Word squares & charm words
Meaning
The SATOR square (SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS) is a five-by-five palindrome that reads the same in four directions. ABRACADABRA written in a shrinking triangle makes a disease shrink away letter by letter. ANANIZAPTA and other charm words work similarly.
Intent
Word squares were written on paper, bread, lead or wood and worn, eaten or placed in houses against fire, fever, rabies, snakebite and witchcraft. ABRACADABRA was worn around the neck for nine days and then thrown into a stream.
Significance
The SATOR square is one of the most famous puzzles in history: examples at Pompeii (before 79 CE) and Dura-Europos prove it is ancient, and whether it is Christian (the letters rearrange into PATERNOSTER twice) is still debated. ABRACADABRA became the stage magician's word.
History
The SATOR square is attested from the 1st century CE and was used as a charm in Europe into the 20th century. ABRACADABRA is first recorded by Serenus Sammonicus in the 3rd century CE.
Making yours
Letter grid on parchment, lead, slate or wood, from 5×5 cm upwards.Western Esoteric & Grimoire Talismans: the tradition
Western learned magic joined Greek astrology, Jewish Kabbalah and Arabic science. The Picatrix (Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, 11th century, Latin 1256) taught how to capture a planet's power in an image made at the right hour. Marsilio Ficino's De vita (1489) and Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) gave the planetary magic squares (kameas) and seals. The Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis, 15th–16th century) supplied pentacles, and word squares such as SATOR and ABRACADABRA came from late antiquity. Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801) passed the whole system to the 19th-century occult revival, the Golden Dawn and modern practice.
Chinese 12 Character Palindrome Charm - CjiyouBefore the 19th (nineteenth) century.
Cluny - Mero - Croix-Talisman motifs magiques basé sur Abracadabra - VIe-VII siècle- Ag niellé
Амулет против чумыMore from Western Esoteric & Grimoire Talismans: Planetary & astrological talismans · Solomonic & Kabbalistic pentacles
Every type in the gallery
Anything in the gallery can be made: any piece, any tradition, in its own material or yours, by hand from the documented original. Numbered. Price on commission, quoted before anything is made. I reply within one business day.