Nor have I included words like ‘supernatural’, ‘magic’ or ‘ghost’ on the grounds that they will be familiar to most. This list doesn’t pretend to be complete and I haven’t tried to do much about the many words outside of traditional British culture. It would be impossible for me to try to define a category of ‘special words’ in any meaningful way, so what I propose to do instead is to list some and say something about each. The magical power of language itself is something of which we were all aware from childhood. But, in this short piece, I want to consider the special category of word that conveys more than ‘ordinary’ words like ‘cat’, ‘dog’ or ‘table’. I wouldn’t for one moment try to dispute this. A Journal of the Plague Year.Many would say that all words have magical qualities.
#Magic word origin series
Avada kedavra - Spell from the Harry Potter series.The word is one of a limited set of words that can be typed in its entirety using the left-handed side of a QWERTY keyboard. 1912)Ībracadabra is now more commonly used as a magic word in the performance of stage magic. The word 'Abrahadabra' also appears repeatedly in the 1904 invocation of Horus that led to the founding of Thelema.
The religion's founder, Aleister Crowley, explains in his essay Gematria that he discovered the word (and his spelling) by qabalistic methods. The religion of Thelema spells the word ' Abrahadabra', and considers it the magical formula of the current Aeon. Daniel Defoe also wrote dismissively about Londoners who posted the word on their doorways to ward off sickness during the Great Plague of London.
The Puritan minister Increase Mather dismissed the word as bereft of power. Subsequently, its use spread beyond the Gnostics. It is found on Abraxas stones, which were worn as amulets. It was used as a magical formula by the Gnostics of the sect of Basilides in invoking the aid of beneficent spirits against disease and misfortune. Other Roman emperors, including Geta and Severus Alexander, were followers of the medical teachings of Serenus Sammonicus and may have used the incantation as well. The power of the amulet, he claimed, makes lethal diseases go away. The first known mention of the word was in the second century AD in a book called Liber Medicinalis (sometimes known as De Medicina Praecepta Saluberrima) by Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla, who in chapter 52 prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing the word written in the form of a triangle. Abracadabra written in a triangular form as represented in Encyclopædia Britannica
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