Did I Make Up the Idea of Lesser Seals?

I recently received a message which was not very coherent. The sender was upset about a couple things in my post about the Explanation of the Pentagram and Hexagram of Solomon. The first objection was my identification of the word Bellaton (from the Pentagram) with Beleth, the 13th spirit of the Goetia of Solomon. That's fine with me. I was just putting it out there.

The second objection was actually a statement. I'm not going to repeat it here because the rest of my audience is not playing the role of drunken sailor and also because I deleted the message faster than a cyberman. Basically, I was accused of making something up. In this day and age it is good to be skeptical, but it is still bad to be a blathering idiot. So, I have formed my accuser's statements into the question he should have asked: "Did you make up the idea of Greater and Lesser Seals?"

And now I will set myself to the task of answering that question.

I was first introduced to the idea of Lesser and Greater (or Noble) Seals at the same time I did my study of the Triangle of Solomon, back in the '90s.

I am not going to go into the way the Lesser and Greater Seals worked in 16th and 17th century magick, but I'll show you there was such a distinction.

In the Mathers/Crowley Goetia we see a type of spirit compass showing the directions to face when calling certain spirits.

This diagram actually belongs to the second book of the Lemegaton. These names can be found in many old books on magic.

In the book Elizabethan Magic by Robert Turner, there is something very interesting in the chapter on Simon Forman. Robert Turner reproduces a text, "typical in form and representative of Forman's Age." The text is called Operation by the Regal Spirit Usiel. It opens with "The Great Seal of King Usiel". This seal is almost identical to the seal of Usiel found in Theurgia Goetia.

Next to this Greater Seal we find another Seal titled "The Lesser Seal According to Trithemeus".

Where did that come from?

Well, let's dust off our Steganographia and take a look at page 6.

Do those names look familiar? That's right, they're the same names as on the spirit compass thingy above! And those squigglies next to the names? Those are Lesser Seals!

The text reproduced in Elizabethan Magic gives the names and seals of 14 diurnal dukes under Usiel and 14 nocturnal dukes. It also gives the number of attending spirits for each duke. These dukes and their seals can be found in Theurgia Goetia.

These Dukes and the numbers of attending spirits (and a few seals) can also be found in Steganographia.

The Operation used Seals from the Lemegeton and Trithemeus, referenced Dee's Liber Scientiae Terrestris, and used conjurations like those in The Key of Solomon. The magical synthesis is impressive.

But I've really gone off target. No, I did not make up the idea of Lesser and Greater Seals.

The Theban Alphabet

Entering high school I read and enjoyed Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft. I began writing notes in runes and then in the mysterious Theban Alphabet. All I knew about the Theban Alphabet is that it's used by many Witches AND IT LOOKS COOL!

This lasted only a few months and then I moved on to other things.

Recently, though, I have decided I should write my journals in some kind of alternate script. One script I am considering is the mysterious Theban Alphabet. So I thought I'd make a little blog post about the script.

And that's what it is, a script. It appears to be an alternate script for use with the Latin Alphabet.

The oldest known book containing the Theban Alphabet is Johannes Trithemius' Polygraphia (1518)

The Latin reads:

“Sequitur aliud alphabetum Honorii cognomento Thebani, cuius ministerio suas in magicis fatuitates abscondit, sicut Petrus de Apono testatur in suo maiore libro quarto" (Here follows another alphabet of Honorius surnamed the Theban, and the use thereof is for hiding the foolishness of his magic, as Petrus de Abano testifies in his greater fourth book.)

The 1561 edition shows the following forms for the letters:

Trithemius' student Agrippa would later include the Theban Alphabet in his Three Books Of Occult Philosophy (book 3 published 1533) (Read it online HERE)

Agrippa has the following to say of the origins of the Alphabet of Thebes:
"Ex horum itaque characterum genere sunt, quos notat Petrus Apponus ab Honorio Theba no traditos, quorum figura est talis ad nostrum alphabetum relata:"

“Of this kind of character therefore are those which Peter Apponus notes, as delivered by Honorius of Thebes, the figures whereof are such, being related to our Alphabet.”

Trithemius and Agrippa claim to have read about this alphabet in an older book of magic attributed to Peter Abano. In this book Peter Abano gives the alphabet and tells how its creator, Honorius the Theban, used the alphabet "for hiding the foolishness of his magic".

I wish I had Trithemius' library. It seems the book he and Agrippa cite has not survived down to the present day. So for now the source of the Theban Alphabet is Trithemius' Polygraphia.

The Theban Alphabet appeared in Francis Barrett's The Magus. 

It is this form of the Theban Alphabet that was used by the Golden Dawn and from there passed down into Wicca by Gerald Gardner.

The last character of this alphabet contains the Alpha and Omega and is used as a period or full stop.

Source: http://histbest.ub.uni-leipzig.de/receive/UBLHistBestCBU_cbu_00000088