Magic colored the entire circle of thought of the ancient Egyptian. Initiates of Egypt believed that magic was bestowed on people by Isis in order to deflect the blows of fate, illness, dreams from them during life, and to ensure a safe eternal life in the other world for the deceased, as well as to establish contacts of the living with the dead, spirits and deities.
At the heart of magic is the principle on which science is based: the belief in the constancy and uniformity of the action of the forces of nature, in the inviolability of the relationship of causes and effects.
However, magic, unlike science, is based on the belief of a person in his ability to influence a thing by turning to supernatural forces.
We do not share the desire of modern science to distinguish between magic and religion. It is obvious to us that in the ancient consciousness the field of magical actions was not limited to the influence of the priest on this or that subject or thing. The methods of compulsory influence on souls, spirits and deities through spells, as well as all kinds of praises, prayers and propitiation of higher beings also had magical properties.
The entire "Book of the Dead" is precisely such a unity of magical consciousness: it also describes ordinary witchcraft effects on "sacred things" (statues, images, crystals, stones, objects, clay and wood products, etc.), exhaustively conveys the content of the necessary conspiracies, spells of spirits and deities, contains inspired prayers and praises to the supreme gods. That is, everything that a deceased person or those who perform a funeral ceremony need to know.
As we get acquainted with the "Book of the Dead" we find in it descriptions of the simplest ways of transmitting magical power through direct contact of the source or carrier of this power with the thing to which the magic is directed. This is the touch of an initiate's hand, making and installing, wearing "holy objects": fetishes, amulets and talismans.
Occasionally, there are hints of initial magic techniques, when only the beginning of the desired actions was actually performed, while the end of them was left to magical power. This is, say, the installation and direction of "holy things", which will subsequently protect the four walls (sides) of the burial chamber from evil spirits.
There are many examples when the action of magical power was directed not at the object directly, but at its substitute, and already through the latter - at the object itself. Making copies, figurines, portraits of living people, souls of the dead, footprints, “deputy worker” ushabti - this is a short list of such cases in the “Book of the Dead”.
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The embalmers had to place an amulet in the shape of the Eye of Udjat between the burial sheets, and an amulet in the shape of a scarab on the heart. Without these amulets, it was impossible to be resurrected for eternal life.
There are innumerable examples of repelling magic - various ways to drive away, scare away forces hostile to the deceased, prevent them from approaching or attack, somehow evade contact with them, hide and hide from them.
Egyptian magicians also widely practiced all kinds of methods of purifying magic when influencing the deceased and his soul - lighting cleansing fires, burning incense, burning incense, ablution, etc.
All this was invariably accompanied by the magic of the word. The Book of the Dead is just a written record of a thousand-year tradition of using the magic of speech in funeral rites. Indeed, the utterance, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes intentional, of certain words: wishes, conspiracies, spells, orders, prohibitions, was from the very beginning an integral part of any rite or magical action.
The arsenal of Egypt's funerary magic included amulets, images of body parts, divine beings, miniature models of various objects, "sacred signs" - hieroglyphs denoting gods, life, animals and humans.
Numbers had a magical meaning - one, two, three, four, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, twenty-one, thirty and forty-two. Color possessed magical symbolism. White, red, green, azure, black are often mentioned in the Book of the Dead. Green, for example, symbolized life and all living things. The corresponding natural ornamental stones - red carnelian, green malachite, blue lapis lazuli or turquoise - also acquired magical value.
The next level of magical influence on the gods was their detailed spells. At this level of influence, the performers of the funeral rite did not turn to the impersonal universal energy foundation of the world, but to its special, private manifestations, which have a personal appearance and a sacred name (Rin).
There are many spells of this type in the "Book of the Dead" - a number of chapters convey the spells of the soul of the deceased (his Ka, Ba, Eb, Ah), the spell of hostile spirits and deities, spells of all kinds of obstacles, barriers, gates, pylons, the Halls of the Temple of Osiris, standing on the path of the souls of the deceased to the Abode of the Blessed, spells of destructive spirits and strict gods protecting them, spells of monsters that devour the souls of sinners, spells of 42 gods of otherness and the king of the Afterlife - Osiris.
To facilitate the wandering of the deceased, the gods created arites in the Duat (Kingdom of the Dead) - places of rest, stopping place, where the soul could stop and rest. However, not everyone could enter the arita, but only those who knew the names of the gods and certain spells.
The spell assumes the exact knowledge of the name. According to the ideas of the Egyptians, dating back to the prehistoric era, the name-Ryn of a person, spirit or deity was an integral innermost part of his essence. The great Ra himself created the world by the power of the word. Giving things and beings names-Rmn, he thereby determined their essence and place in the universe. Knowledge of the true, secret name gave power over its owner.
