Book Review: The Neteru of Kemet

Originally posted on LJ on July 29, 2011

This past week while I was in Half Priced Books, I came across one of Tamara’s old books- The Neteru of Kemet. I decided that I should get the book, and see what’s in it. Many people seem to have interest in the book, so I thought I’d check it out, though I Wasn’t sure that I would really learn something from it.

All in all, the book is pretty straight forward, and it’s also pretty short. You could easily read this book in an hour or two, and the writing style is easy to read. The book briefly goes over modern Kemeticism, and then talks about 13 different gods and goddesses- giving a few quotes from them, giving a slight guided meditation, and some general information on their history and/or preferences/nature. The book didn’t teach me much (although she mentioned on one page that Asar used to be against Ra at one point in time- never heard that before). And I can’t say that I’m like OMG IMUSTKEEPTHISBOOK (quite the opposite- if you want to buy it from me, you can). But still, it was interesting to see. The main reasons for me saying that is that it’s so much different from what KO has turned into. She talks briefly about the House of Bast- what KO originally was. When you read it, it sounds almost more like what Riedy has laid out. People gather to worship, various people can take part in the rituals, some people can take different roles. They all keep shrines for gods they work with, and can train to do more ritually within the group… etc etc. Reading that, it makes sense why she has decided to reorganize the faith as it stands. Another interesting thing to see in the book is the little nuggets- things that you can see in KO now, but in this book are more unrefined. The spellings are different, the focused mythology is different. Nothing that is like OMG wrong, but still, you can sorta see how what it was turned into what it is.

So for me, that was the main interest in reading this book. Other than that, I can’t say that I find it all that exciting. If I remember correctly, the Prayerbook has a short overview on a couple of gods- and that would probably serve the same purpose as this book. However, if you’re brand-spanking new to Kemeticism, this might be of interest to you.

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