But the Koran is not a talisman to be hung around the neck for protection against evil.

This must be an exception, they kept repeating, like a mantra or a prayer.

OK, now, I want you to be aware of all the different sensations around you, because we're going to try a voodoo experiment right now.

And I said, Oh yeah, I'll try to write a mantra that she can sing to herself to help herself go to sleep.

PRINCETON In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, world leaders repeated a soothing mantra.

He stopped being San Ernesto de la Izquierda, the saint or talisman who delivered us from injustice.

After monetarism was discredited at great cost to those countries that succumbed to it the quest began for a new mantra.

And there's something dangerous about glamour throughout most of history. When the witches cast a magic spell on you, it was not in your self interest it was to get you to act against your interest.

It is when this becomes crystal clear, and also when some worn out foreign policy paradigms, such as the fetish of a two state solution for the Israeli Palestinian conflict fail once again, that real choices will have to be made.

Had Obama become caught in the military s somber spell? Or was his presence a silent public vow, as he makes his decisions, to keep his mind fixed on matters of life and death, rather than on the next election?

Had Obama become caught in the military s somber spell? Or was his presence a silent public vow, as he makes his decisions, to keep his mind fixed on matters of life and death, rather than on the next election?