SoulWorks by Jane Bailey Bain

Author:Jane Bailey Bain [Bain, Jane Bailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78535-714-5
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2018-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

The Power of Words

In the beginning was the word. It’s a belief common to many traditions: Biblical, Egyptian, Ancient Sumerian… At the start of time there was a vibration, and this gave rise to sound. Energy transformed into matter: the universe was formed. Everything arose from that first reverberation. Ancient myth and modern science agree here. It’s not very different to the big bang theory.

Thus everything started with a word. This is no abstract metaphor: words are fundamental to our existence. Speech is the distinguishing capacity of humankind. To this day, words have the power to shape reality. In a courtroom, they pronounce formal guilt or innocence. In the Catholic church, they provide remission of sins. Laws, treaties, marriage vows – they all have the power to transform existence.

Belief in the power of words permeates our culture. For the Celts, speech was the highest faculty. They held verbal eloquence in higher esteem than brute strength, not least because it increases with age. Ogmios, the god of speech, was held as the origin of everything. A Gallic depiction shows an old man leading a group of enchanted followers with a gold chain from his tongue to their ears. The ability to use words effectively was the special attribute of druids and poets – ‘the gifted people’. Spells and invocations were held to change reality. Satires were especially feared, since ridicule brought dishonour and shame. The Irish Book of Invasions records how the bard Cairbre sang an invective against King Bres. The tyrant’s face broke out in blotches and since the sovereign must be unblemished, he lost his throne.

It’s no exaggeration to say that words make magic. This belief is the origin of our term ‘spell-ing’. The invocation ‘Abracadabra’ actually comes from the Aramaic (pre-Hebrew) phrase ‘Avra kehdabra’: this means literally ‘I will create as I speak’. The very word ‘magic’ derives from the Greek ‘magos’, a wise man, a worker in words.

Words have the power to change the world. Like most things, they are stronger when they work together. They build sentences, speeches, stories. They can persuade and convince and make you change your mind. They can link facts and form causal chains of events.

They let you tell your own life story.

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