Steganographia

 Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks No. 12. The Steganographia of Trithemius

The Steganographia of Trithemius, the renowned occult teacher of Agrippa and Paracelsus, was written at the end of the fifteenth century and became one of the most influential and notorious occult texts throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This work operates on two levels: as a grimoire or book of conjuration of spirits, and simultaneously as a code book. It contains lists of spiritual messengers associated with the divisions of space and time, a form of Cabalistic Angel magic.

The Steganographia circulated secretly in manuscript form during the 16th century and was highly valued. John Dee, whose Enochian system of angelic magic was influenced by the Steganographia, noted that 'One Thousand Crowns' had been offered for a copy of this work. On one level, it reveals ways of encoding secret information in outwardly innocent texts, and thus its publication will significantly impact our understanding of how esoteric orders of the 16th and 17th centuries may have conveyed information and preserved their secrets.