name" of Sekhmet? What a quaintly naive notion it is, that there is such a thing as the "actual name" of a divinity! Can deity be so contained, in the sounds we utter? If we are to be logically consistent, and presume at least a few of the tenets of the religion which Kheru claims to embrace, the answer would seem to be "no". As the House itself states in its' own FAQ :

" Kemetic Orthodoxy falls neatly between a number of dichotomies Westerners commonly draw in discussing religion. It recognizes that the human intellect is inadequate to comprehend Netjer in Its totality. Netjer is both hidden and unknowable, according to ancient texts. Yet, how can humans interact with an unknowable being? The Kemetic worldview, in similarity to some Eastern systems, finds an interesting way around this limitation; the same workaround expressed in Hinduism: monolatry, or the belief that Netjer manifests in countless expressions -- where Deity is one unknowable power expressed in human terms in subjective, plural manifestations we can commune with and make sense of. "

(italics mine)

Here is one argument: "How can the name of the deity be any more objectively real than the deity herself? If the Names (ie. aspects of God) exist in only a subjective sense, then so do their names. If the Greek worshippers of Sekhmet called her Sachmis, then, for them, she was Sachmis, because that is how they perceived her. That subjective phenomena are as we experience them is a tautology. That is what the word "subjective" means". Having argued thusly, though, we would soon be confronted with the transparent incompleteness of this argument. No matter, because we're going in the right direction.

Some might object that this argument confuses that which is subjective with that which is a matter of opinion. The two, in general, are not one and the same. Let us consider a familiar example, which illustrates this point. Pain is a subjective phenomenon, in that it has no existence apart from the creature it happens to. A rock may be damaged, but one doesn't speak of its pain; neither does one speak of the pain of one whose nerves have been deadened from birth. Yet, pain is not a matter of expectation. If one who is unimpaired picks up a hot baking dish, thinking that it is cold, one still is burned and soon knows it. That is to say, this subjective experience, as it will be, is not defined by our opinions regarding the future. Nor, as it does or does it not exist in our present, is it defined by our opinions regarding that present. Psychoses exist, which prevent those who suffer from them from mentally processing the reality of pain. One is put in mind of the individual who carves his arm up with a knife, out of compulsion. He has the opinion that he is suffering no real harm, but do we call it a perception? No, not in common usage, because he views his own experiences through such a mental haze, that we hesitate to speak of him "perceiving" anything at all, much in the same way that we don't speak of somebody trying to peer through a dense fog as being an "observer". His pain remains quite real, and if he should ever regain his sanity, he might very well remember it.

To this, we might respond that in those cases in which the subjective is not a matter of opinion, and we can be surprised that which we feel (physically or emotionally), such is the case, either because that state of mind our past experiences have left us with predisposes us to have such feelings, or because our own intrinsic nature has defined the response to the external phenomena impacting on us. To continue our example, by way of illustration, pain itself might have no reality outside of the mind of the one experiencing it, but the nerves and the impulses that they carry, that informs one that one is in pain, most certainly do exist, in an objective sense, as does the pre-programmed response of the pain center of one's cerebral cortex.

In either case, the subjective experience is anchored in something objective: the reality of one's own past sensations, which one's present notions can't alter, or the realities of physiology. Let us note that since the hypothetical Greek worshippers of "Sekhmet" will only have heard her called "Sachmis", the former is inapplicable, unless somebody drops by to object. One can scarcely defend an objection, on the basis that expressing it will have unfortunate consequences for those hearing it. Such is the definition of malice, which would here be pursued for its own sake, not a virtuous act.

Our linguistic dogmatist might respond by arguing that there is something intrinsic about the experiences that lead to the adoption of these names - perhaps they exist in some Jungian sense, as archetypes built into the human consciousness, as an instinct will be. Indeed, he must, since we've left him with no other route of escape. Very well, then, he will say in a note of triumph, the Greek who speaks the name falsely is as the pan grasping the hot dish, thinking that it is cold. He will set himself at odds with that within himself, that allows him to relate to that aspect of the unknowable God.

The triumph won't be a long one. Let us note that Egyptian deity names are, in many cases, unusually short and easy to pronounce. In others (such as Sachmis/Sekhmet), the "corrupted" form sounds very similar to the original. Yet, the "true" names arose nowhere but Egypt, and the Greeks felt no urge to "correct" their slightly "erroneous" name for Sekhmet. Short, simple things are easy to reproduce, so there would be little here for instinct to accomplish. How would our self-styled purist explain its failure to do so, on the terms he wishes?

The conclusion is inescapable, in light of that which may be directly observed. There are no "absolute names" to be found, in the sense sought, if the tenets mentioned above are taken as a given. The words we attach to the aspects of God would be nothing more than cultural choices, labels we attach for our own convenience. If one seeks a "true name" for such an aspect of a deity, one should seek it in the stories one might tell about it, in combination with the level of confidence we feel in each story, regarding how truthfully it speaks of the aspects of God (or Netjer) in question. Which language the stories are told in, is unimportant.

Click here to continue.

Note: in case anybody alive didn't understand this already :

Nothing has been removed from this passage. "John" inserted the ellipses you see above, into his own text, for reasons known only to himself. Maybe he didsn't know what commas were for? More likely, he was trying to be too clever by half, and create the illusion that any text quoted has been edited, so he could pretend that he had been quoted out of context. He never seemed to tire of this game of using ellipses as commas in his letters, so by now I'm sure that he eventually knew how misleading an impression he could leave by playing it.