Gaffarel — Unheard-of Curiosities (1650, Chilmead EN)
Part IV, Chapter XIII — OF THE READING OF THE STARS
(cleaned from archive.org b30333817 OCR; long-s normalized, spelling kept
close to the 1650 edition; source: EEBO-TCP A85346.0001.001, CC0; Wikisource
stub cross-checked. Hebrew reconstructed from context where OCR dropped it.)

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CHAPTER XIII TITLE (1650):

  "That the Starres, according to the Opinion of the Hebrew Writers,
   are ranged in the Heavens, in the forme of Letters: and that it is
   Possible to reade there, whatsoever of Importance is to happen,
   throughout the Universe."

Chapter XIII contents (as listed in the 1650 edition):
  1.  That the Celestiall Constellations were anciently marked with
      Hebrew Characters.
  2.  How the Celestiall Signes are figured in Hebrew Characters.
  3.  That the Hebrew was the first Language; and that the Heavens were
      written in Hebrew Characters, before the Greek, or any other.
  4.  That the Stars are ranged, not in the forme of Arabick, nor
      Samaritan, but of Hebrew Characters.
  5.  That the Heavens are a Booke. (Isa. 34:4 — "the heavens shall be
      rolled together as a scroll"; because they are a Book.)
  6.  The three manners of reading the Heavens: Gematria, Notaricon,
      Temurah (the three parts of the Cabala).
  7.  New Stars appear, and change the words formed (Rabbi Chomer).
  8.  What things are to be observed, that one may be able to read the
      Heavens; why New Stars often appear, according to the Rabbins.
  9.  On which side we are to begin this Reading.
 10.  Of the interpretation of the words found in the Heavens.
 11.  Of those Celestiall Letters that have foreshowne all the great
      Mutations in States.

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1. OPENING CLAIM — THE HEAVENS ARE A BOOK WRITTEN IN HEBREW LETTERS

  "Celestiall Constellations were anciently marked with Hebrew
   Characters." The argument: Hebrew was the first language; therefore
   the "celestiall writing" (the form the stars make) is in Hebrew
   letters, not Arabick, Samaritan, or Egyptian. Isaiah 34:4 — "the
   Heavens shall be rolled together" — is read as "rolled together as a
   SCROLL/LIBER," and the reason given is: "Because they are a Booke."
   (The Vulgate "Sicut liber" / Hebrew כמגלה; Gaffarel leans on the
   reading that the heavens are a rolled scroll = a book written in
   letters.) Psalm 19 — "their line is gone out through all the earth"
   (Hebrew קום) — is adduced: the heavens declare, i.e. they spell.

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2. THE THREE MANNERS OF READING THE HEAVENS (= the three parts of the
   Cabala), needed to interpret the celestial writing:

  • GEMATRIA — "considereth of the Numbers that are contained in the
    Letters; and, by comparing them with others the like, gives an
    Exposition." (The numerical value of the celestial word is matched
    to a Hebrew word/event of equal value.)
  • NOTARICON — each letter of the celestial word stands for (is the
    initial of) a whole word, making an acronym/sentence.
  • TEMURAH — transposition / anagram of the letters, giving the
    hidden word by permutation.

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3. RABBI CHOMER — WORKED EXAMPLES (celestial words read over nations,
   foretelling their fate; values matched by Gematria)

  a) GREECE. "Five [vertical] Stars did for a good while together make
     up this word: CHARAB (חרב), which, in the [Hiphil] conjugation,
     signifies To be Desolate — understanding this particularly of
     Greece, over which these Stars shone; because that the number of
     its letters, which are [He, Resh, Bet = 5+200+2 = 207? — Gaffarel
     gives the sum], make up the same as JAVAN (יון = 10+6+50 = 66?
     — the 1650 text prints 'Summ, 12' for the comparison as it stands
     in his source)." The point: the celestial word over Greece and the
     name of Greece (Javan) share their number → by Gematria Greece is
     read as "to be made desolate."
       [OCR note: the printed table reads "Charab / Destitued Desolate /
        Summ, 12". The Hebrew is חרב HhRB; the Javan comparison is יון.]

  b) JERUSALEM. Stars over Jerusalem composed a word signifying "to
     reject / forsake" (Hikschich / הכשיח), foretelling the Temple's
     destruction.

  c) THE JEWISH KINGDOM. "Five Stars were, for a long time together,
     observed to compose these Three Mysticall Letters, NATAQ (נתק),
     a word which signifieth, to Break, Cast Down, and to Drive out.
     And the Number of these Letters, which is 505, was the Exact Number
     of years that the Jewish Kingdome had lasted, from Saul, to the
     Deplorable King Zedechiah."  נתק = 50+400+5? (Nun 50 + Tav 400 +
     Qof 100 = 550, or per Gaffarel's reckoning 505) = the kingdom's
     span → read by Gematria as its fall.

  d) TURKEY / the Ottoman Empire. Stars formed "CAAH (כעה), battered /
     languishing," value 1025, predicting the empire's fall ~1655.

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4. NEW STARS CHANGE THE WORD

  A new star appearing adds a letter to the celestial word and so
  changes its reading, "as adding a letter changes a word": his analogy
  AKE → LAKE → ARKE — one new star can turn a benign reading into a
  fatal one, or vice versa. (This is the mechanism by which comets and
  new stars — Part IV ch. XII — are read as celestial letters that
  rewrite the sky's sentence.)

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5. READING DIRECTION

  "The Good Fortunes of a Place should be read, from the West, toward
   the East [the natural motion of the stars]; and the Ill Fortune is
   likewise to be read, from the North, toward the West." Authority:
   Jeremiah 1:14 — "A Septentrione pandetur malum. An Evill commeth from
   the North" (והרעה מצפון תפתח). Hence the side from which one begins
   to read the celestial letters determines good vs. ill fortune.

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6. THE PLATES

  Two folding plates precede the body: "Tables of the Celestiall
   Constellations, expressed by Hebrew Characters" — the 48 Ptolemaic
   constellations drawn with the Hebrew letters their stars compose.
   (Science History Institute digital copy, fpj6eec, preserves these.)

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RELEVANCE TO THE CAELI READER THESIS

  Gaffarel (1629/1650) attests, from Hebrew sources (Rabbi Chomer et al.),
   the precise thesis the present work operationalizes: the stars are not
   merely lights but LETTERS ranged in the sky, the heavens are a book
   written in Hebrew characters, and the three kabbalistic instruments
   (Gematria, Notaricon, Temurah) are exactly the tools to read it. The
   Caeli Reader replaces Gaffarel's stationary "celestial word over a
   nation" with a DYNAMICAL reading: the 22 letters (= the 3+7+12 of the
   Sefer Yetzirah) are assigned to the 12 zodiacal signs + 7 planets + 3
   mothers, so that the moving sky continuously spells, and the
   positional rule S⊆O selects which spellings are legible on a given day.
   Gaffarel's "new star rewrites the word" ↔ the Reader's "a planet
   entering a sign rewrites the sky-sentence." The Persian talismanic
   sculpture (Part II) is the operative counterpart: images cast "under
   certain Constellations" = configurations; the Reader reads the
   configuration itself as the celestial letter-word.

Sources:
  - archive.org/details/b30333817 (OCR → _dl_ocr.txt)
  - quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A85346.0001.001 (EEBO-TCP, CC0)
  - en.wikisource.org/wiki/Unheard-of_Curiosities (structure stub)
  - digital.sciencehistory.org/works/fpj6eec (folding plates)
  - wellcomecollection.org/works/yju6kfxw (488 page images)