Pagan Book Reviews

Eternal Egypt
Richard Reidy
Self-published (iUniverse), 2010
364 pages

This book is almost like a Bible for modern Kemetics. I can’t really emphasize how much I (and others) have used this book. It’s pretty much what the Kemetic community was waiting for and needed.

The layout of the book is pretty straight forward: it’s a series of rituals taken from ancient Egyptian temple walls and reliefs, and put into a format that modern practitioners can use in their own practices. There are two large rituals to Ra (morning and night rituals), execration rites for the enemies of Ra, rituals for celebrating your ancestors (akhu), a couple of examples and rubrics for rituals that honor specific deities (netjeru), and finally the rite of “Opening the Mouth” (which isn’t something most modern practitioners would perform lightheartedly). The purpose of the book can serve two-fold. It’s great for those who wish to practice the rituals from antiquity, and it’s great for those who are looking to learn about how rites in Egypt were performed.

The rites in this book can be used by solitary practitioners and by groups of people as well. The author uses these rites in his own temple in California. I have personally done a couple of these rites by myself in my own home and it felt great. I will add, though, that the “ingredients” list for some of these rituals is very extensive, and you might not be able to do every single ritual “by the book” right away. This is because he has tried to be as thorough and authentic in his presentation of the rituals from ancient Egypt- including some of the more complicated items needed to correctly perform these rites.

There are more than just the rites themselves in the book – Reidy is sure to explain the symbolism and meaning behind a lot of the aspects and items used within the ritual. This information helps to enrich the process of doing the rites because you really grok how this works on multiple levels. It helps to draw you in and feel a part of the heka that is stored in the words, motions and actions of each ritual. And all of his information is properly cited and sourced- with only one bibliography point being attested to Budge (which he addresses the reasons behind this in his book). It’s rare to find books for modern practitioners where such care has been taken to properly cite your sources.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in practicing rituals from ancient Egypt, wants to learn how it was done, or wants to learn how they can take their current rituals and format them into an Egyptian style. Out of all of the books on Egypt I own – Reidy’s book is the only one I open regularly and flip through to get new ideas and revisit ideas and concepts. For anyone who is serious about performing rites for Egyptian gods, I think this book is a must-have.

5 pawprints out of 5

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