One of the most deeply rooted modern assumptions pervading accounts of ancient Egyptian religion is the opposition between official cult and personalized practice. Such distinctions have impact as a mechanism for legitimating our own practice and demoting those of others. The vocabulary used against religious opponents within a founded religion includes charges on the one side of superstition, magic, or witchcraft and on the other of an empty official cult or ritual devoid of sincerity. Perhaps the motivation for attack and counterattack lies in a political and/or psychological need to know who is sincere in their religious practice and who is not. Sincerity and purity tend to be located by modern society outside institutions and their buildings, which may be seen as corrupted and commercialized. In any particular historical context, there may be strong evidence for the accusations against the institutions and strong need for reform. However, there may also be human limits to the ability to identify sincerity and falsehood in others and therefore powerful human drives to institutionalize the sincerity/falsehood division by new forms of religious practice in explicit rejection of others.
Exploring Religion in AE, Quirke
Sound familiar?
