Heka ruled all and was considered the oldest and most powerful element in existence in Ancient Egypt. This ancestral force allowed the most powerful gods, the world, and humans to emerge from the waters of the ocean, Nun. Everything was ruled by Heka and its force was capable of working the greatest miracles.
Thanks to her, the Universe remained standing and in balance. Without it, there was nothing, and humans were weak beings. Only pharaohs, magicians, and gods, of course, possessed the ability to use Heka to manipulate the elements and use them to their advantage. To have Heka was to have power and wisdom. Heka was even in the tiniest thing in the Universe.
Heka and the Dark Power of the World
Heka was the name by which magic was known in ancient Egyptian civilization. Magic was a common thing that was used for countless tasks, some more obscure than others, such as healing those who fell ill, for protection from nocturnal demons that sought to devour babies, or for divining the future. Although it was reserved for gods, pharaohs, and magicians, as mentioned above, it was commonly used by the common people.
The Egyptian religion based all its beliefs and legends on the presence of the Heka. For example, the god of the Sun, Ra, every day plunged into the darkness of the Underworld aboard his boat to cross the dark lands where the monstrous serpent Apep lived, which tried to prevent him from rising the next day glorious and rejuvenated to light up the world. The gods united to protect him through the Heka.
Apep
In the intimacy of their temples or rooms, the priests elaborated figures of Apep to which they cursed and cast spells to help Ra to fulfill his journey aboard the boat. On the other hand, the priests were not only advisers of the pharaohs but through magic, they interpreted the dreams of the rulers so that they could make the best decisions.
This mysterious practice is known as oniromancy. They were also followers and experts in hemerology, a practice that determined the most appropriate hours or days to carry out a specific activity. With all this, the pharaohs benefited, and the priests acquired privileged places in the courts. They were also physicians who relied on the lessons and energies of Heka to heal the sick.
The pharaoh was a magical being because he was a direct descendant of the god Horus. He could do magic and use it to punish his enemies and request the favors of the Universe to be more powerful. His clothes, his words, and his very presence emanated a power before which the people surrendered to know that he was a reincarnation of the gods on earth.
Such was the power of Egyptian spells and incantations that they were used for various purposes: to make people fall in love and awaken their lust, manipulate them and make them follow certain orders, invoke love, exorcise evil spirits, and treat fatal diseases, such as jaundice.
Throughout history, researchers have come across codices written on scrolls thousands of years old, thanks to which these spells have become known. Egypt was more than the mythical Cleopatra, gigantic pyramids and temples full of mystery. They were a society that believed in the powers of the Universe. Heka had within itself the ability to modify essence and matter because Heka itself was essence and matter.
The Egyptians not only believed in strange gods with crocodiles, birds, or jackal heads. Their nightmares were filled with creepy creatures like the living dead, who returned to feed on the filth. They sported fleshless, putrid bodies, and their heads were turned backward. Every noise in the night came from these creatures. The townspeople would go to priests and sorcerers to seek their help against these beings who sought to feed or harm young children, pregnant mothers, or those who had just given birth. The priests would then pronounce spells or give them amulets to ward off the presence of such horrendous beings.
Dead Rendering Account to Osiris
Other texts of great transcendence in which Heka was present to help mortals handle the energy of the Universe were books and the great scrolls of pure leather that allowed them to bring down the demon, The Books of Protection of the Boat, The Book of Making the King Go out in Procession, The Book of all the Writings of the Magic Combat or The Book of Hunting the Lion, rejecting the crocodiles and the reptiles.
Pharaohs, magicians, and priests were fully convinced that Egypt was the center of the creation of the Universe. All that surrounded it was only a monstrous blackness where enemies, chaos, or creatures lived and they had to watch out for them. That is why they invented rites through which they cast spells against their adversaries.
Antecedents of voodoo were part of Egyptian magic: they built clay figurines with which they represented the figure of their enemy. The priests would then spit on the figure, trample it, bring it close to the fire, insult it, or beat it to cause harm to the real person. This was seen as normal if it was to defend the place of creation. If Heka gave them the power, then they had the right to use it to destroy evil.
Cursed Readings
Through writing, the Egyptians left great treatises on black magic that to this day remain a source of reference for lovers or practitioners of the occult. Especially important were texts such as the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Daylight, or the Texts of the Pyramids and the Texts of the Sarcophagi, volumes that contained a multitude of spells, prayers, and incantations that would be used by the dead on their journey to the Beyond, to defeat the terrible creatures that dwelled in the dimensions of death to render accounts before gods like Osiris.
Land of legends, ancient sands that have seen the passage of millennia, and ancient pyramids that continue to amaze visitors today, Egypt is a land that shows us that the magic of history is still part of its legacy.
This story was originally published in Spanish by Cultura Colectiva
