I. The Magic of the Word

The song of creation you read on the page before this is a song of power. It is intended to create an entire world. If one were to sit still, under the open sky, and take nine easy breaths (nine being the number of creation) and further, if one were fully aware of that quiet, timeless force that fills the form we call "self”- and how that same force unites the seemingly isolated island of “self” to the land and the rest of the seen and unseen world, one would be near the state of mind required to unlock the great magic of this song.

“The land and I are one”, goes the Grail declaration; the king of old who needed to be reminded of this ancient wisdom- so that he could regain his sovereign power and heal the wounds of his land- is a living mythical symbol and model for every man or woman now. All are called to the sacred role of “human being” as a ruler and co-creator. Like the king of old, we have largely forgotten our sacred connection; our lands- our minds, heats, bodies, and even the green world of hills and trees, lie in a shadow of waste.

The land and each person are one. The Land is all things. If the land and “you” share identity, on the most intimate level, then a song of creation, known as such and recited with will, can change both you and the land. It can change all things; there is nothing beyond its reach. People talk much of the “magic” of the Druids or the sorcerers of old. They read with hunger the tales of enchanters and magicians from the Pagan world, wondering at their secrets- but an intense and exhausting study reveals that the secret of the old magic is found in one place alone: words.

Words were originally magic; this, at least, has been known for some time. But some words might be considered more magical than others. Words that recount the deeds of Gods and world-shapers, of heroes and root-icons of cultures, have a special power. These words tell stories- or should I say, “re-tell” stories, which introduce formulas of mythical action into the field of the mind. These mythical actions are more real than any event recorded in any history book- they form the archetypal patterning of the sensible cosmos itself, of the world entire.

The power of words to create new realities is perfectly well understood by some today- to change a person’s perspective by changing how they phrase things, how they use and understand language, changes their entire world. It changes how they think and feel and act. But this power goes further, and much deeper, even though it need not- each man or woman is the land. To change how one man or woman thinks or feels is to cause changes in the very roots of the world.

The words of ancient chants- the chants of the Vedas, for instance- were not mere poetry; indeed, there is no “mere poetry” from the ancient world. Poetry was and is a sacred activity, part of a sacred institution of poets and singers who are found across all ancient cultures. The Vedas certainly represent an excellent example of sacred poetry- in those Vedic chants, more than an image of the world becoming shaped and created was presented to listeners: at the time the Brahmins recited the sacred verses, made their ritual performance, the very world itself was being re-created, in line with their words.

When a God’s hymn was sung, that God was literally receiving the attributes and blessings so hymned, at that very moment. For there really is no moment other than now, and a sacred song or story creates in us, right now, certain states of mind, rivers of ideas and images- and they reinforce the same states and images that they created in us in moments perceptually experienced as “before.” One might say that the Brahmins of old “re-created society” at the moment they sang of the formation of mankind and the various castes of man: the sacred chant recreated and reinforced in the mind of every listener the sacred order of humanity. Then, they acted on it; the world was affected; the order was maintained.

Through human minds and bodies, sacred words channeled the energies of creation. Sacrifice did the same thing- an act of sacrifice was an act of creation, an inauguration of a new order. Words could end an old order and create a new one; they could renew an order that had grown weary; they could regenerate. So could sacrifices.

* * *

Ritual activities from ancient times, everywhere from India to Ireland, or from Rome to Siberia or Central America, was focused on certain key actions- archetypal actions. This fact has been known and revealed, but few today listen or understand. The secret to the greatest of sorceries, and, indeed, the means of a true rebirth and recreation of the entire spiritual edifice of the ancient Irish and British cultures- and perhaps any culture- has been revealed (probably unwittingly) through scholarship and psychological theorizing.

There is no other time but now. Even today, in Catholic religious practice, a priest re-enacts the “last supper” at the end of each mass- standing in as Christ, the priest breaks bread and offers wine- he says what Christ was believed to say at the original supper. The occasion is not just a “reenactment”- though those who do not understand will insist that it is. The mass is the last in a long line of religious “re-creations” that this world has collected and experienced, and one that has, in fact, changed so much about the world.

It is my contention that the sorcery of the mass- its archetypal actions- are weak compared to those of the Pagan past, in which the change caused by words and deeds was of a more mysterious and dramatic kind. I believe that this is true because the Christian mystery-celebration is a copy of an original; it is a descendant of what was likely itself a descendant of some mysterious originating event of great power- a power strong enough to shape the lives of people for hundreds of thousands of years in a massive variety of ways. This event doesn’t have a power simply limited by time; it is truly a root-event, a root-power, beyond time.

In the ancient mysteries the re-enactment of a God’s death and rebirth, the participation in it, even the assuming of roles within it- these were not mere pageants, but acts of archetypal significance, performed in the present moment- the only moment there is- and thus, a full and complete re-creation of the original event. The original event and the re-creation are, in metaphysical fact, the same event. They cannot occur at two different times, for now is the only time. The re-creation of an event is just that: a “creation again” of the event. What is created is precisely what originally happened, on the most essential level.

Those who do not understand this, who cannot grasp this, only see a pageant. For those who understand, something timeless appears, just as present “now” as it was “before”. More importantly, from the perspective of reality itself, wherein “now” and “before” collapse into a wholeness which is only divided by mortal perceptions, the “re-creation” is the same force, the same event.

This is why the hero is rendered immortal by fulfilling the role of the hero. A human who descends into the Underworld like the hero, or quests in the manner of the hero, doing as the hero must do, is no longer performing actions that are human, but trans-human; they are performing archetypal actions that exist forever and perpetual, waiting for those in the “now” to recreate them, to manifest their eternal power.

The human hero steps out of the sphere of personal, mortal actions and engages in immortal actions. And those actions have power- magical power. They can change things; shape societies; change the course of history. The mortal personality can become fused with something immortal, time-bound actions with something timeless. And the same goes for archetypal words- words of true magic.

We have become seduced by materialism and an absurdist view of time and reality. Whatever the “modern day” has done for us, it has certainly stripped us of the possibility of real transformation and growth within mythical, archetypal realities. Those few who penetrate again into the heart of the old wisdom are a lonely lot- but the necessity is all the greater for some to try, for we in this age have forgotten how to truly create, and how to regenerate- two things that our world and our minds and bodies badly need.

The land and every person is one. Inside of each human, is a world entire- all worlds. Inside each human is a tree whose branches and roots entwine with every reality and every other being. Change the human, and you change the world. When the world changes, the human changes; when the human’s mind and body becomes a channel for the hymn of creation, the world is created. When the human’s words, focused through mind and body, become the describers of a new order, that new order certainly comes to be. This is the core of the Druidic sorcery of old, just as it was the core of the power songs of the shamans of primal nations, of the galdor-songs of the Teutonic magicians, and the incantations of sorcerers of many traditions captured in antique lores.

The use of magic words- words of creation, songs of creation- is as old as Celtic culture, and the primal Indo-European cultural background from which it emerged. There are many examples of magical incantations in Irish and Welsh mythology, but the one that springs most easily to mind is the example of Amargin, the Druid and chanter of magical songs of the people of Mil, the Gaelic invaders of Ireland.

His famous poetic declaration which begins “I am a wind on the sea, I am a wave of the sea…” is well known; he identifies himself with many natural phenomenon in this particular magical recitation, and later in the same cycle, uses magical and poetic words to “invoke Ireland”- literally naming each of Ireland’s features into creation just by the power of speech.

Alwyn and Brinley Rees say, regarding Amargin in their essential work “Celtic Heritage”:

“Potentially, the whole creation is bound up in Amairgen, and Indian parallels preclude the dismissal of his speech as simply expressions of “the pride of the sorcerer”. Thus Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita declares himself to be the divine seed without which nothing animate or inanimate exists. He is the Atman, he is Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, and all the Gods… the beginning, the life-span, and the end: “I am the radiant sun amongst light-givers… among the stars of night I am the moon… I am Meru among mountain peaks… I am the ocean among waters…

…Vishnu, dormant during the interval of non-manifestation between the dissolution and recreation of the universe delivers of himself a similar series of “I am” utterances. He is the cosmic juggler or magician and he is all those appearances through which the true essence of existence manifests itself- the cycle of the year, light, wind, earth, water, the four quarters of space, and so on… Similarly, Amairgen on the ocean of non-existence embodies the primeval unity of all things. As such he has the power to bring a new world into being, and his poems are in the nature of creation incantations. With one of them, he conjures fish into the creeks, with another of them, the attributes of the land of Ireland are re-created by being spoken, or rather twice-spoken, anew…” (p. 98-100).


The Rees also make a salient point about the power of ritual re-enactment of events:

“That the need for archetypal precedents of this kind persisted even when the old tradition had been supplanted by Christianity is clearly seen in the incantations and charms of Scottish crofters. Curses derive their efficacy, and daily activities their meaning, by being regarded as repetitions of what members of the Holy Family and saints did once upon a time:

“I bathe my face
In the nine rays of the sun
As Mary bathed her Son
In the rich fermented milk…”

“I am smooring the fire
As the Son of Mary would smoor…”

“I will pluck the gracious yarrow
That Christ plucked with His one hand…”


This is the way of all ancient cultures. Life is meaningful in as much as it is an imitation or a re-enactment of what the Gods did at the beginning: reality is acquired solely through repetition or participation; everything which lacks an exemplary model is “meaningless”, i.e. it lacks reality.” (p. 105-106).


A point comes in the spiritual life and development of the man or woman who is destined to be sorcerously aware and active, when they come face to face with the bare facts of the situation that I am presenting. Words are sorcery. By naming a world, a world can be created. By naming conditions of this world, those conditions can be created. I do not say “they are created inwardly”- I simply say that they are created. What extent the power of the creation will have will depend on the power of a man or woman’s sense for wholeness and their poetic sense; but they are created nonetheless.

Many cannot believe this. They are confused by the perceptual dualistic split between “self” and “world”, believing, as they have been conditioned to believe, that the interior experience of “self” is less real or less substantial than the “world”. When the divisions fall apart in oneness or wholeness, a mystical awareness is kindled that forces these mental hang-ups to lose their power to limit a person. I can certainly speak in terms of “creating anew the self”, “creating anew or regenerating the mind and body” or even of shaping the way one will see and think and behave with a magical-poetic declaration. But I cannot stop there, and will not.

In ancient times, we know that Druids, poets, Shanachies, Bards, and storytellers- all technicians of the sacred word- literally established times, ages, worlds, and re-created the same, just through the power of their words, the power of their stories and invocations. As they spoke or sang, the gathering and all the world was re-created as well, or regenerated. The minds of those hearing joined the mind of the sorcerer, and all hearkened to the new order of things; in their activities afterwards, the new order became more and more manifest.

We know that these “re-creations” were the chief point of the Vedic Indo-European rites further east, and all around the Indo-European world. On certain occasions, such as the holy seasons or feast-days in Celtic Ireland, or the sacred times of sacrifice all over the world, the world itself was literally being recreated and regenerated.

The Rees say:

“There, in the presence of the kings, the nobles, and the people, the whole mythological and chronological past of the nation was conjured into the present by the shanachies:

“Lore of Finn and the Fiana, a matter inexhaustible,
Destructions, cattle-raids, wooings,
Tables and wooden books,
Satires, keen riddles…

The great feast of Tara and other feasts,
The assembly of Emain and other assemblies,
Annals there, this is true,
Every division into which Ireland has been divided:

The story of the household of Tara, that is not scanty,
The knowledge of every cantred in Ireland
The chronicle of women, tales of armies, conflicts,
Hostels, prohibitions, invasions…

The ten-fold testament of hundreded Cathair
To his rightful pleasant offspring kingly of stature
Assigns the estate of each man as is due,
So that all may listen to it…

Violent deaths and slaughters, strains of music,
Accurate knowledge of the goodly race,
His royal pedigree, a blessing through Bregmag,
His battle and his stark valour…”

This declaration clearly had the force of a creation rite to re-establish the foundations of the tradition at the inception of a new period of time. The social order was also re-affirmed…” (p. 169-170).

There is no more room to secretly hold the belief that these “recreations” are just “figurative”. They are not. That we think in such a manner is a sign of how far we have fallen from the primordial truth, not the extent to which we have seen through some superstition. Those who wish to grasp and make real the blessings of the Gods, of the Goddess of Sovereignty, and the mystical edifice of the Old World cannot join in the lameness of scientific modernity, with respect to this sublime point and perspective. The old ways- and the old world, even- can be recreated, regenerated, in the mind, body, and world (all one place) by those who understand and embrace the power of the word, and the archetypal force of true incantations.

And the Enchanter’s Song- the Song of Creation that preceded this analysis- is a key for doing so. It is a song written by me very recently, but it is not new. It has been spoken many, many times, by many different powerful beings throughout history and in the timeless space of mythology. It is a magical song, which can create anything. It can create this world, for once, it did create this world. It can regenerate that which lies fallow. It can make that which is partial whole.

The spiritual science behind the Song has precursors found the tradition of the Irish bards and their mighty power to scorn through satire- their songs of naming the character and behavior of people could change a person’s reputation, and exalt them or ruin them- even to the point of toppling mighty kings. The Christian tradition has also not missed being a part of this spiritual underpinning- traditionally, Jesus states that a true believer might say to a mountain “get up and move” and it shall.


Return to the Contents
Continue on


All Text, aside from given citations, is Copyright © 2009 by Cuan Maqq Beli
All Rights Reserved