Jewish Magic Spells: The Secret Language of Amulets

[A famous paper amulet against Lilith. The top line names the primordial beings: Adam, Eve, and Lilith.
The second line illustrates and names the three angels empowered against Lilith (who knew Big Bird was an angel of God?).
The third line is a series of abbreviations for biblical or rabbinic phrases of power.]

Early in Jewish history, as a way to save space on precious and scarce writing materials (easy to produce paper was centuries away), Jewish scribes developed an elaborate list of abbreviations for commonly used phrases and terms. For example, the title for God, Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu "The Holy Blessed One," became HKB"H.

Such acronyms, known as Roshei Teivot, "heads of words," litter the page of traditional Jewish works such as the Talmud and Midrash.

On Jewish amulets, too, abbreviations are common. In fact, Jewish talismans seem indecipherable, even to a Hebrew reader, precisely because acronyms rule. Many amulets are small, in order to be worn or carried. Often they are made out of precious or difficult to work materials (silver, for example). But abbreviations are also used precisely because they are a kind of code, and occult speech is powerful speech.

There are many types of magical abbreviations that appear on Jewish talismans-

A Biblical verse or phrase (It should be noted that Mishna Sanhedrin 10:1 objects to the use of Torah verses in medicinal spells. Jewish folk healers may have regarded the abbreviation of such verses as a way to make an end-run around that objection [1]):

ShYCh"G - Shuvah Yah Chatzah Nafshi, "Return O Eternal, save my life" (Ps. 6:5).

or a title of God:

Sh"Y - Shomer Yisrael, "Guardian of Israel" (Ps. 121)

It can be a verse from Jewish prayer:

AGL"A - Atah Gibor L'olam Adonai, "You are Forever Powerful, O Eternal" (Gevurot prayer)

or an adjuration:

BACh"V - Bashem El Chai V'kayyam, "[Do this] in the name of the living and enduring God"[2]

or:

BM"T - B'Mazal Tov, "[bless me] with good fortune."

It can be for invoking the protection of angels:

ARGM"N - Uriel, Rafael, Gavriel, Mikhael, Nuriel

or for the kabbalistic sefirot:

CHBT"M - Chochmah, Binah, Tiferet, Malchut

Such phrases number into the hundreds. Even a reader of traditional Jewish texts may be at a loss to decode many amulet abbreviations. There are a number of books that can help, but I recommend ha-Kamiya ha-Yehudi, "The Hebrew Amulet" by Avraham Green, which provides exhaustive tables of such roshei teivot and their interpretation.

Zal g'mor - to learn more, read the Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Jewish-Myth-Magic-Mysticism/dp/0738709050

[1] Davis, "The Psalms in Hebrew Medical Amulets," Vetus Testamentum, XLII, 2 (1992)

[2] I use a capital "A" to transliterate the alef, a silent letter which can bear several vowel sounds. Here it is the "e" in "El." In a later example it will be a "u" in "Uriel."