May 6, 2002

Click here to bypass the commentary, if you prefer. It won't be friendly, or politically correct, by anybody's standards.

As myths go, theologically, this is a troubling one. Aset's behavior could be worse, but not by much. Some might argue that she did what she had to do, out of love. "Haven't you admitted that Ra's bodily emissions would have had supernatural power, in the context of these myths? Here, he is senile, and confused, probably unable to understand reason on a level appropriate for a god, forcing Aset to use trickery on him for his own good, and for the good of his creation, which meant so much to him. For him to be scattering his power into the landscape like that, at random, as he was doing with his dribbling, was for him to be putting himself and his creation at risk. Even had she refused to take such action, do you think that Set would have overlooked the chance to make use of such an opportunity, and seize power by using Ra's power against him? Paradoxically, by attacking him in this fashion, she may have saved him in the long run". Except, in this story, she really didn't.

Having the power to even raise the dead (consider her resurrection of her dismembered husband Wesir), she didn't heal him of his old age, or his decrepitude. She left him so weak that even men could no longer respect him, much less gods. Observe Sekhmet's open defiance of him, after he calls on her to break off her attack upon humanity. His spirit as a ruler broken, he ends the story by naming Djehuty as his agent on earth, and withdrawing "to rest upon the back of the cow of heaven", ie, above the sky - which would be in the Egyptian underworld, where the dead reside. Aset herself thinks nothing of holding onto the power gained through such disreputable, and, to be blunt, brutal means employed against somebody who, in his presence, she pretends to care about. This is palace intrigue at its very worst, and its success leaves Aset as the new queen of heaven, to be revered by all humanity, the Hera of her mythos!

Even Aset herself seems to be fooled, coming to see her act of betrayal as a holy deed, a change which one would have to term moral regression. Herein lies the troubling aspect of this story. Yes, we have argued elsewhere, on our homepage that the moral failings of gods, in mythology, should be taken to be more a reflection of human imperfection than divine, as those myths are the creations of generations of very imperfect, very human people, who, at best, are acting under the gentle influence of the gods. One might argue, as we do, that what is meaningful in the story, as it evolves, are not the realities of the fictive deity, but how those realities change, both in the course of the story as it is told, and in the course of history, as the myth evolves. Such considerations, however, will not help us here, if we wish to cast Aset in a more positive light. The version of the story that comes down to use, written in hieratic, as Budge notes, is a relatively late one, and, as we have noted, Aset is hardly improving during the course of the story.

Nor does the "human imperfection" explanation seem especially convincing, when one remembers that as horrified as we would be with somebody who mistreated somebody in this fashion, most of the Egyptians probably would have been more horrified, if this somebody was, in their view, her rightful king. It is the very definition of respect, that one's first assumption will not be that the one respected, has committed some given sordid act, and one must presume that the Queen of Heaven would be accorded respect. Thus, the biases of the time, if allowed to influence the writing of the story, would have left us viewing Aset in a more positive light, not in a worse one, when reading what would have resulted.

Allow me to remind the reader that, contrary to what appears to be usual practice on the web, I have retold this myth in a conservative fashion, revising the literary style without changing the plot, as one can see by comparing this version with the two translation I have been looking at, so far, one by Budge, and one by Erman. In much of this text, I've even held to Budge's original phrasing, instead of replacing it with something synonomous. I merely repeat the bad news, I do not write it. Gaining access to more recent, and more reliable translations may alter this story in a way favorable to Aset's image, but this story portrays her in such an unambiguously bad light, at this point, that I would be pleasantly amazed were the resulting changes to make a meaningful difference.

What is disturbing about this myth, isn't just the fact that it portrays Aset becoming the queen of the gods through such sordid means, but that one can find no sign in it of any awareness on the past of the past storytellers that anything has gone wrong, and cosmically wrong at that. Let us take a look at the 34th negative confession in "The Book of Coming Forth by Day".

" Hail Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Ptah-het-ka, I have never uttered curses against the king. "

(Translation courtesy of Egyptian Religion by Sir Wallace Budge, p. 159. For Rev. Tamara Siuda's version, click here, keeping in mind that it must be read in the context of the concept of Heka, as she viewed it at the time. To speak ill of the pharoah, according to her metaphysical beliefs, would be to render a curse. Thus, the two translations, put into their respective contexts, aren't so far apart as they might appear to be).

How would one describe the magical snake she made in the story that you have just read? She cast a spell with the intention of causing harm to the king of the netjeru, her people. This is what a curse is, and to her, Ra was pharoah.

Can the men who Sekhmet slaughters for their rebellion against Ra be blamed for their rebellion, when the Queen of Heaven has set such an example for them, violating the dictates of Ma'at in such an egregious fashion? These negative confessions are fundamental to the Kemetic faith, and are what the deceased is to say on his own behalf, when his heart is to be weighed, and his conduct in this life judged. What is the worshipper to think, when he is told a story that seems to imply that Aset, herself, was lucky to have not been mortal at the time of her actions, because if she had been, Am-mit would most likely have destroyed her the moment her heart touched the scales?

Not that I'm opposed to reading such tales, necessarily. If I was, would I have written this paraphrase? But, the reader must be careful to think about what he has just read. Such stories as this one are worth reading, even if there should happen to be no Aset for us to understand the nature of, because they are part of our past and help us to understand that Egyptian civilization that lies at the roots of our own. But there is no more value to be found in such a story. At most, there may be a warning to those who pray to Aset and their neighbors alike. Know with whom you deal.

If one chooses to include this story in one's myth cycle and pray to Aset, one has to face the reality that whatever her virtues might be (devotion comes to mind), trustworthiness will not be among them. Let us note that Aset worshippers almost invariably do seem to accept this myth, as one might well expect them to, considering how few Egyptian myths survive. (The problem of having too little material to work with, when forming a mental image of the goddess might come up). How, then, is one to relate to her?

The problem of less than ideal deity behavior is not a uniquely Kemetic difficulty, by any means. In a Hellenic context, the violent rages of Artemis come to mind. Two solutions have presented themselves, and been put to use. The first, has been for the 'worshipper' to deal with the one 'worshipped' in a guarded manner, much as one might deal with a village elder who, while not without her virtues, has some notorious and worrisome vices. This solution has often been embraced by Hellenists leading to the system, described elsewhere, of setting up multiple levels of worship. One should keep in mind that limiting the intensity of the sense of communion between worshipper and deity does not reflect an irreversible loss of respect for deity on the part of the worshippers.

To take our case, here at the Shrine, the conception of the utterly trustworthy Aphrodite Urania, with whom the worshipper does seek communion, could have its roots traced back ultimately to the conception of the far less trustworthy Babylonian deity Ishtar, to whom one would only offer the kind of guarded respect most would give to Artemis, today. This knowledge does not diminish our beloved Aphrodite in our eyes, any more than the thought that a distinguished professor was once an infant lessens our assessment of his depth of understanding, in his field of study.

Unlike the ancients (as we would have to be, given two millenia of added cultural perspective), we are used to notion that objectively existing deities can themselves evolve, much as a child can grow into an adult, and a few millenia will offer ample time for the relationship between the deity and all that she influences, to develop. Not that we would say that Ishtar has necessarily been 'replaced' by Aphrodite, in our view, as some would say that the child is replaced by the adult. The child still exists within the adult, inside his subconscious mind, and likewise, we might view Ishtar as existing within the subconscious of Aphrodite. As with our flesh-and-blood neighbors, we tread gently around she who exists within the subconscious, out of love for she who dwells, in our mental image, on a more conscious level.

Such a solution is most unlikely to gain popularity among the Kemetic Orthodox, however, even though their theology does allow room for the evolution of the netjeru. (As it must, otherwise they would have to bid farewell to the "children of Sekhmet", whose netjer wasn't viewed as being 'distinct' until fairly late in historical times, having split off from Hethert, of whom she was originally no more than an epithet). As each netjer is seen as being one of the faces of God, the Christian roots of almost the entire membership (mostly Protestant ones, at that) would not leave the worshippers comfortable with the notion of judging those worshipped, in any sense. (*)

Nor, to be realistic, will the mindset that leads to such a notion be fostered by a church (like that of Kemetic Orthodoxy) or a cultural tradition (eg. the Neopagan one, out of which the House of Netjer arose) in which critical thought is considered to be a form of personal abuse, especially when its use leads to another person losing an argument. What we will see, instead, is the uncritical and careless opening of the worshipper's heart (in the modern, metaphorical sense) to the one worshipped, and the resulting adoption of many of the worst traits of the deity, by the worshipper as his own. Thus, we see the occasional psychotic Sekhmet worshipper, who thinks that his psychosis is a holy calling, and a bumper crop of manipulative Aset worshippers.

As the cliche runs, and polytheists are inclined to agree, "it takes all types to make the world go around", though the polytheist would say it without the fashionable sneering tone. Yes, whether something is a virtue or a vice can depend on context. One shouldn't want to see foot soldiers thinking for themselves in battle, or actors developing a thick skin, emotionally. In either case, what is usually considered to be a personal strength, would get in the way of somebody doing his job. Sometimes the question is not "how do we get this person to lose this vice", but "how can we find a place for this person, in which the context turns his vices into virtues, and how can we persuade him to stay there?". If feelings are hurt by the second question, so be it.

In that spirit, we must say that it is not the place of an Aset worshipping Kemetic to be taking part in a philosophical discussion, or any other discussion leading up to the creation of the rules by which future actions are to be governed, because their participation would corrupt the process in which they are taking part, leading to grave consequences which would repeat themselves indefinitely, until somebody went to the trouble of rooting out the bad assumptions that they succeeded in building into the communities thinking. If the reader has trouble wondering just how much trouble that might be, we would invite him to pop on over to the Almond Jar, and take a look through "Interview with a Brave Man", in the group politics section. Deconstructing common knowledge can be a nightmare.

Some may argue that to limit the trust one puts in another, on mythological grounds, is unreasonable (though, oddly enough, they seem to forget this "conviction", when the subject of "devil worship" comes up). Nonsense. By saying who we worship, and how, we tell the listener what it is that we feel drawn to worship, and thus, what it is, that we value. Beyond that, though, we have the simple, historical reality that from the Reader Circuit Pagan community, to the "opposing faction" to be found on the webboards of the "House of Netjer", the ethics of the Aset worshippers we have met have spoken for themselves, and almost without exception, they've been situational, at best.

If one is ever to learn from experience, one must, at some point, be prepared to accept it, especially when one is presented with good reasons to expect to see what one has seen. Monotheism will leave some inclined to cry "religious bigotry", when they read this, but that's nonsense. The worshippers of the different gods of a pantheon, or of the different netjeru, in the case of Kemetic Orthodoxy, aren't practicing different religions.

Polytheism in any form, including Monolatry, with its multitude of aspects of the one God, gives its practioners a way of defining themselves, that a pure monotheism won't - by the identity of one's patron god, and what he represents. Catholicism may not have a patron saint of thieves, but Hellenism does have a patron god for them, and we know to guard our valuables in the presence of Hermes worshippers until we know them well enough to know much of the mythical Hermes is likely to be in them. To discard this bit of common sense in order to appease those whining about it would be to discard one's valuables, something that few are willing to do. It's high time that people started holding onto their principles with as much passion.

What, then, is the role of the Aset worshipper? That's a good question, which I'll leave to the Aset worshippers to answer, and the others to discuss after the children of Aset have left. I'd like to think that Aset has some virtues which justify the devotion shown to her, and I can, perhaps, think of a few, but this one is not my case to make. At least, not for any reason which I can think of, today.

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