Magical alphabet

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A magical alphabet, or magickal alphabet,[1] is a set of letters used primarily in occult magical practices and other esoteric traditions. These alphabets serve various purposes, including encoding secret messages, conducting rituals, creating amulets or talismans, casting spells, and invoking spiritual entities.[2][3][4] Several magical alphabets, including the Celestial Alphabet, Malachim, and Transitus Fluvii, are based on the Hebrew alphabet, which itself has a long history of use in mystical and magical contexts.[4][5]

As ordered letter-sets, magical alphabets are distinct from the various non-alphabetic, non-sequential "magical/magickal scripts" which contain symbols representing entities, festivals, ritual objects or practices, alchemical/astrological/astronomical objects or events,[6] or other ideas,[7] rather than sounds. Some alphabets, like runes, may serve both purposes,[8] thus acting as both alphabets and logographic/ideographic scripts according to their use at the time.

Examples[edit]

The following are examples of alphabets considered magical/magickal:

A natural language's alphabet can also be used for spellwork or encryption,[9] so the above list cannot be exclusive.

Using such an alphabet may or may not involve using the language from which it came, e.g. users might transcribe their own language's words between its alphabet and another. Some traditions, but not all, expect members to inscribe their own tools;[10] thus it is possible an item's owner might not be able to read it.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Zell-Ravenheart 2004, pp. 144–146; Bogdan 2012, p. 12; Bailey 2018, pp. 22–23.
  2. ^ Buckland 1986.
  3. ^ Pennick 1992, back cover.
  4. ^ a b Rabinovitch & Lewis 2004, p. 153.
  5. ^ Pennick 1992, pp. 39–42.
  6. ^ E.g. 🜁 Air 🜂 Fire 🜄 Water 🜃 Earth, the four classical elements.
  7. ^ E.g. Pentagram, or Pentacle, representing the human essence and role in the universe; the lower four points are said to stand for the four classical material elements, while the fifth point on top is said to stand for either Aether or Spirit. E.g., Tyson 2001, p. 147: "In the system of the Golden Dawn, the top point of the pentagram is assigned to Spirit, the upper-left point to Air, the upper-right point to Water, the lower-left point to Earth, and the lower-right point to Fire. These elemental forces are summoned and banished by projecting the pentagram in various ways."
  8. ^ As for instance the sundry rune-poems discuss the runes in terms of their names' meanings rather than their sounds – though most stanzas' first line "head-rhymes" (alliterates) with that sound, the rune's name being the first word.(Page 1999, p. 188.) E.g. the first line of the Old English rune poem, "ᚠ [Feoh] bẏþ frofur fira gehƿẏlcum", uses the rune for its name's meaning "wealth": "Wealth is a comfort to all men".(Page 1999, p. 65.) A runic talisman might use that single rune to attract wealth. In the sole extant manuscript of the poem Beowulf, the ēðel rune ᛟ was used as a logogram for the word ēðel (meaning "homeland", or "estate"), per Page 1999, p. 221. Cf. Lebensrune as a symbol for life or (inverted) for death.
  9. ^ Including both the original Latin alphabet (see Sator square, Abracadabra amulet) and the modern Latin alphabet, as with the spells and talismans in the folk magic book: Hohman, John George (1820). Der lange verborgene Freund [The Long Lost Friend ]. (published first in German, then in English). Reading, Pennsylvania. (Entire text online; Internet Archive copy of 1850 edition; printed replicas in each language are still sold.) Viz. the amulet at p. 17, resembling the Abracadabra triangle.
  10. ^ Buckland 1986, p. 57.

Works cited[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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