One of the nice things about the Pagan Blog Project is that it gives me new areas to delve into and think about. I was gonna do a post about the elements, since I study alchemy, but I may defer that to next week. Mostly because I wanted to look into this one. But it works out because along with Greece, Egypt (or Khem) was the birth place of Alchemy, and Thoth as well as Hermes were it’s patron Gods.

Had I come into Paganism earlier than I did, I could well have gone into a form of Egyptian paganism, of which I think there is Khemetics (the Re-constructionists), Egyptian/Khemetic Wicca (since there is an Asatru Wicca, I would guess there is an Egyptian one), and then probably some Egyptian Eclectics. Because in my youth I read the Elizabeth Peters books about Amelia Peabody, a fictional Victorian archeologist (also made me wanna go int o archeology), I was really, really into Egypt. In a lot of ways, it was my first ancient love.

I have met some Khemetics, but sadly I don’t have contact with them to work on this article. So most of this is stuff I’m pulling together from the air and my scattered brain. If there are any Khemetics out there reading this, please feel free to get in touch.

The Ancient Egyptian religion is probably one of the best preserved, right up there with the Greek Hellenist , and the Roman Romanics (or whatever they call themselves). It is also probably one of the easiest to obtain items of, my local metaphysical shop has several shelves of Egyptian idols, pyramids, and other such things, as well as a full rack of necklaces, far surpassing anything they have except fairies (they are greatly lacking in the Greek, Roman, or Norse merchandise at the moment, sadly). However, it is one of the smallest branches of Paganism out there, at least I get the impression it is. As I said, I have met a couple Khemetics, but there are no Khemetic/Egyptian Pagan blogs on wordpress, which has a number of Pagan, a few Heathens, and a couple of Hellenist blogs. I don’t know about the larger net, but considering how impossible its been to find Heathen blogs, with our numbers and vocal nature…I doubt i could find them. It doesn’t help that they don’t even get mentioned on Wikipedia’s page about Paganism. All i could find was the page for the Ancient Egyptian Religion.

Of course, if I’m wrong, throw links in the comments and I will go check you out.

Of course, watching the news, I’ve been worried about what the rise of Islamists will do to the Ancient Egyptian relics. Stories float about, though they have been largely ignored by Pagan new sources (the Wild Hunt had one tiny article back when the revolt happened, then promptly seemed to ignore any other stories out there. I lost the links, but there were reports that the nude statues of women/nymphs honoring Zeus were covered, and I heard that at least one Islamist leader wanted to bury the pyramids under wax (wasn’t sure how that would work). I’m sure the Khemetics out there watch with bated breath, unable to visit their Holy Land.

Certainly, the Khemetics have on of the most colorful histories, and probably the longest running with Monotheists. Not to mention some of the most unique looking deities out of anyone, including the Hindu Gods. Certainly, they were among the first hit, if you want to look at it that way. I freely admit, that I root for Pharaoh whenever I see the Ten Commandments (Yule Brynner is a God) or Prince of Egypt (which they had to re-edit because Ramses was way to sympathetic. Heck, even after the re-edit it’s heart breaking to watch as he is forced to realize the brother he loved has come back as an enemy of himself and his people, subjecting them to agony and death for a god and people foreign to both of them). I know you’re supposed to root for the Hebrews being freed, but frankly they were enslaved because they had enslaved the Egyptians first (according to the Torah). And putting the Egyptians through all the Plagues and blaming Pharaoh (who couldn’t just free that many people who were that important of a labor force without inviting war and devastation to his people) just doesn’t seem right.

Personally, I’d like to see more of the Khemetic ways. Then again, I’d like to see more of all the Pagan ways (well, maybe not the Aztecs). It saddens me that unlike us Heathens, they can’t really even go and practice in the land of their Religion. Perhaps someday though, their Gods will take favor over them, and restore the lands to those who were meant to worship and live in it, and return to their peoples and free them.

Anyways, I’ll leave you with a bit of entertainment to finish this off.