Magic and FetishismHaddon, Alfred C. (Alfred Cort)
Religion
Magic and Fetishism
Haddon, Alfred C. (Alfred Cort)
Fetishism; Magic
If power can be exerted over men by the use of their names, it is
only reasonable to believe that spirits and deities can be similarly
influenced. Torres Straits islanders believe that a local bogey or a
spirit-girl can be summoned by being mentioned by name (29, v. 14, 86),
as the witch of Endor brought up the spirit of Samuel. Dr. Frazer (20,
i. 443-6) gives examples to show that people have believed that gods
must keep their true names secret, lest other gods or even men should
be able to conjure with them; even Ra, the great Egyptian god of the
sun, declared that the name given him by his father and mother ‘remained
hidden in my body since my birth, that no magician might have magic power
over me.’ This probably was one reason why the real name of supreme
Gods was known but to a chosen few; one instance will suffice. To the
Mohammedans, Allah is but an epithet in place of the Most Great Name;
for, according to a Moslem belief, the secret of the latter is committed
to prophets and apostles alone. Another reason is that the utterance of
these secret names gives tremendous power, for (42, 273) those who know
the Most Great Name of God can, by pronouncing it, transport themselves
from place to place at will, can kill the living, raise the dead to life,
and work other miracles.
According to Jewish tradition, when Lilith, Adam’s first wife, refused
to yield obedience to him she uttered the Shem-hamphorash, that is,
pronounced the ineffable name of Jehovah and instantly flew away. This
utterance evidently gave her such power that even Jehovah could not
coerce her, and the three angels, Snoi (Sennoi), Snsnoi (Sansennoi), and
Smnglf (Sammangeloph), who were sent after her, were contented with a
compromise, and Lilith swore by the name of the Living God that she would
refrain from doing any injury to infants wherever and whenever she should
find those angels, or their names, or their pictures, on parchment or
paper, or on whatever else they might be drawn, ‘and for this reason,’
says a rabbinical writer, ‘we write the names of these angels on slips
of paper or parchment, and bind them upon infants, that Lilith seeing
them, may remember her oath; and may abstain from doing our infants any
injury’ (1, 165). The custom is still maintained in the east of London of
printing portions of Scripture and these three names on pieces of paper,
which are placed on the four walls of a room where a baby is expected,
where they remain eight days for a boy and twenty days for a girl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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