The 6 Letters: F, O, XO
No. 70
AYIN OMICRON OMEGA
(Short O)
33333 Ω O OoOo
Sound: silent Sound: o as
in corporal
HEBREW PHOENICIAN GREEK ROMAN PRESENT-DAY
O – 15
The letter O corresponds to the 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet
called Ayin (ah-yin), which is the 10th of the 12 simple letters, and whose
main influence is anger.
Ayin means eye, and refers to the inner spiritual eye that compre-
hends and interprets what we see. There are two ways we see: with the
physical eye, and through the mind by understanding. This second way is
when the light dawns on us and we say, “Oh, I see.” This is the spiritual
eye, Ayin: the window of the soul.
Physical sight is the letter Vau (V). Vau means peg or nail: that which
attaches one thing to another. In the case of Ayin, the physical eye is
linked with the mind, for only when that which we see physically is in-
terpreted by the mind, do we understand what we see. (The Key of
Destiny, 219).
The shape of Ayin, O, is like that of an eye and was used by the early
church to represent the all-seeing eye of God. The word “church” is
from the Anglican root Circ or Cyrc, meaning circular. The first churches
were circular designs to represent the eye of God (The Key to the Uni-
verse, 35-6).
Anger is an emotion of the lower animal self of man. It is a force that
can be used to build or to destroy. When a man learns to control his
temper he “tames” the animal and his greater power unfolds. Then he is
able to build his good rather than destroy his chances. “The man who
ruleth his temper is greater than he who taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).
Ayin was used by the Phoenicians and Semites for an emphatic laryn-
geal consonant, C, which is not found in English or in any other Indo-
European language. Since the Greeks had no use for that Semitic sound,
they used the glyph to represent the vowel O. They called it Omicron,
meaning “short O” to distinguish it from Omega, “long O,” which they
originated and placed at the end of their alphabet (American Heritage
Dictionary, 903).
The Romans used the sign for both the short and the long O. With O
it is all or nothing. It stands for the Cosmos and all within it, as well as the