How Magic Works: The Law of Names
The Law of Names is one of the oldest ideas in all of magic: that a thing’s true name is bound up with the thing itself, so that to know the name is to have a hold on it. This episode follows the idea from ancient Egypt — where everyone kept a secret true name, and even the sun-god Ra hid his — to the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin, whose power breaks the instant his name is spoken, to the holy Name of God, written but never said. It’s a conversation about why a name has so often been felt as a living part of the person who bears it: one of the most ancient and human ideas about words, more a wonder of the old world than a tool of magic today. A talk about what the law means — not a reading of the post.
