The Witches Alphabet
The Witches Alphabet The Theban alphabet, also known as the Witches Alphabet, is a letter for letter substitution cipher that exchanges Theban symbols for letters in the old Latin alphabet. This alphabet was first published in 1518 in a book by German Abbot, Johannes Trithemius (b.1462) called Polygraphic. Considered to be the father of cryptography, Trithemius was a lexicographer, cryptographer and an occultist. His student, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) included this alphabet in his book, De Occulta Philosophia in 1533. Old Latin did not have the letters J and U. (Jesus was originally Iesus in Latin), the ciphers for the letters I and V did double duty. There was also no cipher for the letter W. The actual origin of the cipher is unknown, although it was attributed to Honorius of Thebes but there is no written proof of this claim and some believe that he is a mythical character from the Medieval age. In the 19 th century, Wiccans adopted the alphabet to...
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