Johannes Trithemius

And so how did people pass knowledge? They pass knowledge from person to person around the campfire, maybe quite literally and, Then books came around, and guess what the book doomers had to say? Julie Harris.

Well, when the printing press actually spread, there was a Benedictine abbot named Johannes Trithemius who published a book called In Praise of Scribes.

Remember, books used to be handwritten.

There were very few books, but they were all handwritten by these scribes.

The only record of these important findings is that contained in the cryptograms of the volumes which they published.

While many authors have written on the subject of cryptography, the books most valuable to students of philosophy and religion are Polygraphia and Steganographia by Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim; Mercurii, or The Secret and Swift Messenger by John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester; Oedipus Aegyptiacus and other works by Athanasius Kircher, Society of Jesus; and Cryptomenotysys et Cryptographiae by Gustavus Selenus.

A famous cryptic title page from Selenus' Cryptomenotysys et Cryptographiae.

One year after the publication of the first great "Shakespearean" folio, a remarkable volume on cryptogram and ciphers was published.

The year of its publication, 1624, was during the Rosicrucian controversy.

The translation of the title page is as follows.

The Cryptomenysis and Cryptography of Gustavus Selenus in nine books, to which is added a clear explanation of the system of steganography of John Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim and Herbipilus, a man of admirable genius, interspersed with worthy inventions of the author and others, 1624.

The author of this volume was believed to be Augustus, Duke of Brunswick.

But the standardised association between a particular set of 72 spirits and their familiar seals belongs to a later phase of textual formation.

By the beginning of the 16th century, the trail reaches Johannes Trithemius, the Benedictine abbot, scholar, cryptographer and writer on occult literature.

In Anteplus Maleficiorum, written around 1508, Trithemius listed a necromantic work that Peterson connects to the textual family wire would later cite as his source.

That source family was identified in Latin as Liber Officiorum Spirituum.

The title suggests a catalogue organised around spiritual offices, duties, functions and ranks.

The relationship among French, Latin, English, manuscript and printed witnesses remains complex.

Lost intermediaries almost certainly existed.

But Trithemius' notice shows that a related Spirit Office catalogue circulated decades before Weyer's 1577 publication.

I know that sounds strange today, but let me show you what I mean.

The big breakthrough in Dee's occult program was that he got his hands on a book called the Steganographia, and it was written by a monk named Trithemius.

On the surface, the book is basically a book of spells.

It teaches you how to summon spirits and send your thoughts across the world using angels or demons as your messengers.

I was his belief that considering the great amount of text involved the writer would scarcely have wished the trouble of using another speech than his own save perhaps in certain special formulae and incantations accordingly he attacked the manuscript with the preliminary assumption that the bulk of it was in English Dr. Armitage knew from the repeated failures of his colleagues that the riddle was a deep and complex one, and that no simple mode of solution would merit even a trial.

all through late august he fortified himself with the massed lore of cryptography drawing upon the fullest resources of his own library and waiting night after night amid the arcana of trithemius's polygraphia giambattista porta's de furtivis literarum notis de vigneres traitides ciphers falconer's Davies and Thickness's Eighteenth-Century Treatises, and such modern authorities as Blair, von Martin, and Kluber's Cryptographik.

He interspersed his study of the books with attacks on the manuscript itself, and in time became convinced that he had to deal with one of those subtlest and most ingenious of cryptograms, in which case many separate lists of corresponding letters are arranged like the multiplication table, and the message built up with arbitrary keywords known only to the initiated.

The older authorities seemed rather more helpful than the newer ones, and Armitage concluded that the code of the manuscript was one of great antiquity, no doubt handed down through a long line of mystical experimenters.

It's the same time where he's collected Hebrew grammars, copies the Codex Marcianus, and he's coming back.

And he writes to William Cecil and asks for more time so he can copy Trithemius.

But this is... like more than 15 years before he meets Kelly.

Okay.

Abbott.

Trithemius, sorry again, 1492, argued paper books would destroy memory and traditions.

Francis Bacon, 1620, noted printing Noted printing changed world civilizations.

And the quote we started off with, the pen is virgin, but the printing press is a whore.

Dr. Armitage knew from the repeated failures of his colleagues that the riddle was a deep and complex one, and that no simple mode of solution would merit even a trial.

All through late August he fortified himself with the massed lore of cryptography, drawing upon the fullest resources of his own library, and wading night after night amid the arcana of Trithemius's Polygraphia, Giambattista Porta's De Furtivis Literarum Notis, De Vignere's Traite des Chiffres, Falconer's Cryptomenysis Patefacta, Davy's and Thicknesse's 18th century treatises, and such modern authorities as Blair, Von Marten, and Kluber's Cryptographique.

He interspersed his study of the books with attacks on the manuscript itself, and in time became convinced that he had to deal with one of those subtlest and most ingenious of cryptograms, in which case many separate lists of corresponding letters are arranged like the multiplication table, and the message built up with arbitrary keywords known only to the initiated.

The older authorities seemed rather more helpful than the newer ones, and Armitage concluded that the code of the manuscript was one of great antiquity, no doubt handed down through a long line of mystical experimenters.