Hi Chris,

>>I don't have "Liber Israfel" at hand, but I can tell you that 
>>Taphthartharath is one of several spirits whose names and signs are 
>>structured into the magic squares in Cornelius Agrippa, book 2. I do not 
>>know of any prior reference to this spirit, whose name is gibberish, so I 
>>rather doubt it has an Egyptian origin.<<

Yes, I didn't think Taphthartharath was Egyptian (but interesting to know 
where that name came from anyway), What I'm interested in is the "Invocation 
to Thoth" that appears within the ritual - before the ritualists concentrate 
on Taphtharthrath - that starts off "Majesty of the Godhead, Wisdom-crowned 
Thoth (or Tahuti in other versions), Lord of the Gates of the Universe: Thee 
! Thee  we invoke. Thou who holdest in thy hand the wand of double power: 
Thee! Thee we invoke... (Then comes reference to the Rose and Cross so I'd 
think that bit was inserted by the Golden Dawn members), then it goes "Thou 
whose head is green, whose Nemyss is of the night sky blue; whose skin is a 
flaming orange.." Actually, now it's looking like a visual representation of 
a kabbalistic colour scale or something like that. Then it goes "Behold I am 
Yesterday, Today and the Brother of the Morrow! For I am born again and 
again...." Perhaps that bit is Egyptian?

The end part of the Invocation is part of the "Bornless ritual', I think, 
which apparently comes out of (in modified form) a Greek Magical Papyri 
spell to do with the "headless one". What I was wondering was whether *any* 
apart of the Invocation to Thoth was (ancient) Egyptian?

I suppose I'd like an opinion on where one would find ancient Egyptian 
"Invocations"? I've looked in books like the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts 
and the Book of the Dead at things called "spells" which don't really look 
like "spells" that I might be familiar with from, say, the twentieth century 
popular occult "how to" literature, so I wonder if "spells" would be an 
insufficent description. I suppose I'm quite unfamiliar with Egyptian 
literature. I can find descriptions of gods and temples easily enough, but 
prayers said *to* gods I haven't really seen much of - yet. I'm wondering if 
Egyptians had "invocations", "evocations" or lengthy prayers as we might 
recognise them as used in a nineteenth/twentieth/twenty-first century sort 
of "ceremonial magic style" - as in the above "Invocation to Thoth" or 
whether really "invocation" isn't the right sort of description for that 
sort of thing - religious "prayer" in Egyptian religion.

I recall reading something to the effect that identifying with the god, as 
in later practice by magicians, was "Egyptian", but that's in the 
Hellenistic / Roman period. I don't know that temple priests "identified" 
with the god like later magicians may have.

I should probably be looking at Ritner's "Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian 
Magic" - should I? - which our university does not actually have. (I'll hunt 
it down).

Sorry, I'm vague with my question, I know. I guess the question is something 
like: are there published, long prayers to Egyptian deities that would be 
they type of thing that modern ceremonial magicians could "recognise", as in 
the above "Invocation to Thoth", or would one be looking at something more 
the style of the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, Book of the Dead - even though 
those texts are really designed for dead people....

(I am under the impression that the 'Book of the Dead' used to be thought of 
in the late 19th century as "the hottest stuff available" as a source for 
"magic" - but its not really a "magical" text, is it, as in "ceremonial 
magic" or Theurgy. Its a funerary text).


~Caroline.