Runes, Glyphs and Other Matters

  As part of his testimony qualifying as an expert witness on the occult, Dale W. Griffis stated "I know that I’m in about 50 books, and out of the fifty, two of them don’t like me." He also stated he had written four books. These were:
 
  I have tracked down information on each.

  The Four Faces of Satan is described as an article for the anti-cult newsletter, File 18.

  The other three books, I was able to locate via WorldCat, the searchable database of libraries.

   Investigation Manual for Non-Traditional Groups is described as 20 unnumbered pages with illustrations and 29 cm. On its title page is "Confidential" and "vol. II."

   A Law Enforcement Primer on Cults: With a Guide to the Prevention of Deceptive Recruitment into Cults is 15 pages with illustrations and also 29 cm.

   Finally, Runes, Glyphs, and Alphabets is described as 32 unnumbered pages with illustrations, 22 cm.

RGA

   I requested and received a copy of Runes, Glyphs, and Alphabets. It is 8.5 by 5.5 inches, a set of eight 8.5 by 11 inch pages folded in half and stapled together. Although WorldCat stated it had unnumbered pages, the pages did have numbers typed in. It is described as "Prepared by the Staff of Dale W. Griffis, Ph.D." although staff may have been referring to "a magical stick." It contains no copyright statement or date of publication.

   It consists mostly of alphabets or symbols which are tagged to English letters they represent. One alphabet is presented per page, filling twenty of the pages. Being a quantitative sort of person, I hand-counted 595 words that existed in actual sentences, corresponding more closely to a two page book.

   The first set of alphabets are called the Hebrew Alphabets and titled Early Hebrew Alphabet, Modern Hebrew Alphabet and Degenerate Hebrew Alphabet. Searching via Google "Degenerate Hebrew Alphabet" brought back zero results.

   The next set are grouped as the Hebraic Magical Alphabets and are titled Celestial Writing, Passing the River, The Malachim, and The Alphabet of the Magi.

   I imagined that if there are cults out there writing in Hebrew, surely there must be some cool cults writing in Greek. Nope. Next the book describes runes and presents three versions of the "Furthorc or Futhark" alphabets. This is followed by Miscellaneous Magical Alphabets: Theban or Witches Alphabet, Enochian, Universal Letters of Philosophy and Ethics, and Alphabet of Incantations and Divinations.

   This section is followed by three sets of alphabets called codes: Royal Arch Code, Templar Code and Untitled Cipher Code.

   The final several pages are filled with Dungeons & Dragons symbols and alphabets. Three are described as being from the Greyhawk campaign set and three from the Forgotten Realms campaign set.

   The final page is titled "Sources" and lists seven items. One is the Random House Dictionary. Two are game guides to Dungeons and Dragons. The last one is "Unattributed information in the possession of Dale W. Griffis, Ph.D."

  One more note. When I ordered this book, I hypothesized that I would encounter the cypher appearing on the notorious "State's Exhibit 300," a page of paper presented at trial with a coded alphabet which was said to have been taken from Echols jail cell (and not presented to the defense before appearing in the trial). I did not find this alphabet.