BackKnock Knock Knocking on Enoch's Door
Well, son of a bitch.
I should know better. I really should. If there is one lesson the universe teaches me over and over again it is this: if I turn my attention to a subject, there will be something to find.
*sigh*
As some of you may by now have guessed, I have finally had an opportunity to really examine Enochian magic and found out that it is not nearly so complicated and annoying as some would lead one to believe. I won't name names here, but let's just say based on some of the reading I had done, it seemed to be far too much work for far too little result.
Once more, enter Lon Duquette. He was putting on an Enochian workshop up in San Francisco recently, and since it promised to be seven (or so) hours of more than just theory, I had to make the trip.
Despite the masses of 49er fans on their way to the 'Stick, I survived both traffic and BART to arrive with scant minutes to spare. No small trick, since I'd had to cover the half-mile trek from the BART station uphill while my back was out. Actually, kvetching aside, I think the hike was good for my back.
I don't know how many of you have ever heard Lon Duquette speak, but if you get the chance you really should take it. He's a funny guy, and manages to work a good bit of humor around a fair amount of information.
There was, of course, a covering of the basics of the history and theory of Enochian magic, but when he started going over the Elemental Tablets and the Tablet of Union it started becoming entirely too elegant. It is a complex, though not too complicated, web of interrelations of essential elements and the being associated therewith.
The Tablets were particularly interesting to me. He had brought actual large, three-dimensional tablets of all of elements and the Tablet of Union (which, for the nit-pickers, represents the element of Spirit), and in looking them over I was struck by a memory. Nine years ago I studied audio engineering, and before the beginning of the first class I looked over the huge mixing board in our studio/classroom and felt a bit overwhelmed. It just looked so complicated with its hundreds of dials, switches, faders and so forth. Before long I understood the theory of what every part of it did. Before the end of the course, I had mastered the mixing board and could get on with the art of using it to help in making music. When I looked at the Enochian Tablets that day, I saw it as just some new kind of mixing board.
Still, fascinating as that was - and since I have always loved magical theory it was fascinating - it didn't hook me. I've had my own ways of working with elements over the years, no few of which involve elementals, the wights and the fae. The idea of another system for elemental work wasn't enough.
Then the practical work began.
We started with an introduction to the scrying of the 30 Aethyrs as a system of magical development and initiation - the Great Work of the Enochian system, if you will. Then, after some preliminary clearing and space setting, he read aloud the Call of the 30th Aethyr in Enochian, so that we could all have our first taste of scrying an Aethyr.
I was struck, literally, by the power of the Call. Now don't get me wrong, after many years of various sorts of self-hypnosis and trance work, I have an easy time changing levels of consciousness. But I wasn't expecting to get kicked out of my head as surely as I was when Lon Duquette recited the Call. I was impressed. This was some potent stuff.
I won't go into detail here about my vision, but one thing that interested me during the discussion to follow were the number of common themes and ideas present in the visions of those who choose to share them (and how they paralleled my own experience). Considering that no idea of what to expect had been given, I considered it significant.
I knew I would want to do more of this.
The next step was an elemental working. After another clearing and space-setting Lon evoked the Earth of Earth Kerub by way of the Fifth Call. He had a specific person set up to scry, so I wasn't sure I was supposed to be scrying for myself. As a result, I scryed for part of the experiment, then returned early to listen to the designated scryer (being more of a National League fan, I have never gone in for the designated scryer rule). Again I was struck by the power of the call and the root-level similarity of discussed visions.
The final experiment was the evocation of the ruling archangel of the Tablet of Union. Lon said that this archangel can be an excellent guide, and by way of something to ask him/her/it about in this initial meeting, he recommended asking to be shown a past life.
I was amazed by the total immersion sensation of the past-life experience. I not only saw, but heard, felt, tasted and even smelled my situation. The last is particularly significant to me, as I possess little-to-no sense of smell. I even picked up the thoughts of the life I was visiting, which was a trifle confusing because at first I though they were my own.
Was it really a past life? If you've been paying attention to the essays on this site, you already know my answer - it doesn't matter. The experience was very real and important in its own ways.
Thus, I left the workshop knowing full well that I was going to begin my work on Enochian magic. Naturally, among the things I learned at the workshop was that Duquette already had an excellent book about Enochian magic on the market: The Enochian World of Aleister Crowley. It contains the complete text of Crowley's Liber Chanokh as well as Duquette's commentary (and some Enochian sex magic techniques if anyone is interested).
So, to make a long story short, I am now beginning the practice of Enochian magic, after ten years or so of skirting around the idea. It just feels too interesting and potentially useful for me to ignore it any longer.
Another thing on my ever-expanding to-do list. Next thing you know, I'll finally get around to taking up . . . you know, I don't think I'll finish that sentence. Frankly, I'm too caught up in other people's visions of reality at the moment anyway. Pardon me while I go read SSOTBME and maybe Visual Magick.
(Oh, and if you don't know those two books and think the statement is ironic, let me assure you that both are excellent at helping one remember one's own vision of the universe. That's my experience of them, anyway.)
Four Winds Bar