Manuscripts sheet series#

The actual material itself described in the Manuscript is of known origins.

The Cipher Manuscripts are the original source upon which the rituals and the knowledge lectures of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn were based. It also contains several diagrams and crude drawings of various ritual implements.

Manuscripts sheet series#

The Ciphers contain the outlines of a series of graded rituals and the syllabus for a course of instruction in Qabalah and Hermetic magic, including Astrology, occult tarot, Geomancy and Alchemy. One final page transcribes into French and Latin. Crude drawings of diagrams, magical implements and tarot cards are interspersed in the text. Numerals are substituted by Hebrew letters – Alef=1, Bet=2, etc. The text is plain English written from right to left in a simple substitution cryptogram.

The folios are drawn in black ink on cotton paper watermarked 1809. Another cipher known as ' Theban' is given above it. The cipher used in the manuscripts, shown in a 1561 edition of Trithemius' Polygraphia. It was used as the structure for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.ĭescription Folio 13 of the Cipher MMS. The ' occult' materials in the Manuscripts are a compendium of the classical magical theory and symbolism known in the Western world up until the middle of the 19th century, combined to create an encompassing model of the Western mystery tradition, and arranged into a syllabus of a graded course of instruction in magical symbolism. The Cipher Manuscripts are a collection of 60 folios containing the structural outline of a series of magical initiation rituals corresponding to the spiritual elements of Earth, Air, Water and Fire. ( December 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) You can help providing page numbers for existing citations. This article cites its sources but does not provide page references.