Abracadabra

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This article is about an incantational word. For other uses, see Abracadabra (disambiguation).

Abracadabra (sometimes spelled Abrakadabra) is a word used as an incantation.

1 History
2 Etymology
3 Thelema
4 Avada Kedavra in Harry Potter
5 See also

[edit] History

The word is now commonly used as an incantation by stage magicians. In ancient times, however, it was taken much more seriously as an incantation to be used as a cure for fevers and inflammations. The first known mention was in the 2nd century A.D. in a poem called De Medicina Praecepta by Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla, who prescribed that the sufferer from the disease wear an amulet containing the word written in the form of an inverted cone:

A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
A

This, he explained, diminishes the hold of the spirit of the disease over the patient. Other Roman emperors, including Geta and Alexander Severus, were followers of the medical teachings of Serenus Sammonicus and are likely to have used the incantation as well.

[edit] Etymology

Theories about the source of the word are:

[edit] "I create as I speak"

A possible source is Aramaic: אברא כדברא avra kedabra which means "I will create as I speak," which is thought to be in reference to God creating the universe (in some belief systems, ex nihilo), by speaking (see also Fiat Lux). An alternative spelling is avra K'Davarah.

[edit] The curse and the pestilence

There is the view that Abracadabra derives from the Hebrew, ha-brachah, meaning "the blessing" (used in this sense as a euphemism for "the curse") and dabra, an Aramaic form of the Hebrew word dever, meaning "pestilence." They point to a similar kabbalistic cure for blindness, in which the name of Shabriri, the demon of blindness, is similarly diminished. Other scholars are skeptical of this origin and claim that the idea of diminishing the power of demons was common throughout the ancient world, and that Abracadabra was simply the name of one such demon.

[edit] Other Hebrew phrases that have been suggested as possible origins

Abracadabra may have been from:
• a combination of ab ("father"), ben ("son"), and ruach hacadosch ("holy spirit;")
• a corruption of avar k'davar which means roughly "it will be according to what is spoken;"
• abreq ad Habra meaning "hurl your thunderbolt even unto death."

[edit] Disappear like this word

Some have argued that the term may come from the Aramaic אבדא כדברא abhadda kedhabhra, meaning 'disappear like this word'. Rather than being used as a curse, the Aramaic phrase is believed to have been used as a means of treating illness.

[edit] Abraxas

It has also been claimed that the word comes from Abraxas, a Gnostic word for God (the source of 365 emanations, apparently the Greek letters for Abraxas add up to 365 when deciphered according to numerological methods). It has also been claimed to come from Abracalan (or Aracalan) who is said to have been a Syrian god.

[edit] Thelema

Main article: Abrahadabra

The religion of Thelema spells the word "Abrahadabra", and considers it the magical formula of the current Aeon. The religion's founder, Aleister Crowley, explains in his essay Gematria that he discovered the word (and his spelling) by kabbalistic methods. He appears to say that this happened before his January 1901 meeting with Oscar Eckenstein, one of his teachers. (At this meeting, Eckenstein ordered him to abandon magick for the moment and practice meditation or concentration.) The Word Abrahadabra appears repeatedly in the 1904 invocation of Horus that led to the founding of Thelema. (The Equinox I, no. 7. 1912) It also appears in a 1901 diary that Crowley published in The Equinox.

The essay Gematria gives Hindu, Christian, and "Unsectarian" versions of the problem that Crowley intended this magick word to answer. He also gives a kabbalistic equivalent for each phrasing, and a brief symbolic answer for each. The unsectarian version reads, "I am the finite square; I wish to be one with the infinite circle." Its equivalent refers to "the Cross of Extension" and "the infinite Rose." Crowley's numerological explanation of ABRAHADABRA focuses mainly on this last formulation and the answer to it.

[edit] Avada Kedavra in Harry Potter

The "Killing Curse" in the Harry Potter stories may have been taken by J. K. Rowling from an Aramaic form "avada kedavra" or similar, which roughly means "what I speak is destroyed," influenced by the Latin word cadaver, meaning "corpse". This form differs from the "I create as I speak" form ("Avara Kedavra") by a single letter in the English transliteration; it is one of the few spells in Harry Potter not derived from Latin.

(see also possibly "Disappear like this word", above.)