The great serpent had no eyes, no ears, indeed no senses at all. All it had was a mouth with which it screamed unendingly into the eternal night of the netherworld. This is how ancient Egyptians imagined the demon Apophis; Lord of Chaos; a malevolent entropy-like force that forever threatened to wear down the mechanisms of the state and bring about the collapse of civilisation. To combat Apophis’ erosive force, the priesthood undertook elaborate daily rituals to ward off the demon, in Temples that were to them engine rooms of cosmic stability, operated by the user interface of word-magic and sacrament.