If we have been considering a genuine though modern approach to conserving an endangered minority faith, we must note that it is one long out of public use as a means of social cohesion. We can't presume that if we convert that we will readily make a perfect place in it. One Egyptian mentor said that she had known people who had gone from being Islamic to Copt, and also the reverse, but never seemed to find acceptance by the families that they'd joined. The eagerly eclectic, even capricious attitude of religious habit in America is strange to those whose cultures are ancient and settled. Usually, a movement that reaches people in new lands mutates into something that better serves its clientele by outwardly separating itself from older lineage. In a genuine scion that cares more for health than normality, the need for clarity of conscience and exercise of free will sets truth higher than formality, and Hermopolitanism certainly requires that its membership handle facts with pristine and wholesome care. Zen-like austerity is not crucial, but objective clarity is.

Some years ago, I received psychic a message from Lord Krishna's organization, and soon came across a couple of missionaries from the New Orleans temple doing a presentation in Lafayette. After we had spoken for a while, an Indian boy came up and looked at what was going on. He frowned and said to me that this sect really wasn't typically representative of the Indian approach. I responded that it seemed to me a "fundamentalist" group, since its outreach was to so many outside of the homeland. I think he knew that the best way to keep control of so vast an exported study was to make its outward message a simple one. Yet, he seemed to be hinting that I looked like the kind of fellow who could better understand how he felt about divinity than most non-Indians. Hindus I have known who instruct Americans show signs of being somewhat emotionally abused, though they may try to hide the their exasperation from dealing with people who have such an alloyed appreciation for their ways.

Whenever I hear someone do a bad cover of a Peter Gabriel song, nausea with the infidelity of the imitation makes me run to my record collection to get a fresh taste of the old, real thing. Thus, there are two main points I try to make as to the value of traditionalism in the practice of someone adopting or resuming Egyptian theurgy. There is the support of classic form as a matter of taste, and there is the question of preserving memory intact to enable safe travel in time, whether forward or backward. My first priest of Anubis, from an Egyptian family, was very Old Kingdom in manner. He demonstrated to me his mastery of astral projection. My own experience and reason later confirmed those things that he said of dimensional travel. I once seriously annoyed him when I expressed an appreciation for some of the hybrid progeny of Egypt's wisdom. But, I later came to understand how he felt, and why. A rose offered to Osiris is first deprived of its thorns. So could the god and his invisible agents draw nigh to the unique and blessed original fragrance.

In the original The Mummy, Helen says of Imhotep's living room, "Ancient Egypt! Nothing modern!" The central structure in a complex serving a major contemporary organization of the Ma'at Current should be indistinguishable from its ancient counterpart. Priests have theomantic ones, but there are also good thaumaturgical reasons for this, and Anton LaVey discusses the creation of a domestic time warp in his final book of essays. You see, in a paradigm as awesome as Egyptian religion, basic preferences are ultimately derived from clear observation. We can't endear ourselves by belaboring this, but we can learn to preempt difficulty by tacitly refusing to allow our tradition to be diluted or sold short. If we cannot openly proclaim the discrepancy between something authentic and something corrupt, we can at least recognize it for our own protection.