Note : For clarity, I've put my comments in green italics, where I've inserted them into Renee's post. Renee's own remarks are in yellow.

Leah (*)
(veteran poster)
04/09/01 03:08 PM
Netjer and Natural Forces


Hotep All..

Often we envision the Names in a manner similar to divinized Catholic Saint, or Mary or even Jesus. That is personal human-like but superior beings.

Comment : Glancing through the Dover edition of "Life in Ancient Egypt" by Adolf Erman, on p. 271 I come across a mention that both Plutarch and the Pyramid texts relate tales portraying Wesir and his family as having once lived on earth as men, having since died, only their spirits living on as stars in the sky. This would be suggestive of the view described above, taken somewhat literally. (None of the characters involved seem particularly saintly. Mythological figures seldom do). However, taken in the context of what follows, the meaning of this passage will shift, slightly, to something broader.

What is noted, is that worshippers will ascribe personalities to the netjeru, and relate to them as people, much as Hellenists will relate to the Olympians. To equate this with a full anthropomorpising of the Divine, however, as Renee will seem to, would be unwarranted.

A dog will react to his owner's personality, as he perceives it, and achieve some degree of success in in doing so (good enough for his purposes). Does it follow that we are merely dogs, or that there is nothing fundamentally non-canine about our natures?

No. It follows that empathy can cross species lines, and that the common experience of being conscious beings makes this achievable, if not always as easy as we might wish. Likewise, perhaps, between worshipper and worshipped though, to mention a few non-Kemetic viewpoints, Judaism and Christianity do speak of man being made in the image of God, and the Olympic gods are spoken of as being of "one flesh with man", by some. Even in these cases though, few will pretend that man can see through the eyes of the Divine. "Mysterious are ways of God".

Let us add that in the case of the most human-like deities mentioned (the Olympians), those who seem more human are not supreme - there is an entire layer of extremely non-human deities above them (eg. the Virtues) So, as we can see, the embracing of a personal relationship with deity in all of its forms, does not translate into any sort of confusion between man and God.

While any way of envisioning the divine will have problems since the full picture is beyond our merely human comprehension..I would like to suggest people who follow Netjer attempt to adopt (even temporarily) a different belief about Netjer and see how this affects their spiritual life, and relationship with their Parent and other names.

Comment : This seems an awful lot like prosletyzing to me, to me, especially given what you're about to see.

It's also a fundamentally unreasonable request. Traditionalists will develop strong personal relationships with their 'patron deities' or 'parents'. To go along with Leah's request, would be to break off that relationship, and risk alienating one's "parent" or patron deity. To refuse to think of another as a person, is to refuse to relate to him as a person.

Once it is so carelessly tossed away, the bond between man and deity might never return. As the damage would be lasting, if not irreversable, "just try it" is not a reasonable request.

Click here to continue.

(*) Out of curiosity, I visited the homepage of the organization listed on Leah's bio, and glanced briefly at their message forum, which sort of looked like the House of Netjer webboards in miniature. (Though, I guess the word "miniature" won't be appropriate, any more, if Stephanie Cass deletes many more posts). Once there, I saw her reply to a greeting posted by a newcomer to her organization's board.

I noticed that Leah was an administrator on the board, suggesting that she holds a relatively high place in her organization, perhaps comparable to that held by Stephanie Cass in the House of Netjer. I was mildly interested to discover that Ankhesenamun, who you will be reading a post from, soon, is a shemsu in that same organization.