Explaining Squishy Polytheism Through Astral Lineage

One of the things I see a lot of people get hung up on when they come into Kemeticism is our weird form of polytheism. Due to how the Egyptians saw their gods, it’s completely normal to get gods that mesh together, separate, conjoin for brief periods of time, merge down and stay completely separate all at the same time. Reading about these godly contortions often leaves people with a bunch of questions. “How can you be one god while simultaneously being two gods?” “Are there three gods now, or only two gods still?” “How come these deities keep merging… are they the same or different now?” “Is that a syncretization or an aspect… how on earth do I tell?” “Does any of this crap even matter? I mean, all of the gods are different and separate… right? Maybe?”

Truthfully, the tricky nature of our polytheism can be really daunting for a lot of people, and I’ve noticed that the most common methods of handling the weirdness of our gods is to either draw hard lines in the sand: well all of the gods are separate beings, always without exceptions. Or to go in the completely opposite direction: well all of the gods are secretly just one god with lots of mood swings, faces, and personalities. And in some cases, the devotee will simply curl up in a ball and rock themselves while they try to ignore the squishiness of our gods’ methods.

Everything about syncretization and aspecting (as well as the squishiness in general) used to confuse me greatly when I first got into Kemeticism. I’ve seen it explained many ways over the years- the each deity is two sides of one coin, or that it’s like cooking where you mix up ingredients to make a meal, or through the use of color (the sky being an ‘aspect’ or kind of blue, where as purple is a syncretization of red and blue) etc.

Generally speaking we define aspecting as when a god takes on the role of another deity for a brief period of time. An example I like to use for this is Wpwt-Re. Wpwt and Re are their own separate entities, but when Wpwt needs to be a little bit shinier, or a little bit more “Re-like”, he’ll take on some of his attributes to complete a job, and then go back to being just Wpwt when he’s done.

It’s kinda like he takes Re’s hat and says “I need to use this, I’ll bring it back when I’m done”. And while the hat is on his head, he becomes a little bit more like Re than he normally would be.

On the other hand, syncretization is when two deities come together to form one deity, while still remaining separate deities. To use the color example above, red and blue can still exist while purple also exists. However, deities are not crayons (or coins or taffy), and so sometimes the comparison doesn’t always make sense to everyone that reads it.

And generally speaking, none of the commonly used examples above really stuck with me or helped to clarify anything. It was only when I got into the astral and learned about how non-physical bodies work that it began to make any sense to me.

Astral Bodies: Big, Flexible, and Inception-ready

One of the first things that I think needs to be understood about astral bodies is that they really aren’t anything like ours in a lot of ways. As I’ve stated in the past, they are vast and they can contain a whole plethora of stuff that you wouldn’t expect to see. That being said, it’s very easy to stash people inside of you, or even entire galaxies inside of you, if that’s your thing. Scale and size don’t mean anything Over There, and it’s possible to being as large or as tiny as you might ever need to be, if you know what you’re doing. And so it’s entirely possible that you could stash gods inside of you, and no one would know.

Because you’re able to be merged while separate over there, it’s not too terribly difficult to merge down with someone to form one being, while still being separate beings. A lot of us have come to use the Megazord as an example for syncretization and how it works, and it is pretty accurate in a sense. A bunch of entities can come together to form one combined entity while still be separate on the inside (or the outside).

In addition to this, it’s very easy to cleave parts of yourself off of yourself- or in other words, you can basically clone yourself to some capacity. So in many ways, you and your friend can cut off parts of yourselves, and then take those parts and push them together and merge them into a new combined entity while still being separate on the outside, with the result giving you three separate beings (you, your friend, and the being that is you and your friend merged together).

Merging & Cleaving: The Line in the Sand

When it comes to merging and cleaving on the astral, there are a couple of caveats that have to be kept in mind. First off is that it is usually very easy to merge and un-merge with parts of yourself or another at first (provided you are compatible and healthy). When you cleave a part of yourself off, this piece will initially be very much like you. It will think like you, be like you, and do as you say because for all intents and purposes- it is you. However, the longer you keep this portion of yourself separate and acting on it’s own, the more likely it will eventually turn into its own bonified self-aware and autonomous entity. I’m not sure what entirely causes this to happen, but I have seen it happen several times with different, unconnected people.

So let’s say Horus cleaves off a part of himself to go do something Super Important while he is busy at home. If Horus2 ends up staying separate for too long, he’ll become his own person, if you will. And after a point, Horus1 will have a harder time sucking Horus2 back into himself- because he has grown into being his own person. In addition to this, if Horus1 decided to suck Horus2 back into himself relatively early in this process, they would likely merge down without any problem and reform into one being. However, if Horus1 decides to try and suck Horus2 back into himself after he’s become his own being, there will likely be slightly competing mentalities at play, in the same way that multiples have to deal with headmates.

A lot of what can dictate the ability to merge down after a point is going to be dependent upon how close the two entities are to begin with. In many ways, entities that cleave off but stay super close to one another are going to be able to merge down much easier with minimal efforts- because they haven’t drifted apart. This can also go for the ability to feel and sense what the other cleaved piece is doing or feeling. Usually when you’ve first cleaved a part of yourself off, it’s easy to see what that piece is up to, if they’re doing okay, and even what they are thinking because there is still a very clear bond between the two of you. However, if this piece runs off and you don’t keep tabs on it, it will drift further away from you, and can drift so far away that it takes a lot of effort to see where they are or what they are doing. This is largely because of the connection that exists between the pieces will erode unless it’s maintained and fed energy from the people at both ends of the connection. The state of this connection can dictate a lot about how close in nature two entities are, as well as how easy it is for them to merge down later on.

In terms of merging with another being, when you’re merged at first, it can be very easy to tell where you end and the other person begins. However, as you begin to spend more and more time together, you will bleed into one another, and eventually it may be impossible to separate from one another without severe damage being caused. This seems to occur as beings begin to resonate, think, work, and operate on the same levels and frequencies. And after a while, it becomes challenging to figure out where one ends and the other begins.

People who merge down with other entities Over There often know how long they can go before issues start to crop up. The same can go for cleaving parts of yourself off. Thing is- humans probably don’t know about any lines in the sand to begin with, so who knows how human worship has affected how the gods merged, splintered and joined as they did. Maybe in some cases the gods only wanted to merge down for a little bit, but then people kept invoking this syncretized deity, and so it became a permanent feature of the pantheon.

It’s because of these possibilities that I treat all syncretized beings as being their own separate selves from their original Creators. It’s true that there is overlap, but that doesn’t mean they are all effectively the “same”.

Lineage Like an Incestuous Venn-Diagram

This concept also confused me when I first got into Kemeticism. I think I was thinking of it too much like how I view children and parents here in the physical world. You are not your parents, even though their DNA came together to make you. And in many cases, the overlap between a child and their parent can be very minimal on the surface. Not to mention that your parents can’t suck back into you or talk through you the way super-connected people in the astral can.

It took learning about the lineage in my own astral household to really start to understand how bonds can form weird connections, and how merged beings can overlap like a venn-diagram does while still remaining their own person.

You see, my household looks like a bunch of different people living together. However, in a lot of ways, my household is a big ol’ vat of incest, because most of the people that are in my man pile are actually parts and pieces of other older merged menz. Sounds hot, doesn’t it?

To illustrate this, I will talk about 5 of my menz (and myself) and how their lineage converges into an incestuous knot.

First off is me and the man I usually call “K-pop”. He and I, for all intents and purposes, are one being split into two pieces. While I’m not entirely sure how we became one (or how one became two), the simple fact of the matter is we have a lot of overlap, and it’s very easy to merge down, split apart, reach into one another, pull one out of the other, and do all sorts of weird taffy-like things.

I have two other menz (let’s call them Joe and John) that seemed entirely unrelated in any capacity to anyone else, until I found out that they are actually a product of two other menz that took parts of themselves and made new people. In a way, this could make Joe and John children of K-pop and his partner. But that’s not entirely accurate either, as they certainly don’t treat these other two people like parents. When you watch Joe and John, you can definitely see influences from their predecessors and much like tracking traits and habits from parents- you can definitely see where they get certain habits from.

So while my house has 5 people in it, when you track down the origins of how things were cleaved and split apart, everyone is technically a branch or product of two people and two people only. And because of these splits and cleaves, we can all merge into one another, pull out of one another, and do a bunch of non-physical inception-level type things.

And in a way, the NTRW are like this. If all of the NTRW came from a single Creator deity, then they are all connected in some way, shape or form. And they can technically abuse these connections and merge down and split apart to their heart’s content. And in a very abstract way, they are all “one”, in the same way that my astral household is “two”. But due to how everything is structured, they are also separate and their numbers range in the thousands.

Another good example of this is looking at how certain kinds of trees and bushes grow. From the surface, it may look like you’re looking at an entire forest of trees, when in reality, it’s actually only one tree. And of course, that would make you wonder- which is it? One or thousands? And the answer would technically be “both”.

This is why Kemeticism can be described as being polytheistic and henotheistic all at once. Our gods are one and many all at the same time, as are many astral beings. It’s hard for us to grok it because of the limitations of our physical bodies, but on the astral, having various parts, pieces, facets, and cleaves is par for the course. And hopefully, with any luck, this post has helped to clarify some of that. If anyone has questions, or if anything isn’t clear, hit me up in the comments section and I’ll see if I can clarify.

Relevant Posts:

• Syncretization and Bonds: An Ask
• Syncretization and cookies: an ask
• Syncretization ask
• Are Ra and Amun-Ra the same? An ask
• Amun and Re digivolve, too.
• Donut Theory