Exclaims the translator, whose cultured instincts are revolted:
If one had not these words under our eyes, one could never believe in such servitude at the epoch of the Ramessides.[463]
We belong to the nineteenth century of the Christian era, and are therefore at the height of civilization, and under the benign sway and enlightening influence of the Christian Church, instead of being subject to the Pagan Gods of old. Nevertheless we personally know dozens, and have heard of hundreds, of educated, highly-intellectual persons who would as soon think of committing suicide as of starting on any business on a Friday, of dining at a table where thirteen sit down, or of beginning a long journey on a Monday. Napoleon the Great became pale when he saw three candles lit on a table. Moreover, we may gladly concur with De Mirville in this, at any rate, that such “superstitions” are “the outcome of observation and experience.” If the former had never agreed with facts, the authority of the Calendar, he thinks, would not have lasted for a week. But to resume:
Genethliacal influences: The child born on the 5th day of Paophi will be killed by a bull; on the 27th by a serpent. Born on the 4th of the month of Athyr, he will succumb to blows.
This is a question of horoscopic predictions; judiciary astrology is firmly believed in in our own age, and has been proven to be scientifically possible by Kepler.
Of the Khous two kinds were distinguished: first, the justified Khous, i.e., those who had been absolved from sin by Osiris when they were brought before his tribunal; these lived a second life. Secondly, there were the guilty Khous, “the Khous dead a second time;” these were the damned. Second death did not annihilate them, but they were doomed to wander about and to torture people. Their existence had phases analogous to those of the living man, a bond so intimate between the dead and the living that one sees how the observation of religious funeral rites and exorcisms and prayers (or rather magic incantations) should have become necessary.[464] Says one prayer:
Do not permit that the venom should master his limbs [of the defunct], ... that he should be penetrated by any male dead, or any female dead; or that the shadow of any spirit should haunt him (or her).[465]
M. Chabas adds:
These Khous were beings of that kind to which human beings belong after their death; they were exorcised in the name of the god Chons.... The Manes then could enter the bodies of the living, haunt and obsess them. Formulæ and talismans, and especially statues or divine figures, were used against such formidableinvasions.[466]... They were combated by the help of the divine power, the god [pg 250]Chons being famed for such deliverances. The Khou, in obeying the orders of the god, none the less preserved the precious faculty inherent in him of accommodating himself in any other body at will.
The most frequent formula of exorcism is as follows. It is very suggestive: