Heka

Heka is the Egyptian conception of magic — not trickery but a genuine divine force, one of the powers the creator used to bring the world into being and by which the gods themselves act. It could be personified as a god present with the creator from the first.

Through heka — wielded in the right words, names, images, and rites — the priest could share in divine power and act upon the world and even the gods. This conviction, that sacred ritual and divine names carry real efficacy, passed into the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri and helped shape the theurgy of Iamblichus, who looked to Egyptian priestly wisdom for its source in On the Mysteries.