Excerpt 46

These are the results of some queries I made during 2002 regarding the traditional Triangle of Evocation as found in the Lesser Key of Solomon the King.

 

Part of a post to an e-list regarding the words around the Triangle of Evocation:

The reason why I chose Greek rather than Hebrew to look to for translations was because of the 'ton' ending (indicating definitive neuter article 'the'). Tetragrammaton was among the names around the triangle of evocation diagram, and it literally means 'the four-lettered', and the other names seemed to follow suit by having the same endings/form.

It appears to me that these words were probably derived from Greek but that the person who wrote them down phonetically was not a fluent speaker. I had to assume that he spoke either German or Latin or both because of the way they were rendered (the 'eu' in Primeumaton made me think German - see below).

Here are the results of my research across modern, biblical, and ancient Greek lexicons:

Ana = by, through

Pheneros = manifest, to make clear (although modern usage seems to indicate 'obvious' or 'clear')

Phos = light
Words beginning with a 'phax' or 'phex' root seem to indicate light as well.

Phexe (Phi-Epsilon-Xi-Eta) = daybreak
Pheximo (Phi-Epsilon-Xi-Iotta-Mu-Omicron) = lightning

Primos = first (the ancient definition I found was similar to the Latin "primus")

Prin = before

Possible interpretations of the words when assembled:

Anaphaxeton = through/by the light
Anapheneton = through/by the manifestation

Primeumaton could be a distortion of 2 other compound words or made-up words (I didn't find these exactly as written, but all I can figure at this point is that they were bastardised compound words formed from Greek roots etc.). I can see that the word might originally have been something like Primoimaiton or Prinoimaiton. My reasoning for this is that I figured if the scribe was German, he might have heard an 'oy' diphthong and rendered it as 'eu'. So I looked instead for Greek words beginning with oi (omicron-iotta), and found in ancient Greek the word Oimai, meaning 'think' or possibly indicating 'thought'. That might give the following possible meanings:

Prinoimaiton = before thought?
Primoimaiton = the first thought?

 

Later note: I had at least one person, supposedly knowledgeable in ancient Greek, put me down for "distorting the roots" of words, as he said. However, my opinion was that if the person or persons who originally wrote the words weren't Greek speakers or were merely fabricating words for magickal use, then it wouldn't matter whether the word roots were distorted in this case. I simply wanted to look at all possible angles, just in case something interesting or useful came up.

 

 

This is the original letter I sent to several University professors in Sydney, Australia. I played dumb to ensure a response (no point in scaring them off):

Greetings! I'm an American student in Sydney currently researching the origins and meanings of some potentially Greek terms from a Renaissance (or late medieval) document for an online article on the religious, philosophical, and esoteric movements of the late middle ages and early renaissance, and I was wondering if you might be able to shed some light on the topic.

The words in question come from an esoteric/magic/religious text on spirit evocation called the Goetia, or Lesser Key of Solomon the King (the first book of the Lemegeton, I believe). They were found on a diagram commonly known as a triangle of evocation, wherein 'spirits' were supposed to become manifested as a result of the magician's conjurations. They've been rendered into Latin letters and probably spelled phonetically by a person who didn't speak the language. They are:

Anaphaxeton

Anapheneton

Primeumaton


I was thinking that if I could identify the origins and meanings of those terms, I might be able to track down the earlier sources for such practices. I haven't ruled out a possible Hebrew connection, but my first guess was that they were of Greek origin (Tetragrammaton was nearby on an inscription, and I recognized that as a Greek term often written in place of the Hebrew name for Jehovah). Any suggestions you might have on translations and origins of these words would be greatly appreciated.


Here are the most complete responses I received from that query:


"ANAPHAXETON: Perhaps derived from ANA-APHASSW (to feel/touch/reach upwards)?

ANAPHENETON: Perhaps should be ANAPHAINETON: something that has been lit up
(ANA-PHAINW). If so,
then it sounds like a Greek speaker said this word, and a non-Greek speaker
wrote it, since the AI
diphthong is virtually an "E" sound (as in our word "air").

PRIMEUMATON: Looks like a combo Greco-Latin word. PRIMA (Latin) = "first"; EU
(Greek) = "good" (in
the qualitative sense, not moral); MA (Greek) = noun-making particle; TON
(Greek) = diminutive
ending. ==> "first good thing" ????"


----------------


"I would take the second one as a phonetic spelling of anaphaineton, so
'making known, revealing', something like that. The others are too hard for
my brief analysis, but the third, as we agree, seems to involve a Latin
element. None of the words is Hebrew.

The Latin element in the third word is prim- 'first'
eumaton MAY be eumathon which would mean 'easily learnt'"

----------------------------

"I am afraid I can't think of the origin of these words right now. A Greek
friend of mine from Athens suggested the following for some words.

1. Anapheneton could be derived from Anaphainome which means to become
'perceptive by vision'; to look impressive; to come out of obscurity

2. Anaphaxeton is perhaps derived from Anaphxetos which means:
something has not increased; it can not be increased.


Ana in Arabic means I am. Somehow the first word makes me think of the Sufis.
The meaning in Arabic then would be similar to Greek, but much more."

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Dissatisfied that the results weren't as conclusive as I'd like, I set out to make use of Hebrew alternatives rather than corrupted Greek, as I dislike making use of anything I don't completely understand. My intuitive choices (at that time - I would do it differently now) were these:

YHVH (upper right of an upright equilateral triangle)

ALHIM (upper left of an upright equilateral triangle)

ADNI (written under the bottom horizontal side of the same triangle)

Michael was retained around the centre circle area of the triangle for control reasons.