Guide:
I. Introduction
II. Components of thinking
III. Mechanisms of cognition
IV. More mechanisms
V. Types of memes
VI. Meme2Meme2Gene interactions
VII. Human2Human transmission
VIII. A Bigger World
IX. Gravity of 'plexes
X. Three is a crowd
XI. Third scenario
XII. Religion and philosophy <-you are here
XIII. Mental disorders of the new age
XIV. True vs Fake
XV. Outsourced Me
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1.Bacteriology for spiritually-minded
Thesis: Priests of the times long gone were first memeticists.
A more elaborate thesis: at the foundation of all "legit" religions(major ones, not regional cults that die faster than their members) and cultures is an act of observation of the world and people in it. Not idle watching of stars, but trying to find underlying mechanisms between things, for the purpose of solving problems. People tend to describe religions as a consequence of flawed pattern recognition working, and seeing cause and effect where there was none, like knocking on the tree for good luck and getting "lucky" later, thus creating an assumption about success rates of that ritual.
No. And yes. While some practices are truly just that - a lie, a significant portion of religious content is based on something real.
Ever heard a theory that old traditions are an attempt to regulate the life of people, with an extra flair added? Fasting and food restrictions on "holy days" is an attempt to make people eat healthy, circumcisions is an attempt at hygiene in desert areas, pigs are "unclean" for reasons too, etc.
A pure conjecture on my part, if i may, but imagine a situation: an old and decrepit house in a village, with fatigued and dying livestock, the owner of which doesn't look too good himself - a pale and weak shadow of a man. It's better for you to not enter this place, and avoid even his inhabitants, lest you become like them. Even touching things that come from the house is recommended. Now tell me, oh child of modern education: are these people cursed? There are evil spirits roaming and sucking the life out of afflicted and unlucky, hiding in people, animals, and even objects, which can spread to vulnerable in proximity to their hiding spots. Proven solutions against such a menace: silver, holy water. Or maybe instead of demons and ifrits it's a case of a bad decease? There're malicious bacteria filling the air, compromising the immunity and damaging the organs of people afflicted, spreading to animals and contaminating objects, spreading to those who touch, or even come close to the vectors of infection. Solution: Silver, clean water. Also good diet, excersice, healing herbs, burning incense, but you see what i mean, i hope - there's a lot of overlap between curses and viruses - silver has bactericidal properties, and water is know to purify things, especially clean one, perhaps a "holy" water is just water with some good mineral composition, lethal to bacteria. Did you know, that some creatures of the night are afraid of just flowing water, not a holy one? Counter the cholera forces of Satan with regular showers!
Now consider this - what would people in ancient times, unfamiliar with the concept of microorganisms, would assume when encountering such a "decrepit house" with "shadow of a person" inside? They clearly can see something is happening, and they have to come up with an explanation to figure out a solution, because otherwise they'll waste away like shadows too. And that's how you get the concept of "Evil Spirits". Granted, it later evolved to include not only invisible forces, but also vampires and werewolves, which too are weak against silver and saintly liquids, but they ain't bacteria. Alas, such is the fate of all ideas, to mutate away from their original foundation.
Remember, it's all my own assumptions, which i cannot prove(for now, at least), and i need someone else's help with source dis-/proving this.
2.Clothes make a man (into a beast)
Let's go from a conjecture to something more tangible: in plenty of old cultures there was a tradition of using animal furs as a way to "transform" a human warrior into a fierce battle beast. Don a wolf pelt over your armor to receive wolf-like agility and vitality, they believed, and to add to the effect various intoxicating substances and equally intoxicating rituals were used. Sounds like a bunk but there's research showing how wearing clothes appropriate for the job helps boosting the performance in a related sphere - lab coats make you a bit smarter. Sort of, you don't really get IQ points out of thin air, you just help the brain to "switch gears" - remember what i said about how mind uses environmental ques to select patterns of behaviours, which sometimes results in "doorframe effect"? Your body, your clothes in particular, is a part of the environment too. Now the question arises, to which i don't know the answer for real, but i do consider it to be a likely possibility - if clothes "switch gears" then the effect of switching depends on having good gears to switch to in the first place - that's how you get rituals and hallucinogens for wolf people, to get pure wolf experience. Like Dacians, who used rituals and wore wolf skins to "transform" into wolves during battles. Or how about "berserkers" - rage filled animal-channeling soldiers from the nordic cultures? If you see an armed man wearing armor(optonal) with a bear skin on top - run.
Same thing.
3.Immovable humans
I'm not going to prove or disprove that there's a battle between Jesus and the Satan for souls of the damned, but i can assure you that there's an idea of Jesus walking the soil of the Noosphere, and it has it's own effects, which is the focus of my research.
Well, "research".
Do you have "Faith"? According to Matthew 17:20, if you have a lot of faith, you can achieve anything you want, even move mountains, and... well... I've never actually seen anyone moving mountains through miracles, but there's one thing that actually happened in reality that is close enough:
If we don't take the words of Jesus literally (heresy, i know), then "Faith" becomes not just an abstract resource of the soul, but (no less abstract) strength of one's convictions - the strength of memes. If you are determined enough, then you have a capacity to act upon your programming without wavering from the path and without stop. Some may even describe as having "determination", and "will of iron", or "strong memes". And do you use that "Faith" for, besides moving mountains? Well, apparently it helps to ward off demons. Never saw a red-skinned and sulphur-smelling satyr in my life, so perhaps we should look at another type - demons that "lead you astray". Over the course of your life you will encounter plenty of temptations and attempts to change your mind, and plenty of them are going to be malicious or destructive to the ecosystem of your mind. Or maybe something very tragic happens, life is unpredictable, so now you have to deal with it, and failure to keep your mind intact can have many terrible consequences.
But "Strength of the memes"/"Faith" has no value without memes themselves/something to believe in, and plenty of time and resources are dedicating to cultivating right mental structures in the heads/souls of the followers/followers. Plenty is written in the Bible, i'm sure you are familiar with "Thou shalt no kill" and the rest of the lyrics, and all other necessary firmware upgrades can be found in the book, or in the minds of pastors and spiritual leaders. And they teach their congregation how to avoid "sin".
What is "sin"? I cannot go in-depth due to my own knowledge being rather shallow, but i can attest that at least some of it is real. The "Sin of gluttony", the "Sin of lust", the "Sin of greed" will do well as examples.
All of those, i'm certain, you could see happening in real life, like that famous youtuber Nikocado Avocado being a nice and well-rounded example of what unrestrained overconsumption does to mofo, and he's not alone - USA strives for reaching the top even in obesity rates statistic. Why? Besides that accursed youtuber, who has monetary insentive, there are many reasons why one would eat a lot, but for the most part it's simple - eating feels nice. Food tastes good. So the feeling of pleasure fuels the process. Especially if your life is miserable otherwise - eating is comforting.
Greed is similar - "Numbers go up" thought is a very precious one, and "Numbers go down" hurts, which is why one must always be achieved and the other avoided. What numbers? Doesn't matter. Why must they go up? Some vague reasoning about how bigger is better. Like money - sure, they are important in the current state of society, but at some point growth has no value beyond growing for its own sake. What's the difference if you have a billion or a trillion dollars?
Let’s be charitable - money make the world go round and we all need to pay bills, but none of it matters, because practicality is merely the fertile ground for the growth of avarice, hoarders are pathologicaly incapable of letting go and “seeing numbers go down“, even if their possessions are nothing more then a rotting pile of unused trash. Are you collecting resources with purpose and goal in mind, after achieving which you’ll stop, or is it just “collect more“ on repeat? “But what if somethig happens?“ is definitely a question bound to born when a prospect of getting rid of your valuables arises - to that i respond: i lied. It’s not “practicality“ that feeds the sin, but fear. Fear that will prevent you from using your resources even if the time comes for it to play the major role. And so you sit on top of your pile of garbage riches, like a dragon in a cave.
The Sin of Lust - there's a trend in social media where women brag about their "body count"(plenty of trends like that), - a significant number of them have dozens, some even brag about reaching a hundred and more night parters over their lives. As far as i'm aware the prime platform for measuring the female pump-and-dump rates is TikTok. And of course, men like to brag about it too, but i ain't seeing nearly as much examples of male successes. It's probably due to various biases in me and the social networks, but it doesn’t matter. “No Nut November“ exists too, i know, but as you probably heard - “Existence of an exeption proves the existence of a rule“ - how bad things ought to be for abstinence to become a lasting trend? Plenty blame “Porn Addiction“ and prolifiration of easily accessible erotica, while adding “hook-up culture“ to the bulk.
All of these three have a common theme - domination of a single piece of programming over all others, to their detriment. Other sins are different ways you can fail to manage your memes, yourself, like wrath - literally losing control, and sloth - not wanting to have control in the first place.
Christians were familiar with the concept of meme-/infohazards, even by the other name - like "blasphemy", "apostasy", and "heresy", etc. Society within an egregore is based around the idea of how one must be to perform well withn it, and while deviations can be tolerated, everything has an order of being and roles to fulfill - information is the lifeblood of the society, and changes too drastic can kill it. So of course, rules were developed around the signals and behaviours. Must not allow anything "sinful" or "satanic", or the consequences of social contagion can be disastrous, plus the head doesn't want to share the control with other egregores too, - this is why the very foundational concepts and ideas of the society are not allowed to be questioned, because people who doubt are quick to be controlled by other parties.
Don't question the God - he is the Lord, and the role model for everything, rejecting him means adapting other life-styles and beliefs, which means falling under the control of different deity/egregore.
Don't question the Pope - he is the leader and the guide, rejecting him means him losing control over everything, which will result in his followers doing their own thing, which frequently means conflict of interest between now different parties.
Don't question the rules or you'll fall into sin, and the consequences of it are more real than some'd like to think. Jesus may not exist, and it's the idea of him that roams the land, but then it would also mean that Satan is an idea too. Idea with consequences. An infohazard.
One thing i don't quite understand yet - "spiritual healing" and "demon possession"/"exorcism". There are two general and simple answers for those: 1) It's a lie; 2) It's a nocebo + placebo doing the job.
I know little about the second explanation, but i do know that one of the roles of priests in local churches is to play the role of therapists - they alleviated the mental issues and disturbances of people struggling, both in the flesh and the mind. Perhaps people afflicted with deep psychosis, suffering from severe mental breakdowns, are sometimes capable of being "exorcised" with powerful words and conviction alone - placebo, perhaps, can be powerful enough. Yes, maintaining mental health was too a task the "shepherds" had to oversee, because a sheep on the verge of losing sanity might not just live a peaceful life, but have a violent outburst - completely losing it also means losing the inhibitions like "Thou shalt not kill". But it's not all people on the verge of being institutionalized, offering a helpful advice and resolving minor internal conflicts and contradictions is a part of spiritual leader too. Walls in the tunnel effect degrade over time without fixing too.
4.Borrowed words of Kek et al
But enough with crosses and funny hats, let's try another religion with even funkier crosses and funkier hats. I'll be changing the structure of the writing here a bit.
Ever heard about Ancient Egypt? I did. But knew about it jackshit, even cultural osmosis didn't help because the noosphere isn't that rich on egyptian memes. Untill i discovered the book called "Philosophy as a rite of rebirth" by Algis Uzdavinys. Strap in. There're 300 pages to read, so i'm not going to just post it all, just quotes to try and capture the essence i need.
Book's thesis: Greek philosophy, Platonism and Neo-platonism, was heavily inspired by the Egypt of the time.
(page 3)"According to Isocrates, the ancient Egyptians, who are strong in their piety and in practical wisdom, introduced the practice of philosophy for the soul, 'a pursuit which has the power, not only to establish laws, but also to investigate the nature of the universe'".
But what is "Philosophy"?
(p8)"According to Piere Hadot, who thoroughly investigated the nature of ancient philosophia, it's literary genres, rhetorical rules, exegetical strategies, and spiritual exercises, an implicit distinction between philosophy and philosophical discource is already evident in Plato's definition of philosophy as a training for death. It means that philosophy consists in liberating the soul from passions. This liberation is achieved through the practice of the virtues and knowledge, that is through a lived concrete exercise, stripping away everything that is not truly itself. The ancient philosophy, which cures the soul's illness by teaching a radically new way of life, removes forgetfulnessl and is not simply 'a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the intellect and the Good. Therefore philo-sophia - the love of wisdom, is an art of loving, seeing, understanding, and living, not simply of constructing technical jargon reserved for specialists. It's a method of purification and spiritual ascent which demands a radical transformation of one's thought and existence in order to reach the telos described as 'wisdom.' And the real wisdom does not merely cause us to know discursivelt: it makes us 'be' in a different way by uniting knowledge (gnosis) and being (ousia)."
(p6)"Seen in this light, philosophia is a method aimed at the elimination of irrational fears, ambitions, and passions, at transformation and recovering of our essential identity. It requires the aspirant to act in a pious and holy fashion, realising that all initiations and visions are conferred on intellect by the hidden powers within the immense temple of the gods, which is the universe itself".
(p8)"A.H. Armstrong also insists that, for ancient philosophers, philosophy as preparation for death was an extremely demanding way of life requiring the intense study of the whole of reality, not simply 'scientific' understanding of thing. Philosophy is concerned not only with human well-being, but with the search of soul-transforming wisdom."
But this is all descriptions of how things were done in Greece, while the book stipulates the methods of "purifying the soul" came from the Egypt.
(p27) In this regard Plotinus clearly states: "Our concern is not to be free of sin, but to be god" (enn i.2.6.2-3) Thereby he repeats the ancient Egyptian theurgic ideal of becoming "like a god", assuming the role of one of neteru (since all neteru are aspects, functions, masks, and names of the supreme Principle), and sharing in the demiurgic activity and care of the world.
(p37)"According to Thales 'The world is the most beautiful (kalliston kosmos)' for it is the God's making (poiema gar theou). Something intangible that permeates all things is operating within or through the visible cosmos, and this principle cannot be reduced to a simple material substratum. Hence, a plentitude of gods (theoi) is hidden behind the cosmic veils. But in this respect Thales says nothing new, nothing that had not been already and better said by the Egyptians and other ancient nations a long time before. The world is a living being, a divine body (like a statue) in need of the animating principle, the soul and the spirit which appear as the descending and the ascending life-giving forces. According to Aristotle: 'And some say that it(soul) is intermingled in the universe, for which reason, perhaps, Thales also thought that all things are full of gods' (panta plere theon einai: De anima 411a7)".
(p38)"When Aristotle mentioned Thales 'the founder of this type of philosophy' (alla Thales men ho tes toiautes archeogos philosophias: Metaph.983b6), arguing that water is the original source of all things, he actually means not of all philosophy, but only of 'this type' and does not say that Thales' principle (arche) or natural substance, namely water, is sime material fluid brought from the neighbouring lake. This water may equally be understood as the ineffebale primordial 'water' (symbol of the One) which trascends even the noetic real of Intellect".
But what exactly were Egyptians doing?
(p85) "The human telos consists in selfrealization and deification: the actualized human intellect grasps that in it's very nature the human being is of the same essence(homoousios) as the divine Intellect. At the end of his via dialectica the perfect philosopher sees noetically the entire kosmos, himself being the son of Ra, i.e., the son of ever-living and eternally active Nous which energizes the microscopic nous, potentially hidden in each human soul".
(p96) "The true initiate of Isis (Isiakos) is he who, when he has legitimately received what is set forth in the rituals connected with these gods, uses reason in philosophizing and investigating (logo zeton kai philosophon) the truth contained therein" (De Iside 3.3352)
(p94) "But the Egyptian priests, through the proficiency which they made by this exercise, and similitude to divinity, knew that divinity does not pervade through man alone, and that soul is not enshrined in man alone on the earth, but that it nearly passes through all animals. On this account, in fashioning the images of Gods, they assumed every animal, and for this purpose mixed together the human form and the forms of wild beasts, and again the bodies of birds with the body of a man."
5.How to find divine
Sadly, it will not be enough to just keep stealing quotes, to explain what they were doing i have to dig in deep into mechanics presented. Plus i don't want to take too much space with someone else's words, when i can use my own. Perhaps it wasn't necessary to copy-paste all those quotes in the first place.
Now imagine a situation: you wrote message to a girlfriend of yours, to which she responed with a heart emoji, reading which made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So, seeing a symbol of a heart (sent to you by an important person, not that it matters here specifically) made you feel different. A memehazard, if you will. And this is where the main difference, the logic that leads to everything else, lies in - a modern-educated person will call that symbol-triggered influence "dopamine" (or some other chemical), while ancients thought it's an invisible energy that was channeled by a symbol which connected reality with some imperceivable place where that energy lies. It's like a water tap, only instead of water it's magic. And different symbols, even in the same place, channel different energies. Perhaps, it is only fair this concept evolved through eons to the point where people think it is "possible" to summon literal physical demons via drawing right set of lines on the floor. Allow me to channel something nice instead:
I'm serious, this picture too is a channel of goodness, which too makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. And accordingly i can show you something grotesque and channel negative energies. This logic came to be as a consequence of observing the world - ancients were quite skilled at pattern recognition, and many explanations of how world works came to be due to seeing interactions and commonalities of things.
(p33) "Their texts describe certain imaginal and noetic topographies which no average human observer has ever seen here below, because 'it is not just the visible, but the intelligible world that counts as reality'"
Or to put it short - they were studying Noosphere. To be fair, they didn't call it like that, nor they thought there's no "layers" of reality beyond memetic one (greeks did come up with “noetic realm“ though). To study the "Intelligible realm" and those beyond, the priests of ancient Egypt lived in solitude, away from other mortals, undisturbed by the earthly problems as much as possible, so they can focus on the divine instead. And no place is better for contemplating the divinity than a temple.
But what is "Divine" in this context? Well, everything. Sort of. At the core of Egyptian beliefs, as i understand it, is the worship of various abstract processes of the world, which they discovered through a lot of thinking. It's not just sun-worship, the sun was understood to be a real-life manifestation of something else, something which can only be partially understood by mortals, but something that affects everything under it's reach and has specific "divine qualities".
What are those "Divine qualities"? Dunno. Really.
Did you know that Egyptians thought human semen is poison? Quite an insane notion, right? If that was true then the job of a porn-actress would more hazardous than working in a logging industry. But if that is demonstrably untrue, then why did they believe it? Well, two things: 1) Consider this - after a woman becomes pregnant, she gets what is commonly known as "morning sickness"; 2) Scorpion poison looks very similar to the substance in question:
I guess it means there was no man-to-man love in the Egypt, or if there was, they were very careful about it, - wouldn't want to harm a homie.
This was just another unproven hypothesis by me, not encountered anywhere in Algis' book. What you can read in it is a Egyptian goddess known as "She of the West", who has a headpiece in the shape of the egyptian hieroglyph for "West", and who's role is giving energy to souls that pass to the nether world. Why such a grim role? The sun sets in the west, ergo - the west is where things end.
It is pretty widely known that Egyptians revered animals as sacred, and the "Rite of passage" also mentions that too: (p96) "The crocodile, for example, is declared to be a living representation (minema) of God. As the only creature without a tongue he resembles the divine Word (ho theios logos) who has no need of a voice. The crocodile also symbolizes the First God (to proto theo sumbebeken), because he 'can see without being seen' and has other marvellous qualities".
This image is a good summary of how things are done:
Here's a line of different images, see if you can see the common trend:
This headpiece is one of the oldest ones in egyptian culture, as i understand, and is called "nemes". And no, sadly, this connection between the bird and the hat is mine, again.
Scratch that, there is one divine quality i know - smelling like your sweat has a designer odour from Dolce&Gabbana:
(p109) "Like the Holy Spirit of Christianity, Amun visited Hatshepsut (the queen of the XVIII Dynasty who ruled in 1478-1458 B.C.), taking on the form of her husband Tuthmosis I before revealing to her his true 'form of a god' (jrw n ntr). The divine aroma wakes Hatshepsut indicating that Amun is present, because the scent of perfume, divine fragrance and radiance betray the approaching of deities. Since cosmetics and incense are life-giving substances related to the breath of Shu, or pneuma, the realm of neteru is depicted as drenched in perfumes called 'the fragrance of gods'".
It's all pretty... quirky, and perhaps makes Egyptians look naive about the structure of the world. Perhaps this is due them seeing invisible in the visible, which means they were limited only to what their eyes (and ears/nose/etc) could tell them (e.g. no understanding of bacteriology). But invisible within visible is still a huge amount of knowledge, and some of it can be quite profound.
Ra is a symbol of the Sun and the embodiment of knowledge - these seem like quite unrelated concepts, but it's quite simple:
(p57)"As the Emperor Julian explains, light itself is a sort of incorporeal and divine form (eidos estin asomaton to theion), a form coextensive with heavenly bodies. He says: 'And of light, itself incorporeal, the culmination and the flower, so to speak, is the sun's rays. Now the doctrine of the Phoenicians, who were wise and learned in sacred lore (ton Phoinikon doxa, sophon ta theia kai epistemonon), declated that the rays of light everywhere diffused are the undefiled incarnation of pure Intellect. And in harmony with this is our theory, seeing that light itself is incorporeal, if one should regard its fountainhead, not as corporeal, but as the undefuled activity of Intellect (i.e., Helios) pouring light into it's own abode...' (Or. IV, p.363)".
Light isn't just an abstract entity, sufficient in itself, it's a carrier of information, - the world is unintelligible if you cannot perceive it, and the gods make you see what they want you to see. Close your eyes, if you want to cut the link to the divine. Remember the heart image earlier? You saw it because Ra brought it to you. But the heart represents love, and the concept of it was created by another god - Ptah. The symbol for love, as it's written, needs to be created too - for that there's Thoth, the god of writing. And the feelings you felt are brought to you by Hathor, the goddess of joy and everything that brings it, like dancing and alcohol. See how various gods/aspects of being interact with each other to give you an experience of perception and feeling?
6.Ra and other rolemodels, and how to follow them
Except that i lied. Somewhat. Egyptians didn't have a heart/love pairing, the heart was just an example of the process, instead they had "medu-neter" - "divine words", which you know as "hieroglyphs". And i'm not sure about Hathor's role, maybe she's not related to effects from symbols at all. I promised you "memetics", so here's what i see/think ancients saw(i'm making shit up again, basically) - as a consequence of observations they noticed various effects of observing the reality: how there exists a "concentrated" idea of a thing, a real thing to represent it in reality, and how we need to perceive it to know it, and the act of perception affects us in different ways. Hathor, a goddess of music, is also a wife of Ra after all.
The purpose of Egyptian religion was not only explaining the nature of the world, but also discovering how to live in it, with a minor caveat - the death is not the end, so one has to prepare to the transcendence to the afterlife too. The task of the priests was discovering the clues of how to do it well in the patterns of the world. It resulted in creating a vast library of various "divine" symbols, contemplating which makes one understand the world beyond the mortal vision, or to put in more technical terms - observing selected fragments of reality forms "divine" meta-patterns, and the more of those you have, the more "divine" you are. Contemplation of meta-patterns is probably a part of the course too.
Since symbols are conduits of the divine, the human is assumed to be an empty(or not completely full) vessel, the contents of which should be filled with all that is good. I heard that Egyptians avoided writing down bad events and other upsetting info (i.e. meme-hazards), because they would channel demons and some-such, but i couldn't find the confirmation of that. But what is true is the writing of medu-neter is all consonants(name of Osiris is "wsjr"), because they thought vowels hold special power. Perhaps they came up with this idea after observing how humans express themselves by screaming loudly, or crying out in pain, or laughing in joy. You don't show the power of your spirit by going "shhhhh".
Apparently there was vast knowledge of acoustics in the ancient architects, and pharaohs had special chambers where they basked in the vocal performances of their spiritual servants. Also - research 1, 2, 3. I find it curious how the written representation of the "divine" - the vowel, was excluded from the alphabet. One would think that everyone should be exposed to it, but apparently the channeling via powers of Thoth was deemed too excessive and saved for special occasions.
What occasions? Rituals. Plenty of them. It's not just symbols that leak god's juices into the mortal minds, your very body is a symbol too - strike a pose to channel something, and therefore mimicking something gives you a bit of its essence too, - you become a conduit of the divine. Writers are channeling Thoth, musicians - Hathor, and every craftsman is in contact with Ptah. You are what you do, so to become divine one must act like it. And of course, to maximize the effect, ritual ornamentation is used too - a place with the biggest effect is the one with the most "bandwidth", so it must be decorated with the godful imagery to the max, be it trinkets or statues. Or architecture itself. Buildings were conceived by Ptah too, and they are symbols as much as humans are, and because of that - temples, the whole cities even, are a channeling the sacred energies too. An obelisk radiates almost like the Sun, even if the influence is a different God. "Pyramid" pattern is the purest image of the sacred architecture, i guess, which is why pharaohs were buried in there - due to concentrated connection with the other world, getting to the other side for the soul wasn't much of a problem. For that reason "amulets" exist - little channels of the magicks from the world beyond, used to transform the little bit of reality around the wearer, and the person himself. One of the most popular amulets is "The Eye of Horus", known for it's protective powers (research and an article. Also animals sometimes have camo that looks like eyes to protect them from predators). Other is the scarab, Kheper, which represents the change and motion, and rebirth - which is why mummies were buried with it's symbol, amulet.
Shapes aren't the only thing Egyptians valued - colours were considered an important aspect of local mysticism. The book didn't really specify which colours are valued for what, but the general idea is that a thing's appearance reflects it's state, in particular the change in colour means a change in thing's properties. Metal goes red and white when hot, day becomes night, copper oxydizes, bread turns green, people become blue... Okay, i'm kidding about the last two. One thing is for certain - gold is divine too, the bodies of Gods are made of all precious metals. Both the material and the color, so attain the higher levels of being one must become golden both in the vessel and in spirit. Perhaps people colored themselves for that purpose - the usage of cosmetics is presumed to first be in Egypt too.
Also, remember the lines about how deities smell? Invention of perfume is attributed to Mesopotamia, but the residents of "ḥwt-kȝ-ptḥ", the home of Ptah, were fond of artificial fragrances too, and burning herbs to attune the body to the orders of cosmos was a well-established practice.
Also, there's music and arts...
But that's just a cultivation of divinity, - to go full Ra one must also get rid of everything mortal, and for that the people looking for a cozy seat in the Solar Barque made sure to practice "askesis" - they made sure to kill all their worldly desires and lived out of touch from "normal" life.
Conclusion - it's everything i described before in other pages. Memes. Egyptians were cultivating right state of mind by finding how the brain processes information and ascribing to religious meaning. They even knew that the idea of their pharaoh permeates and influences the minds of his subordinates: (p48) "In the ontological hierarchy of being and the related esoteric path of ascent, ka represents the source of a person's vital energy connected with the ancestral spirits and the pharaoh whose ka, as the vital power of Horus, permeates the whole country and is felt as a presence in every heart." - They thought that a powerful leader also gives his life energy to the followers, making them happier and productive as well, which is almost a description of an egregore. Almost. These practices of how one reaches the pinnacle of existence were supposedly adopted and adapted by the Greeks, the book never tires from pulling a good quote or two, stating that, but i also can see how similar traditions existed in late christianity too.
N.B. Greeks had a story of Oedipus, where a Sphinx asked the hero riddles.
From the book of Algis: (p253) "In the dialectical drama of the otherworldly journey the deceased through his correct answers to the anonymous interrogator (a kind of 'divine Socrates') must prove himself a god". Effectively, - the Sphinx is a guard, who’s duty is verifying sufficiently divine state of mind.
7.Kemetism and ascetism
I'm talking about monasteries - secluded temples filled with people seeking knowledge about the world, cutting themselves away from worldly desires, full of piety and reverence. Place where monks had ritualistic and regimented way of life, where prayers and contemplatings of the Holy Scripture are a way to achieve enlightenment.
Hypothesis: Ancients thought the bodies of the deities were made of expensive metals(Algis states so about ☥ people). Gold is divine, remember? They also thought that fire purifies things, which is why we have this: (p262) "The Christians also regarded the resurrected body as a golden statue, purified in the fire. By plunging into fire (spirit) and water, the "lead" of the flesh is to be transformed into spiritual "gold". The purifying pool of flames resembles the Lake of Fire in the Egyptian Duat filled with burning water and presided over by the four Thothian baboons, one at each corner. This rectangular mandala-like Lake cuts out all that is impure in the soul; therefore, if the ba enters it being impure and still identified with its mortal shell or some "psychic remains", it will suffer torment and fall down among the knives, as if being hacked to pieces."
This is a description of Hell, only it appears the average follgowers of Christ over time abandoned the part with transformation granted by the fire, so the corrupted souls just get to suffer forever. Perhaps this idea of the divine punishment came from Egypt too.
One thing i find curious is how followers of abrahamic religion tend to say how in heaven the righteous one become "one with the God", or something to that effect. Perhaps the idea of eternally praying to him above the clouds, as some describe the reward for being sin-free, has the same roots. And of course the Egyptians from back then thought they are going to the Nun and become one with the One too. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Another hypothesis: Or maybe the similarity and recurrence of the blueprints of how one exists beyond mortal coil is the consequence of the nature of what people consider to be "Afterlife", and the words like "he continues to live in our hearts and minds" should be taken seriously, maybe even literally.
Because human mythology is a story of how memes are describing themselves to us.
8.Every movie a gospel
A question remains, one i must answer if i am to explore the topic thouroughly - where does a religion start? There are many studies of human devotion to metaphysical, and plenty of attempts to dissect it all into parts, but that is not sufficient. It’s all a consequence, an anatomy of fulfilled organism, without adressing why would one create all of this:
Gods are a major component, yes, but not necessary, - plenty describe atheists as “religious“ in their approach. Creation myths are just that - a myth, and doesn’t change the way one lives their life - would you stop going to work tomorrow if it turns out that Earth is (not) flat (The answer is likely yes - breakdown of own understanding of reality is a debilitating process, but once the pieces are picked up again, it’s back to being a wagie)? Stories of Zeus and Jesus can be told to your children all the same, and they don’t exactly worship Paul Bunyan and Baba Yaga. Having churches is nice too, but to visit them you don’t have to open the Bible either, plenty of people visit sermons for the experience.
Where does devotion start?
The beginning lies in the creation of the Standard. To know how things ought to be is a major component of human thinking, - that’s how you can expect results and correct the course if you fail to arrive at desired goals. You know what the Ideal is because you have it, small or big. However, nobody in their right mind will state that knowing the consequences of pressing a button on a microwave is the same as having the motivation to conquer Jerusalem (even if “file format“ is the same), - what exactly one needs to do to become religious? Standard, but not just any kind, - you can’t go with simple “if-then“ logic, it’s a must for a person to have a goal to actively strive for. And not a small goal - you must concern yourself with how things ought to be in general, - “What is the right way to live“? Gods aren’t the reason why one should be religious, they are a blueprint of how one should be faithful properly. “God is love“ they say, and they mean it. There’s even an old russian saying “The temple is not in the logs, but in the ribs“.
This is also the reason why humans ask gods to provide them not just with material gains, but personal qualities - “Give me strentgh“, “Give me Courage“. Recognition of personal qualities that help usher forth that High Standard is how you get “Saints“, even the “useless“ ones, like that guy that spent his life living on top of a small pillar.
Diets and other rules of conduct have their roots in that Standard too - live righteously to have a righteous life.
I can’t describe the precise composition of “High Standard”, because: 1) It varies a lot from person to person, from religion to religion; 2) I seem to lack proper one myself, thus i can’t understand religious people fully; but while the Standard may be very general in it’s descriptions, one quality certainly stands out, which can be easily tracked - scope. Not every “religious“ person seeks to impose a new order on others, some have a code for life specifically for themselves only. “A samurai has no goal, only path.“, ascetics and hermits of all sorts and flavours, even symple gymbros - example of people who put the weight of responsibility squarely on themselves is long, their “High Standard“ is “Personal“, and concerns only their own way of life. On the other side of the spectrum there’s “Global“ “Standard“ - and ideal order of life that encompasses more than just one individual, and touches upon the aspects of society as a whole. General principle that guides these sorts of beliefs - for their way of life to work others have to have good conduct too, so it must be enforced onto more than one person. Thus we get people who set up not only themselves, but the whole environment around them too. If you see an atheist or libertarian complaining about “indoctrination“ - that’s the “Global Standard” they are fighting against.
There’s a problem many are unaware of. To put it short - Star Trek is a religious work. A common insult one can hear sounds something like “Bible is fiction“, but they are profoundly wrong, the reality is - “Fiction - is a bible“. What do you think happens inside of watchers’s heads when you show them higher standard of living and people who helped to build it? They start thinking that certain beliefs, held by those people, and their actions, are a way to achieve that Standard. Rome is built and maintained by Romans, to build Star Trek IRL one must act the part it too.
Current veneration of american hegemony hinges nearly entirely on 80-90 moves showing how beautiful California is, and showing women in swimsuits (also operation Desert Storm, for nerds who didn’t get shoved into lockers enough), and Call of Duty. The phrase “TV stops you from thinking“ is wrong, it turns you into a cargo cultist.
P.S. by this logic Gurren Lagann and Junji Ito's Uzumaki are both religious works dedicated to the power of spiral. Both, ironically enough, are opposites on judging it's value.
P.P.S. You can find similar beats in Aztec culture, as described here.