On my first day of Mythology class at LSU, whose two sections together exceeded eight hundred occupied seats, the instructor began with an explanation of the three groups of students for whom he had intended the course:  First, he said, were the seniors who, as they had labored for years, deserved an easy subject to cushion their schedule.  With this announcement, a roar of cheering and applause broke out.  The next preferred sector, he explained, were those in challenging technical curricula who needed a few easy subjects to bring up their overall grades.  Again, a riot of youthful appreciation went up.  Then, he said with a supercilious yet beaming smile, “But most importantly, I teach this course for those who are genuinely interested in Classical Mythology.”  The only sound then to be heard was from my lone pair of hands echoing in a corner of the large auditorium.  After a hushed moment, the irony sank in, and the audience exploded into laughter.  This was the first of Latin 2090’s countless droll moments, and a semester when its witty Gemini teacher was named “Favorite Professor”. 

 

Needless to say, while he was engaged to inform and entertain a throng of those less serious, Dr. Clarke seemed glad to have someone in attendance who was more ardently focused on the matter at hand.  Similarly, while we traditionalists who write of our investigations, efforts, and experiences in the realm of the ancient Egyptian psychiatry greatly appreciate the attention and support of all our friendly readers, we have to optimize our discussions for people committed to the continuing reality of the “Way of Ma’at”. 

 

Countless works in print, though rich in intelligent and sympathetic interpretations, habitually contrast the way “we” as moderns think as opposed to how “they” as adherents of Egyptian religion saw things, as if the old ways were but a dried mummy to be autopsied simply for curious amusement.  For a believer, trying to read around such bumps and grinds is irritating at best, and should be curtailed in practical treatments by avowed participants.  We need at least a few books that possess an interior perspective that can offer reverent and genuinely empathetic explanations for the direct benefit of those with valid, enduring interests in clear knowledge on the Egyptian psychiatric heritage and effective in the application of its observations, remedies, and mysteries. 

 

Why only a few, and not a library full?  Well, there have been a good number of efforts to present an “Egyptian” ritual system by piecing together bits from original sources into procedural formats from Wiccan, Yoruban, Qabalistic-Hermetic, or other systems that support compatible but not identical symbolic, aesthetic, or ethical preferences.  Most such books suffer defect either from a tendency to represent deduction and concoction as fact or from insecurities arising from the intimidating weight of fashion filters that distort the interpretation of archaeological evidence.  They are, nonetheless quite useful to a point, because (as luck and necessity would have it) virtually everyone today involved in a genuine spiritual practice grounded in the Egyptian mode is capable of independent thinking.  Most of life’s questions and answers can be found outside the Egyptian mythos, of course, but for us, certainly not all of them. 

 

With all of this, what is still lacking?  Most importantly, we miss the gods.  We cherish the arrangements that they maintained for us in the old epoch.  Still lingering in our unconscious is an affinity for an endearingly antique society with its simpler pressures and prejudices, its educational and honorific infrastructures, and its system of balancing individual development with collective interest.  In such a world, there are familiar ghosts of obscure conceptions long ago held sacred, where our placement and advancement relied more keenly on our capacity to come to terms with divine powers. 

 

In the film, Spartacus, Laurence Olivier as M. L. Crassus says, “If the gods did not exist, I would still worship them.  If Rome did not exist, I would still dream of her.”  I love this glimpse into the noble pagan outlook.  The thing is, Egyptians loved to live happily ever after, and why not?  Psychological research has found the use of imaginary friends by children and older people to often contribute to mental health.  Whether or not the gods are all that we have imagined them to be, we nonetheless regard them as immensely valuable life forms entitled to sufficient respect to beckon and set them at ease, at least under the conditions within the sanctuary and in our own attitudes as devotees.  That they, like us, willingly answer for their actions to the Creator distinguishes them from other entities, such as demons, dark elves, or unseely fairies. 

 

Ancient Egypt’s formative influence upon its neighboring and its descendant civilizations is affirmed and clarified each day with new archaeological discoveries and philological analyses.  The joyous abundance of beautiful coffee table books of its monuments and popular accounts of its intriguing history continue to brighten the shelves of library and emporium.  Countless volumes of scholarly and mystical investigations of Egypt’s sacred sciences pour through the mail and by courier around the globe to adorn the studies of the mildly interested to the hopelessly hooked.  As Egypt’s Nile River irrigated and fertilized its valley, nourishing flora and fauna in the past, its art and literature seem to have had a similar effect upon the minds and imagination of anyone willing to be nourished by it. 

 

Yet, there is an additional dimension of interest in the contribution of the Beloved Land, and one with the deepest level of enthusiasm.  There are those who will settle for no less than the complete resurrection of as much of its spiritual heritage as possible.  Scholars have long explored the philosophical significance of Egypt’s mythology, looking for interpretations that can enrich man’s overall understanding of himself.  But, the newest branch of study of Egypt’s wisdom is also the oldest, conducted subjectively by its own citizens:  that of its preventive psychology and attending interpersonal sociology, together known as Ancient Egyptian Religion.  So, last but not least, there is the growing number of people who, invoking the archetypes of Egypt as their own guides to involution and evolution, have set about reviving its rituals and ideals.  To their minds, they have accepted an invitation from the spirits of its originators to rejoin mystery schools which have their roots going as far back into the story of man as any living endeavor. 

 

One day, I walked into my favorite health food store wearing a Luxor gallabiya.  I was somewhat acquainted with the lady running the register and when I checked out, noticing that the caftan was of Egyptian workmanship, she asked me if I were a member of the Coptic Church.  I said, “I am a Faraum.”  She smiled as her eyes lit up a bit.  She placed her hands together in a prayerful salute, nodded and said, “Holy One!”  Somehow, this gave me a really high feeling, and I drifted out of the shop without further comment. 

 

In a person of reason, though, religious euphoria is but an episodic treat.  Years later, I awoke one morning to hear the voice of a lady initiate saying, “Don’t try to be more Egyptian.  Practice Ma’at!”  Admittedly, I sometimes wish I could wake up in a quiescent and stable Egyptian body-mind, but this miracle would not help me to better conserve and explain the work of Hermopolitanism today than qualifying myself through attitude, discipline, and education. 

 

Years earlier, an Egyptian co-worker had seen me wearing a satin shirt with pictures of Ra on the front and back.  It was annoyingly splendid, so he grimaced and tried to speak, but his English was somehow bottled up.  So, with a smile, I supplied the words I knew he wanted to say:  “Why are you doing this to me?”  I understood that I was being a bit flashy on hallowed ground, and he seemed relieved to see this.  The modern Arabic name for the keepers of the old ways had come to me from this Egyptian friend who was familiar with their reputation for holding secret devotions at places like Meidum, and from a young Guatemalan mystic yogi who had encountered a whole school of them in Mexico. 

 

There are Egyptians who occasionally discuss involvement in the antique faith, despite customary limitations on their conduct.  Sadly, they are generally too beset with involutionary concerns to lend counsel to temples with as evolutionary a focus as that of el-Ashmunein.  Ammonite leader Her Grace Sekhmet Montu Amdid once wrote to me, “I am a fraud or my people face genocide.”  Thus, if we wish to help them, we must wait for safe opportunity.  There are also troops of foreigners who hold prayer meetings at Saqqara and other sacred locations, but have not yet succeeded in attaining perfect harmony with the police.  Perhaps the best model I can offer for a publicly known Faraum is Omm Sety, the remarkable lady whose story was told in a biography by Jonathan Cott.  She had enough of the old mojo in her soul and body to relocate to Egypt and reinvent herself as something of a healer.  She had great talent in the language and became the greatest authority on the Abydos temple precinct during her lifetime.  She acknowledged her belief in the old gods, yet managed to live the life of a modern practitioner of Native Egyptian Religion without antagonizing the authorities. 

 

The reader may consider a life like that of Omm Sety a quaint anachronism to be relished with a certain detached romanticism.  Or perhaps, it is seen as a clinical curiosity by a world that has forgotten the gods and is getting on with its life.  Then again, the more serious may detect symptoms of an atavistic resurgence in of deep human need and adaptation, hinting of droves more that may appear in time if the conditions become more conducive.  When folks today discover that one “believes in the gods” (whatever that may mean), they rarely treat him or her like a mental case for it, but neither do they usually flock to the cause of some alternative yet reason-based religion.  It seems far easier to sell treasure maps from the back pages of a pulp periodical than to recruit for a group that faces human issues and problems with an esoteric but sober style.  The books that glorify the old ways could now fill a library.  Yet, we rarely hear of temples or kari-shrines larger than some extra room in the home of an eccentric. 

 

I once brought up this dilemma with a Druid teacher whose shop had opened years before with a large ibis figurine sitting in the window’s top shelf.  The sage said that I should bear in mind that the Egyptian path is the most individual of all.  He added that people were always asking him to start a congregation, but since so few were actually steeped from youth in sound pagan priorities, this could lead to the creation of more problems than it might solve.  So I asked how I ought to approach creating the proper kind of group.  He responded, “Keep it small, and keep it strong!”  Years later, a worker of his and I got to talking about such projects, and she said that being on the Egyptian path means that your education is never over.  She had been married by a priest of Set, and was interested in the heavily intellectual cast of Egyptian spiritual cultivation.  She suggested that a museum for magickal books might be a good starting point for a physical extension of Thoth’s mystery school.  Certainly, the pagan community at large would benefit. 

 

So, while this book is written to amuse or inform any who may gain some joy or satisfaction from its reading, its purpose is to examine the knowledge resources helpful to a Faraum in the light of my own experience, hoping that the story doesn’t come out overdone. 

 

Whom especially do I want to try to encourage in or recruit for Hermopolis’ eternal and timely endeavors?  Well, along with some talent for addressing the perplexities of modern pagan or henotheistic life, one should have endured enough painful experiences that one he or she now possesses or at least seeks the skill to identify those that we should have been warned to avoid by reading the epigrams of George Bernard Shaw.  The other members of the holy trinity of Irish wit are, of course, Oscar Wilde and Aleister Crowley.  Together, they form a sort of totemic triune of white ibis, black ibis, and baboon.  The clientele of the cult of Thoth needs those with the Lord’s own legendary logical and verbal talents, of course; but as for other resonances like aesthetic and moral propensities, a servant of Thoth is most naturally a person who remains in an effort to live without the loss of sensitivity or innocence:  “There is no religion higher than Truth.” 

 

We are told by the ancients that Ra invented magick so that honest men would have a weapon against oppression.  The formulas found in the funerary and other dynastic literature arm a believer well, but one needs a proper perspective in order to activate ones own potential in using hekau.  Studying the myths, hymns, tales, and didactic literature, as well as a familiarity with the structure of the old language itself prepare us for the Harry Potter dimension of the Egyptian religious experience.  Some of the most philosophically pertinent quotations can be found as grammatical examples in the textbooks of Sir Alan Gardiner and Dr. James P. Allen. 

 

I suppose that something should be said about the types of people whose arms we should not twist in an attempt to elicit interest in Hermopolitan affairs.  Yet, Thoth is called “Universal Benefactor”, and the neutrality of the ibis and the impartial compassion of the baboon are well established in the minds of mystics, historians, anthropologists, and even students of Dungeons and Dragons lore.  Just about any intelligent, sincere person would have something to offer in the establishment of a Thoth temple.  It does not matter so much how much knowledge a person has accumulated, but how he or she is situated with Ma’at.  Whatever claims to higher wisdom one may have, modesty is always a pivotal virtue in any plan to administer translation from oral teachings into written ones. 

 

Decades ago, I remember walking past the Voodoo Museum at its original location.  Stopping at the storefront, I noticed a white, letter sized piece of paper (apparently a gentle proclamation of some sort) taped to the inside of the window and facing outward.  It was hand written in Hebrew, but the Egyptian characters for “Osiris, Lord of Eternity” formed a prominent part of the inscription.  I went inside and inquired of this to the well poised Englishman behind the counter, and he readily volunteered to come back outside and translate the message.  Essentially, it posed a question about just how much one may wisely or dutifully reveal about the core beliefs and surviving methods of the Egyptian sacred arts that extends itself throughout Hebraic, Hellenic, and Hermetic forms.  I don’t remember the exact words that appeared on the page, but the rhetorical message delivered in first person from some august mind was clear enough to my mine:  Reveal too much and your work becomes compromised, mercenary sorcery or something worse.  Reveal too little, and the tradition fails to properly germinate.  When Roland had finished reading, I said to him, “These words were spoken to you by Lord Osiris…”  He nodded reverently. 

 

One morning soon after I recorded this episode, I woke up to a vision of someone who looked like he was dressed for Burning Man Festival hunched over a smallish box, as if he had been peeking into it with great anticipation, but had slumped over and fallen asleep.  Then, I heard a voice say, “Don’t do this.  Leave me some holes!”  Presumably, this was so that the spirit might breathe in his little boxcar, or maybe even come and go under cover of darkness?  From this I infer that furious interest in holy accessories doesn’t make you a better devotee any more than wearing 3 smuggler’s jackets makes you a better smuggler. 

 

“I don’t need to read the book when I can watch the movie!”  These words seem to typify the prevalent attitude in a society with heavily superficial concerns.  But even more frighteningly, more and more folks seem to be saying, “I don’t need to see the movie when I can buy the bumper sticker!”  We need not assume that the world at large craves profound instruction from the Egyptian prophets.  We should seek out candidates with deeper and more secure values.