SECTION III - PATH PROGRESS

Northern Edition

Your Magickal name - should it be secret? - Kim Robertson
I Walk The Path Alone - DreamDancer

Your Magickal name - should it be secret?
By Kim Robertson

If you read books like Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula le Guin you see how a whole where naming _is_ magick would be. But I take a different perspective on this.

1. Mundanely, someone knowing your name does give another certain power over you. Think of the school kid who shoplifts from a store and runs. If the shopkeeper knows the name of the kid, she can use it to invoke mundane authorities to action. So, if a kid is in her shop and she knows his name she will be able to control his thieving actions if she tells him that she knows it. Eg: "Billy Thorpe! I hope you are going to pay for that!" In past times when populations were smaller anonymity was harder to find. Communities knew their members well and newcomers were well noted with gossip. Today, in big cities we can't have that anymore and even knowing a person's name is no guarantee that the police would catch up with a perpetrator. The power of names is weaker now.

2. To attack a person's soul/spirit is not easy to do and requires much energy. It is much easier to try and create weaknesses and exploit them. For example a supremely confident atheist and skeptic can be a formidably hard person to psychically attack.... unless you bring him down and cause him to start believing.

Therein lies the crux. Belief in vulnerability is one of the best ways for psychic attacks to work. This is using the 'fear' channel into your soul. There is one other main channel into a soul and that is love/trust/guilt.

Magickal names and gods/djinn/entities
In dealing with certain entities in other plains they may require a payment from you, the way I look at it. That payment is a mostly benign 'hook' into your aura in the form of the magickal name. Though the intent maybe reasonably benign this hook is exploitable (otherwise there would be no point to it) and it is a matter of great trust to allow this hook to be placed. In the wrong hands someone knowing your magickal name could be very dangerous.

You can remove the hook but you would be canceling your passport into these realms and in some cases the very act of trying to remove it can mean a big fight with the one to whom you made the promise. Like I said, it is a price, like a sacrifice. You don't go taking sacrifices back lightly.

In conclusion
The magickal name concept isn't as simple as it appears above. At the core of it though is whether you believe that it gives others power over you. As I said above belief and the fear channel are very very close. Good adepts transcend the point where these hooks can be exploited and where names can hurt them and so can rid themselves of these 'deals' eventually.

Blessed be
Kim Robertson

I Walk The Path Alone
By DreamDancer

I become awake and aware at the dawn of my life's day. A path stretches out before me, far away into the distance, disappearing into the future's horizon.

What should I do? Should I follow this path? I'm not prepared. I'm all alone, with no one to keep me company, or to tell me what I must do.

I set out along the path.

I meet a beautiful giant woman, who seems to radiate sunshine with her smile at me. In her company is a big strong giant man. He looks at me with pride gleaming in his eyes. I don't know why. And they both walk beside me for a while.

The woman draws me close to her chest, feeds me and nurtures me. The man brings me food to eat, and he throws a ball with me. When I stumble on my new feet and fall, one of them seems always there to pick me back up and set me on my feet again. They teach me things, which they say will help me find my way up this path.

As I grow, my steps become larger and faster, and soon the man and woman can't seem to keep up. They start to fall farther and farther behind me.

I walk this path alone.

I come across a group of people in the afternoon, and they seem to be about like me, in age and size. They tell tales and share their life's stories with me. I laugh with them and I cry for them.

Many miles, I travel this path alone, seemingly a path with no end. It grows wearying at times, but one of these people always seems to be there to lend their arm to steady me, or their shoulders to support me. They say that I'm special to them. They help to guide me up the path.

It's such a shame, how lonely and uncared for I am, as I walk the path alone.

The sun shines upon my upturned face. The wind gently ruffles my hair and cools the afternoon, making it pleasant and bearable. The water I drink is so refreshing and cool, tasty to my mouth. Birds serenade me from the trees, the brook to my side burble and bubbles happily. A dog barks, wagging its tail and happy to see me, adding it's own chord to the melody, which seems to be playing around me.

I travel on, sad and weary, for I walk this path alone.

Evening comes, and the light of day starts to fade. I grow cold and I start to grow fearful of the dark. I have been walking this path alone all this day of my life, and now it seems that darkness may hide this path from me.

I feel that it's time to lie down and rest, to let the darkness take this path from me, but I can't. I have traveled too long and too far. I must find the end of the path, the place it leads to. But it grows so dark; I can't see where to place my feet. Will I now be forced to stop my trek? To stand here alone in the dark after walking this path alone for so long?

A candle appears to my left, a lantern to my right. They are held by a man and a woman, much like those who I came across earlier this day. They each take one of my arms with their free hands, and steer me around the final bend, to the end of this path I have walked alone.

Before me stretched out yet another path. How could this be? I'd walked my path, and walked it alone. Would this be all that is in store for me?

I stopped dead in my tracks, and the man and woman stopped as well. I took a step back so that I could face them both, and I asked them then, if this were to be my fate. To continually walk along paths, all sad and alone.

The woman smiled at me, then held me close and comforted me. The man laid a strong hand upon my shoulder, and just by his touch, I felt reassured.

"My son" he said, "you have never been alone. We have always been with you, and many others have come into your life as you walked your path. Yes, it is your path to walk. Only you can make the journey, but those others you will meet along the way will travel by your side for a time, helping you along as you help them, and keeping you company".

I thought back over the long day of my walk, realizing only then that I hadn't always been alone as I thought. I smiled at the man and the woman, thanked them for their comfort and company, and raised my foot to set out along this new path.

The new day dawned, and I could clearly see the path laid out ahead of me. I started the new day of my life along the path with a jaunty step.

I came upon a couple, a giant woman and a giant man. As my mother draws me close to her chest, the sun seems to shine from her smile. My father looks down at me with pride gleaming in his eyes.

We set out upon the path, these people to help get me started and pointed in the right way, and others to meet later, to help me on my way.

March 2002