x Where An Magical Alphabets and Occult Ciphers by Trithemius Noves Most occultisis know the official story of the founding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1887 Dr William Wynn Westcott, a London coroner inter- ested in the occult, acquired an apparently ancient manuscript written in a cipher. He discovered the key to the cipher and made ‘transcription, This revealed the fragmen- ‘ary outlines, written in English, of ve mystical, Masonic-style rituals. Westcott invited his friend, S. L. MacGregor Mathers who was, like Westcott, an occutt- jst and a freemason, to expand the material so that the rituals could be performed. ‘The cipher or code used for the Golden Dawn manuscript was apparently very simple, involving no more than the sub- stitution of one letter for another on some regular basis. It might have been more difficult to decipher if the original author of the cipher manuscript had used the Poly-alphabetic system described in this article. Simple Codes and Ciphers A code is an system whereby the letters of a message are changed into different letters or symbols to disguise the original ‘meaning of the message, Whereas a code fan use any kind of symbol, a cipher in- volves. only the manipulation of letters. Popular books on oceultism often publish magical alphabets, which are the simple codes used by medieval and renaissance magicians to conceal the Names of Power they used in their spells and talismans. For example, the talismans which ap- pear on the cover of each issue of Magic Pentacle use the magical alphabet which ‘was printed in "The History and Practice of Magic” by Paul Christian [1870]. He says that it was used in 1785 sy the Sicilian ecultist, freemason and revolutionary Cagliostro. ‘The Magical Alphabet of Ca- sliostro is ilustrated in Figure 1, You ean use ito decipher the talismans Figure 2 shows what Cagliosiro is said 10 have escribed as the true and original symbol Of the Rese-Cross. It incorporates several letters from the same Magical Alphabet, ‘Temurah - Cipher of the Qabalah Advanced students Of tbe Qabalah wit be familiar with the method of Temurad, or Exchanges, which is nothing other than @ system of simple ciphers whereby one letter is exchanged for another. For example, the Temurah known as Athbash, turns the Hebrew alphabet over on itself thus: ABGDHWZaT YK TShR QP AyS NML Letiers in the plaintext (the original text) are exchanged for the equivalent letters in the other line. ‘The ancient Jewish prophet, Jeremiah, Used this cipher when preaching against the conquering Babylonians, turning BaBeL, the Hebrew name for Babylon, into SheShaK. Solving simple ciphers Such simple substitution codes and iphers are easily craeked, especially if the message is Jong cnough for the solver to make use of Frequency tables. A fre- queney table lists how often, on average, j the detters of any alphabet are likely 10 appear in any long message, The following Frequency ‘Table is from 2 book about‘Magical Alphabets and Occult Ciphers MAY PPP 0 To Spal POSHBM ‘Th iy ee Figure 1: THE ALPHABET QF THE MAGI spies! use af codes,"Cloak and Cypher" by D.'T. Moore and M. Waller [Harrap, 1964] It shows how often each letter of the English alphabet is likely 10 appear in any group of 1000 letters, reading dawn the eolumns: Bil $6 Ua K4 T105 HS} Y 2% X2 AR D3 P22 J1 os L3 G2 Qt N72 F229 WIS Z1 Ro Cw B14 16 MS v9 Poly-alphabetic ciphers In 1586, a brilliant French nobleman, Blaise de Vigenere, who was also. an al- chemist, an astrologer and an oecultist, developed a remarkably simpic but very successful cipher system, known by his name to this day. In simple ciphers, each letter of the plaintext is always represented by the same letter of the enciphered text. However, the de Vigenere system uscs a table of alphabets, which is shown in Fi ture 2, and a key word or phrase, which is known only to the sender and recciver of the message, so that any letter of the plain text could end up as any of several differ- cent leliersin the cipher. ‘The Hluminati File Expert erypianalysts have all sorts of methods, many of which are described in Moore and Waller, to decipher even the complex poly-alphabetic ciphers like De Vigenere’s. One of the eartiest documented deci- pherings of the De Vigenere Method is recorded in a file, named ‘The IMuminati Conspiracy, originally opened in 1805 by the British. Depot of Military Knowledge,‘Magical Alphabets and Occult Ciphers Figure 2: THE DE VIGENERE ALPHABET TABLE EFGHIJKLMNOP RSTUVWXYZ A WIVIUTTTS|RIQIPIOINIMILIK [I [1 H]G IF o h XWIVIULT/S|RIQUPIO[NIM|LIK(S [1 [H ¢ G VIXIWIVU[T|S [R[QUPIOINIMIL TK] ]T [D] D| Z]VX|WIVJUITIS|RIQIP [O|N [MIL [x [7 E FIE AIZ|Y|X}WiV|U}T|S[R|Q]P [O|N|M | F BIAIZ|Y|X|W]V]Upr|s |e Q]P ON IMI. G G cpolalz|v xX jw]v|UlT|s|RIQ|P [OINIMIL [KIT [Thi H cee UEP on T. T 1 E[D[cfeyAlZ|V|xX|Ww|VjUIT |S |R]Q|P [Oo [NIM kK GIF [E[D/C Mla lz |VIN|W|¥]OLT |S [RQ] PJOpNIAT 1 nG[FlE[b|c[nlalz|¥[xpvivU/T]s [R[QIPIO|N A M TIH/GIFElD|c[elalzly|x|wlvU[T|s]R fa] P]O]N N J MAIGIETE[D|CBIAlz|¥ (x WIV [U/T|s|R]Q]Pjo 0) SKIT THIG/FIE[DIC]a AZ /¥ |X [WIVJUPTTS|R]Q|P v LIRIS | TIMIGIETE [DICTA [Z1¥ [XW] VIUPT IS FRI MILKS] TIMG|FfE|DICIBIA[Z|¥ XIWIV[U|TIS IR. R NIMILIKIT TT IAIGIF TE [DIC |B TAIZ IY IX|WV[UPT|s s OWNIMILIKI S(T IN|GIP IE (D/C IBA [Z/¥ IX fw v|UlT] i PLO[NIM[E [KIT [TIAIGIF IE [DIC IBIA|Z]Y [XW] VU u PIOINIMIL KINI [G/F ED] |BIAlz]y[xAV|Y v RIQUPIOIN [MILI |S [1 H[G]F [EID [CIBpAyZ|Y|Xpv Ww] S[RIQIPIOINIMIL|K|T [1 [Gir fe DjclelAlZ|Vpx x T/S|RIG/P OWNIMIL IK [1 [|G] F[EfD[ CTE] AIZ[y y UT |S|RIQIr [O(N IMIL [KITT [HIGIF[E[DIC|ulalz zi V[UfT|S Rig} JOIN MIL TK] 1 IiG[F[E|bICiaya the first permanent British intetigence service, It includes a book, enciphered by the De Vigenere Method, which contains the names of conspirators who plotted a revolution in England, financed by Napo- leon, but master-minded by the leaders of & masonic group which called tself the luminati. ‘The founder of the Tihuminat, ‘Adam ‘Weishaupt, is named. All the members of the U. K. branch of the litami- nati conspiracy executed. ‘The de Vigenere Method Let us encipher the following piece of occult wisdom, ftom the secret teachings of the 23rd degree of the ancient magical ‘order, the Dragons of the Dungeon: FIVE ARE THE SPELIS IN SORCERY The Keyword will be the Name of the ‘Angelic Intelligence which rules the 23rd Grade from the Inner Planes of Power, a Coptic demon of the hierarchy of Mercury: MAKS-ED-RUM. Step 1: Print the message across your work- sheet, patting Xs for the spacts between words. Underneath it write out the Key word, over and over again, 10 make a sec- ond row. IVEXAREXTHEXSPEDLSXINXSORCERY MAKSEDRUMMAKSEDRUMMARSEDRUMMAK ASPOHDAQPTTGVAONIBUDCFULDDRLIMMagical. as and Oceult Ciphers gic Step 2: In a third row, fill in the letters for the cipher-text. You will find them in the De Vigenere Table in Figure 2, where the rows refer to the Keyword and the columns refer to the plaintext. Puta ruler across the Table under Row M, the first letter of the Keyword. Look across the Lop of the Table until you find Column F, the first letter of the plaintext. ‘Run your eye down Column F until you reach Row M. There you will find the etter H. This the first letter of the cipher. ‘Write it in at the beginning of the third row of your workshect. ‘Neat, you look along Row A [second leticr of the key word] until you find Cok ‘umn I [second letter of the plaintext]. Row A and Column I intersect at the letter S; and soon, In practice, experienced crypto- (graphers will fill in the ciphers for all the plaintext tetters above the Key letter M first, then do all the fetters of the plain text above A; then all those above K; and so on. Step 3: Spies usually break the message up into groups of five letters for transmission to their masters by secret courier. However, because this is magical wisdom and will be ‘written in a Grimoire, the message might be arranged in the form of magic squares. Magic Squares ‘There is some evidence to suggest that many of the mysterious magic letter squares ta be found in the grimoires and alchemical texts are in fact cipher mess- ages, requiring only knowledge of the Key word to solve them. In addition to the phrase, "Five are the spells of soreery", already enciphered as an example, I also enciphered the names of the five different kinds of spells. I ended up with 79 letters, to which I added an X to make it 80 and then divided the 80 letters into 8 groups of Sand 4 groups of 4. MAGICSQUARES from The Grimoire of the Great Dragon. A MAGIC SQUARE OF MERCURY 18 revealed by the Great Intelligence of the 23rd sphere. HSPOHDAQ PTTGVAON gBUDCFRE pDKIJuve DABYELON TDFGS VDI YNLNXIZY DSREFQZT A MAGIC SQUARE OF JUPITER DGFH PAST BPGG AQYk (c) 1991, 2005 New Zion Inc Permissions to publish to Whare Atua Temple Article previously published Magic Pentacle 1994 ‘Whare Atua