For many different people in many different cultures, words have power. They are often perceived to provide both a connection to spiritual power and a form for it to inhabit. The way words are used can constitute a beneficial or negative act of magic. An example of how a non-Western culture approaches this shows in the following:

So in Gapun, certain words uttered in certain contexts are seen by the villagers to have the power to bring about certain outcomes. Words constitute direct links to spiritual powers, who will respond in desired ways if the proper words are said in the proper manner. The power of words is thus a creative power; those who have obtained verbatim knowledge of a chant, for example, can utilize the power of those words for their own purposes. Words are, in themselves, 'roads': ways of obtaining desired results. (Kulick & Stroud 1993, p. 40)

The description above, particularly the last sentence, sounds very similar to the process of magic that occurs in Western occultism. The word becomes another technology that is used to shape reality and construct new meanings for people using them.

The word is acknowledged by academics as something which has power, but that acknowledgement primarily occurs in relation to social and economic settings, and so it's not a power which is tangible in a direct experience. Instead the power is felt indirectly in the social policies and circumstances that affect people on a daily basis, which in turn impact the psychological processes that govern how words are used and how their meanings are interpreted (Luria 1976). In other words, the meanings of words and the uses conceived for them vary from culture to culture, depending on how sophisticated the culture seems to be, which in turn affects the psychological (or cognitive) processes that govern the use of words. We see the process of changing word use and meaning at work through the practice of memetics, which is used to subconsciously control how a person reacts to words and symbols . The use of images and carefully selected words in politics, education, advertisement, etc. has certainly proven that the meanings people take from a message can be shaped for better or worse. Without critical and conscious awareness on the part of the people, it's much easier to have our realities shaped for us. This is evident in the rampant consumerism that most, if not all, people engage in (at least in postindustrial societies and particularly in America).

In another sense, the power of the word (and other forms of media) is denied by academics when it's applied to the concept that a person can use words and other media to directly shape reality. Many academics would argue that the people in Gapun are primitives who lack the sophisticated awareness to realize that words and symbols supposedly can't be used to directly alter reality. However, the concept is embraced in many cultures, including Western cultures, and is a major component of occult practices (Dunn 2005, Ellwood 2005, Ellwood 2007, Gray 1970, Morrison 2003). Yet the claim that words and symbols can be used by the individual to shape reality is one perceived as a mistake of observation:

Few still mistake the observation that realities are symbolically constructed for the notion that any individual can construct any reality he or she chooses. The power of the symbolic construction might be logically in the hands of the people, but that does not put it practically in the hands of an individual. Symbolically constituted realities are just as much a part of the environment that a given individual must adapt to as are physical realities. (Rothenbuhler 1998, p. 58)

While Rothenbuhler is correct that symbolically constituted realities are part of the environment, he's incorrect in assuming that a given individual can't shape symbolic reality or reality in general. Adaptation doesn't just involve being shaped by an environment. It also requires shaping that reality with the tools that are available, including words, symbols, and magic. The fact that someone writes a text indicates that s/he believes s/he can have a direct impact on hir audience, which is a manipulation of reality. By extension, walking up to someone and telling that person you hate hir will also produce a new reality for you and that person (Though you might not like the results!). A person can construct any reality s/he chooses with symbols and words. But s/he has to contend with other people and corporations doing the exact same thing. The real question is, can someone sell their version of a desired reality to other people, and to reality itself?

Words, symbols, and images shape the reality of people every day, including physical reality. Images, symbols, diagrams, graphs, and other pictorial symbols provide ways for us to interact and derive meaning from an event that words alone can't fully provide (Gee 2003). Advertisers and corporations in general have no problem exploiting other media resources besides words to perpetuate their messages: The picture of a flamebroiled hamburger will do more to stir up the hunger and imagination of a person than the words describing said burger. Greer explains that symbolic meanings provide a method for connecting with situations, people, etc. (2006). Symbolic meanings embody emotional, intellectual, and physical connections that people have with each other, the activities they engage in, and the meanings they create and negotiate with in their daily and specialized interactions (Magliocco 2004). People use symbols and words (as well as other forms of media such as music, film, and art) to change physical, mental, and spiritual reality, and not just on a social or economic scale. Physical reality may also be shaped by the practice of magic when combined with words and other media. However, to understand how that occurs we need to consider what is meant by the word physical.

Many people, when they think of magic, expect that the physical will be obvious and filled with special effects. However, magic is much more subtle in its effects on reality. The coincidences that seem to happen at just the right time are examples of magic aligning a possibility into reality. The manipulation of words, symbols, and other media are methods for accessing magic and forcing the hand of chance in the favor of the magician. A magician uses different forms of media to impact and influence the psychological aspects of the mind. This is done by imprinting on the magician's consciousness symbolic associations (through visual symbols, sound, texture or other forms of media), which in turn shape the perspective of the magician and how s/he acts in a given situation. The symbolic associations provide triggers in the consciousness that can be used to evoke specific responses to a situation. We see this all the time with commercials. A commercial usually has a song, and certain visuals, all of which are used to create specific associations that trigger a response in a person (ideally that you'll buy whatever is being adverted). At the same time, the variety of media that is used also influences and impacts the external environment around the magician; because it provides the magician a means of manipulating that environment to manifest specific desires into reality.

The mistake that is often made by magicians who focus exclusively on symbolism is that of investing too much power into the symbols, without realizing that the real source of that power comes from within. Frank Herbert recognizes the problem that lies in words, and for that matter any form of media, when he notes that words have been used to explain away the meaning of a transcendental experience, and consequently control any iterations of that experience (1981). When you can explain away what occurred by pointing to words and symbols that only re-present what occurred you've effectively castrated the magical act. That is the trap of defining magic as a symbolic act only, as I will discuss in further detail in chapter 3. Academics try to pass magic off as just a symbolic, repetitious act of ignorant primitives who invest power in forces that can't possibly be real. But do they have proof that the spirits, powers, etc. aren't real? For that matter can the magicians who just view magic as a symbolic or psychological act really be sure that it's just that?

Herbert makes another point, one that all magicians should consider carefully, when he argues that words distort the ideas they represent by framing those ideas into systems. Systems, while providing routine and a sense of social order, can also create ignorance if people don't examine the beliefs they adopt when they rely on that system to structure their perceptions of the world (Herbert 1981). Words, symbols, and any other form of media or mediation can be powerful tools, useful for aiding the magician in what s/he does, but we shouldn't make the mistake of making the tool more powerful than the magician or replacing other paradigms of practicing magic with the symbolic one, at least not without a thorough examination of the underlying principles. Words have power because we give them power. We give them power consciously and unconsciously. We do the same with other forms of media. But remember that we give that power and those meanings to what we use to mediate reality; all of those tools only have the power that is given to them and only for as long as it's given. The reality of any connection with a spiritual force is that the real power is the acceptance of that connection on each end, as opposed to the mediation of the symbol used to aid the connection.

To illustrate my theory, let's take this discussion to a practical level. The calling forth of different magical forces/entities is an acknowledgment of the reality of those forces and the way they shape us. That we use media to mediate them doesn't mean that the entities/forces are symbolic or psychological aspects in and of themselves (as some magicians claim). What it means is that in order to interact with these entities symbols can be useful in helping the magician (and possibly the entities) process the experience. However, those entities, like the magician, can exist in their own right and be an experience in and of themselves that can't be explained away as a symbol. One time, a friend did an invocation of an entity into another person. She thought the entity was just a psychological/symbolic state of being that the person was acting out, until to her horror she found out that the person didn't remember anything that had occurred and insisted that the entity had put him under while possessing him. He also told my friend that he believed in the objective existence of the entity. At that point, she realized that the psychological/symbolic paradigm couldn't explain away the experience as something that was subjective and easily labeled. At least for him, it was an experience that went beyond the symbolic level, into the spiritual level.

Webb makes an excellent point about shamanism that relates to the matter at hand:

Instead of seeing the bees as important only in terms of their greater underlying meaning; the shaman sees the symbol itself as the problem and the resulting anxiety (such as feelings of powerlessness) as the byproduct of the symbol, not its cause. Because of this, in the shamanic way of working, removal of the symbol and its energetic imprint from the psyche through ritual is required…through this model, a healthy emotional or physical state can be achieved instantaneously through the energetic extraction of the intruding symbol within the psyche. (Webb 2003, p. 155)

The symbol is treated as a problem, which actually fits into memetic theory. The replication of memes into a person's psyche necessarily brings a lot of psychic garbage and can in turn feed into a person's negative experiences and neuroses. The commercials we hear or see each day are memes. We get bombarded with messages of what we should buy and what we need, while also having pressure put on our mental and emotional health which in turn impacts the physical health. The subconscious communicates through symbolism, but communication is a two-way street, so the anxiety a person feels can actually be the result of the symbol. In my own internal work, I've found that I've had to dissolve symbols to undo the emotional responses they can prompt. By doing so, the meanings are also dissolved, and the mental anxiety fades away. Another point Webb makes in the quote above is that we sometimes need to appreciate an experience such as seeing bees for the experience itself as opposed to underlying meanings. If we get wrapped up in the meanings of a particular event we may forget to enjoy the moment for what it offers. Contemporary culture is so saturated with symbolism that it's easy to forget that symbolism isn't the only kind of reality a person can experience.

We've invested so much effort into words and symbols and the different ways they allow us to construct reality that we sometimes forget the other resources we have available to us. Relying on words and symbols alone suppresses the potential a person has to evolve. Other modes of expression can offer different perspectives that expand our consciousness and understanding of the universe:

Investigating the subtleties of synaesthesia in oral cultures and exploring the multimodality of the new, globalised communications media can both be part of the process of recovering wasted human possibility. And to take another example, it is simply knowing that other cultures have resources for scientific and personal meaning very different to the genres of report and narrative in their classical modern forms that allow us the possibility of a science that makes human interest and the sources of the self visible. (Cope & Kalantzis 2000, p. 223)

To ignore other ways of knowing is to cut ourselves off from the full range of our magical abilities. This applies to exploration of other cultures, and to subcultures within our own culture. One of the reasons I integrated pop culture into magic, for instance, is that it offers different perspectives than more traditional approaches to magic. It's not a better approach, just a different one. The same principle applies to how we practice magic in general. Symbols and words are powerful, but they are only tools, and constantly interpreting everything we do or experience as symbolic takes away from the actual experience we're in.

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