True Names vs. Chosen Names
As Written By
Pfloide L Gehqo and Floyd Q Gecko (HPM)
There is a popular MOOist hobby of collecting titles and
impressive names. There is Tuxedo Dolphin, Knight of the Living
Dead. There is Little Big Man, Monjunior Of MOO and Pday of the
Carrot. There is Ix. Ix is the current name of the Grate Prophet
Half-Mad. Its pronunciation is 'Ix', and its true spelling is
about a page and half long.
Why is there this obsession with strange names and titles?
Names have a kind of mystique associated with them. Names are
semantic labels that identify a person, describe a person, and
reflect a person. Many occultists believe that to name something
completely, correctly, is to have power over it.
Of course, many occultists also believe that the sun goes
around the Earth, and that woman was created from spareribs.
Names are creations of our minds, and tools our minds use to
understand something. As such, they have power over our minds.
Change something's name, and you change how people relate to it,
effectively changing its reality. Ultimately, though, names are
our creations and our tools.
The reason for collecting titles is simple enough: it's
entertaining, gives you some letters to write after your name, and
impresses people who don't know any better. At a slightly deeper
level, it makes us remember that titles are purely arbitrary social
conventions, just words we all agree to: collective hallucinations.
Somewhere between the Grate Book of MOO and Book 4, however,
MOOists changed their names. Floyd Q Gecko, High Preest of MOO,
became Pfloide L Gehqo. No more High Preest of MOO. The name is
pronounced exactly as it used to be, but spelled differently. The
Hellhound >101< became [GNU][HOUND][14]. Why?
If the True Name of a person or thing is supposed to represent
its 'Magickal Essence', or its nature, then the True Name should
change over time, because nothing remains constant. Even the most
basic essence changes with enough time, as we grow, evolve, become
different people with different views.
But our names are self-chosen. Floyd Gecko was never my real
name, certainly not the name I was born with, and not even my legal
name. It is my Holy Name, just as Pope John Paul II was born Karol
Wojtyla and Malaclypse The Younger was born Gregory Hill, but both
have new names in their religious context.
There is nothing mysterious about this. Many people in the
public eye have special names when they operate within their
specialty. Bob Anderson may become 'Doctor Anderson' at his job.
Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber become 'Front Line Assembly' when they're
making music.
This brings up an interesting point, because Bill Leeb and
Rhys Fulber also become 'Delerium', or 'Intermix', when making a different kind of
music. In a different environment, with different people, these
artists take on a different name. This phenomenon, well known in
music, is known as a 'Side Project'. Is it accurate to call
Pfloide L Gehqo a side project of Floyd Q Gecko? Is Floyd just a
side project of the identity I was born into?
These Holy Names are self-chosen, picked by each of us to
reflect our nature, to summarize what we're all about, our persona.
In this book, I've written under the names Confuse-Ius, Ann
O'Nymous, Brian O'Blivious, Lloyd Taco... They all have
significance, each name intended to mean something. Just as a
musical side project is an experiment in a different style of
music, these names are experiments in different styles of meaning.
Other people use these names, just as Fulber and Leeb are BOTH
'Delerium', but neither is correctly addressed by that name.
The right to choose one's own name is intrinsic. Nobody can
stop you from doing it. They may choose not to call you what you
want to be called, though, and when they do so, it can hurt you.
Being called 'Hey You, Fuckhead' is an entirely different
experience from being called 'Your Excellency'.
The government, by tying us to a single name, controls us. If
you don't have suitable identification, giving them your 'True
Name', they can arrest you, refuse you entrance to bars... This is
the meaning of the idea that True Names have power. Being able to
drive a vehicle has nothing to do with posessing a slip of
government certified paper, but if you don't own one, and you
operate a vehicle, you may be punished.
It's a standard tactic of controlling agencies to tie you to
a name, a number. The less control you have over your
identification the better for them. Totalitarian states demand
that you carry your papers with you always: 'Show me your papers,
citizen.' The ultimate dehumanization, for some, is being called
by a number. Consider The Prisoner, for example: 'I am not a
number. I am a free man!'
Maybe that explains, a little, why we changed our names
between the two books of MOO. A fixed name is an instrument of
control. We don't want this THING we're doing, this thing called
MOOism, to become a cult, an instrument of control. Members are
free to invent their own names and titles, and change them at will.
It's a careful mind game. We tell them there are ranks,
denominations of MOO like 'Outer Circlist' or 'Preest', and that
there are requirements to become one of these. You have to satisfy
us to get these ranks. But these are just words. They mean
nothing, reflect nothing of your inner self. Anyone who wants so
much to have these words applied to them that they'd go out of
their way to impress us probably doesn't understand what MOOism is
about anyway.
But hell, we'll take their money anyway.
It's just more satisfying to see people invent their own
names, their own titles, take control over their OWN lives. Your
Name is the most personal thing you own. If you can't control it
at your own will, what can you control?
As Confuse-Ius once say: to name something is to maim
something, unless the name in Spain fall maimingly on the plane.
But who give a fuck what Confuse-Ius say?