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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick,alt.magick.chaos
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: Re: Enochian Magick Revisited
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 02:43:52 GMT

Alexander Mulligan wrote:
> 
> In alt.magick, catherine yronwode wrote:
> > Alexander Mulligan wrote:
>
> ... as long as mockery and contradiction lead to intelligent discourse,
> I have no problems with it at all.

I think that mockery tends to stifle intelligent discourse, but if the
subject is of interest, i may proceed anyway. Not always, though --
sometimes i just kiss the conversation off when mockery becomes the
prevailing emotion expressed by more than one party.

> > My doubts about Dee's claims spring from other causes and do not
> > entirely devolve upon what he said. I can enumerate these doubts, if
> > you wish.
> 
> That would be interesting.

Well, one thing we have not fully discussed is the theory that
nagasiva mentioned, namely that Dee's synthetic language was not in
fact angelic, but was rather a cypher code covering his political
spying on behalf of the English government. This theory gains in
plausibility with every one of Dee's typographical errors i encounter,
for it leads me to consider the possibility that the Keys are trial
work-ups for coded messages, with an "in-progress" feel to them. 

Remember, if you will, that these papers were found long after Dee's
death in a locked trunk and that because many of the pages were
"wasted under pies" by the family that discovered them, we are left
with a problematic bundle of loose folio sheets that may or may not
represent a completed fair copy manuscript. We will never know the
answer to this, but it is perfectly fair to ask it:

Why would a mathematician like Dee make so many errors in code, unless
he were, perchance, CYPHERING the code rather than deciphering it on
those pages? Even i, never having seen the material before, could spot
errors that James had not attempted to correct in his exhaustive
footnotes. 

But, let's abandon that line of thought -- let's say that Kelly really
did relate those visions to Dee and Dee really did write them down in
good faith, errors and all. Then is Kelly the source of the errors?
Was he a confidence artist taking advantage of poor, idealistic old
Dee? Many have thought so. 

The matter of the wife-swapping (at the instigation of the angels, no
less) and the fact that Kelly eventually ran off with Dee's wife
sounds more like something from Mike McKinney's "Black Lodge of Santa
Cruz" memoir than it does an account of sacred magic that gives the
mage a closer view of Heaven and Earth than the common man is allowed
to see.

As my scandal-o-meter rises, my aphorism generator kicks in and the
aphorism it spouts out is always the same: "By their fruits ye shall
know them." Kelly and Mrs. Dee ran off together, Kelly then killed
someone, Kelly was then imprisoned and jumped (or fell) to his death
in an escape attempt, per Geoffrey James. Dee died in poverty, still
begging to be absolved by King james of dealing with demons. 

Not a good record. (But, interjects my John Le Carre trained mind, was
Dee actually pleading for what many secret agents come to desire -- a
way in from the cold? Could be, could be.) 

And then there is the Mormon parallel. 

These newfound Kelly angels, all claiming to be brighter and more
shiny than the old Jewish angels (who so unfashionably held converse
with dusty sheep-herding Jews in pathetic degraded Hebrew instead of
coming to Merrie Olde England to speak with the Queen and feed upon
strawberries, sugar, and cream in pure Angelic Language) remind me
muchly of the later Mormon angels who found the good, upstanding
American farm boy Joseph Smith and informed him that the Jews are Old
Hat now and that the Indians and Coloured are barred from Heaven by
divine decree. 

Why do all these folks who meet new species of angels always find out
that they are one better than the Jews, the Indians, and the Coloured, eh?

Both the team of Dee and Kelly and the team of Joseph Smith and his
brother Hyrum Smith claimed to utilize angelic communications to find
hidden treasures. 

Kelly's angels by the way (always, always, by the way), informed him
that wife swapping is a Good Thing and the Mormon agnels by the way
(always, always, by the way), wanted Smith to know that having lots of
wives is a Good Thing. 

Do women have civil rights in John Dee's Heaven? In Mormon Heaven?

And, thus, in the end, there is the Theoretical Anarchist (a.k.a. old
hippie) viewpoint to consider: What use have i for a hierarchical and
monarchical scheme of Heaven, ruled by Kings, and Princes, and
Governors? Do Angel Kings tax the poor and live tax-free themselves,
do Angel Princes marry beneath their intellect simply to produce
offspring and then flaunt their love affairs in public and break their
simple-minded wives' hearts, do Angel Governors call opposing
legislators who will not pass their budget bills "girlie men" -- like
earthly Kings, Princes, and Governors do? 

Does anyone have civil rights in Heavens of this sort?

You liked my first Bob Dylan quote. Well, here is another:

"Don't follow leaders; watch your parking meters." 

I wouldn't aspire to a Heaven that mimics an Earthly model of society
for which i have no respect. 

This is not to say -- as you do -- that Enochian magic is a cult or a
fraud or "bullshit -- but it does explain why it fails to charm me, a
Jewish woman.

[great long snip]

> >> > none has claimed
> >> > to me that "their intensive training and experience in the
> >> > mysteries" exempts them from giving "straight answers" to
> >> > questions about Enochian magic in this public venue.
> >>
> >> Oh yes they do. Just check the last week's posts from them.
> >> [...]

David seems a very decent person in terms of his posting style and i
have enjoyed our small discourses greatly -- so much so that i have
spent more time in usenet lately than in many months previous. Jason's
aggressive verbiage i take with a grain of salt. He is mentally ill
but has not to date ever actually harmed anyone. Mike / Satyr (who
doesn't post here now but is the other major Enochian practitioner i
know) has spent an inordinate amount of time verbally harassing me in
usenet, going through all the usual blather of conflating me with
siva, accusing me of assorted crimes, and remarking unflatteringly on
my physical body. However, reading his memoir about "The Black Lodge
of Santa Cruz" i came to feel compassion for him -- his study of
Enochian magic in the Bay Area (with David) coincided with serious
problems in his life, and one could hardly fault Enochian magic for
his downfall at that time. Rather, i see what happened to Mike as
being more related to drugs than to magic per se. Whether he studies
Enochian magic now or not, i should think he is a happier person than
he was back then, when his major emotion seemed to have been paranoia
and his major relief from that paranoia involved Enochian magic. In
other words, rather than blame the Enochian system for his flip-out,
one could just as easily invert the formula and praise Enochian magic
for saving him from drug burn-out. 

> >> > "Scrying" is a good old English word as well. The use of a
> >> > scrying tool such as a crystal ball, as in Enochian magic,
> >> > or a mirror, as in Paschal Beverly Randolph's system of
> >> > clairvoyance, is commonplace. Generations of mages have
> >> > found these tools useful. That you claim not to need tools
> >> > is all well and good for you, but it appears to me to be
> >> > over-reaching to make such claims on behalf of other people.
> >>
> >> If they believe they need them, then they need them.
> >
> > It is possible to chew one's way through a tree and thus fell it, but
> > many people prefer to use an axe.
> 
> Not an accurate analogy. We are not talking about manipulating matter.
 
The analogy was about tool-use versus non-tool "simplicity." I believe
it holds true on all planes.  

> > It is possible to make all of one's
> > clothes from fibers of the field and forest, but many people prefer
> > to sew ready-woven cloth -- and some just buy their polyester pant
> > suits off the rack.
> 
> Ibid. But you are missing the fact that *someone* is doing the work.

Good enough. 

> > I hope this focus on the tools of scrying does not reopen old
> > newsgroup conflicts about solar power versus distributed electricity.
> 
> Huh?

Never mind, then. ;-)

> :-) I will check out your website, Cat. Been a while. Sure hope it
> is textmode browser accessible. My very indirect connection to the
> internet makes downloading images slow indeed.

It is mostly text. Images are only of great importance in the section
called the Lucky W Amulet Archive, where one is viewing a museum of
talismans and amulets. As for the rest, the text carries it. 

> You *do* use the <IMG SRC="..." ALT="[..]"> tag?

Alas, no -- i did not know about ALT tags when i started writing ages,
back in 1996, and it would take too long to go back and add them
everywhere. However, the names of all my SRC pictures are english
words that can be parsed for their content -- that is, a picture of a
cardboard box would be titled cardboardbox.jpg and a picture of an oak
tree would be labelled oaktree.gif. 

> Thanks for the great info.

You're welcome. Thanks for varying your tone from mockery to engaged
dialogue. 

Cordially,

cat yronwode 

The Sacred Landscape ------ http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html