Talk:Cipher Manuscripts

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Broke out this section from Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and expanded it a little. This article can definitely benefit from more detailed information and I will return when I have more time. I would also like a sample picture of a page from the MSS and the key to the cipher. Barthimaeus 22:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reformating and Citations

I've generally reformatted the article to place all references to sources for the Cipher into the "Possible Sources" sub-section , with full citations. All of the previous citations were retained, but some uncited speculations were removed. With the inclusion of a dozen new citations, I removed the {needs citations} tag. - JMax555 15:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Please don't revert this article to uncited version. New citations conform to WP guidelines and eliminate the {needs citations} tag. All references to previous citations, including the Wilson article, were retained. - JMax555 16:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation tags belong only on the talk page, not on the article page. - JMax555 16:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shape of the article

The shape of this article is looking really good. I'll add this to my list of articles to nominate for featured articles. See, to get the category I want on the Featured Article page, I need a few (undetermined amount) articles that dont fit into the categories already there. Zos 05:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I was up all night digging through references. By the way, all of what I used as sources can be confirmed using Google Books, using the search keywords {cipher+manuscript}, in case anyone would like to confirm the citations.

I should qualify the above comment: most of the sources can be found on Google Books. The Gilbert, Runyon and Waite sources I personally own in print form. The Wilson reference I have never seen, but was supplied by Kephera975 during all the recent edit disputes, so I included it in the spirit of compromise, even though I'm uncertain of what it acually reveals.

I also added a graphic of one page of the MSS. - JMax555 10:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Not a problem. I just came to the article figuring it needed work, only to find a large number of citations! I'm still amazed there are so many source that talk about this. Zos 17:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Which is as I've been saying all along: there are a lot of available materials about the history and practices of the Golden Dawn, and most of the sources essentially agree with each other. It's Users Zanoni666, FiatLux and Kephera975, and the HOGD/A+O group they represent, who are the historical revisonists that say this prevalent view of the relevent academic community is wrong, and represents a "biased POV." - JMax555 18:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] basis for Final Fantasy classes

when I read the manuscripts and saw descriptions of people dressed in white, red, and black robes, my first thought was: "Those are the same colors as the mages from Final Fantasy". Anyone know if there is a connection? 64.4.109.139 19:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Red, white and black are fairly common colours to see associated with each other. They are the 3 most common colours in printing; they are the favourite colours of the White Stripes (and of my old flatmate). They are found in many aboriginal artforms, such as the art of the Maori, since it was hard to obtain more exotic-coloured pigments. They feature prominently in Indonesian, Tibetan and neopagan magical traditions. They feature particularly in goth fashion and imagery, and people wanting to look like vampires or satanists often adopt these colours (the poor dears). I suspect the cipher manuscripts and Golden Dawn have very little to do with Final Fantasy. Fuzzypeg☻ 03:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further remarks on the origin

Under "Possible sources of the Cipher Manuscripts" the existence of the german "Orden der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer" is questioned which seems a more than vague assumption since there is quite enough of reference. I just put together some of the sources within the german wikipedia main article "Rosenkreuzer" which solely refer to that particular order:

Steiner, Gerhard: Freimaurer und Rosenkreuzer. Georg Forsters Weg durch Geheimbünde. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-05-000448-7, S. 87 - 90.

Rebisse, Christian: Geschichte und Mythos der Rosenkreuzer. Le Trembley (2003) ISBN 9783925972454, S. 197.

Lennhoff, Eugen; Posner, Oskar: Internationales Freimaurerlexikon. Artikel: Rosenkreuzer, ISBN 3-85002-038-X, S. 1337.

Schultze, Johannes, Die Rosenkreuzer und Friedrich Wilhelm II. (1929), in ders., Forschungen zur brandenburgischen und preußischen Geschichte. Ausgewählte Aufsätze. Berlin 1964, S. 240 65.

Marx, Arnold, Die Gold- und Rosenkreuzer. Ein Mysterienbund des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, in: Das Freimaurer-Museum 5 (1930), S. 1 168, hier S. 151 54.

I know, this doesn't seem very handy for german non-speakers but it's just meant to show that the question about the existence of the order is nonsense.

Another thought that might deserve attention is that even the form in which the manuscripts are presented is questionable: why would an old german lady - allegedly member of a german order - write or keep such a document in a foreign language? You wrote it is "plain english" (encrypted after an old german system?). If the original text came from Miss Sprengler it seems only plausible to have been written in german and later translated by MacGregor Mathers and Westcott (which btw also couldn't have happened before 1887, right?). Given that, today decryption wouldn't work without translation, see what I mean? In my eyes this puts just another question mark behind the credibility of Westcotts "discovery".

I hope I could be of help. In any way, thank you for this interesting article. Keep up the good work! -- Jbravado 07:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Of course, the claims of Westcott are highly questionable, but that seems to be pretty obvious just from a reading of the article. I don't think there's a need to hammer the point too hard. I don't know if it's "encyclopedic" to offer debunking analysis like that in the text of an article. It's kind of like writing an article on Noah's Ark - pointing out how the physics and biology of the story are highly implausible seems like belaboring an obvious point. JMax555 23:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)