In the annals of occult and mythological lore, one of the oldest magical powers is the power of naming.  Knowing the True Name of a spiritual entity gave one power over it and the ability to command it.  One could use this power with benevolent spirits to get them to do one’s spiritual bidding, or use it with malevolent spirits to protect against them, control them, and banish them.

I am of the opinion that there is little to no difference between the spiritual and the psychological, and so this “magical” power can be used to great effect to deal with one’s own personal “demons”, as they have been called for a very long time.  Psychological forces often seem to be spiritual in nature as they take on lives of their own and wreak havoc within the psyche.  As such, spiritual techniques can be used to wrangle and manage them.

Naming is one of the most powerful of these techniques.  Very often our inner conflicts arise because we are filled with feelings we have no words for, and so they just bounce around our psyches like toddlers with no vocabulary.  This is a very frustrating state of existence.  Like the toddler, if we simply had the words, we wouldn’t feel so frustrated and out of control.

The tricky part is learning to be observant and, if necessary, analytical enough to be able to come up with just one word to describe the feeling, to “name the demon”.  That’s all it takes to stop it in its tracks or at least slow it down so its more manageable.  A demon without a name gets its power from hiding in the shadows of obscurity.  Giving it a name shines a light on it and tells it “I see you and know what you are doing.”

The personal demon I find myself naming most often is Judgment, which probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who reads my blog regularly.  It’s a topic I visit often.  I couldn’t learn to name Judgment until I became aware of Judgment, though, and that required cultivation.  I trained myself to become aware of the sensation of judging myself, which took a lot of practice.  It was something I had grown so used to that it had become like breathing and was largely unconscious.

Slowly at first, but then more often, I became aware of when I was judging myself internally, and I would simply say the word “judgment” to myself inside.  This had the effect of stopping the judgment, although only temporarily.  At first it was reflexive to be judgmental, and I found myself constantly engaged in being aware of and naming Judgment.  It got to be irritating, actually, becoming aware of all this inner Judgment.

After a while, though, my awareness got sharper, the faster I got at naming Judgment as soon as I became aware of it, and the faster Judgment disappeared like a puff of smoke the instant it was named.  It was very freeing, although it was disturbing to discover just how often I was judging myself.  It was constant and all-pervading, permeating every aspect of my life.

I have used the tactic of True Naming with other aspects of my psyche as well.  Expectation.  Shame.  Guilt.  Dissatisfaction.  Clinging.  The list goes on.  Anything negative that is bouncing around my mind, spirit, or soul gets analyzed, identified, and named to neutralize it.  This often requires putting something positive in the demon’s place: an angel, as it were.

This means using the flip side of True Naming’s power: the power to invoke that which is positive.  The power to summon inner angels.  Kindness.  Compassion.  Bravery.  Courage.  The power to summon the antitheses of the dispelled demons and fill a dark, empty void with light and substance.  The power to summon a warrior to wage battle on your behalf.

Learning the art of True Naming is very empowering.  It really is a kind of “magic” and it makes one feel wizard-like within the confines of one’s own mind. The notable and notorious British mystic Aleister Crowley defined magic as “the art and science of causing change in accordance with one’s will”, and that is precisely what True Naming does.

It takes time to build confidence in this power, though.  If one is used to being tossed about at the whim of the forces of one’s mind, one might not feel strong enough to think they wield the power to stop an inner demon with a word.  And in fact, without confidence and belief in oneself, attempts at doing this may be frustrating.

As Harry Potter points out when he’s teaching magic to the other Hogwart’s students, it’s very important to believe in oneself in order for magic to work.  The stronger one’s belief in one’s own power is, the stronger one’s magic will be.  One has to claim ownership over one’s psyche and not just think, but know, that one is stronger than anything else within it.

Visualization can be helpful when dispelling inner demons.  My favorite video game is Skyrim, and this game employs the use of magic “shouts” which have a variety of effects upon enemies.  One of the first ones you learn is the force shout, which at higher levels can throw an enemy yards away and even kill them. More than once when faced with an inner demon, I have named it with the force of a shout and sent it flying into oblivion or even shattered it into pieces.  This fills me with a feeling that goes all the way into my spine, shoots from my fingers, and makes me want to flex like Neo after he explodes Agent Smith in The Matrix.  I feel invincible.

The first time one successfully employs the tactic of True Naming can be surprising because it is so much like magic.  Perhaps one is successful on the first try, but perhaps it takes someone several tentative attempts before it works.  In either case, the feeling is one of, “wow, did I just do that?” accompanied by mild disbelief.  After all, it seems like such a simple yet amazing thing, merely uttering a word in the face of a mental freight train and stopping it in its tracks.

Hopefully this is followed by an inner or even a real smile as one realizes one has a powerful tool at one’s disposal, one with the power to render the chaotic battlefield of one’s mind into a place of peace.  It takes time, though.  Inner demons have a strange way of resurrecting themselves because they’re still deeply embedded in our neural pathways, and until we create new ones inhabited by invoked “angels”, the demon will rise again and again until it no longer has a place to live.

Invoking angels is just as important as banishing demons, and it’s the part of the process that I’m still working on.  One has to think one is worthy of the attention of angels in order to call for their assistance, and I am still standing on the periphery of that worthiness.  I am torn between that lack of worthiness and the dissatisfaction I feel from not being whole after banishing so many demons.  There are large holes and gaps left in my soul, spirit, and psyche from the places where they resided, and it’s dangerous to leave them open to the forces of the Universe.

Yet I realize I am accompanied by angels whether I think myself worthy of their company or not.  I possess undeniable qualities that have enabled my survival whether I am willing to acknowledge them or not.  Just as many religions believe we are all watched over by some spiritual entity or another whether we realize it or not, so do we all possess inner qualities that see us through our personal hells.  They are the invisible angels that accompany us through the fire.

This is why naming one’s angels is just as important as naming one’s demons.  While naming a demon stops it, naming an angel activates it and empowers it.  Angels need acknowledgement and love in order to fully engage themselves.  I learned this in my recent exercise of naming my psyche’s inner parts in the post My Internal Family.  Identifying the positive manifestation of the negative parts of my psyche, of identifying the accompanying angels to the demons, activated and empowered them while simultaneously naming and dispelling a number of demons.

This has had the effect of weakening troublesome aspects of my psyche while strengthening healthier aspects and allowing new traits to blossom.  Every time a demon is defeated, it’s weaker when it rises again, until finally it can rise no longer and is no more than dust beneath my feet and in the wind.  Weaker parts get weaker while stronger parts get stronger, making victory inevitable.

It’s taken a long time to get to the point where victory seems like it’s within my grasp.  For a long time, I engaged in mental battle with my demons mostly out of self-preservation: my mind didn’t give me a choice.  After a while I engaged willingly, motivated by the faith that the fight would eventually be worth it.  Eventually I learned more battle tactics that resulted in more frequent small victories that were encouraging.  Sometimes engaging in battle was even sort of enjoyable.

Now I get an immense amount of satisfaction out of slaying demons and monsters.  As though I’m constantly playing a game of Skyrim in my head.  In that game, my character is buff enough to be impervious to everything except Ancient Dragons, which burn through my enchanted armor in a flash.  In real life, Ancient Dragons are Anger, the largest, oldest, and toughest of my inner demons.  No matter how many times I blow it away, it eventually comes back.

This is the Boss of my inner video game: the final demon to slay in the main quest.  I am not yet sure what Angels must be invoked via True Naming to slay this demon.  Anger is not its True Name.  In reality, it has many faces and many names, and it is a shapeshifter, changing form and voice with each new situation in order to avoid being defeated.  I imagine that, much like the main quest in Skyrim, I will have to journey to a strange land and employ the assistance of otherworldly entities in order to win this battle.  It will require using every scrap of knowledge, experience, and strength I have to win, and it will take a long time and likely leave me exhausted.

I am determined, though, and encouraged by my previous victories over the lesser demons of my mind and spirit.  Though I am sometimes knocked down by despair, I always get up again after a rest.  I seem incapable of giving up.  I’m again reminded of Neo, at the end of The Matrix: Revolutions – 

“Why, Mr. Anderson, why do you persist?” – Agent Smith
“Because I choose to.” – Neo

Like Neo, the more I practice, the more I believe in myself, and the more I believe in myself, the more powerful I get.  My body may not be bulletproof, but I’ve gotten very good at dodging mental bullets and even rising from what looks like virtual death after a severe blow from life, or an attack by an inner demon.  I’ve found that the much-abused and overused quote from Nietzsche really is true for me: “that which does not kill me makes me stronger”.

Not that I enjoy the things that try to kill me, but they strengthen my resolve.  I hear an inner voice that says “everything you try to do to destroy me will only backfire on you: bring it on”.  I recognize this as the voice of one of those inner angels, I just don’t know what its name is.  One of these days I will identify it.  Until then, I will simply rest in the knowledge that I am worthy of its accompaniment.