have drawn heavily from an ancient Egyptian back-
ground. For them, Egyptian hieroglyphs are an ideal
magickal alphabet.Hebrew (hbrw)
The first true alphabet—that is, only a couple
dozen signs used to represent all consonants—was
the one in which Moses wrote the original “10 Com-
mandments,” in 1628 BCE. He claimed he had been given
the words directly from Yahweh—the Hebrew God.
This writing became known as Hebrew (from Habiru,
meaning “dusty travelers”). An “alphabet” by defini-
tion is any form of writing that contains fewer than 30
letters, and Hebrew contains 27.
After receiving their first written Commandments,
the Hebrews changed their name to the Israelites. A
couple of generations later, they invaded and con-
quered the land of Canaan (modern Palestine), renam-
ing it Israel. Coastal Canaanites around Syria (the
Ugarits) adapted the Hebrew script, and spread it
throughout the Eastern Mediterranean via the seafar-
ing Phoenicians. Like former forms of symbolic writ-
ing, Hebrew contained no vowels, leading to endless
arguments as to how
various words were
pronounced. Most
significant of these
is the name of their
God, written in He-
brew as Yhvh or
YHVH. Since it was for-
bidden to speak it aloud,
Biblical scholars still de-
bate whether that should be
“Yahweh,” “Yahveh,” or
“Jehovah.”Greek (Γρεεκ)
Influenced by the alphabetical writing of the
Phoenicians, with whom they traded, around 800 BCE
the Greeks developed the modern “alpha-bet”—from
A (alpha) and B (beta). It became the first to include
vowels as well as consonants. With it, literacy spread
throughout the civilized world, especially during the
expansion of the Macedonian Empire under Alexander
the Great.
Beginning in 50 BCE, a succession of Roman
Caesars conquered and absorbed the entire Greek
world—along with nearly everyone else—creating
what we call the Greco-Roman civilization. All literate
Romans read and spoke Greek as well as their own
language, Latin. But for writing in Latin, they modified
many of the Greek letters into the Roman alphabet,
which is pretty much what I’m writing in here. And we
teach it to our kids as “The A-B-C’s.”Runes (runes)
Legend tells us that the runes were first brought
to the world by Odin, Chief of the Norse Gods of
Asgard. While hanging himself upon the great World-
Tree, he had a vision of these symbols, which could
be used to represent all sounds of spoken speech.
The word rune means “mystery” or “secret” in
Early English and related languages. It is certainly
heavily charged with overtones and for good reason.
Runes were never a strictly mundane alphabet. From
their earliest adaptation into Germanic usage they
served for divinatory and ritual uses. There are three
main types of runes: Germanic, Scandinavian, and
Anglo-Saxon—each with numerous variations.
Futhark, like “alpha-beta,” takes its name from the
first few letters—F, U, Th, A, R, K. This is the most
popular and widespread runic alphabet in use among
modern Wizards.Ogham (ogham)
The early Celts and their priests, the
Druids, developed their own form of alpha-
bet. It was known as Ogham (OH-um)
Bethluisnon (see 3.VI.7: “Calendar of the
Trees”). As with others, it takes its name
from the first few letters: B (beth), L (luis),
N (nion). This was an extremely simple
form and was used more for carving into
wood and stone than for general writing. With a cen-
ter line, it lent itself especially to carving along the
edge of a stone or a piece of wood.
While the Bethluisnon correspondences with
trees are well-known through Robert Graves’ interpre-
tation of the “Tree Calendar,” Ogham let-
ters were also assigned to
the joints of the fingers,
and messages could
be passed in secret
by indicating the
parts of the fingers to
spell out the words.Course Three: Practice 143
Corrected pages 3rd printing.1.p65 47 6/10/2004, 3:00 PM