GOLDEN DAWN CIPHER MANUSCRIPT

What is known about the Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscript? Not as much as we would like to know, this is for certain. Unlike some other claims of secret documents, they do exist. They are the foundation o f the Golden Dawn Initiation Rituals and are some 60 Folios dr awn in brown ink on cotton paper watermarked 1809. The text is plain English written from right to left in a simple substitut ion cryptogram known as the Trithemius cipher , attributed to Johannes Trithemius , a medieval German abbot. Numerals are substituted by Hebrew letters – Aleph=1, Beth=2, etc. Crude drawings of diagrams, magical implements and tarot cards are interspersed in the text. One final page translates into French and Latin , leading many to believe that the manuscript passed through the hands of both Francis Barrett and Eliphas Levy. While both the cipher manuscript and the Golden Dawn uses tarot card correlation to the Tree of Life, which to the best of my knowledge , was first put forth by Eliphas Levy. This would lend some credence to the previous statement if Westcott wasn’t also a translator of some of Levi’s writings, notably,

The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum

interpreted by the Tarot Trumps.