"Steal This Book of Shadows" - "This Page Intentionally Left Blank!"

"Steal This Book of Shadows" ver 2.0
(What's Really Happening in the Mind of a Wizard)
An Occult Tutorial
by Azzerac
~PAGES~
Prev HOME Next

Page 64
The Law of Names

(Brought To You By,...)

This law harkens back, before the days of Yore, when an oft-quoted & oft-misunderstood philosopher named Aristotle asserted in his own special (if not patented way), that the name of a thing was that thing. He asserted that the naming of a thing, in deference to to the Biblical word of creation, would actually bring that thing into being. He assured that the issue then became knowing a things' true name.

To know ones' true name is to have dominion over it. The ability to name a thing imparted the ability to make, modify, or even un-make it from existence. This was his promise of power.

Sounds pretty impressive, but there's a catch. (There's always a catch).

In this set of assertions, we find the holes in the multi-form: The culture of the time, the novelty of the written word, and the elusive nature of one's "true name". These may be reproducible through deep understanding, study, and meditations, but I'm sure a road map would help. Here we go....

The Culture: The words of the learned were taken as lordly, in the days of ancient Rome & Greece. Public speaking & performance were not as prevalent, by law or capacity, as today. In our current culture, words are throw-away. Everyone with a free blog gets their word out. Push a button and your favorite music or podcast is at a level of instant gratification, and forgotten as quickly as attention-span wanes. The flavor-of-the-month actor, actress, or pop-star is just as disposable. Why bother even learning their names? How little the word, written or spoken, in these days of ipods and livejournal.

The Written Word: Education, namely in written form, was a class-ist and expensive undertaking. Not every peasant & slave could afford that luxury. The very materials used for writing were prohibitive. Anyone who could see words, and speak them exactly as the last person said then, was considered other-worldly; god-like. They possessed a rare and mysterious power. That mystery has been diluted with mass education, and so has the reverence and respect for that ability. It is taken for granted that the anyone and everyone has this ability, and the shock is in the exceptions.

The True Name: Once again, a self-cleaning issue. If you don't have that power, you don't have their name. The trick becomes finding that name. Now, here is where a lot of texts have been written: The Greater Key of Solomon & Lesser Key of Solomon, The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra Melin, and more are extensive catalogs, based-upon and embroiled in this very law. This research may help gain a furthered understanding.