A prominent figures in professional magic are certainly wary of what they consider old clichés, like the icons of the tuxedo, top hat, white rabbit, and words like 'abracadabra,' urging their fellow performers to adopt styles more current with the times.) But Trachtenberg points out that magic's conservatism "is not inspired by intellectual inertia. The very nature of magic demands a strict adherence to the original form of the magical name or word, for its potency lies hidden within its syllables, within its very consonants and vowels -- the slightest alteration may empty the word of all its magic content." Naturally, words undergo changes over time, transmitted as they are through inaudible whispers or all-too-fallible scribes, and eventually they become so corrupted as to be "altogether exotic and meaningless," offering few if any clues to their original sense and tongue, and essentially "unintelligible to the heirs of the tradition." Ironically, a mystery offers its own a kind of potency, and magic words came to be considered efficacious to the degree that they were strange and incomprehensible: "Rashi, in the eleventh century, proved his familiarity with this phenomenon when he wrote: 'The sorcerer whispers his charms, and doesn't understand what they are or what they mean, but . . . the desired effect is produced only by such incantations.'" Trachtenberg notes that the Cherokee medicine men, aborigines in India, and Tibetan and Chinese Buddhists all hold in high regard archaic, unintelligible expressions "that have conveyed no meaning for centuries," considering them "more potent than their own. The 'abracadabra' of the modern stage magician reflects a phenomenon familiar to us all."59 A very early written record of abracadabra dates back to 208 CE, as "part of a folkloric cure for a fever." 0 The record is actually an incomplete poem on medicine by the Roman doctor Serenus Quintus Sammonicus, "containing curious lore, ancient remedies, and magical formulae -- such as the Abracadabra charm -- and was much used in the Middle Ages."61 Abracadabra was commonly used as a conjuring word by the Middle Ages. As a talisman against disease, abracadabra was inscribed on parchment and worn around the neck. In the late 1600s, John Aubrey transcribed instructions for creating such a charm in Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects: Abracadabra, strange mysterious word, In order writ, can wond'rous cures afford. This be the rule:-a strip of parchment take, Cut like a pyramid revers'd in make. Abracadabra, first at length you name, 59 Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition (19 9) 60 Tom Ogden, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Magic Tricks (1998) 61 Donald Tyson's annotation to the works of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy (199 ) 62 Tom Ogden, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Magic Tricks (1998) 6 Gustav Davidson, Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels (1994)