MAGIC WORDS "I will create with words." 1 He is making something out of nothing, echoing that famous line from Genesis: "Let there be light, and there was light." Only in this case, the magician's venue being already equipped with light, the magic is applied toward the creation of rabbits -- and perhaps a sensa tional flash of supplementary illumination, in the form of fire. The magic word, whether it be abracadabra or another at the magician's disposal, resonates with the audience because there is an instinctive understanding that words are powerful, creative forces. "The word has always held an ancient enchantment for humans," says scholar Ted Andrews. "It hints of journeys into unseen and unmapped domains." No wonder it has been said that "all magic is in a word." The inherent enchantment of the word is of course what gives lit erature its magical influence. In 1865, scholar Thomas Babington Macaulay examined what makes the poetry of Milton so magical, and his conclusions are most appropriate to magic words in general: His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. Moving from the sublime to the sublimely ridiculous, one could perhaps make an analogous argument regarding the evocative nonsense of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" -- the words of which are as compelling as they are meaningless. But Macaulay goes on: There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give up their dead. 4 Throughout the various discussions of magic words in this dictionary, we will explore exactly how and why they conjure the mystique and romance of the past and the glittering promises of the future. 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 1 David Aaron, Endless Light: The Ancient Path of Kabbalah (1998). See the entry on abracadabra for additional interpretations. Simplified Qabala Magic (200 ) Alphonse Louis Constant (Eliphas Levi), The Key of the Mysteries (1861) 4 Critical and Historical Essays, quoted in Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics by Frances W. Pritchett (1994)