Précataclysmisme

Wizard 147 (2004) 

From the exhibit ‘DADA 1916: The Birth of Anti-Art’

Despair of the Endless by Sara Pichelli

Ancient & Magickal Alphabets

Cuneiform

Hieratic (“shorthand cursive hieroglyphs”)

Demotic (Egyptian; not to be confused with Demotic Greek)

Hebrew alphabet (note that there are many versions of the Hebrew language)

Greek alphabet

Futhark runic alphabet

Ogham (“Celtic Tree alphabet”)

Pictish

Theban alphabet, aka Honorian alphabet or Runes of Honorius

Chaldean (the Syriac alphabet?)

Malachim alphabet

Magi, Alphabet of the

Celestial Alphabet/Angelic Script (not to be confused with John Dee's Enochian alphabet)

Passing the River/Passage du Fleuve/Transitus Fluvii

Masonic/Rosicrucian/Pigpen Cipher/Tic-Tac-Toe Cipher

Tengwar script (for Tolkien’s Elvish languages)

Angerthas/Certhas/Cirth (for Tolkien’s Dwarven languages)

Celestial Alphabet/Angelic Script, Malachim, and Passing the River were made up by 16th century German alchemist/astrologer/lawyer/magician/occultist/soldier/theologist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.  Theban was created by 15th century German cryptographer/historian/lexicographer/occultist/theologian Johannes Trithemius, one of Agrippa’s teachers.  The Alphabet of the Magi was created by 16th century Swiss German alchemist/astrologer/botanist/occultist/physician/toxicologist Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (aka Paracelsus), another of Trithemius’s students, who rejected Agrippa’s magical theories.

Those, and the two Tolkien made, are entirely fictional and are good to use in most any context. All the others are real alphabets from real cultures — some still used today — so be VERY aware of and careful with them.

Adorable Book Sculpture of Matilda, The Roald Dahl Story