Open Sesame

Open sesame, one of the most celebrated magic phrases, held enough power for Ali Baba to shift boulders and open a passage into the unknown. This colorful, centuries-old fable points to a literal truth about the power and importance of magic words:

We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude. . . . Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The “men of words”—priests, prophets, intellectuals—have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.
Words and magic are particularly crucial in time of crisis when old forms of life are in dissolution and man must grapple with the unknown. Normal motives and incentives lose then their efficacy. Man does not plunge into the unknown in search of the prosaic and matter-of-fact. His soul has to be stretched by reaching out for the fabulous and unprecedented. He needs the nurse of magic and breath-taking fairy tales to lure him on and sustain him in his faltering first steps. Even modern science and technology were not in the beginning a sober pursuit of facts and knowledge. Here, too, the magicians—alchemists, astrologers, visionaries—were the pioneers.
—Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change (1976)

From ideology to science, from spiritualism to cultural revolutions, words open passages into the unknown. And anyone, whether leader or follower, for whom discourse serves as a first step to unexplored territory, is an Ali Baba, a personal pioneer.

Peanut Butter and Sesame Seeds

Abba Zabba recalls the expanse of the alphabet, A (abba) to Z (zabba), the alpha and omega of creative power. The words appear in a Captain Beefheart song of the same name (1974). The lyrics are a sort of nursery rhyme about childhood rituals and seem to suggest that the primal syllables abba zabba are “song before song before song.” Abba Zabba is also the name of an old-fashioned peanut butter taffy candy bar. Interestingly, peanut butter figures into other magic words. "A-la Peanut Butter Sandwiches" has appeared in a "Rugrats" comic strip and is the Amazing Mumford’s magic expression on the Sesame Street television series. The peanut is like the sesame seed of "Open Sesame" fame—a spiritual food which unlocks a doorway to a world of wonders. The pods of peanuts and sesame plants open to reveal their seeds, just as the wall of rock opened for the legendary Ali Baba when he said the secret password.

Magic Words for Surviving Trauma

Two entries from our new edition of Magic Words are featured in this review/editorial about the importance of magic words for people recovering from trauma:

http://dianapagejordan.com/2008/09/26/magic-words-dictionary-craig-conley-book-review/

Boneka

Of Native American origin, this word refers to “The Great Spirit of Peace.” Consider this anecdote: “The chief invited a great council and organized the Society of the Magic Word. Every member promised that whenever the greeting ‘Boneka’ were given him, he would smile and bow and answer, ‘Ranokoli.’ The greeting meant ‘Peace,’ and the answer, ‘I forgive.’ Then, one by one, the law-giver called his councilors before him, and to each he said: ‘The Great Spirit is in this greeting. I defy you to hear it and keep a sober face.’ Then he said ‘Boneka,’ and the man would try to resist the influence of the spirit, but soon smiled in spite of himself, amid the laughter of the tribe, and said ‘Ranokoli.’ Thereafter, when a quarrel arose between two people, an outsider, approaching, would greet them with the magic word, and immediately they would bow and smile, and answer, ‘I forgive’” (Irving Bacheller, Silas Strong, 1906).

Magic Words in Politics

Politicians use magic words to rally, inspire, capture the public's collective imagination, distort logic, and obscure reality. Politicians accomplish some of this with ordinary language to shape our perceptions and expectations and to misdirect our attention. Many words politicians use possess massive clout: freedom, liberty, and solidarity evoke sentiments for which millions of have laid down their lives. A concept deemed worth dying for is, accordingly, life-enhancing.

A major magic word in the current United States presidential race is change. A short form of Presto Chango, change is a transfixing word that electrifies the air. It etches itself into people's memories, because it is the moment they opened up to the possibility of the impossible. It asks us to jump outside ourselves with courage and humor and openness and perspective and carelessness. Change is the sudden, momentary standstill in a square dance when there's a call to switch partners. Change is the whack when a bat sends a baseball soaring. It's an immensity revealing itself—a greatness that can't be explained but that reveals itself in that instant and reminds us of our own possibilities. The magic of change sweeps people into standing ovations, so it's little wonder that politicians have harnessed its power.

Kiowa Storytelling

There is a marvelous discussion of sacred language in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1966) by N. Scott Momaday, in which words are equated with sleight-of-hand. Momaday speaks of his Kiowa Indian grandmother teaching him how to “listen and delight” through her storytelling. With her words, she took him “directly into the presence of her mind and spirit.” As he explains, “[S]he was taking hold of my imagination, giving me to share in the great fortune of her wonder and delight. She was asking me to go with her to the confrontation of something that was sacred and eternal. It was a timeless, timeless thing.” For his grandmother, “words were medicine; they were magic and invisible. They came from nothing into sound and meaning.” As in Genesis, the Kiowa creation story begins with something happening in the nothingness. “There was a voice, a sound, a word—and everything began.”

Let us apply Momaday’s discussion directly to the art of a magician by positing a few questions:

• Does not a magician want his audience to “listen and delight” in his performance?
• Does not a magician want to draw an entire audience into his presence?
• Does not a magician wish to take hold of people’s imaginations and help them to share in the awe and wonderment?
• Does not a magician wish to present a timeless mystery?
  

By speaking a magic word, a magician most certainly encourages his audience to “listen and delight” as he encompasses them in his presence, takes hold of their collective imagination, and allows them to share in the “wonder.” By uttering his magic word, a magician invites the audience to accompany him in confronting something “sacred and eternal . . . a timeless thing,” as Momaday puts it. And when he produces the magic syllables for all to hear, a magician makes every member of the audience an active participant in the miracle. For “in the world of magic, the Word creates.”*

* Gahl Sasson, A Wish Can Change Your Life: How to Use the Ancient Wisdom of Kabbalah to Make Your Dreams Come True (2003). Howard Rheingold writes that “We create the world every day when we utter words. Yet we are rarely aware of this awesome act. The power of words is woven so tightly into our daily lives that we hardly ever take time to marvel at it. Our ancestors knew, though: It is no accident that many of the world’s religious scriptures assert that the universe was created by a word” (They Have a Word for It [2000]). Migene Gonzalez-Wippler provides an example: “The Kabbalah has a fascinating story to tell on the creation of the world by sound. It says that when God decided to create the universe He was uncertain as to which letter he would use to begin creation. All the letters of the Hebrew alphabet came to God in one long line and each pleaded with Him to use it, naming and vastly exaggerating all its wonderful qualities. God listened to all of them thoughtfully, and finally decided on the letter Beth, which means house or container. With the power of the letter Beth God ‘contained’ the unmanifested universe and created the entire cosmos” (The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies and Magic [1978]).

Agla

A magic word for conjuring Sylphs,[1] Agla is an angelic name signifying eternal power, the fruitful principle of nature, strength, protection, and unity. Of Hebrew origin, it is found on magical talismans and seals from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, used in healing magic and divination. Agla is actually an acronym, made up of the initials of the sentence Atah gebur le-olahm Adonai, meaning “Thine is the power throughout endless ages, O Lord.”[2] Here is an interesting occurrence of the name in literature: “‘My name is Agla,’ she said. ‘My mother was Agla, and her mother was, also. It is the name for a healer, although some of the barbarians believe that I am a witch’” (Ben Bova, Orion, 1984).

[1] Anatole France, The Queen Pedauque (1893)
[2] Paul Foster Case, True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order (1981)