Different Names Of God

THE FORMATION OF MAGICAL NAMES « phantasypublishing

Whence came the multitude of new names that made its way into Jewish mysticism toward the end of the Geonic period and during the Middle Ages? Was it concocted out of pure fancy, or did it bear any discernible relation to the names already in use? Can we discover any method behind the mad luxuriousness of thirteenth-century invention? The material itself, as often as not, defies analysis; so many terms are obviously corrupted beyond all hope of restoration; many of the names actually look impossible, as though the scribe or typesetter had simply jumbled together a group of letters and dared the reader to make sense of them. It not seldom happens that the same name is written in two or three different forms in one and the same recipe. Gaster noted that the copyist of the text of The Sword of Moses It is possible, however, to establish a set of rules according to which most of these names were created, so that we may observe the process at work even when the results in particular cases conform none too closely to our expectations. These rules were originally formulated in the Talmudic period and were extended and elaborated during the Middle Ages. 2. Another method widely employed involved the manipulation of traditionally received divine names or particles of these names: a. by combining them and alternating their component letters, such as ‏יאהדונהי‎, which comprises ‏יהוה אדני‎; b. by combining a name with a word representing an attribute: ‏שקדחזי‎ is ‏שדי חזק‎; the letters here are merely jumbled together; c. by dropping letters from, or adding new ones to such names, like the ‏אני והו‎ mentioned in the Talmud, which some scholars take to be shortened forms of ‏אדני יהוה‎, or the Tetragrammaton plus inserted letters which may explain ‏יכה יוסה‎;d. by transposing the letters of these names, e.g. ‏אדני‎ may assume 24 forms: ‏דאני‎, ‏אנדי‎, etc. , ‏אדם‎ = ‏אדם דוד משיח‎, or ‏אפר דם מרה‎, ‏פרדם‎ = ‏פשט רמן דרוש סוד‎) for purposes of anagogic homiletics. This method was later used to create some of the most important names in the entire mystical catalogue. One of these names, guaranteed to protect its user against all weapons, is ‏יהמהיה‎, which on examination turns out to be nothing more than an acrostic of the concluding letters of the first six (Hebrew) words of Ex.