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The Agnaw is a magical system based upon formulating Names of Power. These are held secret and sacred for each practitioner. However, one can use the Agnaw as a divinatory system as well, and usually, it consists of drawing a single letter as a "word" from what is called "The Dark Mouth". This is simply a symbolic name representing the greater hidden aspects behind all things seen as pure chance. The Dark Mouth then is a symbol of the Unknown, the higher and hidden structures, that form the seeds as it were, behind the symbols received.

There are 27 sacred letters that make up the Agnaw, and these are all possible combinations of three forces, or actions. One can see these as polarities, such as positive, neutral and negative. These are not to be confused or compared to the ideas of "good and "bad", but instead the ideas of the creative, transformative, and destructive aspects of nature.

Each letter then has a specific "intent" or combination of these three forces, and represents a particular type of action. One can use a letters definition, which gives one a broad idea of its nature, and use this as a foundation for any question. One may also formulate a more complex answer in the form of a Name, which is composed of three letters. A Name or a letter can be drawn and analyzed in order to look into the conditions, and or the seeds of these conditions. By various other methods using the Stones that generate these random Names or letters, one can realize further hidden names. Each name or letter can give one a sort of "artificial vision", meaning one can use the correspondences of these letters and Names to form a certain description of various places, or beings. In addition, as one works with these letters and Names, one comes to understand them, and they are found to "speak" to you, especially if one has done the work and practiced with them in dreams and meditation and visualization or skrying techniques.

Of course, I am not able to give out at the moment the exact system of divination here. My purpose at this time is to simply give an introduction to the divinatory aspect of the system of the Agnaw. If anyone is interested in learning more, they can write me, or ask whatever they wish here. I may post more upon this system if I see it is wanted.

It looks very-Ching-ish. With the 3 levels and all. I like the idea of the set up, symbols building off each other and cross referencing (?)

All you've touched on is the divination aspect, though I've seen you refer to its philosophy a couple times. Without giving too much away can you expand on the philosophy and maybe the historical roots of the practise?

(oops. I thought I was replying to your other Agnaw thread... this one is just on Divination, doh . )

manofsands wrote:It looks very-Ching-ish. With the 3 levels and all. I like the idea of the set up, symbols building off each other and cross referencing (?)

All you've touched on is the divination aspect, though I've seen you refer to its philosophy a couple times. Without giving too much away can you expand on the philosophy and maybe the historical roots of the practise?

(oops. I thought I was replying to your other Agnaw thread... this one is just on Divination, doh . )

Manofsands,

Yes, it does look something like the Tri-grams, and even a little like Chinese lettering, however it is not associated with these (as far as I know). The history is actually very muddled, and I am not even aware of everything, as I believe no record has been kept. In my own private research I have found very little, except a few of the letters have been found in very ancient alphabets. I have found at least two of the letters among the ancient Pheonician alphabets (see attachment below). I am not sure if this is purely co-incidental or not. I was handed down this system, and I believe it is of German decent. This is the best I can do at the moment.

As for further information upon the Agnaw's philosophy I will provide more on the other threat in the "Off topic (occult)" section. I do want to say that the philosophy I talk about is somewhat of a more modern day interpretation, and not fully accepted by all those who practice the Agnaw. The system itself, does not truly have a written down philosophy, but rather each individual has a written record (diary) that is gathered from the work with it. A consensus has been arrived at of course over the history, and the main thrust is one of the central role of the individual. It is believed that through working the system, and the vision work, will open ones eyes, as it were, to this inherent philosophy. Chance is a large part of it, as it is believed chance is nothing more than a micro view of a much greater "plan" or I should say structure. There are no past, or present, or future, simply one large whole of which time and space are illusions.

In addition, the aspect you found interesting, the letters building off one another, and cross referencing is one of the truly unique aspects of the system. Each letter is not simply arbitrarily formed, each exist out of necessity, and fill a specific duty. They are all part of a set, and when you form these letters and Names, using movable "stones", one can see how interconnected they can be. There are, as I mention, Names within Names, and the truly interesting thing is just how perfect these all flow together and have an inherent logic about them. Whoever had formed such a system was indeed wise and a profound thinker!

Thank you for your interest and questions. I hope this helps a little.

LF

P.S. Below you can see the first letter of the Agnaw as related to the ancient Phoenician letter "Heh" meaning "window" (obviously an early form of what was to become the Hebrew form of the same letter name and meaning.), as well as Samekh, "prop", another early version of the Hebrew. This is simply the only place in history I have found any possible hint of the letters (in the form I know them).