Alfa Beta Shel Metatron: The Alphabet of Metatron – the celestial scribe | Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem, the late great scholar of Jewish Mysticism, maintained the “Alphabet of Metatron, the celestial scribe,” to be the oldest of these angelic alphabets, which he mentioned “is preserved in many manuscripts and came to the German Hasidim with the Babylonian Merkabah material.” [Scholem, G. & Werblowsky, R.J.Z.: Origins of the Kabbalah, Jewish Publication Society (Princeton University Press), Princeton 1990]
Now, whilst the “Alphabet of Metatron” is perhaps more employed for mystical/contemplative rather than magical/talismanic purposes, I believe a closer investigation of the form of its component glyphs indicates that these magical alphabets are not composed of randomly chosen signs. In fact, judging the detailed analysis of this alphabet in a commentary which Scholem thought might have “derived from the pen of Eleazar of Worms,” it appears that each glyph is loaded with meaning.
Unfortunately detailed delineations of Hebrew based magical alphabets are rare, and since we have really only one such analysis of a magical alphabet, i.e. the “Alphabet of Metatron” [Weinstock, I.: Temirin: Mekorot u-Mech’karim b’Kabbalah v’Chasidut, Mosad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem 1972], which was written by an anonymous author some centuries back, we are still in the dark as to the primary reasoning behind the construction of most of these magical alphabets. Notwithstanding this, we can get greater clarity from a closer perusal of the “Alpha Beta shel Metatron,” regarding which we find the following details. The information shared here does not comprise a full translation of the text in question, but merely a description of some of the relevant material:
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of.html
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of_19.html
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of_21.html
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of_22.html
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of_23.html
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of_28.html
http://kabbalahselfcreation.blogspot.ro/2013/12/alfa-beta-shel-metatron-alphabet-of_30.html