The Dee Diaries

The systems of magick now known as Enochian magick derive from the work of the Elizabethan scholar Dr. John Dee and seer Edward Kelly. Dee had a passion for discovering lost knowledge and spiritual truths; in particular he wanted to recover the wisdom he believed to be in the lost books of earlier times. Among these was the then-fabled Book of Enoch, which he apparently conceived as being a book describing the magick system used by that patriarch. Having come to the conclusion that worldly efforts would not lead to the wisdom he desired, he decided to apply himself to contacting divine sources. During the years from 1581 to 1585, Dee performed a long series of magickal operations to that intent. Kelly joined him in March of 1582, and was his sole assistant during the remainder of the work.

The method employed for these works was fairly standard for the time. Dee would act as the orator, directing fervent prayers to God and the archangels for 15 minutes to an hour. Then a scrying stone would be placed on a prepared table, and the angels were called to manifest a visible appearance therein. Kelly would watch the stone and report everything he saw and heard; Dee would sit at another table nearby and record everything that occurred.

Dee made multiple copies of these records. A portion of them, concerning the Angelic Calls, Tablets and Liber Scientiae, were acquired with Dee’s library by Robert Cotton. This part was published in Casaubon’s A True and Faithful Relation. The earlier portions concerning the Heptarchy and Liber Loagaeth came to light by a more roundabout means.

In later years, Dee apparently decided to conceal his magickal records in a hidden compartment of a large cedar chest he possessed. After his death the chest was purchased from his estate and passed through several owners. The hidden documents were not discovered until around 1662, and found their way into the hands of Elias Ashmole in 1672. Mr. Ashmole’s collection passed eventually to the British Library.

According to Ashmole, about half of the hidden records were mistakenly destroyed by the discoverer’s maid before efforts were made to preserve the rest. Despite this, the records for the 1581-1585 operations appear almost entirely intact.

The record of these operations is very detailed; so much so that it takes careful study to separate the spiritual "wheat" from the chaff. Much of the communication was important within the context of the operations, but has no direct bearing on the systems of magick being presented. Of the rest, there are long periods of communications that, in retrospect, seem to have no purpose but to hold the magicians’ attention on continuing the operations. During these periods the angels would present colorful visions, portentous prophesies, and angelic gossip, but very little in the way of solid information. Additionally, the reader must deal with side-excursions into apocalyptic religion, politics, Dee and Kelly’s personal problems, and various irrelevant queries that Dee insisted on inserting into the work.

Chronologically, Dee and Kelly’s work divides into three highly productive periods separated by months in which nothing of particular value was received. The material received in each period generally stands on its own, and is only loosely related to that in the other periods. In the strictest interpretation, only the material from the third period qualifies as "Enochian", but the term is often applied to all of the work.

Period one: The Heptarchia Mystica

The first system of magick given to Dee was the Heptarchia Mystica. This is a self-contained and moderately complex planetary magick, similar in style (but not in content) to various "Solomonic" grimoires of the day. The record of its presentation can be found in Dee’s Mysteriorum Libri Quinti; a working grimoire, composed of Dee’s extracts from that record, is known as De Heptarchia Mystica.

The presentation of this magick was remarkably sequential and orderly, compared to later parts of the work. The necessary physical equipment was described in detail, followed by an angelic hierarchy of 49 "Good Angels", and further information concerning the Kings and Princes of the hierarchy, and their ministers. The major part of the information was given during 1582; significant corrections to the design of the equipment were given in the spring of the following year, after an hiatus in the work and the presentation of Liber Loagaeth.

Equipment

Ring, Lamen, and Holy Table

The angels claimed that the ring they designed for Dee was the same one that Solomon used to control demons. It had a plain band, to which was attached a rectangular plate. The letters PELE (Latin for "he will work wonders") were inscribed in the four corners. In the center was a circle with a horizontal line through it, with the letter "V" above and the letter "L" below.

Two different lamens were given to Dee. The first of these bears a generic resemblance to various goetic sigils, being an assortment of free-form lines and oddly placed letters. The being giving it instructed that it was to be made in gold and worn in all times and places for purpose of protection.

The following year, Dee and Kelly were told that this was a false lamen given by an "illuding spirit". They were given a 12-by-7 table formed from the names of the Heptarchic Kings and Princes; the new lamen consisted entirely of letters taken from this table and arranged in rectilinear patterns. Unlike the first lamen, the purpose of the second was solely to "dignify" the magician, to show his worthiness to perform the Heptarchic magick.

The Holy Table or Table of Covenant was the centerpiece of the Heptarchic magick. Its purpose was to be an "instrument of conciliation"; that is, the means by which the powers it symbolizes are brought together with the magician. As with the lamen, the initial version of the table was later said to be incorrect, and a new design provided.

The table was to be two cubits square (roughly 34 to 44 inches) and two cubits high. The legs ended in or rested upon hollow containers, under which small copies of the Sigil of Ameth (see below) were placed. It had a one-inch border, in which certain letters were drawn, 21 to a side. Inside the border a Star of David was drawn, and in the center of the star a 6-inch square divided into a 3-by-4 grid, containing more letters. On top of the table were placed seven planetary talismans, called the "Ensigns of Creation" (see below). In the center, a large version of the Sigil of Ameth. When in use, the table, Sigil, and talismans were to be covered with a red silk cloth. The scrying-stone was then placed on top of the cloth, directly over the Sigil.

The letters around the edge of the table, and in the central grid, are taken from the same 12-by-7 table used to form the lamen. They are intended to "dignify" the table -- to consecrate it to the Heptarchic work -- in the same way the lamen dignifies the magician. There is no indication in the record that they were intended to be words conveying meaning, as Gerald Schueler has alleged.

Many magicians have assumed that the Holy Table is also necessary to operations involving the Calls and Tablets given to Dee and Kelly in 1584. It is true that they made use of the table for operations that obtained that material. However, the table is clearly designed specifically for use with the Heptarchic powers; it seems unlikely that it would be suitable for the quasi-elemental nature of the Tablet powers.

The Sigil of Ameth

The Sigil of Ameth or Sigillum Dei is a large wax disk, on which are inscribed various names of God and angels, within a design of heptagons and heptagrams. This sigil was to be placed in the center of the Holy Table, underneath the scrying-stone. Smaller versions were to be placed underneath the cup-like ends of the table’s legs, apparently to insulate the table from earthly influences.

The Sigil is the only part of Dee’s work that has a direct correspondence in earlier magickal systems; versions appear in Liber Juratis and in Eodipus Aegypticus, among other tomes. Dee was initially instructed to copy the sigil from a book in his library, but found conflicting versions and could not decide between them. When he questioned the angels, they proceeded to give him the design for a new, more detailed version.

While most of the names on the Sigil are not immediately recognizable, nearly all of them are derived from two sets of familiar angelic names. The first set are the angels Agrippa lists as the "seven which stand in the presence of God". The god-names outside the hexagram in the Sigil are formed by transposition of the letters of these names, following an elaborate but consistent method. The second set are the planetary Archangels, whose names are shown at the center of the Sigil. These are used to form the four groups of seven angelic names within the hexagram, called the "Sons of Light", "Daughters of Light", "Sons of the Sons", and "Daughters of the Daughters". It is interesting to note that the derived names were given first, and only afterwards was the means of derivation shown. (For additional details on the formation of the Sigil, follow the hyperlink above.)

The Ensigns of Creation

Immediately following the presentation of the Sigil of Ameth, the angels provided seven complex talismans called the "Ensigns of Creation". These were to be engraved on plates of purified tin, and arrayed on the surface of the holy table; either in a continuous ring around the Sigil of Ameth, or in a row directly in front of the magician. As an alternative to the plates, the angels allowed that they could be painted directly on the table. During the Spring, 1583 corrections, the angels specified that the letters on the ensigns were to be converted into the angelic alphabet, but this was apparently never done.

As with the table itself, the ensigns were intended as instruments of conciliation between the magician and the Heptarchic powers. Each ensign was associated with a specific Heptarchic King, and therefor with a specific planet and day of the week.

The 49 Good Angels

The 49 Good Angels are the first "worldly" angelic powers presented in this system. Those listed on the Sigil of Ameth are apparently in some way above the worlds in which men live, as are the Ensigns. Having presented the Ensigns, the archangel Michael introduces the 49 angels by saying: "Now you touch the world, and the doings upon the earth. Now we show you the lower world: The Governors that work and rule under God."

Dee and Kelly were presented with seven 7-by-7 tables. Each square of each table contained a letter and a number from 1 to 49. By gathering the letters with the same number in a certain sequence, the names of the angels were produced. The list of names, divided into groups of seven, were called the Tabula Collecta. Dee arranged these names into a circular table (called the Tabula Bonorum), dividing the angels into groups of seven, with a King and a Prince heading each group.

Each of the original seven tables was associated with power over a particular aspect of existence; it follows that each angel’s name controls some part of each of those aspects. The powers ascribed to each table or letter are:

• Wit and wisdom
• The exaltation and government of Princes
• Prevailing in counsel, and over the nobility
• The gain and trade of merchandise. (Later changed to Water by Dee, for no clear reason.)
• The qualities of Earth, and of Water
• Knowledge of the Air and those that move in it
• The government of fire.

From this list of powers it would seem that, along at least one dimension, the Heptarchic magick is not entirely planetary in nature. The powers would fit more with the conception of a fourfold elemental world ruled by a threefold manifest spirit, as in the lowest seven sephiroth of the cabala.

Dee retroactively assigned a planetary attribute to each group of seven angels, based on the connections between the Kings and the days of the week. Later students have interpolated a system of dual attributes, based on the fact that the Prince of a given day is in a different group from the day’s King.

Kings, Princes, and their ministers

Following the presentation of the 49 angels, there is a gap in the record of about six months; apparently no operations were performed in this period. Ashmole speculates that Dee and Kelly had a disagreement over continuing the work. This seems a reasonable assumption. The pre-hiatus record ends with Kelly expressing dislike and disbelief of the spirits for suggesting he take actions not in accord with his nature. The post-hiatus record begins with the note: "After reconciliation with Kelly".

The material in this section is more confused than in those previous. The speech of the angels is more elaborate and bombastic, the visual aspect characterized by a quality of kitsch. Perhaps Kelly’s continuing hostility to the angels is responsible for the change.

The powers of the Princes are presented first, followed by their sigils. Next the Heptarchic Kings appear in succession. They describe their powers, and each presents their 42 ministers. The ministers in turn present their names, in two forms: a table of six rows and seven columns, each containing a letter; and a talisman with their names written about the circumference.

The powers ascribed to the Kings appear to be more in keeping with a planetary nature than those assigned to the individual letters of their names. However, there are some instances where the powers seem inappropriate to the assigned planet, and others where the power of the Prince does not accord with that of the King.

The 42 ministers assigned to each King are divided into six groups whose seven members have names formed from the same letters. Each group rules a four-hour section of the day, beginning at midnight. The first group is typically represented as expressing a purer form of the King’s power than the remaining five groups.

As was the case with the lamen and holy table, the names of the ministers are derived from the table of the 49 angels. For the ministers, a different method was used to extract the names for each King’s set. Also as previously, the names were given to the magicians before the method of extraction was explained.

Missing pieces

Several places in the record reference is made to a "Great Globe", apparently a diagram of some sort, which is not among the papers that have been published to date. From context, it seems that it might be an additional variation on the Tabulum Bonorum, or the 7 tables from which the Bonorum was made. As Dee describes it: "…there are capital letters under the King’s names and characters: and also there are other letters with numbers: … and moreover of these letters, some are aversed and some eversed."

This table was to be used in the creation of talismans for invocations of Heptarchic angels. An example of such a talisman shows the sigil of one of the Sons of Light in its center, with the Name of an Heptarchic King in a circle around it. An outer circle of reversed and normal letters from this missing diagram forms the circumference of the talisman.

Usage

In the spring, 1583 sessions, the angels indicated that a session was planned in which detailed instructions would be given for the use of the Heptarchic magick. If this session took place, it is not in the surviving records; but some idea of the general technique can be gathered from comments in other parts of the record.

The magician would be seated at the holy table, wearing the ring and lamen. The Ensign of the King being invoked is placed on the table before him. He would hold a talisman of the appropriate Heptarchic King in one hand, with a talisman of the King’s ministers names placed under his feet. The magician would then call upon the King by petition and prayer, followed by petitions to his Prince, and invocations of the six major ministers. They would appear in the shewstone, whereupon the magician would charge them to perform the task he desired.

Period two: Liber Loagaeth and the Angelic Alphabet

Liber Loagaeth is the most mysterious part of Dee and Kelly’s work. It is also known variously as the Book of Enoch and as Liber Mysteriorum Sextus et Sanctus. No one as yet has made serious attempts to use it, or to understand its nature beyond what is recorded in the diaries. According to the angels, "logaeth" means "speech from God"; this book is supposed to be, literally, the words by which God created all things. It is supposedly the language in which the "true names" of all things are known, giving power over them.

As described in Liber Mysteriorum Quintis, the book was to consist of 48 "leaves", each of which contains a 49-by-49 grid. The book as actually presented to Kelly is somewhat different. It contains 49 "Calls" in an unknown language, 95 tables of squares filled with letters and numbers, two similar tables unfilled, and four tables drawn twice as large as the others. Two "leaves" are recorded in Liber Mysteriorum Quintis; these are not included in the final book, and apparently serve as an introduction or prologue to the work.

On the surface, the "Calls" of Liber Loagaeth do not appear to be a language as humans understand the term. There are no translations by which this might be judged in detail, but the text lacks the repetitiveness and consistent word-placement that is characteristic of the 48 Enochian Calls given in the next year. There is no apparent grammar to the text. Donald Laycock remarks that the language is highly alliterative and repetitively rhyming, while Robert Turner calls it "glossolalic". The angels said that each element of each table could be understood in 49 different ways, so that there were that many "languages" in it, all of them being spoken at once.

The purpose of Loagaeth was said to be the ushering in of a new age on Earth, the last age before the end of all things. Instructions for using it to that effect were never given; the angels continually put it off, saying that only God could decide when the time was right.

During the presentation of the two leaves in Liber Mysteriorum Quintis, an angel in the scrying stone would point to the letters successively, and Kelly would read out the names of the angelic characters. Dee transcribed a version using the Roman alphabet, apparently with the intention of redrawing it in angelic characters at a later date.

The record indicates that at the start of each session a light would fly out of the scrying stone and into Kelly’s head; this light was seen by both of them. Once the light entered Kelly, his consciousness was transformed so that he could comprehend the text as he read it. He was firmly ordered not to provide a translation, with the explanation that God would select the time for it to be revealed. He nevertheless provided translations of a few of the words, but insufficient to gather the meaning of the text as a whole.

When the light was withdrawn from Kelly’s head, he would immediately cease to understand the text, and was no longer able to see it in the stone. On a few occasions, the light continued in him for a short time after the end of the session, and at these times Dee notes that Kelly said many marvelous (and unrecorded) things about the nature of the texts. But the instant the light withdrew, Kelly could no longer understand it, or recall what he had said even moments before. The record says that the 23^rd line of the first leaf was a preface to the creation and distinction of angels, and the 24^th line an invitation pleasant to good angels. Nothing else is recorded of the purpose of the book.

It soon became apparent that the method used was too slow. The angels were under some time constraint in presenting the book, and arranged that Kelly would be able to see the book at any time. He was to directly record what he saw rather than reading it to Dee. During this latter part of the work, Kelly apparently did not have the deep understanding of the book’s meaning, but only a visual apperception of its letters.

The first leaf shown to Dee and Kelly contained the "angelic" alphabet displayed above the grid. The two were given the names and English equivalents of the letters, and told to memorize them before continuing. When Dee did not do so, and complained of the other demands on his time, the angels strongly rebuked him. The text of the leaves was drawn in the characters of this alphabet, and at the angels’ instruction they were also applied to the lamen and holy table of the Heptarchic magick.

Several people have alleged that the angelic alphabet was copied from some earlier book. Laycock examined all of the possibilities, and while he recognized certain stylistic similarities with previous magickal alphabets, he concluded that none of them was sufficiently like it to count as an earlier version.

Period three: Enochiana

The third section of the work is the only portion that is properly called Enochian. This name was not actually used by Dee and Kelly; they called the system "angelic". The "Enochian" label derives from the origin-myth the angels supplied for this portion of the magick.

According to the myth, this magick was given to the patriarch Enoch by God, and was the means whereby Enoch worked his magick. The magick was preserved past the time of Enoch’s ascension, but in later generations unworthy people began to make use of it. God caused the books to be lost, and sent wicked spirits to spread false magickal systems among the people. (Amusingly, these false systems are based on the use of sigils or "characters", like most of the other magickal systems of Dee’s time, or like modern "Chaos" magick.) Dee’s prolonged and fervent prayers finally caused God to relent, and reveal the magick again.

It is uncertain exactly when the label was first applied to the system. Common modern usage apparently stems from its use by the Golden Dawn.

The angels were under a time constraint in delivering the Angelic magick. The work was begun on April 10, 1584, and had to be completed before August of that year. Throughout the work, there was constant interference from "evil" spirits, seeking to convince Dee and Kelly (mostly Kelly) to abandon it. Kelly also fell back into his old habits of demon-magick, prompting tension between him and the angels until he foreswore it.

Unlike the Heptarchia and Liber Loagaeth, the pieces of the Enochian system were presented in a seemingly haphazard way. However, the sequence of presentation serves to confirm that the angels were working from knowledge not available to Dee and Kelly. In chronological order, the sections given were:

• The Tablet of God, sometimes called the Tablet of Nalvage.
• The first four Calls, delivered backwards a letter at a time, and their translations.
• The fifth through eighteenth Calls, delivered forwards, without translations.
• The names of the 91 Parts of the Earth in Liber Scientiae, with the number of their indwelling ministers and the number of the Zodiacal King ruling each.
• The relation of the Parts to regions of the Earth.
• The four Elemental Tablets or Tables of Enoch.
• The translations of the Calls previously given, and the specification of the correct ordering of the Calls.
• The Call of the Ayres or Aethyrs
• The names of the Aethyrs.

The translations of the fifth through eighteenth Calls were not given until six weeks after the angelic versions. The consistency of these translations -- that is, the same words given the same meaning in different Calls -- at least serves to establish that the meanings were not invented on the spot.

The names of the Parts are derived from the Elemental Tablets, and their sigils are to be found by connecting the letters of their names on the Tablets. The sigils were shown drawn on the Tablet’s grid before the letters for the Tablet were given. The sequence in which the names, sigils, and Tablets were given reflects the confirmation method used for the Heptarchic magick.

The work was completed on July 13^th, 1584, with the delivery of the final portion of the Call of the Aethyrs, and the names of the Aethyrs. After that, it is as if a light went out in both Dee and Kelly; having reached some pinnacle of achievement, they fell back, exhausted, into a more prosaic realm. Indeed, it seems almost as if the events of the previous three years had never occurred. Other concerns occupy all of their attention; their visionary work is unconnected with what came before, and has a half-hearted quality. There is no indication that they ever did any more with the Angelic magick.

The angels who were central to the delivery of the magick are never seen again. The magick itself only figures into the records on three more occasions: when the records are destroyed, when they are miraculously restored, and when Kelly receives the "Tabula Recensa".

The Tablet of God

The first piece of the angelic magick presented was a small table. It was unnamed in the record, but on the basis of its content, it would be appropriate to call it the "Tablet of God". No specific use for this table is given, but its size and described nature suggests that it might be a lamen to be used with the magick that follows it.

The table consists of an 6-by-6 inner portion, surrounded by four names of four letters each. Each corner of the inner portion contains the letters "IAD", an angelic word for God. The inner portion is divided into four 3-by-3 tables, called "continents" by the angel Nalvage; each of these contains three angelic words, written diagonally, which describe the nature of that section. Reading the lines of the section horizontally gives the names of three groups of angels. Image of the Tablet of God

Zalewski switches the choirs for the lower left and upper right continents. The "mottoes" for these two continents suggest a connection with the original positions of the elemental Tablets within the Great Table (described below). The Tablet of Fire was at lower left, which fits with "power-in-motion". Earth was at upper right, and Earth is traditionally the realm where final results or events occur. The connection in the other two continents is somewhat more abstract; Air at upper left is the element closest to heaven in the structure of the world; Water at lower right is connected with death and sorrow through the watery signs of Scorpio and Pisces.

The four names surrounding this inner portion are connected with the Son aspect of divinity. These names have the same meanings as the third choirs of the continents, but the spellings are unrelated. With the four "I"s in the corners of the continents, they form a ring around the outside of the table.

Nalvage says of this Table:

"1. Its substance is attributed to God the Father.

"2. The first circular mover, the circumference, God the Son, the finger of the Father, and the mover of all things.

"3. The order and knitting together of the parts in their due and perfect proportion, God the Holy Ghost. Lo, in the beginning and end of all things.""

"Substance" is used here in the philosophical senses of "essence" and "something considered as a continuous whole". The unbroken continuity of God the Father is expressed in the duality of the Son (the outer ring of the Table) and the Holy Ghost (the inner continents). The arrangement of the continents reflects (or is reflected in) the positions of the elemental tablets in the Great Table, in the same way that Binah "contains" the lower sephiroth in the cabala. Thus this table may represent the unmanifest Supernal Triad from which the manifest elements of the angelic magick have emanated.

The 48 Calls

The Calls are a series of invocations in an unknown language, which is called "Angelic" in Dee’s records. Angelic has the appearance of a true language, though the existing samples are insufficient to deduce a full grammar. The language is similar to English in its positioning of subjects, verbs, and objects. It is unlike English in its lack of separate articles, possessives, and prepositions. As a general rule, the words of the language do not appear related to those of any known language, although there are occasional striking (if superficial) resemblances. E.g., Angelic "christeos", meaning "let there be" versus Greek "christos", Angelic "babalon" meaning "wicked" or "harlot" versus "Babylon".

Nineteen Calls were given to Dee and Kelly. The final Call has thirty variations, making the total of 48 Calls. The purpose of the Calls is sufficiently described by Nalvage:

"This self-same art is it, which is delivered unto you as an infallible doctrine, containing in it the waters which run through many Gates: even above the Gate of Innocency, wherein you are taught to find out the dignity and corruption of nature: also made partakers in the Secret Judgements of the Almighty to be made manifest, and to be put into execution.

"I am therefore to instruct and inform you, according to your doctrine delivered, which is contained in 49 Tables. In 49 voices, or callings: which are the Natural Keys to open those, not 49 but 48 (for One is not to be opened) Gates of Understanding; whereby you shall have knowledge to move every Gate, and to call out as many as you please, or shall be thought necessary, which can very well, righteously, and wisely open unto you the secrets of their Cities, and make you understand perfectly [that] contained in the Tables."

Colin Low has suggested that the above-mentioned Gates are connected with the "Gates of Understanding" found in some Yetziratic texts, and with the fifty Gates mentioned in Thelema’s Liber AL vel Legis.

It is certain that there is some sort of relationship between the Calls and the Elemental Tablets (described below), but the exact nature of the connection is a matter of speculation. The 19^th Call, titled the "Call of the Aethyrs", is explicitly associated with the 30 Aethyrs of Liber Scientiae; its wording clearly makes it an invocation for the 91 "Parts of the Earth" in that book.

Following the quote above, the remaining Calls are assumed to connect with the hierarchies of the elemental Tablets, but their wording is too poetic and ambiguous for specific associations to be made with certainty. While confirming the correct sequence of these Calls, the angel Ilemese states that each Call has its proper Table, but does not state what these tables are.

Experiments by several magicians seem to establish that the First and Second Calls in some way define the poles within which the remaining Calls work. The First Call usually produces a generic manifestation of Spirit, a general pull towards higher levels. The record implies in a vague way that it is to be used when invoking the Elemental Kings and their ministers, the Seniors; possibly in combination with other Calls. The Second Call is stranger. It does not appear to define a "material" pole as such; rather, it defines a framework or overall form into which the powers of the system can be poured and contained.

The usual assumption by later magicians (not universally accepted) has been that the remaining Calls refer to the "Lesser Angles" within the Tablets. The Golden Dawn’s method of associating these Calls with the Tablets and Lesser Angles has become the accepted standard. Donald Tyson has recently come up with an alternative method that has received some attention.

An alternative view of the Calls states that they are parallel to, but separate from the Tablets. That is, they should be used by themselves, without the divine names from the Tablets. There is certainly evidence in the text of the Calls that they represent a continuing "story" of a creative process, beginning with God in the First Call, and ending with the establishment of God’s power "in the center of the Earth" in the Eighteenth Call.

The Great Table

The Great Table is a large grid of letters, 25 squares wide and 27 high. Two major versions of the Table exist. The first was produced during the work in 1584. Three years later, Kelly (working alone) produced a revised Table now called the Tabula Recensa.

The Table is a magickal "map" of the world, including all levels of existence that are not part of the transcendental, divine realm. It is divided internally according to an orderly system to produce a hierarchy of divine and angelic names ruling various aspects of existence. A separate method of division, in which it is separated into 91 dissimilar regions, produces the sigils of the "Parts of the Earth" shown in Liber Scientiae.

The first division in the Great Table splits it into four Elemental Tablets, 12 squares wide and 13 squares high. These Tablets are separated by a cross with arms one square wide, called the Cross of Union, or Black Cross. The four tablets are associated with the four traditional elements, following the same positions as the continents in the Tablet of God. (The Tabula Recensa changes the positions of the Tablets within the Table.)

Each Tablet has an internal division into four "Lesser Angles", separated by a "Great Cross". The Great Cross has a vertical arm two units wide, and a horizontal arm one unit high. The horizontal is called the "Line of the Holy Ghost" and contains the three highest names of God within the Tablet, formed by dividing its twelve letters into groups of three, four, and five letters. The vertical arm considered as a whole is said to represent God the Father. When considered as two columns, it represents God as Father and Son.

The eight central letters of the Great Cross are taken in a clockwise inward spiral to form the two names of the Elemental King who rules the Tablet. Each of these names uses only one of the two most central letters. Dee was told that one of these names was for beneficent works, the other for works with harmful intent. When the letters of the Great Cross are read outwards from the center along each arm, they form the seven-letter names of six "Seniors".

The Great Cross is associated with levels of manifest divinity, the mathematical or planetary regions that lie above the Earth but inside the transcendental divine realm in medieval cosmology. Cabalistically they connect with the second triad of sephiroth in the Tree of Life, and with the human soul that originates there. The King and Seniors are generally considered to be planetary in nature; the power of the Seniors was said to be "knowledge of all human affairs".

The Lesser Angles are grids five columns wide and six rows high. The central column forms a god-name of six letters; the second row from the top forms a god-name of five letters. The four rows below (ignoring the central column) form four angelic names ruled by these god-names. Today they are usually referred to by the Golden Dawn label, as "Servient" angels.

The four squares of the top row (again ignoring the central column) form four angelic names which are not ruled by the god-names from the calvary cross. Instead, a different god-name is formed by adding a letter from the Cross of Union to the first angel’s name. These four angels are specifically associated with the letters INRI, written above the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion. The Golden Dawn labeled them "Kerubic" angels, after the four elemental Kerubs of the Tarot cards.

The angels of the Lesser Angles are assigned governance over specific areas of knowledge, e.g., medicine, precious stones, mechanical arts, etc. These powers can be easily associated with one of the four elements; the result is that the positioning of the elements in the Tablet of God is reflected downwards in the positions of the Tablets in the Great Table, and in the positions of the Lesser Angles within each Tablet.

These various powers must be considered to be representative rather than inclusive. According to the angels the Great Table is in some way connected to every type of event that takes place within the Earth; therefore these angels must have much wider areas of responsibility than is suggested by the listed powers.

Liber Scientiae

Liber Scientiae, Auxilii, et Victoriae Terrestris, the "Book of Knowledge, Help, and Earthly Victory", is the third major portion of the Enochian magick. The details were given during the 1584 work, and were compiled into a book by Dee in May of the following year. In introducing this part of the work, the angel Nalvage said:

"There are 30 Calls yet to come. Those 30 are the Calls of Ninety-one Princes and Spiritual Governors, unto whom the Earth is delivered as a portion. These bring in and dispose Kings and all the governments upon the Earth, and vary the natures of things with the variation of every moment; Unto whom the providence of Eternal Judgement is already opened. These are generally governed by the 12 angels of the 12 Tribes, which are also governed by the 7 who stand before the presence of God. …"

A following paragraph in Latin clarifies that it is the Angels of the Tribes who are the governors, and that the 91 are actually regions or territories of the magickal realm corresponding to various earthly territories. Each Angel rules a varying number of these regions.

In addition to its regular hierarchies, the Great Table contains the names and sigils of the 91 "Parts of the Earth as imposed by God" of Liber Scientiae. Where the angelic hierarchies described previously are derived from the Tablets by following uniform divisions, the names of the Parts are derived in such a way that each covers a uniquely-shaped area. The natures of the Parts are equally heterogeneous; none of them is like any other in scope, quality, or power. Image of the sigils on the Great Table

It could be said that the regular Tablet hierarchies and the 91 Parts represent complementary views of the world that they both cover. The regular Tablet names represent the ordering of the world according to the ideal plan of God; the way in which the world connects with divine archetypes and patterns. The Parts, on the other hand, represent the transformation of the divine plan into the endlessly changing, endlessly dissimilar events of manifest existence.

In sequence, the angels gave Dee and Kelly first the number of "ministers" dwelling in each Part, the number of the Aethyr in which it was contained, and the number of the Tribal Angel King ruling the Part. Next the names of the Parts were given, and their mundane equivalents, followed by their sigils on the Great Table. After the letters and regular hierarchies of the Table were filled in, the angels presented the Call of the Aethyrs and the names of the Aethyrs. The origin of the Angel King names is obscure; they are not shown in the published portion of the diaries, but are in place in the final book version of Liber Scientiae.

The sigils of the Parts are found by drawing lines between the squares of the Part’s area in the Great Table, in the sequence of the letters in its name. In the presentation to Dee and Kelly, the sigils were presented before the Tablets were filled in with letters, so that when the letters were added they could check back against the names of the Parts as previously given. The correlation between the two sets was remarkably high; only a few of the names had different spellings in the Tablets. None of them were completely dissimilar.

It should be noted that there is one Part whose sigil is shown in the Great Table, but which is not listed in Liber Scientiae. If all the names in the book are valid, there are actually 92 Parts, not 91. Some magicians have speculated that this extra Part should replace the sixty-fifth Part, whose name is formed using the two leftover, non-contiguous squares in each Tablet.

Originally, the angels tried to give Dee and Kelly the mundane equivalents of the Parts by displaying their regions on a globe of the world. Dee cut this method off before it started, complaining that they ought to give him the regions in longitude and latitude, or by reference to the maps in his possession. There is no obvious reason why Dee became stubborn on this point; certainly he was aware that his maps didn’t cover the entire world.

The angels rebuked Dee, saying that they didn’t see the world in terms of arbitrary mathematical designations, nor in the conic projections of Dee’s maps. But rather than return to their intended method, they chose to associate the Parts with the regions of the world listed by Ptolemy.

Robin Cousins has gone to great effort to identify the modern regions represented by the Ptolemaic names. His descriptions and maps can be found as appendices in Turner’s Elizabethan Magick. It is apparent from Mr. Cousins’ maps that there is a great deal of overlap in these regions. For example, the region of Parva Asia or Anatolia overlaps, in whole or part, no less than nine other regions. Several Parts connect with single cities rather than regions, and others are described simply as "in the north" or "in the far south".

One might suspect that the angels, balked in their intent, simply latched onto the first available method that would satisfy Dee, regardless of its correctness. After receiving the whole list, Dee began to see the difficulties in the scheme and questioned the angels. The response was less than satisfactory to him, in the end boiling down to a statement that when he called the Parts, they would show him the regions they rule. It is implied that thirty of the Parts relate to the New World. Mr. Cousins originally said he believed that these thirty were in addition to the existing 91 Parts, making 121 Parts in all. However, he now believes that the thirty meant that additional territories were covered by the existing 91 Parts, in the way that the angels added Poland and Moscow to the territory ruled by the same Part as Sarmatia. My own reading is also that these thirty are among the given Parts, since any additions would either overlap existing ones, or require slightly less than another full Tablet as a region they would map.

The thirty Aethyrs are barely mentioned in Dee’s diaries; they are certainly not given the importance that they have acquired in the minds of some modern magicians. Their function seems to be merely that of containers to hold the 91 Parts. There is no indication that they have any function separate from the Parts.

Usage

While the Enochian materials given to Dee and Kelly form a solid core for a magickal system, they are lacking in the supporting infrastructure necessary to make them a complete and useable system. Only the barest indications are given as to the nature of the various angels, the relationship of the system’s structure and powers to those of other systems such as the cabala, or the mythic underpinnings for using it as an initiatory system.

The instructions for using the Enochian magick are equally spare, a few sentences in length:

"Four days (after your book is made, that is to say, written) must you only call upon those names of God, [i.e., in the Tablets] or on the God of Hosts, in those names:

"And 14 days after you shall (in this, or in some convenient place) call the Angels [of the Tablets] by petition, and by the name of God unto which they are obedient.

"The 15th day you shall clothe yourselves, in vestures made of linen, white: and so have the apparition, use, and practice of the Creatures. For, it is not a labour of years, nor many days."

The "book" mentioned is a book of supplications or prayers to god and the angels, to be devised by the magician, written neatly, and bound together. The book is only to be used for this one operation, and then destroyed. The Calls are not mentioned at all.

Apparently the magician is intended to use a "bootstrap" method of learning the magick, similar to that used in the Abramelin magick. He invokes the angels, and the angels themselves show him the best way to use it. And as in the Abramelin work, the angels emphasize that it is the fervency of the magician’s prayers that will produce effective contact, not the form of the prayers.

History of Use

Given the bare-bones nature of the original Enochian material, magicians have to improvise extensively to make it into an effective general-purpose magickal system. The history of the system’s use is a history of innovation. Every magician or group that has used it extensively has added their own distinct character to it, taking it in a direction at least slightly different from anyone else. It has evolved as the viewpoints of its users have evolved, and seems perfectly capable of adapting to many viewpoints without stress.

The one point on which all these users agree is that the Calls and the Tablet names are tools of remarkable potency, possibly unmatched by any other magickal system now known. Even a completely inexperienced user, with a small effort, is virtually guaranteed to get some sort of response.

Beyond this, it is difficult to gather a coherent picture of the magick. While the angels have distinct natures, they present themselves to each magician in a manner that is consonant with his own nature and "true will", and which is -- to a lesser extent -- in accord with his expectations and conscious intent. The problem of their conformity to expectations can be overcome with practice. The former limitation seems to be absolute; they will not interfere with the true will of the magician. But within that limit they will do everything they can to take the magician as far and as high as he can go.

For a variety of reasons, only a few records of Enochian workings have been preserved. Most such records have been saved because the people who performed the work were interesting to scholars for other reasons; as an obscure branch of an obscure subject, it has not rated a great deal of attention from scholars and publishers. Given this lack of information, and the limitations mentioned above, the available records have to be considered to be spotlights illuminating areas within a vast field, most of which still remains dark and unknown.

Dee & Kelly

As far as is shown in the surviving records, neither Dee nor Kelly ever made significant use of the Angelic magick. During the three years following the receipt of the magick, they apparently ignored it entirely. If they did anything with it beyond that period, the record has been lost.

Elias Ashmole

Sloane Manuscripts 3624-3628 contain the record of extensive spirit actions with the Enochian magick, begun in the 1670’s and continuing for over seventeen years. Three magicians and a scryer invoked practically every angel and entity connected with the Enochian system. Some scholars believe that Elias Ashmole and William Lilly are two of the magicians involved. However, Clay Holden believes that this is not the case, based on the handwriting; the record is in a crabbed and almost unreadable hand very unlike Ashmole’s elegant script.

From Clay Holden:

Ashmole appears to have been largely content to make planetary talismans to banish rats from his house, as near as I can determine from his diaries. I would dearly love to find some solid evidence to the contrary, but fear that my assumption that Ashmole was one of the hands behind these Spirit Diaries was wishful thinking.

The diaries have not been examined closely at this time, but preliminary indications are that they do not contain any results of special significance.

Golden Dawn

The original Golden Dawn magickal society operated from the 1880’s into the 1900’s, when it split into various groups. Descendent organizations (of varying degrees of legitimacy) continue to operate up to the present, using much of the material developed by the founders. People using the Golden Dawn system probably constitute the largest group of Enochian magicians over this century; despite certain theoretical problems, it has proven in practice to be an effective means of accessing the angelic forces.

The Golden Dawn adepts made substantial additions to the original Enochian materials, basing them in part upon a late 18^th-century manuscript titled A Treatise on Angel Magic. Their system for relating the Calls to the Tablets has become the standard model. Most significant is their elaborate system of attributes for the squares of the Elemental Tablets, which seeks to unite Enochian magick with cabalistic and Rosicrucian lore to give a complete symbolic representation of the magickal universe.

In this system, each division in the Tablets is connected with specific types of magickal forces -- elemental, planetary, zodiacal, or sephirotic. For example, the 36 squares of the Great Cross are associated with the 36 decanates of the zodiac; the ten squares of the calvary crosses in the Lesser Angles are connected with the sephiroth of the Tree of Life.

The individual letters of the names in a given rank represent sub-forces or special manifestations of the represented type, distinguished by the addition of lesser attributes. A given square can have up to four attributes, depending on its type and its position in a given Tablet and Lesser Angle. Additionally, each letter of the angelic alphabet is given a separate attribute to one of the figures used in geomantic divination. Diagrams showing the complete listing of attributes for all the squares can be found in Aleister Crowley’s Liber LXXXIX vel Chanokh.

Golden Dawn magicians explore the squares astrally, using a technique involving the visualization of a truncated pyramid. Each side of the visualized pyramid is colored and emblazoned with the symbols of the square’s attributes. The magician recites the appropriate Calls and vibrates relevant divine and angelic names, and concentrates the invoked power in the pyramid. The power is then seen rising up the sides of the pyramid and shooting out into magickal space in the form of a beam of light. The magician enters this beam and rises with it through the planes until he comes to a landscape or space that expresses the invoked power. This technique has proven to be highly effective in practice.

At least one Golden Dawn offshoot has applied the pyramid method to the angels of the Heptarchia.

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley’s work with the Enochian magick generally follows the Golden Dawn system. He is known primarily for his explorations of the 30 Aethyrs, published in The Vision and the Voice. This work established the idea that the Aethyrs might represent a means of initiation, and set a standard for methodical exploration that few have equaled. It also fixed Crowley’s peculiar perspective on the process of transcendence in the minds of many students of the occult.

Crowley envisioned the Aethyrs as being connected with the sephiroth of the Tree of Life in groups of three. He also mentions that each Aethyr "folds up" into the next higher Aethyr in some way, so that as one progresses through the Aethyrs from the last to the first, one is also withdrawing one’s being from the lower, already-experienced levels. (This is parallel to the technique he describes in Liber Yod, in which the magician achieves union with the godhead by progressively banishing all other levels and powers.)

Under this conception, the Aethyr ZAX, whose Parts have names formed from the Cross of Union, is the highest of the three attributed to Chesed. It is thus the last Aethyr one encounters before moving into the Supernal Triad and achieving transcendence. Crowley envisioned this movement as the crossing of an "Abyss" or gap, during which the magician encounters an Enochian devil named Choronzon dwelling therein.

Crowley’s other contribution to Enochian magick was the adaptation of the Golden Dawn pyramid system for use with O.T.O.-style sex magick. In this technique, physical representations of the pyramids are made for the name of an angel, but inverted to form square "cups". These serve as talismans, which are charged using the end-product of the sex magick operation.

Aurum Solis

The published documents of the Aurum Solis magickal order show a unique method of using Liber Scientiae. Their research has focused on discovering the nature and uses of the numbered-but-unnamed "ministers" residing in each of the 91 Parts.

They used the second Angelic Call along with the Call of the Aethyrs, in order to cause the invoked forces to manifest at the "material" pole of their range; this brings the ministers, who are the lowest members of a Part’s hierarchy, into the greatest state of activity. For each group of ministers they have compiled a name, an image of their appearance, and a list of their powers and the aspects of existence on which they can act. Given the large number of Parts, they have a virtual encyclopedia of useful magickal effects. Since they have not published any magickal records using their methods, there is no way to determine how well their system works in practice.

In contrast, their use of the regular Tablet hierarchies appears to be fairly conventional, in line with the Golden Dawn methods, but not using the G.D.’s elaborate system of attributes.

The Church of Satan and the Temple of Set

Quoting Israel Regardie, from his introduction to Aleister Crowley’s The Vision and the Voice:

One advisor … had suggested the discontinuation of the whole project. His motive was that a California group sensationally engaged in the practice of Satanism had appropriated and published the Enochian rituals or Calls in a so-called Satanic Bible. Because of this, it was felt that there were now undesirable contacts associated with the rituals that could only lead to chaos and confusion.

The author of this debased volume had made enough changes in the various Calls to rule out any likelihood of confusion with those presented here in their original form. Wherever the word God is used, the author had substituted the name of Satan or one of the equivalent terms in its stead. The same holds true for several other pieces of similar stupidity.

As a primarily religious organization, the CoS used the Calls as "tools for psychodramatic ritual"; i.e., as something mysterious to spiff up their services. There is no indication that the founder ever took the Calls seriously as a tool, or that they were ever used by the CoS for explicitly magickal purposes.

The Church of Satan's schismatic offshoot, the Temple of Set, has abandoned the CoS versions of the Calls. Rather than rewrite the angelic language of the Calls, Michael Aquino (founder of the Temple of Set) has substantially revised the translations of the Calls to conform to his own philosophy and myth-system. The Calls and Mr. Aquino's "translations" are presented as the "Word of Set" in the ToS manual The Crystal Tablet of Set.

In some instances, Aquino's version departs substantially from the original translations; in others, the differences are small enough that one might call them justifiable poetic license. But the overall sense conveyed is dramatically different from the original. Quoting Mr. Aquino:

An "Enochian purist" might question the translation provided by the Word of Set in that it is not the English version recorded by John Dee in his diaries. My answer is simply that I approached the Keys not as a historian seeking to reprint what Dee did, but as a magician seeking to operate the same "magical machinery" that Dee did -- and to operate it with greater care and precision than he did. Hence it is not a case of my "corrupting Dee", but rather of my uncorrupting something which predated Dee's own existence, and which was, after all, not of his [or Kelley's] authorship.

Mr. Aquino does not provide any explanation of how the "Word of Set" came to be delivered by angels espousing an emphatically Christian world-view.

Order of the Cubic Stone

From Robin Cousins:

The British graded occult group based in Wolverhampton, the Order of the Cubic Stone, (flourished 1965-91, now dormant) taught the Enochian system, strictly according to John Dee. The Golden Dawn system of Enochia was regarded as inaccurate and members were not encouraged to use its correspondences. Because membership was country-wide, most work was done individually or in small local groups (ie, if odd members lived near one another), but virtually no record of this work was held centrally. A few remaining members still practice today, but there is no overall coordination.

Benjamin Rowe

Benjamin Rowe is an active magician working exclusively with Enochian magick, known for methodical, thorough workings, and for developing unusual, non-traditional techniques and viewpoints. He has made an effort to expose his work to public scrutiny and criticism, believing that the state of the art can only be advanced through open communications. He is currently involved in a long-term project exploring all of the 91 Parts of Liber Scientiae in sequence.

The most noted of Rowe’s technical innovations is a method by which an elemental Tablet can be transformed into a three-dimensional astral structure, an "Enochian Temple". Properly constructed, the temple acts to produce intense concentrations of the powers of the entire Tablet in a balanced form. The power creates a "gate" which can be used to explore symbols of any magickal system, to produce permanent changes in the consciousness of the magician, or to break through into extraterrestrial magickal realms. He believes other uses are possible, but has not yet explored them.

Examining the Golden Dawn system of correspondences for the Tablets, Rowe realized that their system was effectively upside down. That is, the highest ranks of the Tablets had attributes to magickal powers universally considered minor, while the major magickal powers were attributed to the lowest ranks of the Tablets. The whole seemed based on coincidences of number rather than experience. He spent several years determining the nature of the various ranks through experiment, and devised and experimentally tested a new system of correspondences that corrects the defects of the G.D. system and, he believes, accurately reflects the actual nature of the Enochian powers.

Miscellaneous Issues

Relation of Enochian to the Necronomicon

Since the Necronomicon is a literary device created by H.P. Lovecraft, any connection between the Enochian magick and the Necronomicon must also be fictional. In one of his stories, Lovecraft stated that John Dee was at one time in possession of a Latin translation of the book, which he translated into English. In their spoof Necronomicon, authors Langford, Turner, and Wilson suggested that Liber Loagaeth was actually a cipher version of the Evil Book, which they had managed to decode. Neither of these ideas is supported by the records.

Colin Low has perpetuated and embellished these fictional excursions in his "Necronomicon Anti-FAQ" and other writings. Some modern readers, lacking a sense of humor and irony, have taken his work seriously; as a consequence, the myth of Dee's connection with the book has taken on an air of Utter Authority among certain gullible portions of the magickal community.

Relation of Enochian to biblical Book of Enoch

The various pseudepigraphic "Books of Enoch" were unknown in Europe at the time the magick was revealed to Dee and Kelly. Dee's work was aimed at discovering what he believed to be the contents of these books; he had no direct knowledge of their nature. The Enochian magick and the angels' origin-myth for it bear no direct relation to the actual contents of the books now known by the name.

Enochian magick and the apocalypse

There are two major threads of thought in Christian millennialism. One thread, called postmillennialism, is largely Utopian in nature. It sees the millennium as the beginning of a period of gradual perfection of conditions on Earth; the basic principle is that the world must be brought to perfection and the City of God built on Earth before the Christ will return, and it is only after the Christ returns that the world will end. Two decades after Dee, this form of millennialism was the driving force behind the religious groups spearheading the English colonization of America. Dee's own thought contains many post-mil ideals; in seeking out the Enochian magick, one of his goals was to gain a means of bringing earthly governments and societies into line with the design of God, thereby bringing the return of Christ closer.

The other thread, called premillennialism, is the more catastrophic variety. In this version, the typical scenario is that the Christ returns, and then the current "evil" societies of mankind will be destroyed in worldwide disasters, while the elect are preserved from harm. After the world is destroyed, the Christ joins with the faithful in a City built by God to rule over the Earth for a thousand years.

While there is a strong millennialist flavor to the angels' pronouncements, they are almost uniformly of the postmillennialist variety. The angels divided the world into four ages. The first of these began with the creation and ended with the Flood; the second ended with the first appearance of the Christ. The revelation of Liber Loagaeth ended the third age and ushered in the final age, in which the world would be brought to perfection prior to the return of the Christ.

The Calls and Tablets were in turn intended to be one means by which this perfection could be brought about. One particular passage establishes this clearly.

On February 11, 1584, Dee & company had arrived at the Polish manor of Albert Laskie, and had time to settle for a few days and do some magickal work. This day was the first operation of a new series of works after the hiatus. And during the work, the spirit Nalvage appeared for the first time to introduce himself and state his purpose.

The session begins with a colloquy in Latin between an evil spirit that settles by Kelly's left shoulder, and a good spirit that settles by his right shoulder. After some discussion the dexter spirit banishes the sinister. He spends a couple of paragraphs praising the Doctrine to be revealed, then says:

Nalvage:

"These [are] latter days, and the end of harvest must have also Labourers: For no Age passeth away, but through the hands of God, who makest the end of his doings known to the World: To the end, [that] the World may consent unto him in Glory. So that this Doctrine, is the mysteries of the word of God, sealed from the beginning, now delivered unto man, for that Reformation which must be in one Unity established unto the end. [emphasized in original] The very part of that Circle, which comprehendeth the Mysteries of the Highest, in his Prophets, Apostles, and Ministers yet to come, which are alive and shall bear witness of eternal comfort.

"The fruit of our doctrine is, that God should be praised. For of ourselves we seek no glory: But we serve you to your comfort, teaching you the will of God, in the self same Christ, that was crucified; sold and died in the Patriarchs, and published to the World by his Disciples, and is now taught to you, in the remission of sins... greatest in the world, for the end of all things. The very key and entrance into the secret mysteries of God, (in respect to his determination on earth) bringing with it reward in the end of eternal glory, which is the greatest Treasure."

[paragraphs omitted]

Nalvage:

"These things are your parts, and portions sealed, as well by your own knowledge, as the fruit of your intercession, The Knowledge of Gods Creatures.

"Unto me are delivered five parts [i.e., months] of time: Wherein I will open, teach, and uncover the secrets of that speech, that holy mysterie. To the intent the CABALA of NATURE, in voyce, substance of bodie, and measure in all parts may be known. For there is nothing secret, but it shall be revealed, and the Son of GOD shall be known in POWER, and establish a Kingdom with righteousness in the earth, and then cometh the end.

"For the earth must come under subjection, and must be made pure. That death may be swallowed in his own Kingdom, and the enemy of righteousness find no habitation. The word of God endureth forever. His promises are just. His spirit is truth. His judgements inscrutable. Himself universal. He it is of whom you labour. The promises of God in this earthly noble man shall be fulfilled. Salomon used the places of honor, and was exalted."

While not so clear as later speech from this source, nonetheless some things are apparent. Nalvage is a postmillennialist. That is, he holds that the world must be brought to a state of perfection and holiness before the Christ can return; the City of God must be established by man, and then the end comes. The Calls and Tablets (which he begins to deliver two months later) are the tool by which this perfection of the Earth and mankind can be brought about.