In a later post on the same thread, responding to Reverend Schaefer's short but sweet rebuttal, Leah would go on to write:

> .. There is nothing inherently more of a simplification
> .. in speaking of Neteru as forces and speaking of
> .. them as persons. "A force" or Power is no more
> .. knowable or less mysterious than a person. After all
> .. from an African perspective the human person
> .. IS a set of complex and interweaving forces

Yes, and according to medical science that same person is a collection of tissues, but to say that this is the whole truth is to confuse a living person with a cadaver or a pile of tissue samples.

Where life of any sort is involved, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, becoming a thing unto itself. If one could dissolve a man into his constituent cells, but keep all of the cells alive, would one say that the man still lived because no part of him had died? No, because the man isn't just the set of his component parts, but that set along with a structure which defines it (and even that is an oversimplification).

Besides which, Leah has engaged in a verbal sleight of hand, perhaps hoping that the reader wouldn't notice. Notice how in the beginning, she reponds to Rev. Schaefer's criticism of her notion that one might think of a 'Name' (ie. aspect) of Netjer (ie. God) as a force, referring to "force" in the singular. A few lines later, she is speaking in the plural, of the "forces" making up a human being in African belief (and in some forms of Hellenic and Roman belief, as well, I might add). There is a world of difference between the two positions.

To argue otherwise would be to say that a grain of sand is a beach, because beaches are made of sand. This pair of mental images will also serve to annoy the gods of any pantheon, because they place the gods beneath us. If a man is a complex of forces, but a god, or aspect of God, is but a single force, then which is the more complex?

> .. The danger of talking " persons" is tendency (toward)
> .. unhealthy subservience which lacks responsibility for
> .. ones life. (sic)

Does she mean "leading to a lack of responsibility for one's life"?

This is a serious misreading of the concept of "piety", if there ever was one, even if one should consider subservience to be a part of piety. A servant is responsible for doing the bidding of his master. Should he serve his master poorly, the responsibility for his failings is his, not his master's. His employment is an acceptance of added responsibility, not a rejection of that responsibility which he already had before he sought his current position.

If one examines both Jewish and Christian commentary, one will be hard pressed to find a single example of a worshipper blaming God for his personal moral failings, though one will find many who will credit Him with their own moral redemption. What, if anything, has been given up in 2000 years of Judeo-Christian piety has been a sense of pride in one's own righteousness, not a sense of responsibility for one's own actions. As Kemetic Orthodox piety, in its current incarnation, only dates back to the 1980s, history has yet to judge its strengths and weaknesses in the context of our current era and cultures. However, one may find ample precedent for the sort of relationship with the Divine contemplated by either camp in this theological dispute in other religions, and it does not support Leah's argument.

> .. The danger of talking "forces/energies" is to reduce
> .. these to something we can and should manipulate for
> .. our own benefit without regard to the created order.

... and yet she speaks of "empowerment" in an earlier post, clearly implying a desire to make use of the power of the netjeru for her own benefit. If that isn't "manipulation", what is?

> .. And while it is all too simple to go from forces to
> .. traits, I have observed the same oversimplification
> .. among those who identify Neteru mainly by traits
> .. of personality--

... an observation which makes little sense. Look at the "energies" and "forces" she speaks of earlier in this post. They are described entirely in terms of Kemetic 'traits'. As for the comment regarding those who identify the netjeru "by traits of personality", let us put that comment into the context that Renee seems to hope that the reader has forgotten. As in, the context created by this discussion.

The opposing position is that the netjeru are to be known as people, not as impersonal "forces". These people, one gets to know, in part, through the stories that are told about them, ie. the myths. To refer to this as "identification by traits of personality" is misleading. Stop and think about it. How do we know the people in our lives? By what we remember of their words and actions, ie. by the stories which we can tell ourselves about them. There is so much more to a story than just a list of personality traits for each character. To say, for example, that this character is "loving" or that other character is "assertive" is to tell the reader very little about either, because there are so many different ways in which one may be loving or assertive. Tell a story, though, and you haven't just told the reader something about the characters involved, but, far better, you have shown him the personalities expressing themselves through the choices they make.

> .. I would agree therefore that such mere trait based
> .. identification (of the) Neteru a potential error to
> .. be avoided in either case.

I would agree that Leah is guilty of practicing the "assertiveness training" technique of "fogging", (1) here. (See : "I feel guilty when I say no", by Manuel J. Smith, (2) chap.6, p.104 in the Bantam edition). But then, we are dealing with somebody who is openly proud of being manipulative, so this should be no cause for surprise. What is a cause for surprise is that she continued to be welcomed on the House of Netjer webboards for over a month after this discussion.

Tolerance, like patience, should have limits on a board of this nature. When one counsels a lack of respect for those honored in a house of worship, the time for tolerance is past. To feel otherwise, is to render one's own act of worship, a hollow gesture. How can one claim to worship somebody that one won't really stand up for?

Click here to return to Leah's previous post.

(1) The short form is that fogging is a tactical use of stubbornly feigned stupidity, applied in order to exasperate or even better, bewilder one's opponent, should he have been conditioned to be so afraid of not being thought of as being "nice" as to feel obliged to take all statements of belief at face value. (There is a traditional "mainstream American" bit of "ettiquette" which holds that it is "impolite" to directly confront somebody about manipulative behavior, or even to suggest that he might be behaving in a less than straightforward fashion. Small wonder, as much of the purpose of this code is to render those brainwashed into following it, docile, ie. easily manipulated, as anybody who has seen it put into practice can attest, should he still be able to locate his own backbone without feeling suicide-inducing pangs of guilt. This technique takes advantage of that manufactured bit of folk idiocy).

The technique is to quote one's opponent out of context, back to himself, distorting his meaning in such a way as to create the illusion of agreement where the reality is one of disagreement, and to hold onto this affected lack of comprehension for dear life.

(2) An invaluable book to own, these days, for all of the wrong reasons. As a guide to life, it is a despicable work. Smith refers to logic as being a tool that others use to get us to do what they want and counsels the reader to respond to it through a manipulative test of wills, rather than through open, honest and sensible discussion. He then gives the reader a number of techniques for doing so.

Why do I urge you to purchase a copy and put money into this man's pocket? Because the odds are very strong that the techniques you see in this book have been used on you before, and continue to be used. By learning to recognize them, you reduce their effectiveness when they are used on you, and have a point to begin with as you think out your response, when confronting those who use such techniques on others. Manuel was a man before his time. He was the prototype of the mealy-mouthed "man of the 90s", with whom a straight conversation is impossible. To understand how such people function is to understand our era.