Enochian Speculations

An interview with Donald Tyson by Akhenseti

Enochian and Kabbalistic cosmologies

Q: In your books, particularly ÎTetragrammatonâ and ÎEnochian Magic for
Beginnersâ, elements of the Enochian system and cosmology are compared with
paths and sephiroth on the kabbalistic Tree of Life. Do you feel that
Enochian and kabbalistic cosmology could be successfully combined? After
all, if they both are maps of the different levels of reality and their
relations with human consciousness they should at least be comparable.

A: The Enochian system and the Kabbalistic system can be compared with each
other because they both attempt to describe the same thing -- the greater
universe and its levels of reality. In some ways the aethyrs are similar to
the sephiroth. Each embodies a specific condition that is self-limited. The
sephiroth are stages in the emanation of being from non-being, with
associated hierarchies of spiritual creatures. The aethyrs are astral zones
inhabited by types of spirits, and represent intermediary levels between God
and the world. Both are, or can be, concentric in arrangement -- the Tree
arrangement of the Sephiroth is only one arrangement, but the Sephiroth are
also sometimes presented as a set of nesting circles or spheres. Both may be
likened to the spiritual levels of the Gnostics, although each system is
also unique in its own right.

When attempting to integrate the two systems, problems arise due to the
different numbers involved. There are ten Sephiroth, or eleven if Daath is
included. The number of the channels between them is usually said to be
twenty-two, but many other systems of pathways between the spheres on the
Tree exist. Let us say for the sake of argument that the Sephiroth are ten
in number, and the channels between them twenty-two. The aethyrs of the
Enochian system number thirty, or if you include the Keys, forty-eight, or
maybe forty-nine if the unrevealed primary Key is included. How are these
numbers to be related to the numbers of the Kabbalah?

In linking the Tarot to the Kabbalah, the task was somewhat easier. There
are twenty-two trumps in the Tarot, and twenty-two letters in the Hebrew
alphabet, corresponding to the twenty-two paths that are defined in
Athanasius Kircher's version of the Tree of the Sephiroth -- the arrangement
of the Tree we use today. The cards of the Lesser Arcana divide naturally
into four and ten. There are ten number cards in each of the four suits, and
four court cards in each suit. This accords very nicely with the ten spheres
on the Tree, and with the four worlds of the Kabbalah. The Tarot and the
Tree of the Sephiroth are a natural fit.

In the Enochian alphabet, there are only twenty-one letters, not twenty-two.
The letters cannot be assigned directly to the paths, which is unfortunate
since individual letters are themselves spiritual beings on the Enochian
Watchtowers. We do find four Watchtowers, which can be made to align with
the four worlds of the Kabbalah, although how to align them is not clear.
Perhaps a link can be made through the points of the compass. We can
associate the Watchtowers with the four directions, and the four directions
with the four worlds. Again, this cannot be done automatically, since
opinions would differ as to which direction should be linked with which
Kabbalistic world.

The Enochian system is divided into fours and sevens, for the most part. The
Kabbalistic system of the Tree is mainly divided into fours and tens. It is
not easy to reconcile, in a symbolic and esoteric sense, divisions of tens
with divisions of sevens. One way to do this is to add three to seven, which
yields ten. We see this division in the Tree, which is split between the
three Supernals at the top, and the seven other Sephiroth lower down. It
might be possible to associate the lower seven Sephiroth on the Tree with
the divisions of seven in the Enochian system. However, we would need to
find a higher trinity in Enochian magic to occupy the Supernals. I am
assuming that the general impulse would be to place the parts of the
Enochian system upon the Tree, rather than placing the Sephiroth on some
Enochian structure, such as the Great Table of the Watchtowers. Most people
with a knowledge of Western esotericism are familiar with the Tree, and
would find it easier to deal with Enochian concepts placed on the Tree.

Anyone who has studied both the Kabbalah and Enochian magic could make this
assignment. I could easily create a system of correspondences. I have not
done so because I doubt it would possess much value. While it is true that
the Kabbalistic system and the Enochian system describe the same thing, the
esoteric universe, they are enough unlike to make a direct comparison of
their parts difficult. It has been my own view that it might devolve into an
arbitrary exercise. I have not yet spent much time considering the matter.
At some point, I may look at the possibility of placing the parts of
Enochian esotericism on the Tree, if only as an intellectual challenge.

In his edition of Aleister Crowley's book "The Vision and the Voice," Israel
Regardie tabulates the correspondences made by Crowley between the Enochian
letters, some of the Hebrew letters, and the zodiac signs, astrological
planets, nodes of the moon, and four elements. It is a very awkward and
unbalanced table. Regardie wrote about it:

"It follows no schema that I am familiar with, nor have I been able to
discover the underlying motif of these attributions. If any reader of this
book does come to discover this motif, I would be happy to learn of his
discovery." (Vision and the Voice, page 17).

I am sure that more than one reader wrote to Regardie, breathless to reveal
the secret of these correspondences, and I am also sure that Regardie
remained unconvinced, and unenlightened. Crowley played around with the
structure of the Enochian system, but does not appear to have reached any
firm or valuable conclusions. His attempt to scry the aethyrs was a
significant magical working, and the "Vision and the Voice" repays careful
study on many levels. He cannot be said to have successfully integrated the
Enochian system with the Tree of Life.

The Enochian Apocalypse and the succession of Aeons

Q: Both "Tetragrammaton" and "Enochian Magic for Beginners" give the
impression that you are talking about Armageddon in a very physical and
exoteric sense, literally the end of the world. On the other hand, texts
that used to be on your "Supernatural World" site -- for example the ones on
the nature of Coronzon -- suggested a more mystic, esoteric interpretation.
Should your hypothesis on the Enochian Apocalypse be understood as the
destruction of the physical world or as a radical initiatory experience
destroying the boundaries of the adepts consciousness to enable gnosis?

A: This is a difficult question to answer in any conclusive way because we
are dealing with a speculation I initiated that cannot be proven, either by
me or by anyone else. Does this render the consideration of this matter
valueless? Not at all. There are many worthy topics of reflection, and
debate, that remain forever beyond the reach of conclusive proofs.

I initiated the speculation when I began to wonder what the real agenda of
the Enochian angels might be. On the surface, they were teaching John Dee
the magic of heaven, which they had ages ago taught to the prophet Enoch, as
a reward for Dee's service as their herald. Dee was expected, and indeed
compelled, by the angels, to travel around Europe, proclaiming the
sinfulness of mankind, and the coming of the time of judgement, to the
crowned heads of various nations, foremost among them the German Emperor
Rudolph the Second. He accepted this office unwillingly, but was persuaded
by the allure of the magical knowledge the angels might provide. For Dee the
plum was the knowledge of commanding the spirits that presided over the
nations of the world. For his scryer, Edward Kelley, the plum was the secret
of making alchemical gold.

If the entire purpose of the angels was to cause Dee to deliver vague
prophetic utterances before European kings and queens, it was achieved.
However, the effects of Dee's words were unimpressive. He was received with
the politeness due to his standing as a renowned scholar, and may have made
some impression on Rudolph and a few others, but his mission on behalf of
the angels had no great consequence. It was like a damp firecracker -- it
made a little fizz and went out.

I wondered if that was all the angels had in mind for Dee, and posited the
question to myself: What if, instead of merely intending Dee and Kelley to
prophesize the coming of the divine judgement, they were using Dee and
Kelley to initiate that judgement? If this were so, they would need to
deliver an instrument to Dee that would trigger the Apocalypse. Suddenly the
painstaking and prolonged transmission of the system of Enochian magic made
a little more sense. It was not a personal reward to Dee, but an instrument
for the punishment of mankind.

People reading these speculations immediately told each other that I had
lost my mind, and many dismissed my words without ever really taking the
time to listen to what I had to say.

One thing overlooked in the rush to repudiate this hypothesis was my
indication that it was merely a speculation. I make no claim to divine
knowledge. The Enochian angels have not revealed their secret purposes to
me. I based my speculation on what they said and did in their interaction
with Dee and Kelley, as recorded by Dee in his extensive secret diaries.

If we accept for the sake of the discussion that this was the intention of
the angels, then it must have been their belief that some working of
Enochian magic by Dee or Kelley, or perhaps another human being, would
initiate the series of events prophesied in the biblical book Revelation. We
should not immediately assume that what the angels believed would happen,
and what actually would happen, are the same thing. Spirits often utter
untruths, or are mistaken in their revelations of the future. We know from
Dee's records that the prophecies of the Enochian angels, concerning
historical or personal events that Dee could verify, were sometimes true,
and sometimes untrue. It would be naive to assume that merely because the
angels believed that their Enochian magic could initiate the final judgement
of mankind, that it would indeed actually do so. I made no such assumption,
either in my own mind on in my written presentation of this hypothesis.

Then there is the whole question of just what the Apocalypse might be. I
doubt you could find two biblical scholars who would agree on the meaning of
the strange and mystical utterances of the author of Revelation. I have
studied the book quite closely, and most of it remains opaque to my
understanding. Few in modern times would assume that it is to be interpreted
literally. The general view would be that it is an extended fable that may
have some sort of symbolic meaning. Even those scholars who think this would
scoff at the very idea that it describes an actual physical series of
events. Does it proclaim the end of the world, or the end of humanity, or
merely a period of disruption from one historical era to another? Clearly
the intention of John the Divine is to indicate that unpleasant times are
ahead, but when they are coming, what they will involve, how long they will
endure, who will survive and who will perish, are matters that remain open
to interpretation.

I thought about what the Apocalypse might entail, were such an unlikely
event to occur. Suppose the working of Enochian magic in a specific way
could trigger the judgement day. Realistically, what might be involved?

It seems likely to me that it would not be a physical series of cataclysms.
It is true that if a large comet or asteroid struck the Earth, the human
race might very well be destroyed amid fires, floods, volcanoes, storms and
plagues. However, this would not be a judgement triggered by Enochian magic.
What could the working of an Enochian ritual do to bring about the
Apocalypse?

Well, it might change certain aspects of our inner, or mental, reality, to
increase the measure of chaos in the world. This could be done by giving
chaotic spiritual agents access to the human mind that was previously denied
to them. To put it in a more graphic way, the ritual might open doorways
allowing chaotic spirits entry into the depths of the human unconscious.

Those who study and practice ritual magic with any seriousness know that
magic can affect the mind on deep levels. They also know the reality of
spiritual beings, and that some types of spirits are benevolent, most are
indifferent, and some are malicious from a human perspective. The idea that
a powerful ritual could open doorways upon chaotic realms or levels,
permitting agents previously barred from the human mind to enter there, is
not so unbelievable to a student of Western magic.

Why would the Enochian angels wish to do this? I have no idea. Why did John
the Divine receive the prophetic revelation that angels of God would wish to
destroy the world? The message the Enochian angels taught to Dee, and
compelled him to deliver to the crowned heads of Europe, was that mankind
was sinful, and must soon reap what it had sown, just as it had in the time
of the biblical Flood. This may also be one interpretation of St. John's
message. In modern times, we do not even know what sin is. The concept of
sin has been lost to us. For the Enochian angels it was a reality. They may
have believed that they were agents of divine wrath, and that by tricking
John Dee into recording the system of Enochian magic, they were fulfilling
their reason for existence.

Again, I stress, I am speculating on what the Enochian angels may have
believed to be the case, not what was actually true. Merely because the
Enochian angels may have viewed themselves as agents of divine retribution,
does not mean that they were so. They may have been mistaken, or they may
even have been deceived.

If the level of chaos were to increase in the depths of the human mind, this
would have two consequences. First, it would result in a higher incidence of
irrationality, despair, and insanity within the minds of individuals;
second, this rising mental chaos would spill outward into the material world
in the form of irrational and impulsive actions, suicides, murders, crimes,
and perversions on the individual level, and in the form of social tensions
and warfare on the collective level.

What the human mind conceives often becomes our physical reality. The First
World War, which Aleister Crowley viewed as the early outward expression of
his own Aeon of Horus, began in the minds of a few otherwise sane men. Those
who commit irrational crimes often plan them in their imaginations for years
before at last acting on their fantasies.

If, as I speculated, Enochian magic had been transmitted to mankind through
John Dee as a trigger of what we generally call the Apocalypse, and if this
trigger had at least in part been pulled by the Enochian working of Aleister
Crowley, opening cracks in the doors of the mind upon zones of chaos, then
what would be the visible result? We would witness a period of increasing
irrationality and violence, coupled with a disinclination to obey laws or
adhere to moral codes.

Would this happen overnight? No, why should it? Human history unfolds at its
own slow pace. The angels told Dee that time for them was not the same as
time for human beings. It is possible that the visions that John the Divine
received, which he described as taking place in the material world over a
relatively short span of time, might be imperfect and symbolic expressions
of internal events that would unfold over generations, and would only
express themselves outwardly in the form of chaotic actions after many years
of maturation within the depths of the human mind.

It is worth asking whether we are, at present, in the midst of the
Apocalypse, without even knowing it. The fall of the Roman Empire is
something most people think of as happening in the course of a few days, as
a single major catastrophe. This is not true. The empire of Rome declined
slowly over centuries. It was no less a disaster, merely because it happened
slowly from the perspective of individual human beings. Those who lived
during the decline of Rome would hardly be aware of it. They might note that
things were a bit more lawless than they had been in their father's
generation, but that would be all, apart from suffering an occasional event
such as an assassination or a looting.

Perhaps the Enochian Apocalypse Working, as I have named it, is intended to
act as the trigger for the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of
Aquarius, or as Crowley would have expressed it, from the Aeon of Osiris to
the Aeon of Horus. Crowley's "Book of the Law" teaches that this transition
will be marked by lawlessness and violence. It does not state that the world
will end. Neither, for that matter, does the book of Revelation. Both
suggest that these periods of chaos will be unpleasant and will result in
many deaths. Well, suppose the First and Second World Wars were the more
outwardly visible manifestations of the Apocalypse? Crowley believed this to
be the case. He equated the violent dawning of his Aeon of Horus with the
chaotic events described in the biblical book Revelation, just as he equated
himself with the figure of the Beast of Revelation. It may be that Crowley
cracked open the gates of the Watchtowers with his Enochian working, and
that all of the wars and turmoil of the 20th century were the result.

Do I believe this? No, of course not. I am speculating about it, and I find
it an interesting topic for speculation. Were it the case, we might still be
living in the chaotic madness of the Apocalypse. Who knows what its final
evolution will be, or where it will take us? Have we passed through the
worst of it, or is the worst still in front of us? Is madness increasing or
decreasing? Does each of us have demons in the depths of our mind, permitted
entry there because of the opening of the gates of the Watchtowers by
Crowley's experimentation with Enochian magic? Are we all fighting against
irrational impulses and destructive acts, whispered into our inner ear by
these demons?

I cannot say, because I do not know. I merely ask the questions to myself,
and through my writings express them to others. Think about it and form your
own conclusions. I have no agenda to achieve, no social or political ax to
grind. It does not matter to me if anyone takes any of my speculations
concerning the Enochian Apocalypse Working seriously, or not. Indeed, even
if these speculations are completely true, it does not matter whether we
know about the Enochian Apocalypse, collectively as a species. We may be
able to prevent ourselves from acting on our own irrational impulses, being
forewarned that these chaotic spirits have gained entry to our deep minds,
but the Apocalypse, if it has been unfolding in its own way for the past
century or so, will continue to unfold to its inevitable fulfillment, and
this may not occur in our lifetimes.