the powers appealed to are no longer beings recognized by the dominant religion. They are relics of religions passed away, or figments of the pedantic imagination. Magic, in short, has for purposes of private vengeance been ousted from religion and has set up for itself. At any rate the Moroccan rite involves a threat; and a threat is near akin to a curse. Much may be done with gods, as with men, by means of a little judicious bluff. A certain Malay robber kept six tame spirits, to whom he made an offering from time to time. When he did so he called them by name, bidding them: “Come here! Eat my offering! Take you care that my body is not affected, that the flow of my blood is not stayed! Likewise with the bodies of my wife and children. (If not) I’ll turn the earth and the sky the wrong way round!” He was fully convinced of the power of these spirits and apparently of the value of his terrible threat, though, as Mr Annandale, who reports the case, points out, the spirits had been unable to save him from being convicted and imprisoned for his crimes.[134.1] In ancient Egypt magic was practised in connection with religion from prehistoric times. Magic and religion “were two products of one and the same _Weltanschauung_, not disparate either in their methods or in their psychological basis. Nor were they differently estimated from the ethical point of view: magic was deemed permissible, so long as it was turned to no evil purpose. It follows that the classification of Egyptian superstitious practices as (_a_) religious, (_b_) magical, must be a purely external mode of classification: the distinction between religion {135} and magic in Egypt has not, and cannot be made to have, any deeper significance.”[135.1] The scholar from whom I quote these words, so far from exaggerating the close relationship between magic and religion, may be said to understate it. Magic was an integral part of religion. The priests of the gods were magicians. Magic was employed in the ritual of worship. It enabled the great god Ra to overcome the serpent Apep.[135.2] Magical ceremonies performed by the priests over the mummy, or over a statuette representing the deceased, were the means by which his success in passing the necessary tests and his lasting happiness after death were secured. The means employed were those universally known to magic: amulets, waxen and other figures, pictures, spells and words of power, the knowledge of names, rites imitating the results desired, and so forth. Concerning the dead we are told: “Few were those who remained for ever with the Sun, and they were not necessarily the great ones of the earth, nor yet the very good, but those who possessed the most minute information as to the next world, and who were best versed in magic. Thus the whole doctrine is based on a belief in the power of magic.”[135.3] “In the next world a correct knowledge of magic words and formulas was absolutely essential.