Gandalf. Olorin. Mithrandir. Greyhaeme. Tharkun, Incanus.Harry Blackstone Copperfield DresdenGeb and the whispered True Name only he knows.Craft Names. Shadow names. Chosen names. Use names. True Names. Birth names.Whatever they are, wherever they come from, names have power.And mages, especially wizards (the name means wise ones, after all) are well aware of that fact.

They hide their names behind layers of secrecy, using many different names for different places or different facets of themselves, all to make it harder to use their names against them, or to wield the power of the chosen name in specific situations. Each name is a facet , a mantle, an aspect, of who they truly are.

It is not just mages that have many names. We all do throughout our lives. The name we are given by our parents. The names they actually call us. Nicknames of every kind, from each and every different space in our lives: home, school, play.

It isn't even just people. Things, creatures, even ideas have different words for different aspects of themselves. From the philosophical and magical point of view . . . every word is a name. A name for a person place or thing, sure. Nouns are definitely names. But verbs are names for actions. Adjectives are names for descriptions. Its all names, all the way down. All language is Naming. And almost every culture since the dawn of time has understood the power of language, of Names.

The Sumerians had a concept called Me, which were the words and concepts associated with the divine decrees about reality, about the foundation of reality, which even the gods were subject to.

The Egyptians explicitly referred to the magic of names, with the name being the Ren, literally an important part of a thing's soul, even a god. When Ra was believed to be senile, Isis weakened him by first poisoning him, then offering to heal him...for which she needed his Ren, his true name. She used this to reduce his power to that of the other gods, or even lower, when once he reigned supreme.

Kabbalah (and to a lesser extent, Hermetic magic) uses the inherent magic of the divine alphabet, given to Adam, and the language that goes with it, sometimes called Adamic, or the First Tongue, or Enochian, the language of the angels. It is implied that this is the language that the god of Abraham used when he said 'Let their be light,' and spoke the universe into existence.

The Norse had their runes, the Celts their Ogham. Taoist mystics use the symbols of the I Ching and other symbolic languages. All words. All names.In the context of modern magic, one should keep in mind that even if none of this is objectively true, all of it is, to some extent, true, because it is so widely believed. And perhaps it speaks to a deeper reality that we all perceive, in some small measure, the rules by which even consensual reality is governed.

A mage should be cautious. Thinking that all you need do is learn a large powerful name, and then you can do anything, is fraught with peril. Each of the beings above has many names, and a True Name as well. What if one must know all the components before one can begin to comprehend the True? So start with little names, little parts, and work your way up. In the loosely shared paradigm, or at least linguistic conventions, of the Traditions, ( and sometimes the Diamond Orders), the Spheres or Arcana might be considered, very big True Names, names that we only slowly come to understand, as our Gnosis and specific knowledge of that Sphere or Arcana expands.

A little digression. An example. Imagine that my parents named me Jonathan Livingston. (I assure, they did not. Just an example.) They might have named me after the character in the Richard Bach book. That character, a seagull, learns to teleport. He is told , “You must begin by knowing that you are already there.” This implies that you can just know Space or Correspondence is an illusion to be ignored, right off the bat. And maybe, just maybe, you can. Maybe you were raised with the concept of Maya and no Western notions of science and this is easy for you to accept. But can you just ignore all the evidence of your senses? The space you can see between you and other things? The verifiable fact that something separates things from each other? Probably not. Not so easily.

The story comes back though, to the same concept from two directions, and so does my little story here. If you know now that I go by the Shadow Name of Seagull (I don't), you might ascertain other parts of my name. But you have to know it all to really know me, and you must really know me, to have power over me. The Arcana are the same. We call them Arcana because their meanings and their power are not obvious, they are Hidden. That's what arcane and occult both men, hidden. Not easily found or understood.

To understand an Arcana, eventually, you must learn, little by little, as many tiny True Names of its aspects as it takes for your deeper understanding, your gnosis, to supply you with the whole picture...and even then the more pieces you learn, the more complete your knowledge and power become. Then, as I have previously discussed, all that remains to make change is Will.

Do not be misled, either, into thinking once you know a name all learning is done. Just as people have many names over their lives, when they are born, nicknamed, go through trauma, transition gender, become an actor, or any other reason . . . as the person, thing, or concept (and especially self-conception) changes, so to does the True Name. Even if there is little outward change, science tells us that after seven years every molecue of our body, and every cell, is different. ( Perhaps that is why debts are forgiven every seven years in Jewish practice, because we are literally not the one who incurred the debt? Sorry.)

A note on allegory and metaphor, which by nature this discussion is:

It's dangerous.

Even in the mundane, open world, it can have many unforeseen consequences. Many great teachers have used, allegory, metaphor and parable, to teach important lessens, and had great success. But even the greatest of them have had those same allegories and parables taken seriously as fact, as literal, not metaphorical, and turned them into whole religions, or cults, or political stances, the fallout of which has killed and tormented billions. The danger is all the greater when taken in the context of consensual reality. A careless allegory can turn from a lesson into a literal reality, by capturing the imagination of enough people.

As a mage, you must understand this, and wield your power wisely. It is not just the literal power of magic, but the far more subtle and dangerous magic of words and ideas, that you bear. All of us are responsible for the consequences of our actions, and of our words, perhaps especially the ones that were unforeseen. Often, they are only unforeseen because we didn't bother to think before we talked or acted, and look at the possible outcomes.

But, as Gandalf (or Olorin, or Mithrandir) once said, “Even the very wise cannot see all ends.” So do your best, but sometimes you'll miss something. It happens. If the consequences are such that you view them as too negative, take action to fix them. You are still responsible for the outcome. But don't waste energy on blame or shame.

Just act.