Enochian magic is a system of ceremonial magic based on the evocation and commanding of various spirits. It is based on the 16th-century writings of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley, who claimed that their information was delivered to them directly by various angels. Dee's journals contained the Enochian script, and the table of correspondences that goes with it. It claims to embrace secrets contained within the apocryphal Book of Enoch.

Origins

Dee and Kelley claimed they received these instructions from angels and wrote them down. This account is taken at face value by most Enochian occultists. However, some of them have pointed out remarkable similarities to earlier grimoiric texts such as the Heptameron known to Dee. Doubts surrounding Kelley in particular have led many non-occultists to the assumption the whole system was originally a fraud devised by Kelley in order to receive more financial support from Dee. The system claims to relate to secrets contained within the apocryphal Book of Enoch.

Rediscovery

A table of the Enochian alphabet.

It is not quite clear how much of Enochian magic was put to use by Dee and Kelley. However, rediscovery of Enochian magic by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has sparked remarkable publicity for it in modern occultism. Enochian as an operative system is difficult to reconstruct based upon original manuscripts like the collection of Sir Hans Sloane in the British Museum, but contemporary occult organizations have attempted to make it usable. The Golden Dawn was the first, but their knowledge was based upon only one of Dee's diaries and their planetary, elemental, or zodiacal attributions have no foundation in the original sources.

Aleister Crowley, who worked with, and wrote about, Enochian magic extensively, has contributed much to its comparatively widespread use today. His first work on the topic was his Liber Chanokh, a brief account of almost the whole system as the Golden Dawn saw it, but his most famous work with Enochian focused upon the Calls of the Aethyrs. His visions from these calls formed a document called The Vision and the Voice, also known as Liber 418.

Unexplained Mysteries of Enochian Magic