Mogg,
I suppose it's possible, although I think it's unlikely. Nobody, so far
as I know, has ever found this name coming from any particular source.
What I can tell you, from Agrippa, is:
1. The name is spelled in Hebrew: Th-Ph-Th-R-Th-R-Th
2. Gematria numbers thus add to 400+80+400+200+400+200+400 = 2080
3. If you add all the numbers between 1 and 64 (8^2), you get 2080
4. Agrippa assigns Thaphthartharath to Mercury, which gets the magic
square of 8 (all numbers from 1 to 64 in an 8x8 square such that all
colums, rows, and diagonals get the same number)
This strikes me as what you might call a "cooked" number. That is, it
strikes me as awfully convenient that the number of the name should so
perfectly match, and the fact that few of the other names associated
with these squares are previously attested is suggestive. My reading is
that Agrippa (or an unknown source for this square system, though I
doubt this) took a bunch of names that sort of matched the numbers and
tinkered to make them work, thereby adding an additional dimension to
their efficacy.
If you find this name attested somewhere, though, I'd be delighted to
know about it. I would be stunned if it were actually Egyptian, since
Agrippa most certainly had no access to such sources (except the early
modern Corpus Hermeticum).
In passing, let me say that Tyson's account of these squares (an
appendix to his Llewellyn edition of the Occult Philosophy) is, on
technical grounds at least, very solid. I do not think he proposes much
of an interpretation, but that's not really his job as editor. I have
seen _no_ other work on these squares that I think plausible from the
perspective of construction. And I can say without the slightest
immodesty that my analysis in chapter 3 of my book on Agrippa is the
most sophisticated yet composed -- no immodesty here, because there is
so little competition! But I do not delve into the origins of the names
much, since I have found no reason to think that any but a few obvious
ones have any definite origin other than Agrippa's manipulations.
Yours,
Chris Lehrich
Mogg Morgan wrote:
>Dear all
>
>I've lost the post - but someone said the name was gibberish (the language
>of Gibber the alchemist btw) - but wondered how you could be so sure about
>that - given how contruing of the phrases from the grimoires and magical
>papyri is quite a tricky process - would be nice if someone compiled a
>glossary of those already done so far from various new books?
>
>Can't say whether it is in Betz off hand - as my edition doesn't have an
>index - does anyone know whether there is a volume two with the notes as
>promised??
>Or maybe someone knows the page number for a likely invocation of thoth -
>on the face of it Taphthartharath looks like it has the name thoth in it -
> but i'm still a bit of a novice in late egyptian stuff -??
>
>'love and do what you will'
>
>mogg
>
>
--
Christopher I. Lehrich
Boston University
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