Shem HaMephorash: "the explicit name”

God is. Undivided God is pure potentiality and realizes Nothing. God can only realize Itself by becoming Many and then experiencing all possibilities through the adventures of Its many parts. The ultimate purpose for My existence is to exhaust My individual potentiality. My Love of God and God's love of Me springs from the Great Secret we share. The Secret is.... God and I will achieve Supreme Enlightenment at the same moment. - Shemhamphorash -- The Last 72 Words of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford

Athanasius Kircher, a scholar influenced by Reuchlin's cosmology, contributed to the study of Shem HaMephorash

Kircher's work on the name of 72 times, connected each angel to the word of God in different languages,

“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.”

• G. Lloyd Jones

meaning "the explicit name," is originally a Tannaitic term describing the Tetragrammaton.

Moses spoke in the presence of an angel, while the Sea of Reeds parted, allowing the Hebrews to escape their approaching attackers.

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),292 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 Goetia8 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...

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.3738

Reuchlin's angels of the Shem HaMephorash

Resources

Aaron Leitch Article: https://web.archive.org/web/20201109012055/http://hermeticgoldendawn.org/leitch-shemhamephoresh.html