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Egyptian Paganism for Beginners by Jocelyn Almond and Keith Seddon

Oh geez. Where to begin. Its not that its a terrible book. Like the SRW of Kemeticism. But I'm not sure if I would really recommend it to a beginner. I mean, they tried to do their homework mythology wise but a lot of the texts they end up pulling for their invocations and closing are from Budge.

Another reason I wouldn't recommend it to beginners is because they flat out tell beginners to Open their statues but don't touch on what kind of responsibilities that puts on the practitioner. They only suggest that the statue be taken care of after it has been Opened not that it needs constant care afterward.

Another thing that stuck me as odd was toward the beginning they had a “spell” to banish/keep Set from the circle but say “Oh if you’re going to call Set you don’t have to do this”. But then later go on to say that beginners should not call Set ever and that should only be reserved for experienced practitioners. But then go ahead and include information on him later on.

I would say this book would be more for just getting your feet wet as an introduction to the deities and if a person wanted more of a Wiccan influenced approach to working with Egyptian deities. I would put a great big warning on this book though. DO NOT TRY TO OPEN YOUR ICON UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY READY TO HAVE TO CARE FOR IT DAILY.

(May add more once I finish reading. I'm wondering if I'm going to have to correct some of the mythological info they include on some of the deities.)

At some point I'm gonna be looking for more stuff to do a full post on the "Opening of the Mouth". But the basics of the Opening of the Mouth was that it was used on mummies and statues so the person's ba could still reside in the mummy and deities could live in their statues. Open icons were kept in the temples because they needed daily offerings and I think they even dressed open icons because the deity lived in them. The Opening of the Mouth, even though it only mentions the mouth in the title, opens all of their senses.

That was one of the first books I bought years ago when I was considering more of a Kemetic based paganism path, but never ended up doing more than flipping through a few pages of it. Guess that's a good thing. XD



That's one of the things that sometimes drives me nuts about intro books. They will often include information on certain deities that - it's not so much that one shouldn't interact with them, but it's not something that a beginner should just randomly do without doing a good bit of research first to make sure that they are fully prepared for what that sort of contact might mean.

Farrar's "The Witches' God" did that with Loki. I'm more than passing fond of Loki, so including him isn't an issue, but telling a newbie ... "sure going ahead and invoke him (not even just meditate, but full-on INVOKE), and have a little chat with him", without explaining why that may or may not be a good idea seems like folly to me.