MAGIC WORDS Line under line, repeating still the same: Cut at its end, each line, one letter less, Must then its predecessor line express; 'Till less'ning by degrees the charm descends With conic form, and in a letter ends. Round the sick neck the finish'd wonder tie, And pale disease must from the patient fly. In Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Daniel Defoe reported that many people attributed the Black Death to possession by an evil spirit and believed the Abracadabra charm could ward it off. In popular culture, the word abracadabra is most often associated with awakening the genie in a magic lamp (to grant a wish) and pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Dogura-Magura is a Japanese equivalent to abracadabra. "Abner Kadabra" is the title of an episode of the television series Bewitched (1965). When a little girl asked professional magician David Greene, "Why does a magic word like abracadabra work?" his reply was "It works because you believe in it."64 Abra Kadabra is a villainous stage magician who first appears in the comic book Flash #128 (1962): "Abra Kadabra hails from the 64th Century, an era in which science is sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic, and the art of stage magic is dead. Obsessed with a need for applause, and championing the cause of the individual in an era of mechanical precision, he traveled back in time to torment the second Flash." "Debra Kadabra" is the title of a song by Frank Zappa (1975), concerning a "witch goddess" whose full name is "Debra Algebra Ebneezra Kadabra" or "Debra Fauntleroy Magnesium Kadabra." Abra Cadabra is a legendary old wise woman and oracle in the novel Jonah by Dana Redfield (2000). In the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Transylvania 6-5000" (196 ), Bugs the Magician uses abracadabra to turn the menacing vampire Count Bloodcount into a "bumbling bat." "Always enchanted by wretched excess, Bugs experiments with ever-weirder abracadabras, resulting in ever-more-extravagant vampiric incarnations." "Lady Abracadabra" is the name of a fairy "in no humor to be turned into a toad," in The Hope of the Katzekopfs (1844) by William Churne of Straffordshire.67 "Abracadabra Day" is "the best holiday of all," listed "in no almanac and printed in no calendar." It is explained in Mr. Mysterious & Company 64 "Magician David Greene Launches Lower School Book Fair with Demonstra- tion of the 'Magic of Reading,'" Christ Church Episcopal School newsletter (200 ) 65 Kelson Vibber, "The Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning" (2005) 66 Steven Jay Schneider, Horror Film and Psychoanalysis (2004) 67 Peter Hunt, Children's Literature: An Anthology 1801-1902 (2001)