House of Eset and Set

HEKA and MAAT are two very important concepts in understanding Ancient Egyptian spirituality. They are two of the fundamental principles underlying Ancient Egyptian thought and how they lived their lives. From peasant to Pharaoh. From the mundane to ecclesiastical. Heka and Maat were akin to everything. While volumes can be written on both, a deeper understanding of their meanings must be further studied. The only way to accomplish that is to put these two principles into practise.

“Heka may be defined as the Egyptian conviction that a knowledge of words and actions of power can confer the capacity to alter radically the world of normal experience, whether it be the normal experience of gods or men.” A. B. Lloyd

The Ancient Egyptian believed that Heka was the medium in which the divine communicated and facilitated its will. One element missing from this definition that was important for the Ancient Egyptian practitioner is the fact that their fundamental belief and genuine desire in their practise gave their work affect. This belief is reflected in the following…

“The concept of magic to us involves an attempt to subvert the natural order of the cosmos whereas to the Egyptians Heka was an intrinsic part of the fabric of the universe which they physically and mentally inhabited” A. B. Lloyd

“Magic uses modes of causality and procedure that go beyond those which are understood as instrumental, by invoking forces that have always existed and that are shared by the deities, the dead, the king and humanity, but are most easily accessible to the deities. Access to it is specialized and often privileged, but it is not ‘forbidden’ or ‘taboo’. While the force of magic is part of the constitution of the cosmos, its availability is not simple.” J.Baines

While HEKA is the medium that can influence existence it was the principle of MAAT adhered to by the Ancient Egyptians that kept Heka functioning as that fundamental medium. We find examples of the Ancient Egyptian view of Maat in many autobiographies. These are in the form of papyrus writings, on stele, on tomb walls and on ostraka.

“While the word ‘maat’ translates readily into ‘right/rightness’, ‘truth’ and ‘justice’ Egyptian thinking about maat resulted in formulating the systematized attitudes which in modern languages are called ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’. Studying the ethics of the ancient Egyptian means examining maat in the context of the Egyptian experience with ‘knowledge/wisdom’ and the Egyptians sense of the divine, his piety.” M. Lichtheim

“The Egyptian was well aware of the distinction between a prayer and a magical spell; but he did not view the ethical-religious approach as incompatible with magical manipulation. Not being inimical, the two approaches could join forces; and their combination in the literary context was something that practised scribes could evidently do with ease.” M. Lichtheim