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Please welcome with me this week’s guest, Zemaemidjehuty Setepentoth, author with Theion Publishing, teacher at The Blackthorne School, expert on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge and magic and founder and Reverend of The Church of Flesh and Feather in Illinois.
Zemmi, as he prefers to be called for the sake of keeping his name from being pronounced in rather creative ways, grew up in the mid-west, a deep Christian part of the US where the community demanded becoming Christian without offering resources or explanations. Due to the lack of being able to experience the divine within these narrow boundaries Zemmi started exploring different religions in his area as he felt a need for spirituality but couldn’t find the necessary elements there to develop it properly.
However, a rather dramatic epiphany happened in Rome, Missouri, that we’ll be talking about in detail which ultimately inspired Zemmi to devote himself to the god Thoth. From then resources seemed to open up showing the path further ahead of him. Major changes were about to happen and led to him to the founding of The Church of Flesh and Feather.
In this extraordinary conversation we’ll be exploring how the divine can be encountered and how Zemmi’s books, ‘The Litanies of Thoth’ and ‘The Book of Flesh and Feather’, both by Theion Publishing, can open up ways to do so. Deconstruction of language, body work and altered states of mind will be relevant topics as well as understanding how ancient devotional practice can be prolonged into the 21st century and how its elements can be used to build something that basically mirrors the Greek Magical Papyri.
There will be an interesting exchange on the definitions of devotion and magic and some advice for how to start out if you feel drawn to this specific current. Zemmi will elaborate his thoughts on teaching and the contents of his course on Ancient Egyptian Magic in the Modern World at The Blackthorne School which lasts over the period of 13 weeks the next one starting on June 28.
Upcoming projects will be another part of the conversation as well including three books that are already in work, a full magical system that opens the gates to Zemmi’s devotional practice, Tehuti inspired oracle cards and much more.
AT THE END OF THE INTERVIEW (AFTER THE THIRD MUSICAL PIECE, STARTING AT 1:38:32) LISTEN TO AN EXCERPT FROM A VOWEL INTONATION MEDITATION BY REVEREND ZEMMI.
The full version and other videos of the same type can be found at his YouTube Channel
Music played in this episode
Today’s music should reflect the encounter between Ancient Egypt and its traditions, which are of course also very present in the musical culture of contemporary traditional Egyptian music, and the Western classical music tradition, here represented by one of the greatest nusical geniuses, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
And no, we are not talking about “Magic Flute”, but about a project that has been produced some time back and which I remembered when producing this episode.
“Mozart in Egypt” is the name of the project, and it marries in a wonderfully creative way those two musical and cultural backgrounds, just as Reverend Zemmi seems to do in his religious approach.
1) SYMPHONIE EGYPTIENNE, for Traditional Ensemble
(After the First Movement from Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, K. 183)
(Track starts at 6:38)
2) CONCERTO FOR OUD AND PIANO
(After the “Adagio” from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488)
(Track starts at 53:33)
3) LAMMA BADA YATATHANNA, for Voices and Traditional Ensemble
(After the First Movement from Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550)
(Track starts at 1:32:41)
