MAGIC WORDS of that number as you blow.'" -- Jean Hugard, Encyclopedia of Card Tricks (19 7) • Coin transformation "'A nickel is made from a rather soft metal,' remarks the performer. 'In fact, it is so soft that if I take it in my left hand and blow on it, it immediately becomes so malleable that I can, by slapping it onto my right hand, flatten it out like a pancake.'" -- J.B. Bobo, Modern Coin Magic (1952) In his television special Street Magic (1997), professional magician David Blaine borrows a quarter from a spectator, takes a bite out of it, then blows on the coin to magically restore it visually. • Linking and unlinking "Take the set of three [Chinese linking rings], folded together; hold the rings up in the left hand, blow on them, and let them fall one by one, linked." -- Jean Hugard, Hugard's Magic Manual (19 9) • Unknotting "Place the hands on either side of the slip knot. Blow on the knot. At the same time, pull the hands apart, causing the knot to dissolve." -- Karl Fulves, Self-Working Rope Magic (1990) In Literature: • "The power of magic is often believed to have resided in the breath or speech of the magician. . . . The basic idea in pronouncing spells and some other forms of magic is the power of the magician to produce results through his power of 'speech.'" -- Morris Gross, "The Relation of Blessing and Cursing in the Psalms to the Evolution of Hebrew Religion" (19 4), quoted in Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women by Isaac Jack Levy (2002) • "There is intrinsic magic in our breath. After all, it is the breath of life. Each one of us was formed by the breath. At birth, the breath of life must be forced from us to begin our normal breathing. A slap on the bottom usually starts us breathing. When we approach death, we cease breathing. Somebody can breathe life back into us, however, to return us to life." -- Von Braschler, Natural Pet Healing: Our Psychic, Spiritual Connection (200 ) • "My wife has magic power, and if she blows her breath against your ships, she won't leave a person or animal, sheep or lamb or horse, alive within a distance of a hundred miles of any lake or sea." -- "Céatach," as retold by Sean O'Sullivan in Folktales of Ireland (1966) Brhaspati Origins: "In the Vedic religion the gods are often represented as attaining their ends by magical means; in particular the god Brhaspati, 'the creator of all prayers,' is regarded as 'the heavenly embodiment of the priesthood, in so far as the priesthood is invested with the power, and charged with the task,