Page 94 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

74 Mysterious Creatures

Boris Karloff in the 1931
production of
“Frankenstein.”
(CORBIS CORPORATION)

tongue a piece of paper with the Tetragramma- of Formation, and in his modern adaptation of
ton (the four-letter name of God) written on it. the ancient text, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan stressed
According to certain traditions, the cre- that the initiate should never attempt to make
ation of a Golem is one of the advanced stages a Golem alone, but should always be accom-
of development for serious practitioners of panied by one or two learned colleagues for it
Kabbalah and alchemy. Instructions for fash- can become a monster and wreak havoc.
ioning a Golem according to the Talmudic When such a mistake occurs, the divine name
tradition was set down sometime in the tenth must somehow be removed from the creature’s
century by Rabbi Eliezar Rokeach in The Book tongue and it be allowed to revert to dust.

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