The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Hey everyone!  I've been recently getting back into Kemeticism.  Now I'm aware that in general, Kemeticism is considered "Capital-P Pagan" (religions that self-identify as Pagan as opposed to "lowercase-p Pagan", which just means any religion that's not Christian/Jewish/Islamic").  For example, religions like Druidry, Wicca, Hellenismos, Religio Romana, Celtic Paganism and Heathenry (in most cases, although I have seen Heathens online who don't consider themselves Pagan).  I used to think that Kemeticism was Pagan as well.  However, I have recently seen materials written by Kemetics that state that Kemeticism is not Pagan.  These are the arguements:

Kemeticism is NOT Pagan

1. Pagan has historically been a European term.  The ancient Egyptian religion, being African, would not have been historically considered Pagan.

2. Even the modern Pagan moment has historically been European.  The God and the Goddess of Wicca were originally considered to be Cernunnos (Celtic) and Diana (Roman).  Asatru was the second Pagan religion.  The term "Pagan" became more European-based.

3. Many definitions of "Pagan" I've come across require that for a religion to be Pagan, it has to be polytheistic.  Kemeticism is not necessarily polytheistic, at least not in the traditional sense, as some interpretations of it are monolatrous, where there is one god with many different aspects.  

Kemeticism is Pagan

1. Most Pagans and even many Kemetic practicioners do view Kemeticism as being part of the umbrella of Paganism.  

2. Even though Paganism started out European, words can change and grow to encompass more things.  

3. There are polytheistic interpretations of Kemeticism.  Also, many definitions of "Pagan" don't require the religion in question to be polytheistic.

I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue.  What do you think?  Is Kemeticism Pagan or not?

3. Many definitions of "Pagan" I've come across require that for a religion to be Pagan, it has to be polytheistic.  Kemeticism is not necessarily polytheistic, at least not in the traditional sense, as some interpretations of it are monolatrous, where there is one god with many different aspects.  

 
I think when the whole "devotional Polytheism" thing was blowing up a while back, somebody actually made the argument that soft polytheists weren't polytheists at all.

The vast majority of definitions of "paganism" I'd give creedence to have nothing to do with the number of gods acknowledged or worshipped. If I was only working with Hekate and no one else, I'm hard pressed to imagine I wouldn't be considered pagan.

If an individual Kemetic wants to not call themselves pagan that's their choice but I wouldn't generalize that to other Kemetics.

Kemeticism is undeniably a product of the modern pagan movement.  It has a somewhat different course than many of the reconstructions, which is interesting to dig into, but it is wholly a product of the same forces that produced other pagan religions today.

 
Going into this in more detail:

The modern pagan movement emerged as part of the zeitgeist of the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s, which was produced by a number of factors, including but not limited to: disenchantment brought on by the processes of industrialisation and the second industrial revolution, resistance to imperialism and colonialism producing intense national/ethnic identity politics, and the development of science leading to both existential angst about the meaning and significance of life and matters spiritual and leading to a belief that the past contained lost answers (some of them esoteric).

Huge numbers of influential people of the time were involved in more than one of the following: the Rosicrucian groups, the Freemasons, the Theosophists, the Spiritualist movement, various exoteric/occultic interest groups, various literary movements including the Celtic Twilight Irish literary revival, neo-Vedanta (the deliberate export of Hinduism to the West by various schools of Indian religious thought), the development of early science (Gerald Gardner worked with Petrie!), folklore collection and studies, early environmental/naturalist movements, nationalist politics, and so on.

Among the significant factors that went into this vast soup was Egyptomania, which was sparked off by Napoleon's expeditions in Egypt and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, and by the fact that the modernisation of archaeology by Petrie was done primarily on Egyptian and other near and middle Eastern digs.  Egypt has long been considered in the West as the pinnacle of ancient and mysterious knowledge which has been lost (blame the Greeks) and was thus a profound popcultural fascination.

Depending on where you dipper from the soup you get more or less of various aspects, though it's all up in each other's business and it's actually complicated.  In that time period, however, you get the emergence of Wicca, many of the northern European reconstructions (I have not yet tracked down topics on the origins on Greek and Roman reconstructions, but Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, and Nordic heathenries first start to emerge in this period, and I wouldn't be surprised by Irish rooting in the Celtic Twilight), and, most relevantly to the tracking of Kemetic-related stuff, Thelema, which is occultic Egyptomania based.

So for much of the 20th century, Egyptian flavored paganisms were primarily occultic; the Egyptian national experience of empire and colonialism did not produce the racialised nationalism that led to the development of the concept of the Völksgeist that generated the reconstructions in northern Europe.  There were also witchcraft-based groups, including organised ones like the Isian tradition (Ellen Cannon Reed), with Egyptian influence.

More reconstructionist-flavored stuff starts coming in with ongoing reconstructionist developments in the 1970s.  I'm not sure about the more black nationalist forms of Kemetic thought and their origins (something I need to poke at a bit more, clearly; more notes for the soup), but HON's stuff and derivatives therefrom evolved from a Wiccan group (possibly not BTW, I don't know Siuda's lineage) after her 1988 initiation.

Notably, that process does not significantly involve people living actually in Egypt itself, unlike the northern European (and the Greek, for certain; not sure about Roman stuff) reconstructions.  It is not, unlike the other reconstructions, tied to a related nationalist movement.  It is all responding to the presence of Egypt in the Westernised world.  It is a product of Egypt's presence as an occultic and popcultural force, and of the shape of the modern pagan movement which produced the idea of reconstruction.

 
Thanks for those!  Some of that falls within the scope of my research project and gives me places to start from.

(I have since done some basic poking and determined that Greek and Roman as broadly practiced also fall in the 1970s-1990s second wave of cultural polytheisms.  Not that that stops the Hellenic one from having nationalistic/folkish/identity politics aspects.)

I am under the impression, that modern Hellenic paganism in Greece comes in several flavours. Labrys seem to be less nationalistic/völkisch than YSEE as far as I have been able to disentangle, but I am not entirely sure in either case. Do you have better information about the Greek situation?

 
No, my knowledge is fairly superficial.  But the situation in Greece seems from that superficial POV to be developing similarly to the original völkisch things in northern Europe - strands are heavily right-wing ethnic-nationalistic, and strands are not.  (My wiseass comment is that you've got that, and you've got the poets, and then you've got the poets who are also that, and that's basically... where the reconstructionist impulse seems to reliably come from.)

That argument is rather weak. Asia, Europe and Africa might be useful geographical terms today, but back in antiquity countries sharing shores by the Mediterranean Sea were connected to each other by maritime trade. Egyptians and the Syro-Lebanese exchanged deities with each other from the Old Kingdom onwards, but increasingly so from the time of Amenhotep III (the father of Achenaten) in the New Kingdom. In Naukratis and Memphis, Greek and Carian deities were worshipped since abt. 600 BCE. If you take a look at a map of Alexander's empire or the Roman Empire, some parts of Asia, Europe and Africa were united with each other, while some parts of Asia, Europe and Africa were not.

 
Yeah, I admit that's a pretty weak arguement:ashamed: If I were arguing for Kemeticism not being Pagan, that is not an arguement I would use.

I'm aware that in general, Kemeticism is considered "Capital-P Pagan" (religions that self-identify as Pagan as opposed to "lowercase-p Pagan", which just means any religion that's not Christian/Jewish/Islamic").  ...  However, I have recently seen materials written by Kemetics that state that Kemeticism is not Pagan.

I voted no, for this very reason. In addition to the reasons that you posted as to why Kemeticism is not a branch of Paganism, all of the Kemeticists that I've spoken with (mostly online, as I know of no Kemetic groups in any of the communities that I've lived in,) do not identify as Pagan, or their religion as a part of Paganism. To note, I have encountered much the same with Eastern religions (e.g. Hinduism) and indigenous American beliefs.

In general, and in vast majority, I find that self-identified Pagans (and thus Paganism) are centered on pre-Christian cultural beliefs of Europe; Celtic, Germanic/Norse, Roman, Greek, Slavic, and Uralic. Which, to me, is fine--if we label everything pagan as Pagan, the term is too broad and ultimately means nothing, and we have no identity.

The Kemeticists that I've encountered, from my experiences with them, are not into the bigger Pagan community. They don't identify with the Pagan community. In my mind, shoe-horning them into our community to satisfy our (well, some of us) desire to be inclusive is, ultimately, a disservice to their solidarity.

In general, and in vast majority, I find that self-identified Pagans (and thus Paganism) are centered on pre-Christian cultural beliefs of Europe; Celtic, Germanic/Norse, Roman, Greek, Slavic, and Uralic. Which, to me, is fine--if we label everything pagan as Pagan, the term is too broad and ultimately means nothing, and we have no identity.

I believe, that you just out-defined me from the Pagan umbrella, since neither Jupiter Ammon, Rhea-Nut, Cronus-Geb, Isis, Serapis, Hermes-Thoth, Horapollo, Aion, Mandulis,  Theos Hypsistos, Cybele, Attis, Sabazius, Hipta, Men Pharnakou, Mithras, Lunus, Iao, Semesilam, Marnas, Jupiter Dolichenus, Jupiter Heliopolitanus, Atargatis and Adonis are of European origin, and since astrology, as we know it, came into existence in Egypt during the Ptolemaeans.

Now I am confused. I thought I practiced late Roman religion, and now I don't because of geographical borders that didn't exist when paleo-paganism was alive?