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)