Good and Evil

[sdi]

Wepwawet is onomatopoeia for the wild dog's cry, the well-known coyote's cry at the rising of the moon. But in keeping with the tendency of hieroglyphs to contain layes of deeper meaning, this word is not simply a name. It is a verbal phrase. The hieroglyphic name (𓄋𓈐𓈐𓈐) is spelled with a pair of horns, wp (to open), followed by wat (path) in the plural, wawat: three pictures of the sign for path. Hence the action is implicit in the thing, the verb is hidden in the noun: the dog, conjured by the sound of its name, does something—it is the opener of paths. The dog embodies a primary Egyptian concept, what we have come to call evil. The wild dog is a very dangerous animal. Yet the dog has a dual nature. It is its own twin: it is wild but can be tamed. Hence, the wild dog is not a bad thing; it is, after all, a dog, the ultimate tracker, the animal that finds the path. The dog appears in the text as a gradual elaboration of this idea. It appears as Anubis (𓃢), the wild dog tamed, ears back, tail down, black like the night, where it shows you how to find the way. Next the dog appears as Set (𓃩), with ears up and raised tail forked like lightning, ready to kill. Set is the universal embodiment of the wilderness, the wolf. This form of the dog means danger. [...] The dog embodies the purest love and the greatest danger, the mystery of good and bad in one.

(Susan Brind Morrow, The Dawning Moon of the Mind I ii.)

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This links up to my thought that Anoubis is karma: a dog can be wild, which hungrily chases one and tears them to pieces (cf. Aktaion), or it can be tamed, devotedly following one and supporting them (cf. Anoubis weighing the heart).

It is also a support of my theory that Plotinos is a wepwawet (woof woof)...