Why is it important to track down the meaning of Abracadabra?

A quick search on the internet will return over 3 million results. So it seems, this mysterious word has quite a reputation.

According to the people at Vocabulary website, “Abracadabra… it’s a load of gibberish and nonsense… meaningless”. (https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/abracadabra - Para. 1)

Over at the Wikipedia, they mention only one theory, Abracadabra might be from the Hebrew meaning "I will create as I speak". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abracadabra - Para. 1)

The folks at World Wide Words say it may be a mistaken translation from the Greek abraSADabra. (https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-abr1 - Para. 2)

And finally, a website called Today I Found Out, has a long list of claims associated with Abracadabra. One being, Abracadabra is derived from the Hebrew phrase for the Holy Trinity, as in Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.

Whether it’s an official title is unclear, the phrase is as follows; Ab Ben Ruah Kaddosh, also pronounced Kaddish. In Hebrew ab means “father” and ben means “son”, while Ruah Kaddosh is meaning “Holy Spirit”. https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/origin-word-abracadabra - Para. 3)

Maybe I’m grasping at straws, however I think, if the title or phrase 'Abracadabra' really is another name for the Trinity, then it follows, if we discover its true meaning, we may also discover the true nature of the godhead of the Abrahamic religions.

Sounds like a bargain to me. It’s worth a try. If it turns out, it would be the best ‘four for one’ deal, if ever there was one.

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The following is a revised transcript that goes with the video presentation. For both Parts One and Two I tried out the new AI voice generators, and I have to say, it sounds very good. My friend thought it was a real person.

As the per the following article, I have added links to dictionary sources, as well as selected images.

The Origins and Meaning of Abracadabra

Hello sensitive beings. Today we are going to unlock the meaning of Abracadabra, in case you should ever need to dazzle your friends with a magical spell.

According to general consensus Abracadabra first appeared in print sometime in the 2nd Century AD in a book of remedies titled The Book of Medicine, written by a physician and philosopher named Serenus Sammonicus.

As a remedy for the illness malaria, a scribe would write the word Abracadabra on a single line then move to the next line and write the word again leaving out the last letter. He would keep on doing this until the last line contained only one letter.

The shape of the entire spell written out would form into an inverted triangle. The parchment on which the incantation was written would then be fashioned into an amulet and given to the sick, along with instructions to wear it around the neck for two weeks.

The assumption was by means of sympathetic or symbolic magic the patient would be cured. The triangle shape suggested a funnel which would work as a figurative channel through which the illness would drain out of the body. At least on paper, the illness would perish much like the vanishing letters at the end of each line.

Abraxas and then the Trinity

In a future episode, we’ll look for the reason why Abracadabra has been associated with the word Abraxas, which is a name for the godhead of the early Gnostics who may have borrowed it from ancient Iranian sources.

After reading this article, remember to read the second part, about the claim Abracadabra is a title for the Trinity formed by combining the Hebrew words Ab Ben Ruah Kaddosh, which apparently translates to the English "Father Son and the Holy Ghost".

In this episode, we are going to search for the meaning of Abracadabra using Proto Indo European sources. I will use PIE as an acronym for Proto Indo European.

My usual approach is to assume every definition is mostly correct and my job is to reconcile their meanings by finding the through line that connects them all.

So sit back, relax and open your ears; we are about to sail through a flood of words and their original meanings. With any luck, by the end we will discover the original meaning of Abracadabra and a whole lot more.

Deconstructing Abra

Some people say that abra corresponds to the Hebrew phrase Ab Ben. In Hebrew ab means “father” and ben means “son”, so together this makes "Father Son". We have a match for the first segment ab but how about the last segment? Let’s see what shows up using other language dictionaries.

We have the Iranian word abr meaning “cloud”. And the root word ab means “water”.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1)

By the way of Sanskrit there are numerous definitions for a similar sounding word abhra which can mean “rain cloud, atmosphere, sky, and heaven”, just to name a few.

(https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/abhra)

Both abr and abhra descend from PIE root *nbros-.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/n%CC%A5b%CA%B0r%C3%B3s)

In turn, *nbros- contains the root *nebh- meaning “cloud”; also “vapor, mist”. For example the English word nebulous.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/neb%CA%B0-)

So far, we have the words abra, abr, abhra, and finally the PIE roots, *nbros- and *nebh-.

Before we move on, let’s review a few more significant alternate definitions. The Sanskrit abhra can also mean “cover, or cloth”, also “dust, or powder”.

Brother and Water Bear

The Iranian word for "son", as in off-spring, is pisar, cognate to an even older word *bra-, which has many variants such as; *bro-, *bar-, *bur-, and so on. The variant *bar- appears in the Iranian baradar meaning “brother”.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1)

It also shows up in the Sanskrit bhratri which also means “brother”.

(https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/bhratri)

Bhratri sounds similar to the word brought which leads to the word bring which leads to their common and original root *bher- meaning “to carry, to bear child".

(https://www.etymonline.com/word/*bher-)

It’s possible our word abra contains the PIE root *bher-; coupled with the word ab meaning “water”. This would make abra a compound word meaning “water-bearer” or “water-borne”. Both phrases are adequate descriptions of a cloud and perhaps even the atmosphere. (Continue reading the rest >> See Below).

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Continue reading this article.

You can reading the article on Substack with an yearly paid subscription, which is about $60 or so. In return, you get access to this article and all other videos and articles hosted on SubStack.

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