![]() ![]() ![]() This effect is used in many tales, such as in the German fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin: within Rumpelstiltskin and all its variants, the girl can free herself from the power of a supernatural helper who demands her child by learning its name. It is stated that knowing someone's, or something's, true name therefore gives the person (who knows the true name) power over them. Many later episodes of the Odyssey depict Odysseus facing the relentless hostility of Poseidon - all of which he could have avoided had he persisted in keeping his real name secret.Īccording to practices in folklore, referred to as 'the Law of Names' knowledge of a true name allows one to affect another person or being magically. But later, having escaped after blinding Polyphemus and thinking himself beyond Polyphemus' power, Odysseus - in an act of hubris that was to cause enormous problems later - boastfully reveals his real name now knowing his real name, Polyphemus was able to call down upon Odysseus the revenge of his father, the sea god, Poseidon. When captured by Polyphemus, Homer's Odysseus is careful not to reveal his name when asked for it, Odysseus tells the giant that he is " Οὖτις", which means "nobody". When such a child attains the marriageable age, a new name, generally that of one of the Patriarchs, is given to it. In Jewish tradition, when several children have died in a family the next that is born has no name given to it, but is referred to as " Alter" ( Yiddish: אלטער, literally "old"), or Alterke, the view being that the Angel of Death, not knowing the name of the child, will not be able to seize it. These names are never mentioned and kept from general knowledge. Ĭontemporary pre-industrial peoples guard secret names which are only used in solemn rituals. The true form or name of a spirit inscribed on a talisman is legible only to supernatural beings, and gives a sort of temporary "control" over the entity whose name or form is possessed. These talismanic representations are considered to be windows into the metaphysical substance and immutable essence of things - that is, images of the eternal Dao without form. Ĭhinese Daoist traditions such as the Three Sovereigns corpus emphasize the capacity of talismans, charts, and diagrams to depict the true forms ( zhenxing 真形) and true names ( zhenming 真名) of demons and spirits. Thereafter Jacob obtains a new name which signifies his successful struggle to God and man, and names the place to commemorate his surviving an encounter with the Divine. Īlso in a Biblical context, in the tale of Jacob's nocturnal wrestling with an anonymous angel, the angel refuses to reveal his own name to Jacob even after the angel's submission at dawn. To prevent abuse of this power, as well as to avoid blasphemy, the name of God was always taboo, and increasingly disused so that by the time of Jesus their High Priest was supposedly the only individual who spoke it aloud - and then only in the Holy of Holies upon the Day of Atonement. The ancient Jews considered God's true name so potent that its invocation conferred upon the speaker tremendous power over His creations. The true name of God plays a central role in Kabbalism (see Gematria, Temurah, YHWH ) and to some extent in Sufism (see 100th name of God). ![]() Hellenistic Judaism emphasized the divine nature of logos, later adopted by the Gospel of John. Socrates in Plato's Cratylus considers, without taking a position, the possibility whether names are "conventional" or "natural", natural being the "True name" (), that is, whether language is a system of arbitrary signs or whether words have an intrinsic relation to the things they signify (this anti-conventionalist position is called Cratylism). This gave Isis complete power over Ra and allowed her to put her son Horus on the throne. The true name of the Egyptian sun god Ra was revealed to Isis through an elaborate trick. The notion that language, or some specific sacred language, refers to things by their true names has been central to philosophical study as well as various traditions of magic, religious invocation and mysticism ( mantras) since antiquity. For The MS-DOS computer command, see List of DOS commands § TRUENAME.Ī true name is a name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical to, its true nature. For the philosophical concept, see proper name (philosophy). For the term as used in civil law, see true name (legal). ![]()
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