This chapter will examine the transmission of Enochian Angel Magic through the Golden Dawn and those groups it directly influenced. The complex hoaxes involving Anna Sprengel,1 Mather’s unveiling of Westcott’s ‘deception’, and the detailed reasons for and ramifications of the schisms of the Golden Dawn in 1900 have all been well- documented by Howe, Gilbert, and others. The overview of this chapter’s examination will be based on the historical transmission of Golden Dawn practice to Regardie’s publication of the ritual documents of the Stella Matutina.
Enochian Magic and the Golden Dawn System
Westcott, Mathers, and Woodman, acting ‘as co-equal’ Chiefs according to Westcott,2 opened ‘the Isis-Urania Temple No. 3, of the Order of the G.D. in the Outer’ on March 1st, 1988 and had seven members initiated as Neophytes by the end of the month (four men and three women).3 After the first year, the Order numbered sixty members between three temples (fifty-one men and nine women).4 Despite his claim of ‘co- equality’ among the Chiefs, it was Westcott who ran the Golden Dawn in its early years.5 His initial intent for the Order was for it to be a Rosicrucian-modeled society purposed with the study of ‘classical medieval occult science’, as Westcott put it.6 Westcott’s Rosicrucian influences were exemplified in the reading of his Man, Miracle, Magic to the members of the Isis Temple, where he took to heart the definition of magic from the preface of the Lemegeton.7 8 In Man, Miracle, Magic, he elevated the Rosicrucian Adept of the spiritual wisdom taught by the Golden Dawn beyond that of Spiritualist mediums.9
In this era, the document known as Book H marks the beginning of the Golden
Dawn’s involvement with Dee’s Angel Magic. The contents of Book H are an eclectic
selection from Sloane MS 307 that Westcott, Ayton, Frederick Leigh Gardner
(1857-1930), and Allan Bennett (1872-1923) all had access to.10 Authorship is unknown.
Book H is mainly derived from Dee’s Great Table11 that is used to generate the angels’
names in the Liber Scientiae Auxilii.12 Note the following paragraph from Book H:
The name of this Great Angelical and Mighty Angel, or King of ye Easy BATAIVAH upon whom all the Angels and Spirits of the Four Lesser Angles attend and give obedience, call forth the forerecited Six Seniors, whose offices are to give Scientium Rerum Humanorum et Judicium according to the nature of their parts.13
However, the name BATAIVA or BATAIVH, as used in Dee’s Liber Scientiae Auxilii, is an angelic ‘Name of God’ with the power to command the six senior angels of the East, not the name of an angel in particular as stated above.14 Taking the aforementioned into account the next paragraph provides a curiosity:
Now for the Sixteen Servient Angels next in order under the Six seniors in the easter Quadrangle. Their names may be collected and composed out of each lesser Angle attendant on the greater Angle thus: - In the uppermost Angle attendant on the left of this Quadrangle there is a small Cross of black letters whose perpendicular lyne goeth upwards [...] making the name of God Idoigo the which is used to call forth ye subsequent good Angels, who are attendant next in order under those Sixteen Angels next succeeding the Six Seniors according to their graduation.15
Book H gives an explanation of God Names in complete conformity to Dee’s usage of God Names in the Liber Scientiae Auxilii.16 Due to the eclectic nature of Book H and its usage of Dee’s angel magic, it is difficult to conjecture what purpose the assignment of ‘BATAIVAH’ as an angel served, but alterations and unique interpretations of Dee’s material are a hallmark of the Golden Dawn’s use of Enochian and angel magic.
Westcott and Mathers’ Enochian Chess is a fine example of the inventive usage of Enochian angel magic.17 Originally called ‘Rosicrucian Chess’, Enochian Chess again utilized Dee’s Great Table, but this time as a chess board.18 Chaturaji, an Indian game of four-handed chess that used dice, is the most likely source of inspiration for the four-handed style of play exhibited in Enochian Chess.19 Frederic Villot’s short tract on the Kabbalistic and astronomical sources of chess also asserts that the game had been invented by Egyptian priests.20 This is fascinating due to the overtly Egyptian appearances of the chessmen in Enochian Chess.21 The possible existence of chess suggested in hieroglyphics discovered in Luxor, Thebes, and Palmyra of origins predating ancient Rome lend possibility to this conjecture, especially if Alexander the Great ever chanced across Chess in his travels through India and Persia.22
Enochian Chess was intentionally rife with elemental and astrological
correspondences in order to train those who had achieved the rank of Zelator Adeptus
Minor and act as a means of divination23 in the secretive Second Order of the Golden
Dawn, the Ordo Roseae Rubeae at Aureae Crucis.24 The four quadrants of Dee’s great
table were assigned elements and referred to as the ‘Four Angelic Watchtowers’ and
‘Elemental Tablets’.25 The elements naturally correspond to the four winds as given in
Book H,26 the four elemental triplicities of the Zodiac, and the four seasons.27 As Israel
Regardie reflects:
[T]he actual documents on the subject that were shown to me were vague and obviously incomplete, giving no indication as to the true nature of this matter. No doubt it was intended, by those who wrote the papers and devised the system, that the Adept should apply his own ingenuity to the bare-bones provided of the game, and formulate from that skeleton outline, as from the Enochian Tablets themselves, a complete system of initiation, and a profound magical philosophy.28
Regardie described the usage of the elemental colors (Yellow/Air, Red/Fire, Blue/Water, Black/Earth)29 to create a ‘Flashing Tablet’, or a talismanic game board constructed of pyramids.30 Each of the four Elemental Tablets is given correspondences through association with the Tetragrammaton (YHVH, the Hebrew four-lettered name of God), which is applied like a grid to each Elemental Tablet with each Hebrew letter given astrological and elemental significance.31 The complexity of the correspondences is increased through the division of every square into four triangles, or a ‘pyramid’, with each triangle bears a different elemental color based on its placement on the board.32 The top triangle is assigned a Tarot trump, the right triangle a Geomantic figure,33 the bottom triangle bears the Hebrew letter corresponding to the Tarot trump, and the left bearing a zodiacal or elemental attribution based on its position in relationship to the Tetragrammaton grid.34 That the basis of this game is the Great Table of Dee used as a game board makes each square a talisman containing a dizzying array of correspondences.
Enochian angel magic was also attributed to spiritual alchemy, which has already been illustrated in this dissertation as a hallmark of Rosicrucianism. Mary Anne Atwood is credited with providing the foundations for the spiritual alchemy of the Golden Dawn with her book A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850).35
Atwood’s alchemy took a note from Eliphas Lévi in equating Mesmer’s
experiments with animal magnetism as a lesser manifestation of the ‘astral light’:
The philosophical stone, the universal medicine, the transmutation of metals, the quadrature of the circle, and the secret of perpetual motion, are thus neither mystifications of science nor dreams of madness. [...] [T]here exists in nature a force which is immeasurably more powerful than steam, and by means of which a single man, who knows how to adapt and direct it, might upset and alter the face of the world. [...] This agent, which barely manifests under the uncertain methods of Mesmer’s followers, is precisely that which the adepts of the middle ages denominated the first matter of the great work.36
Here follows an example of Atwood’s account of Mesmerism and alchemy:
We pray the liberal reader to reflect, therefore, and link his imagination to the probabilities of reason, and ponder on the testimony of experience, and believe that Mesmerism, as it is mechanically practiced in the present day, is a first step indeed, and this only before the entrance of that glorious temple of Divine Wisdom which a more scientific Handicraft enabled the ancients experimentally to enter, and from its foundation build up, as it were, a crystalline edifice of Light and Truth.37
Gilbert succinctly stated the goal of Atwood’s alchemy ‘was to attain a form of exalted mesmeric trance through which enlightenment can come upon one’. Atwood’s book was initially suppressed by her father, Thomas South, who decided the world was not ready for her great revelation; it was not to be reprinted until 1918, after Atwood’s death.38 The limited availability of the Suggestive Inquiry likely made it desirable for collectors of occult texts, such as members of the Golden Dawn.39 Naturally, the alchemist member of the Golden Dawn, Rev. William Alexander Ayton, gained access to a copy.
On March 27, 1890, Ayton exhibited his familiarity with the Suggestive Inquiry in his letter to Frederick Leigh Gardner recommending the book to him, though he warned him that it would be difficult to obtain.40 Ayton was a laboratory alchemist who kept his lab underneath his house to prevent the bishop from finding it. Ayton joined the Golden Dawn at the age of seventy-two in 1888 and had a great
many connections.42 He was a friend of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and supporter of her
Theosophical Society, a Freemason, the grand master of the North of the Hermetic
Brotherhood of Luxor,43 and may have been acquainted with Lévi in the 1860s.44
Despite his sincere respect for the Theosophical Society, Ayton gave high praise to the
Golden Dawn in a letter of congratulations to Gardner on ascending to the Second
Order:
We beg to congratulate you on your advancement to 5 = 6. Most certainly this Order gives you much more of the practical working of the Occult than the T[heosophical) S[ociety], and is really the best aid to the TS.45
Ayton privately instructed Second Order Adepts on the practice of alchemy46 and he voiced his belief in the reality of both a physical and a spiritual alchemy.47 Ayton was known to have been very interested in John Dee, as evidenced in his translation of Thomas Smith’s Life of John Dee (originally published in 1707; 1908 by Ayton).48 He attempted to apply Enochian angel invocations to alchemy, and that notion seems to have been reflected in later Golden Dawn practice.49 Regardie’s accounts of the Golden Dawn tradition (as derived from Dr. Robert Felkin’s Golden Dawn splinter organization, the Order of the Stella Matutina)50 appear to illustrate the mingling of both practical and
spiritual alchemy into a single, ritualistic, magical act of an indefinite span of time:
Now let the matter putrefy in the Balneum Mariae in a very gentle heat, until darkness beginneth to supervene; and even until it becometh entirely black. If from its nature the mixture will not admit of entire blackness, examine it astrally till there is the astral appearance of the thickest possible darkness, and thou mayest also evoke an elemental form to tell thee if the blackness be sufficient. But be thou sure that in this latter thou art not deceived, seeing that the nature of such an elemental will be deceptive from the nature of the symbol of Darkness, wherefore ask thou of him nothing further concerning the working at this stage but only concerning the blackness, and this can be further tested by the elemental itself, which should be either black or clad in an intensely black robe. (Note, for this evocation, use the names, etc., of Saturn.) When the mixture be sufficiently black, then take the curcurbite out of the Balneum Mariae and place it to the North of the Altar and perform over it a solemn invocation of the forces of Saturn to act therein; holding the wand by the black band, then say: "The voice of the Alchemist" etc. The curcurbite is then to be unstopped and the Alembic Head fitted on for purposes of distillation. (Note: In all such invocations a flashing tablet should be used whereon to stand the curcurbite. Also certain of the processes may take weeks, or even months to obtain the necessary force, and this will depend on the Alchemist rather than on the matter.)51
Note the use of directions, ‘Flashing Tablets’, astrological correspondences, and
the Classical elements. All of these factors have already been exemplified in the game
of Enochian Chess, save for the actual use of invocations. This act is clearly derived
from the Zelator Adeptus Minor ritual of initiation, invocations, evocations of spirits
talismanic implements, and the attention to the cardinal directions.52 Here follows a
section of the Adeptus Minor ritual:
Before the Door of the Tomb, as symbolic Guardians, are the Elemental Tablets, and the Kerubic Emblems, even as before the mystical Gate of Eden stood the watchful Kerubim, and the Sword of Flame. These Kerubic Emblem be the powers of the Angles of the Tablets. The Circle represents the four Angles bound together in each Tablet through the operation of the all-pervading Spirit, while the Cross within forms with its spokes the Wheels of Ezekiel's Vision; and therefore are the Cross and the Circle white to represent the purity of the Divine Spirit. And inasmuch as we do not find the Elements unmixed, but each bound together with each - so that in the Air we find not only that which is subtle and tenuous, but also the qualities of heat, moisture and dryness, bound together in that all-wandering Element; and further also that in Fire, Water and Earth we find the same mixture of Nature - therefore the Four Elements are bound to each Kerubic Emblem counterchanged with the colour of the Element wherein they operate; even as in the Vision of Ezekiel each Kerub had four faces and four wings. Forget not therefore that the Tablets and the Kerubim are the Guardians of the Tomb of the Adepti. Let thy tongue keep silence on our mysteries. Restrain even the thought of thy heart lest a bird of the air carry the matter.53
Note the attribution of angels and the Kabbalistic application of the numbers of
faces and wings granting a magical cohesion to the symbolism of the Elemental Tablets.
These two examples provide an interesting contrast to the ‘addressative’ magic of Dee.
Golden Dawn alchemy notes the length of time dependent on the will of the ‘addressee’,
and the Adeptus Minor ritual focuses on the instruments and the roles of the
‘addressees’ more than the angels.54 Rosicrucianism inspired the internal transmutation
to such a degree that the angels and spirits as presented in Regardie’s text can be argued
to be manifestations of the mind of the ‘addressee’, and thus a ‘nonaddressitive’ form of
magic. In the case of the Golden Dawn, rather than being ‘astrological images’, as
Weill-Parot uses in his example of ‘nonaddressative’ magic, the images and talismans
are arguable inner alchemical images that serve as focuses of the mind to assist in inner
transmutation.55 The success of external alchemy in Regardie’s Golden Dawn was
secondary to the success of the inner transmutation.56 As Ayton relates in a letter:
I have just had a letter from my most learned friend [unidentified], saying that he is more and more convinced that one must first attain to Spiritual Adeptship, before you can get the Physical Adeptship of [alchemical] Transmutation. I think I have evidence to the contrary, but I should not like to set my opinion against that of a man who, in addition to a natural genius for the Occult, has been at it since childhood, has the best books and MSS, and knows the whole subject.57
Ayton’s letter gives evidence to the idea that it was not merely a Golden Dawn notion that the alchemical process within was the primary focus, but that it was an attitude of the esotericism of the modern era. Where the Renaissance man, John Dee, had sought to understand the Book of Nature, it seems the modern man sought to understand the Book of Man.
Returning to the Zelator Adeptus Minor ritual, the clear influences of Rosicrucianism based on its reenactment of the discovery of Christian Rosencreutz’s vault and the further addition of his resurrection are fully illustrated.58 The link between Dee and Rosicrucianism remained unbroken. The role of Dee’s angel magic was not central to the Golden Dawn practice, as its usage has been greatly expanded beyond what is contained in Dee’s surviving writings. Instead, Westcott and Mathers likely saw the potential for correspondences contained within Dee’s work and used it to further deepen and enrich the rituals and practices, much like Dee used the Sigillum Dei Aemeth to enrich and focus his communication with the angels. This enrichment of Golden Dawn rituals was passed to Dr. Robert Felkin (1853-1926).
Felkin joined the Golden Dawn in 1894 and was initiated into the Second Order in 1896.59 Felkin attributed his success to his connection with the Secret Chiefs (who he later contacted through the ‘Sun Masters’)60 of the Third Order, and successfully convinced John William Brodie-Innes (1848-1923) of this contact as evidenced in a letter Felkin received from him in 1902.61 In the same year, Felkin produced a proposal of reform for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn that would do away with the name and have the Second Order be transformed into ‘a centre or common meeting ground for students interested in all branches of the occult sciences’ devoid of any grades or further teaching.62 The First Order grades were to serve as tests to provide access to this ‘common meeting ground’ and those members of ‘kindred occult societies’ could be conferred the grade of 5=6 to achieve immediate access to this meeting ground.63 In many ways, Felkin’s proposal for the Second Order resembled the Rosicrucian-inspired societies such as the Invisible College and the Royal Society; the proposal presented a place to exchange ideas for the advancement of man.
In 1903, Felkin’s proposal was rejected, but following a chaotic meeting that
sought to place Brodie-Innes as its new Chief, Arthur Edward Waite proposed that the
order was of a mystical rather than occult nature and that all others who disagreed were
free to leave.64 According to Felkin:
[A] split occurred, as Waite and his followers denied the existence of the Third Order, refused to have examinations in the inner, objected to all occult work, and said they must work upon purely mystic lines.65
The meeting descended into chaos and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was dissolved.66 Three splinters resulted: Arthur Edward Waite retained the original Isis- Urania Temple in London focusing on the ‘mystical’ nature of the Golden Dawn, Brodie-Innes took the Amen-Ra Temple focusing on Golden Dawn’s ‘occult’ nature, and Felkin founded a new branch named the Order of the Stella Matutina with the Amoun Temple in London.67 The Stella Matutina is the ultimate source from which Israel Regardie’s influential information on Golden Dawn rituals chiefly derives, and so this dissertation shall focus on the Stella Matutina as the historical inheritor of the legacy of the Golden Dawn.68
The Stella Matutina was founded under the auspices of Felkin’s Sun Masters, who were members of ‘the Sun Order’, the same order the Secret Chiefs belonged to.69 Felkin’s method of contact and the reception of orders came in the form of automatic writing, and his order likewise took a neither an occult nor mystic focus, but rather one of astral fantasy that took Westcott’s creation of the Secret Chiefs literally.70 Felkin was not alone in his support of the existence of the Secret Chiefs. Brodie-Innes also instructed his members on the reality of the Sun Masters, though where Brodie-Innes merely wished to return to Mathers’ notions of the Secret Chiefs, Felkin wanted to physically find them.71
Conveniently, Dr. Felkin made psychic contact with the ‘Arab Teacher’ he called
‘Ara Ben Shemesh’.72 This Arab readily states he came:
[...] from' The Temple in the Desert,' and those who live there are the ' Sons of Fire.' There are three ranks-Neophytes or Catechumens; the Accepted and Proven; and the Indwellers. The last are those we call Masters. They live in personal communion with the Divine (deified), and being no longer bound in the flesh (liberated) their material life is entirely a matter of will. So long as they are required as teachers, so long may they continue to inhabit the earthly tabernacle. When they have completed their task they haye only to cease to will and they will dematerialise. Christian Rosenkreutz came to us and learnt much. From us he took the letters C.R., the true interpretation is one of the great mysteries of the Universe.73
Felkin became enamored with Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) after meeting him
in Germany in 1910, possibly believing him to be part of an inner, secret order
connected with original, German Rosicrucianism.74 This spurred a series of events
where Felkin attempted to make contact with this supposed Rosicrucian order. Felkin
sent Neville Meakin, a member of the Stella Matutina sent under the guidance of Ara
Ben Shemesh, to speak with Steiner again.75 Unfortunately, Meakin died on the return
trip (a pilgrimage meant intended to repeat Christian Rosencreutz’s journeys as outlined
in the Fama) in 1912.76 The same year, Felkin received the approval of Ara Ben
Shemesh to travel to meet with Steiner himself.77 The results of his visit to Germany
were extraordinary.
In June and July 1912 Frater F.R. and Sarar Q.L. were able to go to Germany, and altogether visited five Rosicrucian Temples in different parts of the Continent, and- were initiated themselves, Sorar Q.L. obtaining grades equivalent to our 7=4 and Frater F.R. 8=3. ... The rituals not being in MS. form,
they are memorised.78
Felkin claimed to have met with a Rosicrucian Order in Germany that confirmed
the identity of a real Anna Sprengel, the same name as the supposed Secret Chief that had given Westcott permission to found the first temple of the Golden Dawn.79 On this matter, Howe personally admitted:None of my German friends who are interested in these matters has been able to identify a contemporary Rosicrucian Society in Germany. And once again I believe that Felkin simply let his imagination run away with him.80
Eventually, Felkin succeeded in untangling himself from the politics of Waite and Brodie-Innes to more closely embrace his imaginary world of Sun Masters and mighty Rosicrucian orders. In 1916, he moved with his family to New Zealand to the Smaragdum Thalasses Temple he had previously founded in 1912.81 Apparently, Felkin was not the only one wishing to live in a fantastic astral world; Smaragdum Thalasses served as the center of the Stella Matutina for the next fifty years, maintaining its presence in England through the Amoun Temple in London and the Hermes Temple in Bristol.82
Israel Regardie (1907-1985) joined the Hermes Temple of the Stella Matutina in 1934, where he took it upon himself to break the secrecy of the Golden Dawn and make its materials available publicly from 1936-1940, thus assuring the Golden Dawn and the legacy of Enochian angel magic to the New Age would be made possible.83
After Regardie published Golden Dawn materials, former Golden Dawn
member, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), released his own expanded usage of Dee’s angel magic in The Vision and the Voice, which included the Enochian Keys that he called the ‘Cries of the Thirty Aethyrs’.84 Crowley had entered the Golden Dawn in 1898 and advanced quickly through the ranks, but was halted from ascending to the Second Order due to his deviant proclivities.85 He left the Golden Dawn in 1900 and went on to create his own Order of the Silver Star,86 based on the philosophy he called ‘Thelema’ which he received from a daemon he called ‘Aiwass’.87
Dee’s ‘Key of the Thirty Ayres’ was an oration of comparable length to each of the eighteen Enochian Keys that had preceded it.88 To say that Crowley expanded the Key of the Thirty Ayres is an understatement. Dee’s Key merely consisted of an oration wherein the name of the Ayre invoked was inserted into one static oration.89 Each of the Thirty Ayres was given dominion over three parts of the geography of the earth, ninety- one parts in total (the Ayre TEX has dominion over four parts), as given in the Liber Scientiae Auxilii.90
Crowley’s Vision and the Voice mirrors Dee’s format of a personal journal. According to Crowley’s account, his astral journey through each of the Ayres (or ‘Aethyr’, as Crowley refers to them) took place on December 19, 1909 from 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. Crowley’s ascent of the Aethyrs bears a thematic resemblance to the ascent through the spheres presented in the Corpus Hermeticum91, the opening of the Forty-Nine Gates of Understanding, and the ability of man to ascend the Great Chain of Being (the latter two discussed in Chapter 1). While Dee’s Key of the Thirty Ayres was a contiguous part of his vast angelic cosmos with the ultimate goal of imparting the Book of Nature to him, Crowley neatly cut away the tethers of Dee’s goals and replaced them with his own intents for Thelema.
In his Cry of the Thirtieth Aethyr, Crowley clearly drew on his Golden Dawn knowledge in his clear reference to the four cardinal directions and the angels that rule them.92 The Cry of the First and final Aethyr, LIL, contains powerful imagery that conjures the Tarot, chessmen, the signs of the zodiac, Egyptian ideas, and directly references the ‘Rose and Cross’:
Thou shalt laugh at the folly of the fool. Thou shalt learn the wisdom of the Wise. And thou shalt be initiate in holy things. And thou shalt be learned in the things of love. And thou shalt be mighty in the things of war. And thou shalt be adept in things occult. And thou shalt interpret the oracles. And thou shalt drive all these before thee in thy car, and though by none of these canst thou reach up to me, yet by each of these must thou attain to me. And thou must have the strength of the lion, and the secrecy of the hermit. And thou must turn the wheel of life. And thou must hold the balances of Truth. Thou must pass through the great Waters, a Redeemer. Thou must have the tail of the scorpion, and the poisoned arrows of the Archer, and the dreadful horns of the Goat. And so shalt thou break down the fortress that guardeth the Palace of the King my son. And thou must work by the light of the Star and of the Moon and of the Sun, and by the dreadful light of judgment that is the birth of the Holy Spirit within thee. When these shall have destroyed the universe, then mayest thou enter the palace of the Queen my daughter. [...] And upon their breasts shall be the Rose and Cross of light and life, and in their hands the hermit's staff and lamp. Thus shall they set out upon the never-ending journey, each step of which is an unutterable reward. [...] FOR I AM HORUS, THE CROWNED AND CONQUERING CHILD, WHOM THOU KNEWEST NOT!93 Crowley’s use of the Keys of the Thirty Ayres is arguably the final contribution of the modern era illustrating the usage of Enochian angel magic from a Rosicrucian, Golden Dawn source.
John Dee’s practices with Edward Kelly were carried out in the hopes of creating a faith that would unite all of man, a prisca theologia. He integrated Greek wisdom, the finest science his age had to offer, and the learned esoteric insights of Marsilio Ficino, Johannes Reuchlin, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
It is likely Dee never dreamed that a movement concerned with creating a utopia for man would adopt his Monas Hieroglyphica for its banner. The learned, Christian scholars of the seventeenth century such as Heinrich Khunrath, Adam Haslmayr, Johann Valentin Andreae, Samuel Hartlieb, and Amos Comenius who sought reform seemed to understand the sacred unity of Man and Nature that Dee’s Hieroglyphic Monad represented. Those ideas were communicated to Elias Ashmole, who collected and maintained Dee’s works for future scholars and esotericists to pore through.
The eighteenth century saw Rosicrucianism in Masonry serving as the torch that carried the flame of Dee’s angel magic and philosophy, though with some assistance from the interest in crystal-gazing created by the Spiritualist movement. It was eventually delivered through Ebenezer Sibly and Francis Barrett to Frederick Hockley. Hockley and his friend Kenneth MacKenzie inspired the minds of William Wynn Westcott and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers to create a movement that used John Dee’s angel magic in documented practice again for the first time since Dee himself practiced it.
Revised and expanded, the Enochian system of the Golden Dawn flourished, guttered, and then died in 1972 when the Hermes Temple of the Order of the Stella Matutina —from whence the only known recordings of the Golden Dawn’s rituals were first disseminated— was closed.1 It seemed as though the Golden Dawn’s ambition to create a prisca theologia had gotten lost somewhere between Secret Chiefs and internal politics.
And what of Dee’s hopes for a faith to unite mankind? Thanks to Regardie’s efforts in making the Golden Dawn’s rituals available to the public, the interest in Enochian angel magic has been maintained. The popular movement known as Wicca also contains what it refers to as ‘Watchtower’ magic; a system that includes Golden Dawn practice as introduced by Gerald Gardner (1884-1964).2 This ‘Watchtower’ magic uses the reference from the Book of Enoch3 and also notes the four angels of the presence.4 Wicca was brought to the United States by Raymond Buckland (1934-)5 who also incorporated the Watchtowers into his magic.6
While Watchtower magic is a mere iota of Dee’s material that has survived into
modern popular practice, it is a mystery perhaps guarded by the angels themselves as to
what is to ultimately come of Dee’s angel magic. When Dee was poor in both wealth
and good spirits, the angel Raphael comforted him saying:
This God of his mercy hath sent me to deliver this short message, because of thy weakness, Thou art not strong enough to indure them, therefore such is God’s goodness to let you understand that after the tenth day of April, I will then appear again, and thou shalt understand much more what God’s will and his pleasure is to be done in God’s services, and for your good, and so for this little short message I have declared unto you the will of Jesus Christ [...].Even when things seemed low, the angels vowed in the name of Dee’s savior that he would be made high again in God’s services. Perhaps Dee’s work is still not yet done. Recently, a great deal of research and writing has been done in the scholarly field that has made this dissertation possible. Perhaps it is the privilege of scholars to lift Dee’s works and historical importance in Western civilization to a role of honor that he richly deserves.
