Naming

Magic and speech

The names of Ra were as numerous as his forms; he was the Shining One, The Hidden One, The Renewer of the Earth, the Wind in the Souls, The Exalted One, but there was one name of the Sun God which had not been spoken since time began. To know this secret name of Ra was to have power over him and over the world that he had created.

Majus means ‘speaker,’ and a truly masterful speaker will ‘charm’ and ‘enchant’ the audience, and if the trick is revealed we are ‘disillusioned.’ I love the overlap in language between magic and speech, but the connection goes more than skin deep.

There’s an idea in magic of ‘naming’ which goes back all the way to the ancient Egyptians who believed that if you understood something well enough, all you had to do is speak its true name aloud and it would attune to you and you would gain power over it.

The reality of naming is closer to that than you might think.