The Practice of Enochian Magick
261
The Practice of Enochian Magick
261eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Enochian magick is a powerful system of ceremonial magic based on the writings of John Dee and Edward Kelly, who claimed that their information was presented to them directly from angels. It is named after the biblical prophet Enoch and is perhaps the most powerful and elegant of all magical systems.
Dee and Kelley’s work has formed the basis for countless magical systems, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and has inspired magicians from all the generations that followed, including Crowley himself.
This book presents readers with the Enochian selections from Crowley’s semiannual magical journal The Equinox. It features Crowley’s distillation of the work of Dee and Kelley along with an introduction by Lon Milo DuQuette, master occultist.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633411616 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 06/23/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 261 |
| Sales rank: | 731,293 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
One does not need to be a practicing ceremonial magician to be interested in Enochian magick. The subject has something for everyone. Historians, scholars, and Hollywood filmmakers bask in the radiant person of its creator, Dr. John Dee, a towering figure who, along with being one of the most influential political advisors to (and spy for) Queen Elizabeth I, developed this complex magical system in 16th century England. Linguists, such as Dr. Donald Laycock (1936–1988) are fascinated with the "angelic" tongue, a true language that was allegedly "delivered" by angels to Dee and his partner Edward Kelly under extraordinary circumstances.
But if magick is your cup of tea — nothing compares to the breathtaking elegance of the Enochian system. My interest in Enochian magick began late in 1979 and I began practicing in earnest in the fall of 1980. It has remained the centerpiece of my magical work ever since. The text I would first use as my instruction manual was the same collection of documents you will find in the book you are reading at this moment — material that in the late 70s could only be found in the pages of Aleister Crowley's Equinox, vol. I, or (in my case) the newly published Gems From the Equinox. There was very little else available at the time to supplement the Equinox material. Israel Regardie had published certain Golden Dawn papers but frankly, at the time, they did more to obfuscate the subject for me than offer any helpful insight. As difficult as the Equinox Enochian material appeared to me, I proceeded to tackle it as if it were the first and last word on the subject. As my mastery of Enochiana grew, so did my appreciation of Crowley's profound grasp of his subject and what he chose to include in the Equinox.
There is enough information in the documents herein bound for the student to grasp the system, build and understand the various tablets and tools, and immediately begin a program of practical Enochian vision magick. However, I strongly encourage the reader who intends to engage in the practice to become acquainted with the several fine texts that have been published in the last twenty years, especially those written or edited by magicians who actually practice the art rather than those who simply write about it. I do not hesitate to point the reader to the online works of Mr. Clay Holden, and the writings of Geoffrey James, Stephen Skinner, David Rankine, David Jones, Robert Turner, Frater W.I.T., and Joseph H. Peterson.
There is a singular shortcoming to the Equinox documents dealing with Enochian magick. There is little discussion of John Dee and Edward Kelly and the circumstances of the reception of the original material. My years of practice have convinced me that awareness of where it all came from is very important. In my book, Enochian Vision Magick (Weiser Books: York Beach, ME, 2008), I spend a great deal of time integrating the early Dee and Kelly workings into the theory and practice of modern Enochian magick. I certainly do not to intend to preface this book by reprinting that rather thick volume, but rather, I hope with sheepish and mock humility that the reader who has not already purchased and read Enochian Vision Magick will do so at the earliest possible convenient moment.
In the early 1990s I was asked by Herman Slater of Magickal Childe Publishing to write an introduction to his beautifully produced facsimile edition of some of the diaries of John Dee that were originally gathered and published in 1659 as A True & Faithful Relation of what passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits. What he wanted was simple enough — a brief introduction to John Dee — who he was, what he was trying to do with his magick, and how the texts survived the centuries to be picked up by the adepts of the Golden Dawn in the late 1800s and then to Aleister Crowley in the first half of the twentieth century.
I did the best I could (at least for a young man at the beginning of his writing career). The print run of this expensively-produced edition was very small and unfortunately never saw a reprint or second edition. These many years later when I was asked to introduce the Enochian material from the Equinox for this Best of the Equinox edition I immediately thought, that even though my old Introduction was originally written to comment on Dee's diaries, it would nevertheless also perfectly set the stage for this work. The publisher has agreed and so I have included it below.
Enochian magick isn't for everyone, but I hope whatever your involvement may be with this most complex and elegant magical art form — whether it is as practitioner, dabbler, or dilettante, that you will he touched by its beauty and transformed by its magick.
Lon Milo DuQuette
An Introduction to
A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits ...
By Lon Milo DuQuette
On July 20, 1550 the academic community of Paris was ablaze with excitement. The auditorium of Rhemes College was filled to overflowing with the most learned men of Europe. Passionate young students crowded the eaves and pressed hungry ears to the windows to hear an unprecedented lecture on mathematics.
The speaker was an extraordinary young Englishman whose commentaries upon the propositions of Euclid had stunned and delighted the great minds of the University at Louvain and court of Charles V at Brussels. Not yet thirty years old, he was being hailed as the "New Agrippa," the heir to the great philosopher-magicians and the first English "Magus."
His name was John Dee and he was destined to become the ornament of the Age, one of the most influential figures of Renaissance England — also one of the most vilified.
To adequately profile the life and accomplishments of John Dee would require a series of tomes the size of the one you are now holding. Yet with very few exceptions, it has only been recently that biographers have begun to scratch the surface and explore the incredible details that have been denied to the public for over three hundred years.
He was mathematician, physician, mechanician, geographer, and chemist. He was tutor to royal families both in England and abroad. His private book collection at his home in Mortlake was Elizabethan England's great library. He was engineer, antiquarian, scientist, and theologian. No vain dabbler, he was master of these and a score of other arts and sciences. His inventions and contributions profoundly affected his world.
Why then is he not celebrated with the other luminaries of the Elizabethan period? Why has his name fallen through the cracks of the history of Western Civilization?
"Caller of Devils, Arch Conjurer, Necromancer, Invocator of damned Spirits, Sorcerer, Witch, Enchanter, Black Magician" ... these were occupations also attributed to John Dee. These accusations dogged him throughout his lifetime and defined his reputation after his death.
I will not even attempt to elaborate on the details of this unbelievably eventful life. I leave that to two most excellent modern biographies: Elizabethan Magic by Robert Turner, and especially Peter French's John Dee, The World of an Elizabethan Magus. But a brief sketch at this point I think is in order.
John Dee was born on July 13, 1527 to Rowland Dee and Johanna Wild. The family (who could trace their ancestry to Roderick the Great, an early Prince of Wales) was not wealthy but could boast what could be called a middle class income. His father, a gentleman server to Henry VIII, was not without connections at court.
In 1542 his father sent him to Cambridge where young Dee budgeted his time to enable him to routinely study eighteen hours a day. Four years later Henry VIII founded Trinity College and Dee received a fellowship as an under-reader of Greek.
At Trinity he also delighted in the study of engineering and mechanics and he volunteered to be a member of the stage crew in the production of the play PAX by Aristophanes. Amusingly, this was where his reputation as a black magician began. His unique mechanical innovations were responsible for seemingly miraculous stage effects. The illusion of the Scabrous flying up to heaven with a man on its back provoked rumors of supernatural assistance — and indeed, the equipment constructed by Dee to accomplish this illusion incorporated advanced technology and invention not taught at Cambridge.
In 1547 he took his first trip abroad to consult with the learned men of the day in the Netherlands. A year later he received his Master of Arts from Cambridge and enrolled in Louvain. His reputation throughout Europe was startling. Scholars of many countries traveled to confer with him and invitations from kings and emperors were routinely, but politely, refused.
Back in England, however, his reputation as a sorcerer was enhanced when, in 1555, the administration of Queen Mary had him imprisoned because of a false accusation of Lawde vayne practices of calculing and conjuring to enchant the Queen. He soon extricated himself from this fall from grace, and when Elizabeth was crowned in 1558 Dee was a frequent and welcome visitor at court. He was even given the honor of casting the horoscope determining the date and hour of the coronation ceremony — ironic, as his astrological practice was part of his problem with Queen Mary.
Elizabeth conferred often with Dee on matters of state, international policies, and most importantly England's adventurous explorations at sea. His knowledge of geography, history, and science was unequaled and many of the remarkable achievements of the Virgin Queen should be credited to his sage council. She became his patron and protector.
This royal protection would be needed for as his reputation as a philosopher-magus grew so did rumors and accusations of black magic. The vulgar element saw his odd, eccentric genius as proof he was in league with the devil. His study of Hermeticism (a perfectly natural endeavor for a Renaissance scholar) was viewed by many with suspicion and fear. His house and library at Mortlake were ransacked by a mob of neighbors in 1583 while he was on the continent, and he was slandered in print as "Doctor Dee the great Conjurer" by Protestant extremist John Foxe. Dee succeeded in halting the slander but the damage was done.
Dee obviously felt that the discretion he exhibited at home in England would be unnecessary on the more enlightened continent. For six years, between 1583 and 1589, he and skryer Edward Kelley practiced various forms of cabalistic and angelic evocation quite openly.
Upon his return to England (at Elizabeth's request) he continued to be harassed and accused. Elizabeth was too distracted with court intrigues to offer much support.
Dee's last years were unhappy. The plague claimed his third wife, Jane Fromand, who mothered all eight of his children. His own health failing, he was pressured by the plots of his fellows to give up his position as Warden of Manchester College. He returned to Mortlake with his daughter Katherine who was to be his nurse in the last years.
In December of 1608 (or 1609) after King James I ignored Dee's attempt to clear his name by being tried as a conjurer, Dee died peacefully at Mortlake.
Meric Casubon did not intend to immortalize Dr. John Dee when he published portions of Dee's magician diaries in 1659. Quite the contrary, it is clear that he wished to diminish Dee's considerable reputation by perpetuating a portrait of a gullible and spiritually naïve academician whose unwholesome obsession with dreams of communicating with angels led to his social and financial ruin.
Titillating the reader with warnings that the material, "... might be deemed and termed A Work of Darkness," Casaubon set to work to destroy Dee's reputation. The reason he would spend the time and considerable expense to vilify the memory of a man considered by many of his contemporaries to be the greatest mathematician and philosopher of his Age, can be discovered in the complex and dangerous intrigues surrounding the social/political/religious upheaval of the Puritan Revolution.
Throughout the Civil War and Commonwealth Period (1642–1660) Casaubon remained a loyal and vocal supporter of the Anglican Church. As a recognized and respected classical scholar he was stunned when in 1644, by order of the government, his position at Canterbury and accompanying salary was suspended.
Disenfranchised, he sought to avenge himself upon the Puritan government by attacking one of the fundamental tenants of the faith: namely, the belief that individuals, independent of the offices and inspiration of the Church, could receive spiritual guidance directly from divine sources.
If Casaubon could demonstrate that even the great Dr. Dee was victim of diabolic deception, perhaps the spiritual cause délèbre of Calvin and Cromwell might also be no less a product of Satanic delusion. As he would hang if he publicly stated the latter, he chose to attempt to prove the former.
The government of the Commonwealth was indeed upset over the publication of A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers between Dr. John Dee ... and Some Spirits ... (as Casaubon titled the work). However, so many copies were initially printed and distributed that all official attempts to suppress it failed.
In the minds of the public, the rumors of Dee's involvement in "Black Magic" were true — confirmed by his own words, in his own diaries. Casaubon had succeeded in sacrificing the reputation of Renaissance England's greatest philosopher-magus upon the altar of vulgar expediency.
Nevertheless, we owe Meric Casaubon a profound debt of gratitude; for no matter how unworthy his motives, his work has served as an ark — a time capsule which has preserved one of the most remarkable magical records of all time.
The Method of Science, The Aim of Religion
To the modern student of magick, A True and Faithful Relation ... is a treasure without equal. We experience almost voyeuristic self consciousness as the intimate nature of the record unfolds. We become eavesdroppers on the details of the most remarkable magical event ever recorded.
To Dee, magick was science. He took excellent notes; recording each experience with the precision of modern scientific notation. He did not wish to talk with Angels so he could bewitch his neighbor's cow or seduce the girl next door. He sincerely desired more information about the laws of nature and the underlying principles of Creation.
Like Henry Cornelius Agrippa and Giordano Bruno, Dee was conscious of the fact that he was perhaps the most learned man of his day. Everything that was known to Man was known to him. He was the world's foremost authority on a score of subjects from geography to mechanics. Where does the man who knows more than another person on earth turn when he still has questions? The answer is God, or more accurately, God's messengers to humanity, the Angels who throughout biblical literature appeared to pious men to teach the knowledge that was hidden from mortals. The Patriarch Enoch was once such person who found favor in the presence of God — hence Dee used the word "Enochian" to describe his efforts.
From 1582 to 1589 Dee and his "skryer," Edward Kelly, plunged almost daily into the black obsidian mirror that was their doorway to the "angelic" world. Despite his somewhat dubious reputation, Kelly was a gifted clairvoyant. It was obvious from the earliest sessions that something extraordinary was taking place. Both men seemed genuinely surprised by the success of the initial contacts; the awkwardness of these early sessions is touchingly amusing.
Questions concerning world politics and matters of State dominated these first encounters but as the sessions continued it became clear that the angels had an agenda of their own. Dee and Kelly were informed that the angelic world could be more easily accessed and communications more efficiently facilitated if the magician actually spoke the language of the angels. The communicating angels then proceeded, in the most complex and extraordinary manner, to teach them the angelic language. This event is without parallel in magical history. Israel Regardie in his massive work, The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic writes:
The Enochian Language is not just a haphazard combination and compilation of divine and angelic names drawn from the [Enochian] tablets. Apparently, it is a true language with a grammar and syntax of its own. The invocations are not merely strings of words and barbarous names, but are sentences which can be translated in a meaningful way and not merely transliterated.
Eighteen invocations, or "Calls," written in the Angelic language, comprise a system whereby the magician can access the unseen elemental universe underlying the phenomenal world. A nineteenth Call is used to penetrate the spiritual world known in the system as the Thirty Aethyrs. These correspond roughly to the ascending planes of consciousness of the Qabalistic universe and were explored by the magician in the same manner as "path workings."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Practice of Enochian Magick"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Red Wheel/Weiser.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
LIBER LXXXIV: Vel Chanokh,
LIBER LXXXIV: Vel Chanokh Part I,
II,
III,
IV,
V,
PART II: The Forty-Eight Calls or Keys,
The First Key,
The First Key,
The Second Key,
The Second Key,
The Opening of the Temple in the Grade of 2° = 9,
The Third Key,
The Third Key,
The Opening of the Temple in the Grade of 3° = 8,
The Fourth Key,
The Fourth Key,
The Opening of the Temple in the Grade of 1° = 10,
The Fifth Key,
The Fifth Key,
The Opening of the Temple in the Grade of 4° = 7,
The Sixth Key,
The Sixth Key,
The Seventh Key,
The Seventh Key,
The Eighth Key,
The Eighth Key,
The Ninth Key,
The Ninth Key,
The Tenth Key,
The Tenth Key,
The Eleventh Key,
The Eleventh Key,
The Twelfth Key,
The Twelfth Key,
The Thirteenth Key,
The Thirteenth Key,
The Fourteenth Key,
The Fourteenth Key,
The Fifteenth Key,
The Fifteenth Key,
The Sixteenth Key,
The Sixteenth Key,
The Seventeenth Key,
The Seventeenth Key,
The Eighteenth Key,
The Eighteenth Key,
Mark Well!,
The Call or Key of the Thirty Aethyrs,
The Call or Key of the Thirty Aethyrs,
LIBER XXX AERVM: Vel Saecvli,
The Vision and the Voice,
The Cry of the Thirtieth or Inmost Aire or Aethyr which Is Called Tex,
The Cry of the 29th Aethyr which Is Called Rii,
The Cry of the 28th Aethyr which Is Called Bag,
The Cry of the 27th Aethyr which Is Called Zaa,
The Cry of the 26th Aethyr which Is Called Des,
The Cry of the 25th Aethyr which Is Called Vti,
The Cry of the 24th Aethyr which Is Called Nia,
The Cry of the 23rd Aethyr which Is Called Tor,
The Cry of the 22nd Aethyr which Is Called Lin,
The Cry of the 21st Aethyr which Is Called Asp,
The Cry of the 20th Aethyr which Is Called Khr,
The Cry of the 19th Aethyr which Is Called Pop,
The Cry of the 18th Aethyr which Is Called Zen,
The Cry of the 17th Aethyr which Is Called Tan,
The Cry of the 16th Aethyr which Is Called Lea,
The Cry of the 15th Aethyr which Is Called Oxo,
The Cry of the 14th Aethyr which Is Called Uti,
The Cry of the 13th Aethyr which Is Called Zim,
The Cry of the 12th Aethyr which Is Called Loe,
The Cry of the 11th Aethyr which Is Called Ikh,
The Tenth Aethyr Is Called Zax,
The Cry of the 9th Aethyr which Is Called Zip,
The Cry of the 8th Aethyr which Is Called Zid,
The Cry of the 7th Aethyr which Is Called Deo,
The Cry of the 6th Aethyr which Is Called Maz,
The Cry of the 5th Aethyr which Is Called Lit,
The Cry of the 4th Aethyr which Is Called Paz,
The Cry of the 3rd Aethyr which Is Called Zon,
The Cry of the 2nd Aethyr which Is Called Arn,
The Cry of the 1st Aethyr which Is Called Lil,
A Comment upon the Natures of the Aethyrs,