Talk:Imperial cult

early smerdis

I'm afraid that this article is about the historical worship of Roman emperors and has nothing to do with anything your group is concerned about. I am making the weblinks added here not autolinking, and I hope not to find dozens of them elsewhere on Wikipedia. Smerdis of Tlön 04:45, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Rome

I think I'll split off most of the 'Ancient Rome' section to Imperial cult of ancient Rome or something alike, as this article is heavily out of balance now. Any objections?--Hippalus 22:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Done! Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)--Hippalus 08:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Modern practice

I have encountered several accounts in my readings of modern practitioners of this type of cult, including but certainly not limited to, the modern worship of Julius and Augustus Caesar. My question is if this information should be added to this article, due to the fact that the purpose of the article as it currently reads seems to (perhaps inadvertently) focus on Ancient practices. There is the Rastafari section, but before I attempt an edit (and recheck my sources) I wanted to be clear on the article's intention. If modern practice should not be added to this article, what are your thoughts on creating a separate article entitled Modern Practices of Imperial Cults and moving the Rastafari and Japanese information to it. I'm not sure it is necessary to create a seperate article, but I don't want to mangle the purpose of this one. Additionally, do you think a new article as described is even worthy of creation, when a section within this one might suffice? I noticed the creation of Imperial cult (Ancient Rome), but I wonder if that article should be expanded to include all Ancient practices and appropriately renamed? However, the current Imperial cult (Ancient Rome) does seem to warrant its own article IMHO. Perhaps this article would best be reorganized into two main sections, "Ancient Practice" and "Modern Practice". Trippz 08:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Euhemerus

Should the Euhemerus reference be included? The way it reads it suggests that Euhemerus himself was worshiped. After reading the article on Euhemerus, I see the point the entry is attempting to make, but it still seems unclear. I almost changed the wording myself to euhemeristic, but I'm not sure that is a word. The information about Euhemerus and his inclusion in the article seems helpful, but its presentation is a little clunky. Trippz 08:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Euhemerisation is the substantive I believe. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 12:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Defining "Imperial Cult"

I just want to open a discussion on the agreed definition of Imperial Cult for purposes of this article. My understanding is that the venerated figure(s) in question must be (or have been) the leader(s) of a politically or geographically recognized nation. The nation in question may not necessarily fit the definition of being an Empire, thus making the use of the word "Imperial" somewhat misleading. For example, Monarchs and Dictators may also have Imperial Cult followers. In fact, it seems to be the autocratic nature of the venerated figure or dynasty which worshipers adhere to most. I'm somewhat confused by the use of "...supranational identity in the case of a multi-ethnic state ..." as mentioned in the article, because this appears to be more like nationalism. Can someone clarify this to me? The two terms seem closely related, but I don't specifically see the distinction. Is it that the nationalistic beliefs are centered exclusively on the autocrat? Trippz 09:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Horus Cult

Have provided references for this elsewhere and thought I had here but a quick look through older versions seems to indicate not. In any case the fact tagged stuff in that § is easily sourced. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 12:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Moved this here, apparent stray comment with unbalanced markup (corrected markup, left typos): Egyptians Pharaohs were concered to be gods because they were the proctector the people

The last sentence did seem to be a counterfactual. The dead pharoahs joined the other gods, but the living king enjoyed the status of a god on earth as well. This is in contrast to deification in Rome, or the posthumous naming of Chinese Emperors but of course the religious practices of Egypt also occurred against the real world conditions upon which dynastic turnover was based. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 13:01, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Devaraja

for the very bad use of this term in the article, see Talk:Devaraja: "Devaraja is the Hindu-Buddhist cult of deified royalty in Southeast Asia" is pure fiction, based on very poor sources.--Shivanarayana (talk) 12:32, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Imperial cult/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Needs references and source citations. Badbilltucker 15:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 15:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 18:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Ethiopia

Ethiopia was a multi-ethnic empire, it does not belong in the "national" examples listed in the introduction. More importantly, according to the definition of Imperial Cult provided at the beginning "An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor, or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title), are worshipped as demigods or deities." Ethiopia doesn't belong in this article at all. It never had any such state religion. The Rastafarians are irrelevant to this topic, since they were never a significant presence in Ethiopia, let alone the religion of state. Before I remove Ethiopia, does anyone have any objections or a counter-argument? --D'Orleans 20:30, 11 February 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by D'Orleans (talk • contribs)

Requested move 22 June 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Any scope problems that might exist should be resolved separately. No such user (talk) 11:20, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

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Imperial cult → Ruler cult – Not all of the cults dealt with on this page were about worshipping "emperors" or "empires", so it makes sense to move it to the more generic term. For some of the following it is totally wrong - in an Egyptian context "imperial cult" refers to the worship of the Roman emperor as ruler of Egypt (e.g. [1]). Side-note: For most of these case studies, both terms are actually pretty rare and I worry that the whole article is WP:SYNTH combining two unrelated concepts from the ancient world and East Asia. Furius (talk) 09:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

• oppose the concept of a ruler cult is already covered at Cult of personality. This article is specifically about the worship of a ruler. A merge to ruler cult might work—blindlynx (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Turn out 'ruler cult is ad hoc rather than a consistent system—blindlynx (talk)

• The "Imperial Cult" was the Roman state religion. "Ruler cult" is not a thing. Every country had an Imperial Cult, according to this article. It's WP:SYNTH gone mad. Update Oxford Reference defines the ruler cult as something created by Alexander and continued by the Hellenistic rulers, notably the Ptolemies in Egypt.[2] 99to99 (talk) 01:43, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I have a disdain for the use of nouns as premodifiers ─ 'women astronaut', et cetera. In regards to the proposal of a generic title: I am cautiously supportive, but both 'Imperial cult' and 'Ruler cult' seem to refer to other, specific concepts. ─ Kirkworld (talk) 21:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Roman cult

See here for scholarship pointing out that the Christian apologists and unfocused histories (like early Wikipedia!) erred in considering the living emperor a formal object of worship himself. Instead, the Roman and most western cults solely worshipped deceased emperors and the genius of the living emperor rather than directly worshipping contemporary rulers. — LlywelynII 13:00, 18 January 2024 (UTC)