Monday, June 16, 2008

Choosing

One of the more well known bits of medieval Jewish magic is, when faced with a persons untimely impending death, to change that persons name. The idea is to confuse the Angel of Death (and I am not going into the issues of belief and ineffability and destiny), so that the Angel can't find the dying person. It also allows that person a new life, and with the ability to choose a name, to choose one that fits the life the person wishes to live.

I have also seen such an action advocated for much less dire issues than death, when the discussion of numerology comes up.

Other than various crowned heads of Europe, has anyone ever heard of a person choosing a new birthday? (Alright certain founders of religions have been given new birthdays, too.) If you have heard of such a thing, how was it done? Why was it done? Was the goal achieved?

Other than that, just not feeling chatty, these days.

2 comments:

Robert said...

I have heard that folks that gain knowledge and conversation of the holy guardian angel consider that a 'birthday' of sorts and run astrological charts based upon the date of conversation.

Aside from that, I've heard of teenagers using different dob's but I think alcohol may play a factor.

Fr. POS

Lavanah said...

If I remember from my own fake id days (perhaps a question of "if you remember, you weren't there?"), the best way to do it was to keep the id as it was and just change the year of birth, that way, if you were questioned by the bouncer, you only had to remember 1 new date. I am perfectly contented with my age; it is the anniversary date of my natal event that is clearly and manifestly inconvenient. My HGA hasn't been chatty, lately either, I will have to insist on a consultation.