Why is worshipping a/pep so bad and why do you slash the name? Just curious since I love learning about other people’s pantheons! (I mean Wikipedia implied he was evil but like HOW evil???)

dragonwives:

There’s hundreds of writings on this written by more eloquent people than me, and I just woke up, so cliff’s notes version here we go!

Okay so basically we mangle the name bc in kemeticism, names hold power and we don’t want to give it any power. The s/n/a/k/e is the enemy of the Gods, They are eternally locked in a battle against it. It can’t be killed. Every God fights against it. it has absolutely no possibility of being redeemable. While destruction can be good for the cycle of rebirth and destruction and etc etc, while isfet (the opposite of Maat, which is basically the moral ideal in egypt) is sometimes necessary and upholds Maat (like cutting down wheat to make bread), the s/n/a/k/e does none of those things. it wants to end the cycle entirely, plunging the world into uncreation for the rest of eternity, killing all the Gods. We don’t want to attract it’s attention or give it any power. Worshipping it would give it power.

side note 1: The idea of Set as a God of evil or agent of the s/n/a/k/e is incorrect. He fights against the s/n/a/k/e to protect Ra on the Sun-Boat. He is the face of necessary chaos, of storms. A storm may be violent and destructive, but it also waters crops and flowers. He upholds Maat in His own way, and is not evil. We love Set.

side note 2: just adding this bc someone asked me once if i killed snakes bc im kemetic, but: no, we don’t. that would be an act against Maat. We have several snake Gods who are loved and worshipped. Snakes are fine. the s/n/a/k/e isn’t. Excretions against it do not involve any live animal- the most common modern excretions are the smashing of clay pots, or cutting up and eating food in the shape of the s/n/a/k/e. For my last Wep Ronpet, I baked a s/n/a/k/e cake and destroyed it at sunrise, others have used red gummy worms and cut them with scissors, etc. This year I’m probably going to do a clay pot excretion because baking is hard and smashing things is cathartic.