Magical Names

[jkeller293]

Forgive me for i am very ignorant of the practices of using or making magical names. I have produced a magical name for myself in a unorthodox fashion, and this name really resonates with me personally.

For now on i will refer to myself as "Illa Initiatus."

I am ignorant of latin so this was done using a translator, but as it is it sounds good which im about to explain why i like this. Originally i wanted my name to be "the initiate," but of course the "the" has no real latin equivalent for what i know.

This name would translate to "that initiate." However, the words are meant to be read by themselves not together. Read together you will get a different meaning which is "she started." The "that" or "Illa" which is used is feminine which you could also say is "she" — "ille" would be the male equivalent.

So what im implying with this name is that i am a child learning from its mother. The mother would be the world. I refuse to ever declare myself as a teacher, because that is a declaration that I know which is not true. I live in a illusion searching for truth so i refuse to be untrue to myself in the process.

The name i just made is interesting because when you read it in english it comes out as "Ellah initate us." Very close to "allah." So in my view it comes out as "Mother teach us."

I may have used my own personal method here with this, but i like it. Im a male in real life. My real name is Jesse Keller. Which can be read like "just see, kill her."

I find this personal viewpoint i have interesting between "Jesse Keller" and "Illa Initiatus." First name says to kill the mother and the second says learn from the mother — of course under my own personal viewpoint.

Im curious about what you guys think about my style of thinking on this and im curious about your perspective on magical names — and of course the debate wether they have use or not. I would like to hear your personal experience using a magical name and how you made yours if you have one. In my perspective i see them as a identification which transforms who you are when you meditate upon it. So far i did not originally intend the meaning which came to fuition through my intuition. To me that felt magical.

 

[Xenophon]

There's no one method to generate names. My rule of thumb is to compose a name that sets you a challenge in the direction you want to grow. Yours seems to fit the bill.

Personally, I use two names. One I'll let others know. The other I use in my workings and that no one knows.

 

[jkeller293]

There's no one method to generate names. My rule of thumb is to compose a name that sets you a challenge in the direction you want to grow. Yours seems to fit the bill.

Personally, I use two names. One I'll let others know. The other I use in my workings and that no one knows.

Do you see your current second name in this sense as you described? And do you currently see life as a challenge? I personally see life as challenging, but I don't neccessarily feel like it is actually a challenge if that makes sense. I see life as full of challenges only if you bring attention to those challenges.

I am also curious to your thought process of why you would hide your second name from others. If you do not wish to speak on it I respect that, but if you are willing to speak about it I would love to hear what you have to say.

 

[Xenophon]

Do you see your current second name in this sense as you described? And do you currently see life as a challenge? I personally see life as challenging, but I don't neccessarily feel like it is actually a challenge if that makes sense. I see life as full of challenges only if you bring attention to those challenges.

I am also curious to your thought process of why you would hide your second name from others. If you do not wish to speak on it I respect that, but if you are willing to speak about it I would love to hear what you have to say.

Life is full of challenges. Some fights you choose; others find you.

A good many magickal traditions hold that if someone has your name, they have a way to attack you. Not just in magick, either. Some traditional peoples in Africa and the Americas hold the same thing. The Navajo "war name" is typically known only to the giver and the person it is given to. I knew a "South African" woman who knew next to nothing about her "native" country. I only assume she was hiding provenance as well as...well, maybe everything else.

My second name was chosen along the lines of the first: it sets an agenda for working in magic. I could say a lot about it, but nothing else I say would be true. Since I am writing a long work of fiction at the moment, I'll save my creativity for that other venue.

 

[Lurker]

Magick is very subjective and everything is a symbol. I can't think of anything more personal than your magickal name, so how you choose it is up to you. I really don't think there is any right or wrong way, so if it has meaning to you, that is all that really matters.

My first magickal name came to me in meditation. I thought it was Latin at first, but later when I plugged it into Google Translate it didn't correspond to any Latin word. I had been learning a magickal alphabet with meanings attached to each letter, so I wrote out the meaning of each letter of the name in order and then it made sense. It truly described who I was magickally at the time.

I'm currently using a new magickal name because I feel that I've evolved beyond the first one. The new one popped into my head in a moment of clarity rather than while meditating, but I knew immediately what it was for. Again, it's sounds Latin, and this time it actually has a meaning in Latin. But it also has a meaning in the same magickal alphabet as the first, and that meaning is more immediately meaningful than the Latin meaning.

IMO the value of the magickal name is in its symbolism. It is a symbol of you as a being greater than your conscious, egoic boundaries, a symbol of your abilty to transcend those limitations in order to work magick.

Also, I definitely agree with this:

A good many magickal traditions hold that if someone has your name, they have a way to attack you.

I would be wary of giving it out, let alone posting it on the internet.

 

[jkeller293]

Life is full of challenges. Some fights you choose; others find you.

A good many magickal traditions hold that if someone has your name, they have a way to attack you. Not just in magick, either. Some traditional peoples in Africa and the Americas hold the same thing. The Navajo "war name" is typically known only to the giver and the person it is given to. I knew a "South African" woman who knew next to nothing about her "native" country. I only assume she was hiding provenance as well as...well, maybe everything else.

My second name was chosen along the lines of the first: it sets an agenda for working in magic. I could say a lot about it, but nothing else I say would be true. Since I am writing a long work of fiction at the moment, I'll save my creativity for that other venue.

Well said, i can agree with that first part that you said about some traditions believing that if someone has your name they have the way to attack you. Makes perfect sense to me as its information on your identity, and with a magical name that is much more information than just a regular name like the one i was given at birth.

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2025

Magick is very subjective and everything is a symbol. I can't think of anything more personal than your magickal name, so how you choose it is up to you. I really don't think there is any right or wrong way, so if it has meaning to you, that is all that really matters.

My first magickal name came to me in meditation. I thought it was Latin at first, but later when I plugged it into Google Translate it didn't correspond to any Latin word. I had been learning a magickal alphabet with meanings attached to each letter, so I wrote out the meaning of each letter of the name in order and then it made sense. It truly described who I was magickally at the time.

I'm currently using a new magickal name because I feel that I've evolved beyond the first one. The new one popped into my head in a moment of clarity rather than while meditating, but I knew immediately what it was for. Again, it's sounds Latin, and this time it actually has a meaning in Latin. But it also has a meaning in the same magickal alphabet as the first, and that meaning is more immediately meaningful than the Latin meaning.

IMO the value of the magickal name is in its symbolism. It is a symbol of you as a being greater than your conscious, egoic boundaries, a symbol of your abilty to transcend those limitations in order to work magick.

Also, I definitely agree with this:



I would be wary of giving it out, let alone posting it on the internet.

I have no problem having it public, because I welcome the attacks. I appreciate your insight.

 

[Xenophon]

Well said, i can agree with that first part that you said about some traditions believing that if someone has your name they have the way to attack you. Makes perfect sense to me as its information on your identity, and with a magical name that is much more information than just a regular name like the one i was given at birth.

Post automatically merged: Mar 30, 2025

I have no problem having it public, because I welcome the attacks. I appreciate your insight.

Readiness to fight can be admirable. Offering the other guy your chin is poor tactics. Giving up on'e name is doing just that.

Post automatically merged: Mar 31, 2025

Magick is very subjective and everything is a symbol. I can't think of anything more personal than your magickal name, so how you choose it is up to you. I really don't think there is any right or wrong way, so if it has meaning to you, that is all that really matters.

My first magickal name came to me in meditation. I thought it was Latin at first, but later when I plugged it into Google Translate it didn't correspond to any Latin word. I had been learning a magickal alphabet with meanings attached to each letter, so I wrote out the meaning of each letter of the name in order and then it made sense. It truly described who I was magickally at the time.

I'm currently using a new magickal name because I feel that I've evolved beyond the first one. The new one popped into my head in a moment of clarity rather than while meditating, but I knew immediately what it was for. Again, it's sounds Latin, and this time it actually has a meaning in Latin. But it also has a meaning in the same magickal alphabet as the first, and that meaning is more immediately meaningful than the Latin meaning.

IMO the value of the magickal name is in its symbolism. It is a symbol of you as a being greater than your conscious, egoic boundaries, a symbol of your abilty to transcend those limitations in order to work magick.

Also, I definitely agree with this:



I would be wary of giving it out, let alone posting it on the internet.

Yes, it'd be a case of self-doxxing. "Auto-doxxing." Kind of like Franz Ferdinand rolling down the streets of Sarajevo with a brass band playing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" marching in front of his car. Let's not go there.

 

[jkeller293]

Readiness to fight can be admirable. Offering the other guy your chin is poor tactics. Giving up on'e name is doing just that.

Valid point. I would say im far from being wise. How I wish to live is the hard way. I wish to experience pain. My thought process is both a blessing and a curse. I like to think for myself, but at the same time I disregard other's wisdom even though I do listen to what they have to say. I am a bit of a cherry picker of wisdom taking in what I personally think is useful for myself.

 

[Xenophon]

Valid point. I would say im far from being wise. How I wish to live is the hard way. I wish to experience pain. My thought process is both a blessing and a curse. I like to think for myself, but at the same time I disregard other's wisdom even though I do listen to what they have to say. I am a bit of a cherry picker of wisdom taking in what I personally think is useful for myself.

If you're in a fight, you most likely will get hit. Make the other guy work for it. Like Odysseus said, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you used bad tactics."

Post automatically merged: Mar 31, 2025

If you're in a fight, you most likely will get hit. Make the other guy work for it. Like Odysseus said, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you used bad tactics."

There's the old grim joke about knife-fighting: "The loser dies in the street; the winner, in the ambulance." That's why Hermes/Wotan invented magick: to give one the edge of getting in the first blow and last, all in one stroke.

 

[jkeller293]

If you're in a fight, you most likely will get hit. Make the other guy work for it. Like Odysseus said, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you used bad tactics."

Post automatically merged: Mar 31, 2025

There's the old grim joke about knife-fighting: "The loser dies in the street; the winner, in the ambulance." That's why Hermes/Wotan invented magick: to give one the edge of getting in the first blow and last, all in one stroke.

My rejection to the advice you are giving to me is due to my current perspective on the world which has the foundation on nondualism. I know that the Hermetic philosophy is also focused on a nondualistic viewpoint (as i comprehend it) and I do very much like the hermetic viewpoint. Currently I view everything as being me, but of course that is not the case in the dualistic experience that both you, I, and the rest of the world lives in. I find that interesting what you said here — that is if we are talking about the same Hermes here.

 

[Xenophon]

My rejection to the advice you are giving to me is due to my current perspective on the world which has the foundation on nondualism. I know that the Hermetic philosophy is also focused on a nondualistic viewpoint (as i comprehend it) and I do very much like the hermetic viewpoint. Currently I view everything as being me, but of course that is not the case in the dualistic experience that both you, I, and the rest of the world lives in. I find that interesting what you said here — that is if we are talking about the same Hermes here.

As Goethe said, "I will give you my advice on the condition that you refuse to take it." Advice is mostly useful for shifting blame after unwished for results. With names, it might be worthwhile experimenting. Maybe I am a Chicken Little.

 

[jkeller293]

I might as well be Mr. Bean or Harrison Ford "Get off my plane" lol

 

[Shade]

I like the paradoxical way of thinking when I read what your original name sounds like I laughed, didn’t even think of that, switching it is fun.

 

[jkeller293]

I like the paradoxical way of thinking when I read what your original name sounds like I laughed, didn’t even think of that, switching it is fun.

Was completely unintentional. It just happened in the process of making it. Crazy thing is that i am a bit of a paradoxical thinker as well currently now that i think about it. I may of said it was unintentional, but possibly my intention brought it to attention.