Hi Sam,
I’m
not sure I understand what you are trying to do, exactly, with looking at
Ra-Hoor-Khuit (and Khut) through Middle Egyptian, but I’ll answer now anyway.
Well, I was under the impression that the name – Ra-Hoor-Khuit (or
Ra-Hoor-Khut) – were just Crowley modifications of Re-Horakhty, or
Re-Har-Akhet-(t)y – just like he modified the names Nu-it and Had-it, and that
their differences were relevant – or would prove to be relevant – when analysed
Qabalisticly, for example between Nu, and Nuit (when the Egyptian original is
Nut). So, in the case of Ra-Hoor-Khuit (and Khut), are you saying that you
think they are Egyptian terms, or are constructed of Egyptian words, but you
just haven’t found them yet? I wouldn’t really have a clue about that. I just
assumed they were modifications of Egyptian originals by Crowley in the process
of receiving the The Book of the Law.
~Caroline.
From: Society for The Academic Study of
Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sam
Webster
Sent: Monday, 19 September 2011 5:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Are Thelema and Wicca English?
Caroline,
Thanks for sending me your article, a very helpful summary, but I would not
conclude quite the same as you.
They were using it, just poorly as you argue well, infected by Egyposophy, and
quite willing to shoehorn the fragments they used into their preconcieved
notions. So, in general, I agree with you, but as a group of non-specialists,
and very much like folk today, they used what they could without sufficient
discrimination. I would guess the Egyptosophic texts were more interesting. . .
As for RHK, Ra-Horus of His Horizon (Re-Har-Akhet-(t)y, Akhet=horizon, -ty is
the possessive), is not the same as the construction Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The (A)Kh(u)
particle references the "Spirits" or Shining Ones, (the "u"
is the plural) and gets used as a general term for the Gods (along with Neter)
and the Blessed Dead. It also is one of the Souls and is associated with
shining and effectiveness. <Gardner's Egyptian Grammar, The Ancient Gods
Speak, Redform, Oxford 2002>. The "-it" ending is a bit of a
bother too, not being a standard one. I've been looking for RHK for years,
unsuccessfully, but the literature is so vast and I am hardly expert. Nonetheless
no one was yet shown me that construction in Old Khem. What it might mean is
Re-Hoor the Shining, or of the Spirits, or the Effective, or more poetically,
the Solar Illuminated Hero, Horus being the hero figure. I think this form
suits the text.
But when we end the name with the simple "-t" as in Ra-Hoor-Khut,
this is the standard female ending. Sadly, given the nature of the text, with a
dead author and it a channeled writing, we have no way of objectively
determining the meaning of the construction. However, the practitioner can
access Her as a mode of empowerment.
)O+
sam
On 9/17/11 7:03 PM, Caroline Tully wrote:
Hi
Sam,
No,
the GD were *not* using the best Egyptology of the day, they had access
to it, but, as I explain in my Crowley article in The Pomegranate, they _were
ignoring it_.
That
is interesting about the possible female form of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, but doesn’t
that deity name really just refer to the attested Egyptian deity Re-Horakhty?
~Caroline.
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Sam Webster
Sent: Sunday, 18 September 2011 8:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Are Thelema and Wicca English?
While I would not deny that
the GD & Crowley reinterpreted Egypt for their own needs, wrt Liber AL I
found it very useful to learn Middle Egyptian and then read the text in that
light. There are interesting clarifications and surprises then.
For instance, we may have a female form of Ra-Hoor-Khuit in the 1st verse of
the third chapter, "Ra-Hoor-Khut" having the "-t" feminine
ending, as contrasted with the "-it" ending. Similarly, there does
not seem to be an actual attestation of "Ra-Hoor-Khuit" Himself in
the Egyptian, but it is a possible construction that has a real meaning.
So, I think there is more to it than simply a surface read and application, as
you seem to indicate in the notion of 'Egyptomaniacal'. The GD itself was using
the best Egyptology of the day. 120 years later it looks the poorer for it, but
they did the best they could with the available data.
For these and kindred reasons I tend to credit Thelema with a significant
source in Ancient Egyptian religious culture.
)O+
sam
On 9/17/11 2:54 AM, Caroline Tully wrote:
I would say that Thelema is “Egyptomaniacal”, as in
Egyptomania. In order to define Egyptomania I refer to a quote from Jean-Marcel
Humbert, Curator of the Musee du Louvre in which he is talking about art
and architecture, but which I think also applies to the aesthetic of spiritual
movments like the Golden Dawn and Thelema: ‘Egyptomania is more than a simple
mania for Egypt. It is not enough to copy Egyptian forms – artists must
“re-create” them in the cauldron of their sensibility and in the context of
their times, or must give them an appearance of renewed vitality, a function
other than the purpose for which they were originally intended… Egyptomania
uses, copies, re-thinks, and re-creates forms derived from ancient Egypt.
Nourished by symbolic meanings attributed to ancient Egypt, though un-related
to their actual meanings in Antiquity, Egyptomania has survived by offering new
readings of these forms passed down through the ages.’
~Caroline.
From: Society for The
Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Ted Hand
Sent: Saturday, 17 September 2011 8:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Are Thelema and Wicca English?
Is the content of Thelema
really Egyptian? It seems like much has been lost in translation
into English. Beyond the linguistic transcription issues Crowley seems to have
adapted
the Egyptian material to suit the English cultural forms he was comfortable
with. But I don't
know if we should be asking if Thelema is an "English Orientalist"
religion...
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:07 PM, Caroline Tully <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I think Wicca is only as “English” as its
Anglo-Saxon name, and as Gerald Gardner was English. Wicca _itself_ is
not “English”. Modelled as it is on J.G. Frazer’s cycle of the “Dying God”,
symbolic of a vegetation cycle, as appears in The Golden Bough, Wicca is, if
anything Near Eastern, such gods being Adonis and Osiris, among others – loved,
lost and regained by goddesses. Even if you look at deity names, Cernunnos
(it’s Gaulish), Aradia (It’s from the Italian, Erodiade – the biblical
Herodias), although yes, Andraste is British. Wicca is a multicultural
hotchpotch of religious components and is only as “English” as Gardner and the
fact that it was formulated in England.
I think Thelema is similarly
“English” – as English as Wicca – because it was promoted by a famous English
occultist. Like Wicca, its content certainly isn’t English, it’s Egyptian,
heavily tinged by Bachofen’s Three Ages and Frazer, but I wouldn’t say Thelema
was Egyptian. I say it’s English.
~Caroline.
Necropolis Now Blog
http://necropolisnow.blogspot.com/