One of the ways people could interact with the gods, who for most of the time couldn’t give two shits what humans were up to, was to entreat them to perform some horrible curse on, or cast some weird spell at, someone you didn’t like, for whatever reason. The pagan gods weren’t arbiters of human morality, so what you wanted them to do was up to you. If you asked them to do something really shitty, and they did it for you, the moral repercussions of what they did was your problem, not theirs. The curse, or magic spell, could be written on a papyrus or a lead tablet and then deposited at a shrine, and some of them have been preserved, including this absolutely batshit example from the home of all things absolutely batshit, Egypt.
Bear in mind that the following is written verbatim, and no, I have no idea what in the fuck they’re talking about, either. This sent my spellchecker haywire. Here goes:
”[To be wrought by the help] of a boy, with a lamp, a bowl, and a stand. I invoke thee, O Zeus, Helius, Mithra, Sarapis, unconquerable, possessor of honey, Melicertes, father of honey, abraalbabachambechi, baibeizoth, ebaibeboth, seriabeboth, amelchipsithiouthipithoio, pnoutenin, thereterou, iueueoo, aieia, eeoia, eeai, eueie, ooooo, eueoiao, ai, bakaxichuch, bosepsteth, phobe, biboth, the great, great Sarapis, samasphreth, odargazas, odarmagas, odaphar, ykiaboth, aphia, zelearthar, methomeo, lamarmera, potebi, ptebi, marianou, appear and give heed to him who has manifested before fire and snow, terrible-eyed-thundering-and-lightning-swift-footed-one, pintouche, etomthoout, opsianaeak, arourongoa, paphtha, enosade, iae, iaoai, aoiao, oeu.... Tell what I inquire of thee. Say as follows; Let the throne of the god enter, zatera, kyma, kyma, Iuageu, apsitardus, ge moliandron, bonblilon, peuchre. Let the throne be brought in. Then if it be borne by four men, inquire what they are crowned with and what precedes the throne. If he says “They are crowned with olive, and a censer precedes,” the boy speaks true. The dismissal: Depart, lord, to thine own world, and to thine own thrones, to thine own orbits, and guard me and this boy, unhurt, in the name of the most high god Samasphreth. Perform [this divination] when the moon is in a firm sign of the zodiac in conjunction with beneficent stars, or when she is in favourable limits, not when she is at the full, for thus it is better, and thus is the divination performed in orderly fashion. But in other versions it has been recorded that it should be performed when the moon is full.”
Make of that what you will.