> Now, Midwinter has brought up an interesting point about magick. He/she
> says that the Name of God is not God. This may not in fact be the case, as
> it pertains to magick. Magical names are formulae for the things that they
> name. The true magical name of any entity is the blueprint of that entity,
> sort of like one's DNA is a formula for the construction of your body. So
> the Name of God could indeed be thought of as God.
Finally got to the root of the thread I was tracing back, sheesh...
It's important to remember the source of our beliefs in the powers of
the names of God. For example, Agrippa says in
http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agrippa3.htm#chap11
Chapter xi. Of the Divine names, and their power and vertue [virtue].
"God himself though he he only one in Essence, yet hath diverse names,
which expound not his diverse Essences or Deities, but certain
properties flowing from him, by which names he doth pour down, as it
were by certain Conduits on us and all his creatures many benefits and
diverse gifts; ten of these Names we have above described, which also
Hierom reckoneth up to Marcella. Dionysius reckoneth up forty five
names of God and Christ. The Mecubales of the Hebrews from a certain
text of Exodus, derive seventy-two names, both of the Angels and of
God, which they call the name of seventy two letters, and
Schemhamphores, that is, the expository; but others proceeding
further, out of all places of the Scripture do infer so many names of
God as the number of those names is: but what they signifie is
altogether unknown to us..."
Later, in chapter 24 of Book 3, he goes on to say:
Chapter xxiv. Of the names of Spirits, and their various imposition;
and of the Spirits that are set over the Stars, Signs, Corners of the
Heaven, and the Elements.
"Many and divers are the names of good spirits, and bad: but their
proper, and true names, as those of the Stars, are known to God alone,
who only numbers the multitude of Stars, and calls them all by their
names, whereof none can be known by us but by divine revelation, and
very few are expressed to us in the sacred writ..."
Now, that chapter is probably the most important chapter in Agrippa's
3 Books of Occult Philosophy for understanding what it is we are
conjuring when we conjure any spirit by it's alleged "name."
IMO.
-R.O.
