Ra as King and Father of the King

the most powerful magical formula known to the priests of the sacerdotal castes of ancient Egypt is the identification of the Ritualist in imagination with the divinity he is invoking. Iamblichus presents the statement that " The priest who invokes is a man ; when he commands power it is because through arcane symbols he, in a certain respect, is invested with the sacred Forms of the Gods." Whether the clause " in a certain respect " indicates the formula about to be considered, although it well may be that it is the Assumption of the God-form to which he has reference.

one ascertains that the scribe of that book identifies himself with them. There are numerous examples of separate verses confirming this belief. " I have united myself with the divine Apes who sing at the dawn and I am a divine Being anlong them." In Chapter One Hundred the verse, " I have made myself a counterpart of the goddess Isis and her power (khu) has made me strong," would appear most finitely to countenance the view, which also obtains additional confirmation from other sources, that the assumption of the God form constitutes one of the most important factors to be noted in the Magic of the Egyptians.

Remembering all that which has been postulated with regard to the plastic, magnetic nature of the Astral Light, in both its inferior and superior aspects, and the creative potentiality of the trained Imagination, as well as the remark made by Levi in connection with the astral body that " it can assume all forms evoked by thought," the student should make it a point of studying the conventional forms by which the Gods are portrayed.

Yet other symbols carried by the God were suggestive of his ability to confer resurrection or rebirth, authority and power, ecstasy or stability, or representative in some way of llis particular function in the cosmic economy. The conventional form of the God thus summarizes in a most astounding way a vast aggregation of ideas, legends and myths, epitomizing at the same time special forces of nature, or, it may be, unconscious powers in the spiritual make-up of man - firer spirit elusively dancing like serpent sizzling tickling God