 |
| Magical figurine |
Egyptian magic involved an application of metaphysical knowledge for both practical and religious purposes. It was spoken of as divine creation for the benefit of humanity. Personified as a deity, Heka, it was one of the manifestations of direct contact between the divine and human worlds. Knowledge of magic fell into the same category of advanced learning as ritual, myth, medicine and literature, and the magician was in practice indistinguishable from the ritualist or physician. Magic wa imply one category of knowledge, to be used by the learned as an aid in all their relations with both the physical and the divine world.
The magical rituals that are most easily understood involved the deflection of enemies by cursing formulae. These are accompanied by the ritual destruction of wax or clay figures. Rituals devised of vanquishing or holding at bay the cosmic enemy Apep, or Apophis, the foreign and political enemies of king and country, and also private individuals were essentially similar in character. Some Greco0Egyptian spells invoke evil gods and demons to appear in a person's nightmares. Alternatively, magic could serve a benign purpose. A love potion might be presented in a way not significantly different from a medical prescription with its accompanying incantation. Recipes are likely to include ingredients whose power is understood to derive from principles of sympathetic magic, and from the punning force of names. Words and names were seen as particularly potent, as was verbal association, or association of ideas at a metaphorical or symbolic level.
The primary technique used in magic was to compel rather than request the assistance of divine powers. In spells, the magician or his subject was often identified by name with a deity in order to endow him with the power of that god; or the magician would threaten the deity with dire consequences if his demands were not met. The future could be ascertained by questioning the god's cult statue as an oracle or through the interpretation of dreams. Calendars of lucky and unlucky days provided guidance for behavior, with mythological explanations for their recommendations. Evidence for the use of astrology or other forms of divination is, however, very limited in the pharaonic period. Dreams were a point of contact through which the gods could make themselves known to human beings. "Incubation", the practice of sleeping in a temple com-pound in order to receive a prophetic dream from a god, is not known before the late Period, but it reflects earlier, less formalized practice.
Magical practice involved the whole range of Egyptian gods and goddesses, depending on the type of divine assistance expected. Among the major deities, Isis was the most frequently addressed, owing her role as the protector of her son, Horus, with whom the person seeking help would often be identified. Another benign maternal figure, Hathor, was also commonly invoked. Of the huge number of lesser protective deities, the most curious is Bes, the dancing dwarf, whose hideous features personify the supernatural world’s mixture of frightfulness and beneficence.
Magical protection was provided by amulets, the carrying of which, by the living as well as the dead, was believed to make a real difference to a person's fortunes, far beyond the effects of what we might call "lucky Charms”. Such objects survive on huge quantities from burial sites, where little amulets representing gods and goddesses, parts of the body, animals, items believed to contain special power and magical symbols were included in the wrappings of mummies. The amulets are made from a wide variety of materials, because symbolic power was attributed to the substance of an object as well as the thing it represented. Magical spells, always written on a new sheet of papyrus, were also used as amulets. A group of amuletic texts of the Late Period contains decrees put into the mouth of a god, promising for the individual against a wide range of physical and supernatural dangers.
0 Comments