Glossary & FAQ
Quick reference for the terms used across this site, plus answers to the questions people most often arrive here asking.
Glossary
- Quinance (5° arc)
- A five-degree segment of the zodiac, roughly five days of the solar year. Each of the 72 names governs exactly one quinance; six quinances make up one 30° zodiac sign.
- Boustrophedon (Greek: "ox-turning")
- A method of reading that alternates direction line by line, like an ox plowing a field — turning at the end of each row instead of returning to the start. Used to derive the 72 name-columns from the three source verses. See The Method.
- Tetragrammaton יהוה
- The four-letter Hebrew name of God. "Shem HaMephorash" originally referred to this name specifically, before the term shifted meaning across later periods — see History.
- Triad / triliteral root
- The raw three-letter combination produced by reading down one column of the boustrophedon grid, before the -El or -Yah suffix is added.
- -El / -Yah suffixes
- The two endings appended in alternation to each three-letter root to make it pronounceable as a name — אֵל (El, associated with divine mercy) and יָהּ (Yah, associated with divine severity).
- Gematria
- The practice of assigning numerical values to Hebrew letters and finding significance in the resulting sums. Related to, but distinct from, the boustrophedon derivation used for the 72 Names.
Spelling variants
All of the following refer to the same system. Spelling drifted as the material passed from Hebrew into Latin, German, and modern English transliteration.
| Variant | Where it's used |
|---|---|
| Shem HaMephorash | Most common modern transliteration; used throughout this site. |
| Shem ha-Mephorash | Hyphenated variant, common in academic sources. |
| Shemhamphorasch | German-influenced spelling, from Luppius's 1686 Semiphoras und Schemhamphoras. |
| Semiphoras / Semamphoras | Latin title tradition (Liber Semamphoras), predating the German text above. |
| Shem HaMeforash | Alternate single-consonant transliteration, seen in some encyclopedia entries. |
Frequently asked questions
A five-degree arc of the zodiac, corresponding to roughly five days of the solar year. Each of the 72 names governs one quinance — see the full names table for every date range.
It means reading in alternating directions, line by line — the three source verses (Exodus 14:19–21) are read right-to-left, then left-to-right, then right-to-left again, so that stacking them produces 72 readable columns. Full walkthrough on The Method.
Both are the same system. "Shem HaMephorash" is the more common current transliteration; "Shemhamphorasch" and "Semiphoras" are older Latin/German-descended spellings from 17th-century occult texts. See the spelling table above.
Yes — the 72 triliteral roots are traditionally understood as 72 aspects of the divine name, not 72 separate gods. Their association with 72 individual angels came later, as a distinct Christian Hermetic addition. See History for exactly when and how that happened.
No — every name on this site is given in transliteration, and the derivation is explained conceptually on The Method page without requiring you to read the source text directly.
Almost always this comes from a duplicated or double-counted entry — most notably, two different names in the standard sequence are both transliterated "Lauviah" (positions 11 and 17). Some compilers list one twice by mistake; others resolve it with a disambiguating "I/II" label. Covered in more depth on the History page.