Egyptian literature preserves a clear sense of a hierarchy among practitioners of heka. The Westcar Papyrus, a Middle Kingdom collection of stories, depicts lector priests performing spectacular feats of magic at the royal court, reattaching a severed animal head or parting a lake's waters, framing the most formally trained magicians as court entertainers and advisors whose skill reflected directly on royal prestige. Far more common in the archaeological and textual record, however, is heka practiced at a household level, using spells copied from manuals, cheap amulets and simple gestures to address the ordinary anxieties of daily life, protecting a household from scorpions, easing a difficult labor, or securing a favorable outcome in a dispute.
The distinction between elite temple magic and ordinary household practice was one of scale, training and resources rather than of fundamentally different belief, since both drew on the same underlying theology of heka as a real, directable cosmic force, and Egyptologists increasingly treat the household end of this spectrum, long overshadowed by the more dramatic court narratives, as the practice's true day to day center of gravity across Egyptian society.