ALPHABET, ANGELS

In the old rituals of the Fourth or Secret Master's Degree of the Scottish and some other Rites, we find this passage : ''The seventy-two names, like the name of the Divinity, are to be taken to the Caballstic Tree and the Angels' Alphabet." The Caballstic Tree is a name given by the Cabalists to the arrangement of the ten Sephiroth (which see). The Angels' Alphabet is called by the Hebrews ...., chetab hamalachim, or the writing of the angels.

Gabffarel (Curios. Inouis., xiii, 2) says that the stars, according to the opinion of the Hebrew writers, are ranged in the heavens in the form of letters, and that it is possible to read there whatsoever of importance is to happen throughout the universe.

The great English Hermetic philosopher, Robert Fludd, says, in his Apology for the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, that there are characters in the heavens formed from the disposition of the stars, just as geometric lines and ordinary letters are formed from points; and he adds, that those to whom God has granted the hidden knowledge of reading these characters will also know. not only whatever is to happen, but all the secrets of philosophy. The letters thus arranged in the form of stars are called the Angels' Alphabet. They have the power and articulation but not the form of the Hebrew letters, and the Cabalists say that in them Moses wrote the Tables of the Law."

The astrologers, and after them the alchemists, made much use of this alphabet; and its introduction into any of the high degree rituals is an evidence of the influence exerted on these degrees by the Hermetic philosophy.

Agrippa, in his Occult Philosophy, and Kircher, in his Oedipus Egyptiacus, and some other writers, have given copies of this alphabet. lt may also be found in Johnson's Typographia, But it is in the mystical books of the Cabalists that we must look for full instructions on this subject.