Since there are 24 of them in all, it is no wild conjecture that they correspond to the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet and accordingly Agrell, by a series of interpretations which he adopts or originates, finds that the marks in each, often distorted Greek characters or Egyptian hieroglyphics, do compose an alphabetical list. These are inscribed with sundry magical letters (the most familiar group is the name of Yahweh in one of its many forms, IEAO, also with mysterious signs the other sectors have no letters, but signs only. The upper surface of this seems to be the important part of the whole appliance, the triangle being merely the base for it is elaborately divided into zones, four in number, whereof the three outer ones are further divided by radial lines into eight equal sections each, the central circular portion again into eight, four larger and four smaller. It is a triangular plate of bronze, decorated with reliefs of the three forms of Hekate and having in the middle a sort of large stud of the same metal, topped by a circular cap.
#HERMETIC MAGIC FLOWERS FULL#
The first is found on a piece of divinatory apparatus discovered at Pergamon in the closing years of the last century and published with a full commentary by the late R. But all forms of hieroglyphic, magic or secret writing seem to attract him, and here he gives the fruits of most ingenious research on two apparently disconnected series of mystical signs. Its author is an authority on the Runic alphabet, concerning the origins of which he holds original theories : these it is not necessary to discuss here, even if the present reviewer were competent to do so. ""This very interesting monograph is part of the Bulletin de la Societe' Royale des Lettres de Lund for 1935-36. Incidentally, here's a review of Agrell's Die pergamenische Zauberscheibe und das Tarockspiel from 1937 since he seems to be the forgotten Tarot theorist of the moment. I expected him to knock it out of the park and finished it feeling like he'd missed an opportunity to tackle Tarot from his own unique perspective. I was left feeling like I'd read a pet theory that was as useful as my willingness to take every precarious interpretation at face value. much of the theorizing (and rigid reordering, as if the V-S decks had a numbered order) started from the requirements of his understanding of the mystery religion and then worked in the Tarot. Overall I was left feeling like I was reading a book written by someone whose interest was esotric history primarily, with Tarot secondary. And I was left feeling like he'd spent his pages hammering a square peg into a round hole. There's enough interesting speculation to make you see the cards differently in his context, but not for one moment did I feel he had "cracked" the case.
Some of it seemed solid, but I've actually done a fair amount of primary text research on Mithraism in its various incarnations and several of his cornerstone arguments rest on shaky ground. so I'm always nervous when everything gets boiled down to a single element (or a single author's theorizing about the link with the Latin alphabet). The impact of the mystery schools on western esotericism is a complicated and vast subject. Flowers starts out with some very bold speculation about Zoroastrian tradition, the Mithraic mysteries and their initiatory grades. Like the forthcoming Latin Key, Flowers bases his entire sequence/theory on Sigurd Agrell's work. It's LATE for me to think through this coherently enough so I can get more detailed if you like, but in general. Hermetic Magick, Galdrabok, Nine Doors of Midgard and his other rune material). I'm a big fan of certain of Flowers' books (esp. I have the book and read it when it first came out.
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