Sigils of the Aiq Bekar

Sigils of the Aiq Bekar By Asterion

In my research upon seals ans sigils I became rather fascinated with the Kabbala of the Nine Chambers, also called Aiq Bekar. While preparing a complete volume on it’s history and uses I decided to innovate a little and extend the system that Agrippa set forth in his “Occult Philosophy”. His method of sigil making derived from the Nine Chambers is quite effective and creative, but I feel that it has been put on a pedestal and kept in mind as an only method of constructing sigils involving the Aiq Bekar. In my forthcoming work, “The Book of the Nine Chambers”, I shall detail at least nine personal and new methods of making sigils, the one presented here being just one of them.

1.Introduction

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa: Of Occult Philosophy, Book III, Chapter xxx

There is moreover another fashion amongst the Cabalists, formerly had in great esteem, but now it is so common, that it is placed amongst prophane things, and it is this. The twenty seven Characters of the Hebrews may be divided into three Classes, whereof every one contains nine letters. The first, viz. è ç æ å ä ã â á à which are the seals or marks of simple numbers, and of intellectuall things, distributed into nine orders of Angels. The second hath ö ô ò ñ ð î ì ë é the marks of tens, and of Celestial things, in the nine Orbs of the heavens. The third hath the other four letters, with the five final, by order, viz. ó ï í ê ú ù ø ÷ which are marks of hundreds, and inferior things, viz. four simple Elements, and of five kinds of perfect compounds. They do now and then distribute these three Classes into nine Chambers, whereof the first is of unites [unities], viz. intellectual, celestial and elemental: The second is of Twos. The third of Threes, and so of the rest: These Chambers are framed by the intersection of four parallel lines, intersecting themselves into right angles, as is expressed in this following figure.

Out of which being dissected into parts, proceed nine particular figures, viz.

Which are of the nine Chambers, Characterizing their letters by the above written Notariacon: which if it be of one poynt [point] shews the first letter of that Chamber; if of two, the second; if of three, the third letter; as if thou wouldest frame the Character Michael ìàëéî, that comes forth thus, extended with five figures, viz.

Which then are contracted to three figures, after this manner.

Which then are contracted into one, yet the points Notariacon are wont to be omitted, and then there comes forth such a Character of Michael.

Source: http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agripp3c.htm

2.Principles The Aiq Bekar functions on a very simple premise: the numerical values of the letters. There are 22 sacred Hebrew letters, along with final ones, making a total of 27. As they are used in a base-ten counting system, there are 27 numeric equivalents, that is 9 units, 9 tens and 9 hundreds. If we arrange from right to left the letters in the boxes, we must keep in mind the numeric value. The first chamber will host the numbers 1, 10 and 100, that is, letters Alef, Yud and Qoph, the second will host numbers 2, 20 and 200, or Beth, Kaph and Resh, and so on. The figures extracted from the Nine Chambers are of course, Nine. Each one represents a chamber. The corner chambers will be represented by the double-openings, or the L shaped symbols. The middle chambers will correspond to the single-openings, or the U-shaped symbols. The final form is that of the fully enclosed figure, the center. The position of the letter in one of these chambers will yield a characteristic figure. There are three positions possible in this arrangement: first, second and third letter in the chamber, or initial, medial and final. Agrippa assigns the simple form to the first letters, the single dotted form to the second letters and the double dotted form to the third. Although he makes this differentiation, when constructing the seal, the dots disappear. I made it essential in the following sigil method to differentiate the three sets, designing three different endings of the figures. The Fist position will always be a single number, letters Aleph through Teth. I have decided to note these in the simplest way possible, of lines terminated with a small T. The central figure

will not bare the specific terminations because there is no opening. To correct this, I have introduced a geometric figure for each set, being an enclosed figure. The Square is for the first letter, in our case, He.

The second position will always be the multiples of ten, that is letters Yud (10) through Tzade (90). They have small circles as endings, and the central figure (Nun) will be a circle.

Last but not least, the third group will represent the multiples of 100, that is letters Quph (100) through Final Tzade (900), having triangular endings, with the central figure (Final Kaph) a triangle.

Thus we have a new and very practical magical alphabet to work with. As the method devised by Agrippa was later used for different alphabets, it can be considered that his Aiq Bekar method was the source of later Rosicrucian, Freemasonic and Golden Dawn ciphers. One could even consider the implications of the Aiq Bekar when taking a closer look at one’s mobile phone…Quite an interesting feature those three groups of letters arranged in a 3 X 3 square on the buttons. Not as esotheric as we might expect, but still interesting. So, until now, we have the consonants. Upon further reflection, I decide to take it one step further, and add signs for the vowels.

These are smaller, simpler, and are simply added to the consonant they follow. The I sound is represented by a small circle, about half of the figure for Nun, so as not to confuse them. The A, E, O and U are small dashes or line that are drawn perpendicular to one of the lines of the figure. The vowel will be attached to the consonant they follow. For example, in MICHAEL, the I symbol will be on ones of the sides of the M letter, the A symbol will cross the CH and the other I will be attached to Yud.

Moving on, how do we make a sigil? We have a new set of 27 symbolic Hebrew letters, 5 new symbols for vowels, and an urge to play around with the forces of the Universe...

1.The Sigils For sake of clarity, we shall take a spirit’s name and work the method step by step. We choose to work with the name of the Jovian entity BARIEL. Although we do have a genuine seal of this entity, we shall create a sigil here for didactic purpose only. We write the name of BARIEL in the Hebrew way, from right to left, and look for the symbols in the Aiq Bekar Square.

L

A

Y

R

B

The Hebrew spelling must be the correct one, so it would be better to do a little research on how the name is spelled correctly. After having written down the letters, we can beging jopining them together, taking care to respect the order of the letters.

First we join Beth with Resh and obtain B_R. In order to spell BAR, we shall add the A sign to the B sign:

B_R

BAR

As you can see, we shall make an effort to keep the letters separate from one another, but joining them in a very aesthetic way. We then add the sign for Y and the vowel I, from right to left, spelling BARI:

After that we join the A, crossing it with the E symbol (the two little lines), obtaining BARIE. Notice that the ending has another function: to “stick” one letter to another. The little line ending of Aleph goes right on the horizontal bar of the figure:

The final move is placing the L, Lamed. Lamed is a second letter, and has circle terminations. In our seal, we already have a free circle termination, and we shall use this to start our L. Therefore, we join the two circles and make them one, maling the Lamed run continuously from the sigil:

This is only one of the multiple ways of joining these letters together, going from right to left and from up to down. After trying a few models, you could try making the seal more pleasing and more symmetric, which is exactly what I tried to do. The Result is a very nice and potent seal of the entity in question, not to mention correct from a linguistic and ethymological point of view, especially for those who do not trust the seals and sigil in the grimoires on account of their corruption or inaccuracy.

Aiq Bekar seal of Bariel

Use this method as you see fit and if you like, give me some feedback. This is a copyrighted method and I would like to be asked for permission before anyone would reproduce it in a book or on a website. May God bless your steps upon the Path Asterion, Romania, 2009 [email protected]