ULTRA VENEFICIA BOOK OF SPELLS

Long Egyptian History

EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN MAGE

Egypt was shaped by magick; nowhere else the barriers between the worlds, the past and present, the dead and living, the gods and men are so weak and convoluted. Through millennia the Nile valley has been shaped by gods and mages as well as the beliefs of sleepers.

Prehistory

The prehistory of Egypt is only conjectural. According to the technocratic archeologists, there were humans there 250,000 BC. The Order of Hermes instead speak of how the Creator (either Atum, Chnum or Ptah) and the Pure Ones created the world from the first mound of order in the sea of chaos, and then created mankind. Some mages speculate that the secret of creation still exists hidden somewhere in the Nile Valley, and eagerly seek any hints of forgotten truths.

Many mages believe that what made Egypt unique was the closeness between the inhabiants and the gods; this explains the sometimes confusing mixtures between different gods and myths, since most umbrood have a very tenuous individuality and change appearance and properties depending on the viewer and his beliefs. In Egypt, human mages interacted freely with the gods, blurring the line between man and god.

In these mythical times, time, space and individuality were still undefined and liquid, a state not unlike the Australian concept of the Dreamtime. There was no contradiction between seeing the sun as the eye of Horus, a sphere of gold rolled by a scarab or twelve gods ruling over each hour of day - all were equally true. Everyone consisted of an agglomerate of souls that could move apart and meld together. To bring order and structure to the world the humans developed ritual and eventually magick.

According to the old myths the sun god Ra ruled both gods and men in the beginning. But the humans rose up against the gods, destroying their statues and upsetting the Law of Maat. Angered, Ra first intended to destroy the cosmos, but relented and led the gods to a voluntary exile in the worlds beyond the heavens. This may correspond to the first severing between the worlds of spirit and matter, and the creation of the Gauntlet. Needless to say, neither the gods or the humans could survive without each other and soon the temples were yet again inhabited by the manifestations of the gods and prayers rose to the sky, but gods and men no longer lived in the same world.

Predynastic Egypt

Predynastic Egypt is largely unknown, but it is known that there were several smaller kingdoms, which were eventually united into Upper and Lower Egypt, which in turn were united by Menes of the first dynasty. Mages believe this corresponds to the mystical battle between Set and Horus, were Set represents Lower Egypt and Horus the victorious Upper Egypt. The struggle between the two gods continued for a long time, and the second dynasty swore allegiance to Set rather than Horus, but eventually Horus became the dominant god and the worship of Set declined.

Much of Egyptian dynastic history is influenced by the complex politics between the various priesthoods. These mage-priests had significant political power, and politics, religion and magick was intimately interwoven. Usually the priests of one city would work together against the priests of other cities, but sometimes political marriages between their respective divinities were arranged. Sometimes the Pharao would be weak enough to be influenced by the priests, sometimes the rulers were strong enough to make the priests obey and support him.

The priests of Hermopolis, whose chief divinity was Thoth (by the Greeks identified with Hermes), would latter influence the Order of Hermes, although the Order drew on knowledge from many other priesthoods too. They envisoned the creation of the universe as he interplay between the eight gods of the Ogdoad (representing unformed reality) initiated by the divine word of Thoth. The solar priesthoods of Heliopolis and especially the priests of Amun influenced the Celestial Chorus, although to a much lesser extent. And the priestesses of Isis would secretly influence Egyptian history for millennia. The other priesthoods would play various roles in history, but in the end they died out or were assimilated into later magickal/religious traditions.