Ancient Egyptian religion can be summarized as shamanism under the influence of nationalism. Like the Native American cultures, they saw the world as a spiritual place and the relationship between the ancient tribes of Egypt changed over time before the organization of the two kingdoms. They didn’t have a Cartesian view like modern thinkers do, and if anything happened in the physical world it was just as much a spiritual event as a physical one.
Some Egyptian totems were revered higher than others. The falcon was revered highly in later Egyptian eras as well as in early ones, both for its strength and its seeming nearness to the dominant power of the Egyptian desert the sun. Falcons would hunt in places that could support life, so if they saw falcons then they knew they had a chance at food or water. A better chance than if they saw vultures who tended to scavenge in the more barren regions. That is what made the difference between the benign and the scary Egyptian gods. Their relationship to fertility or survivability, or their seeming affinity for the barren wastes. Thus Anubis was an “underworld” god, because jackals were scavengers mostly that were also capable of predation. The concepts related to these various spirits changed over time, and the role of the priest was more like a shaman in that they understood the gods, and helped keep things running smooth between humanity and the powers that be rather than worship as we understand it today.
The various spirits didn’t form a single religion necessarily, though there were some unifying concepts. Where the native Americans had the concept of mother earth, the Egyptians saw earth as being relatively indifferent to them. It was a spirit, but wouldn’t accept being approached directly so they lived by a concept called “ma’at”. Which is much like Chinese Taoism. They saw that there was an order to the forces of nature and didn’t see their lives as separate from that. So with the guidance of the priest caste, who were their only leadership, they sought both a civic and a spiritual harmony. They developed an agrarian society early and much of their focus was on concerns of the power of the sun, and the necessary but still dangerous flooding of the Nile. So in one form or another in any region of Egypt a sun god dominated, and the animals of the river were very important and their spirit was either revered or feared.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~