Enochian - Dee's Angelical

Dee's Angelical

According to Tobias Churton in his text The Golden Builders, the concept of an Angelic or antediluvian language was common during Dee's time. If one could speak with angels, it was believed one could directly interact with them.

In 1581, Dee mentioned in his personal journals that God had sent "good angels" to communicate directly with prophets. In 1582, Dee teamed up with the seer Edward Kelley, although Dee had used several other seers previously. With Kelley's help as a scryer, Dee set out to establish lasting contact with the angels. Their work resulted, among other things, in the reception of the Enochian or Angelical language.

According to Dee's journals, Angelical was supposed to have been the language God used to create the world, and which was later used by Adam to speak with God and the angels, and to name all things in existence. After his Fall from Paradise, Adam lost the language and constructed a form of proto-Hebrew based upon his vague memory of Angelical. This proto-Hebrew, then, was the universal human language until the time of the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. After this, all the various human languages were developed, including an even more modified Hebrew (which we know as "Biblical Hebrew"). From the time of Adam to the time of Dee and Kelley, Angelical was hidden from humans with the single exception of the patriarch Enoch who, according to the angels, recorded the "Book of Loagaeth" (Speech From God) for humanity. The book was then lost again in the Deluge of Noah.

The reception of Enochian started on March 26, 1583, when Kelley reported visions in the crystal of the twenty-one lettered alphabet characteristic of the language. A few days later, Kelley started receiving what became the first corpus of texts in the purported Angelic language. This resulted in the book Liber Loagaeth ("Book Speech from God"). The book consists of 49 great letter tables, or squares made of 49 by 49 letters (however, each table has a front and back side—making 98 49x49 tables in all). Dee and Kelley said the angels never bothered translating the texts in this book.

The other set of Enochian texts was received through Kelley about a year later, in Krakow. These are more important since they come with English translations, thus providing the basis for the Enochian vocabulary. The texts comprise 48 poetic verses, which in Dee's manuscripts are called "Claves Angelicae", or "Angelic Keys". The Keys are assigned certain functions within the magical system. Dee was apparently intending to use these Keys to "open the 49 Gates of Wisdom/Understanding" represented by the 49 magic squares in Liber Loagaeth:

I am therefore to instruct and inform you, according to your Doctrine delivered, which is contained in 49 Tables. In 49 voices, or callings: which are the Natural Keys to open those, not 49 but 48 (for one is not to be opened) Gates of Understanding, whereby you shall have knowledge to move every Gate…

But you shall understand that these 19 Calls are the Calls, or entrances into the knowledge of the mystical Tables. Every Table containing one whole leaf, whereunto you need no other circumstances.

While these texts contain most of the vocabulary, dozens of further words are found hidden throughout Dee's journals, and thousands of undefined words are contained in the Liber Loagaeth. Marked stylistic differences between the words in Loagaeth and in the Keys have led some present-day magicians to assume that these represent two different "dialects" of the language.