[1062] Caps. 61-63. The following passages from E. A. W. Budge, Egyptian Magic (1899), perhaps furnish an explanation of the true purpose and character of Apuleius’s wooden figure: p. 84, “Under the heading of ‘Magical Figures’ must certainly be included the so-called Ptah-Seker-Ausar figure, which is usually made of wood; it is often solid, but is sometimes made hollow, and is usually let into a rectangular wooden stand which may be either solid or hollow.” To get the protection of Ptah, Seker, and Osiris, says Budge at p. 85, “a figure was fashioned in such a way as to include the chief characteristics of the forms of these gods, and was inserted in a rectangular wooden stand which was intended to represent the coffin or chest out of which the trinity Ptah-Seker-Ausar came forth. On the figure itself and on the sides of the stand were inscribed prayers....” Such a figure in a coffin might well be described by the accusers as the horrible form of a ghost or skeleton.
[1063] Cap. 31.
[1064] Cap. 42.
[1065] Cap. 43.
[1066] Caps. 1-3.
[1067] Cap. 2.
[1068] Caps. 27 and 31. For the same thought applied in the case of medieval men see Gabriel Naudé, Apologie pour tous les grands personages qui out esté faussement soupçonnez de Magie, Paris, 1625.
[1069] Cap. 25.
[1070] Cap. 47.
[1071] Cap. 25.