The great and peculiar feature of Egyptian magic lay in the fact that its formulæ were intended to assimilate to the gods those who sought protection from the evils of life. The incantation was not in the nature of a prayer. As M. Lenormant says:[143] “The virtue of the formulæ lay not in an invocation of the divine power, but in the fact of a man’s proclaiming himself such or such a god; and when he, in pronouncing the incantation, called to his aid any one of the various members of the Egyptian Pantheon, it was as one of themselves that he had a right to the assistance of his companions.” In the Harris Papyrus is a fragment of one of the magical tracts of the medicine-god Thoth, in which is an incantation for protection against crocodiles:—
“Do not be against me! I am Amen.
I am Anhur, the good guardian;
I am the great master of the sword.
Do not erect thyself! I am Month.
Do not try to surprise me! I am Set.
Do not raise thy two arms against me! I am Sothis.
Do not seize me! I am Sethu.”[144]
Disease-demons recognised the power of the gods, and obeyed their commands. An inscription on a monument of the time of Ramses XII. tells how the Princess Bint-resh, sister of Queen Noferu-ra, was cured in a serious illness by the image of the god Khonsu being sent to her after the “learned expert” Thut-emhib had failed to do her any good. When the god appeared at her bedside, she was cured on the spot; the evil spirit of the disease acknowledged the superior power of Khonsu, and came out of her after making an appropriate speech.[145]
In the records of a trial about a harem conspiracy in the reign of Ramses III., we learn that a house steward had used some improper enchantments. In some fragments of the Lee and Rollin Papyrus, we read: “Then he gave him a writing from the rolls of the books of Ramses III., the great god, his lord. Then there came upon him a divine magic, an enchantment for men. He reached [thereby?] to the side of the women’s house, and into that other great and deep place. He formed figures of wax, with the intention of having them carried in by the hand of the land-surveyor Adiroma, to alienate the mind of one of the girls, and to bewitch others.... Now, however, he was brought to trial on account of them, and there was found in them incitation to all kinds of wickedness, and all kinds of villainy which it was his intention to do.... He had made some magic writings to ward off ill-luck; he had made some gods of wax, and some human figures to paralyse the limbs of a man; and he had put these into the hand of Bokakamon without the sun-god Ra having permitted that he should accomplish this,” etc.[146]