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- Jim Cornwell's The Names of God, from The Alpha and the Omega, "Introduction" discusses the material from an Esoteric Christian perspective.
Shem HaMephorash (Hebrew: שֵׁם הַמְּפֹרָשׁ Šēm hamMəfōrāš, also Shem ha-Mephorash), meaning "the explicit name," is originally a Tannaitic term describing the Tetragrammaton.[1] In Kabbalah, it may refer to a name of God composed of either 4, 12, 22, 42, or 72 letters (or triads of letters), the latter version being the most common.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
Early sources, from the Mishnah to Maimonides,[9] only use "Shem ha-Mephorash" to refer to the four letter Tetragrammaton.[1]
b. Qiddushin 72a describes a 12-letter name (apparently a mundane euphemism,[10] YHVH-EHYH-ADNY[11] or YHVH-YHVH-YHVH[12]) and a 42-letter name (holy but unknown;[13] Hayy Gaon says it is the acronym of the medieval piyyut Ana b'Koach[14]).[5]
A 22-letter name appears in Sefer Raziel HaMalakh,[5][7] without interpretation, as אנקתם פסתם פספסים דיונסים (Anaktam Pastam Paspasim Dionsim).[15] Its origins are unknown, with no connection to Hebrew or Aramaic being found, and no agreement on any particular Greek or Zoroastrian origin.[5]
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Main article: Kabbalah § History of Jewish mysticism |
The 72-fold name is highly important to Sefer Raziel HaMalakh.[5][7] It is derived from Exodus 14:19–21,[2][4][5][6] read boustrophedonically[3][8] to produce 72 names of three letters. This method was explained by Rashi,[16] (b. Sukkah 45a),[17] as well as in Sefer HaBahir (c. 1150~1200).[18] Kabbalist legends state that the 72-fold name was used by Moses to cross the Red Sea, and that it could grant later holy men the power to cast out demons, heal the sick, prevent natural disasters, and even kill enemies.[6]
According to G. Lloyd Jones,
To overcome the problems posed by the doctrine of God's transcendence, the early Jewish mystics developed an emanation theory in which the alphabet played an important part. They taught that the universe was divided into ten angelic spheres each one governed by an intermediary or emanation of the divine. There were seventy-two inferior angels through whom the intermediaries could be approached. Contact with this celestial world was achieved by manipulating the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. [...] This invocatory technique may be traced through the works of Joseph Gikatilla to the famous thirteenth-century Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia.[19]
Liber Semamphoras (aka Semamphoras, Semyforas) is the title of a Latin translation of an occult or magical text of Jewish provenance attributed to Solomon.[20] It was attested in 1260 by Roger Bacon,[21] who complained about the linguistic corruption that had occurred in translating Liber Semamphoras into Latin from Hebrew.[22] It is heavily indebted to Sefer HaRazim through its Latin versions, Liber Sepher Razielis idest Liber Secretorum seu Liber Salomonis, and seemingly replaced the more explicitly magical text Liber magice in the Razielis.[23]
Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) considered these 72 names, made pronounceable by the addition of suffixes such as 'El' or 'Yah', to be the names of angels, individuated products of God's will.[24] Reuchlin refers to and lists the 72 Angels of the Shem Hamephorash in his 1517 book De Arte Cabbalistica.[25][26] According to Bernd Roling,
After deriving a Shem ha-mephorasch of the 72 angelic names from the biblical verses of Exodus 14,19ff., Reuchlin makes a statement concerning the metaphysical significance of the names. [...] The names of the angels are products of the will of God. They are substantially based on the tetragrammaton, and through this connection they illumine and enhance man's spiritual return to God. [...] With the insertion of divine names such as 'El' or 'Yah', angelic names become pronouncable, and God himself (being nature) is the basis of angelic individuation.[24]
Reuchlin's cosmology in turn influenced Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa[3] (1486–1535) and Athanasius Kircher[27] (1602–1680).
In 1686, Andreas Luppius published Semiphoras und Schemhamphoras, a German translation of the earlier Latin text, Liber Semiphoras (see previous section), which Luppius augmented heavily with passages from Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia and other sources.[20]
Blaise de Vigenère (1523–1596), following Reuchlin,[28] featured the 72 angels in his writings.[29] De Vigenère's material on the Shemhamphorash was later copied and expanded by Thomas Rudd (1583?–1656),[29][2] who proposed that it was a key (but often missing) component to the magical practices in the Lesser Key of Solomon,[8] as a balancing force against the evil spirits of the Ars Goetia[8] or in isolation.[30] Skinner and Rankine explain that de Vigenère and Rudd adopted these triliteral words with '-el' or '-yah' (both Hebrew for "god") added to them as the names of the 72 angels that are able to bind the 72 evil spirits also described in The Lesser Key of Solomon (c. mid-17th century).[a]
Blaise de Vigenère's manuscripts were also used by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854–1918) in his works for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.[8] Mathers describes the descent of power from Tetragrammaton through 24 thrones of the Elders of the Apocalypse, each with a crown of three rays:
Four is the number of the letters of the Tetragrammaton. Four is also the number of the letters of the name ADNI which is its representative and key. The latter name is bound with the former and united thereto, thus IAHDVNHY forming a name of 8 letters. 8 X 3, the number of the Supernal Triad, yields the 24 thrones of the Elders of the Apocalypse, each of whom wears on his head a golden crown of three rays, each ray of which is a name, each name an Absolute Idea and Ruling Power of the great name YHVH Tetragrammaton.
The number 24 of the thrones multiplied by the 3 rays of the crown which equals 72, the name of God of 72 letters, which is thus mystically shown in the name YHVH, as under: (Or as the book of Revelation says: "When the living creatures (the four Kerubim the Letters of the Name) give glory to Him, etc. the four and twenty elders fall down before Him and cast their crowns before the Throne, etc." (that is the Crowns, which each bear 3 of the 72 Names, and these 72 names are written on the leaves of the Tree of Life which were for the healing of the nations.)
These are also the 72 names of the ladder of Jacob on which the Angels of God ascended and descended. It will presently be shown how the 72 Angelic names are formed from the 72 Names of the Deity, and also how their signification is to be found. The 72 Names of the Deity are thus obtained. The 19th, 20th, and 21st verses of the XIV Chapter of the Book of Exodus each consist of 72 letters...[31]
Contemporary books on Hermetic Qabalah which discuss the subject include Lon Milo DuQuette's The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Ben Clifford.[32]
Shem HaMephorash figures in the legend of the golem, an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore that is created entirely from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The earthen figure is then animated by saying the Shem Hamephorash over it.[36] Jorge Luis Borges refers to this legend in his poem The Golem and in his essay The Golem. The Shem haMephorash also appears in Borges' stories Three versions of Judas and The Circular Ruins.[37][38]