SECTION XXVII. EGYPTIAN MAGIC.

Few of our students of Occultism have had the opportunity of examining Egyptian papyri—those living, or rather re‐arisen witnesses that Magic, good and bad, was practised many thousands of years back into the night of time. The use of the papyrus prevailed up to the eighth century of our era, when it was given up, and its fabrication fell into disuse. The most curious of the exhumed documents were immediately purchased and taken away from the country. Yet there are a number of beautifully‐preserved papyri at Bulak, Cairo, though the greater number have never been yet properly read.(453) Others—those that have been carried away and may be found in the museums and public libraries of Europe—have fared no better. In the days of the Vicomte de Rougé, some twenty‐five years ago, only a few of them “were two‐thirds deciphered;” and among those some most interesting legends, inserted parenthetically and for purposes of explaining royal expenses, are in the Register of the Sacred Accounts. This may be verified in the so‐called “Harris” and Anastasi collections, and in some papyri recently exhumed; one of these gives an account of a whole series of magic feats performed before the Pharaohs Ramses II. and