Unlike some modern pagan groups the ancient Egyptians did not invoke deity into a sacred image only to dismiss or bid farewell to that divine energy at the conclusion of ritual. The continuous beneficent presence of Netjer was a major objective for the Egyptian cult. The living presence of the deity in this world was the purpose of the daily rites in the temples. In Egyptian tradition the god or goddess is not experienced as a lord/lady in absentia, or as one who upon occasion visits this world, but rather as a numinous and powerfully present divine reality.