On Worshiping Destructive Entities: The Difference Between Chaos and Uncreation
Recently there’s been a huge surge in popularity re worshiping a particular entity from Ancient Kemetic belief, a snake named A/p/e/p/. People in favor of this cry about how it is so misunderstood and ~misguided~ or that it’s merely another deity of chaos. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what chaos is and its role in nature and a fundamental misunderstanding of this entity for it is NOT chaos, it is uncreation. As someone who worships the jotnar, who are forces of chaos, and in particular worships worldbreakers who will destroy the gods and a good chunk of the known cosmos at Ragnarok, I’d like to make this distinction clear: chaos breeds possibility whereas uncreation does the literal opposite and therefore A/p/e/p/ is the literal opposite of chaos.
Chaos can be defined as that which is outside of society, that which is not controllable by gods or men. While problematic, Mircea Eliade gives a great explanation of chaos which is applicable not only to the jotnar I worship but /also/ to the Kemetic god of chaos Sutekh:
One of the outstanding characteristics of traditional societies is the opposition that they assume between their inhabited territory and the unknown and
indeterminate space that surrounds it. The former is the world (more precisely, our world), the cosmos; everything outside it is no longer a cosmos but a sort of “other world,” a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, “foreigners (who are assimilated to demons and the souls of the dead). At first sight this cleavage in space appears to be due to the opposition between an inhabited and organized-hence cosmicized ”-territory and the unknown space that extends beyond its frontiers; on one side there is a cosmos, on the other a chaos.
An unknown, foreign, and unoccupied territory (which often means, “unoccupied by our people”) still shares in the fluid and larval modality of chaos. - ELiade, The Sacred and Profane 1957
I have bolded the end because Eliade completely nails what it means to be chaotic: fluid and larval. (Modality simply means an expression of a form, so a larval state.) Fluid here is the opposite of solid and locked in. It defies concrete definition and is evershifting and adapting. Larval is that which has potential. It can grow and Become. The jotnar are beings that are often unknown and terrifying in their unknowability. This is reflected in that these jotnar, called thursr or trolls, in some instances can be killed by naming them. Identifying the unknown, locking it in place, is the bane of chaos. It is taking away its potential to mutate and adapt constantly. This is why trolls become stone when exposed to the light: light reveals their nature, exposing them, and freezes the chaos forever into a static existence.
This is actually something that bothers me when people call the s/n/a/k/e/ entropy because in its basic form, entropy is about how many potential states or configurations a system can have. Entropy at its basest nature is about possibility. And A/p/e/p/ again, takes away entropy and possibility. It is uncreation which means it removes things from existence. period, the end. There is no ifs ands or buts. it is gone. If it is gone it is no longer in a system, no longer capable of any mode or configuration. All potential, all possibility are gone. Zilch. Nada. When you ask for chaos you ask for things to be constantly moving, for change, for upheaval. Zero, nonexistence isn’t change. It is prevention of all changes.
I could ramble about the fact that the jotnar as chaos beings are largely forces of wilderness and nature, that as worldbreakers they serve necessary change in helping to renew the world, that hope only exists because it flows from the Allfather’s Slayer’s jaws, etc. But all this ignores the one fundamental point people miss when discussing A/p/e/p/ as a potential figure for worship: it is not chaotic. It has never been chaotic and it never can be for its very existence is to delete existence. Not transform it. Not mutate it. But to remove it.
Chaos is the power and possibility to transform the world. Even Surtr’s flames leave potential. You cannot transform or have possibility in the wake of an entity that seeks to delete everything, especially possibility. Why do you think Sutekh, chaos, is the mightiest slayer of the s/n/a/k/e/?
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