because i like teaching,
The original spelling of "abracadabra" is "abrada ka dabra," though of course I don't know if the letter-choices are arbitrary and maybe there were other lineages through language's development through which to trace it.
Anyway, it means "vanish with the word."  It works like this:

abrada ka dabra
 brada ka dabr
  rada ka dab
   ada ka da
    da ka d
     a ka
       k


It's basically a psychological trick to get your mind to think that, whatever the item is in question, it's diminishing.  I didn't have to pick the word 'abracadabra.'  For example,

wage-slavery
 age-slaver
  ge-slave
   e-slav
    -sla
     sl


And like a lot of magic, it works on the mind leveragingly, because the conscious mind can direct the pure-imaginational realm of the subconscious or superconscious, which affects outer reality - which, in some modalities, is a no-such-thing.. to give you a clue about *why* that works.

Of course, this looks like witch's or sorceror's magic to me, because it's based in destroying something.  True magic is constructive or creative.

However, if you're getting rid of something in your own life, it's probably safe practice, because it's just a way of saying, to yourself, 'don't think about this thing anymore'...and that's how you get by just about all surmountable challenges.

I wonder if it could work in reverse?


       k
     a ka 
    da ka d
   ada ka da
  rada ka dab
 brada ka dabr
abrada ka dabra


Or how about..
  
    us
   cus r
  rcus ri
 ircus rid
circus ride

That one had some interesting connotation.  Notice that in Hebrew and Numerology, you take a systematic way of breaking down the inherent order within seemingly chaotic semantical information.  This can happen easily, because the universe is actually a semantic net, in my theory.  Chris Langan covered it well in the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, though I haven't reviewed it well enough yet to see where its flaws are.  Nonetheless, it should be an interesting epistemological exploration in the highly challenging sense..it was for me.

It was saying, "the US started, I cussed it out, now we're trying to get rid of something that irks us, and now it's a circus ride."  ..& that's the only reason my intuition led me to choose that term.