" Then the god hid himself from the gods, and his place in the
ship of eternity was empty. Thus was the name of the great god taken
from him, and Isis, the witch, spake, "Flow away, poison, depart
from Ra. It is I, even I, who overcome the poison and cast it to the
earth; for the name of the great god hath been taken away from him.
Let Ra live and let the poison die." Thus spake great Isis, the
queen of the gods, she who knows Ra and his true name.
From this story it appears that the real name of the god, with which
his power was inextricably bound up, was supposed to be lodged, in
an almost physical sense, somewhere in his breast, from which Isis
extracted it by a sort of surgical operation and transferred it with
all its supernatural powers to herself. In Egypt attempts like that
of Isis to appropriate the power of a high god by possessing herself
of his name were not mere legends told of the mythical beings of a
remote past; every Egyptian magician aspired to wield like powers by
similar means. For it was believed that he who possessed the true
name possessed the very being of god or man, and could force even a
deity to obey him as a slave obeys his master.
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