The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

178
Chapter 4 - Signs & Symbols
Key to Bacon's biliteral cipher
However, the letters which are now obtained do not form an intelligible word
yet. They have to be applied to a wheel or disk cipher, which consists of two
alphabets, one revolving around the other in a manner that makes different
transpositions of letters possible. In the example below, "U" becomes "B."
Cipher wheel
The problem when using this system was that the cryptogrammatist had to
keep on experimenting until he discovered a logical message, since many
solutions were possible. The simplest way of using a literal cipher is writing the
alphabet down, then writing the alphabet under it backwards, and substituting the
letters:
ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZ
ZYXWUTSRQPONMLKIHGFEDCBA 499
There also exits a pictorial cipher. Any drawing containing other than its
obvious meaning is a pictorial cryptogram. Such can be found especially in
Egyptian symbolism and early religious art. The following illustration shows an
alchemical cryptogram from the Rosicrucians which employs both literal and
499 Cf. Hall, p. CLXXI. Illustration of alchemical cryptogram: ibid.