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Title: Enochian magick
Post by: Khepri on April 21, 2015, 11:07:30 pm
Enochian magick

Enochian magic is a system of ceremonial magic based on the invocation and commanding of various spirits. It is based on the 16th-century writings of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley, who claimed that their information, including the revealed Enochian language, was delivered to them directly by various angels. Dee's journals contained the Enochian script, and the tables of correspondences that accompany it. Dee and Kelley believed their visions gave them access to secrets contained within the apocryphal Book of Enoch.

Origins and manuscript sources[edit]
The Enochian system of magic as practiced today is primarily the product of researches and workings by four men: John Dee, Edward Kelley, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley. In addition, the researches of Dr Thomas Rudd, Elias Ashmole, Dr William Wynn Westcott and Israel Regardie were integral to its development.[1]

The raw material for the Enochian magical system was "dictated" through a series of Angelic communications which lasted from 1582-1589. Dee and Kelley claimed they received these instructions from angels. While Kelly conducted the psychic operations known as scrying, Dee kept meticulous written records of everything that occurred. Kelly would look deeply into a crystal "shewstone" and describe aloud whatever he saw.

This account of the Angelic communications is taken at face value by most Enochian occultists. However, some of them have pointed out remarkable similarities to earlier grimoiric texts such as the Heptameron known to Dee.[2] Such magical texts as The Book of Soyga (of which Dee owned a copy), the Pauline Art (Ars Paulina)(see Lesser Key of Solomon) and others including the magical works of Agrippa and Reuchlin probably also had an influence on the Angelical magical workings of Dee and Kelley. The system claims to relate to secrets contained within the apocryphal Book of Enoch.

Liber Logaeth - The Sixth and Sacred Book of the Mysteries

The Liber Logaeth (Book of the Speech of God)(aka The Book of Enoch aka Liber Mysteriorum, Sextus et Sanctus -The Sixth (and Sacred/Holy) Book of the Mysteries)(1583); is preserved in the British Museum as Sloane ms 3189. The correct spelling is Loagaeth but it has been so frequently printed as Logaeth that this spelling is in common use. Written up by Edward Kelley, it is composed of 65 folios containing 101 exceedingly complex magical grids of letters, 96 of which are 49×49 grids (preceded by one "table" composed of 49 rows of text – the first row of which is actually the 49th row of the first table, not in this MS.), plus 5 grids of 36 x 72 cells. It is from Liber Logaeth that Dee and Kelley derived the 48 Calls or Keys (see below), and in which are concealed the keys to the Mystical Heptarchy, a related magical work by Dee. Liber Logaeth has never yet been published in book form but is available online at: [1]. Dee himself left little information on his Sixth Holy Book apart from saying that it contained 'The Mysterie of our Creation, The Age of many years, and the conclusion of the World' and that the first page in the book signified Chaos. Note that the title The Book of Enoch attributed to the text of Liber Logaeth is not to be confused with the aprocryphal Biblical The Book of Enoch. (There are three versions of the latter; a facsimile reprint of the Ethiopian version is Laurence, (1995))[3] Nor should it be confused with Crowley's rescension Liber Chanokh (The Book of Enoch) although all these texts are related. See the limited edition on subject by author Stephen Skinner.

The Five Books of Mystery

Another crucial manuscript, (Sloan ms. 3188, also available in a fair copy by Elias Ashmole, MS Sloane 3677. Available online at: [2]). It is an account of the 'actions' or workings undertaken in the Liber Logaeth, titled the Mysteriorum Libri Quinque (Five Books of Mystery (or Mystical Exercises). The Mysteriorum Libri Quinque is the diary for 22 December 1581 – 23 May 1583 inclusive: the first five Books of the Mysteries (and Appendix), ending where Causubon's A True and Faithful Relation begins. It describes the furniture of the temple; the Seal of God (Sigillum Dei); the Tables of Light; the Great Circle and corresponding Collected Table of 49 Good Angels; the Mystic Heptarchy and the Tables of Creation; the Angelic Alphabet (Dee's copies) and the beginning of Loagaeth (i.e., the first few folios of MS. Sloane 3189). There are two transcripts of this manuscript available today: Joseph Peterson[4] and C. L. Whitby.[5] Versions of the first three of the five Books of Mystical Exercises can be found online at : [3]

Other Enochian manuscripts

Yet another central manuscript is Sloane 3191 (available online at: [4] ) which comprises: 48 Angelic Keys; The Book of Earthly Science, Aid and Victory; On the Mystic Heptarchy; and Invocations of the Good Angels.

Two further Manuscripts from Dee and Kelley's workings are important to Enochian magic:

1) MS. Cotton Appendix XLVI Part I (available online at: [5] is the diary for 28 May 1583 – 15 August 1584 inclusive: The Sixth (and Sacred) Parallel Book of the Mysteries (not to be confused with "The Sixth and Sacred Book of the Mysteries", which is part of Liber Logaeth - see above) and "The Seventh Book of the Mysteries" (Kraków), beginning where A True and Faithful Relation begins. It includes the arrival of Prince Adalbert Laski, the journey to Kraków and the dictation of the 48 Calls or Keys (including descriptions of the 91 Parts of the Earth), as well as the Vision of the Four Watchtowers and also the Great Table.
2) MS. Cotton Appendix XLVI Part II (available online at: [6]) is the diary for 15 August 1584 – 23 May 1587 (and 20 March – 7 September 1607) inclusive: The Book of Praha, The Royal Stephanic Mysteries, The Puccian Action, The Book of Resurrection, The Third Action of Trebon and the remaining Spirit Actions at Mortlake in 1607, ending where A True and Faithful Relation ends. (It may be seen that Casaubon's A True and Faithful Relation is equivalent to the MS Cotton Appendix in toto, i.e. Dee and Kelley's diaries from 28 May 1585-23 Sept 1607).
Meric Casaubon's 1659 edition of part of these diaries (Cotton Appendix MS. XLVI), entitled A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits contains notorious transcription errors which in some cases were transmitted through many subsequent republications of the Dee/Kelly material; Casaubon's edition was intended to discredit Dee and Kelly by accusing them of dealing with the Christian Devil. An expanded facsimile edition of Casaubon was published by Magickal Childe in 1992[6]

Dee and Kelley's surviving manuscripts later came into the possession of Elias Ashmole, who preserved them, and made fair copies of some, along with annotations.

Rediscovery by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

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Dee and Kelly never referred to their magic as 'Enochian' but rather called it 'Angelic'. However in modern occultism it is commonly known as Enochian. It is not quite clear how much of Enochian magic was put to use by Dee and Kelley. Indeed, whether Dee and Kelly ever practiced Enochian is still up for debate. The angels told them not to work Enochian, and there are no diary records of works being done except for one healing talisman that they were instructed by the angels to make. Dee and Kelley's journals are essentially notebooks which record the elements of the system, rather than records of workings they performed using the system.

Some writers assert that Thomas Rudd was the centre of a group of angel magicians who may have used Dee and Kelly's material. The Angelical material of Dee and Kelley also had a considerable influence on the magic of Rosicrucianism. However, little else became of Dee's work until late in the nineteenth century, when it was incorporated and adopted by a mysterious and highly secret brother-hood of adepts in England, who called themselves the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The rediscovery of Enochian magic by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1880s led to Mathers hammering the material into a comprehensive and workable system of ceremonial Magick.[neutrality is disputed] They invoked the Enochian deities whose names were written on the tablets. They also traveled in what they called their Body of Light (a poetic term for the aura) into these subtle regions and recorded their psychic experiences in a scientific manner.[neutrality is disputed] The two major branches of the system were then grafted on to the Adeptus Minor curriculum of the Golden Dawn.

Enochian as an operative system is difficult to reconstruct based upon original manuscripts like the collection of Sir Hans Sloane in the British Museum, but contemporary occult organizations have attempted to make it usable. The Golden Dawn was the first, but their knowledge was based upon only one of Dee's diaries and their planetary, elemental, or zodiacal attributions have no foundation in the original sources.

The Golden Dawn also invented the game of Enochian chess, so that aspects of the Enochian Tablets can be used for divination. The four chessboards do not have any symbols on them, just sets of squares colored in certain ways. Each board is associated with one of the four elements of magick. Pat Zalewski's book (1994) on the subject is definitive.[7]

The papers of the Sphere Group, a sub-group of the Golden Dawn founded by Florence Farr which experimented with Enochian magic, have been edited and published in Kuntz, (1996).[8]

Aleister Crowley and Enochian Magic

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Aleister Crowley, who worked with, and wrote about, Enochian magic extensively, has contributed much to its comparatively widespread use today. Crowley published the Golden Dawn Enochian material as "A Brief Abstract of the Symbolic Representation of the Universe Derived by Doctor John Dee Through the Skrying of Sir Edward Kelly." (Initially published in Crowley's Journal The Equinox Nos VII and VIII, this work was subsequently renamed Liber LXXXIV vel Chanokh, or The Book of Enoch - Chanokh being an older Hebrew form of the name Enoch. Crowley numbered the book as 84 since that number is the Qabalistic numeration for Chanokh. (In some printings the number 89 is mistakenly assigned to the book).

Crowley's most famous work with Enochian focused upon the Calls of the Aethyrs. His visions from these Calls, which he experienced while working with Victor Neuberg in Algeria, formed a document called The Vision and the Voice, also known as Liber 418 (or to give it its full title, Liber CCCCXVIII: Liber XXX Ćrum Vel Saeculi, Being of the Angels of the Thirty Aethyrs the Vision and the Voice - see Holy Books of Thelema). The book was written with highly symbolic imagery and is integral to Crowley's explication of his Law of Thelema. Recordings of Crowley reading the First and Second Calls of the Aethyrs (in both English and Enochian) exist; they were recorded as part of a series of wax cylinder recordings made by Crowley in 1922, and can be found on various compilations of these recordings onto CD which are widely available today.

The system

The two pillars of modern Enochian Magick, as outlined in Liber Chanokh are the Elemental Watchtowers (including the Tablet of Union) and the "World" of the 30 Aethyrs. The Aethyrs are the "heavens" or Aires of the system. Starting with the 30th Aethyr and working to the first, the magician explores only as far as his level of initiation will permit.[9][neutrality is disputed]

The Calls or 'Keys' and the "World" of the 30 Aethyrs[edit]
The essence of the Enochian system depends on the utilisation of Eighteen Calls or Keys in the Enochian language (a series of rhetorical exhortations which function as evocations), and a Nineteenth key known as the Call or Key of the 30 Aethyrs. The calls are used to enter the various Aethyrs, in visionary states. The Aethyrs are conceived of as forming a map of the entire universe in the form of concentric rings which expand outward from the innermost to the outermost Aethyr.

The Enochian 'map' of the universe is depicted by Dee as a square (made up of the 4 Elemental Tablets/Watchtowers incorporating the Tablet of Union (Spirit)), surrounded by 30 concentric circles (the 30 Aethyrs or Airs). The 30 Aethyrs are numbered from 30 (TEX, the lowest and consequently the closest to the Watchtowers) to 1 (LIL, the highest, representing the Supreme Attainment). In a similar way to the methods used by magicians to scry upon the Qabalistic Tree of Life, which involves travelling astrally to each pathway and Sephira, magicians working the Enochian system record their impressions and visions within each of the successive Enochian Aethyrs. The systems are comparable but not equivalent; while Enochian has 30 Aethyrs, there are a total of 32 Sephira and paths upon the Tree of Life. Just as a magician may talk about exploring the Tree of Life from Malkuth to Kether, the Enochian magician would talk about exploring the Enochian Aethyrs from TEX to LIL.

Each of the 30 Aethyrs is populated by "Governors" (3 for each Aethyr, except TEX which has four, thus a total of 91 Governors). Each of the governors has a sigil which can be traced onto the Great Tablet of Earth.

In practical Enochian workings, the Nineteenth Call/Key of the 30 Aethyrs is the only call necessary for working with the Aethyrs. It is only necessary to vary appropriately the name of the Aethyr itself near the beginning of the call. Once the Call is recited, the names of the Governors are vibrated one at a time and a record of the visions is kept. The use of Calls 1-18 is rather complex and their usage should be made clear via one of the Enochian textbooks cited below.

The Great Table of Earth: The Elemental Watchtowers and their subdivisions

The angels of the four quarters are symbolized by the Elemental "Watchtowers" — four large magickal word-square Tables (collectively called the "Great Table of the Earth"). Most of the well-known Enochian angels are drawn from the Watchtowers of the Great Table.

Each of the four Watchtowers (representing the Elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water), is collectively "governed" by a hierarchy of spiritual entities which runs (as explained in Crowley's Liber Chanokh) as the Three Holy Names, the Great Elemental King, the Six Seniors (aka Elders) (these make a total of 24 Elders as seen in the Revelation of St. John), the Two Divine Names of the Calvary Cross, the Kerubim, and the Sixteen Lesser Anegls. Each Watchtower is further divided into four sub-quadrants (sometimes referred to as 'sub-angles') where we find the names of various Archangels and Angels who govern the quarters of the world. In this way, the entire universe, visible and invisible, is depicted as teeming with living intelligences. Each of the Elemental tablets is also divided into four sections by a figure known as the Great Central Cross. The Great Central cross consists of the two central vertical columns of the Elemental Tablet (the Linea Patris and Linea Filii) and the central horizontal line (known as the Linea Spiritus Sancti).

In addition to the four Elemental Watchtowers, a twenty-square cell known as the Tablet of Union (aka The Black Cross, representing Spirit) completes the representation of the five traditional elemental attributes used in magic - Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Spirit. The Tablet of Union is derived from within the Great Central Cross of the Great Table.

The squares of the Elemental Watchtowers and those of the Tablet of Union are not simply squares, but in fact truncated pyramids, or pyramids with flat tops - thus, pyramids which have four sides and top, for a total of five 'sides'. Again, these represent the traditional five magical elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Spirit) though in varying combinations. There are 20 Pyramids in the Tablet of Union and 156 in each of the four Elemental Tablets. Each pyramid houses an 'angel' with a one-letter name. The angel's attributes (that is, its powers and its nature) are 'read off' according to its position within the Tablet and proportions of the different Elements (whether Earth, Air, Fire, Water or Spirit) represented on its sides. When two Pyramids are combined they form an 'angel' with a two-letter name whose attributes are somewhat more complex. This gives rise to ever-more complex 'angels' depending on the number of pyramids under examination. The attribution of various Elements to the various pyramids is best depicted on a labelled and coloured version of the various Tablets; an Enochian texbook (e.g.[10] or[11] is most useful for this purpose.

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