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From: xeper@aol.com (Xeper)
Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Enochian Keys
Date: 8 Apr 1998 18:20:23 GMT
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In article <6geu83$sgv$10@bigboote.WPI.EDU>, geezer@WPI.EDU wrote:

>: I've been wondering about the Enochian keys... Can anyone tell me what they
>: are for?
>
>They are passages used in ritual by Satanists, people who follow Crowley's
>works, and probably other practicers of ritual magick.  They're called
>"keys"  because each one symbolically "unlocks" a power of a certain
>nature.  Whatever the purpose of the ritual is, an appropriate key is
>selected and incorporated.

The Enochian Keys (referred to as the _Word of Set_ within the Temple of
Set) are an eighteenfold series of statements - informative rather than
operative. The 19th Key is the operative one - used for access to what
John Dee referred to as the "thirty aires or aethyrs". One might call these
"rings" or "spheres" of consciousness progressively closer to divine
consciousness. Each has a name, and the list of 30 normally appears
along with the Key. In the _Satanic Bible_ this does not appear; only the
name of the 1st AEthyr - LIL - is inserted into that place of the Key. This is
odd, because LIL is the most spiritual, least material AEthyr.

Use of the 19th Key is best described in Crowley's _Liber LXXXIX vel
Chanokh_; see also his _The Vision and The Voice_. These are probably
available somewhere on the Internet by now.

The _SB_ Keys were adapted and altered from the Crowley _Equinox_
Keys, which were adapted and altered from the Golden Dawn Keys,
which were adapted and altered from the Casaubon Keys, which were
adapted and altered from John Dee's original manuscripts. The Word
of Set within the Temple of Set uses microfilm of the original Dee diaries
from the British Museum. It is included in the _Ruby Tablet of Set_, that
part of the _Jeweled Tablets of Set_ available to Adepts II*+.

Category #11 of the Temple of Set's reading list cites eight of the more
significant books on Enochiana. I'd recommend _The Enochian Invocation
of Dr. John Dee_ by Geoffrey James (Ed./Trans.). Gillette, NJ: Heptangle
Books, 1984. The original Dee diary Keys assembled with a large selection
of Dee's related spells, all carefully footnoted and annotated to the original
Sloane, Cotton, Bodeleian, Ashmolean, etc. documents. James is familiar
with and critiques as appropriate the various approaches in such authors as
French, Crowley, and Laycock. Since this is a book consisting solely of
annotated magical text, however, it will not be readily intelligible to readers
who have not obtained a biographical and exoteric understanding of Dee
through other sources.

Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D.

Michael A. Aquino VI*