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 Posted: Wed May 28, 2014 6:12 pm
Weird title. Sorry. Best thing I could think of.
Ok. So Kemetics have this thing called Opening of the Mouth. Its a ritual that was done on mummies and deity statues housed in the temples. Having an opened icon meant that the deity lived in that statue.
It got me thinking. Do other religions have something similar? If so, is it still practiced today? If so, what does it mean for the practitioner?
If not, do deities within that pantheon try to dwell/live in statues of them? If so, what do you think it would mean to that practitioner?
For Kemetics, yes it is still used. Its even stupidly recommended to beginners to perform said ritual. emotion_bigvein Its a huge responsibility for the devotee if they do decide to open their statue. It becomes a huge daily thing. Something that if I ever do do something like that, it is not any time soon.
Plus there's a debate in the Kemetic community over if you have to do the ritual exactly like in Eternal Egypt by Richard Reidy for the statue to be considered Open or not.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 6:37 am
I'm not sure about other pantheons, but perhaps it's something I'd like to do one day in the future. Having said that, this will not be for many, many years because I'm still kinda working out the specifics of my path, and hey, I may not end up doing it at all.
Two questions though: Eternal Egypt by Richard Reidy; this book sounds intriguing, could you put up a little more info about it?
Also, if one was to open a statue (can you open multiples?), and you went on a holiday, or you were in hospital and unable to get to it to look after it, what would you do?
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 7:02 am
While I take good care of my icons and other representations of deity, I can't say that mine are 'open', or that that's a thing on my path. My gods are very much present in the physical world - I can't see the point in drawing a small bit of them to live only in a statue or icon.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 7:07 am
I haven't been able to get my hands on Eternal Egypt yet. But what I do know about it is the author is strongly recon oriented and actually runs a temple in California. Reidy I think has a fully "translated" Opening of the Mouth vs what's in Egyptian Paganism for Beginners. Which is why there debate over if it has to be Reidy's version for it to work.
I think you can have multiple open statues but it multiples the work that would have to be done. From what we know it were only priest that took care of open statues and that was their life.
If for some reason you weren't able and unless it was stated way before hand I would think you'd have to find someone who could take care of it if you temporarily can't. From what I know in AE the priests and their families lived in the temples to take care of the open icons. That was their job, to take care of the temple and the deity(ies?) it was dedicated to. And I think I heard that in Reidy's temple and I'm not sure about the KO (don't know if they have open icons or not) they have priests and priestesses on set schedules to come in and care for the deities living in the temple.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 1:55 pm
I am fairly certain thats a big deal for Greek Gods. Like the Statue was also the God.
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