Holy Gibberish

 

     The business of an artist centers on the construction of meaningful patterns of words, sounds, forms, or movement, yet the creator is often acutely aware that the object produced falls short of the initial vision.  The same gap is unlikely to be experienced by authors of texts meant to convey less subtle information such as warehouse data or scientific research.   For such purposes language seems wholly adequate, while, on the other end of the spectrum, ordinary verbal usages fail the mind that ventures to plumb beyond the horizon.  Words encounter their acid test in Ultimate Reality.  What name can the ineffable bear?

     Various spiritual techniques have sought to transcend the limits of words, some, such as Hatha Yoga, largely non-verbal, others like the koan practice of Rinzai Zen, using language to subvert itself.  Often people seeking illumination have used nonsense syllables, vocables with no conventional meaning, to indicate or to evoke insight beyond the bonds of ordinary speech. 

     The mystical significance of gibberish is usually distinguishable from its artistic use in such manifestations as Dadaist sound poetry, the zaum of the Russian Futurists, or the work of those who produce asemic writing (an abstract form using no familiar characters).  Though many writers entertain spiritual as well as aesthetic pretensions their work is usually classed among their fellow avant-gardists rather than among the practices labelled religious. 

     Likewise excluded here are purely musical uses of nonsense vocables such as the scat singing of jazz vocalists, Celtic “lilting,” Jewish Nigun, Sami joik or luohti, the chanting of tabla bols in Indian music, and the familiar use of nonsense in children’s rhymes, folksong, doo wop, and hip hop.  [1] 

    I find no clearly demarcated borderline, though, between religious and magical gibberish, as both involve supernatural claims.  In each case the individual expects to use a series of unintelligible vocables to derive some benefit from the unseen powers.  What seems to the believer a sublime spiritual activity might strike subscribers to other belief systems as utter superstition, while the skeptical observer would convict all the believers alike of credulity. 

     All such practices have a good deal in common.  Both priest and magician employ what might be called the principle of Mumbo Jumbo [2], the notion that mysteries are likely to be associated with unintelligible speech.  This is evident in the world-wide belief in the efficacy of magico-religious formulae such as spells.  The best known such expression in the Western tradition is probably abracadabra which dates from Roman times when it was used in medical treatments [3] though today it is more common in cartoons and stage shows. Hocus pocus and alakazam, though formed of sounds reminiscent of Latin and Arabic respectively, are both latecomers, lacking the pedigree of having once been used for conjuring. 

     In religion proper, the use of mysterious words to seal a contract with the supernatural is probably as old as language.  Many Roman Catholics felt that the mass lost a good deal of its impact if not its efficacy when vernacular was substituted for Latin, while Jewish and Hindu congregants may well yet hear ceremonies in words they do not understand.  A middle-class American sitting in temple or in a mandir may share more than is immediately apparent with the purchaser of a useful spell from the local magic-worker in the Nigerian bush.  Like the elaborate directions such a shaman might insist must be precisely fulfilled, or like the dials and blinking lights on a quack medical device, the very inscrutability of the sounds seems to their users a guarantee of their value.  Such magic phrases in antiquity sometimes included the deeper mystery of “charaktêres,” signs with no associated sound or significance.

     One group of magical formulae in ancient times was called “Ephesian words,” said by Pausanias to be written on the cult image at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.  These phrases were employed for a variety of purposes.  Among the attested uses are to guarantee athletic victory, to bless a marriage, and to avert demons. The fire meant to burn Croesus was drenched after the king, it was said, pronounced an Ephesian spell.  [4]  Other similar charms were called voces magicae by the Romans.   Another label was “barbarous names,” due to untranslated magic formulae being imported from other languages, Egyptian, Persian and Hebrew.  Such terms were widely used by the Neo-Platonists.  Iamblichus explains that such unintelligible foreign terms are preferable in controlling certain divine powers. [5]  These texts and their names were revived by Renaissance practitioners of magic such as the author of the Ars Goetia, compiled in  the mid seventeenth century which was in turn used by later occultists such as Aleister Crowley who notes that such phrases should remain untranslated to retain their purity and power as they “are very sonorous” when pronounced in “a certain magical voice.” [6]

     The Hindu use of mantras such as “Om” depends upon the sound’s lacking any denotation.  [7]  It is thus even more empty of meaning (and thus to some potentially full) than the Zen “Mu” which retains traces of signification, though only of negation.    

     Holy gibberish is generated ever anew in some Native American cultures (Dakota, Blackfoot, and Native American Church peyote songs, among others), but perhaps its most spectacular contemporary expression is among Pentecostalists who practice speaking in tongues.  Though speaking in tongues has sporadically appeared among other sects in the past including fifteenth century Moravians, seventeenth century Camisard Huguenots and Quakers, and nineteenth century Mormons, those most identified with the practice today are fundamentalist Christians such as those in the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, Foursquare churches, Apostolic churches, and Vineyard churches.

     The scriptural warrant for this activity is the day of Pentecost when “there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” In this incident it is clear that the Christians are thought to be miraculously able to proselytize in all languages.  In some Biblical references speaking in tongues seems to be simply a spiritual gift that descends on some believers requiring no interpretation, while in others it refers to the ability to communicate in any earthly tongue, or to prophesy, or to possess esoteric knowledge of a divine language used by god or by angels. [8]

     A number of individuals have in fact composed secret languages.  Though others have invented languages meant for purely practical ends such as Esperanto and Interlingua, some have constructed languages that they supposed would enable communication with god.   Feeling, surely, that neither German nor Latin was quite up to the task of supporting her meditations, Hildegarde of Bingen devised a phonetic alphabet to embody her “lingua ignota,” used, as far as is known, by herself alone.  Anticipating her death, her friend Womarus asked elegiacally, "where, then, the voice of the unheard melody? And the voice of the unheard language?" [9] 

     Apart from Hildegarde, perhaps the most significant language constructor in the European religious tradition was John Dee, the Elizabethan scholar, scientist, and occultist widely thought to be Shakespeare’s model for the character of Prospero, who developed what he called “Angelic” language but which was later labeled “Enochian.”  Dee also called his language “Adamic” because, according to his angels, it was spoken until the confusion of tongues after Babel.  Beginning in 1583 Dee with the aid of a medium recorded first a new alphabet and then a series of seven-by-seven tables as well as poems (for some of which he provided translations) in this angelic speech. His work is celebrated today by the Theosophical Society and other esotericists, though a recent student of his system maintains that much of what he produced was meaningless, mere random syllables. [10] 

     Other constructed languages with spiritual aims include Balaibalan, devised by Sufis in the Ottoman Empire, Damin used by a group of Australian aborigines of the Lardil and Yangkaal groups, and the Medefaidrin invented by an Ibibio congregation in Nigeria during the nineteen-thirties who came into conflict with the government when they sought to use the language for their children’s school.

          Each of these uses of holy gibberish begins from the assumption that ordinary language is inadequate, that the words used in daily discourse cannot bear the weight, the infinite significance of the divine.  Yet unintelligible utterances can do no more than gesture in the direction of the numinous godhead.  Intimating something beyond and confessing that what one has seen one cannot tell.   Strained to the breaking point, words fracture and fail, yet in this broken state, they preserve the passionate desire of the individual to establish contact with the macrocosm.  If, in the via negativa, god is that which we do not know, perhaps his most eloquent liturgy must be likewise incomprehensible.

 

  

1.  Among modern musical ensembles that have used constructed languages of their own invention are Magma in France and Sigur Rós in Iceland. 

2.  The term, which came to mean incomprehensible language, as I here use it, originally signified a divine being, his sculptural representation, or his impersonation by a person in masquerade.  Mungo Parks introduced the term to English in Travels in the Interior of Africa (1795).

3.   In the Liber Medicinalis of Serenus Sammonicus where it is presented in a “reduction pattern” with one less letter per line, forming a triangle suitable for inscribing in amulets.  The phrase is clearly based on the opening letters of the alphabet.

4.  See Chester C. McCown, “The Ephesia Grammata in Popular Belief,” TAPA 54 (1923).

5.  See Iamblichus Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries I, 7.  The concept of barbarous names appears as well in the Chaldean Oracles.

6.  Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, Ch. IX.

7.  The syllable also occurs in Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh texts. 

Poetry and Magic Spells

αἱ γὰρ ἔνθεοι διὰ λόγων ἐπῳδαὶ ἐπαγωγοὶ ἡδονῆς, ἀπαγωγοὶ λύπης γίνονται· συγγινομένη γὰρ τῇ δόξῃ τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ δύναμις τῆς ἐπῳδῆς ἔθελξε καὶ ἔπεισε καὶ μετέστησεν αὐτὴν γοητείᾷ.

Sacred incantations sung with words are bearers of pleasure and banishers of pain, for, merging with opinion in the soul, the power of the incantation is wont to beguile it and persuade it and alter it by witchcraft.

Gorgias, Helen



     In his ingenious defense of Helen of Troy, Gorgias argues that she cannot be blamed if she was misled by the power of words. Conflating rhetoric and poetry with magic formulae, he declares speech a “great power,” capable of accomplishing “divine works,” manipulating emotion, and in fact inducing pleasure and pain through a sort of “wizardry.” [1] Helen cannot be guilty if her acts were the result of a quasi-holy compulsion. According to the testimonia of antiquity Gorgias himself was the outstanding practitioner of just such powerful hypnotic language with the power of altering the reality of listeners through the use of words alone.
     The intimate connection between magic and poetry has long been evident from the work of anthropologists. Shamans and priests describe their visionary experiences and work their wonders in large part through words, though other arts, including dance, drama, and visual art (in the form of fetish objects and the like) also play a role. This relationship has hardly diminished in the contemporary age. The words of the Roman Catholic priest ego te absolve are meant to work in the real world just like any charm, while poetry enthusiasts often use figures of speech referring to magic to characterize their reactions and poets like W. B. Yeats, Jack Spicer, James Merrill and others tout their work as supernaturally inspired.
     Perhaps the deepest affinity between magic and poetry lies in desire. The magic worker seeks a prosperous harvest, healing from disease, victory in war, ends that are always in doubt but which the individual passionately desires. In this way the practitioner’s words, whether functionally efficacious or not, constitute a poignant statement of longing, of human uncertainty, frustration, and anxiety not so different from a poem. Though Tylor and most early analysts saw magic as a pseudo-science, an ineffective way of obtaining one’s way in the world which served for people until they developed more practical scientific and technical solutions, the survival of magical practices in current times indicates that such a view is insufficient.
     In archaic societies poetry and magic were often subspecialties of the same individual, a person who excelled others in manipulation of the symbolic values of language. Shamans visited the spirit realm and returned with stories and verses to counsel their fellows. In later institutional practice those who mastered the verbal rituals of sacrifice were priests whose aid was considered essential to human well-being. Still later their expertise may lose much of its magical potency and become more scholarly or more pastoral.
     Both spells and poems seek symbolic means to ameliorate the helplessness of our species. People have traditionally found solace in the claims of religion, ordinarily convincing themselves of providence or, when all seems to have gone wrong, in an afterlife in which everything is set straight. In the meantime one may try to alter one’s circumstances for the better through the use of charms and incantations. The language in which these claims are stated and by which they are invoked is regularly poetic. While many writers distinguish magic with its attempt to control events from prayer and other religious manifestations thought to be more lofty, they are identical in seeking to influence circumstances through verbal formulations. All are variations on the old principle do ut des, in which the believer’s actions are thought to elicit a positive response. While moderns may scoff at the idea that reciting a charm will, for instance, heal a sick calf, every traditional society valorizes such efforts and every modern one has its substitutes, be they priests, therapists, alternative healers, or “life counselors.” The fact is that all reality is subjective and people have always recognized that words can alter, reprogram as it were, an individual consciousness.
     From the beginning, but more conspicuously in modern times as faith in revelation has faded for many thoughtful people, art has supplanted religion in its fundamental role of making life livable. This general development is so well-recognized that it does not require documentation. Artists such as Wagner, Mallarmé, Wilde, and Wallace Stevens come to mind.
     Yet significant differences exist as well between incantations and poetry. Since magic is thought to compel its ends (unless, of course, it is opposed by a more potent magic), its words need be little more than a simple statement of desire, a human version of the divine fiat. In some cases nonsense syllables such as abracadabra, a Sanskrit mantra, or the vocables of much Plains Indian song suffice.
     In others a simple statement of the desired result serves. “I bind down Aristaichmos the smith before those below,” says an ancient Greek curse tablet, then going on to list three other enemies of the writer without the slightest further detail. [2] A Hebrew benediction of the same simple sort says the same thing six ways: “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” [3] The Vedda may set out on the hunt with confidence after he sings to his arrow, “Go and drop behind the body of the monitor-lizard/ Pierce it, dear cousin.” [4]
     Poetry, on the other hand, must generate its own power on the strength of its language without the aid of dogmatic belief or social consensus. The consumer of poetry will begin to read in an ordinary state of mind, unaffected by the words on the page. The experience of reading, however, may generate the strongest feelings, altogether undeniable when experienced.
     This is not at all always the case. Some of the Old English charms involve thick, sometimes obscure imagery and elaborate rhetorical structures not always clearly linked to the goal of the spell. The "Wið færstice," called “Against a Stitch,” runs twenty-seven lines, construing a sudden pain as the result of an assault by supernatural beings, either Aesir, elves, or witches (hægtessan) and briefly achieving a tone similar to that of heroic epics. Furthermore the poem itself is a component in a dramatic ritual, a sort of Gesamtkunstwerk, prescribed in a preceding prose passage that recommends the preparation of a potion of medico-magical herbs boiled with butter.
     Poetry and magic have much in common. Both are verbal technologies that aim at making life more livable through symbolic manipulation. Both embody human desire and both construct world-views in which human values supplant the indifferent chaos of the data of reality. Both use hypnotic and little understood verbal rhythms and melodies to transcend and illuminate lived experience. Both also require accepting a set of learned conventions to function. In the case of magic this involves a belief that recitation of the appropriate words will bend nature and even gods to one’s will. Once such credulity in the old forms diminished, art for many filled its place.
     Yet art boasts no divine author. People compose poems without claiming (explicitly at least) to speak for the universe. It requires perhaps as much faith to take advantage of the redemptive power of a great poet as to utter a spell, but such aesthetic power arises more from the reader’s shared humanity with the author than from the poet’s unique ability to access truth. We moderns are surely as much in need of magic as our ancestors yet, lacking their socially approved avenues to gain some purchase on the unwieldy world, we face the challenge of manufacturing conviction out of whole cloth. For some this arrives through the supreme fiction, to use Stevens’ phrase, of poetry.



1. Gorgias’ phrases are λόγος δυνάστης μέγας ἐστίν, θειότατα ἔργα,and γοητείᾷ.

2. See Werner Reiss, Performing Interpersonal Violence: Court, Curse, and Comedy in 4th Century BCE Athens.

3. Numbers 6:24-26 KJV.

4. Quoted in C. M. Bowra, Primitive Song, p. 118.