Quotations on Sound, the Name and the Word

Margo's Magical Letter Page

· Arthur Adamov: "Words, those guardians of meaning, are not immortal, are not unvulnerable. Like men, words suffer. Some can survive; others are incurable."

· Henry Adams (Mont Saint Michel and Chartres): "One’s translation is sure to be full of gross blunders, but the supreme blunder is that of translating at all when one is trying to catch not a fact, but a feeling."

· Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (Plumptre, 1868):
"What other hand than mine.
Gave these young Gods in fulness all their gifts
...Like forms
Of phantom-dreams, throughout their life's whole length
They muddled all at random, did not know
Houses of brick that catch the sunlight's warmth,
Nor yet the works of carpentry. They dwelt
In hollowed holes like swarms of tiny ants
In sunless depths of caverns; and they had
No certain signs of winter nor of spring
Flower-laden, nor of summer with her fruits
Until I showed the rising of the stars,
And settings hard to recognize. And I
Found number for them, chief devise of all,
Groupings of letters, Memory's handmaid that,
And mother of the Muses. And I first
Bound in the yoke wild steeds, submissive mode
To the collar or men's limbs, that so
They might in man's place bear its greatest toils..."

· Agni Yoga: "There are people who aver that they never pray, and yet they preserve an exalted state of mind. The causes are many. It may be that they commune with the Higher World while at work without being aware of this fact. Perhaps their consciousness preserves in the depths of the heart flaming invocations, inaudible to man. It may be that from former lives hieroglyphics in strange languages have been carried over in secret memory. Thus, people often begin to repeat an unknown word which has a meaning in an unexpected dialect. Many sacred remembrances are preserved in the consciousness. Many of the worthiest actions are impelled by causes from former lives. One need not bind oneself by affirmations which have causes deriving from deep experiences."

· Anna Akhmatova - White Flock: "Oh, there are words which should not be repeated. And he who speaks them is a spendthrift."

· Maya Angelou - Wouldn't Take Nothin' for my Journey Now -- Style: "Content is of great importance, but we must not underrate the value of style. That is, we must not only pay attention to what is said, but to how it is said..."

· Thomas Aquinas - "In respect of any name we have to consider two things, namely that FROM WHICH the name is imposed, what is called the quality of the name, and that ON WHICH the name is imposed, what is called the substance of the name. And the name, properly speaking, is said to signify the form or quality, FROM WHICH the name is imposed, and is said to supposit FOR THE THING on which it is imposed."

· Aristotle - Interpretatione: "Words spoken are symbols or signs of affections or impressions of the soul."

· W.H. Auden, Preface to Owen Barfield's History of English Words: "Many who write about 'linguistics' go astray, because they overlook the fundamental fact that we use words for two quite different purposes; as a code of communication whereby, as individual members of the human race, we can request and supply information necessary to life, and as Speech in the true sense... Though no human utterance is either a pure code statement or a pure personal act, the difference is obvious when we compare a phrase book for tourists travelling abroad with a poem... A poet, one might say, is someone who tries to give an experience its Proper Name, and it is a characteristic of Proper Names that they cannot be translated, only transliterated. Furthermore, since poetry is a gratuitous act, in it, as Valéry observed, "everyting whichmust be said is almost impossible to say well.

Whereas most code statements can be verifiable or disprovable, most personal utterances are neither... In human language, personal speech is its primary function, to which its use as code is subordinate. If this were not so, then... we should only have one language. Linguistic analysts... seem to believe that by a process of 'demythologizing' and disinfecting, it should be possible to create a language in which, as in algrbra, meanings would be unequivocal and misunderstandings impossible. But human language is mythological and metaphorical in nature... We can only cope with language if we recognize that language is by nature magical and therefore highly dangerous. It will always be possible to use language as... Black Magic. How can the man-in-the street be expected to resist the black magic of propagandists, commercial and political? Formerly philology could remain a study for specialists. Today it must be made required reading in all schools.

· W.H. Auden, Natural Linguistics: "Every created thing has ways of pronouncing its ownhood."

· W.H. Auden, Notes on the Comic:

"A sentence uttered makes a world appear

Where all things happen as it says they do;

We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear:

Words have no words for words that are not true."

· Jane Austin, Sense and Sensibility: "The letter F had been likewise invariably brought forward and found productive of such countless jokes that its character as the wittiest letter in the alphabet had been long established with Eleanor."

· Gaston Bachelard: "But do we know how to welcome into our mother tongue the distant echoes that reverberate in the hollow centers of words? When reading words, we see them and no longer hear them."

(Air and Dreams): If we pronounce the word âme (soul) in its aerial plentitude and with a belief in the imaginary, at just the right moment, when word and breath are one, then we realize that it takes on its exact value only at the end of our breath. In order to express the word âme from within the depths of the imagination our last reserves of air must be expended. It is one of those rare words that ends as our breath ends. A purely aerial imagination would always prefer that this word come at the end of a sentence. In the imaginary life of the breath, our soul is always our last sigh. A little bit of our soul is reunited with a universal soul.

· Balzac: "Quel beau livre ne composerait-on pas en racontant la vie et les aventures d'un mot? Sans doute il a reçu diverses impressions des événements auxquels il a servi; selon les lieux, il a réveillé des idées différentes... Tous sont empreints d'un vivant pouvoir qu'ils tiennens de l'âme, et qu'ils lui resstituent par les mystères d'une action et d'une réaction merveilleuse entre la parole et la pensée... Par leur seule physionomie, les mots raniments dans notre cerveau les créatures auxquelles ils servent de vêtement... Mais ce sujet comporte peut-être une science tout entière!"

· Barddas, (ancient Welsh text): "When God pronounced his name, with the Word sprang the light and the life, for previously, there was no life but God himself. And the way it was spoken was of God's direction. His name was pronounced, and with the utterance was the springing of light and vitality, and man and every other living thing; that is to say, each and all sprang together."

"Menw the Aged, son of Menwyd beheld the springing of the light, and its form and appearance... in three columns; and in the rays of light, the vocalization - for one were the hearing and seeing, one in unison with the form and sound of life, and one unitedly with these three was power, which power was God the father. And by seeing the form, and in it hearing the voice - not otherwise - he knew what form and appearance voice should have... And it was on hearing the sound of the voice, which had in it the kind and utterance of three notes, that he obtained the three letters, and knew the sign that was suitable to one and other of them. Thus he made in form and sign the Name of God, after the semblance of rays of light, and perceived that they were the figure and form and sign of life... It was from the understanding thus obtained in respect of this voice, that he was able to assimilate mutually every other voice as to kind, quality and reason, and could make a letter suitable to the utterance of every sound and voice. Thus were obtained the Cymraeg and every other language."

"It is considered presumptuous to utter this name in the hearing of any man in the world. Nevertheless, everything calls Him inwardly by this name -- the sea and land, earth and air, and all the visibles and invisibles of the world, whether on the earth or in the sky -- all the worlds of all the celestials and the terrestrials -- every intellectual being and existence..."

· Owen Barfield, History in English Words: "It has only begun to down on us that in our own language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of th emineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust. But there is this difference between the record of the rocks and the secrets which are hidden in language: where as the former can only give us knowledge of outward, dead things, ...language has preserved for us the inner, living history of man's soul. It reveals the evolution of consciousness. In the common words we use every day, souls of past races, the thoughts and feelings of individual men stand around us, not dead, but frozen into their attitudes like the couriers in the garden of the Sleeping Beauty. The more common a word is and the simpler its meaning, the bolder very likely is the original thought which it contains and the more intense the intellectual or poetic effort which went into its making. Thus the word quality is used by most educated people every day of their lives, yet in order that we should have this simple word, Plato had to make the tremendous effort of turning a vague feeling into a clear thought. He invented the new word 'poiotes', 'what-ness', as we might say or 'of-what-kind-ness', and Cicero translated it by the Latin 'qualitas', from 'qualis'. Language becomes a different thing for us altogether if we can make ourselves realize, can even make ourselves feel how every time the word quality is used, say upon a label in a shop window, that creative effort made by Plato comes into play again. Nor is the acquisition of such a feeling a waste of time; for once we have made it our own, it circulates like blood through the whole of literature and life about us. It is the kiss which brings the sleeping coutiers to life."

"'Cereal' comes from Ceres, a Roman goddess of corn and flowers and 'panic' comes from Pan, a Greek Nature-God. But here the resemblance ends, for not only is one Latin and the other Greek, but one is the name of an object which we can touch and see, while the other relates to that inner world of human consciosness which cannot be grasped with hands. Now it is important to notice that the word is much more closely related to the thing in the case of panic than in the case of cereal... We feel, in fact, that reflection on the word cereal will tell us something about Rome, but very little about corn or about ourselves. With panic it is different. In that intangible inner world words are themselves, as it were, the solid materials. Yet they are not the materials as stones are, but rather as human faces, which sometimes change their form as the inner man changes, and sometimes, remaining practically unaltered, express with the same configuration a developed personality... There was a time when no such word as panic existed, just as therre was a time when no such word as electric existed, and in this case, as in the other, before the word first sprang into life in somebody's imagination, humanity's whole awareness of the phenomenon which we describe as 'panic' must have been a different thing. The word marks a discovery in the inner world of consciosness... Its derivation enables us to realize that the early Greeks could become conscious of this phenomenon, and thus name it, because they felt the presence of an invisible being who swayed the emotions of flocks and herds. And it also reveals how this kind of outlook changed slowly into the abstract idea which the modern individual strives to express when he uses the word panic... It would be impossible for us to think, feel, or say such things as 'crowd-psychology' or 'herd instinct' if the Greeks had not thought, felt, said 'Pan' - as impossible as it would be to have the leaf of a plant without having a seed first tucked into the warm earth. As to the number of words which are indirectly descended from historical religious feeling, it's not possible to count them. We can only say that the farther back language as a whole is traced, the more poetical and animated do its sources appear, until it seems at last to dissolve into a kind of mist of myth... Words themselves are felt to be alive and to exert a magical influence... In a word here and a word there we trace but the final stages of a vast, age-long metamorphosis from the kind of outlook which we loosely describe as 'mythological' to the kind that we may describe equally loosely as 'intellectual thought'."

"The influence of such a mind (as Shakespeare's) on the language in which it expresses itself can only be compared to the effect of high temperatures on solid matter. As imaginations bodies forth the forms of things unknown, each molecult of suggestiveness contained in each word gains a mysterious freedom from its neighbours; the old images move to and fro distinctly in the listener's fancy, and when the sound has died away, not merely the shape, but what seemed to be the very substance of the word has been readjusted."

· Graeme Base The Worst Band in the Universe:

"A flood of music met his ears, so rich and warm and deep,
The likes of which he'd never heard beyond the realm of sleep.
He felt himself enveloped in its magical embrace,
A smile that spoke of utter joy upon his upturned face.

The stranger led him thorugh the hubbub toward a corner seat,
Where sat a massive CrustoPod she wanted him to meet.
'This lump is known as Stickman.' (Stickman grinned a toothless grin.)
'And I, my friend, am Breather. Welcome to the world within!'

...When Skat had gone, a Button Pusher waddled from the crowd.
'Er hi,' he mumbled, 'Look, I wouldn't dare say this aloud,
But well, I have this theory -- though of course I may be wrong...'
He handed Sprocc a drawing. 'It's a ship that sails on song.'

'A music powered spacecraft?' Breather froobled through her snouts.
'It's possible, I guess,' she shrugged. 'And yet I have my doubts...'
'Skat says that it will never fly,' the little guy confided.
'We'll try it!' Sprocc declared at once. 'The matter is decided!'

...At last the ship was finished. Sprocc called everyone around.
'All right,' said Sprocc, 'I'll count you in, then you guys make some sound!'
They climbed aboard and set the sails to capture every note --
A gallant bid for freedom in a tiny homemade boat.

'Let's mesh!' cried Sprocc. The music flowed, the sails began to fill,
But from the jungle swarmed the Gulpers, closing for the kill.
'We need more power!' Breather yelled. 'The EQ's going to blow:
The treble's overloading and the bass is way too low!'

...On Sprocc's home planet, a year had passed...

'I exercize my Ancient Right, in keeping with tradition --
The Ruler of the Universe must face some competition!'
The Musical Inquisitor rocked backwards on the stage.
'You dare to challenge me?' he shrieked, in shock as much as rage.

...'Go on and laugh!' he snarled at them. 'Go on and have your fun.
For soon you'll know the sound of fear. This show has just begun!
You've made a fatal error Sprocc,. You've got me all annoyed.
If I can't rule the Tuneful Worlds, then they shall be destroyed!'

...The people staggered in the aisles, some fell upon the ground,
So mindless was the music, so monotonous the sound.
Sprocc tried to play his Splingtwanger, but soon was overcome.
He slumped against the speaker stacks, his mind and fingers numb."

· Gregory Bateson (audio tape): "This is a very serious matter... that the way that human beings think, certainly the way that I think, is in terms of stories... Now what is a story? A story, if it so please you, is a metaphor... If you look at these two plants, you will see that they are essentially metaphors, one of the other, that metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive...

These are stories, a story being an aggragate of formal relations scattered in time... It has a certain sort of minuet or formal dance to it. It gets more complicated, because this is where we live. And the funny thing about living there is that we care about it intensely. And when the metaphors get jangled by unfortunate events... we get very upset. You see, the idea that there is any mental process going on that isn't metaphoric is a very late, school-marmish idea. What they were killing each other over in the 14th Century was metaphor. Is the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ. The Catholics said yes. The Protestants said no; it stands for body and blood. And they felt that this was worth burning for. No one would ever think that now. (Margaret: unless you're a linguist :-) )

The set of mental processes - aesthetics, feeling, poetry perhaps - is precisely where dream is made... And the Protestant view of the sacrament was a policy decision to exclude from the church that part of the mind which is concerned with poetry, feeling, fantasy, metaphor, stories

· Baudelaire, Correspondances: "L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles, Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers."

· Samuel Beckett: "I take no sides. I am interested in the shape of ideas. There is a wonderful sentence in Augustine" 'Do not dispair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.' That sentence has a wonderful shape. It's the shape that matters."

· Bhatrihari Bakya-padia Brahmakandra, 1,2: "The infinite eternal Brahman is the essence of the Word, which is indestructible; Out from it comes the unfolding of the world by the nature of things. Although he is known in the holy tradition as a Unity, he contains within himself various potentials. And although they are not separate from him, the appear separate."

· William Blake: "Poetry admits not a Letter that is insignificant."

· Madam Blavatsky: "A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like."

· Madam Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine: "Sound, for one thing, is a tremendous occult power... Sound may be produced of such a nature that the pyramids of Cheops would be raised in the air."

· Madam Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine: ""The Magic of the ancient priests consisted, in those days, in addressingthe Gods in their own language. The speech of the men of the Earth cannotreach the Lords. Each must be addressed in the language of his respectiveelements... It is composed of SOUNDS, not words; of sounds, numbers andfigures... Thus this 'language' is that of incantations or of MANTRAS, asthey are called in India; sound being the most potent and effectual magic agent, etc."."

Leonard Bloomfield: "We have seen how an old ablaut base a strong verb IE. *sleng- Germanic *slinken E. slink, let us say has given rise to a number of words as E. slink (strong verb): dial. slank (weak verb): dial. slunk (weak verb)... But it is natural, if not inevitable that such words should become semasiologically differentiated. E. slink 'sneak': dial. slank 'go about in a listless fashion': dial. slunk 'wade through a mire' are examples. What has determined the direction of this differentiation in meaning? In many cases, the old laws of derivation must have been decisive... But one cannot so explain the meanings of slink : slank : slunk, nor indeed the great majority of such modern Germanic word groups: another force has been at work. This force is the old inherent Germanic sense for vowel pitch... If a word containing some sound or noise contains a high pitched vowel like i, it strikes us as implying a high pitch in the sound or noise spoken of.; a word with a low vowel like u implies low pitch in what it stands for... Its far reaching effects on our vocabulary are surprising. It has affected words not only descriptive of sound like E screech, boom... but also their more remote connotative effects. A high tone implies not only shrillness, but also fineness, sharpness, keenness; a low tone not only rumbling noise, but also bluntness, dulness, clumsiness; a full open sound like a, not only loudness, but also largeness, openness, fulness...

Nor must the subjective importance of the various mouth positions that created the various vowel sounds be forgotten: the narrow contraction of i, the wide opening of a, the back of the mouth tongue position of u are as important as the effect of these vowels on the ear of the hearer."

"Since in human speech, different sounds have different meaning, to study the coordination of certain sounds with certain meanings is to study language."

· Maurice Bloomfield: "Every word, in so far as it is semantically expressive, may establish, by haphazard favoritism, a union between its meaning and any of its sounds, and then send forth this sound (or sounds) upon predatory expeditions into domains where the sound is a first a stranger and parasite. A slight emphasis punctures the placid function of a certain sound element, and the ripple extends, no one can say how far... No word may consider itself permanently exempt from the call to pay tribute to some congeneric expression, no matter how distant the semasiological cousinship; no obscure sound-element, eking out its dim life in a single obscure spot, may not at any moment find itself infused with the elixir of life until it bursts its confinement and spreads through the vocabulary a lusty brood of descendents... The signification of any word is arbitrarily attached to some sound element contained in it, and then cogeneric names are created by means of this infused, or we might say, irradiated, or inspired element."

· Robert Bly, Iron John: "Poetry is a form of display. The poet bird repeats vowels and consonants in order to widen his tail. Meter and counted syllables make up a peacoack tail. The poem is a dance done for some being in the other world. How sweet to weigh the line with all the vowels. Body Thomas the codfish psalm. The gaiety of form lies in the lies in the labor of its playfulness. The sound counted recounted nourishes someone. The delight of form, then moves one away from the old duality of hero and enemy, right and wrong, male adversary and female adversary. When a man or a woman enters ritual space, each takes actions meant to be seen. And the joy of display helps pull energy away that would otherwise be invested in conflict."

· Jacob Boehme, The Supersensual Life:
Disciple: Is that Place where no Creature dwelleth near at Hand; or is it afar off?
Master: It is IN THEE. And if thou canst, my Son, for a while but cease from all thy OWN Thinking and Willing, then thou shalt hear the unspeakable Words of God.

Aurora, 4:35-39 -- The second form or property of heaven in the divine pomp or state is Mercurius or the sound, as in the Salitter of the earth there is the sound whence there groweth gold, silver, copper and the like... There is likewise a sound in all the creatures upon the earth, else all would be in stillness and silence. By that sound, all powers are moved in heaven, so that all things grow joyfully and generate very beautifully: And as the divine powers is manifold, so also the sound or Mercurius is manifold and various. For when the powers sprung up in God, they touch and stir one another and move in one another, and so there is a constant harmony, mixing or concert from whence go forth all manner of colours. In these colours grow all manner of fruits, which rise up and spring in the Salitter, and the Mercurius or sound mingleth itself therewith, and riseth up in all the powers of the Father, and then sounding and tunes rise up in the heavenly joyfulness.

5:21 -- There are two things to be observed in God; the first is the Salitter or the divine powers out of which is the body or corporeity; and the second is the Mercurius, tone, tune or sound: thus it is also in like manner and form in an angel. First there is the power and in the power is the tone or tune, which, in the spirit, riseth up into the head, into the mind, as in man in the brain; and in the mind it [the tone] hath its open doors or gates; but in the heart it hath its seat and origin, where it springeth [or ariseth] from all the powers.

6:5-18 -- From all qualities the whole divine power of the Father speaketh forth the WORD, that is, the Son of God. Now that voice or that WORD which the Father speaketh goeth forth from the Father's Salitter or powers, and from the Father's Mercurius, sound or tune: This the Father speaketh forth in himself, and that WORD is the very splendour or glance proceeding from all his powers. But when it is spoken forth, it stayeth or sticketh no more in the powers of the Father, but soundeth and tuneth back again in the whole Father in all powers. Now that word which the Father pronounceth or speaketh forth hath such a sharpness, that the tone of the word goeth swiftly in a moment through the whole deep of the Father and that sharpness is the Holy Ghost. For the WORD which is spoken forth or outspoken abideth as a splendour or glorious edict before the king. But the tone or sound which goeth forth through the Word, executeth the edict of the Father, which he had outspoken through the Word; and that is the birth or geniture of the Holy Trinity... Then the word standeth in the heart as a self-subsisting person, compacted from all the powers [combined]; it is a word and representeth God the Son. Then [also] it riseth up from the heart into the mouth and upon the tongue, which latter is the sharpness and sharpeneth the word so that it soundeth and differentiateth it according to the five senses. From what quality soever the word taketh its original, in that quality it is thrust forth upon the tongue; and that signifieth the Holy Ghost. For as the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son, and distinguisheth and sharpeneth all, and effecteth or preoduceth that which the Father speaketh through the Word: so also the tongue sharpeneth, articulateth and distinguisheth all that which the five senses in the head bring through the heart on to the tongue; and the spirit goeth forth from the tongue through the Mercurius or tone in that place as it was decreed or concluded by the council of the five senses, and executeth it all.

8:128 -- {translator's note: One must presume that the following explanation has its origin in the 'mother-tongue' which the author calls elsewhere 'language of nature'. It is possible that in the last analysis, words corresponding in meaning, but out of the most diverse languages, would shew relations, if not uniform, at least very close to a universal base, were our minds sufficiently open to grasp both the activity and the universality of the language of nature. Without this conjecture, the author's application of the latter to the German word 'Barmherzig' would repel the more superficial minds, since it would not take place in the case of French or any other ordinary language... The point is that he means to shew how perfectly is the 'language of nature' to his mother tongue.} Barm-Herz-Ig: Observe the word BARM- is chiefly formed upon thy lips and when thou pronouncest BARM- the thou shuttest thy mouth, and snarlest in the hinder part of the mouth; and this is the astringent quality, which environeth or encloseth the word; that is, it figureth, compacteth or contracteth the word together, that it becometh hard or soundeth, and the bitter quality separateth or cutteth or distinguisheth it... Now the word BARM is a dead word, devoid of understanding, so that no man understands what it meaneth... But when a man saith BARM-HERZ, he fetcheth or presseth the second syllable out from the deep of the body, out from the heart, for the right spirit speaketh forth the word HERZ, which riseth up aloft from the heat of the heart, in which the light goeth forth and floweth. Now observe when thou pronouncest BARM, then the two qualities, the astringent and the bitter, form, frame or compact together the word BARM, very leisurely or slowly; for it is a long, impotent, feeble syllable, because of the weakness of the qualities. But when thou pronouncest HERZ, then the spirit in the word HERZ goeth forth suddenly like a flash of lightning and giveth the distinction and the understanding of the word. But when thou pronouncest IG, then thou catchest or captivatest the spirit in the midst of the other two qualities, so that it must stay there and form the word. Thus in the divine power also; the astringent and bitter qualities are the Salitter of the divine omnipotence; the sweet quality is the pith or kernel of the Barm-herz-ig-keit, warm-heart-ed-ness or merc-i-ful-ness according to which the whole being with all the powers is called GOD... When the Father speakesth or pronounceth the WORD, that is, generateth his SON (which is always done forever and eternally), then that word first taketh its original in the astringent quality; therein it fixeth, conceiveth or compacteth itself; and in the sweet quality it taketh its fountain, spring or source and in the bitter quality it sharpeneth and moveth itself, and the heat it riseth up and kindleth the middle sweet fountain or source.

10:15 -- And now when the spirits do move and would speak, the hard quality must open itself; for the bitter spirit with its flash breaketh it open and there the tone goeth forth and is impregnated with all the seven spirits, which distinguished the word, as it was decreed in the center, that is, in the middle of the circle, whilst it was yet in the council of the seven spirits. And therefore the seven spirits of God have created a mouth for the creatures that when they would utter their voice, which is their speaking or would make a noise, they need not first tear themselves open; and therefore it is that all the veins and powers or qualifying or fountain spirits go into the tongue that the tone or noise may come forth gently... and this stirring in the hardness is the tone, so that [there is a] sound; and the light or flash maketh the ringing soft; so that man can use the sound to the distinction of speech, or articulation of syllables.

18:53 -- Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erden, In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. These words must be considered exactly what they are. For the word Am conceiveth itself in the heart, and goeth forth to the lips, but there is captivated and goeth back again sounding, til it cometh to the place from which it went forth. This signifieth now that the sound went forth from the heart of God and encompassed the whole place or extent of the world; but when it was found to be evil, then the sound returned again to its own place. The word or syllable An- trusteth itself out from the heart, and presseth forth at the mouth and hath an after-pressure; but when it is spoken forth, then it closeth itself up in the midst or center of its seat with the upper gums and is half without and half within. This signifieth that the heart of God had a loathing against the corruption and so thrust away the corrupted being from himself but laid hold of it again in the midst or center at the heart. As the tongue breaketh off or divideth the word or syllable, and keeps it half without and half within, so the heart of God would not wholly reject the kindled Salitter, but with the malignity, malice and impulse of the devil; and the other part should be re-edified or built again after this time. The word or syllable -fang goeth swiftly from the heart out at the mouth and is stayed also in the hinder part of the tongue and the gums, and when it is let loose, it maketh another swift pressure from the heart, out at the mouth. This signifieth that the corrupted fierceness is thrust out eternally from the light of God, but the inward spirit which is loaded therewith against its will, shall be set again in its first house. The last after-pressure ang signifieth that the innermost spirits in the corruption are not altogether pure, and therefore they need a sweeping away, purging or consuming of the wrath in the fire, which will be done at the end of this time...

· Book of Ballymore: "From where do the figures and namesakes in the explanation of the B, L and N Ogham? From the branches and limbs of the Oak: they formed ideas which they expressed through sounds. So as the stalk of the bush is its noblest part, from them they formed the seven chief figures as vowels: A, O, U, E, I, OI,.... and they formed three others which they added to these as helpers, formed on different sides of the line like this: UI IE AE,... The branches of the wood give figures for the branches and veins of ogham, chief of all. The tribe of B from the Birch and the daughter, that is the Ash of the wood, is chief. Of them the first alphabet was formed; of L from Luis, the quicken tree of the wood. F from Fearn, the Alder, good for shields. S for sail; a Willow from the wood. N for Nin, the Ash for spears. H from Huath, Whitethorn, a crooked tree or bush because of her thorns. D from Dur, the Oak of Fate. T from Tine, Cypress or from the Elder tree. C from Col, the Hazel of the wood. Q for Quert, Apple, Aspen and Mountain Ash. M from Mediu, the Vine branching finely. G from Gort, Ivy towering. NG from Ngetal or Gilcach, a reed: ST or Z from Draighean, Blackthorn. R Griaf. A from Ailm, Fir. O from On, the Broom or Furze. U from Up Heath. E from Edadh, Tembling Aspen. I from Ida or Ioda, the Yew Tree, EA from Eabhadh, the Aspen. OI Oir the spindle tree. UI, Uinnlleann, Honeysuckle. IO Ifinn, the gooseberry. Ae Amancholl, the Witch Hazel; Pine Ogham, that is the divine pine from the wood, from where the 4 Ifins are taken."

· Jorge Luis Borges: "I kept telling myself that to renounce the beautiful game of combining beautiful words was senseless, and that there was no reason to search for a single, and perhaps imaginary, word."

· Jorge Luis Borges: The Aleph
"It's in the cellar under the dining room," he went on, so overcome by his worries now that he forgot to be pompous. "It's mine...mine. I discovered it when I was a child, all by myself. The cellar stairway is so steep that my aunt and uncle forbade my using it, but I'd heard someone say that there was a world down there. I found out later they meant an old-fashioned globe of the world, but at that time I thought they were referring to the world itself. One day when no one was home I started down in secret, but I stumbled and fell. When I opened my eyes, I saw the Aleph."

"The Aleph?" I repeated

"Yes, the only place on earth where all places are seen from every angle, each standing clear, without any confusion or blending. I kept the discovery to myself and went back every chance I got. As a child, I did not foresee that this priviledge was granted me so that later I could write the poem. Zunino and Zungri will not strip me of what's mine...no, and a thousand times no! Legal code in hand, Dr. Zunni will prove that my Aleph is inalienable."

I tried to reason with him. "But isn't the cellar very dark?" I said.

"Truth cannot penetrate a closed mind. If all places in the universe are in the Aleph, then all stars, all lamps, all sources of light are in it too."

"You wait right there. I'll be right over to see it."

· Jorge Luis Borges: A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

· Robert Browning - "Fancies that broke through language and escaped..."

· Martin Buber, I and Thou: "Spirit is word. And even as verbal speech may first become word in the brain of man and then become sound in his throat, although both are merely refractions of the true event because in truth language does not reside in man but man stands in language and speaks out of it so it is with all words, all spirit. Spirit is not in the I, but between the I and Thou.... Only the silence of the Thou, the silence of all tongues, the taciturn waiting in the unformed, undifferentiated, prelinguistic word leaves the Thou free and stands together with it in reserve where the Spirit does not manifest it, but is. All response binds the Thou into the It world. That is the melancholy of man, and that is his greatness. For thus knowledge, thus works, thus image and example come into being among the living."

· Martin Buber, I and Thou: "For the sake of this, there are I and Thou, there is language, and spirit whose primal deed language is, and there is, in eternity, the word."

· Martin Buber, I and Thou: "Three are the spheres in which the world of relation is built. The first: life with nature where the relation sticks to the threshold of language. The second: life with men where it enters language. The third: life with spiritual beings where it lacks but creates language."

· William S. Burroughs: "Language is a virus..."

· William S. Burroughs: "We must find out what words are and how they function. They become images when written down, but images of words repeated in the mind and not of the image of the thing itself."

· Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By: "There is an extremely interesting and important Upanishad, the Manduka, in which the four symbolic elements of the syllable - the A, the U, theM, and the Silence - are interpreted allegorically as referring to four planes, degrees or modes of consciousness. The A, resounding from the back of the mouth, is said to represent waking consciousness. Here, the subject and the objects of its knowledge are experienced as separate from each other. Bodies are of gross matter; they are not self-luminous and they change their forms slowly. An Aristotelian logic prevails: a is not not-a. The nature of thought on this level is that of mechanistic science, positivistic reasoning, and the aims of its life are envisioned at chakras 1,2,and 3.

Next, with U, where the sound mass moving forward, fills the whole head as it were, the Upanishad associates dream consciousness; and here the subject and the object, the dreamer and his dream, though they may seem to be separate, are actually one, since the images are of the dreamer's own will. Further, they are of a subtle matter, self-luminous, and of rapidly changing form. They are of the nature of divinities: and indeed all the gods and demons, Heavens and Hells, are in fact the cosmic counterparts of dream. Moreover, since on this subtle plane, the seer and the seen are one and the same, all the gods and demons, Heavens and Hells are within us; are ourselves. Turn within, therefore, if you seek your model for the image of god...

Next M, third element of the syllable, where the intonation of this holy sound terminates forward, at the closed lips, the Upanishad associates with deep, dreamless sleep. There is here neither object seen nor seeing subject, but consciousness - or rather latent, potential consciousness, undifferentiated, covered with darkness.Mythologically, this state is identified with that of the universe between cycles,when all has returned to the cosmic night, the womb of the cosmic mother: "chaos" in the language of the Greeks, or in Genesis, the first "formless waste, with darkness over the seas." There is no consciousness of any objects either of waking or of dream, but only uninflected consciousness in its pristine, uncommitted state-lost, however, in darkness.

The ultimate aim of yoga, then, can be only to enter that zone awake: which is to say to "join" or to "yoke" (yoga), one's waking consciousness per se, not focussed on any object or enclosed in any subject, whether of the waking world or of sleep, but sheer, unspecified and unbounded. And since all words refer to objects, or to object-related thoughts or ideas, we have no word or words for the experience of this fourth state. Even such words as "silence" or "void" can be understood only with reference to sound or to things - as of no sound, or as of no thing. Whereas here we have come to the primal Silence antecedent to sound as potential, and to the Void antecedent to things, containing as potential the whole of space-time and its galaxies. No word can say what the Silence tells that is all around and within us, this Silence that is no silence, but to be heard resounding through all things, whether of waking, of dream, or of dreamless night - as surrounding, supporting, and suffusing the syllable AUM.

Listen to the sound of the city. Listen to the sound of your neighbor's voice, of the wild geese honking skyward. Listen to any sound or silence at all without interpreting it, and the Anahata will be heard of the Void that is the ground of being, and the world that is the body of being, the Silence and the Syllable. Moreover, when once this sound has been "heard", as it were, as the sound and being of one's own heart and of all life,one is stilled and brought to peace; there is no need to quest any more, for it is here, it is there, it is everywhere. And the high function of Oriental art is to make known that this is truly so; or, as our Western poet Gerhard Hauptmann has said of the aim of all true poetry: to let the Word be heard resounding behind the words."

"...The symbol is an object pointing to a subject. We are summoned to a spiritual awareness far beyond the level of subject and object. Mythologies, in other words, mythologies and religions, are great poems, when recognized as such, point infallibly through things and events to the ubiquity of a presence or eternity which is whole and entire in each."itself."

· Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth part 2, interviews with Bill Moyers: "What's the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of a flea? It's just there. That's it. Your own meaning is that you're therre. We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value. the rapture that's associated with being alive is what it's all about. We want to think about God. God is a thought. God is a name. God is an idea, but its reference is to something that transcends all thinking. The ultimate mystery of being is beyond all categories of thought. My friend Heinrich Zimmer of years ago used to say, "The best things can't be told," because they transcend thought. "The second best are misunderstood," because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about, and one gets stuck in the thoughts. "The third best are what we talk about." And myth is that field of reference, metaphors referring to what is absolutely transcendent."

"(Moyers) What can't be known or can't be named except in our own feeble attempt to clothe it in language."

"And the ultimate word in our language for that which is transcendent is God."

Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces , "Symbols are only the vehicles of communication; they must not be mistaken for the final term, the tenor of their reference... The problem of the theologian is to keep his symbol translucent, so that it may not block out the very light that it is supposed to convey... Mistaking a vehicle for its tenor may lead to the spilling of valueless ink, but of valuable blood...

The forms of sensibility and the catergories of human thought, which are themselves manifestations of this power, so confine the mind that it is normally impossible not only to see, but even to conceive, beyond the colorful, fluid, infinitely various and bewildering phenomenal spectacle. The function of of ritual and myth is to make possible, and then to facilitate the jump - by analogy. Forms and conceptions that the mind and its senses can comprehend are presented and arranged in such a way as to suggest a truth or opennes beyond. And then, the conditions for meditation having been provided, the individual is left alone. Myth is but the penultimate; the ultimate is openness - that void, or being, beyond the categories - into which the mind must plunge alone and be dissolved. Therefore, God and the gods are only convenient means - themselves of the nature of names and forms, though eloquent of, and ultimately conducive to, the ineffable. They are mere symbols to move and awaken the mind, and to call it past themselves."

Joseph Campbell, Masks of God, Part 1: Primitive Mythology , p 23-24: "In the Roman Catholic mass, for example, when the priest. quoting the words of Christ at the Last Supper, pronounces the formula of consecration - with utmost solemnity - first over the wafer of the host (Hoc est enim Corpus meum "for this is My Body"), then over the chalice of the wine (Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis, novi et aeterni Testamenti: Mysterium fidei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum: "For this is the Chalice of My Blood, of the new and eternal testament: the mystery of faith: which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins."), it is to be supposed that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, that every fragment of the host and every drop of the wine is the actual living Savior of the world. The sacrament, that is to say, is not conceived to be a reference, a mere sign or symbol to arous in us a train of thought, but is God Himself, the Creator, the Judge, and Savior of the Universe, here come to work upon us directly, to free our souls (created in His image) from the effects of the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (which we are to suppose existed as a geographical fact)... Furthermore, it is possible for a really gifted player to discover that everything - absolutely everything - has become the body of a god, or reveals the omnipresence of God as the ground of all being... Belief - or at least a game of belief - is the first step toward such a divine seizure... Or in the permanent religious sanctuaries - the temples and cathedrals where an atmosphere of holiness hangs permanently in the air - the logic of cold, hard fact must not be allowed to intrude and spoil the spell. The gentile, the 'spoil sport', the positivist who cannot or will not play must be kept aloof. Hence the guardian figure who stands on either side of he entrances to holy places: lions, bulls and fearsome warriors with uplifted weapons. They are there to keep out the 'spoil sports', the advocates of Aristotelian logic, for whom A can never be B; for whom the actor is never to be lost in his part; for whom the mask, the image, the consecrated host, tree, or animal cannot become God, but only a reference... From such a point of view, the universe is the seat (pitha) of a divinity from whose vision our usual state of consciousness excludes us. But in playing the game of the gods we take a step toward that reality - which is ultimately the reality of ourselves."

· Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: "The words of our language are not clearly defined. They have several meanings which pass only vaguely through our mind and remain largely in our subconsciousness when we hear a word. The inaccuracy and ambiguity of our language is essential for poets who work largely with its subconscious layers and associations."

· Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland:
"Of course you know your ABC," said the Red Queen.
"To be sure I do," said Alice.
"So do I," the White Queen whispered. "We'll often say it over together, dear. And I'll tell you a secret I can read words of one letter! Isn't that grand? However, don't be discouraged. You'll come to it in time."

· Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland:
"My name is Alice...."
"It's a stupid name enough," Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?"
"Must a name mean somthing?"
"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh; "my name means the shape I am.... With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost."

· Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

"Of course they answer to their names?" the Gnat remarked carelessly.

"I never knew them to do it."

"What's the use of having names," the Gnat said, "if they won't answer to them?"

"No use to them, " said Alice; "but it's useful to the people that name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?"

"There's the tree in the middle," said the Rose....

"But what could it do if any danger came?" asked Alice.

"It could bark," said the Rose.

"It says Bough Wough!" cried a Daisy.

"We call him the Tortoise because he taught us," said the Mock Turtle.

"My name is Alice...."

"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?"

"Must a name mean something?"

"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh; "my name means the shape I am... With a name like yours, you might be any shape almost."

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean..."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

· Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky:
'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble on the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware thw Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

· Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth: "The original bond between the linguistic and the mythico-religious consciousness is primarily expressed in the fact that all verbal structures appear as also mythical entities endowed with certain mythical powers, that the Word, in fact, becomes a sort of primary force in which all being and doing originate. In all mythical cosmogonies, as far back as they can be traced, this supreme position of the Word is found."

· Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth: "And this peculiar genesis determines the type of intellectual content that is common to language and myth; for where the process of apprehension aims not at an expansion, extension, universalizing of the content, but rather at its highest intensification, this fact cannot fail to influence human consciousness. All other things are lost to a mind thus enthralled; all bridges between the concrete datum and the systematized totality of experience are broken; only the present reality as mythic or linguistic conception stresses and shapes it, fills the entire subjective realm. So this one content of experience must reign over practically the whole of the experiential world. There is nothing beside or beyond it whereby it could be measured or to which it could be compared; its mere presence is the sum of all Being. At this point the word which denotes that thought content is not a mere conventional symbol, but is merged with its object in an indissoluble unity. The conscious experience is not merely wedded to the word, but consumed by it. Whatever had been fixed by a name, henceforth is not only real, but Reality. The potential between 'symbol' and 'meaning' is resolved; in place of a more or less adequate 'expression', we find a relation of identity, of complete congruence between 'image' and 'object', between the name and the thing."

· Cats
from the screenplay:
"The naming of cats is a difficult matter
It isn't just one of your holiday games
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
First there's the name of the family you stay in
Such as Peter or Rascus, Melomso? or James
Such as Victor or Jonathan or George or Bill Banes
All of them sensible, everyday names
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter
Some for the gentlemen; some for the dames
Such as Plato, Amnetus?, Electra, Demeter
But all of them sensible, everyday names
I tell you a cat needs a name that's particular
A name that's peculiar and more dignified
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular
Or spread out his whiskers or cherish his pride
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum
Such as Monistrap, Quackso or Colicopat
Such as Bombayurina? or else Jellilorm
Names that never belonged to more than one cat
But now that begun, there's still one name left over
And that is the name that you never will guess
The name that no human research can discover
What the cat himself knows and will never confess
When you notice a cat in profound meditation
The reason I tell you is always the same
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought... of the thought... of the thought of his name
His ineffable effable, eff and ineffable
Deep and inscrutable, singular name
name
name
name
...

· Tracy Chapman, Speak the Word

Unsettled hearts

Promise what they can't deliver

Bring the wine

And the cold night air to clear my head

Gray matter memory house

Master of this trembling flesh

Steady still my doubts

Let me speak the word that precedes bliss

Let me speak the word

· Hélène Cixous: It is said that life and death are under the power of language.

· Kenneth Clarke, Civilization: "The aims of (Diderot's) encyclopedia seem harmless enough to us, but you know, authoritarian governments don't like dictionaries. They live by lies and bamboozling abstractions, and they can't afford to have words accurately defined." (Margaret: Same holds for authoritarian linguistic frameworks)

· Paul Claudel: "Is it so absurd to belivee that the alphabet is the abbreviated form and the vestiges of all the acts, all the gestures, all the attitudes and consequently all the feelings of humanity in the bosom of the creation that surrounds it?"

· Paul Claudel: "Are we to believe that between the phonic act and the written sign, between the expression and the thing expressed.... the relationship is purely formal and arbitrary? or on the contrary, that all words are made up of an unconscious collaboration of eye and voice with the object?"

· Paul Claudel: "Every word is the expression of a psychological state caused by attention to an external object. It is a gesture that can be separated into its component elements or letters. The letter, or more precisely, the consonant is an acoustic attitude sparked off by the generative idea it mimics, the emotion, the word. As S, for instance, indicates the idea of scission, so N, produced by the occlusion of the voice, with the tip of the tongue rising to the palate, suggests the idea of an inner level reached, a willful deafness, a refusal in virtual plenitude."

· Paul Claudel, from Genette, translated by Thaïs Morgan:
être: t is eveything that stands up in height and width; e is that which communicates with itself, taking root in its own heart. R is that which turns back on itself. And the second e is existence while the first e is essence; it wears a crown! a triangular aspiration toward God.
âme: a is both opening up and desire, the reunion of man and woman, that which exhales and inhales breath; m is a person between walls; e is being.
vie: v is the meeting of two electrodes; i is the spark that jumps out; e is that which draw being from within.
toi: the t's vertical is the supreme representation of the object that arrests our gaze, of unity, someone toward whom we have turned; the bar of the t indicates direction, interpellation; the union of the o and the i is the paradigm of all human diphthongs; that dot on the eye is the eye of another that we catch with our own gaze.
tu: is the same thing with the two lips reaching out.
vol (flight): v is the two wings of the bird, o is the circle it describes, and l is the bird as it comes and goes.
maison: m gives us the walls, roof and partitions; a, the center, is the interior circulation; i is the fire, o the window, s the hallways and stairs, n the door, and the dot over the i is the inhabitant who looks in wonder at this magnificent building!
corps: c is the mouth breathing in and swallowing, o all the round organs, r the rising and falling liquids, p the body properly speaking with the head (or arms), s the piiping system or breathing.
pied: two footprints, one of which emphasizes the toes, the other the heel; i is the direction, e is the balancing motion on the joints, the heel.
faux (scythe): f is the shaft and handle of the scythe; a is the area that has just been mowed with the blade seen moving away; x is everything about the process of cutting; the blade eager to chop with its jaws gaping on all sides.
locomotive: First, in its length, the word is an image of the animal. L is the smoke, o the wheels and the boiler, m the pistons,, and t the marker of speed... in the manner of a telegraph post, or else a connecting rod; v is the control gear, i the whistle, e the coupling device, and the underlining is the rail.

· Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight
...So shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all and all things in Himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit and by giving, make it ask.

· Confucius, Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men.

· Jim Croce, I've Got a Name:
Like the pine trees linin' the windin' road,
I've got a name
I've got a name
Like a singin' bird and a croakin' toad,
I've got a name,
I've got a name.
And I carry it with me and I sing it loud.
If it gets me nowhere,
I'll go there proud.
Movin' me down the highway,
Movin' me down the highway.
Movin' along so life won't pass me by.

· Charles Darwin (1871): "Primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably first used his voice in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing."

· Charles Darwin: "The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection."

· Charles deBrosses (1765): "The vocal organ takes on, as nearly as it can, the form of the very object it wants to depict with the voice: it produces a hollow sound of the object is hollow,or a harsh one of the object is rough; in such a way that the sound resulting from the form and from the natural movement of the vocal organ placed in this position becomes the name of the object; a name that resembles the object through the harsh or hollow noise which the chosen pronunciation conveys to the ear. To the end of naming, the voice tends to use that one of its organs whose own movement will best figuratively represent to the ear either the thing, or the quality or effect of the thing it wants to name. Nature leads the voice to use, for example, an organ whose movement is harsh in order to form the expression 'racler' (to scrape). (from Genette, translated by Thaïs Morgan)

· John Dryden "Thought if it be translated truly, cannot be lost in another language; but the words that convey it to our apprehension (which are the Image and Ornament of that thought) may be so ill chosen as to make it appear in unhandsome dress and rob it of its native Lustre."

· Meister Eckhart "Wherever this word is to be heard, it must occur in stillness and in silence."

· Umberto Eco "A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else. This something else does not necessarily have to exist... Thus... [signs are] everything which can be used in order to lie.."

· Egyptian Book of the Dead: "Speech is to thee to the limits of Heaven."

· Eichendorff:
Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen,
die da träumen fort und fort,
und die Welt hebt an zu singen,
triffst du nur das Zauberwort.

· T. S. Eliot:
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the center of the silent Word.
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.

· Joseph Emdon

A quiet, wide river questions an arid desert; a lush silence engraves its path as it breathes against the shore. Into the dawn it merges and the darkness recedes and men are born.

My silence remains amongst the noise and inverts itself, and I am emptiness spilling over and filling up with meaning.

A fig tree looms up before me like a universal gallows.

At the sea a quay. That is the starting point. The freedom to explore the ocean of the senses: can we hear the sound or are we sensitively delighting in its described meaning only? (see Heb. kiy wordsound)

A bright day for one's spirit after a descent into hell. The dark night of the soul before the ascent of Mount Carmel

'Vitamins, O whiter mince, could I be chicken?', said the wacko to himself.

'Or, am I just a lively little white mens? How colourful and no-one to share my meal with. The colours that shine in the darkness, he thought, are the gems never seen.'

CNN; See - en - en ; seëning; hardly blessings!

Absent-mindedness has the advantage that one enjoys that which is forgotten all over again.

('Sëëning' is blessing in Afrikaans)

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature: "The whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind."

· Ralph Waldo Emerson,
"The old Sphinx bit her thick lip
Said,"Who taught thee me to name?
I am the spirit - yoke fellow
Of thine eye I am eyebeam."

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature: "As we go back in history, language becomes more picturesque.... if we could trace them to their sources, we should find in all languages, the names which stand for things."

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays XIII: "We are symbols, and inhabit symbols."

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet: "The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is he who can articulate it. For though life is great, and fascinates and absorbs; and though all men are intelligent of the symbols through which it is named; yet they cannot originally use them. We are symbols and inhabit sumbols; workmen, work, and tools, words, and things, birth, and death, all are emblems; but we sympathize with the symbols, and being infatuated with the economic use of things, we do not know that they are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them the power which makes their old use forgotton, and puts eyes and a tongue into every dumb and inanimate object. He perceives the independence of the thought on the symbol, the stability of the thought, the accidency and fugacity of the symbol....

So far the bard taught me, using his freer speech. But nature has a higher end, in the production of new souls than security, namely ascension, or the passage of the soul into higher forms.... The poet also resigns himself to his mood, and that thought which agitated him is expressed, but alter idem, in a manner totally new. The expression is organic, or the new type which things take when liberated. A in the sun, objects make their images on the retina of the eye, so they, sharing the aspiration of the whole universe, tend to paint a far more delicate copy of their essence in his mind. Like the metamorphosis of things into higher organic forms is their change into melodies. Over everything stands its dæmon or soul, and as the form of the thing is reflected by the eye, so the soul of the thing is reflected by a melody. The sea, the mountain ridge, Niagara and every flower bed, pre-exist and super-exist, in precantations, that float like odors upon the air, and when any man goes by with an ear sufficiently fine, he overhears them and endeavors to write down the notes without diluting or depraving them....

The etymologist finds the deadest word to have once been a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry."

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Plato: "The names of things too are fatal, following the nature of things. All the gods of the Pantheon are, by their names, significant of a profound sense. The gods are the ideas."

· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Over-Soul: "The infallible index of true progress is found in the tone that man takes."

· Madeleine l'Engle, A Wind in the Door:
" Meg opened her eyes. The rent in the sky was still there. 'How - oh, Progo, how did the Echthroi do that?"... "It has to do with un-Naming. If we are Namers, the Echthroi are un-Namers, non-Namers...

The Echthroi are those who hate, those who would keep you from being Named, who would unName you. It is in the nature of love to create. It is in the nature of hate to destroy...

I am a cherubim. All I need to know is that all galaxies, all stars, all creatures, cherubic, human, farandolan, all, all are known by Name."

· Madeleine l'Engle, And It Was Good

"The Word is not a pet. The Word is the wildness behind creation, the terror of a black hole, the atomic violence of burning hydrogen within a sun. Christ is both lion and lamb, and lions are not domesticated."

· Wolfram von Eschenback, "To know the Grail, you must know your A, B, Cs without Back Magic."

Euripedes, The Cretans
My days have run, the servant I
Initiate of Idaean Jove
Where midnight Zagreus roves, I rove
I have endured his thunder cry
Fulfilled his red and bleeding feasts
Held the Great Mother's mountain flame
I am set free and named by name
A Bacchos of the Mailed Priests

· Gustave Flaubert, "The most beautiful works are those where there is least content; the closer the expression is to the thought, the more indistinguishable the word from the content, the, the more beautiful is the work."

· E. M. Forster - Two Cheers for Democracy: "Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think creations."

· Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences:
"One might say that it is the Name that organizes all Classical discourse; to speak or to write is not to say things or to express oneself, it is not a matter of playing with language, it is to make one's way toward the sovereign act of nomination, to move through language, toward the place where things and words are conjoined in their common essence, and which makes it possible to give them a name."

· Matthew Fox,The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, "The silence of which the mystics speak is that suspended moment at the well, at the source of being, of images, of creativity-that power from which the words come and from which they derive their power.... A left-brain culture will be ill at ease with silence. It will be excessively wordy. Words can obscure the presence and power of the Divine as they so often do in worship services that have lost touch with their mystical roots and have succumbed to secularization. The fear of silence runs deep in a culture void of mysticism."

· Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough:
"Unable to discriminate clearly between words and things, the savage commonly fancies that the link between a name and the person or thing denominated by it is not a mere arbitrary and ideal association, but a real and substantial bond which unites the two in such a way that magic may be wrought on a man just as easily through his name as through his hairm his nails, or any other material part of his person... Amongst the tribes of Central Australia every man, woman and child has, besides a personal name which is in common use, a secret or sacred name which is betowed by the older men upon him or her soon after birth and which is known to none but the fully initiated members of the group. This secret name is never mentioned except on the most solemn occasions... When an Ojebway is asked his name, he will look at some bystander and ask him to answer... We may conjecture that to savages who act and think thus, a person's name only seems to be a part of himself when it is uttered with his own breath; uttered with the breath of others, it has no vital connexion to him...

When the Sulka of New Britain are near the territory of their enemies the Gaktei, they take care not ot mention them by their proper name, believing that were they to do so, their foes would attack and slay them. Hence in these circumstances, they speak of the Gaktei as o lapsiek, that is,"the rotten tree trunks", and they imagine that by caling them that, they make the limbs of their dreaded enemies ponderous and clumsy like logs. This example illustrates the extremely materialistic view that the savages take of the nature of words.

A Caffre wife is forbidden to pronounce even mentally the names of her father-in-law and of all her husband's male relations in the ascending line.; and whenever the emphatic syllable of any of these names occurs in another word, she must avoid it by substituting either an entirely different word, or, at least another syllable in its place. Hence this custom has given rise to an almost distinct language among the women, which the Caffres call "women's speech". Among the Alfoors of Minahasa, this custom is carried even further so as to forbid the use even of words which merely resemble the personal names in sound.

The custom of abstaining from all mention of the names of the dead was observed in antiquity by the Albanians of the Caucasus, and at the present day it is in full force among many savage tribes... New words, says the missionary Dobrizhoffer, sprang up every year like mushrooms in the nights (among the Abipones of Paraguay), because all words that resembled the names of the dead were abolished by proclamation and others coined in their place... This extraordinary custom not only adds an element of instability to the language, but destroys the continuity of political life, and renders the record of past events precarious and vague, if not impossible.

Hence just as the furtive savage conceals his real name because he fears the sorcerers might make evil use of it, so he fancies that his gods must likewise keep their true names secret, lest other gods or even men should learn their mystic sounds and thus be able to conjure with them... This conception is well illustrated be a story which tells how the subtle Isis wormed his secret name from Ra, the great Egyptian god of the sun. Isis, so runs the tale, was a woman mighty in words, and she was weary of the world of men, and yearned after the world of the gods. And she meditated in her heart saying, Cannot I by virtue of the great name of Ra make myself a goddess and reign like him in heaven and earth?" For Ra had many names, but the great name which gave him all power over gods and men was known to none but himself. Now the gods was by this time grown old; he slobbered at the mouth and his spittle fell upon the ground. So Isis gathered up the spittle and the earth with it and kneaded thereof a serpent and laid it in the path where the great god passed every day to his double kingdom after his heart's desire. And when he came forth according to his wont, attended by all his company of gods, the sacred serpent stung him, and the god opened his mouth and cried, and his cry went up to heaven. And the company of the gods criedm "What aileth thee?" and the gods shouted "Lo and behold!" But he could not answer; his jaws rattled, his limbs shook, the poison ran through his flesh as the Mile floweth over the land. When the great god had stilled his heart, he cried to his followers, "Come to me, O my children, offspring of my body. I am a prince, the son of a prince, the divine seed of a god. My father devised my name. My father and mother gave me my name, and it remained hidden in my body since my birth, that no magician might have magic power over me. I went out to behold that which I have made, I walked in two lands which I have created,, adn lo! something stung me. What it is, I know not. Was it fire? was it water? My heart is on fire, my flesh trembleth, all my limbs do quake. Bring me the children of the gods with healing words and understanding lips whose power reacheth to heaven." Then came to him the children of the gods, and they were very sorrowful. And Isis came with her craft, whose mouth is full of the breath of life, whose spells chase pain away, whose word maketh the dead to live. She said, "What is it, divine father, what is it?" The holy god opened his mouth, he spake and said, "I went upon my way, I walked after my heart's desire in the two regions which I have made to behold that which I have created and lo! a serpent that I saw not stung me. Is it fire? is it water? I am colder than water, I am hotter than fire, all my limbs sweat, I tremble, mine eye is not steadfast, I behold not the sky, the moisture bedeweth my face as in summer-time." Then spake Isis, "Tell me thy name, divine Father, for the man shall live who is called by his Name." Then answered Ra, "I created the heavens and the earth, I ordered the mountains, I made the great and wide sea, I stretched out the two horizons like a curtain. I am he who openeth his eyes and it is light, and who shutteth them and it is dark. At his command, the Nile riseth, but the gods know not his name. I am Khpera in the morning, I am Ra at noon, I am Tum at eve." But the poison was not taken away from him; it pierced deeper and the great god could no longer walk. Then said Isis to him, "That was not thy name that thou spakest unto me. Oh, tell it me that the poison may depart; for he shall live whose name is named." Now the poison burned like fire, it was hotter than the flame of fire. The god said, "I consent that Isis shall search into me, and that my name shall pass from my breast into hers." Then the god hid himself from the gods, and his place in the ship of eternity was empty. Thus was the name of the great god taken from him, and Isis, the witch spake, "Flow away poison, depart from Ra. It is I, even I, who overcome the poison and cast it to the earth; for the name of the great god hath been taken away from him. Let Ra live and let the poison die." Thus spake great isis, queen of the gods, she who knows Ra and his true name.

In Egypt, attempts like that of Isis to appropriate the power of a high god by possessing herself of his name were not mere legends told of the mythical beings of a remote past; every Egyptian magician aspired to wield like powers by similar means. For it was believed that he who possesed the true name possessed the very being of god or man, and could force even a diety to obey him as a slave obeys a master.

· Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo:
"The strangeness of this taboo on names diminishes if we bear in mind that the primitive person looks upon his name as an essential part and important possession of his personality, and that he ascribes the full significance of things to words. Our children do the same, as I have shown elsewhere, and they are therefore never satisfied with accepting a meaningless verbal similarity, but consistently conclude that when two things have identical names a deeper correspondence between them must exist. Numerous peculiarities of normal behavior may lead civilized man to concludethat he too is not yet as far removed as he things from attributing the importance of things to mere names and feeling that his name has become peculiarly identified with his person. This is corroborated in psychoanalytic experiences, where there is much occasion to point out the importance of names in unconscious thought activity."

"Taboo is itself an ambivalent word and by way of supplement, we may add that the established meaning of this word might itself have allowed us to guess what we have found as the result of extensive investigation, namely, that the taboo prohibition is to be explained as a result of an emotional ambivalence. A study of the oldest languages has taught us that at one time there were many such words which included their own contrasts so that they were in a certain sense ambivalent, though perhaps not exactly in the same sense as taboo. Slight vocal modifications of this primitive word containing two opposite meanings later served to create a separate linguistic expression for the two opposites originally united in one word."

· Fulcanelli, Le Mystère des Cathédrales:
"For me Gothic art (art gothique) is simply a corruption of the term argonotique (cant), which sounds exactly the same. This is in conformity with the phonetic law, which governs the traditional cabala in every language and does not pay attention to language. The cathedral is a work of art goth (gothic art) or og argot, i.e. cant or slang. Moreover, dictionaries define argot as 'a language peculiar to all individuals who wish to communicate their yjoughts without being understood by outsiders'. Thus it is certainly a spoken cabala. The argotiers, those who use this language, are hermetic descendents of the argonauts, who manned the ship Argo. They spoke the langue argotique -- our langue verte ('green language' or slang) -- while they were sailing toward the felicitous shores of Colchos to win the Golden Fleece. People still say about a very intelligent, but sly man: 'he knows everything -- he understands cant'. All the initiates expressed themselves in cant; the vagrants of the Court of Miracles -- headed by the poet Villon -- as well as the Freemasons of the Middle Ages 'members of the lodge of God', who built argotique masterpieces, which we still admire today. Those constructional sailors (nautes) also knew the route to the garden of the Hesperides...

People think that such things are a mere play on words. I agree. The important thing is that such word play should guide our faith toward certainty, toward positive and scientific truth, which is the key to the religious mystery, and should not leave us wandering in the capricious maze of our imagination. The fact is that there is neither chance nor coincidence nor accidental correspondence here below. All is foreseen, preordained, regulated... If the usual sense of words does not allow us any discovery capable of elevating and instructing us, or bringing us nearer to our Creator, then words become useless. The spoken word, which gives man his indisputable superiority, loses its nobility, its greatness, its purity... Besides, language, the instrument of the spirit, has a life of its own -- even though it is only a reflection of the universal Idea. We do not invent anything. We do not create anything.. What we believe we have discovered by an effort of our intelligence exists already elsewhere... What unsuspected marvels we should find if we knew how to dissect words, to strip them of their bark and liberate the spirit, the divine light which is within! In present day con-conversation, is it not the ambiguities, the approximations, the puns or the assonances which characterize spirited people, who are glad to escape the tyrrany of the letter and thereby -- unwittingly -- show themselves cabalists in their own right.

I would finally add that argot (cant) is one of the forms derived from the Language of the Birds, parent and doyen of all other languages... This is the language which teaches the mystery of things and unveils the most hidden truths."

· Galileo: "But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate hi most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant, either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man."

Gérard Genette, Mimologics: Cratylism is "a verbal hallucination caused by excessive imbibing of bad wine. For the victim, everything doubles up and he cannot tell which are the names and which are the things."

· Ida Gerhardt:
De taal slaapt in een syllabe
en zoekt moedergrond om te aarden.
Vijf jaren is oud genoeg.
Toen mijn vader, die ik het vroeg,
mij zeide:'dat is een grondel',
en ik zàg hem, zwart in de sloot
legde hij het woord in mij te vondeling,
open en bloot.
Waarvoor ik moest zorgen,
met mijn leven moest borgen:
totaan mijn dood.

· Andre Gidé: "The reason for writing is to shelter something from death."

· Gilgamesh: (Herbert Mason)
They stood in awe
At the foot of the green mountain. Pleasure
Seemed to grow from fear for Gilgamesh.
As one who comes upon a path in the woods
Unvisited by men, one is drawn near
The lost and undiscovered in himself;
He was revitalized by danger.
They knew it was the path Humbaba made.
Some called the forest 'Hell' and others 'Paradise';
What difference does it make? said Gilgamesh.
But night was falling quickly
And they had no time to call it names,
Except perhaps 'The Dark',
Before they found a place at the edge of the forest
To serve as shelter for their sleep.

· Ginzberg, The Kaballah: "When God was about to create the world by His word, the twenty two letters of the alphabet descended from the terrible and august crown of God whereon they were engraved with a pen of flaming fire. They stood round about God, and one after the other spake and entreated, "Create the world through me!" The first to step forward was the letter Taw. It said: "Oh Lord of the world! May it be Thy will to create Thy world through me, seeing as it is through me that Thou wilt give the Torah to Israel by the hand of Moses, as it is written, 'Moses commanded us the Torah.'" The Holy One, blessed be He, made reply, and said , "No!" Taw asked, "Why not?" and God answered: "Because in days to come, I shall place thee as a sign of death upon the foreheads of men." As soon as Taw heard these words issue from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, it retired from His presence disappointed.
The Shin then stepped forward, an pleaded: "Oh Lord of the world, create Thy world through me, seeing that Thine own name Shaddai begins with me." Unfortunately, it is also the first letter of Shaw, lie, and of Sheker, falsehood, and that incapacitated it. Resh had no better luck. It was pointed out that it was the first letter of Ra', wicked., and Rasha', evil, and after that, the distinction it enjoys of being the first letter in the Name of God, Rahum, the Merciful, counted for naught. The K.of was rejected, because K.elalah, curse, outweighs the advantage of being the first in K.adosh, the Holy One. In vain did Z.adde call attention to Z.addik, the Righteous One; there was Z.arot, the misfortunes of Israel, to testify against it. Pe had Podeh, redeemer to its credit, but Pesha', transgression, reflected dishonor upon it. 'Ain was declared unfit, because, though it begins 'Anawah, humility, it performs the same service for 'Erwah, immorality. Samek said: "Oh Lord, may it be Thy will to begin creation with me, for though art called Samek after me, the Upholder of all that fall." But God said, "Thou art needed in the place in which thou art; thou must continue to uphold all that fall." Nun introduces Ner, "the lamp of the Lord," which is "the spirit of men," but it also introduces Ner "the Lamp of the Wicked," which will be put out by God. Mem starts Melek, king, one of the titles of God. As it is the first letter of Mehumah, confusion as well, it had no chance of accomplishing its desire. The claim of Lamed bore its refutation within itself. It advanced the argument that it was the first letter of Luh.ot, the celestial table of the Ten Commandments; it forgot that the tables were shivered in pieces by Moses. Kaf was sure of victory. Kisseh, the throne of God, Kabod, His honor, and Keter, His crown, all begin with it. God had to remind it that He would smite together His hands, Kaf, in dispair over the misfortunes of Israel. Yod at first sight seemed the appropriate letter for the beginning of the creation, on account of its association with Yah, God, if only Yez.er ha-Ra', the evil inclination, had not happened to begin with it too. T.et is identified with T.ob, the good. However, the truly good is not in this world; it belongs in the world to come. H.et is the first letter of H.anun, the Gracious one; but this advantage is offset by its place in the word for sin, H.at.t.at. Zain suggests Zakor, remembrance, but is itself in the word for weapon, the doer of mischief. Waw and He compose the ineffable Name of God; they are therefore too exalted to be pressed into the service of the mundane world. If Dalet had stood only for Dabar, the Divine Word, it would have been used, but it also stands for Din, Justice, and under the rule of law without love, the world would have fallen to ruins. Finally, in spite of reminding one of Gadol, great, Gimel would not do, because Gemul, retribution, starts with it.
After the claims of all these letters had been disposed of, Bet stepped before the Holy One, blessed be He, and pleaded before Him: "Oh Lord of the world! May it be Thy will to create Thy world through me, seeing that all the dwellers in the world give praise daily unto Thee through me, as it is said "Baruch..." 'Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen, and Amen.'" The Holy One, blessed be He, at once granted the petition of Bet. He said, "Blessed be He that cometh in the Name of the Lord." And He created His world through Bet, as it is said, "Bereshit God created the heaven and the earth."
The only letter that refrained from urging its claims was the modest Alef, and God rewarded it later for its humility by giving it the first place in the Decalogue."

Goethe (Walpurgis Nacht):

Niemand hört es gern,
Daß man ihn Greis nennt. Jedem Worte klingt
Der Ursprung nach, wo es sich her bedingt:
Grau, grämlich, griesgram, greulich, Gräber, grimmig,
Etymologisch gleicherweise stimmig,
Verstimmen uns.

Goethe (Faust):

Sie hören nicht die folgenden Gesänge,

Die Seelen, denen ich die ersten sang;

Zerstoben ist das freudliche Gedränge,

Verklungen, ach! der erste Widerklang;

Mein Lied ertönt der unbekannten Menge,

Ihr Beifall selbst macht meinem Herzen bang,

Und was sich sonst an meinem Lied erfreuet,

Wenn es noch lebt, irrt in der Welt zerstreuet.

· Gogol, "O muzyka, esli ty nas ostavish', chto s nami budet?" (Oh, music, if you abandon us, what will become of us?)

Thomas Gray:

Facing to the Northern clime
Thrice he traced the Runic rhyme;
Thrice pronounced in accents dread
The thrilling verse that wakes the dead.
Til from out the hollow ground
Slowly breathed a sullen sound.

...

Progress of Poesy: Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.

· Julien Green, "Thoughts fly and words go on foot. Therein lies all the drama of the writer"

· Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea: "The Hardic tongue of the Archipelago, though it had no more magic power in it than any other tongue of men, has its root in the Old Speech, that language in which things are named with their true names: and the way to the understanding of this speech starts with the Runes that were written when the islands of this world first were raised up from the sea."

"I am bound to the foul, cruel thing and will be bound forever unless I can learn the word that masters it - its name."

"Tell me just this, if it's not a secret: what other great powers are there besides the light?"
"It's no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distance, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power, no other name."

The Tombs of Atuan: "There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men's eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; thereplaces are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy powers of the Earth before theLight, the powers of the dark, the ruin, the madness... Knowing names is my job. My art. To weave the magic of a thing, you see, one must find its true name out. In my lands we keep our true names hidden all our lives long, from all but those we trust utterly; for there is great power and great peril in a name. Once, at the beginning of time, when Segoy raised the isles of Earthsea from the ocean deeps, all things bore their own true names. And all doing of magic, all wizardry, hangs still upon the knowledge - the relearning, the remembering - of that true and ancient language of the Making. There are spells to learn, of course, ways to use words; and one must know the consequences too. But what a wizard spends his life at is finding out the names of things and finding out how to find the names of things." "How did you find out mine?" "...I cannot tell you that. You are a lantern swathed and covered, hidden away in a dark place. Yet the light shines; they could not put out the light. They could not hide you. As I know the light, as I know you, I know the light."

"There's a design like waves scratched on the outside, and nine Runes of Power on the inside. The half you have bears four runes and a bit of another; and mine likewise. The break came right across that one symbol, and destroyed it. It is what's been called since then, the Lost Rune. The other eight are known to the Mages: Pirr that protects from madness and from wind and fire, Ges that gives endurance, and so on But the broken rune was the one that bound the lands."

The Farthest Shore "Runes were graven on the walls at intervals cut deep, some inlaid with silver. Arren had learned the runes of Hardic from his father, but none of these did he know, though certain of them seemed to hold a meaning that he almost knew, or had known and could not quite remember."

"He was speaking now in the Old Speech, the language of the Making, in which all true spells are cast and on which all the great acts of magic depend; but very seldom is it spoken in conversation except among dragons."

"The language of the Making is not everywhere remembered; here one word, there another. And the weaving of spells is itself interwoven with the earth and the water, the winds and the fall of light of the place where it is cast. I once sailed far into the East, so far that neither wind nor water heeded my command, being ignorant of their true names; or more likely it was I who was ignorant. The world is very large, the Open Sea going on past all knowledge; and there are worlds beyond the world. Over the abysses of space and in the long extent of time, I doubt that any word that can be spoken would bear, everywhere and forever, its weight of meaning and its power; unless it were the First Word which Segoy spoke, making all, or the Final Word, which has not been nor will be spoken until all things are unmade."

"As they sailed on, the garbling echoes lessened and this syllable came more clearly, so Arren said, 'Is there a voice in the cave?' 'The sea's voice.' 'But it speaks a word.' ...'How do you hear it?' 'As saying the sound ahm' 'In the Old Speech, that signifies the beginning, or long ago. But I hear it as ohb, which is a way of saying the end.'

· Guru Gita: "Meditate on the Guru, who reveals That, who is the expression of the Shambhava state, who illumines like the flame of a lamp, who is eternal and all-pervasive, and who is visible in the form of all letters."
"I bow to the Guru's assemblage, which is composed of the three preceding Gurus (whose titles) begin with Shrinatha, Ganapati, three seats (of Shakti), (eight) Bhairavas, the group of (nine traditional) Siddhas, three Batukas, two feet (representing Shiva and Shakti), the sequence of (ten) Dutis, (three) Mandalas, ten Viras, sixty-four (established Siddhas), nine (Mudras), the line of five viras (with special functions), together with the revered Malini (the letters of the alphabet), and the Mantraraja"
"...Who created the tree of the three worlds by uttering the seed sounds bhuh, bhuvah, and svah; who helped to cross these worlds by these very sounds;..." (the thousand names of Vishnu.
"Oh, giver of refuge, when considered separately, the three letters of the word Aum (Om) a, u, m indicate the three Vedas, the three states, the three worlds, and the three gods, and thus describe You as being diverse."
"The Kula Kundalini is the origin of the Vedas and other scriptures, as well as the seed letters."

· Dag Hammarskjöld,Markings: "Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity- intellectual, emotional and moral. Respect for the word - to employ it with scrupulous care and incorruptible heartfelt love of truth - is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It cuases man to regress down the long path of his evolution."

· Graham Hancock,Fingerprints of the Gods: "Renowned for her skillful use of witchcraft and magic, Isis was particularly remembered by the Ancient Egyptians as 'strong of tongue', that is being in command of words of power 'which she knew with correct pronunciation, and halted not in her speech, and was perfect both in giving the command and in saying the word' [Sir E. A. Wallis budge, Egyptian Magic]. In short she was believed, by means of her voice alone, to be capable of bending reality and overriding the laws of physics."

· Gerhart Hauptmann, cited by C.J. Jung in Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart: "Dichten heißt, hinter Worten das Urwort erklingen lassen."

· Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, Chaper 15, "Smith was wistfully sorry that he had been the cause of such upset in Jubal. At the time, it seemed to him that he had at last grokked perfectly a most difficult human word. He should have known better, because early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings... but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he had seemed to grok... Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife."

· Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, Chaper 15, "'I grok it,' agreed Jubal, 'Language itself shapes a man's basic ideas... 'The Koran cannot be translated. The 'map' changes on translation no matter how hard one tries... English swallows up anything that comes in its way, makes English out of it. Nobody tried to stop this process the way some languages are policed and have official limits... probably because there never has been, truly, such a thing as 'the King's English' -- for 'the King's English' was French. English was in truth a bastard tongue, and nobody cared how it grew. But nevertheless, there are things which can be said in the simple Arabic tongue which cannot be said in English."

· Martin Heidegger, "Man acts as if he were the shaper and master of language, while it is language which remains the mistress of man."

· Hermes Trismegistos, The Poimandres: "... methought there came to me a Being o