oy magic for their own benefit or
self-gratification, and since religion put no veto on the practice so
long as it was exercised within legal bounds, it was put to a widespread
use among them. When magicians made figures of wax representing men whom
they desired to injure, this was of course an illegal act like any
other, and the law stepped in to prevent it: one papyrus that has been
preserved records the judicial proceedings taken in such a case in
connexion with the harem conspiracy against Rameses III.

One of the chief purposes for which magic was employed was to avert
diseases. Among the Egyptians, as in other lands, illnesses were
supposed to be due to evil spirits or the ghosts of dead men who had
taken up their abode in the body of the sufferer, and they could only be
driven thence by charms and spells. But out of these primitive notions
arose a real medical science: when the ailment could be located and its
nature roughly determined, a more materialistic view was taken of it;
and many herbs and drugs that were originally used for some
superstitious reason, when once they had been found to be actually
effective, easily lost their magical significance and were looked upon
as natural specifics. It is extremely hard to draw any fixed line in
Egypt between magic and medicine; but it is curious to note that simple
diagnoses and prescriptions were employed for the more curable diseases,
while magical formulae and amulets are reserved for those that are
harder to cope with, such as the bites of snakes and the stings of
scorpions.

The formulae recited for such purposes are not purely cabalistic, though
inasmuch as mystery is of the very essence of magic, foreign words and
outlandish names occur in them by preference. Often the magician relates
some mythical case where a god had been afflicted with a disease similar
to that of the patient, but had finally recovered: a number of such
tales were told of Horus, who was usually healed by some device of his
mother Isis, she being accounted as a great enchantress. The mere
recitation of such similar cases with their happy issue was supposed to
be magically effective; for almost unlimited power was supposed to be
inherent in mere words. Often the demon is directly invoked, and
commanded to come forth. At other times the gods are threatened with
privations or even destruction if they refuse to aid the magician: the
Egyptians seem to have found little impiety in such a use of