'Hail, the first, chrepsenthaēs; hail, the second, meneschéēs; hail, the third, mechran; hail, the fourth, ararmachēs; hail, the fifth, echommiē; hail, the sixth, tichnondaēs; hail, the seventh, Eroú, rombrins.'

Here the rite becomes pure litany, and it must be read aloud to be understood at all. Seven times chaîre — hail — each followed by an ordinal and a name that means nothing in Greek and everything as sound: chrepsenthaēs, meneschéēs, mechran, ararmachēs, echommiē, tichnondaēs, and the seventh split into two, Eroú rombrins. To possess these names is to hold the powers; the whole logic of the papyrus is that a being greeted correctly, by its own true name, must respond and cannot harm. The names themselves are a linguistic sediment — bits of Egyptian, Semitic, and invented syllable washed together over centuries of copying, their origins now unrecoverable, their power understood to lie precisely in their strangeness. A word you cannot parse cannot be faked or reasoned with; it can only be known or not known. Say them slowly. The rhythm of hail-and-name, seven times over, is the sound of a door being opened by someone who has the keys.