“Speech was divided among the gods – she became the consort of all. But Sarasvati alone kept her flowing truth.”

Rig Veda I.164.45

What does an ancient poem-spell by a priestess to a primordial goddess have in common with Renaissance blessing knives from France, or chanting well-wishes at celebrations? Across time and culture, people have believed that words do not merely describe reality – they shape it. Whether spoken, sung, or inscribed, words have long been regarded as tools of creation, protection and transformation.

In ancient Mesopotamia, the first written words were not just records of trade or harvest, but incantations, sacred utterances carved into clay tablets. The first recorded poet in history is the Sumerian Princess, Priestess and Poet, Enheduanna. Poetry was therefore (as far as we know) created by a woman, and her poems were both sensual and spiritual.

A priest or priestess speaking a hymn to Inanna or Ishtar was not performing metaphorical poetry, but invoking divine presence. To say the words was to make something happen. In the Avestan hymns of Persia, in Egyptian temple rites, and in the Vedic chants of India, language was breath made sacred – a bridge between mortal and cosmic order.

Archaeologists have even found traces of this belief in the world’s oldest symbols. Petroglyphs carved into rock faces across Iran, India and Anatolia reveal repeating signs that predate formal writing – spirals, serpentine lines and figures that appear to move in rhythm. Some scholars believe these marks were not mere decoration but attempts to capture sound or vibration itself, proto-words etched into stone. In the Indus Valley, early scripts blend pictogram and phoneme, suggesting that to inscribe a mark was to embody meaning. Later in Sanskrit, this sacred principle found its fullest expression in the goddess Sarasvati – the embodiment of knowledge, speech and flowing wisdom. Her river was said to carry the sound of creation itself, and her devotees regarded the language as both her gift and her body.

It is no coincidence that the Sanskrit word Tantra means “to weave”. To speak, write, or chant is to interlace sound and meaning, to weave reality from vibration and intention. Our modern word “text” shares the same lineage, derived from textilis, “woven”. Every sentence is a fabric of thought; every story, a loom upon which human experience is a thread. The metaphors endure because they reveal something ancient in us: that to make meaning is to bind the world together strand by strand, word by word, to make manifest the tapestry of our realities.

The Greeks understood this, too. Their term logos meant more than “word”; it meant the underlying principle of the universe, the rational current that orders chaos. The Hebrew tradition echoed this with “in the beginning was the Word”; words were not mere signs, they were forces, vessels of divine power. When uttered in a sacred rhythm or paired with symbolic gestures, they could bless, heal, curse or create.

In medieval Europe, this belief evolved into the language of charms, blessings and inscriptions. Blacksmiths engraved Latin benedictions onto blades to protect their owners. In France and Germany, “blessing knives” were given as gifts, their hilts inscribed with prayers to sing during banquets for health and love, a ritual fusion of craftsmanship and invocation. To carve or speak such words was to weave intention into matter. Even in the superstitious eyes of the Church, these inscriptions existed in a liminal space between devotion and magic.

Language also became a shield against the unknown; the charm against the “evil eye” whispered across cultures from Anatolia to the Andes, revealing a shared human instinct: that ill will and blessing alike travel on the breath. Words, therefore, could intercept or redirect invisible forces. In England, charms were recited over sick children or livestock; in Ireland, blessings were spoken over tools before harvest; in Iran, water and words combined to purify and protect.

By the Renaissance, the art of words took on a new intellectual form. Scholars like Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola returned to the ancient idea of verbum as a creative energy. They spoke of the “music of the spheres”, of words as harmonics of divine order. The act of speaking was a microcosmic echo of creation itself. Magical grimoires from the period, such as the Key of Solomon, carried detailed instructions on how to pronounce words of power, for pronunciation was believed to determine potency. To say a word incorrectly was to weaken the spell; to speak it true was to awaken the spirit.

Even outside of magical circles, this belief persisted in everyday life. The habit of marking a toast, offering congratulations, or saying “bless you” after a sneeze are all echoes of older incantations, small spells of goodwill that reinforce communal bonds. A toast, after all, is a verbal offering: words spoken over drink to seal friendship, prosperity or love.

In the modern world, we tend to think of language as descriptive, not generative, a means of communication, not enchantment. Yet science and psychology remind us that words still shape our inner and outer realities. Cognitive linguistics shows that the metaphors we use influence how we perceive the world. Saying we “fight” depression rather than “tend” to it changes our relationship with it. Words alter neural pathways, affect hormones and regulate emotion. The ancient priestesses and poets may have been closer to the truth than we realise: the right words can indeed heal.

Poets, too, continue the lineage of verbal magic. When a poet writes, they summon emotion into being; when we recite a poem aloud, we feel its rhythm enter our bodies. The repetition of sound – rhyme, chant, refrain – is itself a kind of spellwork. Think of the power of protest chants, or the hush of a funeral eulogy: these are modern rituals where words direct collective emotion toward transformation.

And so, the lineage continues. From whispered prayer in cloisters to the scientist’s hypothesis, from the love letter to the court verdict, words shape destiny, and words can harm or heal. They frame the limits of what we believe possible, and they carry our intentions into the world like seeds. To speak is to act, to write is to remember.

Perhaps this is why silence, too, feels sacred, the pause before the word, the intake of breath before creation. Every language begins there, in the stillness where meaning waits to be born.

Across millennia, the tools have changed – stylus, quill, typewriter, screen – but the impulse remains the same. We reach for language to touch what lies beyond us: gods, hearts, truths, hopes, dreams. The ancients knew that words were bridges. The Renaissance humanists believed they were mirrors. Today, perhaps, they are both a bridge to the unseen and a mirror to the self.

When we bless a newborn, whisper a goodbye or recite lines that make us weep, we participate in that ancient and intrinsic inheritance. Words may no longer be written in temple dust or carved into bronze knives, yet they still carry the oldest magic: the power to connect, to transform, to make meaning of our brief and miraculous time on earth.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/katie-ness