A Twitter user recently asked, what is a spirit warrior?
what is a spirit warrior
— Archeoegyptian ☥☀️ (@Ask_Archeoegy) June 6, 2021
A spirit warrior (or spiritual warrior) is an eclectic concept that can be traced back to Buddhism and beliefs centred around combating our own self-ignorance. While not an ancient Egyptian concept, we shouldn’t altogether exclude it from Kemeticism.
A spirit warrior, in a western context, is someone who demonstrates bravery in the face of adversity. Not everyone is going to understand your path, or your purpose, nor your passion in life and that’s okay. You don’t need the support of your entire community in order to get lift-off. Those things are nice and we accept support with gratitude when we receive it but as a Kemetic neo-pagan, you know you have the support of ancient Egyptian deities, and that matters more than what someone else thinks in your home town, or someone you don’t know on social media.
A spirit warrior is resilient human being. They’ve learned how to stay spiritually healthy by remaining balanced. We hear so much about mental health these days and how raising awareness is needed to overcome the stigma (or social taboo) that exists surrounding mental health issues. As a side note, I’m a MH nurse by profession and I can tell you with certainty: mental health affects everyone. Sooner or later, everyone faces a medical issue or challenge to their physical health. Likewise, everyone faces a challenge to their mental health. How we deal with it (if we seek help or not) and what supports we have in place can make all the difference. The next sphere of health to address is spiritual health. A spirit warrior is someone who manages their spiritual health in a self-directed, self-sufficient manner. At some point, we each experience a crisis that threatens the balance of our spiritual health. A spirit warrior is equipped to cope, and grows stronger from the challenge.
In ancient Egypt, the concept of a spirit warrior did not exist, perhaps because nobody needed to be one! As a result, Kemetic practitioners might feel inclined to devalue the concept and exclude it from their own personal belief system because it’s not authentic. To that, I would say, spirit warriors exist in modern times because spiritual warfare exists on many levels (and it’s a bigger problem than the scope of this post, in fact). In ancient Egypt, for the most part, people’s peers generally did not challenge each other’s belief systems because they were shared systems. In today’s society, we’re not in a shared system. If you are not part of a majority, and today, that usually means being a straight, white, conservative, Christian, cis-gendered male, and you believe in something else because you are something else, then you better be a spirit warrior, otherwise you may be crushed by the powers that be.
Many people I think, confuse diversity with division and that’s something which stems from fear. A spirit warrior is braver and smarter than that. They’re the type of person we need in the Kemetic neo-pagan movement, and why we benefit from incorporating outside concepts into Kemeticism — apart from those of the ancient Egyptians, which we can only view through a modern lens, anyway. I say this as an intuitive and eclectic Kemetic practitioner. Other Kemetics, such as reconstructionists and afrocentrists are likely to have very different opinions and that’s fine.
The concept of a spirit warrior is just a metaphor. It’s open to interpretation. Your own interpretation and what it means to you is what matters most. Take what you can from it, as with any concept. If it works for you, great! Use it and don’t worry about what others might think. If it doesn’t work for you, let it go! As a safe pagan, as someone who refrains from bullying and honours the spiritual safety of others (not to mention Ma’at) respect that others might find benefit from it. Focus on what you do find benefit from. Diversity creates a balance of its own.
Thanks for reading Kemetic Blog. Any questions, feel free to fire away! I cannot guarantee a response but your question could end up in a future blog post and or video.
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