The Magician's Hidden Library Magic Words: A Dictionary

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A • Abbadazoola See mitchakaboola abbadazoola • Abba zabba In Literature: • The magic word abbadabba appears in the Carl Sandburg poem "The Abracadabra Boys." The boys in question have been hanging around "the stacks and cloisters" and have "been to a sea of jargons and brought back jargons." They "make pitty pat with each other" in a sort of "private pig Latin." Sandburg asks, "Do they have fun? Sure -- their fun is being what they are, like our fun is being what we are -- only they are more sorry for us being what we are than we are for them being what they are."14 Abba-Dabba-Ooga-Booga-Hoojee- Goojee-Yabba-Dabba-Doo (see abba, abbadabba, abracadabra, ooga-booga, and yabba-dabba-doo) Mystique: Seemingly nonsensical rhythmic sounds can indicate that the speaker hears his own beat and is in touch with a mysterious and joyous reality unknown to the listener. Scholar of metaphysics Raymond Buck- land suggests that all magic words "must be spoken rhythmically. Chants and spells should either rhyme or, at the very least, have a repetitive, heavy, sonorous beat to them. This can, and should, contribute to a gradually rising state of excitement within the magician, adding immeasurably to the amount of power produced."15 In Literature: • Edward Allen, Mustang Sally (1992) Abbazabba (see abba and zabba) Facts: Abba Zabba appears in a Captain Beefheart song of the same name (1974). The lyrics are a sort of nursery rhyme about childhood rituals and seem to suggest that the primal syllables abba zabba are "song before song before song." Abba Zabba is the name of an old-fashioned peanut butter taffy can dy bar. 14 The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (1970) 15 Ray Buckland's Magic Cauldron: A Potpourri of Matters Metaphysical (1995)
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