Enochian Magic - Today

Today

Compared to other theories of magic, Enochian magic is often considered strikingly complex and difficult to grasp in its entirety. One of the difficulties is that many of the source documents are missing, and those that exist are sometimes fragmentary, due to the history of dispersal of Dee's library and manuscripts. Parts of the surviving manuscripts written by Dee have been lost. This has allowed numerous interpretations to arise, some of which have solidified into schools of thought with individual bodies of interpretative literature.

Another reason for the system's difficulty is the many and various ways in which the system can be interpreted, and the complex possibilities of the mathematical permutations of various of the letters, tables and diagrams fundamental to the system.

A third difficulty is the use of the Enochian language for the invocations. Magicians see the correct pronunciation of the Enochian letters, words and calls to be integral to magical success in utilising the Enochian system, and the letters must be memorised and their pronunciations learned. Fortunately there have been several compilations of Enochian words made to form Enochian dictionaries which can act as a handy reference. A scholarly study is Laycock (1978). Also useful is Vinci (1976) Authentic pronunciations according to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn usage are given by Israel Regardie in a set of Golden Dawn instructional CDs available via the internet. Regardie's Enochian dictionary is also reprinted in Crowley, Duquette and Hyatt, Enochian World of Aleister Crowley.

Enochian magic forms the backbone of both the Crowley and Golden Dawn systems of magic. Latest theories include that John Dee knew of the Slavonic Book of the Secrets of Enoch, as well as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch. Many individual magicians or very small groups prefer Enochian magic to other forms as the ceremonial scale required is smaller than needed for Masonic style ritual work. On the other hand, elaborate equipment is required to perform Enochian magic properly, including correct copies of the various Tablets and diagrams, and other apparatus (see "Enochian Temple Furniture" above).

Since Dee is well-known to have been a spy for Elizabeth I's court, there are many modern interpretations of his Angelic manuscripts as cryptographic documents - most likely polyalphabetic ciphers - designed to disguise political messages (see for instance, Langford This aspect of the manuscripts is not of major concern to Enochian magicians, but there is no doubt that Dee's knowledge of mathematics and sophisticated cipher systems contributed extensively to his magical system.