How to Do Real Things with Sacred Words—Performative Speech in World Religions

Dear Colleagues, 

This Special Issue of Religions will host contributions concerning the performative/perlocutive value that world religions often ascribe to words and to language in general. Besides the Biblical cosmogony that describes God's demiurgic activity as a way to produce being from His word, other religious traditions believe in the bounding virtue of the divine, ritual, or magical utterance. We accept all contributions that delve into the interface between language and reality with a cosmogonical, cosmological, theurgic, or magical perspective. Another dimension that can be approached in the Special Issue is the belief in the predetermining power of name giving (nomen omen), the perlocutive effect of blessing or cursing, and the superstitions connected with the utterance of taboo or apotropaic words as well as formulae. Lastly, the linguistic dimension of prophecy and predestination should also be considered in the frame of this reflection on the extralinguistic aspect of the use of sacred languages, magic formulae, and apotropaic words.

Prof. Dr. Cyril S. Aslanov
Guest Editor

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• performativity and perlocutivity
• cosmogony
• cosmology
• theurgy
• blessing and cursing
• prophetic word