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Introduction: Open Sesame!

A woodcutter named Ali Baba chanced upon a dozen men making their way through the forest. Afraid they were robbers, he climbed into a tree. Their leader called out, ‘Open sesame!’ and there opened a portal in the rocks into which all the men entered. The door shut behind them. After some time, the forty men emerged, all laden with goods. ‘Shut sesame!’ the captain called, and he closed the door, then he and his men turned back through the forest.

The woodcutter, from his tree, thought about what he had seen. He and his family had little food and no money, despite his brother, Cassim, who was wealthy but mean. So, remembering the magic words, Ali Baba approached the door in the rocks and called out, ‘Open sesame!’ On entering through the door, he found a vault of glittering treasure: gold coins, overflowing pearls and piles of precious jewels. He took all the gold he could carry, called ‘Shut sesame!’ and closed the door.

Paraphrased from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

‘Open sesame’, ‘hey presto’, ‘abracadabra’: your wish is granted. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if words could really do this? Well, they can, and these miraculous words are known as Switchwords. These powerful declarations switch on the subconscious mind, helping you to manifest what you want in life. Forming a verbal code that the subconscious understands, Switchwords act immediately to align the subconscious mind with our conscious intention. When we are together with ourselves, aligned and resonating – completely ‘switched on’ – we are truly in possession of our own power, able to attract what we want in life. These power-words work more effectively than conscious affirmations (see here); they work in much the same way as mantras – the sound vibrations of the words, which are often not literal requests, affect the universal energy around us, so we become not only aligned within ourselves, but with a benevolent universe that can grant our wishes. In this way, Switchwords are a form of manifesting based on the Law of Attraction (see here): like attracts like. Put out a positive, authentic wish to the universe, and it is really possible to receive it – with just one word.

We use common words as ‘switches’ to open doors every day. Just as Ali Baba learned that ‘open sesame’ was the magic formula that unlocked the vault of treasures, the simple ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ were the magic words of our childhoods. ‘Say the magic word,’ we would be instructed in order to get what we wanted, whether it was a Christmas present, a piece of cake or the permission to play with a toy. Parents and other caregivers constantly set these magic words as a test, in the knowledge that we will need them to traverse the paths of communication as adults – please in order to get, thank you in order to politely receive. Like ‘please’, a Switchword is the ‘get’ word of magic, getting the subconscious and the universe onside so we can manifest whatever we choose – without meditation, guilt or bargaining.

The manifesting magic of words is seeded in the translation of the magician’s favourite, ‘abracadabra’, from the Aramaic avra kehdabra, ‘I create as I speak’ or ‘I create like the word’; in Hebrew, it may come from a phrase meaning, ‘It came to pass as it was spoken.’ The earliest written evidence of ‘abracadabra’ is the 2nd-century medical poem De medicina praecepta by the Roman physician Quintus Serenus Sammonicus, who recommended the word be written in the shape of an inverted triangle, beginning with ‘abracadabra’ on the first line, then for every line under it one letter from the end of the word was dropped, leaving just the first ‘a’ at the point of the triangle. Worn as an amulet to cure disease, the funnel shape of the words symbolised sickness being drawn downwards out of the body, vanishing into nothing; as if by magic, the illness would disappear. The magic words we associate with conjurors, like Switchwords, are used to make something appear or disappear, to access a special place or to magically transform reality – words are the passwords between this world and another realm. ‘Hocus pocus’ has its origins in the Latin phrase hoc est corpus, recited as part of the Eucharist when the wine and bread become the blood and body of Christ, signifying the magical transformation of matter from one form to another. Ali Baba’s ‘open sesame’ may translate as ‘heaven, open’. Switchwords, as you will see, are our magic key to opening up a whole world of possibilities.

The Three Switchwords You Need to Know Now

Here are the ‘manifesting’ Switchwords to bring you what you want:

TOGETHER – The ‘master’ Switchword for everything

DIVINE – Asks for a miracle

DIVINE ORDER – Helps you do anything efficiently and restores order from chaos

BRING – Brings you whatever you ask for

What can Switchwords do for me?

Switchwords can benefit all aspects of your life, from work and creative projects to relationships and finances (see Chapter 3, which gives Switchwords by life area, here). Here are just some of the benefits.

Switchwords can:

• Help deal with pain, low mood and stress-related ailments

• Support efforts to break negative habits

• Promote sleep and peace of mind

• Help problem-solve, and inspire creativity

• Boost leadership qualities

• Manifest money

• Attract love and friendship

• Deepen existing relationship bonds

• Assist education and study

• Support healing

• Combine with existing therapies such as Reiki and NLP

Although, as with any other therapy, Switchwords cannot claim to cure illness or take away pain, working with these words has led to a reduction in symptoms for some people, and helped them manage their pain and associated low mood more confidently and effectively. There are also many empowering Switchwords, to boost leadership qualities, bring courage, and engender happiness and calm. While we cannot be happy all of the time, we can adjust how we deal with difficult circumstances.

The case studies throughout this book give examples of exactly how people with a range of experiences have used Switchwords to turn negatives into positives and receive what they need in life.

How do Switchwords work?

Switchwords operate through vibration. Saying, intending or chanting these words of power changes our body’s vibration so that we resonate at the same frequency as the goal we desire. When we say, intend, chant or sing Switchwords we create sympathetic resonance and attract what we want. According to the Law of Attraction, like attracts like. When our thoughts, words, actions and beliefs become what we aspire to, we attract this to us like a magnet. The Law of Attraction, a philosophical movement that emerged in the early 1900s, is the foundation of the international bestseller The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (see the Appendix, here).

‘Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything.’

ALDOUS HUXLEY

When Switchwords are intended through thought, speech, chanting or singing, a vibration is created. Sound healer Petra Galligan describes Switchwords as an echo – a sound that reverberates after the initial sound has stopped. The energy pattern created by the word’s sound vibration continues – and so the Switchword replicates itself. This idea of replication through sound is embedded in Richard Dawkins’s concept of the ‘meme’. Meaning ‘to imitate’, memes are ideas or agents of culture that self-propagate like genes, transmitting from brain to brain through the senses. Sound memes, such as melodies and catchphrases, are transmitted through pronunciation. Like a virus, a meme can be considered a living organism that spreads beyond the speaker through replication. If we consider that Switchwords are a type of sound meme, it follows that when we use Switchwords we send out a vibration through sound that communicates beyond the self, creating an environment that is aligned with our purpose, bringing the desired result.

The Switchword COPY resonates with Dawkins’s meme theory, as it’s recited to manifest pregnancy – in other words, to continue a genetic lineage. To copy is to replicate; to repeat the word COPY is to continue the replication of cells.

When we repeat Switchwords there’s also a shift in the brain. Our attention shifts from the word to the sound of the word, the meaning then falls away and you have just the vibration. This is known as semantic satiation. Have you noticed that when you look at a word over and over again it begins to appear less meaningful? Run your eye over words you’ve added to a Scrabble board (or cast your mind back to writing 100 lines of ‘I will not talk in class’ at school) and the words seem to melt into a pattern of shapes. They are simply form and sound – vibrational objects. This is why it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand why particular words act as Switches – we do not need to make a link between the semantics and the effect. The effect is created by the sound and feel of the word, which then aligns your energy to manifest your goal.

Switchwords as mantras – the vibration of transformation

The power of words to transform reality through sound vibration is illustrated by mantras (the word ‘mantra’ derives from Sanskrit, a vibrational language, and means ‘instrument of thought’). If we accept the loose definition that a mantra is a melodic pattern of words repeated to bring about a change in consciousness, reciting a mantra aims to create an altered reality. This is an important concept in Switchwording: the idea that spoken words can be transformational, creating an effect outside of the self, is fundamental to the belief that they will work and manifest a chosen desire. Once spoken and repeated as a mantra, a Switchword gains its own momentum. A Sufi saying states, ‘You stop doing the mantra, and the mantra starts doing you.’ In other words, the mantra manifests your intention, and it comes back to you as an experience. Words, thoughts and beliefs, recited with intention, create reality.

Sanskrit scholar Dr Douglas Brooks comments, ‘Sanskrit tells us what Nature shows us. A limited number of rules gives an arbitrarily large number of outcomes. The way Nature goes about its business, Sanskrit goes about its language.’ This reference to ‘a limited number of rules gives an arbitrarily large number of outcomes’ is suggestive of chaos theory and the butterfly effect proposed by the American mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz. The theory, in very simple terms, is that one subtle event in one part of the world can effect a greater change elsewhere. The energy generated by the subtle movement of a butterfly wing potentially results in a tornado on the other side of the world. As a mantra is action and intention, it activates the energy of the universe, which responds in kind, bringing to us an event, a realisation or an experience greater in energy than the energy of the original intention. A single word, repeated, may bring us much more than an echo of the word. It brings us a result that is a tangible expression of our desire.

Why 10, 28 or 108 chants?

You can say a Switchword as a mantra by simply repeating it as often as you like, or you can go for the traditional numbers of chant in mantra, which are 10, 28 or 108. The number 108 is sacred in Vedic philosophy. There are 108 Upanishads, and 108 is the number of steps from the material world to that of the divine in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. There are also 108 names of Shiva, the Hindu destroyer-god, and 108 volumes of the Kangyur (‘The Translation of the Word’), the Tibetan sacred text that is believed to contain the words of the Buddha himself. The popular recitation of mantras 108 or 28 times (among other numbers) may also derive from the sacred Sanskrit Gayatri Mantra, a verse from the hymn of the Rigveda, which dates from around 1500–1200 BCE. The Gayatri Mantra is repeated 10, 18, 28, 108 or 1,000 times for the chanter’s spiritual development and to bring him what he wants in life. Mariasusai Dhavamony in Classical Hinduism explains, ‘It [the Gayatri Mantra] not only serves the purpose of concentrating the mind on the divine object, but also confers on the reciters the “mystical” power and the fulfilment of his desires …’

Why Switchwords succeed where affirmations can fail

The difference between Switchwording and affirmations lies in the part of the brain that they’re designed to address. Switchwords work through sound and feel, which creates a vibration that speaks to the unconscious mind; affirmations work through semantics, or the words’ meanings, which has a direct appeal to the conscious mind. Affirmations use words that exactly match our purpose (‘I am strong, I am successful’), whereas Switchwords reach behind the conscious brain to get to the part that affirmations do not reach. Does our unconscious mind truly believe ‘I am strong, I am successful’ yet? Often, there’s a part of us that’s decrying the affirmation – the cynical ‘Oh yeah’ voice within that’s yet to be convinced that we could be anything other than we are. Also, there’s a scientific reason why our positive, conscious affirmations often don’t get through. According to Mark Waldman and Andrew Newberg MD, ‘The brain barely responds to our positive words and thoughts. They’re not a threat to our survival, so the brain doesn’t need to respond as rapidly as it does to negative thoughts and words.’ The part of the brain that responds to threats to our survival (‘fight or flight’ mode, as it is known) is the amygdala, which plays a role in the unconscious memory. Perhaps the amygdala, the old, reptilian part of the brain, is involved in the response to Switchwords, resulting in a decrease in or deletion of negative memories that can drive our actions and decisions. If we try to manifest what we want in life when old memories and beliefs oppose our conscious willingness, it’s likely that our wishes won’t produce results. Switchwords align us so that we can manifest. This is why TOGETHER is the master Switchword (see here), because it brings us into perfect alignment within ourselves and attunes us to the universe.

Because Switchwords are not literal, they slip under the radar of the conscious mind without revealing their purpose. That way, the conscious mind can’t intervene, question, analyse or disrupt their flow. It can’t hinder the flow of energy or block our ability to manifest. For example, the affirmation ‘I take positive action’ has just that literal meaning. The universal Switchword for the same effect is: NOW.

Take the Switchword SUFFER. Its meaning is to manage prosperity – so SUFFER is quite the opposite of what we would get with an affirmation (such as ‘My life is filled with abundance’). This doesn’t mean you can’t continue to use your positive affirmations if you want to – they can be very helpful in reinforcing your integrity in stressful situations – but, in my experience, Switchwords work more quickly and more profoundly.

For this reason, Switchwords appear to have more in common with mantras than with positive affirmations. As Switchwords work through vibrational rather than literal meaning, they share their purpose with mantras – the first mantras were constructed according to their sound, rooted in the seed syllable ‘Om’ or pranava, meaning ‘sound’ and ‘humming’. An affirmation may have a sound or vibrational aspect – such as rhyme, assonance or alliteration (‘Beat the others to be the best’; ‘What you resist persists’) – yet these effects are often secondary, intended only as an aide-mémoire. Again, with Switchwords we don’t need to understand the words, know them or have any personal point of reference for them to work. They operate on the vibration of sound, rather than the anchor of conscious knowing. Philosopher Frits Staal (1930–2012), who did not believe that the words of mantras had much literal meaning, compared them to birdsong. While we may not understand the language, we acknowledge it as a form of communication through sound.

Believe it or not … Switchwords work

Believing that your Switchwords will work and trusting that what you’ve wished for will be delivered gives energy to your manifesting, but even with minimal belief these amazing words still appear to work. Here’s just one example.

The morning after I sent out my regular Switchword email to my group, two recipients immediately replied. They had won exactly the same amount of money after chanting the Switch phrases ‘FIND-DIVINE-COUNT-ON’ and ‘ELOHIM-DIVINE’, which I’d included in my email for the first time. The response from Jon, a teacher who was curious about my interests rather than enamoured, was the first to ping into my inbox. I’d included him on my mailing list because he’s a friend and I knew he could do with more cash. He wrote, ‘I did it [FIND-DIVINE-COUNT-ON] in a rather cynical way and got a £25 payout on premium bonds today!’ He’s now working with REACH to find a long-lost book. Next was Rhonda’s email. Rhonda is a kindred spirit who thoroughly believes in angels and manifesting. She chose ELOHIM-DIVINE as her Switch-pair, which asks for a miracle from God or the universe. Plagued by money worries for months, she wrote: ‘Liz, I won £25 on yesterday’s Lotto!! Most I’ve ever won. Started playing two months ago. Do you think it’s the Switchword working already? Last night I repeated it 28 times. I am on the train to work feeling very wealthy!’

Perhaps Jon’s lack of attachment to the outcome actually helped him; he was willing to be open-minded and try, and he received a small reward as a result. Perhaps Rhonda’s total belief helped her; she was dedicated to her Switchword practice and it paid off. Whichever, it doesn’t matter. Two very different people had exactly the same result after chanting their Switchwords, and the universe responded regardless of their level of belief. All you need is the belief that it’s worth trying: the universe takes care of the rest. What do you have to lose?

Ellen, firmly in Jon’s sceptical camp, shared her story with me: ‘I was looking for a gardening book and I’d searched everywhere. Then your email arrived and I used REACH to find it (although I was sceptical). I set a time limit of that day and when it didn’t turn up, I felt my scepticism was justified. However, the following day I was walking past a bookcase that I had already searched through, and there it was. Did the same with a mislaid bicycle pump and found it almost straight away. Scepticism overruled (for now!)’

While a successful track record obviously helps belief (the more we succeed, the more we trust in the process), research also suggests that familiarity alone generates positive thoughts. Even if we’re only able to carry the basic belief that Switchwords are worth trying – but don’t necessarily believe that they will work – we cultivate belief as a by-product. This is known as the exposure effect. We have positive thoughts about things we’ve seen or heard (or experienced through other senses) before. This is true, of course, in advertising (which is why we’re bombarded with repeated adverts) and also in music. A refrain or chorus has the effect of enchanting the brain – the exposure effect of repetition means we come to like what we’re familiar with. So this is part of the belief factor in Switchwords: the more familiar we become with the Switchwords we choose, the more we generate an inner belief that they will work, whether we’re conscious of this or not.

Tip: Use CARE to remember the parts of this book you need.

There’s a Switchword to help you store information – including Switchwords. This word is CARE. You might imagine this as the ‘save’ function on a computer. CARE helps you bank information for retrieval later. Whenever you pause in your reading of this book, say, think or chant the Switchword CARE to help you store the information you need. When you want to remember a Switchword or any part of this book later on, use the ‘finding’ Switchword REACH, which retrieves whatever you need, when you need it.

Ready for the next step?