MAGIC WORDS
in themselves."105 "In [Egyptian] magical texts, the word, like the name of
the divinity, is the true active instrument to obtain certain effects."106The
musical quality of vowel sounds has long been believed to "have a profound
spiritual effect"107 and to "put the practitioner into union (resonance) with
the celestial songs."108
Meanings: The meaning of aeeiouo remains shrouded in the mists of time.
Modern scholars consider it "untranslatable" or "incomprehensible."109
However, in the context of the magical papyri, aeeiouo is clearly a word of
primal power.
Origins: Incantations of long strings of vowels appear in Greek-Egyptian
magical papyri dating back to the second century BCE. "In certain Gnostic
writings and in the magical papyri . . . sequences of vowels . . . are used
to invoke gods and concentrate divine powers."110
Facts: Vowel invocations in the magical papyri are transcribed in "wing
formation" thusly:
AEEIOUO
EEIOU
EIO
IO
I
Aeeiouo is comprised of "the seven 'holy vowels' of the Greek alpha
bet: Alpha, Episilon, Eta, Iota, Omicron, Upsilon, and Omega."111
Aeeiouo is the shape of "the self-begotten soul" according to the Nag
Hammadi Library, a collection of fifty ancient papyrus texts on the mystical
meanings of the letters of the alphabet and their relation to divinity and the
human soul.
Variations and Incantations:
• Aeeioyo
105 Laurel Holmstrom, "Self-Identification with Deity and Voces Magicae in An-
cient Egyptian and Greek Magic" (2005)
106 Jan N. Nremmer and Jan R. Veenstra, The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late
Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (2002)
107 Shulamit Elson, Kabbalah of Prayer: Sacred Sounds and the Soul's Journey (2004)
108 Patricia Telesco and Don Two Eagles Waterhawk, Sacred Beat: From the Heart of
the Drum Circle (200 )
109 Ibid.
110 Guy L. Neck, Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound (199 )
111 Marvin W. Meyer and Richard Smith, Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Tests of
Ritual Power (1999)