Review of Kemetic Orthodoxy, Part 2: Cult Evaluation Schemas

[makhsihed]

First, a note: I am terribly annoyed at the moment. I opened Eudora (which I don't use anymore after switching to Gmail) to get at my old emails, the correspondences I'd saved with former members of the House of Netjer and such. I wanted to look at them again to refresh my memory so I could discuss the presented issues. And... oh look! They're not

Comments

[meruti]

Very interesting, thanks so much for posting this.

I definitely agree with your comments about the defensiveness of some members. This behavior has a tendency to get under my skin, mostly because I feel that people are free to like or dislike what they choose. It's really no skin off of my nose when someone speaks badly about the House, and in truth this annoys me much less than when members jump into the fray with their teeth bared, as it were. I think that the touchiness of some members reflects more poorly on Kemetic Orthodoxy than the attitudes of those people outside the House who revile it.

Sorry about the grammar, pretty tired right now. :p

[witchchild]

To add on to the RPD payment talk--Mine was done over IM. Toward the end I asked Hemet about what address to use for paypal, and she said "you don't *have* to pay for this" and I said I wanted to.

[primaldog]

Hmm, I'm not sure about this. Personally, I'd give this more validity if it where done by someone outside of the organization, and one who is unbiased. I would have rated certain parts of it higher with some of the not-so-positive things you listed, but then again I admit I am rather biased, primarily due to having had a very ugly experience with another (unrelated) reconstructionist group.

Actually, I would like to engage in some private correspondence (email would probably be best) with you, if you wouldn't mind, to pick your brain about certain kemetic-related topics.

[makhsihed]

If you want an overview done by a completely outside group - for academic purposes, no less - there's this article by a research group, though it's a general overview rather than a "is this a cult" overview. Their overview is actually more positive than mine - but their period of observation was shorter

[cianlegion]

Hmm, not bad. Honestly, based on the things you said in an earlier entry, I expected the ratings to be higher and worse. I'm not sure if I'd join HoN, just because of my own personal feelings, but based on your analysis they don't seem too bad. I'm interested to know more, as well as possibly know more from the alternate point of view, but I believe you did a good job on the analysis and staying as neutral and unbiased as possible.

[makhsihed]

Thanks. :) From everything I've seen, HoN is comparable to the Catholic church in a lot of ways (the role of Nisut is very similar to the role of Pope, hierarchy has some similarities, etc), except the Catholic church tends to be more dogmatic and has much more black-and-white morality--in other words, by Bonewits' requirements, the Catholic church would be more dangerous than the HoN by several points. (And the Catholic church is far larger and older and thus more respectable, or something

[cianlegion]

Interestingly enough, most Christian churches would run extremely high on the DANGER ALERT level. Before Mom found Paganism, which she feels she's know was her faith her entire life (the whole searching for what she knows she believes and feels yet being unable to find it until a certain point in life, type of thing), she was harassed by a cult called The (city) Church of Christ. OOOOH BELIEVE ME. They were NOT good people!

Talk about Danger Cult centric.

I think the reason might also related to how people interact. For instance, one person might be nice to someone, but that same person might be not nice to someone else. An interaction issue, perhaps? Sometimes, even if there's not anything obvious said, there's still the energy and intent and such implied.

I dunno. Those are just some possible reasons. It could also be expectation related.

[taysatwesir]

Like meruti I feel that people are free to like or dislike whatever they choose. The defensiveness of some members really reflects poorly on Kemetic Orthodoxy.