Are you ready to discover a long forgetten side door leading to the heart of Abrahamic religions?

Podcast Presentation - and - Associated Written Article

As with most of my projects, the quest to find the original meaning of AbraCadabra started out as a lark. I was sure I would make short work of the word and be done with it. But the fates wanted something else.

At the cost of sounding cliché, on the journey to finding a suitable answer for my question, I learnt a lot about one of my favorite subjects which is semiotics, the study of symbols.

To say, I have a new found appreciation for the weather would be an understatement. I am for evermore in awe of the weather and all that it takes to make it happen.

The video at the top of this page is titled Abracadabra Decode - Part One, the original version. Further down the page there is a brief introduction and link to assciated article which has links to all original etymology sources.

The word Abracadabra, is it from the Hebrew or does it decend from the Aramic language? Does it matter it was written in Latin?

Since, creating and posting this article, which was last year in the fall of 2023, I've been able to reconcile my own interpretation with the interpretation most commonly found on the internet which is Abracadabra is from the Hebrew meaning something along the lines of "I create as I speak".

This claim is challenged by yet another interpretation which claims Abracadabra is from the Aramic with ties leading to ancient Iranian sources.

The original source is written using Latin letters and it reads exactly as follows, Abracadabra. It makes sense to follow this word back through the Latin roots.

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 should Abracadabra really be another name for the Trinity, then it follows, if we discover the true meaning of Abracadabra, 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.

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.

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.

Upgrade to Subscribing Member and access the rest of the article, plus a separate transcription associated with this video.

Read article on Patreon