The part about “Sesame” may not be true, but I remember quite a few shows as a child teaching us to say “abra cadabra, alakazam!”
That is, “Allah Kazaam!” or “Allah is great!”
This would usually be when they were doing some sort of magic trick. So any time a child was walking around and went to innocently “do magic” (a sin), they’d should “Allah is great!”
So now, the real questions are what do “abra cadabra” and “sesame” (edit: just saw the PDW full text and your take on it there, Swamp) mean when enunciated (not translated) in Arabic? Anything?
I don’t necessarily remember where these things came from precisely. They were fairly widespread, but Sesame Street probably was one of them, and am fairly sure Henson Productions generally did this kind of stuff often.
Paul Reuben’s Pee Wee’s Playhouse, on the other hand, would have a blue Genie (or Djinni, or “Demon”) shout “Mecca Lecca Hi, Mecca Himey Ho!” which may mean something closer to “I wave my butt at Mecca!”, to which…
Edit: Some more on the other words common to this stuff:
“Kadavra” in Turkish means “cadaver” or “corpse.”
Interestingly, many of the sources I found said that “avra kadavra” meant “it will be created with my words.”
However, when looking further into it, there doesn’t seem to be much direct evidence supporting this and the “corpse” translation of “kadavra” seems pretty solid
Hocus Pocus, another common phrase used by magicians, didn’t come about until the 17th century when a conjurer came up with the phrase for part of his act: “Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo.” It’s entirely possible that this was derived from the phrase spoken at Catholic Mass: “hoc est enim corpus meum,” or “for this is my body.”
“Presto” simply means “quickly” in Italian. It was used by magicians who were attempting to call up demons and apparently wanted them to hurry up.
Some real bad crap seems to be “occulted” in all this stuff. “Alakazam” is a definite, but the rest likely vary in accuracy. I alternate between thinking it needs to be called out and that it’s better to ignore it, but Elijah didn’t ignore the prophets of Baal, so..
just noticed that I had not noticed this thread. great point you made on the hidden stuff going on in children’s television. I more remember the benign skits, but that’s how they get a few suckered in by the subconscious mind, mixing in the occult with the fun stuff.
Good questions. Abracadabra is hotly disputed but may come from Semitic roots related to avad and davar, meaning "it is done as I say"; other etymologies exist. This would also work in Arabic.
For alakazam, an archived link from Wiktionary goes back to Alagazam in 1881, from California and then Hawaii. Thus the Arabic origin is likely a later rationalization; "Kazaam" is not an independent word (great is "akbar"). Sesame Street popularized the variation that I'd spell "a la peanut butter sandwiches", which is pronounced as if taking the first part from the French "a la"; but it's not a completely innocent incantation either.
Yes, a genie repeating "Mecca" is likely to be intentional and the remaining syllables might be nonsense but might have a hidden meaning; and there's enough data about Paul Reubens to smoke more out there.
There are at least three issues, one being what is the historical meaning of a word, one being what can be evidenced as an attempt to insert new meaning into it, and one being what can be speculated upon. The difficulty is that as elite researchers we should keep them separate. We don't get to treat our speculations as necessarily intentional, and we don't get to treat what looks intentional as necessarily mainstreamed.
However, we can definitely say that "shazam" was coined in 1940 with explicit reference to paganism ("Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury"); so that gives us a potential trail for interpreting the earlier "alagazam" and variations. And who knows, shazam might someday get us all the way back to seshem (allegedly sesame)! I believe that everything hidden will be revealed.
And here's a more direct link: Arabic Sesame Street is called "Iftah Ya Simsim", Open Sesame, 1979, so that indicates intentional reference to genies, which can be inferred to apply to the English version as well. I might also accept that sesame has some old thread of arcane meaning; but it's not likely to be an Egyptian one. Again, my take is to put a restraint on headstrong, panicky allegations and to counsel people toward evidentiary, viable criticism.
Add: "hocus pocus" and "presto" are correct as you say.
Add: The "seshemu" claim seems to go back to Barbara Walker, Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 1986, from which I reconstructed this erratic snippet:
The divine Houris also dwelt in the moon, which probably was the light of Aladdin's secret cave. See Moon. The Arabian Nights gave the password to Aladdin's cave: Open, Sesame. This was related to Egyptian seshemu, "sexual intercourse." The hieroglyphic sign of seshemu was a penis inserted into an arched yoni-symbol. Every ancient culture used some form of sexual for the idea of man-entering-paradise. Symbolism 1. Zimmer ( 54. 2. Polo 53-54. 3. Campbell, Oc. M, 430.
So unless Walker's sources can be traced I don't think the connection of intercourse to seshemu or seshemu to sesame should be sustained, as they're not independently verifiable but are likely to be imaginative.
And we haven't touched on Disney's Aladdin and the thousand-year disputed etymology of Disney.
Good additional, and agreed. As noted, I have little solid there, so most of it shouldn’t be taken as “true” per se, just pointing at a lot of smoke.
"Kazaam" is not an independent word (great is "akbar")
Derp. Yes. It’s been a while since I did that dig. Really thought I did find something solid on it, but yes it might not have been “great”. Shaq (father is Muslim) did a movie called Kazaam also. (Or perhaps Sinbad made it, for some of us)
Yes. For completeness, here is the searchable Magic Words, which attributes the sesame link to Walker's encyclopedia, 1983, so I think that pretty well confirms that her odd interpretation is the source. A Japanese site that mentions this source seems to attribute the seshemu data to (Wallis) Budge page 58, but naming that respectable author could mean many different books. The closest hit I find is Gods of the Egyptians in which Shesemu (not seshemu) is a divine butcher on page 50; that's much different and doesn't justify any of Walker's wild assumptions.
Funny, the next Magic Words after "sesame" are "shabukalakazam", "shallakazam", "sharing", and "shazam". Coincidence of course.
Last bizarre point: "Allahu akbar" in Hebrew cognates is just "El-Gibbor", a Biblical term for the great God. Arabic Christians have no trouble referring "Allahu akbar" to the Christian God and meaning the same thing as the Hebrew, but that's not yet the majority definition of "Allah".
you wrote this well, & SwampRangers really knows how to do deep dives! Taqo also made a key comment about magic in Sesame Street.
sorry to have missed out on this discussion. I was not ready a month ago to do an etymology study for these terms. Elijah — right, he confronted directly.
here’s a quick origination study, and then a cultural /spiritual application for today.
in the Old English and Middle English, there’s no connection to magic or the occult.
(plusses) It made learning fun. “Would you like to buy an ‘O’” alphabet letters skit with street salesman wearing a long coat, acting clandestinely, hiding what one would think would be counterfeit watches and jewelry. But this guy had a letter “O” to sell from inside his trench coat, and it “only cost a nickel”. Ernie: “A nickel?” salesman: “Shhhhhhh, riiiiiiight”. ____ Also, they did have some phonics lessons:: “m” ___ “op” ____ “mop”
(minuses) woke culture imposed secular values on children in post ‘80s episodes, and they added as well newer characters that I don’t think are good for children to watch.
Neil Postman wrote back in ‘85 “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” that American society placed too much focus on entertainment. God was not first in our lives. Postman was not a downer on humor. There’s humor in creation, the duckbill platypus for example, and some irony in God’s Word.
Postman noted that children started out with Romper Room, then Sesame Street, and some graduated to The Electric Company, or “Power House” which was scientifically oriented. This was all TV entertainment and not family time projects, so Postman was not a big fan of TV entertainment education.
The big Sesame Street intro into the Egyptian Mysteries was in 1983 primetime show aired for the whole family: “Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art”. (don’t eat the pictures = the “Cookie Monster” portion of just 1 part of the theme.). ____ The big problem with this show is the ancient Egyptian mystery religion Osiris theme, that by a good heart one can be transformed to join the gods in the heavens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RB7CkNW0YU
At 14. in. 57 sec. into the TV movie, Big Bird and Snuffleupagus (the elusive woolly mammoth) both hear a child / spirit crying in the Met Museum. It’s an Egyptian princes under a spell who explains his situation. He is under a curse and can never reach his place in the stars unless he solves a riddle and tells the correct answer of the riddle to the demon watching over the child. “Where does today meet yesterday.”(in a museum!)
Big Bird thought it through and came up with the answer. After presenting the answer, the first demon disappears, and then Osiris appears who weighs the child’s heart on scale, weighed against a feather. The Egyptian prince child then ascends stairs and gets transformed into a star, joining his place in the sky with the gods.
So they introduced ancient Egyptian religious lore in the early ‘80s.
I think it is wise to avoid most Sesame Street, especially modern episodes. Some of the older ‘70s skits are funny, but whole episodes? — not worth it to put all that into children’s minds.
Better morals are found in “The New Zoo Revue” 196 episodes 1972-1977 and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Let’s not forget all the Bert and Ernie questionability.
There is an animated cartoon series of The Swiss Family Robinson that runs for quite a few episodes. It’s beautifully animated, they teach strong family morals. They pray. Every episode teaches a real life skill (they vary in actual practical use but are all very interesting). It’s accessible to all ages.
Also several old good Bible cartoons.
There’s a newer series that undoubtedly has some errors in it, but does a pretty commendable job of teaching the American Revolution called Liberty’s Kids. A few episodes need parental guidance and might want children to be a bit older, but it’s generally very good, and even notes some of the Prussian involvement that got covered up in school (notably, one is voiced by Schwarzenegger, whose voiceover accent is, funny enough, hilariously bad).
Transformers G1 has some shockingly based episodes (decades ahead of their time, and also some pretty weird episodes), including one where a media mogul flips perceptions of the autobots and deceptions in order to get massive wealth gifts from Megatron, who doesn’t honor his promise.
Pretty easy to hit a few hundred hours if desired, especially with rewatches.
If there’s not a thread on this for parents, there should be.
Correct. Here, with my rebuttal, is the bizarre speculation that is pretending to be real criticism. When someone makes a decoy criticism that's easy to debunk it's often because they want real criticism, such as the wokeness that PBS specializes in, to go unnoticed. Maybe PBS is in bigger trouble than has been announced, stay tuned ....
Add: Due to my later research in this thread, I should say the OP as given, without the added craziness, passes muster because Sesame Street has identified itself, in its Arabic version, with "open sesame" since 1979. So the above version is sufficiently supportible by facts in spite of the longer version not being so.
I thought it was "says a me" as in "so says I". In this article they talk about how this is an "incantation" to open the cave and...well sort of...? The people playing the parts are speaking English with an accent. The leader or whoever gives the command at the cave entrance was actually probably just yelling to someone to open it like any gate and because English is "not his first language" he command "Open! Says a me!" Because he's the leader but it just sounds like "open sesame!" 😆
Here's a real world example, go talk to anyone who speaks English as a second language and ask them to say something. A Puerto Rican says "thanks" like "tanks". Koreans say "high five" like "haipiebuh". Asians saying "lululemon" could have you thinking they're casting spells!
"Sesame" = "says a me" because Arab is ESL speaking English and has an accent.
I do like the magic stuff and all that. This feels like a troll post though 😆
Eh, meh
I don’t know about all that, it has gone BS woke in last decade, but so has all media. All the good conservatives and strong Patriots here I bet are like me and grew up on Sesame Street. I can’t say the alphabet without singing it! 🤣😂
Either you wake up to reality by around 20, or you don’t.
interesting post on what they are introducing to children. in 1983, in the special episode where Sesame Street goes to the NY Metropolitan Art Museum, they introduce the ancient Egyptian religion with a fallen star child character who is under a curse by a demon and I think it has to do with the Osiris mysteries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RB7CkNW0YU
skip to 30 min. 35 sec. marker
We always suspected Bert and Ernie; no way those two are brothers, they don’t look anything like each other.
These kind of memes make us look stupid. I agree pbs should not exist but this sesame witch stuff is plain ignorant imo
The part about “Sesame” may not be true, but I remember quite a few shows as a child teaching us to say “abra cadabra, alakazam!”
That is, “Allah Kazaam!” or “Allah is great!”
This would usually be when they were doing some sort of magic trick. So any time a child was walking around and went to innocently “do magic” (a sin), they’d should “Allah is great!”
So now, the real questions are what do “abra cadabra” and “sesame” (edit: just saw the PDW full text and your take on it there, Swamp) mean when enunciated (not translated) in Arabic? Anything?
I don’t necessarily remember where these things came from precisely. They were fairly widespread, but Sesame Street probably was one of them, and am fairly sure Henson Productions generally did this kind of stuff often.
Paul Reuben’s Pee Wee’s Playhouse, on the other hand, would have a blue Genie (or Djinni, or “Demon”) shout “Mecca Lecca Hi, Mecca Himey Ho!” which may mean something closer to “I wave my butt at Mecca!”, to which…
u/#kek
While I’m not sure about the OP meme, specifically, there seems to be smoke in the area. Also the image itself is nightmare fuel.
u/SwampRangers u/Malachi3vs16
Edit: Some more on the other words common to this stuff:
Some real bad crap seems to be “occulted” in all this stuff. “Alakazam” is a definite, but the rest likely vary in accuracy. I alternate between thinking it needs to be called out and that it’s better to ignore it, but Elijah didn’t ignore the prophets of Baal, so..
So....have a look at the "amazing Mumford"
Note the witch splash screen.
Note the top hat - often associated with hidden hand controllers (all over reset pics)
He's going to pull a rabbit... symbol of what? Out of the hat...
He recites: Allah - pb sandwiches...why of ALL possible words, Allah?
just noticed that I had not noticed this thread. great point you made on the hidden stuff going on in children’s television. I more remember the benign skits, but that’s how they get a few suckered in by the subconscious mind, mixing in the occult with the fun stuff.
👀👀
Good questions. Abracadabra is hotly disputed but may come from Semitic roots related to avad and davar, meaning "it is done as I say"; other etymologies exist. This would also work in Arabic.
For alakazam, an archived link from Wiktionary goes back to Alagazam in 1881, from California and then Hawaii. Thus the Arabic origin is likely a later rationalization; "Kazaam" is not an independent word (great is "akbar"). Sesame Street popularized the variation that I'd spell "a la peanut butter sandwiches", which is pronounced as if taking the first part from the French "a la"; but it's not a completely innocent incantation either.
Yes, a genie repeating "Mecca" is likely to be intentional and the remaining syllables might be nonsense but might have a hidden meaning; and there's enough data about Paul Reubens to smoke more out there.
There are at least three issues, one being what is the historical meaning of a word, one being what can be evidenced as an attempt to insert new meaning into it, and one being what can be speculated upon. The difficulty is that as elite researchers we should keep them separate. We don't get to treat our speculations as necessarily intentional, and we don't get to treat what looks intentional as necessarily mainstreamed.
However, we can definitely say that "shazam" was coined in 1940 with explicit reference to paganism ("Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury"); so that gives us a potential trail for interpreting the earlier "alagazam" and variations. And who knows, shazam might someday get us all the way back to seshem (allegedly sesame)! I believe that everything hidden will be revealed.
And here's a more direct link: Arabic Sesame Street is called "Iftah Ya Simsim", Open Sesame, 1979, so that indicates intentional reference to genies, which can be inferred to apply to the English version as well. I might also accept that sesame has some old thread of arcane meaning; but it's not likely to be an Egyptian one. Again, my take is to put a restraint on headstrong, panicky allegations and to counsel people toward evidentiary, viable criticism.
Add: "hocus pocus" and "presto" are correct as you say.
Add: The "seshemu" claim seems to go back to Barbara Walker, Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 1986, from which I reconstructed this erratic snippet:
So unless Walker's sources can be traced I don't think the connection of intercourse to seshemu or seshemu to sesame should be sustained, as they're not independently verifiable but are likely to be imaginative.
And we haven't touched on Disney's Aladdin and the thousand-year disputed etymology of Disney.
“it is done as I say"
That sounds very similar to the meaning of “Amen”, except amen is tied to prayer, and to “as YOU say”, while this one is tied to magic.
Interesting.
Good additional, and agreed. As noted, I have little solid there, so most of it shouldn’t be taken as “true” per se, just pointing at a lot of smoke.
Derp. Yes. It’s been a while since I did that dig. Really thought I did find something solid on it, but yes it might not have been “great”. Shaq (father is Muslim) did a movie called Kazaam also. (Or perhaps Sinbad made it, for some of us)
Yes. For completeness, here is the searchable Magic Words, which attributes the sesame link to Walker's encyclopedia, 1983, so I think that pretty well confirms that her odd interpretation is the source. A Japanese site that mentions this source seems to attribute the seshemu data to (Wallis) Budge page 58, but naming that respectable author could mean many different books. The closest hit I find is Gods of the Egyptians in which Shesemu (not seshemu) is a divine butcher on page 50; that's much different and doesn't justify any of Walker's wild assumptions.
Funny, the next Magic Words after "sesame" are "shabukalakazam", "shallakazam", "sharing", and "shazam". Coincidence of course.
Last bizarre point: "Allahu akbar" in Hebrew cognates is just "El-Gibbor", a Biblical term for the great God. Arabic Christians have no trouble referring "Allahu akbar" to the Christian God and meaning the same thing as the Hebrew, but that's not yet the majority definition of "Allah".
you wrote this well, & SwampRangers really knows how to do deep dives! Taqo also made a key comment about magic in Sesame Street.
sorry to have missed out on this discussion. I was not ready a month ago to do an etymology study for these terms. Elijah — right, he confronted directly.
here’s a quick origination study, and then a cultural /spiritual application for today.
in the Old English and Middle English, there’s no connection to magic or the occult.
Sesame comes from the Latin & Greek sesamum for the plant. https://www.etymonline.com/word/sesame
I checked, no hidden Rosicrucian meaning.
Sesame Street has its plusses and minuses.
(plusses) It made learning fun. “Would you like to buy an ‘O’” alphabet letters skit with street salesman wearing a long coat, acting clandestinely, hiding what one would think would be counterfeit watches and jewelry. But this guy had a letter “O” to sell from inside his trench coat, and it “only cost a nickel”. Ernie: “A nickel?” salesman: “Shhhhhhh, riiiiiiight”. ____ Also, they did have some phonics lessons:: “m” ___ “op” ____ “mop”
(minuses) woke culture imposed secular values on children in post ‘80s episodes, and they added as well newer characters that I don’t think are good for children to watch.
Neil Postman wrote back in ‘85 “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” that American society placed too much focus on entertainment. God was not first in our lives. Postman was not a downer on humor. There’s humor in creation, the duckbill platypus for example, and some irony in God’s Word.
Postman noted that children started out with Romper Room, then Sesame Street, and some graduated to The Electric Company, or “Power House” which was scientifically oriented. This was all TV entertainment and not family time projects, so Postman was not a big fan of TV entertainment education.
The big Sesame Street intro into the Egyptian Mysteries was in 1983 primetime show aired for the whole family: “Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art”. (don’t eat the pictures = the “Cookie Monster” portion of just 1 part of the theme.). ____ The big problem with this show is the ancient Egyptian mystery religion Osiris theme, that by a good heart one can be transformed to join the gods in the heavens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RB7CkNW0YU
At 14. in. 57 sec. into the TV movie, Big Bird and Snuffleupagus (the elusive woolly mammoth) both hear a child / spirit crying in the Met Museum. It’s an Egyptian princes under a spell who explains his situation. He is under a curse and can never reach his place in the stars unless he solves a riddle and tells the correct answer of the riddle to the demon watching over the child. “Where does today meet yesterday.”(in a museum!)
Big Bird thought it through and came up with the answer. After presenting the answer, the first demon disappears, and then Osiris appears who weighs the child’s heart on scale, weighed against a feather. The Egyptian prince child then ascends stairs and gets transformed into a star, joining his place in the sky with the gods.
So they introduced ancient Egyptian religious lore in the early ‘80s.
I think it is wise to avoid most Sesame Street, especially modern episodes. Some of the older ‘70s skits are funny, but whole episodes? — not worth it to put all that into children’s minds.
Better morals are found in “The New Zoo Revue” 196 episodes 1972-1977 and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Maximum effort!
Let’s not forget all the Bert and Ernie questionability.
There is an animated cartoon series of The Swiss Family Robinson that runs for quite a few episodes. It’s beautifully animated, they teach strong family morals. They pray. Every episode teaches a real life skill (they vary in actual practical use but are all very interesting). It’s accessible to all ages.
Also several old good Bible cartoons.
There’s a newer series that undoubtedly has some errors in it, but does a pretty commendable job of teaching the American Revolution called Liberty’s Kids. A few episodes need parental guidance and might want children to be a bit older, but it’s generally very good, and even notes some of the Prussian involvement that got covered up in school (notably, one is voiced by Schwarzenegger, whose voiceover accent is, funny enough, hilariously bad).
Transformers G1 has some shockingly based episodes (decades ahead of their time, and also some pretty weird episodes), including one where a media mogul flips perceptions of the autobots and deceptions in order to get massive wealth gifts from Megatron, who doesn’t honor his promise.
Pretty easy to hit a few hundred hours if desired, especially with rewatches.
If there’s not a thread on this for parents, there should be.
thanks for Liberty’s Kids, Swiss Family Robinson, and based Transformers G1! good to know what is available & is best for our youth
good idea about a thread, maybe a thread post-precipice can be started for books, music, and media
Correct. Here, with my rebuttal, is the bizarre speculation that is pretending to be real criticism. When someone makes a decoy criticism that's easy to debunk it's often because they want real criticism, such as the wokeness that PBS specializes in, to go unnoticed. Maybe PBS is in bigger trouble than has been announced, stay tuned ....
Add: Due to my later research in this thread, I should say the OP as given, without the added craziness, passes muster because Sesame Street has identified itself, in its Arabic version, with "open sesame" since 1979. So the above version is sufficiently supportible by facts in spite of the longer version not being so.
gay.
Link:
https://lovemagicworks.com/open-sesame-meaning-of-a-very-strange-magic-formula/
I thought it was "says a me" as in "so says I". In this article they talk about how this is an "incantation" to open the cave and...well sort of...? The people playing the parts are speaking English with an accent. The leader or whoever gives the command at the cave entrance was actually probably just yelling to someone to open it like any gate and because English is "not his first language" he command "Open! Says a me!" Because he's the leader but it just sounds like "open sesame!" 😆
Here's a real world example, go talk to anyone who speaks English as a second language and ask them to say something. A Puerto Rican says "thanks" like "tanks". Koreans say "high five" like "haipiebuh". Asians saying "lululemon" could have you thinking they're casting spells!
"Sesame" = "says a me" because Arab is ESL speaking English and has an accent.
I do like the magic stuff and all that. This feels like a troll post though 😆
Eh, meh I don’t know about all that, it has gone BS woke in last decade, but so has all media. All the good conservatives and strong Patriots here I bet are like me and grew up on Sesame Street. I can’t say the alphabet without singing it! 🤣😂 Either you wake up to reality by around 20, or you don’t.
What it has become. Ali Baba would be so disappointed. And just to think of that sesami is food.
interesting post on what they are introducing to children. in 1983, in the special episode where Sesame Street goes to the NY Metropolitan Art Museum, they introduce the ancient Egyptian religion with a fallen star child character who is under a curse by a demon and I think it has to do with the Osiris mysteries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RB7CkNW0YU skip to 30 min. 35 sec. marker
The teeth should have been more pointy, then they'd really look demonic.
40 years ago sesame Street was wonderful. Writing was superb. Watched every minute with my kids. It changed when its creator died.