Mantra

I won't talk about psychic ability, though I admire the works of Katsuhiro Otomo. It's not

that the phenomenon being labeled as pseudoscience or hoax, no! Any skill or ability

don't need believe system to work, if some people deny believe system, then they

should stop to use any currency system a.k.a money, it works with believe system, you

have to trust it firmly, and modern people all around the planet are utilizing it, with or

without our consent.

As an applied science avid hobbyist, and math enthusiast, I always open my mind with

any probability of brand new invention, innovation, or application, though it may far

fetched by any daily life, commoner perspectives.

Irrational, pseudo science, illogical, many label may be put on any cultural skills and

individual ability of nomad hunters, the mountainous nomad, desert nomad, pole

nomad, or sea nomad, and that act won't help us, the urban modern highly educated

people, to learn from them, to learn the possibility, or probability of any useful

knowledge for modern civilized world.

So, what are we gonna talking about? Yes, the "Mantra". I won't tell how it works, but

more about why this kinda act or product, was so famous and notorious among

mankind's legendary folktale. The mantra is the product of language, no other species

may maintain the ability of creating mantra, because of their way to communicate or

interact not necessarily using language, by human species criteria. And language is the

product of our conscious mind, not brain. Brain is the physical, and mind is the non

physical aspect, that's not the same.

Modern people may ignore the magnificent aspect of language, yes because we are too

often using it, everyday, we talking to ourselves, and other fellow mankind. This

magnificent ability is specialized on our species only, at least until now. The process of

building this magnificent ability is so complicated, million years of evolutionary moment,

while not many evidence may become our source, not such as any physical things, like

fossilized bone or ancient buildings.

Even before talking into outside world, we tend to talking inside our mind, and that's a

language. We think in our language, subconsciously. Even if you're a multilingual

speaker, polyglot maybe, you have to think inside your mind, in the language you talk

into other. So the polyglot are called as genius because the processing to translate from

one language into others need swift switching inside your brain processor, each text

with their own context, and constructing it to producing meaningful sentences. That's the

beauty of our mind, though maybe not many people may know this complicated process

inside their brain.

To understand the process of language development, we can do this by breaking down

the human language faculty into its component characteristics. In the 1950s and 60s,

Charles Hockett articulated what he called the Design Features of Language, a set of

criteria that distinguish different kinds of animal communications systems from each

other.

1. The use of a vocal-auditory tract -- humans emit noises from their bodies to

communicate, and do not emit chemical trails or flashes of light as other species

do. ( 65 million years ago)

2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: human speech spreads

through the air in all directions, and is received by anyone within the field of

broadcast. ( 65 million years ago)

3. Transitoriness -- human speech fades rapidly and can only be received roughly

at the time of transmission. ( 65 million years ago)

4. Interchangeability -- a human has the ability to both send and receive the same

signal. This is not true of some kinds of insect communication, for example. ( 65

million years ago)

5. Total feedback -- a human has the ability to hear oneself. ( 65 million years ago)

6. Specialization -- human language sounds are specialized for the use of language

and do not in general have any other functional use. ( 25 million years ago)

7. Semanticity -- human speech signals can be matched with specific predictable

meanings ( 25 million years ago)

8. Arbitrariness -- the relationship between the semantic content of the speech

signal and the acoustic form of that signal is essentially arbitrary (onomatopoeia

are the exceptions that prove the rule) ( 25 million years ago)

9. Discreteness -- human speech signals can be broken down into discrete units

that do not bear any meaning in and of themselves (namely, phonemes) ( 2- 3

million years ago)

10. Duality of patterning -- meaningless units of sound are combined to create

meaningful words. ( 1 million years ago)

11. Productivity - language can be used to create new and unique meanings that

have never been uttered before. ( 1 million years ago)

12. Traditional transmission -- the actual words of human languages are not innate,

but are rather trasmitted from one generation to the next via culture. ( 450- 500 k

years ago)

13. Displacement -- human speech can be used outside of the contexts for which the

signal was originally designed (all kinds of natural language negation might fall

under this phenomenon). ( 450- 500 k years ago)

So, evolutionarily modern human language might have arisen about half a million years

ago. And that's how some take it for granted ability, language, is not that simple,

apparently.

How to understand the transfer of power, sense, or energy by language? Have you ever

read a novel, are you feeling the storyline? Able to describe the nuance of the textual

narration? Have you ever feeling rage after somebody shouting at you with insulting

language? Do you feel the language by context and the tone? Yes, that's the power

transfer of language construction. If you're insulting somebody with Sundanese or

English loudly, and that person keep silent with confused, you may meet a Javanese or

Bataknese, he don't understand the context of that language, having different context

language construction may cause the blocking of your message transfer.

By metaphysical perspectives, added with focus, diaphragmatic breathing and rigorous

fasting, the power of mantra lies at the content of the language, not the tone of your

voice. Chant, mantra, and praying are the products of language ability, something that

so complicated to be made.

Whether that language has inner energy, which may has effect into the atomic vibration

physical matter, organic matter, or any cosmic frequency, it will need further research.

I'm open for discussion and experimentation, as usual. This kinda experiment will

require a high level of objectivity, it will involving the discipline of linguistic, quantum

physics, biology, chemistry, mechanic, and math probability.

No need any rational or scientific explanation as long as it works. Let it works, let the

people call it as magic or voodoo, let it happen like the work of language system, then

find the variables which support the phenomenon. The absence of evidence is not the

evidence of absence. Rationality follow function, not vice versa, because too many

knowledgeable person, with credentials, but lack of ability of utilizing their what so called

as knowledge, too bad.

Knowledge is only a rumor until it's in your muscle.

NB: Thank your for Thomas Wier ( Linguist), for the explanation of language evolution at

Quora.