This rare Gnostic image below shows the name of God in seventy-two languages from Athanasius Kircher’s OEdipus AEgyptiacus which is his Great Work Egyptology. After his studies and many years of research he concluded “that I am fully persuaded that either the Egyptians were Hebraicizing or the Hebrews were Egypticizing.”

Inscribed upon the petals of a symbolic sunflower are the 72 names of God that in Hebrew is called “Shemhamphorasch (alternatively Shem ha-Mephorash or Schemhamphoras, originally Shem HaMephorash (שם המפורש)).” The “72-fold name” is highly important to Sefer Raziel, and a key (but often missing) component to the magical practices in The Lesser Key of Solomon.

The 72 different names represent the secret Demonic and/or Angelic hierarchy of our magical world in relation to their names, positions and power over the others. For example, the leading Archangel is named Vehuiah, a Metatron who is also known as Enoch, and the leader of the fiery angels or serpents (worms) of Ba’al named the Seraphim. He is the highest of the angelic watchers and serves as the celestial scribe as Thoth or Seth documenting the past, present and future.

In the middle is a circle with the secret initials of “IHS” that is often interpreted as meaning “Iesus Hominum Salvator” (“Jesus, Saviour of men” in Latin), or with the term “In Hoc Signo;” Latin for “In this sign we shall conquer.”

Above the circle are the seventy-two powers of God according to the Hebrew Kabbalah. Below are two trees, that on the left bearing the symbols of the planets and that on the right, the signs of the zodiac and the names of the tribes of Israel.

Symbols - 72 names of God

SOURCE: The Mirror of the Mystical Kabbala Source: Kircher 1652–55, vol. 2, part 1, p. 287

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