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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick
From: David R. Jones 
Subject: Re: Discussions About Enochian Magic (Rudiments, Paradigms, Components)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 02:43:34 -0700

Not quite a hundred words nor exactly for beginners but pretty basic

The System of Enochian Magick, Part I:
An Introduction to the Structure of Enochian Magick
By Frater David R. Jones
Reprinted from Voume 6, Number 3 of Lion and Serpent,
the Official Journal of Sekhet-Maat Lodge, O.T.O.
http://www.sekhetmaat.com/www/html/journal/issues.html 
Reprinted here with Permission.

What follows is the beginning of a work in progress; any and all
questions, suggestions and corrections are heartily encouraged. It is
dedicated to my Sisters and Brothers in the Hermetic Brotherhood of
Light.

Prolegomena
The student of Enochian magick is initially faced with the
often-bewildering complexity of its structure. Studying the published
manuscript records of John Dee and Edward Kelly can be more confusing
than helpful and often yields information that is at variance with the
chief expositors of the system: the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley.
The Golden Dawn system offers elegant solutions to many of Enochian
magick’s seeming incongruities, but these often differ with
instructions given by the Angels in Spirit Actions received by Dee and
Kelly and sometimes with essential details in the delivered materials
themselves. Later reconstructionists such as the Aurum Solis and
Donald Tyson address some of these problems but leave many of them
unsatisfactorily resolved. It is the purpose of this work to analyze
this material and explain it in a useful and coherent manner for the
use of both the student of the system and the practicing ceremonial
magician.

Synopsis
For convenience’s sake, the entire system of Enochian magick can be
divided into three meta-structures and these sets correlate to the
three classic divisions of Hermetic Science and magick: Zodiacal,
Planetary and Elemental. The distinctions between these structures is
necessarily not clear-cut, as each structure within the system is
connected to other parts within its own subset and various significant
parts are interconnected to parts within the other main
meta-structures, interweaving the parts into a complex but harmonious
whole. These three divisions are:

Zodiacal: The Aires or Aethyrs
Planetary: The Sigillum Dei Aemeth and Heptarchial systems
Elemental: The Watchtowers including the Round Table of Nalvage

Zodiacal System
The system of the 30(1) Aires(2) includes a substructure of
Governors(3) and Parts of the Earth by which it is intimately tied to
the Watchtower structure, and these in turn are correlated to the 12
Tribes of Israel and a system of angelic governance, peculiar to
Enochian magick. This twelve-fold angelic rulership is the key by
which the astrological associations are related to the parts of this
aethyric system. The Keys of Calls form the introduction and a part of
this structure but also provide a further intersection with the
Watchtower hierarchies that are, metaphysically speaking, below and
within the Aires in the overall cosmological geometry of Enochian
magick.

Planetary System
The Sigillum Dei Aemeth and the various heptarchial elaborations form
an extremely complex system of planetary and sevenfold magikal
structures. This is the earliest received portion of the entire
system. It is related not only to the science of alchemy and the
traditional seven-fold systems of Hermetic Science but to the various
complexes of sevens that permeate biblical symbolism, from the seven
days of creation in Genesis to the multiplex seven-fold combinations
of Revelation. The mythos of these paradigms is combined with its own
unique imagery and Britannical historiography(4) to explicate its
often nearly impenetrable mysteries. Each of its parts has its own
talismanic geometry and cryptographic liturgy. These discrete
artifacts delineate each part but as above they are interrelated:
within themselves, with other parts of this subsystem and not only to
the other meta-systems of Enochian magick but to identifiable
structures without it, including works published by Dee in his own
lifetime, Qabala, 
Biblical symbolism, Hermetic science and magick (such as Agrippa(5) ,
Bruno(6) , Trithemius(7) , Abano(8) , Ptolemy(9) etc.), Alchemy,
Astrology, Astronomy etc. The various parts that are inclusive of the
whole within this heptarchial structure are:

The Sigillum Dei Aemeth

The Holy Table, containing the 7 Tablets of Creation, and connecting
The Mystical Heptarchy & The 49 Good Angels with The Lamen.

The Book of Enoch

Elemental System
The Watchtower structure is probably the most familiar part of
Enochian magick. It has been popularized by the Golden Dawn and its
descendants. In fact much of the material presented in the initial
degrees of these orders, such as the Lesser Pentagram and Hexagram
Rituals(10) , are designed to prepare the student for working with the
ultimate integration of the various symbols of Hermetic and Cabalistic
magick that is the heart of the second order of the Golden Dawn(11) .
This integration and correlation of symbols is sometimes naturally
derived from the angelic communications, sometimes based on the
geometric indications in the Dee corpus(12) and sometimes the wholly
synthetic creation of the chiefs of the Golden Dawn. There are
significant problems with much of this synthetic material(13),
including the correlation of the Keys to the divisions of the
Watchtowers, the derivation of angelic hierarchies and the directional
mechanics of the Watchtowers themselves.

These problems will be elucidated and some solutions offered in the
analysis of The Watchtowers, which follows this introduction and
overview.

The Watchtower structure begins with the Round Table of Nalvage and
progresses to the construction of the Watchtowers themselves, where
the Calls or Keys are both related and divergent. The Watchtowers are
themselves complex magikal figures from which lengthy hierarchies of
angels can be derived. It should also be noted that the hierarchies
thereof are related not only to the symbolism of the biblical books of
Revelation and Ezekiel but provide geometric means of associating and
conjuring various complex combinations of elemental, sub-elemental,
planetary and zodiacal forces.

Conclusion 

In the chapters following, each of these divisions will be dealt with
in detail and the mechanics and literature of each analyzed. This
analysis will proceed, naturally, from the Watchtower hierarchies of
the elemental realms of the Earth through the planetary spheres of the
Sigillum Dei Aemeth and the various heptarchial structures related to
it, to the aethyric realms of the 30 Aires. The divisions of the Aires
will then be correlated back to their earthly junctions within the
network of the hierarchies of the Watchtowers showing how each part of
the system is a thread in the complex tapestry that makes up the
structure of Enochian magick. All of the available literature and
approaches will be explored, the logic and problems with each
explained and some new hypotheses proposed. These will be elucidated
by exercises that will lead students to a greater understanding of
each part in turn. 

The student would do well to acquire either Geoffrey James’ Enochian
Magick of John Dee and/or Robert Turner’s Elizabethan Magic and
Heptarchia Mystica as a textbook of the system. Many of the axioms for
understanding the logic of Enochian magick are derived from the works
of John Dee(14) and the Spirit Actions themselves(15), so the student
is advised to begin collecting this material, as they are able. Beyond
that, the serious practitioner of the Enochian system will want to
scrutinize many of the other contributions, but these will be dealt
with in turn in the following overview. In order to fully appreciate
and operate the intricacies of Enochian magick, a basic understanding
of Euclidean geometry, astronomy, astrology, logic, grammar and the
renaissance magikal point of view is vital. The student is encouraged
to acquire a straight edge, compass and the books of Euclid(16) and
begin the process of construction indicated therein. Beyond that, some
indications are given in the notes herein and in the 
material that will follow, but the student is left to their own
ingenium to devise a course of studies that will fill in the gaps of
knowledge and understanding as they arise.

Coming in Part II: The Watchtowers Explained, including the angelic
hierarchies as delineated in the Spirit Actions.
 

Notes
 1.  The student of Enochian magick may find fruitful correlations
between this thirty-fold structure and the 30 Aeons of classical
Gnostic symbolism (cf. G. R. S. Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten)
and the developments of E. J. Gold in his New American Book of the
Dead. 
  
 2.  Aleister Crowley’s Vision and the Voice (Liber 418) is the
classic exploration of this metaphysical realm, and though available
in a variety of formats (including free and online) it is best
represented in The Equinox Vol. IV: 2.
  
 3.  Some useful insights into this division can be found in Denning
and Osborne’s Mysteria Magica, Gerald Schueler’s Enochian Magic: a
Practical Guide and Salli Glasman’s exploration in the Kali Lodge
Newsletter and her depictions on Schueler’s Enochian Tarot.
  
 4.  Camden’s Brittanica and E. Ashmole’s Order of the Garter both
provide useful insights into this symbolism.
  
 5.  Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy and the pseudo
Agrippan 4th Book are essential to understanding almost every aspect
of the Enochian magikal system. The Three Books have recently been
very usefully edited by Donald Tyson.
  
 6.  Frances Yates’ Art of Memory and Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic
Tradition are outstanding introductions to much of the metaphysical
mathesis that underlies the structure of Enochian magick and
particularly to Giordano Bruno’s related influence and influences.
John Crowley’s trilogy Aegypt, Love & Sleep and Daemonomania offers
interesting fictional speculations in regard to these relationships as
well.
  
 7.  Wayne Shumaker’s Renaissance Curiosa is a good place to start to
see the connection between mathematical trends in the Renaissance and
its influence on the various movements in Hermetic Science.
  
 8.  This and many other related and important texts of classical
magick can be found on the internet at the following locations:
http://www.esotericarchives.com/sitemap.htm and
http://w3.one.net/~browe/classics.htm 
  
 9.  The terminology used in Ptolemy’s Almagest, Tetrabiblos and
Geographia is the basis of many of the chief logical proofs used
throughout the primary source documents of Enochian magick.
  
10.  Two examples will suffice to explain: The attribution of the
elements to the Pentagram (air = upper left point, water = upper right
point, earth = lower left point & fire = lower right point) is derived
from the identical assignments of the elements in the Reformed version
of the Great Table, of which the Watchtowers are divisions. Each of
the 4 Lesser Hexagram forms has, in fact, 6 linear formulations and
these in turn correlate to the 24 Seniors.
  
11.  The elaborations of this material are numerous and can be found
in works ranging from Crowley’s explanations in Liber 89 and Regardie
and Zalewski’s various compilations to the simplifications and
elaborations of Schueler and many others.
  
12.  Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphic, Introduction to Euclid and Propaedumata
Aphoristica each contain essential keys to understanding sometimes
otherwise incomprehensible aspects of Enochian magick. Though these
keys apply across the entire system, the Introduction to Euclid
applies particularly to the Elemental system, the Monas Hieroglyphic
to the Planetary system and Propaedumata Aphoristica to the Zodiacal.
Several editions of Introduction to Euclid are available as is an
outstanding Dover edition of The Elements of Euclid in 3 vols. Several
editions of the Hieroglyphic Monad are also available including
several online, but Josten’s translation in the periodical Ambix
remains the standard. The Propaedumata Aphoristica exists as a
workable translation by W. Shumaker under the title Dee on Astronomy.
  
13.  Some of these problems are addressed by the Aurum Solis, by D.
Tyson in his Tetragrammaton and Enochian Magic for Beginners and by
various scholars of the Enochian system to be found on the Enochian
Web Ring (http://members.tripod.com/~bzb/enochian/). Though workable
many of the solutions to these problems are nearly as unsatisfactory
as the Golden Dawn’s.
  
14.  Vide supra nota 12, but also some analysis of this material is
useful, esp. Nicholas Clulee’s John Dee’s Natural Philosophy, Ben
Rowe’s Enochian Magick Reference
(http://w3.one.net/~browe/featured.htm), F. Yates in The Rosicrucian
Enlightenment and elsewhere in her numerous works, Peter French and
Charlotte Fell Smith’s (http://www.johndee.org/) biographies of Dee
and the Calder thesis (http://www.johndee.org/).
  
15.  The Spirit Actions are divided into two main collections, the
Liber Mysteriorum material and that presented by Casaubon in A True &
Faithful Relation. The Magickal Childe edt. is the best of many of the
latter. Christopher Whitby’s 2 vol. John Dee’s Actions With Spirits is
the only complete edt. of the former though two incomplete and
excellent collections of some of this material is available online,
the John Dee Publication Projects (http://www.dnai.com/~cholden/)
ongoing work in progress and the Center for Enochian Studies complete
Mysteriorum Liber Primus and partial appendix
(http://www.budget.net/~jdnolan/texts/D_Jones/ENOCHLP.txt).
  
16. Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, Thomas Heath (Ed.) 3 vols. It
should be noted that the introduction to this edition has many details
on the life of John Dee that will be of interest to the student of
Enochian magick.