One of the most widespread magic procedures for injuring an enemy
consists of making an effigy of him out of any kind of material. The
likeness counts for little, in fact any object may be ‘named’ as his
image. Whatever is subsequently done to this image will also happen to
the hated prototype; thus if the effigy has been injured in any place he
will be afflicted by a disease in the corresponding part of the body.
This same magic technique, instead of being used for private enmity can
also be employed for pious purposes and can thus be used to aid the gods
against evil demons. I quote Frazer[99]: “Every night when the sun-god
Ra in ancient Egypt sank to his home in the glowing west he was assailed
by hosts of demons under the leadership of the archfiend Apepi. All
night long he fought them, and sometimes by day the powers of darkness
sent up clouds even into the blue Egyptian sky to obscure his light and
weaken his power. To aid the sun-god in this daily struggle, a ceremony
was daily performed in his temple at Thebes. A figure of his foe Apepi,
represented as a crocodile with a hideous face or a serpent with many
coils, was made of wax, and on it the demon’s name was written in green
ink. Wrapt in a papyrus case, on which another likeness of Apepi had
been drawn in green ink, the figure was then tied up with black hair,
spat upon, hacked with a stone knife and cast on the ground. There the
priest trod on it with his left foot again and again, and then burned it
in a fire made of a certain plant or grass. When Apepi himself had thus
been effectively disposed of, waxen effigies of each of his principle
demons, and of their fathers, mothers, and children, were made and burnt
in the same way. The service accompanied by the recitation of certain
prescribed spells, was repeated not merely morning, noon and night, but
whenever a storm was raging or heavy rain had set in, or black clouds
were stealing across the sky to hide the sun’s bright disk. The fiends
of darkness, clouds and rain, felt the injury inflicted on their images
as if it had been done to themselves; they passed away, at least for a
time, and the beneficent sun-god shone out triumphant once more”[100].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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