This from memory, but yes, Ritner bases the connection of heka and "magic" within the actual cultural context, i.e. upon Coptic texts which translate Greek magos and mageia with the Coptic Egyptian hik, a direct derivative of Pharaonic Egyptian heka. As Ritner points out, the connection in this specific case is made in antiquity, not in modern scholarship.

~ Aaron







At 12:40 AM 9/03/2006 -0800, you wrote:

Hi Caroline .&

 

The title of Robert K. Ritners book is _The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice_ and he doesnt use the gloss magicfor Heka/u lightly or without cause.  His chapter dealing with terminology is very well argued, in my opinion.  Ritner *never* calls religion magic,btw.  He does discuss the points at which these two classes of belief/behavior intersect, however.  I highly recommend reading this work (a good idea in general if youre going to critique it on this forum!)  In any case, the chapter on Spitting, Licking and Swallowingalone is worth the price of admission!

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen C. Wehmeyer

CSUN

Otis College of Art and Design

 

 
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Caroline Tully
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 11:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] magick and magick

 

Hi Mogg, (slowly catching up on email on my *new* computer...blew the old
one up...)

You said...
>>Ritner (the author of a prize winning book on the mechanics of egyptian
>>magick) says that in the Egyptian context, its study has not been well
>>served by anthropologists such as Malinowski<<

Corect me if I'm wrong, but isn't Ritner's book "The Mechanics of Egyptian Religion"? or is it "Egyptian Magic"? (You're probably right). Only asking because the word 'magic' in the title piqued my interest. Yesterday in my lecture on Ancient Magic, at Uni, the lecturer said that to call Pharaonic-era Egyptian religion
"magic" was erroneous, that 'Heka' - the Egyptian word usually translated as 'Magic' really meant something in the order of 'the force that animated the
Gods and everything else' a divine force that was not actually 'magic(k)al', that 'magic' was a bad translatuion of Heka - as in say Geraldine Pinch's
book "Egyptian Magic" she talks about the problem of calling Heka Magic, but then goes on to use the 'm' word throughout her book. Apparently it wasn't
really correct to equate Egyptian religious technology with magic until the Hellenistic period.

~Caroline.