4 MAGIC WORDS just as a movie audience becomes wrapped up in the thrill and turmoil of a character who is preparing to say "I love you," the magician's audience will be deeply involved in the performer's arrival at this momentous threshold, if he imparts its significance effectively. In giving voice to the magic word, the expert magician will exude the perfect balance of control and uncertainty, tinging his confidence with the tense energy of mystery and wonder. When a magic word is imbued with these intangible qualities of mystery and wonder, some people might describe it as sounding "spooky," and indeed "This is the magic of words -- a touch of the supernatural" that addresses the spirit.42 Cultivate Reverence N. Scott Momaday has paid tribute to "the old, sacred respect for sound and silence which makes the magic of words and literatures."4 To cultivate that age-old respect, speak magic words carefully, artfully, and with reverence, as Thomas Moore recommends: "If we want a real spirit to settle into our . . . words, we could present them with care, art, and magic" (The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life [1997]). Proper reverence is important because, as Moore suggests, in works of beauty, "it is impossible to separate art, religion, and magic, for all three work together to make these ordinary acts . . . truly enchanting." Consider also this advice by scholar Molefi Kete Asante: "One must certainly be careful how the word is spoken because when it is spoken it creates an awesome power. We speak and the words are life, they are material and substantive."44 This is what the poet Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote: A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.45 "Such a living word permeates everything when it is spoken with power and honesty," Asante suggests. "[A]ll magic is word magic and there is no magic without the word."46 Ethnographic Things by Paul Stoller (1989). "Magic words carry far more than the weight of one word. . . . [T]hey carry immense power." -- Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Advertising (1994) 42 Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart (2002) 4 The Man Made of Words (1997) 44 The Egyptian Philosophers (2000) 45 Complete Poems (1924) 46 The Egyptian Philosophers (2000). Similarly, "All magic is word magic, incantation and exorcism, blessing and curse. Through Nommo, the word, man establishes his mastery over things" (Janheinz Jahn, Muntu: The New African Culture [1961]).