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Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 10:18 pm
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OK, so I have kind of a problem. While I'd love to offer a primer (running it through in the Pathways thread first for any possible errors in information or interpretation on my part), I have this tendency to take a topic and dive in really deeply. This might pose a problem who wants to take the information for what it's supposed to be- a primer. For example, though the Kemetic religion is outwardly polytheistic, understanding how syncretism plays a part in temporary inhabiting of one deity within another to increase the first mentioned deities' power and spheres of influence cannot be well understood without also looking at implied theology of texts, and multivalent logic. Kemetic logic itself is different from anything I've ever seen, and would certainly be alien to people accustomed to Western logic.
Err...see what I mean? I can just imagine a person coming in, reading a few sentences, feeling an anvil drop on their head, and move on. So uh...for those who are interested (or can at least guess at what a newbie might be thinking), what are some of the most important details to Kemetic religion that someone just starting out might want to know? And though it is a primer I'd like to do a little more than "God/dess of ____, likes _____ color and (shinies)."
Topics that I will definitely mention are: description of the Pesedjet, Egyptian names of the gods, nome v. state gods, Heka, the role of statues in worship, importance of myths being replayed through ritual actions, etc.
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Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 10:50 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:10 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:08 am
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Besides everything Tea said...
Maybe something about relationships of the Kemetic gods to the gods of surrounding cultures?
The relationship between the gods, their stories, and the geography of Kemet, and how any of it is relevant to modern practitioners. (Many don't live in Egypt, and even for the ones that do, the Nile no longer floods, etc.)
Maybe something about how the most commonly available information about the Kemetic gods is filtered through Greek scholars and Victorian occult societies (and others I'm sure), and whether any of that is "canon" so to speak.
What makes a practice or group reconstructionist versus revivalist, and what considerations should influence that choice.
Some exploration of political claims to Kemetic spirituality, and religious privilege. By this I mean there are some exclusively Afrocentric treatments of Kemetic history and religion and its modern practice, some treatments that distance Kemetic culture from Africa altogether, and of course varieties that range in between; some of these positions are clearly racist and others are sticky, unresolved, or largely unmentioned.
Don't know if these are primer material, but they're some things I would've liked to know starting out.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:06 pm
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