(1) Side note: "The names of the 'Names'? That's rather confusing, isn't it", might be the protest of the reader. If so, he has our full sympathy, but we remind him that this isn't our terminology, but the House's, and we are talking about the House in this review.

This brings us to a point. Please be patient while I get there.

One of the older questions asked is why the English language seems to have so much redundancy built into it. Why are there so many different ways of saying the exact same thing, in so many cases? Obviously, one reason would be because the variation makes the language more pleasant to listen to, but another, one might say, is that it allows us to keep the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis at arm's length. The price of economy in such matters, would be ambiguity and clouded logic.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, far more controversial online than off, speaks of the role that a language has in molding the thoughts of those who speak it (or at least the thoughts that they will tend to have). A thought which is difficult or impossible to express in a language is one which will seldom occur to its speakers. Certainly, one can think of a good reason why - short attention spans. In order to argue the point, one will have to build up a body of terminology and argument using the terminology, and few listeners (or readers) will be willing to pay attention as one does so. Many will, without thinking about it, equate a short presentation with a well-thought out one. Others will simply not want to be bothered.

Some, especially in the last few years, have tried to take advantage of this effect, seeking to alter the language in such a way as to hinder the expression of viewpoints which they have not cared for. Some have been very open about this, to the point of being self-righteously crude (eg. supporters of the misnamed 'multicultural political correctness'). Others have understood the rewards of subtlety. But that it could be put to more responsible use.

What the House is doing, when it uses word "Name" or the phrase "Name of Netjer" in the place of "netjer", "aspect" or "deity", is philosophically objectionable, because through this act, the House is introducing a fresh source of ambiguity into the English language. This case provides an excellent example of why this is so. The expression "the names of the Names" sounds redundant. On a rational level, perhaps one should know that the well-established word "name" and the term of art "Name" refer to two very different concepts. The former refers to a sequence of sounds or symbols we use to make clear who it is, that we are speaking of. The second refers to an aspect of deity. In practice, though, when one asks "do you mean 'name' with a capital N or a lower case n, the listeners will groan and complain that one is 'hair-splitting'. As for print, interpret this: "Names of the Names are culturally relative". Did you say, "huh"? Compare this to "Names of aspects of God are culturally relative". The latter is a lot clearer, isn't it?

If one tosses away the words "gods", "netjeru" or "aspects" (and maybe "faces" as well), letting them drop out of common use, then the concept that the names of the Egyptian deities can legitimately vary from culture to culture (where they are worshipped) becomes almost inexpressible, because the same word is used to describe the label and that which bears the label (the deity name and the deity, respectively). This would serve to foster the illusion that a very debatable (in fact, dubious) proposition is self-evident: that the traditional names for the 'gods' of ancient Egypt enjoy some sort of absolute, cultural context-free validity. If one returns to standard terminology, instead of using the local term of art 'Name', however, one quickly sees that this 'self-evident' character is nothing but a linguistic mirage, a trick played on our minds by the quirks of the language. Newly introduced ones, at that.

I could not tell you if the House taught such a doctrine of linguistic absolutism, as I have not heard them speak on the subject, one way or the other. I can tell you, though, that such a misunderstanding would serve their cause very well. Their 'nisut' (leader), Tamara Siuda, has spoken against the "blending of spiritual paths", referring to it as a "practice which the House can not condone". What we see here, is not a nuanced criticism of the "Eclectic" practice of taking details of practice out of their original context, which one remains willfully oblivious of, but a condemnation 'across the board' of any form of Synchretism, including that practiced by the Shrine (ie. us). One of the counter-arguments against such blanket condemnations, lies in the distinction addressed elsewhere, between the noumenal and literary deities, ie. between the hidden reality, and a culture's concepts regarding it. When a confusion is created, between the notion of a label and that which is labeled, such a distinction becomes almost impossible to explain.

Some will, and have, defended this decision of the House, saying this like : "We don't regard this as being ambiguous. We feel that all of the 'gods' of Egypt are really just faces of one unknowable God, so their names are his names, and so the term 'Names' is properly suggestive". To this, I would respond that one must be careful to distinguish between factual and logical equivalence. The difference lies, as Rudolph Carnap would put it, in the presence of Semantic content. The House's teachings may be true, though I would be inclined to doubt this (obviously, since I am not Kemetic Orthodox). Even if they are, however, they will still not be tautologies and such a fact will possess semantic content. To arrange the language in such a way of to create a contrary illusion would be a sort of lie, even then. If, on the other hand, the teachings are false, then to manipulate the language in such a way as to create the misperception that contrary positions are self-contradictory, would be to prevent people from even thinking of looking for the truth, leading to an even greater degree of untruth being embraced as if it were reality itself.

So, even if the different 'aspects of God' are nothing more than illusions and the word "aspect" is, as a matter of practical reality, a redundant word, functionally a synonym for 'name', we hold onto the redundancy because, given that the existence of such a redundancy would tell us something substantial about the nature of the world, to try to remake the language in such a way as to make that redundancy go away would be improper. Language should be a tool for facilitating thought and discussion, not for channeling them in a direction which some might prefer.

Click here to return to "What's in a Name?".

(2) Let us consider the logical implications of some of the creation stories, in which gods arise self-created from Nun. This suggests that time in the realm of the netjeru might not be linear, if, for the sake of discussion, we take these stories as a starting point. If time were an orderly albeit non-deterministic flow, from past to future, as we seem to experience it here in our world, then this would be absurd. Ptah could not create himself, because at the moment of creation, there would be no Ptah to carry out the action.

But now, suppose, for the sake of discussion, that where Ptah dwells, there can be such a thing as a closed loop in time. Let us say, for example, that at an instant in time, time itself will branch, one branch proceeding forward, while another goes into a loop, eventually returning to the moment of branching. Within the loop, one has a sort of 'finite eternity' - only a finite amount of time, and yet, no beginning and no end. The future, followed long enough, would become the past, as all within this cyclical loop of time 'repeated itself endlessly'. (In reality, each moment would come only once in the loop, much as each point on a circle occurs at just one place. However, one tends to imagine cyclical time in terms of eternal repetition, as if one were watching a film loop forever in linear time).

Causuality, in such a world, can be considerably different than that in a world whose time is linear. The absurdity of a non-existent Ptah creating himself can vanish in such a loop. Ptah did exist, in one of those loops, and was there to create himself, because he eventually would exist. The future is the past and the logical dilemma vanishes, because the 'future' Ptah is able to influence the 'past' out of which he arose, emerging from the point of branching into the main stream of time, in this world he brings himself into.

Now, let us ponder what a 'spoken name' is. It is a sequence of sounds, which means, not just a collection of sounds, but such a collection, indexed according to a particular ordering (first, second, third). In linear time, there must be a first sound and a last, unless the name is of infinite length. But, let us say, that, dwelling in this hypothetical Nun, in which time can turn in on itself, Aset stands in one of the loops that time will bend into, speaking a name. She spends her entire time in that loop uttering it. The name is of finite length, and yet it neither has a first sound, nor a last.

Such a name can't be spoken in a world in which time is linear. The problem would not be one's range of vocalization, but the impossibility of having a looping sequence of the sort needed. Let us add that what we've just described is one of the more 'normal' alternative that could be imagined; if one looks at a loop, over a small stretch of time, it looks just like linear time. Imagine if one loses this localized similarity. Again, what a 'sequence' is, will be radically different, because its structure, on a very basic level, will reflect the nature of the time stream in which it occurs. If it doesn't look like ours, then sequences of events in that time stream, will most likely not be reproducible here.

The point here, is not to argue that this must be the nature of Nun. As a Metaphysical Empiricist, I would tend to caution the reader against taking mythology at face value. No, the point is to remind the reader of just how strange a world may be and just how little we know about the Divine. Once he appreciates this, he will see that the "obvious" need not always be true.

Click here to return to "What's in a Name?".