Enochian angels

Enochian angels are entities described in the Enochian magic system, introduced in the sixteenth century by John Dee (1527–1608) and Edward Kelley (1555–1597).

John Dee was dedicated to the newly formed Church of England (or the Anglican Faith), and this can be seen throughout his journals and his "Enochian" system of Angel Magic. Therein, we find an obvious belief in the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). We also find a fourth Supreme Being in the figure of "Galvah" (Omega) — who is also called the Mother, Wisdom and "I AM" in Dee's journals. This figure is known in Judaism as the Shekhinah — Divine Presence; to the Gnostics as Sophia — Wisdom; and to the Hermetic Qabalah as Aima Elohim — Mother of the gods.

Beneath these four Divinities are several hierarchies of angels, or intelligent rulers, set over such things as the Planets, the Stars and the four Quarters of the Earth.

The angels of the four quarters are symbolized by the "Watchtowers" — four large magical word-square Tables (collectively called the Great Table of the Earth). Most of the well-known Enochian Angels are drawn from the Watchtowers of the Great Table.

Each of the four Watchtowers is collectively governed by six Seniors (aka Elders) — making a total of 24 Elders as seen in the Revelation of St. John. Each Watchtower is further divided into four sub-quadrants, where we find the names of various Archangels and Angels who govern the quarters of the world. In this way, the entire universe, visible and invisible, is teeming with living intelligences.

The names of the Enochian angels are drawn from a number of enciphered tables, received through the "spirit actions" of John Dee, Edward Kelly (and occasionally another scryer). The Watchtower set of angels is one of the larger and well developed sets. A problem arises in that there are several variations on the Watchtowers themselves and several ways of drawing the names therefrom. The four Watchtowers were first received on 25 June 1584. This arrangement and order is reflected in Dee's prayer - The Fundamental Obeisance. They were then rearranged slightly and corrected in the days following: 26 June through 2 July 1584; this arrangement corresponds to the majority of prayers inh Sloane MS. 3191 (The Book of Earthly Victory and Science) and is what is given in the published versions of that text, notably Geoffrey James' Enochian Evocation / Magick and Robert Turner's Elizabethan Magic. Late in the course of Dee and Kelly's work together, on 18 April 1587, the Archangel Raphael, was said to have appeared, and reformed the Watchtowers, rearranging their order and directions and making some minor corrections. It is this arrangement that is used in the Golden Dawn and subsequent derivatives such as Thelema, Wicca and the Church of Satan. The Golden Dawn also follows a slightly different method of drawing forth some of the names from the Tables. The Golden Dawn method of extracting the names, is heavily influenced by the post Dee text contained in Sloane MS. 307 and published by Stephen Skinner and David Rankine as Practical Angel Magic of Dr John Dee's Enochian Tables. For convenience sake, in identifying these variations when they differ, the received set is labelled Received, the set reflected in Sloane MS. 3191 is labelled Orthodox, the set reformed by Raphael as Reformed and the variations used by the Golden Dawn as GD. The Angelic Hierarchies of the Watchtowers are also set out in several visions of Edward Kelly's and enshrined in a Talisman constructed by John Dee, published in A True & Faithful Relation and on display in the British Museum collection.

...
Wikipedia