[Help] How do you suggest getting into Enochian Magick?

[Akairyuu]

As the title suggests I'm looking for any information and advice for those wanting to start out with Enochian and what steps to take. I have read it's not something to take lightly, which I absolutely respect. I've been doing ceremonial magick for a while dipping into the Arbatel, some light Solomon magick and a little PGM though it's been a while and I don't remember much about PGM. Right now I'm working through a 9 week Arbatel operation and am working through Scott Stenwick's Path of Initiation (Malkuth).

I won't be practicing any Enochian yet, but I've been starting small by researching and to learn the alphabet. I'm going to see about buying the Kindle version of Scott Stenwick's Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy and start working though some of that.

Thank you

 

[A.Nox]

You’re honestly approaching this more carefully than most people who get interested in Enochian and thats already a good sign

A 9 week Arbatel operation + working through Path of Initiation tells me you already understand that structure matters and that alone will help you a lot later.

One thing though — Enochian really isnt just ,,advanced Solomonic,, or ,,next step after Arbatel,,. Its kind of its own thing entirely. Different architecture different logic behind it, different atmosphere too honestly.

Arbatel feels relatively contained compared to Enochian. Enochian has this reputation for restructuring things around the practitioner in ways that can become very intense very fast. Not saying this in a fearmongering way, just that its better approached carefully and systematically.

Before actual practice I’d personally make sure two things are solid first

First is visionary work/scrying...Without that Enochian can turn into just mechanically repeating calls and letters without really developing contact. Mirror work, crystal work, meditation with stable imagery etc. doesnt matter that much which method honestly, more that you can consistently receive and hold vision without forcing it.

Second is understanding the difference between Heptarchy, Great Table and Aethyrs because a lot of beginners look at them like progression levels when theyre really different functional parts of the system.

Honestly I think Stenwick’s Heptarchy book is a pretty decent starting point for exactly that reason The Heptarchy feels more self contained and structured compared to jumping directly into the Great Table or Aethyrs.
And yeah the respect part matters but I think operationally more than philosophically. People sometimes romanticize Enochian too much either as ,,ultimate angelic system,, or “dangerous forbidden thing” and both approaches kinda distort the work.

Having a stable practical life before deeper work is honestly underrated advice here.
You seem to have the right mindset for it though. Just dont rush it

 

[Akairyuu]

You’re honestly approaching this more carefully than most people who get interested in Enochian and thats already a good sign

A 9 week Arbatel operation + working through Path of Initiation tells me you already understand that structure matters and that alone will help you a lot later.

One thing though — Enochian really isnt just ,,advanced Solomonic,, or ,,next step after Arbatel,,. Its kind of its own thing entirely. Different architecture different logic behind it, different atmosphere too honestly.

Arbatel feels relatively contained compared to Enochian. Enochian has this reputation for restructuring things around the practitioner in ways that can become very intense very fast. Not saying this in a fearmongering way, just that its better approached carefully and systematically.

Before actual practice I’d personally make sure two things are solid first

First is visionary work/scrying...Without that Enochian can turn into just mechanically repeating calls and letters without really developing contact. Mirror work, crystal work, meditation with stable imagery etc. doesnt matter that much which method honestly, more that you can consistently receive and hold vision without forcing it.

Second is understanding the difference between Heptarchy, Great Table and Aethyrs because a lot of beginners look at them like progression levels when theyre really different functional parts of the system.

Honestly I think Stenwick’s Heptarchy book is a pretty decent starting point for exactly that reason The Heptarchy feels more self contained and structured compared to jumping directly into the Great Table or Aethyrs.
And yeah the respect part matters but I think operationally more than philosophically. People sometimes romanticize Enochian too much either as ,,ultimate angelic system,, or “dangerous forbidden thing” and both approaches kinda distort the work.

Having a stable practical life before deeper work is honestly underrated advice here.
You seem to have the right mindset for it though. Just dont rush it

Thanks for the reply. I just thought Enochian would add an interesting layer, in real life I'm like "What's that? I want to learn more about that" when I see a craft or a coding language lol. Enochian does look really interesting, though, and I think it'd be worth learning more about it

I've always been careful in general, I didn't conjure anything for a long while until I decided to test the waters with Aratron, even then I've only touched on some of the angels in the kinder Solomonic talisman making for Jupiter and Venus, the elemental Kings, Sandalphon (For Malkuth initiation) and the Arbatel.

As for visuals, mine is usually quite strong. I have a thing where I can wander around in 3D space and even feel texture. I have some clairaudience too. Lately my visuals have been more impression like and relying on feeling the presences more, though, perhaps to do with the grounding Malkuth work.

I've always liked the way Scott explains things and his structure makes sense to me. And the practical life I'm working on which I'm hoping the Arbatel and my new university course will help with in a horrible UK Job market lok

Thank you for you reply though, very useful info

 

[Firetree]

Get familiar with the system first - by system I mean the 'classification and order system ' as laid out in the tablets .

The best way to that ( as said by some and as I experienced when I did it ) is to draw up your own tablets - use hermetic attributions ( see GD ) and colors and symbols and you will see the patterns and internal logic of it emerge .

 

[ashlesha]

I would recommend Lon Milo Duquette's "Enochian Vision Magick" for a practical approach, and Frater Yechidah's "Enochian Magic in Theory" and "Enochian Magic in Practice" for majority of the other information.

Scott Stenwick's books are great for practical use, but I think getting a better lay of the land with those 3 books above would give you a better grasp before you start asking for things. From there, you can get into Aaron Leitch's "Essential Enochian Grimoire" and his Angelical Volume Series. Jason Louv has a great, but maybe sort of tabloid-y understanding of Enochian in his book "John Dee and the Empire of Angels".

Good luck! It's one of the most rewarding systems out there. Feel free to dm me if you want some help

Here's some other books, in no particular order, that also helped me:

• Athena's Advanced Grimoire of Enochian Magick
• John DeSalvo's Decoding the Enochian Secrets, Enochian Magic and the Higher Worlds, and The Lost Art of Enochian Magic
• How to Study Enochian Magic by Mark Stavish
• Enochian Evocation of John Dee by Geoffrey James
• A Short Course in Scrying by Benjamin Rowe
• Enochian Magic Reference by Benjamin Rowe

 

[Akairyuu]

Thank you for the suggestions, very useful. I actually have a copy of Enochian Vision Magick, I'll definitely look at that more closely. I'll look into sourcing the others too.

And thanks for offering assistance, I'll make sure to dm you of I need help

 

[Frater R.P.G.]

All books on Enochian Magic come with errors, as it's an evolving field of study still (which makes it all the more exciting, to me anyway).

My recommendations are pretty much the same as those of @ashlesha so I'll just point out some major pitfalls you might encounter along the way.

Lon Milo Duquette is probably the best theoretical introduction still, but in practice he relies too much on erroneous Golden Dawn Enochiana. His "paper tools" open approach to practice is controversial, but I've done it myself and with groups of novices and it works well. If you just want to try out Enochiana, Duquette's ritual for skrying TEX is a good way to get a good feel of it.

Frater Yechidah's books are awesome and not as GD-biased as one could assume from his GD association. I especially like that he actually quotes the relevant bits of Dee's diary. He covers nicely the 19-day working of the Great Table. He still does makes some significant mistakes, especially in regard to the Liber Loagaeth.

Loagaeth/Gebofal is so far best covered by Aaron Leitch in his Essential Enochian Grimoire and the Angelical Language. Leitch's pronunciation suggestions are however sometimes made up. He also doesn't approve of the relation between the Calls and the Great Table, which I am in favour of (though not in the way GD does it).

Scott Michael Stenwick corrects the above mistakes of Leitch's in his Mastering the Great Table, and even returns to the original elemental correspondences. On the other hand, he makes the incorrect assumption that the 91 Governors are just Parts and the 12 Kings above them are the Governors. The 91 are clearly described in the diaries as spirits in their own right. His book on the Heptarchy is mostly alright (with one caveat, see below).

Almost all of the modern books perpetrate the error of the "corrected Holy Table of Practice" which is in fact wrong (several articles available about this, but best simply see

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).

Each writer has their own opinion on what is the correct version of the Great Table, but the solution to this debate is quite apparent when closely reading the diaries.

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Every single book that talks about the 91 Governors/Parts has some errors, because Dee himself made some while copying info from the diary to his grimoire. See

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.

The above all together will balance each other pretty well and you may not need to go beyond that. But if you happen to be drawn strongly to the deeper mysteries, you will want to go to the source material.

At the moment the best available edition of Dee's diaries is Kevin Klein's Complete Spiritual Diaries of Dr John Dee, which faithfully replicates not just the content, but also the format of the original manuscripts.

Klein however doesn't translate the Latin bits and of course the 16th century English is quite tricky. You may then want to also check out Stephen Skinner's 2019 edition of A True and Faithful Relation, as well as Peterson's Five Books of Mystery, which together cover the same material, but translating the Latin and with many other useful annotations.

If you're unsure, you can dip your toes in the source material in Geoffrey James's Enochian Evocation, which is essentially just a selection of the most practical bits in the diaries. James' Latin translations can however be very misleading.

 

[stalkinghyena]

Good recommendations generally, though I would like to add Donald Tyson's Enochian Magic for Beginners because it does cover the core source material in a concise way, though like everyone he adds his own touches. Also, his Tetragrammaton might be useful if you want to bridge the system with the Shem ha-Memphorash and Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad, among other things - but this book should be taken with Apocalyptic grains of salt.

As to Skinners repro of the TFR, this is really worth reading/using, but the margin glosses have been turned into footnotes. All I had before this was a facsimile of Causabon's original TFR publication, which is really tough to read. Skinner also "corrects" the text with comparisons of Ashmole and Shipton, and these make of copious footnotes that can be distracting. But you can get a separate book of the Latin translations - though I noted some are missing. Also, I noted a number of basic typos in the text.

Aside from the source material, though, it may be worth reading some bios. I say this for the sake of developing a sense of context in the generation of the system and I like getting into the history. Charlotte Fell Smith's John Dee covers up to the end of Dee's life, and follows the diaries, but this was written in 1908 and is generally called "imperfect", though I have never found a bio that is "perfect." Tom Morris's John Dee and Edward Kelley is good, as is Benjamin Wooley's The Queen's Conjurer. These last two end pretty much at the end of the partnership between D&K for some reason.

But I should note that knowing the origin of the system does not obligate a modern practitioner to anything. This isn't the 16th century obviously, and approaching the Enochian system as if it was could be problematic, though I suppose that's true of anything. So I guess one could consider the history supplemental, though fun.

Edit:
I wanted to mention that Skinner's version of the Diaries also includes the account an important episode with Francesco Pucci which is absent from Causabon. This has to do with all the scrying records being deliberately destroyed in a fire and then miraculously restored.