Supreme Beings
BeliefsThe Deities are the Supreme Beings of Ancient Egypt, but where did the Gods and Goddesses come from? The Egyptian World had 3 levels
Earth
Air and Sky
Underworld/Duat
These 3 converged at the Horizon: the Akhet
The Akhet remained:
The place the sun rose
The place of birth for the Deities
The place of renewal
The place of resurrection as the Sun, Ra, did every morning; but where the blessed Deities and deceased resided
They consisted of Female and Male Deities and were represented on Earth by Pharaoh. All the Supreme Beings were hierarchical ranked from the Gods and Goddess’ who had the power of the World at their fingertips down to the deity who had one specific magical role.
The Supreme Beings may be viewed in their human form, in their animal form and in their magical form depending on the magic purpose they were working to invoke. To complicate this, each animal form would mean something different depending on the characteristic that the Supreme Being wished to evoke.
Why are the Deities regarded as Supreme Beings?
The World was steeped in Magic, not the magic that Magicians use but the Magic that is in every birth, every sunrise and every small part of life. The Magic was everywhere. It invaded every part of life and death.
This Magic was called the Heka; which was present at the Creation of the World.
The Supreme Beings controlled this Magic and could be a magical force for good or a magical force for doing harm and therefore they had enough power to assist or harm the Egyptian populace, deifying them to be Supreme Beings. The deities’ Heka roles are written in many Spells which are found in Tombs, on Coffins and on Temple Walls.
The Powers & Movements of the Supreme Beings
A popular deity could be attributed to one part of their invokable magic in the North and another part of their invokable magic in the South of Egypt.
Due to the nature of how the population worshipped, a Deity that was worshipped in a family home was often handed down through generations and became a family tradition. This Deity could then move location over time as the population moved within Egypt. A Cult Centre could be mobile throughout the generations and allow deities to rise and fall in their popularity.
To add to any confusion, the Goddess’ and Gods from the Old Kingdom through to the Ptolemaic reigns of the Pharaohs, often merged together over time, changing their depiction on Temple and Tomb walls and changing what their Magical force could be and how they were thought of and revered by the populace.
Examples of the Opposing Sides of the Supreme Beings
The God Sobek, in the animal form of a Crocodile, who was worshipped because the Wild Crocodiles knew when to lay their eggs so their young would hatch out into the just flooding plains of land adjacent to the Nile.
He knew when the Nile was due to Flood.
This was his Magic and so he was celebrated for this knowledge and invoked to bring on the yearly Flood, Egypt’s agricultural lifeblood.
The God Osiris, on the one hand the God of Fertility and Agriculture; and in another form the God of the Dead, Afterlife, and Resurrection.
He is depicted as a mummified human which can have either green skin showing Resurrection or with black skin which shows his connection to the Fertility of the Nile floodplain.
