My aim in writing 'Spelling Synergetics' is to communicate one of the core lessons from David Abram's book, The Spell of the Sensuous. What I learned is that the phonetic alphabet is a technology. The ABCs we learned as children originated from a primordial split between humans and the more-than-human world of Nature. Marshall McLuhan analyzed the ancient paradigm shift of this technology in terms of visual and acoustic space. In Part 1 , I claimed that there is a phoneti

I had a sudden realization about halfway through David Abram's magnificent book, The Spell of the Sensuous   (1997). Why didn't anyone teach me that the alphabet is a technology ? I memorized the ABCs so early in life that I never seriously questioned the origin of its symbolism. What are these occult letters - nothing but scribbles on paper (and screens) that designate sounds? There is, indeed, a certain magical effect behind written symbols, which is still conveyed in t