Incantations and Enchantments: The Power of the Voice and the Breath in Magic

About the Author

Donald Tyson is an occult scholar and the author of the popular, critically acclaimed Necronomicon series. He has written more than a dozen books on Western esoteric traditions, including Tarot Magic, and edited and annotated Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Donald lives in Nova Scotia, Canada.

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Incantations and Enchantments: The Power of the Voice and the Breath in Magic Copyright © 2024 by Donald Tyson.

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Names: Tyson, Donald, author.

Title: Incantations and enchantments : the power of the voice and the

breath in magic / by Donald Tyson.

Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Publications,

[2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary:

"Esteemed magician Donald Tyson presents an advanced look at how to

compose spoken charms and spells, enchant objects, use words and names

of power, control the living breath, and more"— Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024010838 (print) | LCCN 2024010839 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738777191 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738777320 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Incantations. | Magic. | Voice—Religious aspects. |

Respiration—Religious aspects.

Classification: LCC BF1558 .T97 2024 (print) | LCC BF1558 (ebook) | DDC

133.4/4—dc23/eng/20240516

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Also by Donald Tyson

Essential Tarot Writings (2020)

Kinesic Magic (2020)

Tarot Magic (2018)

Serpent of Wisdom (2013)

The Demonology of King James I (2011)

The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft (2010)

The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon (2010)

The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy (2009)

Runic Astrology (2009)

Grimoire of the Necronomicon (2008)

Necronomicon Tarot (with Anne Stokes) (2007)

Soul Flight (2007)

Alhazred (2006)

Portable Magic (2006)

Familiar Spirits (2004)

Necronomicon (2004)

1-2-3 Tarot (2004)

The Power of the Word (2004)

Enochian Magic for Beginners (2002)

Tetragrammaton (2002)

The Magician’s Workbook (2001)

Sexual Alchemy (2000)

Disclaimer

The contents in this book are historical references used for teaching purposes only. The publisher and the author assume no liability for any injuries caused to the reader that may result from the reader’s use of content contained in this publication and recommend common sense when contemplating the practices described in the work.

Contents

Introduction

One: Living Breath

Two: Vowels

Three: Composing Incantations

Four: Names and Words of Power

Five: Vibrating Words

Six: Spellbinding

Seven: Healing Spells

Eight: Love Spells

Nine: Spells of Protection

Ten: Maledictions

Eleven: Enchantments

Twelve: Enchanting Herbs, Potions, and Wands

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

I have enchanted by means of your words which you created by means of the magic which is in your mouth.

—Inscription on a wooden statue

of the Egyptian god Horus

¹

The most ancient and potent tool of magic is the human voice. In prehistoric times shamans danced around a fire, chanting or singing to the spirits of the natural world. We know they danced because they are shown dancing in paintings on the walls of caves, some of which are more than fifty thousand years old. We have no record of their singing, but shamanism has come down through history very much unchanged, and the shamans of recent centuries used singing and chanting in time with the beat of a drum or shake of a rattle. It is almost certain that Ice Age shamans used much the same kind of chants and songs.²

In ancient times humans sang to honor the gods. Singing was not just an amusement or an entertainment; it was a sacred act. Similarly, poetry was recited primarily for the gods, not for other mortals. The Druids were literate but considered their songs too holy to be written down. The earliest Greek dramas, which involved singing and chanting, were enacted on a stage, not for the benefit of a human audience, but as an offering to the gods. Later, the custom devolved into decadence, and drama became a form of entertainment. But we still see the holy side of song in Gregorian chants and the singing of hymns in Christian churches. Chanting is used in Jewish synagogues and Muslim mosques. The repetitions of the Hail Mary on a rosary are a type of holy chant.

Of all human activities, magic is probably the most conservative. By that, I mean the practice of magic has not changed in any significant way for many thousands of years. What we know of magic in the dawn of human history is still being worked today by living magicians. The outward forms change to suit the times and customs, but the essential practices do not change. The ritual patterns used by our distant ancestors are still being used today. There is no real difference, in its essence, between the magic of the ancient Egyptians and the magic of modern Americans.

What is true of magic as a whole is also true of that aspect of magic that employs the human voice. The chants, spells, and prayers spoken and sung by modern magicians are not very different from those used by prehistoric magicians. They have the same structure, the same purpose, the same general forms of expression.

In this book we will take a look at the use of the voice in both ancient and modern magic. Use of the voice involves the breath, which is set into vibration to produce vowel and consonant sounds, for the formation of words that are used to express intentions in prose, poetry, and song. All these components of the voice play their part in magic. We are not interested in the present work with forms of magic that do not involve the use of the voice. Our focus here is on what may be broadly called incantation, although there are many other names for its various aspects, such as spells, charms, chants, curses, conjures, invocations, evocations, and so on.

Two terms that will be used frequently in the following pages are incantation and enchantment. Both terms derive from the same Latin root: incantare (to sing against). It is necessary that you have a clear understanding of their relationship. Incantation is the act of working magic by means of the voice. An enchantment is the product of that magic, what it was designed to achieve. People, places, or things are enchanted with incantations. An enchantress is a woman who works magic by means of incantations. An enchanted sword is a blade that has had an incantation chanted or sung over it.

Christianus Pazig, in his work A Treatyse of Magic Incantations, very well sums up what will be the main focus of our investigations:

Incantation…we describe to be an act of Magic, wherein either by words alone, or also by the introduction of certain things and ceremonies they labour to produce some marvellous effect. From this we at once learn that in every Incantation, words whether few or many, are required to be uttered (verba prophorica), and hence in these pages we discard without further notice amulets with words inscribed on them, marks, ceremonies and other superstitious acts of this kind performed in silence, as is often the case.³

Pazig’s scope is a little narrower than mine. I will not entirely ignore in this book written charms, on the consideration that written words, even when not spoken aloud, are uttered in the mind when they are read. Writing is only a kind of silent speech frozen in time. Most written charms were uttered aloud at the time of their creation to give them power on the living breath. Even when this was not the case, when we read them long after they were written, the sounds of the words echo in our heads, for how else could we understand what they mean? But our primary concern will be with incantations designed by their makers to be spoken aloud.

The topics we will examine include the composition of spoken charms, chants, and spells; the enchantment of objects; the use of words and names of power, in particular the use of the Ineffable Name of God known as the Tetragrammaton; the power and control of the living breath and the correct way to vibrate vowel sounds; and the silent mental sounding of words. The general principles we derive will be expressed in the composition and use of incantations for healing, drawing a lover, binding and loosing, summoning spirits, protection, and malediction, with examples of each class of voice magic drawn from historical texts.

The specific external components of incantation are the breath with its inherent creative power, which is liberated by extended vowel tones and the correct vibration of words. Important considerations are the choice of specific words to vibrate and the manner of casting those words into poetic form by the use of such things as rhyme, alliteration, rhythm, and poetic meter. The incantations may be recited, chanted, or sung, and they may or may not include the use of sacred names or barbarous words of power.

Prayer is a particular type of incantation that we will examine in due course. It is directed at a higher spiritual being for the purposes of adoration, propitiation, aversion, or attainment. Which is to say, prayer may be used to praise a deity, to gain favor with it by means of gifts or sacrifices, to turn away its wrath and punishment, or to achieve a goal either tangible or intangible.

All these components of incantation are without effect unless the right inner state of mind is achieved when the incantation is uttered:

The efficacy of all words used as charms and spells lies in what the Aryans call the Vâch, a certain latent power resident in Âkâsha. Physically, we may describe it as the power to set up certain measured vibrations, not in the grosser atmospheric particles whose undulations beget light, sound, heat and electricity, but in the latent spiritual principle or Force—about the nature of which modern science knows scarcely anything. No words whatever have the slightest efficacy unless uttered by one who is perfectly free from all weakening doubt or hesitancy, is for the moment wholly absorbed in the thought of uttering them, and has a cultivated power of will which makes him send out from himself a conquering impulse. Spoken prayer is, in fact, an incantation, and when spoken by the heart, as well as by the lips, has a power to attract good and repel bad influences. But to patter off prayers so many times a day while your thoughts are roving over your landed estates, fumbling your money-bags, or straying away among any other worldly things, is but mere waste of breath.⁴

From the most ancient times, it has been recognized that the life-force resides in the breath and in the blood. The breath is the life-force of the mind, the blood the life-force of the body. Early man observed that when the breath stops, or when the blood flows out, the result is death, even though no other injury has occurred. The blood is contained in the body. When sacrifice was made of human beings or beasts, the blood of the sacrifice was reserved for the god to whom the sacrifice was given. The breath is not held captive in the body but passes in and out. The intellect can shape the life-force of the breath by causing the breath to vibrate and carry forth sounds and words. In this way the creative life-force may be projected beyond the body onto things in the greater world.

The raw vital force of the breath and the focused creative energy of the voice have been recognized in all cultures from the most ancient times, but in modern magic we often use them in an offhanded manner without understanding that they are the primary taproot of magic by which its transformative power is released and shaped. To use this power intelligently, it is necessary to become familiar with all its aspects. I have set them forth in the following pages in what I hope is a clear and rational arrangement that will make you a better informed student of magic if you are a scholar, or a more effective worker of magic if you are a magician.

[contents]

One

Living Breath

Everything begins with the breath, which contains the vital life-force by which all things may be created. The first act of God in the first chapter of the first book of the Torah, called Bereshit (in the beginning) from its first three words, was to breathe upon the waters of chaos: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ⁵

The spirit of God in the text was the breath of God. The Hebrew word for spirit, ruach, also means breath. The Spirit of God and God’s breath are one and the same thing. This was a common understanding in the ancient world. The Latin word for breath is spiritus. The Romans understood the breath to contain the life-force. The ancient Greeks had a similar understanding. Greeks called the spirit pneuma, which means breath. Agia Pneuma means Holy Breath as well as Holy Spirit. The Sanskrit word prana, the vital force in yoga, means breath of life.

The waters of chaos, called in the Bible the deep, were a still and perfect mirror into which God looked and saw his own face reflected. Understand this in a symbolic sense—of course God does not have a face in the physical sense that we have a face. As he hovered above the waters, the breath from his nostrils, the spirit of God, stirred the surface into ripples, thereby breaking his reflected image into fragments. This caused an imbalance, prompting God to speak. When God spoke, the breath from his lips was articulated in the form of the words, Let there be light (Yehi ohr: light will be) and this primal incantation from the mouth of God created the first thing that was not void—light.

The creation of humanity is described in two separate places in the text. The first place, Genesis 1:26–27, describes the creation of the body of Adam in the image of God. His body was shaped from the dust of the ground, but this human form lying on the ground was lifeless. In the second passage, Genesis 2:7, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. The spiritus or pneuma of God became the soul of Adam. Note that the breath of God was breathed into the nostrils of Adam, not into his mouth. This is symbolically significant. We receive into ourselves the vitality in the atmosphere that sustains us during life through the nostrils. We use the mouth to project this power in the form of sounds and articulate speech. As yet, Adam had not spoken. His first use of language occurs in Genesis 2:19–20: And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam, to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. ⁶

The birds and beasts received their essential identities with the names spoken by Adam. The power of his breath was projected outward from his mouth in an articulated form, each name being different and unique. These words were words of power in a magical sense, and their speaking was the first incantation spoken by a human being, just as the creation of light by God was the first incantation in our universe spoken by God.

After making the beasts and birds from the dust of the ground, in the same way he had formed the body of Adam, and allowing Adam to name them, God used the life-force that was already present inside Adam, symbolized by his rib (euphemism for the bone in his penis), to make the woman, Eve. Many animals have a penis bone to stiffen the penis, but humans do not. This biblical myth may have served as an explanation to why this is so.⁷ Creative force was understood in ancient times to reside in the erect penis, but ancient texts often refer to the penis with various euphemisms, not from reasons of delicacy but because the vital creative force was sacred and not to be profaned. For example, when Pythagoras met the Hyperborean magician Abaris, he is said by his biographer Iamblichus to have shown Abaris his golden thigh, which was said to be the wonder of the world.⁸ This is a polite way of saying that he had sex with Abaris.

In the Genesis account of the creation of Eve, the penis of Adam becomes through mythic euphemism his rib. The implication is that Eve was generated from Adam by an act of ejaculation, probably in the same way the Egyptian god Atum was supposed in myth to have created the other Egyptian gods. In Egyptian mythology Atum was variously said to have created the other gods by spitting saliva from his mouth, by his mouth (a veiled reference to articulate speech), by his hand, and by masturbation. The passage from an Egyptian funeral text given by E. A. Wallis Budge in his Gods of the Egyptians, which is in that text attributed to another Egyptian creation god, Khepera, is illuminating on several counts. This description also applies to the god Atum: In the story of the creation Khepera is made to say, ‘I had union with my hand, and I embraced my shadow in a love embrace; I poured seed into my own mouth, and I sent forth from myself issue in the form of the gods Shu and Tefnut.’ ⁹

We see from this passage that Atum (Khepera) created the gods by ejaculating into his own mouth and then spitting forth his semen. Creative fire is in the semen, but the articulate act of creation, by which the other gods were shaped, was a spoken act from the lips of Atum, who gave names to the gods and thereby defined them on his living breath, just as Adam had defined the animals in the Garden of Eden by naming them.

Obviously, much is left unsaid in the brief Genesis account of this magical act of creating Eve. The esoteric mystery concealed in the passage is that the life-force in Adam, concentrated in his semen, was extended in the same way the flame of a candle can be extended to light a second candle. And it is by this principle of extension of the original breath of God down through the human generations that we all possess our souls. All human breath is the breath of God.

The creation story that appears in the Hebrew Pentateuch is very ancient indeed. It may have been derived by the Hebrews from the mythology of the Babylonians during the period in the sixth century BCE when the Hebrews were held as captives in Mesopotamia. After their release from captivity, the Hebrews carried this creation myth back to Jerusalem with them and made it part of their own mythology. The story of the Garden of Eden, of Noah and the Great Flood, of the Tower of Babel—all come from Babylon. On this matter Ernest Wright observed in his work Biblical Archaeology:

Consequently, an increasing number of scholars have been coming to the conclusion that many of these ancient traditions regarding origins must go back to an earlier period. In fact, it seems most probable that some of the traditions about the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Flood, the stories of Nimrod (Gen. 10:8ff.) and of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11) were brought from Mesopotamia by the Patriarchs themselves. How else explain why Israel had them but Canaan did not? ¹⁰

From this biblical fable we learn several important magical truths. The breath holds within itself the power of creation. Our breath is the same breath that was in God, the very breath that was used to create the universe. There is no essential difference between the breath of God and the breath of a man or a woman. That power of creation that lies within us can be transmitted from us outwardly upon the breath through the mouth to affect other external things, without in any degree diminishing its vitality within us, in the same way a candle flame is not diminished in any way when it is used to light another candle.

What was it about the breath that made it figure so significantly in the story of creation? For one thing, it was observed by the ancients that when the breath stopped, life stopped. When a child was born from the womb, it drew its first breath, and when in old age it drew its last breath, it died. The life of a human being was rounded by the breath. This is not true of the heart, which circulates that other great seat of the life-force in the human body, the blood. The heart beats before birth, while the child is still in the womb. It is only the breath that begins at birth and ends at death.

Another significant aspect of the breath is that it passes into the body from outside it, and then passes back out again. The breath transcends the barrier of the skin, uniting microcosm with macrocosm, the lesser world with the greater world. It thus forms a bridge between inside and outside and is a perfect vehicle to project the creative power of the life-force beyond the limits of the body of the individual. It was observed that it could be used to transfer or convey information in the form of words, linking the mind of one human being with the mind of another after the manner of a bridge.

From a magical point of view, we can say that the breath embodies the raw power of creation, which by extension is also the powers of transformation and destruction, since whenever a thing is created, something that went before it is destroyed, and by the same token, whenever something is destroyed, something new is created by the act of transformation. This is an important concept in magic, so I will give some examples. If you break a glass, you destroy the glass by shattering and transforming its pattern into shards, but the pile of shards that results from this destruction is itself a new thing, newly created. Conversely, if you create a pot on a potter’s wheel from a heap of wet clay, you are simultaneously destroying the heap of clay, which was a thing in its own right, no less real or complete than the pot.

We can distinguish deliberate, willed creation from creation that occurs by happenstance, as a result of destruction. Usually, willed creation involves the building up of organized complexity of detail in the created thing. This may be accompanied by a greater concentration of potential energy in the product of creation. When God breathed into the nostrils of Adam, he concentrated his life-force in the body of clay and animated it, giving it warmth. Life is accompanied by warmth, and cold is a characteristic of death. The breath is always warm. A living human body holds more energy than a dead body, as indicated by these differences in temperature. Even the breath of a cold-blooded creature contains some internally generated warmth, since its life processes by their very nature must produce heat.

The Breath of the World

When the air around us is drawn into our bodies, it becomes our breath. The exhalation of our living planet becomes our