I’m Edward Tennyson, and this is an excerpt from my book Sacred Sands: The Hidden Pathworkings to the Ancient Egyptian Gods. Within the full book, you’ll find a system of magick and devotion that has taken many years to create and refine. Inside are twenty Ancient Egyptian Gods, their qualities, their pathworkings, and the simple ritual structure you can use to contact and work with them.
Pathworking, as I use it here, is a guided, imaginal journey: a short sequence of images and prompts that leads you into the presence of a specific deity. My intention is to give you, the seeker, a way to experience a depth of joy and connection you may never have known before, a personal relationship with the deity who has chosen you.
Preface
There are many magick books on the market and most of them I categorize as recipe books. If you have this problem, then these ingredients and these cooking instructions will solve those problems.
With this system, you are developing a relationship with a deity. A long term, perhaps a lifelong endeavor. In these pages, I will give you the keys to reach the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt.
Egypt’s ancient deities are powerful beings with varied powers to help humankind. The ancient Egyptians lived with their gods, in their homes, in their cities, and in their hearts. They were everywhere.
Yes, each deity has a set of powers that will help you, but it is much deeper than that. As your connection with them grows, they will help you in other ways that only you can discover by developing your relationship with them.
By doing the pathworkings repeatedly, the relationship will grow and strengthen. You will gain information they might reveal only to you.
The history of Ancient Egypt stretches back over at least 4000 years before the common era. To give this 6000 year span some perspective, a generation is about 30 years, that’s over 200 generations of humans.
The people of that time had a more unique relationship with magick than we do. They were much closer to their magick and their deities. Magick played a significant role in their daily lives. In their homes, there were shrines and altars to personal gods and state gods. According to archaeologists, there are over 2000 Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses. The number is likely larger, as many gods were lost to time.
In narrowing this daunting number to something more useful, I’ve selected deities whose names have survived the ages and that I could find enough information about to include in a book.
The journey you are about to take is my own. It has been rewarding without compare. As I grew closer to the gods, I began to see the deeper interconnectedness of all life and reality. A dense tapestry of mystery and awe that constantly fills me with wonder. I hope you find the deep sense of fulfillment and purest love that I feel with them.
The ancient Egyptians had a very different mindset compared to ours. They considered the word of an object to be the actual object. Writing down bread was equivalent to having an actual loaf.
Almost all gods had regular festivals, but because of the way they calculated days by our calendar, those days would be different each year.
They used three distinct calendars. The common or civil calendar had 360 days, with 12 months of 30 days each and an extra five days at the end. These five days have a significant impact on their mythos. The system involved ten days per week, three weeks per month, four months per season and three seasons per year with the five holy days at the end of the year.
Within each listing, you will find a deity and an entry that includes the pathworking and useful information about the god. Due to the abundance of gods, there will inevitably be overlap, which is beneficial because you will resonate more with certain deities. A final note, I use the terms god, goddess, and deity interchangeability.
Walk in power,
Anpukhenemet aka Edward Tennyson
Chapter 1: Origin
Early Fall, 1982.
The full moon stood high overhead, but the dense foliage and trees blocked out most of its pale silvery glow. We moved through the forest, holding candles to light our way. Six boys in total. One with a clue and a plan. The soft crunch of the leaves accompanied each step and the occasional sharp crack of a fallen branch were the only sounds heard. Wind blew softly, carrying the cool crispness and the welcome chill of a southern winter.
The evening started like any other at the school. Grateful that the lessons of the week were done, and we had time to ourselves. But my friends and I were not your ordinary kids. We enjoyed different things. We all had one thing in common, a draw to things unknown, forbidden, the occult.
An hour before, on this night, my friend, we’ll call him James for this story, said, “I’m going to do a ritual tonight.” Then asked, “Want to come?” Innocent enough. I said, “yes.”
We continued to walk for some time through the darkened woods. Our destination was a large exposed piece of granite we called “the rock.” Most of the students knew about it and some would go back there to drink, but tonight we had a different purpose.
Before tonight, James had shown me a few of the “magick” books he had. They were interesting and fascinating as I grew up in a city known for magickal practices but, how much do kids really absorb? I know I was more concerned with my school lessons than the “unseen.”
We at last arrived at The Rock and James instructed us to stand around in a circle and wait. He drew symbols and lines on the ground. Above us, the moon was just cresting above the trees, lighting his work. I saw strange and unfamiliar symbols, words, and names. When he had finished, he instructed each of us to stand in certain positions on what he called a summoning circle. He said strange things, but the gravity in which he spoke gave no question but to follow. “Read this,” he said, handing me a piece of paper with a few lines on it. “When I point to you and do not move out of the circle you are standing in for anything, no matter what happens.”
At the time, I did not know what he drew or what he was about to do. I understand most of it now and we’ve reconnected recently, but his life took a different path after school. He abandoned magick. He does not remember much of it, but he remembered what followed.
The moon was now directly overhead and shining so brightly we could read the lines he gave us. I don’t remember the content at this point, but I remember standing on what resembled the astrological symbol for Mercury. He stood off center from the middle of the diagram. In the center was a triangle surrounded by a double circle with words written within and words along each side of the triangle. Being that he does not remember and I have a 40-year-old memory of this event, I can say that this was something he created from a collection of sources, but the words he spoke I remember to this day.
“Spirit of the sky. Remember!” he said in a voice so unlike his that I barely recognized him. It was deep, bellowing, and commanding. This was the Conjuration of All Powers from the Necronomicon. Laugh as you might, but I can tell you as any Chaos Magician will tell you, belief is all you need. There was no controversy or dissension to the validity of the writing as the internet did not exist and one could not simply order a book online or read a review. A review was asking a friend if he read it. No, this was a book of magick straight out of a fairy tale, as real as the hand that held it.
He pointed to each of us and we spoke our lines as he had, loud, clear and commanding. A rush of power raced through me as I spoke my words. It was nothing I had experienced before. Each spoke.
When we had finished, he whispered words in a language I did not understand. A sudden jolt of electricity raced down my spine and I jumped. It was then I noticed the trees above; they moved fiercely as the wind whipped them around, but here, on the rock, there was only stillness. The trees seemed darker than before and all sounds of the night disappeared as the world around us held its breath.
I stared in disbelief as something I could only describe as a column of black smoke, darker than the surrounding night, appeared in the triangle. The boy to my right and I looked at each other and back at the “smoke” confirming we saw the same thing. I nodded. I could see that the others were seeing it as well. Their fear mixed with excitement was palatable. We watched in fascination as James continued to “talk” to it. At last he finished and said a few more words and waved his arm around in a fashion. It was over.
We gathered for a moment near the center and looked down at the triangle, trying to get a glimpse of what we saw earlier. No one said anything, but we all exchanged knowing looks. Then we followed James in silence back to the dorms.
Today is winter some 40 years later as I write this recollection, yet the image of the night in my memory is fresh and the feelings only dulled slightly by time. After school, James found his calling and eventually moved to a different country. I stayed and in the intervening years wandered my own path, always with one foot in this world and one foot in the other, never forgetting. I’ve been a Witch, a Chaote, a magician, a sorcerer and finally whatever I am now, but I prefer sorcerer. Six years ago, we reconnected and met for a drink and reminisced about the old days and eventually the conversation turned to that one fateful night that would send me on a journey of a lifetime. I only wish we would have recorded that conversation for posterity.
Chapter 2: Anubis
After that night, I was hooked. There was a whole unseen universe to explore. I was always a student of myth and I started with the myths of Mesopotamia and Babylonia, then the myths of the Greeks, and lastly, the stories of the Ancient Egyptians.
My first encounter with an Egyptian god was during a meditation. A lady in radiant blue robes came to me, though I had not seen her before. I knew who she was. Isis, Lady of Magick, Goddess of 10,000 names, Giver of Life, Throne of Egypt.
At this stage of my life I was still more into Ceremonial Magick and Chaos Magick was still some years away. I would meditate to reach her, but the contact was sporadic and difficult. In the early 2000s, my life changed and my practice waned. Life got in the way. Combined with a lack of privacy and space, my spiritual life suffered. Fast forward some years and I resumed my study. Isis came to me and said, “You must now seek Anubis, for he has counsel for you.”