Thank you for this! I agree, as one of our most flexible tools of imagination and will, language (and the bits that make it up) must be wrapped up in magic, and it's clear that the creation or introduction of literacy would be very obviously magical among folks for whom words can only come out of another's mouth.

Huh, I think maybe I've heard the term Lettrism, but I didn't really have any ida what it was about, but since I enjoy calligraphy and have found Leibniz interesting ever since reading Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, I'll have to give it a look.

I was not aware of About the Mystery of Letters, but a quick skim makes it seem like a rather likely influence to the tradition. I'll have to check it out!

Cheers,
Jeff