"How long will you vex and torment me and break me in pieces with words?"
(Job 19:2 - AMP)
But the current senses seem to come from Anglo-French ESPELLER, Old French ESPELIR "mean, signify, explain, interpret", also "spell out letters, pronounce, recite", from Frankish SPELLON, which means "to tell" or some other Germanic source, ultimately identical with the native word...
Isn't it interesting that the word used for the concept in witchcraft of "casting a SPELL" on someone, is the same word that we use for SPELLing Bees? Is that why we call it "SPELLING", as in "taking a SPELLing test, or "SPELLCHECK" on our smartphones?
In Galatians 5, Paul lists witchcraft simply as a work of the flesh...he didn't describe it as anything supernatural...
When we talk about the power of words, and the effect that they have on our lives, we have to look into what has been spoken over us, especially in our formative years, and examine whether or not we are living out the manifestation of someone else's "spell" over us...
I need to do more study on this, but I don't think it's a fluke that these words are the same...I have counseled with people for 40+ years, many of whom seem to be living under the "SPELL" of someone who spoke words over them that they believed about themselves, and are now acting out...
In the same way that hypnosis works by the power of suggestion, many people are existing in a trance-like state, not thinking for themselves, or realizing who they really are, simply because someone else's words have hijacked their destiny!
Incantations don't always begin with "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble", the words that the witches in Macbeth used...sometimes they just begin with "You always ______", or "You never _____", or "You never will ______"...
Those of you from my generation probably grew up hearing Samantha or Endora or Aunt Clara on 'Bewitched' say little rhyming speeches that made things happen...but real incantations aren't necessarily like that...they are just words spoken over you, often by yourself to yourself, that produce certain results in your life...
In the same way that a prophecy spoken over you can move your life in a positive direction, a negative word SPELLED out for you can permeate your consciousness, and literally "cast a spell" over your life!
A "spell" is really nothing more than the power of words becoming your reality...
Today is the day to break free by knowing the truth about yourself...
Maybe it's time to break a SPELL...
More about this later...
