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Isis and the Secret Name of Ra
To heal his poison, the sun god had to whisper his one secret name — and so lost his power.
Egyptians told a magical tale in which Isis, wanting greater power, made a serpent whose bite poisoned the aged sun god Ra. Suffering, Ra could be healed only when he finally surrendered his secret, true name to Isis — for to know a being's hidden name was to hold power over it. The story dramatizes a deep Egyptian belief: that names carry real power, and that magic and knowledge are forms of it.
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