“Isentropic” comes from Ancient Greek “ῐ̓́σος” or “iso-” meaning “equal” (or “same”) and “entropy.”
Entropy (chaos) comes from its Ancient Greek root “τροπή” which could mean either “trope” or a “turning away of the enemy” (“rout”).
An isentropic state then refers to “a state of constant entropy.”
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the state of entropy of an isolated system, will always increase over time.
Imagining our entire Universe as an isolated system, for example, as we understand it, this tells us that entropy can only increase.
This is important because entropy dictates whether or not a process or reaction is spontaneous. Spontaneous meaning “occurring without external stimulus.”
In other terms, this dictation via entropy determines the causality or acausality of that reaction or process.
“Entropic Security” is a security term in the field of Cryptography. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “Entropic Security” is used to refer to entropy as “the measure of the amount of uncertainty an attacker faces to determine the value of a secret.”
Entropy, thus, represents the amount of chaos, disorder, or randomness within a closed system.
Due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy will always increase. Suiting its Ancient Greek roots, entropy serves to provide security by “turning around the enemy” – or rather – confusing the shit out of them.
So if you feel confused at this point, you’re on the right track.
In “Entropic Security” entropy is calculated by knowing characters used (numbers, letters, symbols, etc) and the character length of the encrypted value.
For example: XXXXX shows 5 characters hidden. If these are all letters in the English alphabet, you have a 1/26 chance of guessing any one character.
Altogether, that’s 1/26^5 or a ratio of 1:11881376.
A method for increasing entropy is to increase the possible combinations. In this example, it would look like: XXXXXX or XXXXXXXX – adding a unit to the value of the string being hidden. If each missing unit is a letter in the English language, then one knows that this adds another chance out of 26 to guess correctly, exponentially decreasing the odds that one will be able to do so.
Other ways of increasing uncertainty in the onlooker, would be to conceal the length of the value entirely, or to increase the potential combinations by adding symbols and numbers. The more possible characters that X could represent, the less likely one is to discover what X represents.
The earliest forms of encryption are symbol replacement, such as are found in the Egyptian tomb of Khnumhotep II, who lived in 1900 BC.
Likewise, the Ancient Greeks and Romans utilized encryption as a Military Intelligence practice, such as in the famous Caesar Cipher.
Eventually, Arab mathematicians found ways to crack the Caesar Cipher, going by the frequency of letters in order to determine how the cypher should be shifted.
In 1465, an Italian architect, Leone Alberti, came up with the idea to incorporate other languages into the encryption method, in the “Polyalphabetic cipher.” In this method, the person decrypting it would need to know what language it’s meant to be read in plain text if they hope to crack it. What Alberti did here, was increase entropy by increasing the number of possible characters in the code.
We’ve come a long way since then. Computers can solve complex hashes and algorithms at speeds our ancient ancestors couldn’t have dreamed of.
Even just in the time since World War II, the power and scope of our entropic concealment of secrets has increased at such a rapid speed that we almost can’t imagine what further encryption practices Quantum technology will bring. Post-Quantum Encryption is already a field in cybersecurity being developed and tested by NIST and those like them. In 2021, they started testing submitted Post-Quantum Encryption algorithms sent in by cryptographers around the globe.
In World War II, the Nazis created what they called the “Enigma Machine.”
The Enigma Machine uses a rotor mechanism to scramble the inputted message. The 26 lights above the 26-character keyboard light up corresponding to each key-press. When one person entered their message in plaintext, those lights correspond to the ciphertext. Then, when one enters that ciphertext, the corresponding lights represent the plaintext message that had been inputted by the sender.
It sounds tedious to use nowadays with the advancements our societies and species have made in cryptography since then. Still, this tool was a high rate more advanced than the Caesar ciphers the Arab mathematicians were cracking in Ancient times. And those, we can be sure, were light years more advanced than their Egyptian predecessors.
The Enigma Machine was so advanced for its time, even the Japanese of WWII replicated the mechanism with their own:
The occult is nearly inextricable from studies of encryption. Since “occult” literally means “hidden knowledge” – it only follows that occultists make the best cryptographers. Not to mention, occultists have the most secrets to encrypt. (Or, secrets to de-crypt…)
The Cipher Manuscripts are 60 documents that were used as the foundation for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They are dated to the early 1800s. The secrets of the manuscripts outline rituals corresponding to the four elements of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. One could say the act of decrypting them is itself a ritual of dis-covering.
They conceal magickal secrets, such as hermetic traditions, alchemy, qabbalism, as well secrets about divinatory practices like astrology and tarot. These documents create a whole model for Western Mystery Traditions to follow for learning practices of symbols and patterns.
Since the grades outlined in these documents are similar to that of the Rosicrucian Order, many scholars think it’s likely they created these documents in order to add a layer of intrigue and mystique to their worldbuilding. Tying in Trithemius’ Polygraphia is a stroke of genius in that pursuit, since it adds weight to his writings and history for those who are exposed to them because they already value the Rosicrusians’ teachings.
That’s only one theory of many regarding their origins, but from my perspective, it’s one that we can all learn from, especially if you’ve read this far. In truth, I’ve only been rambling. This isn’t a profound breakthrough. But it is surface-level information winking at what could lie dormant beneath that crust.
The occult is synonymous with hidden knowledge and cryptography is synonymous with the practice of hiding knowledge. It’s only natural for cryptography and the occult to go hand-in-hand.
The real insight (out of all my entropic rambling about hidden knowledge) to be gained here is this: if you want to decrypt XXXXX, know what the unit for ‘X’ is. If it’s anything like the case of the Cipher Manuscripts, a unit is a whole mythos onto itself. Each X-unit is another layer of entire mythology built onto another to safely encrypt the secrets beneath layers upon layers of other secrets.
Making the decrypted Form, then, the very act itself of gaining creativity and comprehension.
To encrypt those myths: Simply write more.
Encrypting mythology with mythology is the name of the game. The very entropy of comprehension and incomprehension itself ensures the trap is set for any brute-force approach to seeking occult knowledge.
It begs the question: Would you even comprehend having found it?
Ordo ab chao, as they say. Everything isn’t for everybody. When in Rome.
This post may serve as simply another drop in the ocean of mythbuilding, but keep reading and drown out the deciphering attempts of those who have yet to learn that the mysteries of our Tradition and Mythos are themselves their very own process of their own unfolding.
As DNA is to humans, as memes are to ideas, and as shit is to the fan – we are that which embodies both the hash and the key.
Even as we encrypt it further, of course, with the entropic nature of our endless creative pursuit for meaning, truth, and comprehension.
Ariadne
2022 e.v.