Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

E
Egypt
The ancient Egyptians originally had no figure
corresponding to a Western Satan. Over time,
however, Set (also Seth; Sutekh), originally the god
of the Lower Kingdom, became an evil deity.
Historians speculate that during reign of the
Hyksos, a foreign people who controlled Egypt for
400 years, Set was identified with their own god of
war, Baal, and worshiped under the name Sutekh.
After the Hyksos left Egypt, Set’s statues were
destroyed and his name vilified because of his
connection with the hated foreigners. Eventually,
everything that was negative became associated
with Set, from the desert to dangerous animals.
Set’s mythology was also rewritten so that he
became the evil brother of Osiris and the other
gods: “The gods had a wicked brother, Set, who
ruled the lifeless desert. Even as Osiris was the
author of creativity and life, Set was destructive.
He was so violent by nature that he ripped a hole
in his mother’s side when he was born. As the
people reclaimed land through irrigation, he was
angered that Osiris was diminishing his desert
kingdom. He grew to envy his bother more day by
day” (Bierlein 1994, 212–213).
Like other peoples, the Egyptians also populated
the cosmos with all manner of demons.
Because of their seeming obsession with the afterlife,
we know the most about the dangerous
demons encountered in the underworld. However,
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in marked contrast to other cultures, the underworld
was ruled by the just god Osiris rather than
an evil divinity like Set.
Ancient Egypt was a civilization with a stability
and history that staggers the contemporary
imagination. As long ago as 4000 B.C.E. there were
significant political and agricultural centers all
along the Nile river. Thanks in part to the invention
of writing and agricultural developments in
the ancient Near East that allowed for greater
urbanization, the many city-states in the area of
today’s Egypt were gradually unified into one
dynasty. The period referred to as the Old
Kingdom was well established by the middle of
the third millennium B.C.E. The Middle Kingdom
is dated from about 2100 B.C.E. to c. 1786 B.C.E.,
and the New Kingdom lasted from about 1580
B.C.E. to c. 1080 B.C.E. Then began a series of
incursions by the Assyrian and Persian empires,
though ancient Egypt was not really brought to
an end until after Alexander the Great conquered
it in 332 B.C.E.
From about 3000 B.C.E., Egyptian official religion
recognized the pharaoh as the offspring of
the sun god, Re, and thus as a god himself. There
were many other gods and goddesses in the
Egyptian pantheon, whose domains covered
everything from natural phenomena like air (the
god Shu) to cultural phenomena like writing (the
goddess Safekht). Many gods were represented as