Sami_RaMaati said:
For a newbie to jump directly into Budge is a bit much. What I recommend for a very first book is "The Book of Coming Forth by Day: The Ethics of the Declarations of Innocence" by Maulana Karenga. It's his own translation of a small enough portion of the Pert em Heru that you can get a nice, easy to understand look at Kemetic spirituality and how it affected the day to day behavior of the people back then. After that you can read Muata Ashby's translation of the "Book of Coming Forth by Day" (aka "Book of the Dead"), then Metu Neter vol 1 & 2 by Ra Un Nefer Amen (if you are looking for a way to put what you've learned into daily practice). Somewhere along the line you're going to have to read "Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization" by Anthony Browder to put all of this into its proper historical perspective with respect to other world religions
Agreed.
To answer Destee's question:
I think the level of difficulty can only be measured, by one's own standards, and perceptions.
It evinced to me in another thread here, that the failure for some people to grasp the truest meaning of this system stems from using a methodology o thinking that does not run congruent to learning this system.
It will prove continuously fruitless, to try to learn and thoroughly understand an esoteric system, with a completely exoteric mindset.
More besides, there are alot of falsehoods and incorrect notions being uttered here, all by people who clearly have not demonstrated any level of experience with this system.
These notions are:
*That the Pert consists of "spells" = FALSE
(That is a faulty western notion. The libations and mantras are used as meditations. This is common in both ATR's as well as in Far Eastern systems such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Jainism, etc.)
*Metu/Shetaut Neter is a "religion, belief, faith", etc = FALSE
(This theology, if taught and learned correctly, is a system of spiritual development, totally devoid of "faith and belief").
*You have to know Kemetic History, Language, culture, etc in order to have a thorough understanding of this system = FALSE
(As most of the initiates here can attest, this sort of knowledge is not necessary to reach one's true goal of this system, which is spiritual ascension. Moreover, many of us did not have such an understanding, when we first ventured to learn this system.
Besides, this is an unfair prerequisite to place on this system, since I'd almost guarantee that virtually no one has an understanding of Hebrew/Jewish history, culture, language, etc when they first start reading the Bible. Does one have to have such a knowledge to gain the message of God from the Old Testament? If not, then Kemetic Theology should not be held by such criteria.
Granted, many of us had already possessed a certain affinity for the culture and history of Kemet, but it fared us no better than those of us who did not. Eventually, we all learned the culture anyways, because our teachers used the spiritual system as a means of teaching the culture.)
I say again, that a different way of thinking is all that is required. People are trying to force square pegs into round holes with this.
And, I can almost guarantee, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if anyone here is finding Metu Neter to be difficult, then you are going to find virtually all other ATR's (as well as other esoteric systems) to be just as difficult, without the proper methodology to understand them. All of the afore-mentioned systems work under the very same premise.
HOTEPU