Magical Alphabets: The Secrets and Significance of Ancient Scripts -- Including Runes, Greek, Ogham, Hebrew and Alchemical Alphabets

254 Pages·1992·79.21 MB·English

by  Nigel Pennick

NIGEL PENNICK
~WEISERBOOKS
l!J
Boston, MA/York Beach, ME
First American edition published in 1992 by
Red Wheel/Weiser, 1.1.('
York Beach, ME
With offices at
368 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210
www.redwhee/weiser.colll
07 06 05 04 03
14 13 12 II 10
Copyright © 1992 Nigel Pennick
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans
mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical. including pho
tocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser. Reviewers may quote
brief passages. This work was first published in England by Rider Books, a
division of Random House U.K. Limited, London, under the title The Seerel
Lor!' of Runes lind mha Ancielll Alp/wbels.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pennick, Nigel.
Magical <Jlphabets / Nigel Pennick,
p. cm,
Includes bibliographical references,
J. Magic, 2, Alphabets-Miscellanea, I. Title,
BFI623.A45P46 1992
I 33.4'3-dc20 92-7859
CIP
ISBN 0-87728-747-3
BJ
All illustrations in this book were made by the author, except for Ilumbcrs ("
7, 10, 15,24,25,36, 43, 55,56,57,61-63, which arc historic illustratiolls
from the author's picture collection,
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in the publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence
of Paper for Printer Library Materials Z39.4K-19K4.
Contents
Introduction 1
1 The Hebrew Alphabet 7
Qabalistic speculations 8
The meaning of Hebrew letters 13
Qabalistic letter manipulations 21
Hebrew magic squares and grids 31
Hebrew letter squares and other amulets 38
Medieval Hebrew-derived alphabets 39
2 The Greek Alphabet 43
Greek alphabet traditions 57
Greek gematria 60
Christian Greek gematria 64
The Etruscan script 73
3 The Runes 74
The Gothic alphabet 111
Runes and trees 116
4 The Celtic Oghams and Bardic Alphabet 123
Cryptic Oghams and other variant forms 148
The Bardic alphabets 154
The Gaelic alphabet 166
Variations in Northern European alphabets 168
5 Magical and Alchemical Alphabets 171
The Vehmgericht, the Inquisition and the alphabet
of Westphalia 177
House, holdings and stonemason's marks 182
Magic grid ciphers 186
Magical uses of the Roman alphabet 188
6 Magic Squares, Literary Labyrinths and Modern Uses 203
The magic square and the word labyrinth 203
Ramon L1ull, magic squares and the Talismanic art 212
Esoteric alphabets in the modern and post-modern
era 216
Postscript 223
Appendices I The Meaning of Hebrew Letters 229
II Greek Letter Meanings 230
III The Runic Correspondences 231
IV Runes and Tarot Major Arcana 233
V Ogham Correspondences 234
VI Gaelic Alphabet Correspondences 235
VII Magic Square Correspondences 236
VIII The 72 Names of God 237
Glossary 239
Bibliography 241

I call strong Pan. the substance of the whole,
Etherial. marine. earthly. general soul.
Undying fire; for all the world is thine,
And all are parts of thee, 0 pow'r divine ...
All parts of matter. various form'd, obey,
All Nature's change thro' thy protecting care.
And all mankind thy lib'ral bounties share,
For these where'er dispersed thro' boundless space,
Still find thy providence support their race.
The Orphic Hymn to Pan
Fig. 1. Letter-trees: the Hebrew name of God. the Buddhist mantra Hum. and the
Northern Tradition tree bind-rune.
Introduction
A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or
clearer revelation of the God-like.
HELENA BLAVATSKY
At a first, cursory glance, the subject of alphabets, secret or
otherwise, may not appear to tell us much about the world and
ourselves. But another, longer, look will show anyone of this
opinion that he or she is wrong. Alphabets are one of the most
highly sophisticated means by which we humans can try to gain
some understanding of the world, and our place within it.
When constructed properly, as all ancient ones are, each
alphabet is metaphorical in nature. Language itself is a
metaphor, for it represents objects and concepts whilst it is not
those objects and concepts themselves.
The very basis of language is metaphorical. We usually
distinguish things by comparison; our basic description of the
world around us is full of examples. When we ask, 'What is
it?', we tend to reply by making a comparison: we say it is like
another thing which resembles it in some way, real or
imagined. Within the described thing, object or quality, we
seek some character by which it can be fitted into some human
conceptual framework. We can see this process in action with
reference to the human body. We speak of a body of water, a
body of work, even a body of men. We speak of the head of a
bed, a table, a page, a nail, a stream of water, a household or
an organization. A clock has a face, just as does a playing card,
a rock and a piece of planed wood. A hill has a brow, a cup
possesses a lip, as does a crater; combs and gear-wheels have
teeth, and a page has a foot. Weapons are called arms. A race
or a contest may be divided into a number of legs. A shoe may
have a tongue, as does a certain type of carpentry joint, and
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