Book excerpt: Like Runes, The Theban Oracle is a unique and singular writing system, or more appropriately, an alphabet-codex that is based on the ancient magical writings devised by the 14th century magi, Honorius of Thebes. It was later utilized as an oracle by such masters of the occult sciences as Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Petrus de Abano and Dr. John Dee among other medieval and renaissance contemporaries of high magick. The Theban code-writing system appeared to go dormant until 1801, when Englishman Francis Barrett brought this and other esoteric aspects of magick back into vogue. It was later re-discovered by Gerald Gardner in the 1930s, where it caught on in select covens and metaphysical circles.