In ancient times the power of the name or of certain names was fundamental, thus magical names were used to obtain a power or the power of the named. Basically, the name contains the magical essence and both gods and men or objects existed from the moment they were named, that is to say, that they possessed a name.

To know the name meant to have power over that which was named, which is why the name of the gods was hidden, for example in the case of the Sumerian gods (and even forgotten when replaced by periphrases such as the name of the God of Israel like “I am that I am”, “El shaddai, Adonai, etc.).

To have power over a god or a demon you had to know all their names, which is why there were gods who had a hundred different names (e.g. Osiris, as specified in chapter 142 of the Book of the Dead). In the pyramid texts there is even a god whose name nobody knows.

Traditionally in magic, there is the use of names to obtain a certain thing or to work on a certain area of our inner self or our evolution. These magical names or magical words (because the use of the word and its power is essential in the magical arts) sometimes seem meaningless and it is necessary to take into account the exact intonation and modulations (for example Abulafia speaks of chanting, singing vibrating the name of God, others speak of the power of psalmody, or the magical effect of vibrating the words in a certain way as for example in the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram).

The power of the name, the words of power and the way of pronouncing them are important steps in any ritual and even in a meditation on a divine name (for example those related to the 10 spheres or sephirae of the tree of life) since, as Genesis says: “In the beginning was the Word…”.

Regarding Yahweh, the God of Israel; Hebrew magic has a strong belief that the name contains the essence, for that reason the name of Yahweh has been kept hidden. If the exact name were known (and given that Yahweh is all-powerful) one would have access to a source of incredible power. This taboo caused the exact pronunciation of the “Name” to be lost.

Apart from the tetagram (yod, He, Vau, He), a 12-letter name (basically the names of the first three sefirot, as they belong to the world of emanation), and a 42-letter name (codified in the famous Aná Bejoach) are used.

Regarding the 72 names of God, they are permutations of three letters encoded in Exodus, in three verses of chapter XIV, in 19, 20 and 21. The first time I read about this was in the High Magick Form of P.V. Piobb, where it is explained how to decode the names hidden in the verses.

By adding the names IAH or EL, one gains access to the names of the jinn, higher intelligences or angels that contain the name of God, known as Shemasphoras. Although they have been well known in magick and widely used, it is only now that they have become more widely known.

There are different methods of working with these energies. But that is what the next article will be about….