PURRSONALITY OF BAST
To understand the personality of Bast, one must
understand it in relation to
other deities. The following is a description of how the
four-footed furry
creature achieved its importance in Egypt.
Felines have been associated with the Sun in
Egypt long before the introduction 
of the domestic cat. One very popular Egyptian legend that shows
the
importance of the feline has it that Ra, the Sun god, appears as
a baby in the
morning, at noon he appears as a grown up man, and at sunset he
is envisaged
as a dying old man. When he dies, darkness falls, and Ra passes
through the
underworld in his solar boat. At this point Ra is at his most
vulnerable, and the
evil spirits, led by the Serpent Apophis, try their utmost to
overcome him. The
priests tried to help with their rituals, such as the symbolic
destruction of a wax
effigy of a snake with the name of Apophis written in green ink.
However most
of the job was done by the mystical Egyptian lions, who prowling
near the Nile,
would look at the setting sun, and keep its fire in their eyes.
Their eyes would
shine in the dark, like the cat’s eyes would do later on in
history, and thus Ra
could be safely born again in the morning, as the rising sun.
With the image of the lion in mind, the
Egyptians built the Sphinx, a huge effigy 
of the Sun God, with the body of a lion and the head of a
Pharaoh, who was
also worshipped as a solar deity. Sekhmet was also depicted as
having a lion’s
head, and she represented the destructive aspect of the sun. She
was associated
with war and fighting, judgement, bloody death and hunting, and
when Ra
wanted to destroy mankind she assisted the cow goddess Hathor in
doing it.
In a few words, a violent femme! But Sekhmet was also the goddess
of victory, purification and she was the one (though in some
legends it was Bast), who
destroyed the serpent Apophis with fire.
There was another feline goddess, called
Mafdet, who was often depicted as a
civet or an ocelot. In an Ancient Egyptian spell which repels
snakes, the
protection of Mafdet is invoked: "O cobra, I am the flame
which shines on
the brows of the Chaos-gods of the Standard of Years. Begone from
me, for I
am Mafdet!"
But the Egyptians sensed a more gentle aspect
to the Sun, besides the fierce 
and assertive Ra and Sekhmet images, and when the domestic cat
first appeared
in Egypt (however produced) it was instantly venerated as this
gentle aspect of
the Sun; as the little lion.
The new deity worshipped was Bast. She was
often depicted as a cat, or as a
beautiful woman with a cat’s head. Cats themselves were
worshipped as
incarnations of the goddess. Bast was often said to be the
daughter of Ra, as
she was associated with Sekhmet, and she was also associated with
cats, those 
who took care of cats, joy, pleasure, children and all things
feminine. Her cult
was centred in the city of Bubastis, where, her temple once
stood. The Greek
historian, Herodotus said "There is no temple more
beautiful than that of Bubastis".
A site which one can easily find on a Net
Search but which will unfortunately
be coming down, dedicated to Bast, gives many associations to
her. The author
promotes Bast as being "Goddess of cats, dawn,
civilization, home, bounty,
plenty, enlightenment, art, music, dance, creation, birth,
fertility, sex, physical
pleasure, lesbians, truth, hemp, marijuana, drugs, the Moon, and
the rising
Sun."
One thing at a time. Of course in Ancient Egypt
Bast was by all means the
goddess of cats, of dawn and the rising sun (one of her titles
was "Lady of the
East"), music and dance (as enjoyable arts), bounty,
fertility (there are statues
of Bast breastfeeding), home (no house was complete without a
cat), pleasure
and the Moon (cat’s eyes shine in the dark, like a moon).
However most would
actually attribute creation to Atum or some similar deity,
civilization to Isis and
Osiris, sex to Qetesh, and truth to Maat (though Bast was
occasionally called
"Lady of Truth"). Amongst the most notable and most
exotic attributions one
finds the titles "Goddess of lesbians" and
"Goddess of hemp and marijuana".
While there is no bias against lesbians here, they probably
existed in Ancient
Egypt too, as well as hemp (cannabis is said to have been used in
mummification and as an anaesthetic), Bast just never was
proclaimed any of
those. The lesbian attribution is most likely due to Bast being
goddess of the
feminine (lesbianism being considered here as the extreme of
feminility), and the
drugs attribution being due to Bast being goddess of what gives
pleasure, but
the Egyptians must have had more of dancing and singing in mind
rather than
hemp and marijuana. It is a personal choice to adopt this belief,
but it is only a
re-interpretation of an Ancient Egyptian religion, not the
actual Ancient Egyptian
religion itself (just as much as Crowley’s work is only a
re-interpretation –
nevertheless it has its philosophical validity).
Finally there is a quote from a very
interesting e-text by Michael Poe about
Ancient Egyptian metaphysics including a list of cat-like
qualities Bast
possessed.
"Bast attributes related to cats:
(NOTE - This may or may not be based on reliable sources, but
the rest of the e-text seemed very
correct so this should be correct too, especially since parts of
it surely correspond to other
sources. If anyone can help contact the author, please mail it to
us.)
The Pictures, from top to bottom: Bast as a cat, Sekhmet
the lion goddess, Bast as a cat,
Bast in her half-human form, Bast breastfeeding her litter.
