#its just real mundane vulnerabilities being exploited

[malaloba]

Just read the phrase "which I really doubt that you're running something that's pre-2003" in my networking security lecture and I'm just

-stares in The Magnus Protocol-

[0xa00001]

THIS STARTED AS A POST ABOUT “MORAL AMBIGUITY” BUT NOW IT’S MOSTLY A RAMBLE ABOUT IDEOLOGY AND HYPOCRISY: AN ANALYSIS HEADCANON THING?

the core value within dedsec is the recognition that systems that were ostensibly built to protect people have either failed or have been constructed in such a way that this was the system's intended purpose. they're a reaction to the sociopolitical and ideological climate that's created when the gap between the elite and the everyman grows into a chasm. and while they all fall pretty firmly into anti-capitalist, ancom, collectivist beliefs, there's even a lot of variance in individuals within the group.

it's important to understand, though, that while dedsec might target corporations or individuals, the war they're fighting is an ideological one. they fight the idea of the capitalist hell spiral, the idea of the nanny state, the people and things that represent overreaching government entities and unchecked, exploitative private entities. sure, the damage they cause is very real and calibrated to annihilate a certain group of people, but they're still attacking something symbolic. dedsec does not see people as intrinsically different from their title or position (this is part of the reason dedsec hates cops, but that's another meta entirely). and that theoretical idealism— which leads to some intense splitting in some of its members— isn't actually all that practical. dedsec will always, ultimately, be be hindered by their own strict adherence to their ideology, because it doesn't allow room for moral ambiguity. you're either a malevolent force helping to perpetuate the hypercapitalist nanny state, or a victim of that force.

but they also acknowledge that those targets are so deeply entrenched in power that they're going to hurt a whole lot of innocent people on the way down. their means of "fixing things" are incredibly destructive and, to an extent, they're aware of that. they rip apart systems and ruin people who they think 'deserve it' with little regard for actually putting a permanent, workable solution in place. if they don't like who replaces the person they took down, they'll just repeat the process.

and that's crux of dedsec's hypocrisy: their assurance that they're doing the right thing while acting in the same ways as the people they brand as evil.

they make a point of showing people that no one is untouchable. no amount of power, or money, or influence can hide you from them, and none of it will save you when people are shown what you've done. meanwhile, dedsec holds the exact same belief— they believe layers of paranoia, caution, encryption, and carefully constructed double lives will protect them from the people who they go after (who are, by definition, far more powerful than they are) and the law itself.

their targets are those who exploit the weak and vulnerable to feel powerful, while they exploit the powerful to make them feel weak and vulnerable. they try and encourage critical thought and the rejection of dogma while being so firmly entrenched in their own dogma that they have difficulty seeing anything outside of the context of their constructed narrative.

there's also a lot to be said that something dedsec emphasizes the idea that "no one is above the consequences of their actions." and while dedsec would be careful to never say above the law (because they believe the law is ineffective and represents a strict adherence to the broken system, something that they by necessity have to hate) it's a facet of it. they scold their targets for being so arrogant as to think they could escape consequences while doing just that, often through the same methods of the people they seek to destroy: coercion, blackmail, and even more mundane, white-collar crimes like tax fraud and money laundering. many members of dedsec believe that they'll never be caught. that they're too smart to be found out.

it comes down to their belief that the end justifies the means. that using these tools, holding these beliefs are okay because the thing they get in the end is worth it. and while they might claim it's for the good of the weak, the exploited, the kicked and downtrodden— after all, dedsec is made up of people who have been broken by the world— there isn't a group who wouldn't claim that what they do is for some greater good. there are lots of people who see dedsec as vigilante heroes, modern day digital robin hoods; others see them as dangerous, disgruntled radicals. cyberterrorists. is killing somebody worth it if they would harm more people? is ruining someone's career justifiable if they were going to use their position to exploit others? is privacy a right until you hurt someone, or is privacy something that should be assumed and protected, even if people do bad things in the dark?

at the very least dedsec asserts that if you hurt others, you have it coming. power is a privilege, not a right, and they will take it away from you if you abuse it.

[kronecker-delta]

Cage Zone Thoughts

(Or some attempted guesses about upcoming Android Hell. While making numerous comparisons to Nier: Automata. And a little bit of Nier too. As well as considering some of Cage’s faults, particularly in sexual themes and bad writing.)

As such, spoilers and long, long post discussing such matters below.

I’m not what one would call a fan of David Cage’s work. I’d even say that I think his games are generally just kind of bad, and bad in a way where I’m not sure how they could be fixed.

Because ultimately they’re narrative experiences that have bad narratives. It also doesn’t help that I feel like Cage doesn’t have a central theme a lot of the time. Not a plot, he’s got too much plot in some cases, but an idea as to what the story is supposed to say.

What exactly is the point of Beyond Two Souls? What is Jodie’s life supposed to instruct the player about when they see it through to the end.

Or Indigo Prophecy. Or Omikron especially.

(Heavy Rain is more coherent, if deeply crippled by some parts because it manages to have a point that is sometimes self-sabotaged by other components.)

I bring this up as David Cage has given some... interesting interviews of late as to the direction and story of his next project. In once instance he tries to be clear that there is no political inspiration or greater point he is trying to illustrate. (Kotaku)

Yet in another he claims that the violence that will be an option for the Android rebellion is meant to draw the player in with similarities in real world incidents. To have a message regarding the nature of violent action in protest and revolutionary movements. (The Verge)

Obviously these two statements stand in some measure of opposition. A narrative can’t simultaneously have no authorial message it intends to impart and a clear one meant for the audience. There are further worrying elements. Such as David Cage first saying that it was about Androids and science fiction content as a focus and then later talking about how the story was about humanity.

While still avoiding a ‘big message.’

Perhaps it’s prejudice on my part, but I’m not sure one can write about themes like this, or really anything that might attempt for deep emotional investment from the audience, if there isn’t some fundamental core idea to your attempt.

This fear is what has brought about this essay. Since I’m now concerned that David Cage is going to handle this plot in the same way as his earlier works, which have quite a creative fingerprint to them, I think I can make some educated guesses on the likely direction and potential missteps that will follow.

Suddenly Ensouled

I suspect that the emergence of Android consciousness will not be planned or desired. While there remains the potential that there is some supernatural cause (and given previous stories some element of that being outright or left on the cutting room floor is quite likely) I think even in the case of a mundane malfunction being the origin it will be seen as a problem.

The Android Markus is supposedly ‘special’ for being able to free androids. What this means is entirely speculative at the moment, but I will guess that this ability is not common or easily understood. Cage likes mystery plots, particularly blunt ones where the question the audience has it upfront and with them for a long time. More over the trailers for the other character Kara point out an even stronger trend towards spontaneous intelligence.

This isn’t bad really, even if it’s common. The issue is, at least to me, that its been done enough times that if that’s all you’re doing with it you should really shoot for more.

Take Nier: Automata. There’s an outright robot rebellion plot in it. That is risen and dropped in the span of thirty minutes. That the Machine Lifeforms killed their creators isn’t the important part. The questions is why they did that and what they will do now.

(Much like the background of humanity’s death in that game is a footnote. The story is about what is supposed to be done after that point.)

I’m not too certain about what to expect give his previous games. I’m not optimistic that he’ll be able to swing it into something novel and interesting.

*Kill* and *Fuck*

Especially given how gratuitously exploitative his use of sex and violence has been before. A lot has been said about unneeded shower scenes and female characters placed in peril. I’m not of the mind that this comes from a place of sexualized degradation or some such, but instead cheapness.

It’s cheap and easy to make the audience care about a character by making them a young, attractive woman, and having her almost get killed or sexually assaulted (or both, as is not entirely a unique incident in David Cage games). There’s something schlocky and fake about the way those scenes are used though, that makes them not feel right for the stories they appear in. The serial killer and the dance club strip scene don’t really fit well in Heavy Rain (especially not one after another) and those aren’t the only offenders.

The birthday party torment in Beyond Two Souls is especially egregious in how far and how radically it shifts into tormenting the main character in order to draw out emotions from the player. It’s also not earned yet, as Jodie simply hasn’t been around long enough for that scene to have the weight that is desired. It’s simply assumed that the player will care as it’s about a vulnerable teenage girl crying.

Compare that with the slow descent of 9S. His emotional destruction takes the better part of the last third of Nier: Automata and while shocking, does not come across as unrealistic once it begins. Further it is not played as heavy handed. His love/hate (fuck/kill) relationship with 2B is symbolized by events that occur during gameplay, and not merely stated outright to the player. As I said, Heavy Rain does have a central theme and message (how far would one be willing to go to save the life of one they care about) but said theme is amazingly blunt in realization.

(Or ever better, Pascal. Making the player care about an obviously non-human lifeform grieving over even less human like creatures to such an extent is far beyond what I expect to see in Detroit Become Human.)

Not bad, but definitely worrying to me if David Cage is going to approach social issues. Especially given how extremely cliche, if not outright stereotypical his stories have become when they did such things before.

Added in that he will now be working with characters that are outright meant to be exploited by definition, and I’m extremely wary. I can only contemplate the potential (highly emotionally manipulative) scenes of coerced sexual activity that I see has highly likely in Detroit Become Human. It fits his previous work too well at this point. Once might be called a fluke, but David Cage has defaulted to such scenes for their emotional weight multiple times in the same game at this point.

Furthermore I doubt David Cage is going to play too far from his comfort zone. Kara is likely the designated subject for such roles, and I doubt I will see a switch up in how this works. The switch of support and physical action as seen with 2B and 9S is unlikely to be part of the story. So no Markus being rescued from military androids or Kara being the first to take a human life to save him.

(I suspect the opposite is more likely.)

Railroads End

I don’t think a story driven game necessarily needs choice. Or more correctly, not all narratives need to care about what the player would prefer to happen. Sometimes that works, but sometimes a tighter, more consistent story can be told without trying to fit different endings even if differing routs may be used to get there.

I bring this up as David Cage has had some rocky attempts at choice based gameplay. Omikron really doesn’t have any, as the central plot and ending is immune to any open world shenanigans the player might get up to. Beyond Two Souls barely has any meaningful choices. There is one centrally narrative choice (at the end) but it doesn’t change the post-game epilogue in a meaningful manner. The world’s still doomed to get Ghost Boned in the Ghost Zone.

Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain have more, with Heavy Rain being the standout by far. Given that Detroit Become Human is going back to the trio of player characters again (or almost quartet that Heavy Rain had) we might have another case where differing endings that allowed for player characters to die while the plot continues on despite that point. I found that to be quite a bit of fun in truth, if not enough to overcome the other story issues and such.

So while I’m hopeful that this might be a return to better elements, I’m none the less alarmed that David Cage’s decision to shoot for a more cerebral plot than just a mystery/thriller about a serial killer might not play well. Indigo Prophecy is barely coherent past the halfway point.

Which is one thing I haven’t brought up. Even Heavy Rain has cut content involving an inexplicable psychic link between the serial killer and the main character. Every David Cage game has some rather clumsy mystical elements thrown in. Like the multiple factions of Indigo Prophecy and Omikron or the Navajo part of Beyond Two Souls. I think it’s impossible to guess about this right now, but it’s not at all impossible if the real reason Markus can give other Androids free will is some kind of techo-magic Apple of Knowledge or that Kara might be a actual re-incarnation of a dead woman and/or possessed by a ghost from the Infraworld.

We’ll have to wait and see on those points I suppose.

 Final Note: I haven’t mentioned gameplay at all because it doesn’t matter. David Cage’s games play like ass. They just do. Telltale is better. I don’t even like them and they still are. The complicated quicktime events don’t add an appreciable investment most of the time as they just plain don’t work.

More conventional controls for the majority while saving the weird ‘artsy’ stuff for specific scenes would be better in my opinion and give more weight to them when they happen.

Or, there’s a reason the visual novel stuff in the forest of myth is the my favorite part of Nier. It’s not anywhere else in the game really. By being used sparingly it has more of an impact.

(Had another essay, but it wasn’t focused on Cage material so I wrote this one up instead. Hopefully I can finish that one too eventually.)

[sageandwizard]

Novel Pre-Writing Workshop: Better Questions Make A Better Book

By Holly Lisle

At the moment, in my meager spare time I’m working on building up a supply of novel ideas, so that I can start doing a bit more on-spec work (work where the writer writes the whole novel before attempting to sell it.) Without getting into why I want to do this odd thing, when it seems to be moving in precisely the opposite direction from the professional career arc, where the objective is to get more and more money for less and less advance work, I’m simply going to offer the series of questions I’m using to knock out some basic ideas that I can then refine.

If you want to write a novel but you don’t know what to write about, give this a try.

Start out with the following:

[Genre in which you want to write] —[Single sentence or sentence fragment that offers you two or three characters, a catalyst, and a conflict]

Example:

Supernatural Romantic Suspense — Small-town Midwestern violinist (heroine) meets returning-to-his-roots bad boy (hero) when the stage on which she’s performing collapses (catalyst) after she receives an eerie warning not to perform that night (conflict).

This is not a great story idea. I came up with it for this outline, and at the moment it’s pretty lame. But that’s okay. It’s just the a jumping-off point.

Once you have the very vague beginnings of a couple of characters, a quick peek at a catalyst, and a tiny chip knocked out of the conflict, you can really make something out of this. This is, in fact, a micro-example of the process of writing the whole book and revising afterwardrather than engaging in endless revisions of the first chapter or two, another technique I recommend for people who genuinely want to write rather than just claim that they’re writers.

So once you’ve picked a tentative genre and thrown a few vague words against the wall, what questions do you ask to make them into a real story? Start with the questions I’ve listed below, modifying them to suit your genre and single-line idea.

I’m using hero, heroine, villain, and catalyst in the questions below, but you aren’t bound to those, either by gender or by number. The catalyst can be a person, place, thing, event. The conflict will come if you just let yourself relax about it.

You don’t have to do this in outline form, either. In fact, I strongly recommend that you don’t. I certainly don’t. I cluster these questions, and answer them (while asking myself even more questions).

The Questions, Then…

Who is the hero? 

In this case we’ve already established that that the hero is a one-time bad boy coming home. But what has he been doing in the meantime? Why did he come home now? Why did he come home at all? What’s good about him? What’s bad about him? Why do you (the writer) want to see him win?

What is the hero’s secret? 

Everybody has one or two, but in this case, the secret we want is going to be the thing the hero can’t tell the heroine about himself without betraying some other agenda — and the fact that he is evasive on this point is going to cause her (and the reader) to be suspicious of him. So — is he secretly working for a government agency? Digging buried treasure in her back yard? A cop chasing a killer he suspects her of harboring? What?

What does the hero have to lose? 

The fact that he could get killed is a given. What ELSE does he have to lose? Ten million dollars? The serial killer who butchered his sister? A place on the next space shuttle?

Who wants to use the hero, and what about him is worth using? 

Whatever his secret is, that’s going to be the link to his vulnerability. But the person or people who want to take advantage of that aren’t always going to be the main villain of the story. So who are the other people in the story who want to use or abuse the hero, and what are they after?

Who hates the hero? 

This is going to be your villain, or one of them. What’s the story here — what is the conflict between hero and villain that sets them against each other. In most cases, the hero has or is about to get something the villain wants and is willing to do almost anything to get. What is it? Does the hero know about the connection at the beginning, or does he step into a landmine and inherit the villain because of who he is.

You’ll have more questions by the time you get to this point. Draw circles, draw arrows, and ask them.Then go on to the next character, and her questions ….

Who is the heroine, and what does she want? 

Some of who she is and what she wants should center around the way we meet her. In this example, what role does the violin play in her life? Why did she get interested in that particular instrument? Anything special about her violin — origin, make, previous owners? What else does she want? Husband, kids, family, friend, place to hide, enormous fame …? What or who is standing in the way of her getting it?

How is the heroine tied into the catalyst? 

Why did the stage collapse when she was on it? What sort of spooky message did she receive? What does she think about what has happened to bring her to this point? Does she have a theory? How does she react to the catalyst — with fear? Humor? Anger? Daring and courage? Spunk?

What is her connection with the catalyst? 

In this example, is her violin haunted by a previous owner? Is the stage where she played haunted? Is there a non-supernatural explanation for the events? Its it the correct one, or did something truly outside the mundane happen?

Where does the catalyst come from? 

Origin of violin, origin of stage, origin of saboteur, or something else… look at origins and come up with a story?

What does the catalyst want? 

It might be the spirit of the violin, or a ghost attached to the stage itself. It could be a human faking the supernatural. The catalyst might end up being a helper for the hero and heroine, a helper for the villain, or the villain himself. The catalyst can also be a random event, of course, in which this question is probably irrelevant — but ask it anyway and see if something cool pops up.

What does the heroine fear? 

These can be phobias that you can exploit later, events from the present that are dangerous, current events that seem dangerous, people, places, all sorts of things. They can be valid or invalid.

What does she need to fear? 

There should be something that she doesn’t fear, but that she should. You need to know what this is, but you don’t need to share it with the reader, nor do you need to tip off your heroine.

Who hates her? 

She wants to be loved, of course, but somewhere, somehow, she’s made at least one enemy. How did she make the enemy, and who is he? Or she?

Who wants to use her, and what about her makes her worth using? 

What does she have or believe or care about that makes her vulnerable? That makes her attractive to predators? Who does she know who is willing to go after these parts of her life, no matter what the cost?

What does the heroine have to lose? 

Her life, of course. That is always the given, but it isn’t enough. What matters to her more than her own life? What would she die to save?

As you’re writing the questions and their answers, you’ll come up with more questions. Ask them, answer them, and follow them through all the questions that they generate.Then move to your next question series:

Who is the villain? 

What is bad about him? What is good about him? What things does he hold to be true? What things does he believe are false? Where did he first cross paths with the hero or the heroine, and what does he want from them? How would he define his perfect world?

What does he mean to the heroine (or hero)? 

Do they share a past enmity? A past friendship? A present friendship? How does he see this person who has come to be an obstacle to what he wants — to his view of his own perfect world? Why? What does he wantto mean to the heroine (or hero, or both)?

What does the villain have to lose? 

He’s going to take some big risks to recreate his world according to his template. What will happen to him if he fails? What does he see as worse than death itself? What scares him?

What does the villain have to gain? 

What thing greater than the value of his own life does he seek? Why does he value it so greatly? Where did his desire come from? What might change it?

Pursue your villain through more questions, more arrows and circles, more answers that spawn their own questions. When you have finished with him, toss yourself a couple more quick categories, and let your imagination run down the paths it builds for you. Ask yourself ….

Who lies? 

The hero? The heroine? The villain? Dear friends? Ex-lovers? Someone else? Why, why, why do they lie? You can ALWAYS find something rich and powerful in the answer to this deceptively simple question.And…

Who dies? 

Anyone? Anyone we love? Anyone we hate? How? When? By whose hand, or by what means?

By the time you’ve answered these questions, your inital sentence for the book may be nothing but scrap words for the Delete key. But you’ll have something far better than a basic idea. You’ll have a solid and powerful foundation for your next novel.

If you want a story to come to you, all you have to do is ask.

[coimeadaisiochana]

When it comes to a straight fight, Lilian is probably the most capable of the 8 OCs I have slated for this blog. While one of the unfinished ones is more capable with magic and subterfuge, and Ari-El is pretty all-around, in a direct confrontation, Lilian is definitely the most dangerous, as her abilities and biology make her difficult to take down unless someone just straight-up overpowers her or overwhelms her with sheer numbers, while being just as capable of incredible damage.

In terms of strength and speed, Lilian is definitely superhuman. She can lift about 200 tons over her head without any real struggle, while 300 seems to be her upper limit. She can shatter a brick wall with a punch or a kick, and her grip strength is strong enough to crush a human skull. She’s also fully capable of exceeding Mach 1 (~767 mph/~1235 kph) on foot, moving faster than the eye can see, though this level of speed limits her to moving in almost completely-straight lines - she has trouble turning corners at this level of speed, and usually just uses it to clear distances in as short a time as possible. In terms of land speed that she can move effectively at, around 500 mph/805 kph is where she starts having trouble rounding corners or otherwise changing trajectory/stopping.This also means she has the reflexes to anticipate objects, creatures, and people moving at similar speeds.

When it comes to durability, she’s notably less superhuman, but can still take more punishment than any normal human. Her skin is thicker than a normal person’s, so cuts and stabs without enough force will simply glance off or leave small scratches that won’t even draw blood. Enough force will break her skin, though, and it provides pretty much zero difference to a normal person against even small-caliber firearms. Meanwhile, her bones are firm, but capable of surprising give and flexibility, not only allowing her to absorb impacts that would shatter a normal person’s bones, but also allowing her a greater degree of flexibility.

Lilian is also resistant to nearly all types of elemental damage; she’s outright immune to mundane and magical fire and heat, and can tolerate very low temperatures and continued exposure to ice and the cold for up to about three hours without feeling cold. Most forms of acid are simply normal liquid to her, and even the most acidic substances require lengthy exposure of at least half an hour to cause notable damage. She is also capable of absorbing and nullifying moderately-powerful electric currents and can even take a bolt of lightning with only minor burns.

Even if she’s damaged, however, Lilian recovers from injury at an accelerated rate, possessing powerful regeneration. Shallow cuts and small stab wounds heal within seconds, larger open wounds, mangled limbs, or small to moderate burns or frostbite can take anywhere from one to a few minutes, and she’ll even regrow lost limbs or organs within a few days. The window for taking advantage of her in an injured state is very small, unless one uses blessed magic or weapons (see weaknesses, below). This powerful regenerative ability also renders her immune to poisons and difficult to make ill with disease.

Speaking of her blood, I’ve already written up a post about its dangers and benefits here, but for more detail, it’s not just black, but also thick and tar-like. Injuries that draw blood won’t cause it to splatter or spray, but rather to ooze out, as if you slashed open a bottle of glue. This makes it a poor defensive measure against anyone trying to attack her, especially against weapons or from a distance, so she often instead opts to cover her hands and/or claws (depending on form) in it once she starts bleeding and use it as a weapon. In addition, the amount and time needed for its more lethal and dangerous effects is more than a few droplets; it takes about four ounces of the blood (not just a few droplets or a small smear) to do more than cause intense pain, and it has to linger for at least a few minutes to damage the skin and flesh - it takes hours for it the corruption to spread and begin damaging other areas of the body.

For other aspects of her biology, Lilian has three sets of natural weapons that she tends to utilize when fighting in her devil form: her teeth, her claws, and her tail. In devil form, all of her teeth become sharp canines and actually bend inwards to make them harder to remove once they’ve sunk into something, and attempting to pull her off will only tear into it more. Her claws are her most common weapon, meanwhile, and can slice through concrete with enough force (which she is easily capable of exerting, see her strength, above). She can also use her magic to enlarge her hands making each one about as large as a typical human torso, and turning each claw to a deadly foot-long sickle. In addition, her tail has been conditioned to be just as powerful as her other limbs and can be a dangerous surprise to anyone not expecting that sort of power from a secondary appendage. She frequently uses it to support herself when she cannot use her legs or otherwise loses/sacrifices her balance, such as leaning back to dodge an attack.

Lilian’s black blood also affords her some magical abilities, as mentioned above. In addition to being able to perform minor shapeshifting, much of Lilian’s magic revolves around blood or curses. She can cause someone’s minor cuts and wounds to open and potentially become worse by injuring herself and enduring a similar open wound, or turn spilled blood into hazards such as caltrops or barbs on a surface. She can also ingest someone’s blood and use that to know their exact location for one week - a fact that someone becomes immediately aware of as soon as Lilian places the curse on them, potentially sowing paranoia and fear in the target.

Of course, for all of these strengths, Lilian has her fair share of weaknesses, as well, though not all of them are immediately apparent.

One of Lilian’s main weaknesses, and probably the easiest to exploit, is her relative lack of stamina compared to all of her other superhuman abilities. She possesses no more stamina than a typical human of her fitness level, and when forced into an extended fight, especially against something with far more stamina than her, it can turn into a battle against time for her, endeavoring to finish the opponent before she exhausts herself. This is especially notable, considering her magic also drains her of her stamina, and her black blood is directly to blame for this; a half-devil would normally have more stamina, but due to the thickness and consistency of her blood, oxygen is slower to reach parts of her body, making it harder for her to keep going… and even harder for her stamina to recover than a normal person.

In addition, despite her own magical abilities, Lilian is just as equally vulnerable to magic in return. Most forms of magic that do more than evoke elemental effects affect her just as equally as they would anyone else, though she’s particularly vulnerable to a few specific types. First is holy magic, used by angels, angelkin (such as aasimars or half-angels), and blessed spellcasters, and weapons or people blessed by holy magic will outright burn her on contact and suppress her enhanced regenerative abilities. Second is blood magic, which preys on the particularly magical nature of Lilian’s black blood, amplifying the effects of any sort of blood magic used on her, beneficial or not. These types of magic will outright bypass most forms of magical warding used on her and if used to create elemental effects, they will affect her despite her usual resistances to them. Third, and perhaps the most difficult of the three to exploit given its nature, is antimagic. Due to deriving most of her powers from her blood, antimagic is capable of suppressing nearly every aspect of Lilian’s strength, from her superhuman powers and magic to her regenerative abilities and elemental resistances. The only things it doesn’t remove or suppress are her durability and her natural weapons, as they’re a normal part of her biology, not fueled by her black blood.

In a similar vein, Lilian is vulnerable to just about anything that affects devils, and even just the presence of anything blessed by the divine nearby can instill a sense of dread and a desire to flee in her, though she is capable of standing her ground; however, she will be caught in a demoralized state so long as the object or person remains present. She also finds it difficult to come into contact with such objects willingly, as holy objects will burn her on contact, as mentioned above; in fact, such blessed items or people are more resilient to her attacks to the point of near-invulnerability, and are nearly impossible for her to affect with her magic. Often times, her best option when confronted with those so blessed is to indulge her fear and run.

Finally, her hardest weakness to exploit is her connection to her father, Haziel. Only the pit fiend himself can reliably exploit this weakness for his own gain, as he can command her as though she were simply another extension of his body, or even use her as a scapegoat when he would otherwise come under magical compulsion - such as in the case of being bound to a mage, like her current situation. However, as he is only vaguely aware of her existence (as he has multiple Blackblood children he uses for such ends), she is luckily spared from him regularly exploiting this connection. For now.

[phynxrizng]

HAEKA, THE MAGICK OF ANCIENT EGYPT, ACQUIRING MAGICKAL POWERS

Heka: The magic ofancient Egypt Acquiring magical powers— Thepractitioners of magic—Practical purposes—The practiceof magic

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Heka: The magic of ancient Egypt

.....to me belonged the universe before you gods had come into being. You have come afterwards because I am Heka. Coffin texts, spell 261 [2] First Intermediate Period to Middle Kingdom

All religions have a magical aspect [1] , ancient religions like the Egyptian, according to which all of creation was animated to some extent, perhaps more so than many others. Through magic the creation had come into being and was sustained by it. Thus, magic was more ancient, and consequently more powerful, than the gods themselves

I am one with Atum when he still floated alone in Nun, the waters of chaos, before any of his strength had gone into creating the cosmos. I am Atum at his most inexhaustible - the potence and potential of all that is to be. This is my magic protection and it's older and greater than all the gods together! Bookof the Dead, New Kingdom

It was also the extraordinary means for acquiring knowledge about one's surroundings - above all the hidden parts of them - and gaining control over them. Gods, demons and the dead could be implored, cajoled or threatened. Their help could be enlisted to avert evil or achieve one's desires. Magic was accepted by all ancient peoples as a real force. The Hebrew tradition which was strongly opposed to it, did not deny its efficacy, but rather extolled the even greater magical power of its own god:

8 And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron saying, 9 When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent. 10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. 11 The Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. 12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. Exodus 7 [29] about 6th or 5th centuryBCE

Egyptian magical thinking continued to influence Europe. Thoth, god of wisdom and learning, was identified with the Greek Hermes Trismegistus. He was thought by the Hermetists to have originated the Hermetica, 42 books of magic [12] .

Isis lactans 26th dynasty

The worship of Isis, of whom the Metternich Stela (4th century BCE) says "I am Isis the goddess, the possessor of magic, who performs magic, effective of speech, excellent of words," became widespread throughout the Roman empire. She was the original mother of god, Isis lactans feeding her son Horus, which Christianity adopted as the Madonna. Her role as protectress is reflected in the Marian cult.

Acquiring magical powers

While its efficiency in the hands of mortal practitioners was perhaps often less than had been hoped for, magic attracted people because it was practical and made sense. Everything had a reason, often hidden to the ordinary person, but revealed to the knowledgeable.

Magical spell written in Coptic Picture source: Duke Papyrus Archive

Magic explained the relationships between causes and effects using ideas people could relate to. Analogies and symbolisms were widely used, the sympathetic principle of like affecting like was invoked, associations, be they pure coincidence, were imbued with meaning, and historic occurrences became predictors for the future. There were even prescribed ways for explaining why expected results had not materialized.

It appears that, originally, the Egyptians, like some other peoples who practiced ritual cannibalism, thought that spiritual powers resided in the body and could be acquired by ingestion. There is no evidence, though, that such a view was more than speculative and ever acted upon.

The king orders sacrifices, he alone controls them, the king eats humans, feeds on gods, he has them presented on an altar to himself, he has agents to do his will. He fires off the orders! ............ The king eats their magic, he gulps down their souls, the adults he has for breakfast, the young are lunch, the babies he has for supper, the old ones are too tough to eat, he just burns them on the altar as an offering to himself. Pyramid Texts 273-4, Old Kingdom translated byJacob Rabinowitz [5]

Magic was tightly bound up with writing, although there must have been an extensive purely oral tradition which was never recorded and is therefore lost to us. Most practitioners gained magical knowledge by studying ancient scriptures [20] . Chief among them were the lector-priests, the only clerics who were fully professional since the beginning of recorded history. They were the keepers of the sacred books.

The practitioners of magic

Magical knowledge and power emanated from the gods and was bestowed upon their servants, the kings ...

Utterance of all the gods, [to] Amon-Re: "This thy daughter [Hatshepsut], who liveth, we are satisfied with her in life and peace. She is now thy daughter of thy form, whom thou hast begotten, prepared. Thou hast given to her thy soul, thy [...], thy [bounty], the magic powers of the diadem...... The coronation of Hatshepsut 18th dynasty Breasted Ancient Records ofEgypt Part 2, § 220 Come glorious one; I have placed (thee) before me; that thou mayest see thy administration in the palace, and the excellent deeds of thy ka's that thou mayest assume thy royal dignity, glorious in thy magic, mighty in thy strength. Thutmose I,summoning his daughter to be crowned 18th dynasty Breasted Ancient Records ofEgypt Part 2, § 235

... and their substitutes in the service of the gods, the priesthood. But there were also less exalted magicians who did not deal with life and death, but with more mundane issues like good luck charms, pest control or love potions.

Aydressed as High Priest performing the Opening ofthe Mouth ceremony Tomb KV 62, 18th dynasty Picture source: Lionel Casson AncientEgypt

Sometimes spells fell into the wrong hands. Anybody capable of reading could use them [17] , and, at times, some did so with evil intentions.

Now, when Penhuibin, formerly overseer of herds, said to him: "Give to me a roll for enduing me with strength and might," he gave to him a magic roll of Usermare-Meriamon (Ramses III), L.P.H., the Great God, his lord, L.P.H., and he began to employ the magic powers of a god upon people. Recordsof the Harem Conspiracy againstRamses III20th dynasty

To the ordinary mortal magic could be dangerous, and coming into physical contact with the divine deadly. The accidental touching of the royal sceptre even by a sem priest had to be counteracted by the king's spell, and the incident was serious enough to be recorded:

The king of Upper and Lower Egypt Neferikare appeared as King of Lower Egypt on the day of the seizing of the anterior rope of the God's barque. There was the sem priest Rewer before his majesty in his office of sem priest, responsible for the clothing. The ames sceptre which was in the hand of his majesty, touched the foot of the sem priest Rewer. His majesty said to him: "May you be well!" - thus spoke his majesty. Behold, his majesty said: "It is desirable to my majesty that he may be well, without a blow for him." Behold, he is more esteemed by his majesty than any other man. His majesty ordered to have (it) put in writing on his tomb which is in the necropolis. His majesty caused a record to be made about it, written in the presence of the king himself in the district of the palace, in order to write down according to what had been said in his tomb which is in the necropolis. From thetomb ofRewer (5th dynasty) [24]

Practical purposes

Magic had important pragmatic aspects, which were exploited to achieve the aims of humans, dead or alive, spirits, and gods:

Creation of the world by Ptah, the self-fertilization of Amen or Khnum's shaping of man from clay were all deeds unachievable by ordinary means.

He (Ptah) gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes, He placed the gods in their shrines, He settled their offerings, He established their shrines, He made their bodies according to their wishes. From theShabaka Stone, 25th dynasty

The giving of birth was not just miraculous, but also dangerous, and the newly born was especially vulnerable.

Birth brick Picture source: University of Pennsylvania Museum website [2]

Birth bricks [2] on which the woman in labour crouched, were decorated with depictions of Hathor and other goddesses and were believed to bestow protection on the mother and above all her baby, and charms were used to guard children from evil demons [18] . Boys appear to have been favoured by their parents and given better protection, e.g. only boy's names are mentioned on apotropaic wands carved of ivory and decorated with pictures of protective deities. [25]

The dead and their resting place needed protecting too and, as history has proven, ancient curses turned out to be most ineffective

The elder of the house of Meni, he says: A Crocodile against him in the water. A snake against him on land. He will do something against that same one. At no time did I do anything against him. It is God who will judge. Inscription in the tomb of Meni, 6th Dynasty, at Giza

Amulets were worn by the living and given to the dead to empower and ward off evil [21] . Some mummies had dozens of scarabs packed into their bandages.

He (the sun god) created for them magic as a weapon, to fend off the blows of the happenings. The teachingsof Merikare,Middle Kingdom After Jan Assmann Ägypten - Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur, p.72

As diseases were thought to be caused by spirits, healing was a magical science: the giving of medicines and the nursing care were accompanied by spells designed to expel these pathogenic agents.

Get thee back, thou enemy, thou dead man or woman ... Thou dost not enter into his phallus, so that it grows limp. Thou dost not cast seed into his anus (?) ... Gardiner,Theban Ostraca, C 1,p.13-15

According to the Bentresh Stela, describing an apparently fictitious medical case in the strange far-off country of Bekhten, when the daughter of the chief fell ill, the statue of Khonsu-the-Plan-Maker, Great God, Smiter of evil Spirits was sent from Egypt:

Then this god went to the place where Bentresh was. Then he wrought the protection of the daughter of the chief of Bekhten. She became well immediately. Then said the spirit which was in her before Khonsu-the-Plan-Maker-in-Thebes: "Thou comest in peace, thou great god, smiting the barbarians......... I am thy servant. I will go to the place whence I came, to satisfy thy heart concerning that, on account of which thou comest .........." Bentresh Stela possibly27th dynasty or later James Henry Breasted AncientRecords of Egypt Part Three, §443 f.

Physicians, priests and magicians - no clear demarcation line appears to have separated these, to our eyes very different, callings -seemingly worked according to quite strict guidelines as to how the body was to be examined, how the results were to be interpreted and which treatments were to be performed and which were not.

There are vessels in every limb of the body. When some physician, some sakhmet priest, some magician lays his finger on the head, on the back of the head, on the hands, on the place of the heart, on both arms and both legs, then he will feel the heart, as there are vessels in every limb of the body and it (i.e. the heart) 'speaks' at the beginning of the vessels of all body parts. EbersPapyrus, col. 99,Middle Kingdom

The more radical cures, like Isis restoring Osiris to life or Khufu's magician Djedi re-attaching cut-off heads belonged strictly to the realms of mythology or fancy.

The acquisition of knowledge concerning spiritual beings or the future enhanced a person's control over his destiny. One path to such knowledge was the interpretation of dreams, which was also used for justifying one's actions or legitimizing one's power:

In year 1, of his coronation as king ...... his majesty saw a dream by night: two serpents, one upon his right, the other upon his left. Then his majesty awoke, and he found them not. His majesty said: "Wherefore [has] this [come] to me?" Then they answered him, saying: "Thine is the Southland; take for thyself (also) the Northland. The two goddesses shine upon thy brow, the land is given to thee, in its length and its breadth. [No] other divides it with thee." Stela ofTanutamen 25th dynasty JamesHenryBreasted Ancient Recordsof Egypt Part Four § 922

The power attained through magic could serve many purposes, good or evil. It could be used to manipulate people's behaviour or feelings as the many love-spells prove [23] . According to the writings of Pseudo-Callisthenes Nectanebo II used magic to defend his country from outside enemies.

Magical stela, middle of 4th century BCE => Picture source: Metropolitan Museum [7]

Whenever he was threatened with invasion by sea or by land he succeeded in destroying the power of his enemies, and in driving them from his coasts or frontiers; and this he did by the following means. If the enemy came against him by sea, instead of sending out his sailors to fight them, he retired into a certain chamber, and having brought forth a bowl which he kept for the purpose, he filled it with water, and then, having made wax figures of the ships and men of the enemy, and also of his own men and ships, he set them upon the water in the bowl, his men on one side, and those of the enemy on the other. He then came out, and having put on the cloak of an Egyptian prophet and taken an ebony rod in his hand, he returned into the chamber, and uttering words of power he invoked the gods who help men to work magic, and the winds, and the subterranean demons, which straightway came to his aid. By their means the figures of the men in wax sprang into life and began to fight, and the ships of wax began to move about likewise; but the figures which represented his own men vanquished those which represented the enemy, and as the figures of the ships and men of the hostile fleet sank through the water to the bottom of the bowl, even so did the real ships and men sink through the waters to the bottom of the sea. In this way he succeeded in maintaining his power, and he continued to occupy his kingdom in peace for a considerable period. E. A. WallisBudgeEgyptian Magic [4]

Through death a person lost his power over his body. In order for him to pass safely through the underworld his mummy's sensual functions had to be restored. This was done in the ceremony of the opening of the mouth. Statues were similarly empowered.

There was no tradition of magic that was evil in itself, what we would refer to as Black Magic, but magic could be abused and was in these instances treated as criminal behaviour, though possibly especially abhorrent. Both in the Rollin and the Lee Papyrus the deeds of magicians who had supported a conspiracy against Ramses III were called "great crimes of death", "the abominations of the land" or the like, probably because the victim had been the king himself.

The practice of magic

The [magician Horus-son-of] Paneshe returned [quickly]; he brought his books and his amulets to [where Pharaoh] was. He recited a spell to him and bound an amulet on him, to prevent the sorceries of the Nubians from gaining power over him. He [went] out from Pharaoh's presence, took his offerings and libations, went on board a boat, and hastened to Khmun. He went to the temple of Khmun, [made his] offerings and his libations before Thoth, the eight-times great, the lord of Khmun, the great god. He made a prayer before him saying: "Turn your face to me, my lord Thoth! Let not the Nubians take the shame of Egypt to the land of Nubia! It is you who [created] magic [spells]. It is you who suspended the sky, who founded the earth and the netherworld, who placed the gods with ....... Let me know how to save Pharaoh [from the sorceries of the] Nubians!" From the story Prince Khamwasand Si-Osire [3]

Preparations

In order for magic spells to succeed elaborate preparations had to be made at times: It was generally wise not to choose an unlucky day, the time (dusk and dawn were especially auspicious) and place (often a dark chamber, a dark recess, a clean dark cell or a secret dark place) had to be appropriate, and, as is only proper for such spiritual endeavours, the ingredients, the medium and the magician had to be suitable, which generally meant that they had to be ritually pure: If it be that you do not apply (?) purity to it, it does not succeed; its chief matter is purity [9] . Thus in one divination spell a boy who has not been with a woman as medium was required, in another one could address the moon after being pure for three days. Implements and ingredients too needed to be acceptable, either new or carefully cleansed:

You go to a dark chamber with its [face] open to the South or East in a clean place: you sprinkle it with clean sand brought from the great river; you take a clean bronze cup or a new vessel of pottery and put a lok-measure of water that has settled (?) or of pure water into the [cup] and a lok-measure of real oil pure .... TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden Roman Period

One's own semen, a new brick or even milk of a black cow were relatively easy to come by, a two-tailed lizard on the other hand needed some searching, and Alexandrian weasels or hawks were becoming quite rare in the late first millennium BCE: in a temple which specialized in mummifying hawks there was a major scandal when it was discovered that the mummies contained anything but hawks.

Spells

The word, spoken or, perhaps even more potent, written down and read out aloud, was the means to influence other beings and bend them to one's will. Speech was often accompanied by actions, precisely prescribed rituals for which there were no obvious reasons and which were frequently repeated:

...... you take a vine-shoot before it has ripened grapes, you take it with your left hand, you put it into your right hand - when it has grown seven digits (in length) you carry it [into your] house, and you take the [fish] out of the oil, you tie it by its tail with a strip (?) of flax,you hang it up to . ..of(?) the vine-wood...... TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

Execration rituals included piercing of a figurine with needles or knives, spitting, or burning. Some pharaohs asserted their dominance over their enemies by symbolically trampling on them: they had their foes' pictures painted on the soles of their sandals.

Talisman facilitating the process ofchildbirth Ptolemaic Period Source: © GeorgesPoncet / Muséedu Louvre [16]

Many spells required the use of special foodstuffs [18] , magical implements, figurines, talismans and the like. During the Middle Kingdom magic knives [15] , sometimes also called apotropaic [14] wands, were made of carved hippo tusks and often decorated with animal depictions. One of them carried the words Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children and the spells were hoped to afford protection from snakes, scorpions [28] and other dangers. Animal figurines were among the equipment of tombs. Very popular were hippo talismans. Hippos are fiercely protective of their young and dangerous to man, the dead were therefore frequently endowed with figurines which had a leg purposely broken off to prevent them from hurting the tomb owners. Vessels, lamps, knives and other utensils were used. Blood (of smun-geese, hoopoes, nightjars, worms, puppies, humans etc), semen, oil and water were mixed with other animal or plant matter (shavings from the head of a dead man, hawk, ibis or crocodile eggs, gall of a gazelle, ankh-amu plant, [senepe plant], 'Great-of-Amen' plant, qes-ankh stone, genuine lapis-lazuli, 'footprint-of-Isis' plant). Myrrh and frankincense were burned as was the Anubis-plant. Turpentine and styrax (storax), a fragrant gum, were added to the incense [9] .

In execration rituals figurines were made of wax which could then easily be destroyed by force or by fire

Magic figurine Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue Nine - November/December 2001 [10]

This spell is to be recited over (an image of) Apophis drawn on a new sheet of papyrus in green ink, and (over a figure of) Apophis in red wax. See, his name is inscribed on it in green ink ... I have overthrown all the enemies of Pharaoh from all their seats in every place where they are. See, their names written on their breasts, having been made of wax, and also bound with bonds of black rope. Spit upon them! To be trampled with the left foot, to be fallen with the spear (and) knife; to be placed on the fire in the melting-furnace of the copper-smiths ... It is a burning in a fire of bryony. Its ashes are placed in a pot of urine, which is pressed firmly into a unique fire. Nine Measuresof Magic; Part3: 'Overthrowing Apophis': Egyptian ritual in practice Ancient Egypt Magazine Issue Nine- November/December 2001 [10]

Things were often chosen for their colour. Black, mentioned twenty times in the Demotic Magical Papyrus, and white, twelve instances, dominated: milk from a black cow, blood of a black dog, a new white lamp etc. Great importance was attached to the names of the invoked gods or spirits, names which were hidden from the uninitiated. The very knowledge of their true names as opposed to those more widely known (Sarpot Mui-Sro is my name, Light-scarab-noble (?) is my true name) [9] , gave one considerable power over them. These appellations had to be pronounced properly, in the right sequence and in their entirety:

'........ Io, Tabao, Soukhamamon, Akhakhanbou, Sanauani, Ethie, Komto, Kethos, Basaethori, Thmila, Akhkhou, give me answer as to everything about which I ask here to-day.' Seven times. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

This invocation was to be repeated seven times. Often a simple two-fold repetition seemed to suffice, but three-, four- and even nine-fold reiterations were also frequent. In Ani's Book of the Dead, the deceased reaffirms his innocence four times:

I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. BudgeThe Book ofthe Dead,Chapter 125 [8]

These magical numbers were also important in other contexts. A certain love spell required nine apple-pips together with your urine, another a Kesh...-fish of nine digits and black. For a vessel divination three new bricks were needed; and one was supposed to pour an unsavory concoction of semen, blood and other ingredients into a cup of wine and add three uteh to it of the first-fruits of the vintage. Other numbers like five, six or eight were rarely used [9] .

When the life of a patient was in danger because of a snake bite, a sekhmet priest might threaten to cause the solar barque to run aground on a sandbank, describing the dire consequences that would ensue to the very fabric of the world:

The sun barque is at rest and does not proceed, The sun is still in the same spot as yesterday. The nourishment is without ship, the temple is barred, There the disease will turn back the disturbance To yesterday's location. The daemon of darkness is about, the times are not separated. The shadow's shapes cannot be observed anymore. The springs are blocked, the plants wither, Life is taken from the living Until Horus recovers for his mother Isis, And until the patient's health is restored as well. After Jan Assmann Ägypten - Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur, p.85

The need of the deceased for magic was perhaps even greater than that of the living. After dying they were completely helpless until their faculties had been restored by the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth and they had been equipped with the knowledge needed to address gods and daemons by their hidden, true names and the spells necessary to ward off the dangers they would encounter.

Homage to thee, O great God, Lord of Maati! I have come unto thee, O my Lord, and I have brought myself hither that I may behold thy beauties. I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of the Forty-two Gods who live with thee in this Hall of Maati, who live by keeping ward over sinners, and who feed upon their blood on the day when the consciences of men are reckoned up in the presence of the god Un-Nefer. In truth thy name is "Rehti-Merti-Nebti-Maati." ThePapyrus of Ani, translated by E.A.W. Budge

But not all was gloom in the Netherworld. The duties a person had to perform by himself in this world, could be attended to by a stand-in, an ushabti (also called shawabti at times) in the next, if you knew how to make him do it [19] :

Spell for causing a shawabti to work for its owner in the underworld. To be recited over the shawabti, which will be made either of tamarisk or thorn wood. This shall be carved to resemble its owner as he appeared in life, and placed in the tomb. Look upon this man, ye gods, transfigured souls and spirits of the dead, for he has acquired force, seized his moment, taken on royal authority, he's a pharaoh, ruling mankind, controlling them like cattle. They were created to serve him. The gods themselves ordained it. Now, shawabti: If, in the world of the dead, X is ordered to perform the yearly stint of public work all Egyptians owe their pharaoh, be it to move bricks, level off a plot of ground, re-survey land when the Nile-flood recedes or till new-planted fields, you will say; "Here I am!" to any functionary who comes looking for X while he is trying to enjoy his meal of funerary offerings. Take up your hoe, shawabti, your pick, your demarcation pegs, your basket, just as any slave would for his master. O shawabti made for X, if X is called for his obligations to the state you will pipe up: "Here I am!" whether X is summoned to oversee workers in the new-planted fields, tend to irrigation, move sand from East to West or vice versa "Here I am!" you will say and take his place. Coffin Text 472, translated byJacob Rabinowitz [6]

Addressing supernatural powers

Prayers and offerings

In dealing with the gods care was required. They were powerful and, consequently, highly respected: Mut carried the epithet Great in Magic, the vulture-headed Heknet [26] , the Praiser, was Mistress of Spirits, [27] the hippo goddess Taweret was called Great of Sorcery and Sekhmet was the Powerful One. Their nature was often dual: Taweret was a protectress against Typhonic powers, carrying an ankh or a burning torch, but she had the form of an extremely dangerous animal [13] ; Sekhmet, a ferocious lion goddess, brought death and destruction when she accompanied the pharaoh on his campaigns of war, but was the main support of the healers in their fight against disease. It was best to treat them with reverence. Many people today may see practices such as prayers and offerings to gods as distinct from magic, it was not to the Egyptians. Both the living and the dead went to great lengths to receive the blessing of the gods. Hymns of praise were composed and recited, written down on papyrus and put in the tombs. Offerings of food, real or carved on walls, were supposed to satiate the god's hunger and thirst. Just as the statue of the god Amen for instance was the god himself, a magician, by identifying himself with a god, was transformed into him

'I will say: "Come to me Montu, lord of the day! Come, that you may put N born of N into my hand like an insect in the mouth of a bird". I am Montu whom the gods adore. I will sever your bones and eat your flesh.' Ostracon found at Deir el Medine 19th dynasty Ancient EgyptMagazine: Nine measures of magic [11]

Invoking and dismissing

Lesser magical beings like demons, spirits or the deceased did not quite warrant the same amount of respect. But they were the main agents of magic and could be invoked by simple means:

Prescription to make them speak: you put a frog's head on the brazier, then they speak.

or

Prescription for bringing the gods in by force: you put the bile of a crocodile with pounded frankincense on the brazier. If you wish to make them come in quickly again, you put stalks (?) of anise (?) on the brazier together with the egg-shell as above, then the charm works at once. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

If they did not obey they (even lamps) could be threatened:

I will not give thee oil, I will not give thee fat. O lamp; verily I will give thee the body of the female cow and put blood of the male bull into (?) thee and put thy band to the testicles (?) of the enemy of Horus. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

Once one had received their services it was best to send them away as they could be unpredictable

His dismissal formula: 'Farewell (bis) Anubis, the good ox-herd, Anubis (bis), the son of a (?) jackal (and ?) a dog . . . another volume saith: the child of . . . Isis (?) (and ) a dog, Nabrishoth, the Cherub (?) of Amenti, king of those of.....' Say seven times.

or

The charm which you pronounce when you dismiss them to their place: 'Good dispatch, joyful dispatch!' TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

Picture sources: [ ] Coptic spell papyrus: Duke Papyrus Archive [ ] Ay dressed as High Priest: Casson Ancient Egypt [ ] Birth brick: University of Pennsylvania Museum website [2] [ ] Magical stela: Metropolitan Museum, 360-343 B.C.E.; Dynasty 30, reign of Nectanebo II; Greywacke; H. 32 7/8 in. (83.5 cm), Fletcher Fund, 1950 [7] [ ] Talisman facilitating the process of childbirth: © Georges Poncet / Musée du Louvre [16] [ ] Magic figurine: Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue Nine - November/December 2001 [10] [ ] Late Period faience udjat: University College, London [ ] Love charm: Étienne Drioton, Un charme d'amour égyptien d'époque gréco-romaine, BIFAO 41 (1942), p.75

Footnotes: [1] Theologians belonging to the three monotheistic religions tend to deny this, drawing a clear line between their 'pure' doctrines devoid of superstition and paganism. But there is no real difference in attitude between Christians, Jews and Muslims and followers of other traditions. They all use rituals which only to a believer are not classified as magical. Thus, Jews kiss the mezuzah, a small case attached to the doorpost containing religious texts, Christians cross themselves, and Muslims circle around a stone when performing the hadj. People will claim that it is the thought behind the ritual which counts - which of course is exactly what magic is all about. [14] apotropaic: averting evil, from Greek apotrepein, turn away [17] The magic itself was the essence, not the magician. In the Pyramid Texts king Pepi threatened the gods with the withholding of all offerings if they did not assist him in rising to the heavens

It is not this king Pepi who says this against you, it is the charm which says this against you, ye gods. J.H. Breasted Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 111

[19] If the eagerness of the ushabtis to do their duty was indicative of the work ethics of Egyptian workers we may begin to sympathize with their employers: the tombs ended up by being filled with statuettes, as each was expected to be active for just one day in the year, and there were overseer ushabtis carrying flails. [20] At least in tales hard study could be avoided, possibly at the price of upsetting one's stomach: Prince Naneferptah

... called for a new piece of papyrus, and wrote on it all that was in the book before him. He dipped it in beer, and washed it off in the liquid; for he knew that if it were washed off, and he drank it, he would know all that there was in the writing. Princess Ahura: The Magic Book

[21] In his 1914 monograph on amulets Petrie distinguished five classes of amulets [22] : 1. Similars, or Homopoeic, which are for influencing similar parts, or functions, or occurrences, for the wearer 2. Powers or Dynatic, for conferring powers and capacities, especially upon the dead; 3. Property or Ktematic, which are entirely derived from the funeral offerings, and are thus peculiar to Egypt; 4. Protection or Phylactic, such as charms and curative amulets; 5. Gods or Theophoric, connected with the worship of the gods and their functions [23] The little statuette on the right is about 8 centimetres tall, dates to the Graeco-Roman period, and bears an inscription invoking the powers the deceased depicted by the statuette was thought to have:

Rise and bind him whom I look at, to be my lover, (for) I adore his face. After EtienneDrioton, Un charmed'amour égyptien d'époque gréco-romaine,BIFAO 41 (1942), p.79

It appears that the constraint of being magically bound to do someone's will could be broken by an encounter with a magician or hearing some auspicious noise like the braying of an ass or the bark of a dog. [24]Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae website => Altägyptisches Wörterbuch, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften => Grabinschriften => Gisa => Grabkomplex des Kaiemankh (G 4561) => Grabkomplex des Rawer (PM III 265-269) => Relief- und Stelenfragmente => Biographische Inschriftenstele [25] Meskell, op.cit., p.65 [26] W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p.133 [27] Francis Llewellyn Griffith, Herbert Thompson. The Leyden papyrus: an Egyptian magical book, Courier Dover Publications, 1974, p.159 [29] The stories in Exodus should not be considered to be historical facts. They reflect the Hebrew traditions which appear to be based on intimated knowledge of the ancient Egyptian society.

Bibliography: Jan Assmann Ägypten - Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur Jan Assmann, Schöpfungsmythen und Kreativitätskonzepte im alten Ägypten James Henry Breasted Ancient Records of Egypt, Chicago 1906 James Henry Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt E.A.W. Budge, The Book of the Dead E.A.W. Budge, Egyptian Magic Étienne Drioton, "Un charme d'amour égyptien d'époque gréco-romaine," BIFAO 41 (1942), p.79 Adolf Erman, A Handbook of Egyptian Religion A.Gardiner, Theban Ostraca F.Ll. Griffith, The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden F.Ll. Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis; The Sethon of Herodotus and The Demotic Tales of Khamuas Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Lynn Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt, Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 069100448X, 9780691004488 Geraldine Pinch, Magic in Ancient Egypt Jacob Rabinowitz, Isle of Fire Kurt Sethe, Von Zahlen und Zahlworten bei den alten Ägyptern, 1916 Aloisia de Trafford, The Pyramid Texts: some thoughts on their medium and message Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt The British and Foreign Bible Society The Holy Bible Ancient Egypt Magazine Nine Measures of Magic; Part 3: 'Overthrowing Apophis': Egyptian ritual in practice , Issue Nine - November/December 2001 Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums, sechste Abteilung, Heft 1, 1929

[9] The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

[18] Charm for the protection of a child

[28] Ta-bitjet: Charm against scorpions

Incantations against reptiles and noxious creatures in general

Index of topics

Main index and search page

Offsite links (Opening in a new window) Theseare justsuggestions forfurther reading. I do not assume any responsibilityfor the contentofthesesites

Magic in Greco-Roman Egypt by I.M.P. Kousoulis

[2] Birth brick, page 35

[3] Prince Khamwas and Si-Osire

[4] E. A. Wallis Budge Egyptian Magic, Chapter III

[5] Pyramid Texts Utterances 273-274: "The Cannibal Hymn"

[6] Book of the Dead: Coffin Texts number 472

[7] The Metropolitan Museum

[8] The Coming into Day, Chapter 125

[12] Hermes Trismegistus - The Archaic Underground Tradition

Nine Measures of Magic, part 1

[11] Nine Measures of Magic, part 2

[10] Nine Measures of Magic, part 3

[13] Taweret, Goddess-Demoness of Birth, Rebirth and the Northern Sky

[15] Magic ivory wand

[16] Gemme magique grecque (Louvre Museum)

[22] Amulets of Ancient Egypt (Introduction to the book by Carol Andrews)

Heka at the Louvre

Witchcraft at the Louvre

Udjat: The sacred eye

Tales of Magic in Ancient Egypt

Dreaming like an Egyptian By Robert Moss

Tales of Ancient Egypt: Princess Ahura: The Magic Book, c. 1100 BCE

Witchcraft at the Louvre: Heka, Magic and Bewitchment in Ancient Egypt

Egyptian Magic by E. A. Wallis Budge

Medical Magic

Khaemwaset

Wax amulets

Papyrus amulet

Khaemwaset

Magical bowl, 3rd-4th century CE

Vorläufige Bibliographie Magie

Repelling Demons - Protecting Newborns

Isis and the Name of Ra

Amulets of Ancient Egypt: Introduction by Carol Andrews

Feedback: please report broken links, mistakes - factual or otherwise,etc. to me. thanks.

© May2003 Minor updates: August 2008 December 2006 June 2004 June 2003

Alternative and mistaken spellings: ushabti ushabty shabti shabty heqa magick

[elizabethcariasa]

The latest COVID-19 risk? Scams to steal relief money

You're following all the recommended pandemic precautions. You stay home. You have your groceries and meals delivered. If you must go out, it's for drive-through or curbside pickup of necessary items. You always wear a mask when you leave your home.

But you still might not be safe from the latest iteration of the coronavirus outbreak.

This time, though, it's not medical, but financial.

Scammers are coming to us via emails and phone calls, using a variety of tricks to get their hands on our COVID-19 economic impact payments (EIPs) and other funds.

The Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation (CI) division says it has seen more scams that are centered on the payments, which are still being distributed as direct deposits to bank accounts, snail mailed paper U.S. Treasury checks and prepaid debit cards.

That variety of delivery methods means a similar diverse assortment of EIP schemes.

"Criminals seize on every opportunity to exploit bad situations, and this pandemic is no exception," said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. "The pursuit of those who participate in COVID-19 related scams, intentionally abusing the programs intended to help millions of Americans during these uncertain times, will long remain a significant priority of both the IRS and IRS-CI."

EIP phishing season is here: Not surprisingly, the usual scam methodologies have ramped up since the payments — a maximum of $1,200 for eligible individuals, twice that for married couples filing jointly and $500 for each qualifying child — were approved in late March as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

IRS CI says it has seen a tremendous increase in phishing schemes utilizing emails, letters, texts and links. These phishing schemes are using keywords such as "Corona Virus," "COVID-19" and "Stimulus" in varying ways.

While the phishing hook is the COVID-19 EIP, they operate the same old way. They use our fear of the virus, both medical and economic in the case of the coronavirus. That the stimulus amounts can vary based on which tax year the IRS used to calculate them and the recipients' incomes also create uncertainty that the con artists use.

The crooks send out their fake messages to as many people as possible in order to entice them to reveal personally identifying information or financial information, including account numbers and passwords. Doing so, according to the criminals, can help you get your payment sooner or, if you've already received it, the con artists say they can help you get more.

Criminals take every opportunity to defraud unsuspecting victims, especially people in a state of need. #IRS urges you to watch for schemes emerging around Economic Impact Payments. https://t.co/d9J5ECUCSN #COVIDreliefIRS pic.twitter.com/6Ra0JA11zy

— IRStaxsecurity (@IRStaxsecurity) June 8, 2020

Other types of scams: In addition to the phishing, the IRS says other COVID-19 related scams that are popping up nationwide. They include:

Fake charities that solicit donations for individuals, groups and areas affected by the disease. There are some legitimate efforts, both via traditional IRS-authorized 501(c)(3) organizations and independently operated groups designed for smaller, more specific aid targets. Don't be pressured into giving. Take the time to check out the ostensible charities. And remember, if you want to claim a tax deduction for your donation, you must give to a group that been approved by the IRS. 

Fraudulent investment opportunities that scurrilous promoters say will let you get in on the ground floor of companies working on a coronavirus vaccine. Once the vaccines are ready, goes the con, the companies' value and your investment in it will skyrocket. Again, before giving you money to anyone, charity or business related, check out the project that is seeking your financial support. Legitimate investment possibilities provide comprehensive reports of their efforts and goals.

Fake COVID-19 treatments also are being pushed by con artists. These questionable items range from at-home test kits to cures and vaccines to pills to lessen the virus's symptoms. Other scams purport to sell large quantities of medical supplies through the creation of fake shops, websites, social media accounts and email addresses where the criminal fails to deliver promised supplies after receiving funds.

"Criminals try to take advantage of our most vulnerable times and our most vulnerable populations. But because we have seen many of these criminals and schemes before, we know how to find them and we know how to expose them," said Don Fort, Chief of IRS CI.

Florida, as usual, is a scam hotbed: The Sunshine State has long been a breeding ground for tax scams, so it's no surprise that COVID-19 schemes are proliferating there, too.

The IRS CI Field Office in Tampa has reported a rash of COVID-19 EIP scams across the state in northeast Florida, including St Johns County. Most of the efforts there, say officials, are coronavirus-related phishing attempts.

Why do cyber criminals seem to flock to Florida, which is a prime scam location for all sorts of schemes, from tax return fraud to identity theft to coronavirus crimes? One reason might be the demographics of the state.

More than 20 percent of Florida's population is age 65 or older and is growing. And just as older folks are the prime victims of the coronavirus itself — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report eight out of 10 coronavirus deaths in the United States have occurred in adults 65 and older — older Americans also tend to be in con artists' cross hairs.

Crooks tend to find many older individuals both more fearful and more trusting. Both personality traits can make a person more susceptible to fake claims.  

Report scam attempts: Just as you do with other tax-related scams, report any COVID-19 schemes to the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF). You can call the toll-free hotline at 1-866-720-5721 or fill out a the NCDF's online complaint form.

You call can report fraud or theft of a COVID-19 economic relief payment to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The best way to do that is with TIGTA's online reporting option at its online coronavirus scam page.

Finally, don't forget about the IRS. You can always report phishing attempts, especially unsolicited efforts to gather tax-related information, to the agency. Simply forward the email to phishing@irs.gov.

Be careful out there everyone. Safeguard both your physical and financial health so we all can make it through the coronavirus pandemic as unscathed as possible.

You also might find these items of interest:

6 ways to know your COVID-19 check is real

Don't fall for these 4 common COVID-19 payment scams

New England duo charged with fraudulently seeking coronavirus relief loans

  Coronavirus Caveat & More Information In 2020, we're all dealing with extraordinary circumstances, both in our daily lives and when it comes to our taxes. The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to reduce its transmission and protect ourselves and our families means that, for the most part, we're focusing on just getting through these trying days. But life as we knew it before the coronavirus will return, along with our mundane tax matters. Here's hoping that happens soon! In the meantime, you can find more on the virus and its effects on our taxes by clicking Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Taxes.

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[truemedian]

Hidden figure: how The Invisible Man preys on real-world female fears

There’s a scene in the first half of The Invisible Man, a psychological horror film that reinvents the HG Wells character as an abusive ex-turned-stalker , when the protagonist, Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss), realizes she’s not alone in her room. She can’t be sure she hears breathing, or the slight brush of footfalls; she definitely can’t see anyone. But she can feel something is wrong – the gut-level sense one gets from having another heartbeat in the room draws her from bed. She checks the living room, the kitchen, the porch outside – there’s no one she can see, only an invisible person’s cold exhale on her shoulder. The scene is played for suspense – it’s the first introduction to the movie’s villain as invisible tormenter – but it also, for me, conjures a more relatable fear. The Invisible Man (her ex-husband, Adrian) paws through her room and touches her things; he strips the covers as she sleeps and photographs her without her knowledge. Waking up, she can sense something is wrong and yet, she has no idea how bad it is. The Invisible Man is a far from perfect film with a second half that devolves into a messy action thriller, but while watching this quietly chilling scene, as an iPhone camera flashes across Cecilia’s sleeping body, I was chilled by the horrifying, and oft-considered, possibility of being watched at any given moment. The fear of surveillance – made ever present with today’s technology, lack of regulation and access to mounds of data – is implicit in the way I often think about myself moving throughout the world, as in: I wonder what about my life is or could be seen. Could someone film me changing, or posing in the mirror, or eating out of an ice-cream tub in my bed? If someone tried, what could they find about me online? If someone installed a camera in my apartment, or a bug in my phone, would I notice? How many photos of me exist that I don’t know about? My online privacy measures are haphazard and reactive, exploitable but (I assume) boring, like everyone else’s – being mass-hacked or traceable is, by now, a simmering anxiety; being specifically targeted by one stealthy person with a camera, especially as a woman, one of my worst fears. The Invisible Man and shows such as Netflix’s You, in which a handsome, too-good-to-be-true bookseller warps “knowing what’s best for you” into elaborate stalking and kidnapping routines (getting access to texts and emails, spying through windows, along with the mundane social media obsessions) can be highly implausible, with an air of material best left for a guilty binge. But they are popular (You was a word-of-mouth hit on Netflix two years after its run on Lifetime), and compulsively watchable, in part because they tap into the swamp of fear that is modern surveillance – which is to say, modern life. Recent news coverage has investigated how dating sites save your conversations, or how automatic location services on your phone unwittingly make you a moving, pinpointed target, or how fraught developments in facial recognition technology could spell the end of public anonymity. Law enforcement agencies across the country have already purchased an app which pairs images – security tape footage, a photobomb – with a database of millions of pictures scraped from sites such as Facebook, Venmo and YouTube. The New York Times investigation into the app said the tool, in the wrong hands, could potentially “identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew”. We seem to be living at a time when a series of technologies and seemingly innocuous shares have amassed into a sludge pile, drowning out public anonymity or individual privacy. This is all obviously less severe and traumatic than an abusive ex stalking a woman in her bedroom, but it’s the soup of surveillance and speculation that The Invisible Man boils down to its most extreme and (currently) impossible degree; it’s not yet possible for someone to don an invisibility suit and literally breathe over your shoulder at home, but it is very possible to see the real-world steps that could, in theory, facilitate unwanted visibility. The Invisible Man is a physical manifestation and exaggeration of the queasiness with surveillance capitalism: the feeling of someone watching you, of someone is stringing together the clues you didn’t mean to leave, of someone – a person, a company, the algorithm – knowing more about you than you know about yourself. Of course, gaslighting and stalking women are not new concepts for film and TV – the term gaslighting comes from the 1940 film Gaslight – but the current era of social media and location tracking, the proliferation of lenses and security cameras, and the many, many access points to secure information or communication online (texts, Facebook messages, emails) means the methods of stalking and harassment are ever-expanding, insidious and invisible. There’s a reason You was such a runaway hit on Netflix (their fifth most watched show in 2019), and that The Invisible Man is projected to make between $25-35m in its opening weekend (easily recouping its $7m budget): they explore a fear many women inherently swallow as they make their way through the world now. You addictively targeted the vulnerabilities fostered by an easy, unencumbered digital life; in hiding the abusive ex in plain sight, The Invisible Man embodies the very real dread of digital harassment and stalking. There’s a fine line between exploring a latent, real-world anxiety through the extreme and exploiting a woman’s pain on-screen – one The Invisible Man crosses by the end as Cecilia becomes, despite Moss’s performance, more of a terrorized punching bag and action pawn than person. But while its action-movie flourishes and invisibility suit may be the stuff of silly, popcorn-cinema fantasy, The Invisible Man will strike a chord with many of us because the surveillance fears it explores – pictures you don’t know about, your ability to be known and found – are increasingly, chillingly real. Read More Read the full article

[bountyofbeads]

Wealth, power and justice: The Jeffrey Epstein case

https://news.yahoo.com/wealth-power-and-justice-the-jeffrey-epstein-case-234032896.html

WEALTH, POWER AND JUSTICE: THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN CASE

EDITOR MIKE BEBERNES | Published July 11, 2019 8:00 PM ET | Yahoo 360 | Posted July 11, 2019 |

The 360 is a feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.

Speed read

What's happening: Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire money manager with connections to a long list of rich and powerful figures, was arrested Saturday on charges he allegedly ran a sex trafficking ring and abused dozens of underage girls. Federal prosecutors said a raid on Epstein's New York mansion uncovered "a vast trove" of images and CDs that they believe contain lewd images of minors.

The case has drawn massive attention, in part because of Epstein's deep Rolodex of high-profile past acquaintances, including both President Trump and former President Bill Clinton. The new charges have also led to scrutiny of an agreement Epstein reached with federal authorities in 2008 that allowed him to serve just 13 months in jail and register as a sex offender after facing charges that could have led to his being locked away for decades. The deal also granted immunity to "any potential co-conspirators."

The deal was agreed to by Alexander Acosta, who was a U.S. attorney at the time and is currently secretary of labor in the Trump administration. Acosta has been accused of offering a��"sweetheart deal" to a well-connected figure, and a number of prominent politicians have called for him to resign. In February, a judge ruled Acosta and federal prosecutors violated the law by not informing the victims of the deal.

Acosta defended his decision making in a press conference Wednesday, saying that Epstein could have gone free without punishment if the case had gone to trial. A former Florida state attorney who was in office at the time of the deal said Acosta's account was an attempt to "rewrite history" of the true events.

Why there's debate: Epstein's case highlights how power, social status, wealth and political connections surround justice in America. At the center of the debate is how the wealthy and powerful can insulate themselves from punishment for alleged misdeeds in ways that aren't available to average people.

Some argue that the sensationalism and celebrity of the case glosses over the reality of just how common the exploitation of young girls is. Pervasive inequality and a justice system that devalues victims, they say, allow crimes like the ones Epstein is accused of to persist.

There are also questions about where Epstein's wealth came from in the first place, how political foes twist events to fit their own means, the value of newspaper journalism and whether Epstein will bring anyone else down with him.

What's next: The new case against Epstein is in its early stages and could entail a long legal battle. It's possible he may be offered and accept a plea deal, which would likely require him to provide information on other participants of his alleged trafficking ring. Acosta may still be at risk of losing his position as secretary of labor. Trump is reportedly watching the tone of media coverage as part of his decision whether to fire Acosta.

Perspectives

The case highlights how a corrupt system protects people in power

"The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes." — Michelle Goldberg, New York Times

The case shows how the justice system fails survivors of sex crimes

"Survivors don't want to have to choose between healing and justice — let alone between minimizing their ongoing trauma and seeking justice — but those are the choices with which the current system often leaves them." — Alison Turkos, NBC News

"There are a lot of complicated threads to untangle in the case of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. … We cannot forget that, at heart, this is a very high-end version of the same treatment that victims of sexual crimes — particularly young women — receive at the hands of the justice system all the time." — Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times

Epstein is a perfect example of the forces the #MeToo movement has battled

"The story of how Epstein initially got such a light sentence — and who was involved — is a master class in the power dynamics that have been exposed by the #MeToo movement but have yet to truly change." — Jane Coastan and Anna North, Vox

The case draws attention to how America's justice system favors the rich and powerful

"That Epstein’s victims have had to wait so many years for justice to be done … is yet one more disturbing reminder that we have two justice systems in America. One for the rich and well-connected, who can game the system, throw money at their problems, walk away unscathed, and never have to say they’re sorry, and one for the rest of us." — Michael A. Cohen, Boston Globe

The sensationalism of the case overlooks the damage experienced by the victims

"The salivating over Epstein’s indictment because of which other celebs and politicos it may implicate is perhaps unavoidable in today’s culture, but it’s also perverse, considering the seriousness of the charges against him and the horrific number of victims he may have abused. They are the real story, and they deserve our full attention." — S.E. Cupp, New York Daily News

Trump's own allegations of misconduct fuel a broader desire for justice

"But frustration at [Trump's] impunity helped create a drive for accountability for other powerful men who had abused women. Trump didn’t make Harvey Weinstein into a moral monster, and Weinstein’s conduct was not a secret among the powerful, but without Trump, Weinstein might still be at it. The same is now true of Epstein." — David A. Graham, Atlantic

The case can help the public understand the more mundane way sex trafficking typically plays out

"When jurors hear 'sex trafficking,' they conjure up images of victims bound by chains, subjected to physical force and imprisonment. While some cases include those aggravating facts, more often, the victim instead chooses to stay with her assailant, who preys upon a vulnerability." — Barbara McQuade, New York Magazine

Epstein became rich in a system that offers little scrutiny of the finance sector

"He claimed he’d fueled a lifestyle of vast homes, a private jet, and endless travel by managing the money of billionaires and taking a commission, a story that no one I spoke to believed."— Vicki Ward, Daily Beast

Epstein's billionaire image may be a lie

"Mr. Epstein is routinely described as a billionaire and brilliant financier, and he rubbed elbows with the powerful, including former and future presidents. … Much of that appears to be an illusion, and there is little evidence that Mr. Epstein is a billionaire." — James B. Stewart, et al., New York Time

[aliceviceroy]

“I am 30 years old and I am struggling to find sanity. Between the Christian schools, homeschooling, the Christian group home (indoctrinating work camp) and different churches in different cities, I am a psychological, emotional and spiritual mess.”   –A former Evangelical

If a former believer says that Christianity made her depressed, obsessive, or post-traumatic, she is likely to be dismissed as an exaggerator. She might describe panic attacks about the rapture; moods that swung from ecstasy about God’s overwhelming love to suicidal self-loathing about repeated sins; or an obsession with sexual purity.

A symptom like one of these clearly has a religious component, yet many people instinctively blame the victim. They will say that the wounded former believer was prone to anxiety or depression or obsession in the first place—that his Christianity somehow got corrupted by his predisposition to psychological problems. Or they will say that he wasn’t a real Christian. If only he had prayed in faith believing or loved God with all his heart, soul and mind, if only he had really been saved—then he would have experienced the peace that passes all understanding.

But the reality is far more complex. It is true that symptoms like depression or panic attacks most often strike those of us who are vulnerable, perhaps because of genetics or perhaps because situational stressors have worn us down. But certain aspects of Christian beliefs and Christian living also can create those stressors, even setting up multigenerational patterns of abuse, trauma, and self-abuse. Also, over time some religious beliefs can create habitual thought patterns that actually alter brain function, making it difficult for people to heal or grow.

The purveyors of religion insist that their product is so powerful it can transform a life, but somehow, magically, it has no risks. In reality, when a medicine is powerful, it usually has the potential to be toxic, especially in the wrong combination or at the wrong dose. And religion is powerful medicine!

In this discussion, we focus on the variants of Christianity that are based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. These include Evangelical and fundamentalist churches, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and other conservative sects. These groups share the characteristics of requiring conformity for membership, a view that humans need salvation, and a focus on the spiritual world as superior to the natural world. These views are in contrast to liberal, progressive Christian churches with a humanistic viewpoint, a focus on the present, and social justice.

Religion Exploits Normal Human Mental Processes.

To understand the power of religion, it is helpful to understand a bit about the structure of the human mind. Much of our mental activity has little to do with rationality and is utterly inaccessible to the conscious mind. The preferences, intentions and decisions that shape our lives are in turn shaped by memories and associations that can get laid down before we even develop the capacity for rational analysis.

Aspects of cognition like these determine how we go through life, what causes us distress, which goals we pursue and which we abandon, how we respond to failure, how we respond when other people hurt us—and how we respond when we hurt them. Religion derives its power in large part because it shapes these unconscious processes: the frames, metaphors, intuitions and emotions that operate before we even have a chance at conscious thought.

Some Religious Beliefs and Practices are More Harmful Than Others.

When it comes to psychological damage, certain religious beliefs and practices are reliably more toxic than others.

Janet Heimlich is an investigative journalist who has explored religious child maltreatment, which describes abuse and neglect in the service of religious belief. In her book, Breaking their Will, Heimlich identifies three characteristics of religious groups that are particularly prone to harming children. Clinical work with reclaimers, that is, people who are reclaiming their lives and in recovery from toxic religion, suggests that these same qualities put adults at risk, along with a particular set of manipulations found in fundamentalist Christian churches and biblical literalism.

1) Authoritarianism, creates a rigid power hierarchy and demands unquestioning obedience. In major theistic religions, this hierarchy has a god or gods at the top, represented by powerful church leaders who have power over male believers, who in turn have power over females and children. Authoritarian Christian sects often teach that “male headship” is God’s will. Parents may go so far as beating or starving their children on the authority of godly leaders. A book titled, To Train Up a Child, by minister Michael Pearl and his wife Debi, has been found in the homes of three Christian adoptive families who have punished their children to death.

2) Isolation or separatism, is promoted as a means of maintaining spiritual purity. Evangelical Christians warn against being “unequally yoked” with nonbelievers in marriages and even friendships. New converts often are encouraged to pull away from extended family members and old friends, except when there may be opportunities to convert them. Some churches encourage older members to take in young single adults and house them within a godly context until they find spiritually compatible partners, a process known by cult analysts as “shepherding.” Home schoolers and the Christian equivalent of madrassas cut off children from outside sources of information, often teaching rote learning and unquestioning obedience rather than broad curiosity.

3) Fear of sin, hell, a looming “end-times” apocalypse, or amoral heathens binds people to the group, which then provides the only safe escape from the horrifying dangers on the outside. In Evangelical Hell Houses, Halloween is used as an occasion to terrify children and teens about the tortures that await the damned. In the Left Behind book series and movie, the world degenerates into a bloodbath without the stabilizing presence of believers. Since the religious group is the only alternative to these horrors, anything that threatens the group itself—like criticism, taxation, scientific findings, or civil rights regulations—also becomes a target of fear.

Bible Belief Creates an Authoritarian, Isolative, Threat-based Model of Reality

In Bible-believing Christianity, psychological mind-control mechanisms are coupled with beliefs from the Iron Age, including the belief that women and children are possessions of men, that children who are not hit become spoiled, that each of us is born “utterly depraved”, and that a supernatural being demands unquestioning obedience. In this view, the salvation and righteousness of believers is constantly under threat from outsiders and dark spiritual forces. Consequently, Christians need to separate themselves emotionally, spiritually, and socially from the world.These beliefs are fundamental to their overarching mental framework or “deep frame” as linguist George Lakoff would call it. Small wonder then, that many Christians emerge wounded.

It is important to remember that this mindset permeates to a deep subconscious level. This is a realm of imagery, symbols, metaphor, emotion, instinct, and primary needs. Nature and nurture merge into a template for viewing the world which then filters every experience. The template selectively allows only the information that confirms their model of reality, creating a subjective sense of its veracity.

On the societal scale, humanity has been going through a massive shift for centuries, transitioning from a supernatural view of a world dominated by forces of good and evil to a natural understanding of the universe. The Bible-based Christian population however, might be considered a subset of the general population that is still within the old framework, that is, supernaturalism.

Children are Targeted for Indoctrination Because the Child Mind is Uniquely Vulnerable.

“Here I am, a fifty-one year old college professor, still smarting from the wounds inflicted by the righteous when I was a child. It is a slow, festering wound, one that smarts every day—in some way or another…. I thought I would leave all of that “God loves… God hates…” stuff behind, but not so. Such deep and confusing fear is not easily forgotten. It pops up in my perfectionism, my melancholy mood, the years of being obsessed with finding the assurance of personal salvation.”

Nowhere is the contrast of viewpoints more stark than in the secular and religious understandings of childhood. In the biblical view, a child is not a being that is born with amazing capabilities that will emerge with the right conditions like a beautiful flower in a well-attended garden. Rather, a child is born in sin, weak, ignorant, and rebellious, needing discipline to learn obedience. Independent thinking is seen as dangerous pride.

Because the child’s mind is uniquely susceptible to religious ideas, religious indoctrination particularly targets vulnerable young children. Cognitive development before age seven lacks abstract reasoning. Thinking is magical and primitive, black and white. Also, young humans are wired to obey authority because they are dependent on their caregivers just for survival. Much of their brain growth and development has to happen after birth, which means that children are extremely vulnerable to environmental influences in the first few years when neuronal pathways are formed.

By age five a child’s brain can understand primitive cause-and-effect logic and picture situations that are not present. Children at this have a tenuous grip on reality. They often have imaginary friends; dreams are quite real; and fantasy blurs with the mundane. To a child this age, it is eminently possible that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole and delivers presents if you are good and that 2000 years ago a man died a horrible death because you are naughty. Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, the Rapture, and hell, all can be quite real. The problem is that many of these teachings are terrifying.

For many years, one conversion technique targeting children and adolescents has been the use of movies about the “End Times.” This means a “Rapture” event, when real Christians are taken up to heaven leaving the earth to “Tribulation,” a terrifying time when an evil Antichrist will reign and the world will descend into anarchy.

When assaulted with such images and ideas at a young age, a child has no chance of emotional self-defense. Christian teachings that sound true when they are embedded in the child’s mind at this tender age can feel true for a lifetime. Even decades later former believers who intellectually reject these ideas can feel intense fear or shame when their unconscious mind is triggered.

Harms Range From Mild to Catastrophic.

One requirement for success as a sincere Christian is to find a way to believe that which would be unbelievable under normal rules of evidence and inquiry. Christianity contains concepts that help to safeguard belief, such as limiting outside information, practicing thought control, and self-denigration; but for some people the emotional numbing and intellectual suicide just isn’t enough. In other words, for a significant number of children in Christian families, the religion just doesn’t “take.” This can trigger guilt, conflict, and ultimately rejection or abandonment.

Others experience the threats and fear too keenly. For them, childhood can be torturous, and they may carry injuries into adulthood.

Still others are able to sincerely devote themselves to the faith as children but confront problems when they mature. They wrestle with factual and moral contradictions in the Bible and the church, or discover surprising alternatives. This can feel confusing and terrifying – like the whole world is falling apart.

Delayed Development and Life Skills. Many Christian parents seek to insulate their children from “worldly” influences. In the extreme, this can mean not only home schooling, but cutting off media, not allowing non-Christian friends, avoiding secular activities like plays or clubs, and spending time at church instead. Children miss out on crucial information– science, culture, history, reproductive health and more. When they grow older and leave such a sheltered environment, adjusting to the secular world can be like immigrating to a new culture. One of the biggest areas of challenge is delayed social development.

Religious Trauma Syndrome.  Today, in the field of mental health, the only religious diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is “Religious or Spiritual Problem.” This is merely a supplemental code (V Code) to assist in describing an underlying pathology. Unofficially, “scrupulosity,” is the term for obsessive-compulsive symptoms centered around religious themes such as blasphemy, unforgivable sin, and damnation. While each of these diagnoses has a place, neither covers the wide range of harms induced by religion.

Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is a new term, coined by Marlene Winell to name a recognizable set of symptoms experienced as a result of prolonged exposure to a toxic religious environment and/or the trauma of leaving the religion. It is akin to Complex PTSD, which is defined as ‘a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma with lack or loss of control, disempowerment, and in the context of either captivity or entrapment, i.e. the lack of a viable escape route for the victim’.

Though related to other kinds of chronic trauma, religious trauma is uniquely mind-twisting. The logic of the religion is circular and blames the victim for problems; the system demands deference to spiritual authorities no matter what they do; and the larger society may not identify a problem or intervene as in cases of physical or sexual abuse, even though the same symptoms of depression and anxiety and panic attacks can occur.

RTS, as a diagnosis, is in early stages of investigation, but appears to be a useful descriptor beyond the labels used for various symptoms – depression, anxiety, grief, anger, relationship issues, and others. It is our hope that it will lead to more knowledge, training, and treatment. Like the naming of other disorders such as anorexia or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), the RTS label can help sufferers feel less alone, confused, and self-blaming.

Leaving the Fold. Breaking out of a restrictive, mind-controlling religion can be liberating: Certain problems end(!), such as trying to twist one’s thinking to believe irrational doctrines, and conforming to repressive codes of behavior. However, for many reclaimers making the break is the most disruptive, difficult upheaval they have ever experienced. Individuals who were most sincere, devout, and dedicated often are the ones most traumatized when their religious world crumbles.

Rejecting a religious model of reality that has been passed on through generations is a major cognitive and emotional disruption. For many reclaimers, it is like a death or divorce. Their ‘relationship’ with God was a central assumption of their lives, and giving it up feels like an enormous loss to be grieved. It can be like losing a lover, a parent, or best friend.

On top of shattered assumptions comes the loss of family and friends. Churches vary with official doctrine about rejection. The Mormon Church, for all the intense focus on “family forever,” is devastating to leave, and the Jehovah Witnesses require families to shun members who are “disfellowshiped.”

The rupture can destroy homes, splitting spouses and alienating parents from children.

For Women, Psychological Costs of Belief Include Subjugation and Self-loathing.

Christianity poses a special set of psychological risks for people who, according to the Iron Age hierarchy found in the Bible are unclean or property, including women. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the combination of denigration and subservience takes a psychological toll on women in Christianity as it does in Islam. Not only do women submit to marital abuse and undesired sexual contact, some tolerate the same toward their children, and men of God sometimes exploit this vulnerability, as in the case of Catholic and Protestant child sexual abuse. But most of the damage is far more subtle: lower self-esteem, less independence and confidence; abandoned dreams and goals.

Why Harm Goes Unrecognized.  What is the sum cost of having millions of people holding to a misogynist, authoritarian, fear-based supernatural view of the universe? The consequences far-reaching, even global, but many are hidden, for two reasons.

One is the nature of the trauma itself. Unlike other harm, such as physical beating or sexual abuse, the injury is far from obvious to the victim, who has been taught to self-blame. It’s as if a person black and blue from a caning were to think it was self-inflicted.

The second reason that religious harm goes unrecognized is that Christianity is still the cultural backdrop for the indoctrination. While the larger society may not be fundamentalist, references to God and faith abound. The Bible gets used to swear in witnesses and even the U.S. president. Common phrases are “God willing,” “God bless,” “God helps those that help themselves,” “In God we trust,” and so forth. These lend credence to theistic authority.

Religious trauma is difficult to see because it is camouflaged by the respectability of religion in culture. To date, parents are afforded the right to teach their own children whatever doctrines they like, no matter how heinous, degrading, or mentally unhealthy. Even helping professionals largely perceive Christianity as benign. This will need to change for treatment methods to be developed and people to get help that allows them to truly reclaim their lives.

This article was adapted from “The Crazy Making in Christianity” Chapter 19 in Christianity is Not Great: How Faith Fails, edited by John Loftus, Prometheus Books, October 2014.

______________________________________________________________________

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.

[deniscollins]

Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? California City Is First in U.S. to Try

In Stockton, CA, one in four adults lives in poverty. If you were responsible for a government program that provides income subsidies to qualified applicants, would you: (1) stipulate how money must be spent as is usually done or (2) deliver regular payments of $500 a month without restrictions so that rather than filling out forms and waiting to see case workers, people can devote their effort to looking for work, gaining skills or spending time with their children? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

This town in California’s Central Valley has long functioned as a display case for wrenching troubles afflicting American life: The housing bust that turned Stockton into an epicenter of a national foreclosure disaster and plunged the city into bankruptcy. The homeless people clustered in tents along the railroad tracks. Boarded-up storefronts on cracked sidewalks. Gang violence.

Now, Stockton hopes to make itself an exhibition ground for elevated fortunes through a simple yet unorthodox experiment. It is readying plans to deliver $500 a month in donated cash to perhaps 100 local families, no strings attached. The trial could start as soon as the fall and continue for about two years.

As the first American city to test so-called universal basic income, Stockton will watch what happens next. So will governments and social scientists around the world as they explore how to share the bounty of capitalism more broadly at a time of rising economic inequality.

Will single mothers use their cash to pay for child care so they can attend college? Will people confronting choices between buying school supplies or paying their electric bills gain a measure of security? Will families add healthier food to their diets?

Basic income is a term that gets thrown around loosely, but the gist is that the government distributes cash universally. As the logic runs, if everyone gets money — rich and poor, the employed and the jobless — it removes the stigma of traditional welfare schemes while ensuring sustenance for all.

That a city in California has made itself a venue for the idea seems no accident. The state has long tried fresh approaches to governance. Ahead of the state’s political primaries in June, much of the conversation has centered on concerns about economic inequality.

The concept of basic income has been gaining adherents from Europe to Africa to North America as a potential stabilizer in the face of a populist insurrection tearing at the post-World War II liberal economic order. It is being embraced by social thinkers seeking to reimagine capitalism to more justly distribute its gains, and by technologists concerned about the job-destroying power of their creations.

In various guises, the idea has captivated activists and intellectuals for centuries. In the 1500s, Thomas More’s novel “Utopia” advanced the suggestion that thieves would be better deterred by public assistance than fear of a death sentence.

In more modern times, Milton Friedman, darling of laissez-faire economics, embraced the idea of negative income taxes that put cash in the hands of the poorest people. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advocated “the guaranteed income.”

Dr. King’s legacy has currency in Stockton, which is now led by a history-making mayor, Michael Tubbs. At 27, he is the youngest mayor of a sizable American city, and the first African-American to hold the job here.

Mr. Tubbs grew up in South Stockton, where payday lenders and pawn shops exploit the desperation of working poor people. His father was in prison for gang-related crime. His mother worked in medical customer service and struggled to pay bills, relying on welfare and food stamps.

His mother kept him inside, his nose in his school books, fearful of the pitfalls beyond the door.

He recalls standing at the mailbox tearing open a college acceptance letter while police cars massed down the block, lights flashing, as a neighbor’s son was arrested for dealing drugs.

Many of the adults around him were juggling multiple jobs, yet still living under the tyranny of unpaid bills.

“People were working themselves to death,” Mr. Tubbs said. “Not working to live a good life, but working just to survive.”

He enrolled at Stanford University. In his high school yearbook, friends scribbled congratulations for his having “made it from here.”

He was an intern in President Barack Obama’s White House. After graduating from college in 2012, he taught ethnic studies, government and society at a charter high school while serving on the Stockton City Council.

On the same day that President Trump was elected, voters in this city of 300,000 people put Mr. Tubbs in charge.

Working but Struggling

Forged as a supply hub during the Gold Rush of the 19th century, Stockton evolved into a center for migrant workers who toil in the fruit and vegetable farms of California’s Central Valley.

By the new millennium, it had become a bedroom community offering affordable homes for people who worked in unaffordable places like San Francisco and Silicon Valley, as far as two hours away.

The crash in housing prices played out savagely here. The local unemployment rate reached 19 percent in early 2011. Stockton descended into bankruptcy.

As Mr. Tubbs took office, nearly one in four local residents was officially poor. The median household income was about $46,000 — roughly one-fourth below the national level. Only 17 percent of adults 25 and older had graduated from college. People were perpetually vulnerable to mundane calamities like auto troubles that kept them from getting to work.

“Poverty is the biggest issue,” the mayor said. “Everything we deal with stems from that. There’s so many people working incredibly hard, and if life happens, there’s no bottom.”

Once he took office, his staff recommended basic income as a potential means of attacking poverty, one that was starting to gain traction around the world.

In contrast to government programs that stipulate how money must be spent, basic income is supposed to deliver regular payments without restrictions. It amounts to a bet that poor people know the most appropriate use for a dollar better than bureaucrats. Rather than filling out forms and waiting to see case workers, people can devote their effort to looking for work, gaining skills or spending time with their children.

On the other side of the world, Finland was starting a pilot project. Just down the freeway in Oakland, the start-up incubator, Y Combinator, was conducting a trial. The Canadian province of Ontario was preparing for an experiment. A nonprofit organization, GiveDirectly, was giving cash grants to poor people in rural Kenya.

All of these trials confronted various forms of skepticism, bringing warnings that unconditional cash would replace paychecks with the dole. Finland recently opted not to expand its basic income experiment.

In the United States, a program supplying $10,000 a year to every American would cost $3 trillion. Even some proponents of expanding the social safety net oppose the idea, fearing it would siphon money away from existing programs.

Still, as the traditional promise of work breaks down, unconventional ideas are emerging from the political margins to gain a serious airing.

At a conference in San Francisco last spring, Mr. Tubbs was introduced to Natalie Foster, a co-founder of the Economic Security Project, an advocacy group formed to advance the concept of universal basic income. The project included Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder.

Within the Silicon Valley crowd, basic income had become a fashionable idea for addressing collective angst over the social consequences of technology. The masters of innovation were becoming stupendously rich via creations poised to make working people poor, replacing human labor with robots. Basic income was posited as compensation.

The Economic Security Project was keen to demonstrate another aspect of basic income — its potential to help communities facing problems in the here and now. It was shopping for a city that could serve as staging ground.

“It’s important that people see this as possible,” Ms. Foster said. “Cities are laboratories of democracy.”

Stockton was diverse, with more than 40 percent of its residents Hispanic, some 20 percent Asian, and 14 percent African-American. More than half of the working-age people in surrounding San Joaquin County earned the minimum wage. The city was in the hands of a social media-savvy mayor who could help spread the word.

Ms. Foster’s group agreed to deliver $1 million for a new project — SEED, for Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration.

The sum was nowhere near enough to finance universal anything. It would not cover the basics of any critical need.

Still, it could produce a glimpse of what a guaranteed cash program might look like.

The city commissioned artists to paint murals in the center of town, celebrating basic income as the next phase of the civil rights struggle advanced by Dr. King.

Who Deserves A Hand?

As city leaders formulate the details of the project, they are wrestling with a foundational question: Are they running a legitimate social science experiment, or engineering a demonstration of basic income’s virtues?

The answer directs how they distribute the cash.

If it is primarily a display, then only the most responsible people should be given cash. But if it is about science, the money must be dispensed more randomly, with the likelihood that some people will waste it on drugs.

At a meeting at City Hall, the SEED project manager Lori Ospina urged that the program be designed to yield valid scientific data. That involves choosing participants on the basis of narrow demographic criteria — perhaps their age, their race, their income.

But that approach could expose the city to charges that the program is not inclusive enough. “The trolls I’ve been dealing with on social media and in real life have very racialized views of how this is going to work,” Mr. Tubbs said. “As the first black mayor of this city, it would be very dangerous if the only people to get this were black.”

He wants to select participants who are most likely to spend their money wisely, generating stories of working poor people lifted by extra cash.

People like Shay Holliman.

As a child, her mother was incarcerated. She was raised by her grandmother, along with nine other children. They crammed into apartments full of cockroaches, moving from state to state to stay ahead of the bill collectors.

She had a baby. She worked at McDonald’s, but she lacked reliable child care, making the job impossible. She could not pay rent on her $600 a month welfare check.

One night, she found herself walking the Stockton streets, her infant daughter in a carrier against her chest, pulling two suitcases full of everything she owned.

Taking shelter with a sister consumed by drug addiction, she fell into a vortex of violence. She served 11 years in prison for killing a man who she said had attacked her sister.

She emerged with a problem that confronts many people in Stockton: She was eager to work, yet she was vulnerable to criminal background checks that deny jobs to convicted felons.

She worked inside commercial freezers and as a driver. Recently, she took a job at a nonprofit that helps people released from prison set up lives on the outside.

“I’m finally living my dream,” she said.

In some quarters, the basic income experiment has provoked talk that free money will prompt people to ditch work.

“Oh, my,” said Ms. Holliman, who still carries credit card debt of more than $500 and does not earn enough money to regularly buy fresh fruit. “When you’re struggling, you’re going to rush and pay your bills.”

Stockton’s trial is meant to deliver examples of that sentiment, challenging the notion that people needing help have not tried hard enough.

“It’s about changing the narrative around who’s deserving,” the mayor said.

[phynxrizng]

HEKA...THE MAGICK OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Heka: The magic ofancient Egypt Acquiring magical powers—Thepractitioners of

Heka: The magic of ancient Egypt

magic—Practical purposes—The practiceof magic

…..to me belonged the universe before you gods had come into being. You have come afterwards because I am Heka. Coffin texts, spell 261 [2] First Intermediate Period to Middle Kingdom

All religions have a magical aspect [1] , ancient religions like the Egyptian, according to which all of creation was animated to some extent, perhaps more so than many others. Through magic the creation had come into being and was sustained by it. Thus, magic was more ancient, and consequently more powerful, than the gods themselves

I am one with Atum when he still floated alone in Nun, the waters of chaos, before any of his strength had gone into creating the cosmos. I am Atum at his most inexhaustible - the potence and potential of all that is to be. This is my magic protection and it’s older and greater than all the gods together! Bookof the Dead, New Kingdom

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It was also the extraordinary means for acquiring knowledge about one’s surroundings - above all the hidden parts of them - and gaining

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control over them. Gods, demons and the dead could be implored, cajoled or threatened. Their help could be enlisted to avert evil or

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achieve one’s desires. Magic was accepted by all ancient peoples as a real force. The Hebrew tradition which was strongly opposed to it, did not deny its efficacy, but rather extolled the even greater magical power of its own god:

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8 And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron saying,

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When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you:

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then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before

included) onto your hard disk,

Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent.

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10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the

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Lord had commanded: And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh,

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and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

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The Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the

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magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their

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enchantments.

For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents;

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but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. Exodus 7 [29] about 6th or 5th centuryBCE

Egyptian magical thinking continued to influence Europe. Thoth, god of wisdom and learning, was identified with the Greek Hermes Trismegistus. He was thought by the Hermetists to have originated the Hermetica, 42 books of magic [12] .

Isis lactans 26th dynasty

The worship of Isis, of whom the Metternich Stela (4th century BCE) says “I am Isis the goddess, the possessor of magic, who performs magic, effective of speech, excellent of words,” became widespread throughout the Roman empire. She was the original mother of god, Isis lactans feeding her son Horus, which Christianity adopted as the Madonna. Her role as protectress is reflected in the Marian cult.

Acquiring magical powers

While its efficiency in the hands of mortal practitioners was perhaps often less than had been hoped for, magic attracted people because it was practical and made sense. Everything had a reason, often hidden to the ordinary person, but revealed to the knowledgeable.

Magical spell written in Coptic Picture source: Duke Papyrus Archive

Magic explained the relationships between causes and effects using ideas people could relate to. Analogies and symbolisms were widely used, the sympathetic principle of like affecting like was invoked, associations, be they pure coincidence, were imbued with meaning, and historic occurrences became predictors for the future. There were even prescribed ways for explaining why expected results had not materialized.

It appears that, originally, the Egyptians, like some other peoples who practiced ritual cannibalism, thought that spiritual powers resided in the body and could be acquired by ingestion. There is no evidence, though, that such a view was more than speculative and ever acted upon.

The king orders sacrifices, he alone controls them, the king eats humans, feeds on gods, he has them presented on an altar to himself, he has agents to do his will. He fires off the orders! ………… The king eats their magic, he gulps down their souls, the adults he has for breakfast, the young are lunch, the babies he has for supper, the old ones are too tough to eat, he just burns them on the altar as an offering to himself. Pyramid Texts 273-4, Old Kingdom translated byJacob Rabinowitz [5]

Magic was tightly bound up with writing, although there must have been an extensive purely oral tradition which was never recorded and is therefore lost to us. Most practitioners gained magical knowledge by studying ancient scriptures [20] . Chief among them were the lector-priests, the only clerics who were fully professional since the beginning of recorded history. They were the keepers of the sacred books.

The practitioners of magic

Magical knowledge and power emanated from the gods and was bestowed upon their servants, the kings …

Utterance of all the gods, [to] Amon-Re: “This thy daughter [Hatshepsut], who liveth, we are satisfied with her in life and peace. She is now thy daughter of thy form, whom thou hast begotten, prepared. Thou hast given to her thy soul, thy […], thy [bounty], the magic powers of the diadem…… The coronation of Hatshepsut 18th dynasty Breasted Ancient Records ofEgypt Part 2, § 220 Come glorious one; I have placed (thee) before me; that thou mayest see thy administration in the palace, and the excellent deeds of thy ka’s that thou mayest assume thy royal dignity, glorious in thy magic, mighty in thy strength. Thutmose I,summoning his daughter to be crowned 18th dynasty Breasted Ancient Records ofEgypt Part 2, § 235

… and their substitutes in the service of the gods, the priesthood. But there were also less exalted magicians who did not deal with life and death, but with more mundane issues like good luck charms, pest control or love potions.

Aydressed as High Priest performing the Opening ofthe Mouth ceremony Tomb KV 62, 18th dynasty Picture source: Lionel Casson AncientEgypt

Sometimes spells fell into the wrong hands. Anybody capable of reading could use them [17] , and, at times, some did so with evil intentions.

Now, when Penhuibin, formerly overseer of herds, said to him: "Give to me a roll for enduing me with strength and might,” he gave to him a magic roll of Usermare-Meriamon (Ramses III), L.P.H., the Great God, his lord, L.P.H., and he began to employ the magic powers of a god upon people. Recordsof the Harem Conspiracy againstRamses III20th dynasty

To the ordinary mortal magic could be dangerous, and coming into physical contact with the divine deadly. The accidental touching of the royal sceptre even by a sem priest had to be counteracted by the king’s spell, and the incident was serious enough to be recorded:

The king of Upper and Lower Egypt Neferikare appeared as King of Lower Egypt on the day of the seizing of the anterior rope of the God’s barque. There was the sem priest Rewer before his majesty in his office of sem priest, responsible for the clothing. The ames sceptre which was in the hand of his majesty, touched the foot of the sem priest Rewer. His majesty said to him: “May you be well!” - thus spoke his majesty. Behold, his majesty said: “It is desirable to my majesty that he may be well, without a blow for him.” Behold, he is more esteemed by his majesty than any other man. His majesty ordered to have (it) put in writing on his tomb which is in the necropolis. His majesty caused a record to be made about it, written in the presence of the king himself in the district of the palace, in order to write down according to what had been said in his tomb which is in the necropolis. From thetomb ofRewer (5th dynasty) [24]

Practical purposes

Magic had important pragmatic aspects, which were exploited to achieve the aims of humans, dead or alive, spirits, and gods:

Creation of the world by Ptah, the self-fertilization of Amen or Khnum’s shaping of man from clay were all deeds unachievable by ordinary means.

He (Ptah) gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes, He placed the gods in their shrines, He settled their offerings, He established their shrines, He made their bodies according to their wishes. From theShabaka Stone, 25th dynasty

The giving of birth was not just miraculous, but also dangerous, and the newly born was especially vulnerable.

Birth brick Picture source: University of Pennsylvania Museum website [2]

Birth bricks [2] on which the woman in labour crouched, were decorated with depictions of Hathor and other goddesses and were believed to bestow protection on the mother and above all her baby, and charms were used to guard children from evil demons [18] . Boys appear to have been favoured by their parents and given better protection, e.g. only boy’s names are mentioned on apotropaic wands carved of ivory and decorated with pictures of protective deities. [25]

The dead and their resting place needed protecting too and, as history has proven, ancient curses turned out to be most ineffective

The elder of the house of Meni, he says: A Crocodile against him in the water. A snake against him on land. He will do something against that same one. At no time did I do anything against him. It is God who will judge. Inscription in the tomb of Meni, 6th Dynasty, at Giza

Amulets were worn by the living and given to the dead to empower and ward off evil [21] . Some mummies had dozens of scarabs packed into their bandages.

He (the sun god) created for them magic as a weapon, to fend off the blows of the happenings. The teachingsof Merikare,Middle Kingdom After Jan Assmann Ägypten - Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur, p.72

As diseases were thought to be caused by spirits, healing was a magical science: the giving of medicines and the nursing care were accompanied by spells designed to expel these pathogenic agents.

Get thee back, thou enemy, thou dead man or woman … Thou dost not enter into his phallus, so that it grows limp. Thou dost not cast seed into his anus (?) … Gardiner,Theban Ostraca, C 1,p.13-15

According to the Bentresh Stela, describing an apparently fictitious medical case in the strange far-off country of Bekhten, when the daughter of the chief fell ill, the statue of Khonsu-the-Plan-Maker, Great God, Smiter of evil Spirits was sent from Egypt:

Then this god went to the place where Bentresh was. Then he wrought the protection of the daughter of the chief of Bekhten. She became well immediately. Then said the spirit which was in her before Khonsu-the-Plan-Maker-in-Thebes: “Thou comest in peace, thou great god, smiting the barbarians……… I am thy servant. I will go to the place whence I came, to satisfy thy heart concerning that, on account of which thou comest ……….” Bentresh Stela possibly27th dynasty or later James Henry Breasted AncientRecords of Egypt Part Three, §443 f.

Physicians, priests and magicians - no clear demarcation line appears to have separated these, to our eyes very different, callings -seemingly worked according to quite strict guidelines as to how the body was to be examined, how the results were to be interpreted and which treatments were to be performed and which were not.

There are vessels in every limb of the body. When some physician, some sakhmet priest, some magician lays his finger on the head, on the back of the head, on the hands, on the place of the heart, on both arms and both legs, then he will feel the heart, as there are vessels in every limb of the body and it (i.e. the heart) ‘speaks’ at the beginning of the vessels of all body parts. EbersPapyrus, col. 99,Middle Kingdom

The more radical cures, like Isis restoring Osiris to life or Khufu’s magician Djedi re-attaching cut-off heads belonged strictly to the realms of mythology or fancy.

The acquisition of knowledge concerning spiritual beings or the future enhanced a person’s control over his destiny. One path to such knowledge was the interpretation of dreams, which was also used for justifying one’s actions or legitimizing one’s power:

In year 1, of his coronation as king …… his majesty saw a dream by night: two serpents, one upon his right, the other upon his left. Then his majesty awoke, and he found them not. His majesty said: “Wherefore [has] this [come] to me?” Then they answered him, saying: “Thine is the Southland; take for thyself (also) the Northland. The two goddesses shine upon thy brow, the land is given to thee, in its length and its breadth. [No] other divides it with thee.” Stela ofTanutamen 25th dynasty JamesHenryBreasted Ancient Recordsof Egypt Part Four § 922

The power attained through magic could serve many purposes, good or evil. It could be used to manipulate people’s behaviour or feelings as the many love-spells prove [23] . According to the writings of Pseudo-Callisthenes Nectanebo II used magic to defend his country from outside enemies.

Magical stela, middle of 4th century BCE => Picture source: Metropolitan Museum [7]

Whenever he was threatened with invasion by sea or by land he succeeded in destroying the power of his enemies, and in driving them from his coasts or frontiers; and this he did by the following means. If the enemy came against him by sea, instead of sending out his sailors to fight them, he retired into a certain chamber, and having brought forth a bowl which he kept for the purpose, he filled it with water, and then, having made wax figures of the ships and men of the enemy, and also of his own men and ships, he set them upon the water in the bowl, his men on one side, and those of the enemy on the other. He then came out, and having put on the cloak of an Egyptian prophet and taken an ebony rod in his hand, he returned into the chamber, and uttering words of power he invoked the gods who help men to work magic, and the winds, and the subterranean demons, which straightway came to his aid. By their means the figures of the men in wax sprang into life and began to fight, and the ships of wax began to move about likewise; but the figures which represented his own men vanquished those which represented the enemy, and as the figures of the ships and men of the hostile fleet sank through the water to the bottom of the bowl, even so did the real ships and men sink through the waters to the bottom of the sea. In this way he succeeded in maintaining his power, and he continued to occupy his kingdom in peace for a considerable period. E. A. WallisBudgeEgyptian Magic [4]

Through death a person lost his power over his body. In order for him to pass safely through the underworld his mummy’s sensual functions had to be restored. This was done in the ceremony of the opening of the mouth. Statues were similarly empowered.

There was no tradition of magic that was evil in itself, what we would refer to as Black Magic, but magic could be abused and was in these instances treated as criminal behaviour, though possibly especially abhorrent. Both in the Rollin and the Lee Papyrus the deeds of magicians who had supported a conspiracy against Ramses III were called “great crimes of death”, “the abominations of the land” or the like, probably because the victim had been the king himself.

The practice of magic

The [magician Horus-son-of] Paneshe returned [quickly]; he brought his books and his amulets to [where Pharaoh] was. He recited a spell to him and bound an amulet on him, to prevent the sorceries of the Nubians from gaining power over him. He [went] out from Pharaoh’s presence, took his offerings and libations, went on board a boat, and hastened to Khmun. He went to the temple of Khmun, [made his] offerings and his libations before Thoth, the eight-times great, the lord of Khmun, the great god. He made a prayer before him saying: “Turn your face to me, my lord Thoth! Let not the Nubians take the shame of Egypt to the land of Nubia! It is you who [created] magic [spells]. It is you who suspended the sky, who founded the earth and the netherworld, who placed the gods with ……. Let me know how to save Pharaoh [from the sorceries of the] Nubians!” From the story Prince Khamwasand Si-Osire [3]

Preparations

In order for magic spells to succeed elaborate preparations had to be made at times: It was generally wise not to choose an unlucky day, the time (dusk and dawn were especially auspicious) and place (often a dark chamber, a dark recess, a clean dark cell or a secret dark place) had to be appropriate, and, as is only proper for such spiritual endeavours, the ingredients, the medium and the magician had to be suitable, which generally meant that they had to be ritually pure: If it be that you do not apply (?) purity to it, it does not succeed; its chief matter is purity [9] . Thus in one divination spell a boy who has not been with a woman as medium was required, in another one could address the moon after being pure for three days. Implements and ingredients too needed to be acceptable, either new or carefully cleansed:

You go to a dark chamber with its [face] open to the South or East in a clean place: you sprinkle it with clean sand brought from the great river; you take a clean bronze cup or a new vessel of pottery and put a lok-measure of water that has settled (?) or of pure water into the [cup] and a lok-measure of real oil pure …. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden Roman Period

One’s own semen, a new brick or even milk of a black cow were relatively easy to come by, a two-tailed lizard on the other hand needed some searching, and Alexandrian weasels or hawks were becoming quite rare in the late first millennium BCE: in a temple which specialized in mummifying hawks there was a major scandal when it was discovered that the mummies contained anything but hawks.

Spells

The word, spoken or, perhaps even more potent, written down and read out aloud, was the means to influence other beings and bend them to one’s will. Speech was often accompanied by actions, precisely prescribed rituals for which there were no obvious reasons and which were frequently repeated:

…… you take a vine-shoot before it has ripened grapes, you take it with your left hand, you put it into your right hand - when it has grown seven digits (in length) you carry it [into your] house, and you take the [fish] out of the oil, you tie it by its tail with a strip (?) of flax,you hang it up to . ..of(?) the vine-wood…… TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

Execration rituals included piercing of a figurine with needles or knives, spitting, or burning. Some pharaohs asserted their dominance over their enemies by symbolically trampling on them: they had their foes’ pictures painted on the soles of their sandals.

Talisman facilitating the process ofchildbirth Ptolemaic Period Source: © GeorgesPoncet / Muséedu Louvre [16]

Many spells required the use of special foodstuffs [18] , magical implements, figurines, talismans and the like. During the Middle Kingdom magic knives [15] , sometimes also called apotropaic [14] wands, were made of carved hippo tusks and often decorated with animal depictions. One of them carried the words Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children and the spells were hoped to afford protection from snakes, scorpions [28] and other dangers. Animal figurines were among the equipment of tombs. Very popular were hippo talismans. Hippos are fiercely protective of their young and dangerous to man, the dead were therefore frequently endowed with figurines which had a leg purposely broken off to prevent them from hurting the tomb owners. Vessels, lamps, knives and other utensils were used. Blood (of smun-geese, hoopoes, nightjars, worms, puppies, humans etc), semen, oil and water were mixed with other animal or plant matter (shavings from the head of a dead man, hawk, ibis or crocodile eggs, gall of a gazelle, ankh-amu plant, [senepe plant], 'Great-of-Amen’ plant, qes-ankh stone, genuine lapis-lazuli, 'footprint-of-Isis’ plant). Myrrh and frankincense were burned as was the Anubis-plant. Turpentine and styrax (storax), a fragrant gum, were added to the incense [9] .

In execration rituals figurines were made of wax which could then easily be destroyed by force or by fire

Magic figurine Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue Nine - November/December 2001 [10]

This spell is to be recited over (an image of) Apophis drawn on a new sheet of papyrus in green ink, and (over a figure of) Apophis in red wax. See, his name is inscribed on it in green ink … I have overthrown all the enemies of Pharaoh from all their seats in every place where they are. See, their names written on their breasts, having been made of wax, and also bound with bonds of black rope. Spit upon them! To be trampled with the left foot, to be fallen with the spear (and) knife; to be placed on the fire in the melting-furnace of the copper-smiths … It is a burning in a fire of bryony. Its ashes are placed in a pot of urine, which is pressed firmly into a unique fire. Nine Measuresof Magic; Part3: 'Overthrowing Apophis’: Egyptian ritual in practice Ancient Egypt Magazine Issue Nine- November/December 2001 [10]

Things were often chosen for their colour. Black, mentioned twenty times in the Demotic Magical Papyrus, and white, twelve instances, dominated: milk from a black cow, blood of a black dog, a new white lamp etc. Great importance was attached to the names of the invoked gods or spirits, names which were hidden from the uninitiated. The very knowledge of their true names as opposed to those more widely known (Sarpot Mui-Sro is my name, Light-scarab-noble (?) is my true name) [9] , gave one considerable power over them. These appellations had to be pronounced properly, in the right sequence and in their entirety:

’…….. Io, Tabao, Soukhamamon, Akhakhanbou, Sanauani, Ethie, Komto, Kethos, Basaethori, Thmila, Akhkhou, give me answer as to everything about which I ask here to-day.’ Seven times. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

This invocation was to be repeated seven times. Often a simple two-fold repetition seemed to suffice, but three-, four- and even nine-fold reiterations were also frequent. In Ani’s Book of the Dead, the deceased reaffirms his innocence four times:

I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. BudgeThe Book ofthe Dead,Chapter 125 [8]

These magical numbers were also important in other contexts. A certain love spell required nine apple-pips together with your urine, another a Kesh…-fish of nine digits and black. For a vessel divination three new bricks were needed; and one was supposed to pour an unsavory concoction of semen, blood and other ingredients into a cup of wine and add three uteh to it of the first-fruits of the vintage. Other numbers like five, six or eight were rarely used [9] .

When the life of a patient was in danger because of a snake bite, a sekhmet priest might threaten to cause the solar barque to run aground on a sandbank, describing the dire consequences that would ensue to the very fabric of the world:

The sun barque is at rest and does not proceed, The sun is still in the same spot as yesterday. The nourishment is without ship, the temple is barred, There the disease will turn back the disturbance To yesterday’s location. The daemon of darkness is about, the times are not separated. The shadow’s shapes cannot be observed anymore. The springs are blocked, the plants wither, Life is taken from the living Until Horus recovers for his mother Isis, And until the patient’s health is restored as well. After Jan Assmann Ägypten - Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur, p.85

The need of the deceased for magic was perhaps even greater than that of the living. After dying they were completely helpless until their faculties had been restored by the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth and they had been equipped with the knowledge needed to address gods and daemons by their hidden, true names and the spells necessary to ward off the dangers they would encounter.

Homage to thee, O great God, Lord of Maati! I have come unto thee, O my Lord, and I have brought myself hither that I may behold thy beauties. I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of the Forty-two Gods who live with thee in this Hall of Maati, who live by keeping ward over sinners, and who feed upon their blood on the day when the consciences of men are reckoned up in the presence of the god Un-Nefer. In truth thy name is “Rehti-Merti-Nebti-Maati.” ThePapyrus of Ani, translated by E.A.W. Budge

But not all was gloom in the Netherworld. The duties a person had to perform by himself in this world, could be attended to by a stand-in, an ushabti (also called shawabti at times) in the next, if you knew how to make him do it [19] :

Spell for causing a shawabti to work for its owner in the underworld. To be recited over the shawabti, which will be made either of tamarisk or thorn wood. This shall be carved to resemble its owner as he appeared in life, and placed in the tomb. Look upon this man, ye gods, transfigured souls and spirits of the dead, for he has acquired force, seized his moment, taken on royal authority, he’s a pharaoh, ruling mankind, controlling them like cattle. They were created to serve him. The gods themselves ordained it. Now, shawabti: If, in the world of the dead, X is ordered to perform the yearly stint of public work all Egyptians owe their pharaoh, be it to move bricks, level off a plot of ground, re-survey land when the Nile-flood recedes or till new-planted fields, you will say; “Here I am!” to any functionary who comes looking for X while he is trying to enjoy his meal of funerary offerings. Take up your hoe, shawabti, your pick, your demarcation pegs, your basket, just as any slave would for his master. O shawabti made for X, if X is called for his obligations to the state you will pipe up: “Here I am!” whether X is summoned to oversee workers in the new-planted fields, tend to irrigation, move sand from East to West or vice versa “Here I am!” you will say and take his place. Coffin Text 472, translated byJacob Rabinowitz [6]

Addressing supernatural powers

Prayers and offerings

In dealing with the gods care was required. They were powerful and, consequently, highly respected: Mut carried the epithet Great in Magic, the vulture-headed Heknet [26] , the Praiser, was Mistress of Spirits, [27] the hippo goddess Taweret was called Great of Sorcery and Sekhmet was the Powerful One. Their nature was often dual: Taweret was a protectress against Typhonic powers, carrying an ankh or a burning torch, but she had the form of an extremely dangerous animal [13] ; Sekhmet, a ferocious lion goddess, brought death and destruction when she accompanied the pharaoh on his campaigns of war, but was the main support of the healers in their fight against disease. It was best to treat them with reverence. Many people today may see practices such as prayers and offerings to gods as distinct from magic, it was not to the Egyptians. Both the living and the dead went to great lengths to receive the blessing of the gods. Hymns of praise were composed and recited, written down on papyrus and put in the tombs. Offerings of food, real or carved on walls, were supposed to satiate the god’s hunger and thirst. Just as the statue of the god Amen for instance was the god himself, a magician, by identifying himself with a god, was transformed into him

'I will say: “Come to me Montu, lord of the day! Come, that you may put N born of N into my hand like an insect in the mouth of a bird”. I am Montu whom the gods adore. I will sever your bones and eat your flesh.’ Ostracon found at Deir el Medine 19th dynasty Ancient EgyptMagazine: Nine measures of magic [11]

Invoking and dismissing

Lesser magical beings like demons, spirits or the deceased did not quite warrant the same amount of respect. But they were the main agents of magic and could be invoked by simple means:

Prescription to make them speak: you put a frog’s head on the brazier, then they speak.

or

Prescription for bringing the gods in by force: you put the bile of a crocodile with pounded frankincense on the brazier. If you wish to make them come in quickly again, you put stalks (?) of anise (?) on the brazier together with the egg-shell as above, then the charm works at once. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

If they did not obey they (even lamps) could be threatened:

I will not give thee oil, I will not give thee fat. O lamp; verily I will give thee the body of the female cow and put blood of the male bull into (?) thee and put thy band to the testicles (?) of the enemy of Horus. TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

Once one had received their services it was best to send them away as they could be unpredictable

His dismissal formula: 'Farewell (bis) Anubis, the good ox-herd, Anubis (bis), the son of a (?) jackal (and ?) a dog … another volume saith: the child of … Isis (?) (and ) a dog, Nabrishoth, the Cherub (?) of Amenti, king of those of…..’ Say seven times.

or

The charm which you pronounce when you dismiss them to their place: 'Good dispatch, joyful dispatch!’ TheDemotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

Picture sources: [ ] Coptic spell papyrus: Duke Papyrus Archive [ ] Ay dressed as High Priest: Casson Ancient Egypt [ ] Birth brick: University of Pennsylvania Museum website [2] [ ] Magical stela: Metropolitan Museum, 360-343 B.C.E.; Dynasty 30, reign of Nectanebo II; Greywacke; H. 32 7/8 in. (83.5 cm), Fletcher Fund, 1950 [7] [ ] Talisman facilitating the process of childbirth: © Georges Poncet / Musée du Louvre [16] [ ] Magic figurine: Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue Nine - November/December 2001 [10] [ ] Late Period faience udjat: University College, London [ ] Love charm: Étienne Drioton, Un charme d'amour égyptien d'époque gréco-romaine, BIFAO 41 (1942), p.75

Footnotes: [1] Theologians belonging to the three monotheistic religions tend to deny this, drawing a clear line between their 'pure’ doctrines devoid of superstition and paganism. But there is no real difference in attitude between Christians, Jews and Muslims and followers of other traditions. They all use rituals which only to a believer are not classified as magical. Thus, Jews kiss the mezuzah, a small case attached to the doorpost containing religious texts, Christians cross themselves, and Muslims circle around a stone when performing the hadj. People will claim that it is the thought behind the ritual which counts - which of course is exactly what magic is all about. [14] apotropaic: averting evil, from Greek apotrepein, turn away [17] The magic itself was the essence, not the magician. In the Pyramid Texts king Pepi threatened the gods with the withholding of all offerings if they did not assist him in rising to the heavens

It is not this king Pepi who says this against you, it is the charm which says this against you, ye gods. J.H. Breasted Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 111

[19] If the eagerness of the ushabtis to do their duty was indicative of the work ethics of Egyptian workers we may begin to sympathize with their employers: the tombs ended up by being filled with statuettes, as each was expected to be active for just one day in the year, and there were overseer ushabtis carrying flails. [20] At least in tales hard study could be avoided, possibly at the price of upsetting one’s stomach: Prince Naneferptah

… called for a new piece of papyrus, and wrote on it all that was in the book before him. He dipped it in beer, and washed it off in the liquid; for he knew that if it were washed off, and he drank it, he would know all that there was in the writing. Princess Ahura: The Magic Book

[21] In his 1914 monograph on amulets Petrie distinguished five classes of amulets [22] : 1. Similars, or Homopoeic, which are for influencing similar parts, or functions, or occurrences, for the wearer 2. Powers or Dynatic, for conferring powers and capacities, especially upon the dead; 3. Property or Ktematic, which are entirely derived from the funeral offerings, and are thus peculiar to Egypt; 4. Protection or Phylactic, such as charms and curative amulets; 5. Gods or Theophoric, connected with the worship of the gods and their functions [23] The little statuette on the right is about 8 centimetres tall, dates to the Graeco-Roman period, and bears an inscription invoking the powers the deceased depicted by the statuette was thought to have:

Rise and bind him whom I look at, to be my lover, (for) I adore his face. After EtienneDrioton, Un charmed'amour égyptien d'époque gréco-romaine,BIFAO 41 (1942), p.79

It appears that the constraint of being magically bound to do someone’s will could be broken by an encounter with a magician or hearing some auspicious noise like the braying of an ass or the bark of a dog. [24]Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae website => Altägyptisches Wörterbuch, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften => Grabinschriften => Gisa => Grabkomplex des Kaiemankh (G 4561) => Grabkomplex des Rawer (PM III 265-269) => Relief- und Stelenfragmente => Biographische Inschriftenstele [25] Meskell, op.cit., p.65 [26] W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p.133 [27] Francis Llewellyn Griffith, Herbert Thompson. The Leyden papyrus: an Egyptian magical book, Courier Dover Publications, 1974, p.159 [29] The stories in Exodus should not be considered to be historical facts. They reflect the Hebrew traditions which appear to be based on intimated knowledge of the ancient Egyptian society.

Bibliography: Jan Assmann Ägypten - Theologie und Frömmigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur Jan Assmann, Schöpfungsmythen und Kreativitätskonzepte im alten Ägypten James Henry Breasted Ancient Records of Egypt, Chicago 1906 James Henry Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt E.A.W. Budge, The Book of the Dead E.A.W. Budge, Egyptian Magic Étienne Drioton, “Un charme d'amour égyptien d'époque gréco-romaine,” BIFAO 41 (1942), p.79 Adolf Erman, A Handbook of Egyptian Religion A.Gardiner, Theban Ostraca F.Ll. Griffith, The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden F.Ll. Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis; The Sethon of Herodotus and The Demotic Tales of Khamuas Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Lynn Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt, Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 069100448X, 9780691004488 Geraldine Pinch, Magic in Ancient Egypt Jacob Rabinowitz, Isle of Fire Kurt Sethe, Von Zahlen und Zahlworten bei den alten Ägyptern, 1916 Aloisia de Trafford, The Pyramid Texts: some thoughts on their medium and message Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt The British and Foreign Bible Society The Holy Bible Ancient Egypt Magazine Nine Measures of Magic; Part 3: 'Overthrowing Apophis’: Egyptian ritual in practice , Issue Nine - November/December 2001 Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums, sechste Abteilung, Heft 1, 1929

[9] The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden

[18] Charm for the protection of a child

[28] Ta-bitjet: Charm against scorpions

Incantations against reptiles and noxious creatures in general

Index of topics

Main index and search page

Offsite links (Opening in a new window) Theseare justsuggestions forfurther reading. I do not assume any responsibilityfor the contentofthesesites

Magic in Greco-Roman Egypt by I.M.P. Kousoulis

[2] Birth brick, page 35

[3] Prince Khamwas and Si-Osire

[4] E. A. Wallis Budge Egyptian Magic, Chapter III

[5] Pyramid Texts Utterances 273-274: “The Cannibal Hymn”

[6] Book of the Dead: Coffin Texts number 472

[7] The Metropolitan Museum

[8] The Coming into Day, Chapter 125

[12] Hermes Trismegistus - The Archaic Underground Tradition

Nine Measures of Magic, part 1

[11] Nine Measures of Magic, part 2

[10] Nine Measures of Magic, part 3

[13] Taweret, Goddess-Demoness of Birth, Rebirth and the Northern Sky

[15] Magic ivory wand

[16] Gemme magique grecque (Louvre Museum)

[22] Amulets of Ancient Egypt (Introduction to the book by Carol Andrews)

Heka at the Louvre

Witchcraft at the Louvre

Udjat: The sacred eye

Tales of Magic in Ancient Egypt

Dreaming like an Egyptian By Robert Moss

Tales of Ancient Egypt: Princess Ahura: The Magic Book, c. 1100 BCE

Witchcraft at the Louvre: Heka, Magic and Bewitchment in Ancient Egypt

Egyptian Magic by E. A. Wallis Budge

Medical Magic

Khaemwaset

Wax amulets

Papyrus amulet

Khaemwaset

Magical bowl, 3rd-4th century CE

Vorläufige Bibliographie Magie

Repelling Demons - Protecting Newborns

Isis and the Name of Ra

Amulets of Ancient Egypt: Introduction by Carol Andrews

Feedback: please report broken links, mistakes - factual or otherwise,etc. to me. thanks.

© May2003 Minor updates: August 2008 December 2006 June 2004 June 2003

Alternative and mistaken spellings: ushabti ushabty shabti shabty heqa magick