This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
A script or magical alphabet entry records a distinct writing system used within a religious or esoteric tradition, an ordinary alphabet such as Hebrew or Greek recorded for its documented religious use, or an alphabet developed specifically for magical, divinatory or initiatory purposes, such as the Theban script or the Celestial alphabet, that never functioned as a general purpose writing system for everyday language at all. Nigel Pennick's survey of magical alphabets treats these esoteric scripts as a real, documented historical phenomenon with traceable origins rather than as timeless secret knowledge with no history.
An entry records a script's documented origin, who is first known to have used or described it and when, its structure, letter by letter where that is recorded, and how a tradition actually used it, for concealment, for ritual inscription, or as a meditative or divinatory tool in its own right rather than as a code meant to be broken.
Where a script's claimed ancient origin is not supported by the documentary record, several magical alphabets recorded here were first described in early modern European grimoires centuries after the ancient period their names evoke, the entry records that documented dating honestly rather than repeating a traditional but unsupported claim of great antiquity.