Masonic alphabet

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The Freemason Alphabet , also Freemason Square, is a monoalphabetic substitution cipher of Freemasonry and is no longer in practical use today.

origin

This cipher is based on the Kabbalah of the nine chambers ( Aik Bechar ) and is said to have been in use since ancient times . Hence in the Middle Ages were called sigils of the spirits created in the " hell coercion " of Dr. Faust , in the writings of Agrippa von Nettesheim and in the Rosicrucian writings. The Noachite script based on it also comes from the Middle Ages .

functionality

Kabbalah of the nine chambers

Here you write the 27 letters of the Hebrew alphabet , including the five so-called final characters, in three fields one above the other; Above each letter is the numerical value and one, two or three dots that indicate the position of the letters in the individual chamber.

Sigils of spirits

The individual letters are written next to each other according to the Kabbalistic alphabet, the figures are connected, whereby the dots are omitted, and by contraction, the so-called character , the sigil of the spirit or angel , is obtained, which is used to conceal one's own name.

Noachite script

The sum of one side and the diagonals always add up to 15. The Hebrew characters were originally inserted into these three by three fields large magic squares . If these were then replaced by the Latin letters , the most frequently used Masonic square was created , of which there are numerous variations. The cipher characters are created by the adjacent (inner) lines and the dots of the respective letters:

6
a b. 		7
c d. 		2
e f. G:
1
h i. 		5
k l. 		9
m n. O:
8
p q. 		3
r s. 		4
t v. z:

There is a possibility to rewrite the places of the numbers: you start with the 1 on the left in the middle and move one field up and to the left, then you enter the next number. When you come across an edge, you go to the other side of the large square; if there is already a number at the place where the next number should be, move one space to the right and continue as at the beginning.

Masonic Code

Scheme of the grid for the Masonic cipher

If you fill the letters of the Latin alphabet two letters at a time into the cells of the well-known cross-shaped square and use an inclined cross in the same way for the remaining letters, you get the most popular variant of this code today. As usual, points indicate the left or right position.

The key consists of a grid (see graphic on the right). When encrypting, the surroundings of the letter are copied. This is how the characters are created:
FreemasonABC.svg

This corresponds to normal encryption with a ciphertext alphabet (monoalphabetic substitution). The only difference is that the ciphertext is made up of characters, not letters.

In a variant, you first fill in the square and the slanted cross with one letter per cell and then repeat this with the remaining letters in a second, dotted square and cross. The point is only written for the second square and cross.

The Masonic Code can be found today in numerous non-fiction and youth books. The signs, which often contain a motto or a slogan, can also be found on old gravestones or house entrances.

use

The use of this cipher was to a certain extent a matter of course in Freemasonry in the 18th century. Masonic books such as Browne's Master Key ( London 1794) and Masonic Treatise (1802) were even printed with several keys in special variations of this script .

Today, at best, ciphers are still used in American Freemasonry, especially since this type of cipher ( monoalphabetic substitution ) does not offer any security against decoding by third parties.

Web links

Commons : Pigpen cipher  - collection of images, videos and audio files