Tag: to read

edderkopper:

sphinxliike:

Help I need beginner Asatru resources plz

So, since you’re bi and Kemetic, I’ve gotta warn you that you probably need to brace yourself for white nationalists hijacking the post and might want to turn asks/submissions off if they’re on. That said, here are some LGBT-friendly, non-folkish links.

Norse Polytheism Primary Sources:

Modern Heathen Religion and Scholarship:

As you research, be aware that most of the books written by Heathens for Heathens are
either written by racist, homophobic, or otherwise dangerous people or just
generally very inaccurate. Until you have a basic grasp of the lore to
help you differentiate between fact and BS, I really recommend sticking
with academic sources. Not that academics can’t be full of it too, but
assuming you stick with recent sources, they are less likely to be
neonazis. (For obvious reasons, this does not apply to academic stuff
from the late 19th/early 20th century when certain movements were at
their height.)

Thank you so much for the help and thanks for the heads up about that. Partly why I have been avoiding learning about Norse Paganism were because of those people but..yeah. 

Wonderful resources and I will be sure to read through them c: Thank you again.

🐊Sobek Masterpost 🐊

sobekreshuten:

Dua Sobek, Great Crocodile! Praise to You, Lord of Love, Who Brings the Flood!

My Sobek Tag

My Resources Tag

Historical Information

  1. Henadology
  2. Wikipedia
  3. Wepwawet.org
  4. Kemet.org
  5. Per Sebek – an excellent resource with lots of information, rituals, and writings!
  6. Full List of  Sobek’s Epithets
  7. Free .pdf of an entire book about Sobek of Shedet
  8. Sobek in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods

General Personal Experience Posts

All are UPG, so take them with a grain of salt! 

  1. Mine
  2. Lavenderbiscuit
  3. Kekmetic
  4. Scalesojudgement
  5. Bullet Point Sobek UPG
  6. More Bullet Point Sobek UPG
  7. Another Bullet Point Sobek UPG
  8. One Last Bullet Point Sobek UPG
  9. Sobek vs Sobek-Ra 1
  10. Sobek vs Sobek-Ra 2

“The Fitness Cult”

  1. “I’m not joining the fitness cult”
  2. Sobek the non-corporeal PT
  3. Suggested Fitness Cult Activities

Offering Ideas

  1. Mine
  2. Lavenderbiscuit’s
  3. So-Sobek’s

E-Shrines

  1. Bull of Bulls (Mine!)
  2. Love Deluge
  3. Croc of Bakhu
  4. Fish Trap
  5. Child of Sobek

Other

  1. Thoughts on Sobek’s epithet “Bull of Bulls”
  2. SPG regarding hair and Sobek
  3. (My) Daily Rite for Sobek

Updated: 6 May 2018

📚Intro To Polytheism📚

thewitchofthenorse:

One of the most frequent asks I receive is how and where to get started when it comes to polytheism. This is a fairly broad subject and I’ll try to be as general as I can for advice but I will include specific references for Norse polytheists as that’s my shit. This information can be used to help you find a pantheon or to help you pick deities to work with it. If you’d like to use it to pick a patron deity that’s super, if you want to worship 20 gods and not have a patron deity that’s cool too. You do you dude. Please keep in mind this is all reflective of my research and personal practice.

🌻

Picking A Pantheon/Deity

This really boils down to personal preference. You’ll read a lot of posts and books that tell you many different ways and it’s entirely up to you because it is your practice.  That being said, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it. 

  • Research! This is one of my favorite ways to delve in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading the stories of multiple pantheons and picking on that calls to you. You can also talk to other devotees and see what they have to say about deities and their religions. It is important to keep in mind that some religions are closed so please do proper research!
    • For example, I wasn’t originally a Norse pagan. I read some stories and thought the Hellenic pantheon would best suit me. I reached out to Eros for a while but after feeling no real connection to the pantheon I continued my research! After reading up on the Norse pantheon I decided to reach out to them out. Obviously, I fucking loved it because here I am. Point being, you can pick a pantheon based on research and not some divine message or whatever. You are also more than welcome to try out a religion, decide it doesn’t suit you, and move on. 
  • Divination! You can use runes, a pendulum, tarot, etc.This can go a few different ways. You can write pantheon/deity names on separate pieces of paper, mix them up, and place them face down then ask the pendulum to pick. You can assign a deity/pantheon to each suit of cards or major arcana card or even do the same thing with runes. 
    • For example, this is how I found a devotion to Frigg and Hel. I asked if there were any deities who were interested in working with me and pulled the runes Hagalaz and Berkana which read as Hel and Frigg to me. I followed up with tarot cards and pulled Death(Hel) plus the Queen of Pentacles(Frigg).
  • Asking/waiting for a sign. This isn’t something I’ve personally done so I don’t have much to say on the subject. You can go about meditating, praying, doing a ritual, or whatever and essentially wait for a sign after. It can come via a dream, something you experience, symbols you see in your daily life, it’s pretty much up to your intuition to decipher it. If anyone has information they’d like me to add in here please let me know!
  • If there’s a god you’re curious about and don’t want to do any of the above it’s totally cool to just reach out and ask if they want to work with you. 

Idk How To Research

Same, tbh my keyword search game is weak. Anyways, good portion of us are looking up dead religions with little reliable resources. To give those curious about the Norse an easy head start here’s a compiled list of  books by @witches-of-ouroboros. It’s important to take everything with a grain a salt of salt when doing research. In my experience a lot of the retold Norse sagas have been Christianized or written under heavy Wiccan influences. It’s a good idea to do research on the author before reading one of their books.

  • Other blogs! There are tons of great witches and pagans on tumblr that have information waiting for you. 💗 You can search their blog/tags for good references for books, websites, podcasts, etc. Plus lots of blogs are open to answer asks. If you don’t know where to start for searching it’s best to try things based around your interest like: “norse polytheist”, “hellenic witch”, “gaelic polytheism”, etc.
  • Media! How lucky are we that we live in the age of technology? Knowledge is right at our fingertips! There are countless documentaries, podcasts, and audiobooks on youtube full of information for different cultures and religions. I’d personally recommend almost anything by BBC, Myths & Legends, and World Mythology!
  • Books! I love starting on goodreads to find good books and trust worthy authors. They’ve had almost every book I looked up with bunches of different reviews so you can get varying perspectives. Check out your local library as well! A lot of city libraries have online databases now of all of their books so you can “check it out” online and read the PDF(personal fave). 

Feeling Lost Still?

That’s completely reasonable and your feelings are more than valid. It can be overwhelming and lot of information to soak up. Just do your best and take it at your own pace, there’s no rush to find a deity or pantheon. 💞 Below are a few other general concerns I hear a lot that I was hoping to address.

  • “I’m leaving a monotheistic(Christian, Catholic, Jewish, etc) religion and it’s giving me anxiety.” This is entirely common and almost expected in my opinion. I was raised Roman Catholic and my first year to two looking into polytheism riddled me with anxiety. I was constantly concerned that god would smite me down or I’d face an eternity in hell for worshiping false gods. While I can’t speak for everyone that fear was entirely erased for me when I found my gods. I’ve never felt so safe and strong and hopefully with time you can find the same in your gods!
    • It’s okay to want to learn more or to seek something more. I can’t tell you how to handle your anxiety but please know you’re not alone in that fear. There’s whole communities out there willing to support you and help you find your safe space(including me)!

  • “What’s UPG?” You’ll see a lot of posts, mine included, that mention UPG – UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. This is essentially someone’s personal thoughts and beliefs about a deity. For example, I associate Sif with hazelnuts. There’s nothing in the lore or any book that says that she likes hazelnuts; that’s just a personal opinion(aka a UPG).

  • “How do I reach out to the gods?” I have a lot of information on my blog about this topic although a lot of it is Norse specific. You can check out my beginner polytheist tag here and my beginner norse post/ask here.
    • Altar! This is my go to typically. Altars aren’t limited to the cookie cutter image that comes to mind(no hate though I have a few); one thing you can make a side blog dedicated to your pantheon/deity, make a small one in a tin can, or even make one in a video game like Minecraft or some shit. You can be as creative or as to the book as you want. It’s up to you.
    • Prayer! You can totally just sit down and be like, “Hey man wanna work on some shit together?”. While I’m not 100% that all gods would be down with you being that casual it’s still something you can try.😂 You can reach out to them by sitting down in a quiet space and meditating into prayer, praying in the car or in the shower, or just pray at the altar you set up if you did. Again, I can not reiterate this enough, it’s your practice, reach out to them as you please.
    • Do something personal! This is more like devotional work in my opinion. Let’s say you knit and you want to reach out to a creative or domestic deity, you can knit something as a devotional act to them and as a way to reach out. For example I pick up litter in honor of the Vanir and

      Jörð, or I play Skyrim for Thor and

      Týr.

    • Most importantly just be honest and up front with the god that you’re reaching out too. Considering that statement be honest with yourself as well. There’s no point going into a relationship with a god if you can’t be upfront, it’ll end up in nothing but grief.
  • “Can deities reach out through gods/signs?” They totally can. However, it is up to you and your intuition if a deity has and it’s not likely another witch will decipher that for you. Sounds, experiences, images, all have different meanings to each of us – they may show you something that’s very personal to you but would be mundane to someone else. Trust your instincts. However, please remember that not everything is magical, sometimes a raven is just a raven and not Odin.

Take everything you learn with a grain of salt.

into-the-duat:

the-typhonian:

“The motivation for the murder of his brother Osiris by Seth is normally considered to be one of jealousy of his kingship and a way of taking over the throne. However, there is an alternative reason. In ‘Seth ist im Recht, Osiris ist im Unrecht’ von Lieven proposes a paradigm on local Seth worship and the Seth worshipers’ version of the Osiris myth. The title of the article can be construed in the legal sense as Seth is in the right, Osiris is in the wrong. This immediately sets the tone that unlike the usual Egyptian religious texts, Osiris is presented as the villain and perpetrator of a misdemeanour rather than the usual suspect, Seth. Von Lieven presents her proposal in two parts. The first of these is the proposal that despite the vilification of Seth during the Late and Ptolemaic Periods, he continued to be worshiped throughout the Nile valley in the form of small local cults. In support of this, she cites reliefs within the Ptolemaic temple of Hathor at Dendara where in the Osiris chapel Seth is depicted as an ass bound and mistreated. However, on a door reveal in room E there are four fully
anthropomorphic figures labelled as Seth from the Oases, Seth from the trees, Seth Unu or unes and Seth of Sepermeru receiving offerings from an un-named Ptolemaic pharaoh.
However, as in the inscriptions employed in the Western Desert Oases, the Seth animal is not depicted instead the name is written in phonetic hieroglyphs with a god determinative (von Lieven 2006, 141-142). The second part of the proposal is that at the locations of Seth worship there would have been employed a version of a mythology that emphasized the more positive aspects of Seth. This positive view of Seth would have included a different interpretation of the most aggressive of Seth’s acts, the murder of Osiris. Von Lieven proposes that the attack on Osiris was in fact prompted by Osiris’ act of adultery with Seth’s wife, Nephthys. In the PT Spell P327 Seth
claims that Osiris attacked him first (Faulkner 1968, 164: Allen 2005, 129). This attack could be construed as an attack on Seth’s honour rather than a physical one. Seth’s later statement that Osiris kicked him first can also be presented as the action of Osiris when
confronted by Seth’s accusations resulting in Seth killing him in self-defence. However, as the cuckolded husband and with the Egyptian’s attitude that adultery was a capital crime, Seth would have had the legal right to punish Osiris up to the point of death (von Lieven
2006, 145-146). The violation of his brother’s marriage by the act of adultery with Nephthys, and the deception of his own wife Isis, casts a more dubious light onto the model of
integrity that Osiris endeavoured to project (von Lieven 2006, 146-148). This revision in the interpretation of the Osiris myth would present Seth as the wronged husband extracting his legally sanctioned revenge, while Osiris would be seen as a deceitful adulterer who receives the justice he deserves.”

— Deconstructing the iconography of Seth

Interesting

Why is Set and the sha connected to pigs?

the-typhonian:

More information: 

Cowofgold:

the-typhonian:

Its one of his associated animals. Hooved animals are associated with him a lot. The Cult of Horus in the later stages of Egypt’s history would slaughter pigs as a representative of Horus’ victory over seth. 

For further reading, check out 

Newberry, P. E. 1928. “The Pig and the Cult-Animal of Set.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 14: 211-225

Set was pictured as a man wearing a red mantle with an arrow-tail and the head of a Set Animal. Set was also shown as a crocodile, a donkey (thought to be his especial pet), an oryx, a snake, a leopard, a jackal, a hippopotamus, a dog, a turtle, a griffin, a scorpion, and as a black pig. It was thought that Set assumed the shape of many animals because he was born without a definite shape, due to his restlessness – he even impatiently burst out of his mother’s womb. In some myths Set crawled out of his mother’s mouth instead, because he was too impatient to wait for a normal birth. In the temple of Hibis in the el-Kharga Oasis Set is represented as a winged figure slaying the serpent Apophis, a depiction which some scholars believe may have provided the original inspiration for the Christian motif of St. George and the dragon.

As in the case of the hippopotamus, the male pig was associated with the evil god Set and shunned, while the sow was associated with a benevolent goddess. As early as the 1st Dynasty, faience or ebony statuettes and amulets of a rooting sow nursing her litter were popular, representing the goddess Nut. These amulets were often given at the time of the New Year, and were buried with the dead.