Enochian Vision Magick: A Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley

«Whenever I visit London, I never fail to make a pilgrimage to the temple of history that is the British Museum. In my opinion, it is holy ground, a time machine, a vortex of human consciousness, and the material showcase of the Akashic Records.» — DuQuette abre el prefacio de 2019 declarando su relación con el British Museum en términos devocionales y no eruditos; marca la opinión como tal.

«In the mid-1980s, when I first came upon them, they were identified simply as “Magical Objects of Dr. John Dee, c. 1583,” and they were tucked inconspicuously among furnishings and small household items of the period.» — DuQuette data su primer encuentro con los objetos de Dee en el museo a mediados de los ochenta y describe el rótulo que entonces llevaban y el sitio menor que ocupaban.

«It seems that interest in John Dee and his celebrated status as a mathematician, international spy for Queen Elizabeth I, and model for Shakespeare’s Prospero has grown in the past thirty years.» — según DuQuette, el interés por Dee creció en treinta años, y lo mide por el traslado de esos objetos a una vitrina propia; enumera las tres figuras públicas que se le atribuyen —matemático, espía de Isabel I y modelo del Próspero de Shakespeare— con verbo cauto.

«A bees wax Sigillum Dei Aemeth (the design of which displays in figures and letters an angelic hierarchy of heaven);» — el primero de los tres objetos que DuQuette declara claves del sistema: el disco de cera de abeja cuyo diseño despliega en figuras y letras una jerarquía angélica.

«The Golden Talisman, the design of which is a graphic index of a “Great Table,” home to an angelic chain of command that forms the structure of existence itself;» — el segundo objeto según DuQuette: el Talismán Dorado como índice gráfico de la Gran Tabla, donde reside la cadena de mando angélica que él identifica con la estructura misma de lo existente.

«And the black obsidian “magic mirror” that served as Dee and Kelley’s angelic viewing screen for nearly three years of meticulously recorded magical visions.» — el tercer objeto: el espejo de obsidiana negra que DuQuette describe como la pantalla de visión de Dee y Kelley durante casi tres años.

«I sometimes wonder if John Dee and Edward Kelley ever gazed into that dark mirror and peered four hundred years into the future—a future when their audacious efforts to tap the mind of God and communicate with angels would be studied, debated, analyzed, and imitated by magicians and spiritual adventurers the world over—a time when their attempts to directly assail the gates of heaven would be seriously examined, not as naïve and superstitious, bible-inspired pretentions, but as serious psycho-dramatic techniques to access and exploit quantum levels of human consciousness.» — la reformulación con que DuQuette traduce el proyecto isabelino a términos contemporáneos: no pretensiones bíblicas ingenuas sino técnicas psicodramáticas de acceso a la consciencia. Lo enuncia como conjetura, no como tesis.

«Special acknowedgement and praise should be made to Enochian magick pioneers, Geoffrey James, Joseph Peterson, Clay Holden, Robert Turner, Adam McLean, Jim Reeds, and Colin Wilson.» — la lista de pioneros que DuQuette reconoce en la apertura del material a partir de los años setenta; la capa de texto imprime acknowedgement, sic.

«It soon became clear to all of us studying the original 16th century documents that “Enochian Magick” as practiced by the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley, while being brilliantly exploited and developed, had only scratched the surface and tapped a tiny portion of the potential the system offered.» — el juicio que DuQuette adjudica al conjunto de quienes leyeron los manuscritos originales: la Golden Dawn y Crowley explotaron el material con brillo y solo rasparon la superficie. Es la premisa de todo el libro y la mantiene sin retirarles el mérito.

«The first edition of Enochian Vision Magick was my modest attempt to paint (with very broad strokes) a bigger picture of the circumstances of the reception of the material and the possible practical implications the technology could have for the modern spiritual explorer.» — DuQuette declara el alcance que se propuso en la edición de 2008: un cuadro más amplio de las circunstancias de la recepción y de lo que la técnica podría dar hoy, dicho con la reserva de las pinceladas anchas.

«But the scholar focuses on the subject; the magician focuses on the magician, and Magick in practice is more than the intellectual mastery of a colorful subject. Like Yoga or Zen or Sufism, Magick is a powerful self-transformational artform capable of triggering profound changes in the consciousness of the practitioner.» — la distinción que ordena el libro entero, según DuQuette: el erudito atiende al asunto y el mago se atiende a sí mismo; de ahí que ponga la magia junto al yoga, el zen y el sufismo como arte de transformación propia.

«Since 1978 my wife Constance and I have hosted Monday Night Magick Class in our home in Costa Mesa, California. We regularly schedule a series of workshops on Enochian magick (practiced in a group setting), and year after year the system itself teaches us more» — DuQuette data en 1978 la clase semanal en su casa de Costa Mesa y declara que la práctica es grupal; sostiene que el sistema se enseña a sí mismo año tras año. La frase continúa en la plana siguiente.

«Everyone’s visions (at least those who stay awake) will differ in many details, but most, if not all, will share uncanny parallels in the fundamental themes of their visions. (Imagine if a botanist and a musician and a stonemason and a folklorist all went together on a tour of Ireland. The botanist’s consciousness would be altered and elevated by the mystical auras of the flora, the musician would be transcendently crazed by the lively music at the pubs, the stonemason inspired by the geologic and technical wonders of the stone architecture, and the folklorist might be captured by leprechauns! But they would all agree . . . they were in Ireland!)» — el criterio con que DuQuette lee las visiones de grupo: los detalles difieren y los temas fundamentales coinciden. Lo explica con la analogía del botánico, el músico, el cantero y el folclorista de viaje por Irlanda, y con humor sobre quien se duerme.

«I was even invited to present an all-day workshop in Krakow, Poland at the Hotel Stary (reportedly the residence where Dee and Kelley lived and performed many of their angelic workings in the 1580s» — DuQuette consigna el taller de Cracovia en el Hotel Stary y marca con reportedly la atribución del edificio como residencia de Dee y Kelley: no la afirma.

«These workshops are not simply lectures on the history of Enochian Magick. The attendees become Enochian visionary magicians themselves and join me in a group scrying session of one of the thirty Enochian Aethyrs.» — DuQuette declara qué hace en esos talleres: no historia sino sesión de visión en grupo sobre uno de los treinta Aethyrs.

«Since 2008, when this book was first published, a number of new and excellent books on Enochian Magick have been released which continue to enrich the practical and theoretical understanding of this marvelous system, including works by Stephen Skinner, Jason Louv, Jason Augustus Newcomb, Aaron Leitch, and Dr. John DeSalvo.» — el estado de la bibliografía que DuQuette reconoce once años después de la primera edición, nombrando a Stephen Skinner, Jason Louv, Jason Augustus Newcomb, Aaron Leitch y John DeSalvo.

«A new edition of Joseph Peterson’s John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery (perhaps the most complete, essential, original resource) will also soon be released, and I urge everyone who is interested in where and how Enochian Magick first developed to get it and set it in on the shelf in your library right next to this new edition of Enochian Vision Magick.» — la única obra ajena que DuQuette recomienda poner al lado de la suya, con su acotación entre paréntesis: la edición de Joseph Peterson como recurso original más completo para saber dónde y cómo se formó el sistema.

«Within these numbered manuscripts are various “books,” or “Libers” bearing separate titles. Some of these Libers were copied by Kelley or others and reproduced in subsequent manuscripts (sometimes renamed) and have found their way to London’s British Library and the Bodleian and Ashmolean libraries at Oxford University. For my purposes the material from the British Library’s Sloane 3188, 3189, 3191; and Cotton Appendix XLVI parts I and II proved to be quite sufficient.» — DuQuette explica la forma del corpus: dentro de cada signatura hay Libers con título propio, copiados y a veces rebautizados, repartidos entre la British Library, la Bodleiana y la Ashmoleana. Acota su propio recorte a cinco signaturas y no pretende haber usado todo.

«Enochian scholar Geoffrey James prepared a concise summary breakdown of Dee and Kelley manuscripts for the bibliography of his excellent book, Enochian Magick of Dr. John Dee.1 He has graciously allowed me to reproduce his entries for the material that relates directly or indirectly to Enochian Vision Magick. The reader who wishes to explore the source material in greater detail (or who simply wishes to track the book’s footnotes and references) should find this list very helpful.» — DuQuette declara que el inventario de manuscritos que sigue no es suyo: es el de Geoffrey James, reproducido con permiso, y sirve además para rastrear las notas del libro.

«SLOANE MS. 3188. This manuscript contains Dee’s earliest scrying sessions. It contains six individual ‘books’, which are:— Mysteriorum Liber Primus covering December 22, 1581 to March 15, 1582, and containing a ceremony with Saul (Dee’s first scryer) and the first ceremonies with Edward Talbot, in which the table and» — según el inventario de James que DuQuette reproduce, Sloane 3188 guarda las sesiones más tempranas en seis libros; el Liber Primus cubre de diciembre de 1581 a marzo de 1582 y registra al primer vidente, Saul, antes de Edward Talbot. La entrada sigue en la plana siguiente.

«Mysteriorum Liber Secondus covering March 6, 1582 to March 21, 1582, and containing the first elements of the Heptarchic system, the spirits of the Sigil of Æmeth, and the first suggestion that an antediluvian language would be delivered to Dee. This title page is missing, but can be inferred from textual references in SLOANE MS. 3677.» — la entrada de James para el segundo libro —así, Secondus, imprime la capa de texto—: ahí aparecen los primeros elementos del sistema heptárquico, los espíritus del Sigil of Æmeth y el primer anuncio de que se entregaría una lengua antediluviana. La portada falta y se infiere de la copia de Ashmole.

«Quartus Liber Liber Mysteriorum covering November 15, 1583 to November 21, 1583, and containing the remainder of the Heptarchic system; this book is the first to record the name of Edward Kelly2 as the scryer.» — la entrada de James para el cuarto libro, con el título duplicado tal como lo imprime la capa de texto; es el primero que registra el nombre de Kelley —aquí Kelly— como vidente.

«Liber Mysteriorum Quintus covering March 23, 1583 to April 18, 1583, and containing the tables later transcribed by Kelly into SLOANE MS. 3189. Quinti Libri Mysteriorum Appendix covering April 20, 1583 to May 23, 1583, and containing the famous Enochian letters, as well as information concerning the construction of the Great Table.» — las dos últimas entradas de Sloane 3188 según James: el quinto libro con las tablas que Kelley copiaría después, y el Apéndice con las letras enoquianas y la construcción de la Gran Tabla. Las fechas del inventario dejan el quinto libro antes que el cuarto y la ficha no armoniza la discrepancia.

«Liber Mysteriorum Sextus and Sanctus or The Book of Enoch revealed to John Dee by the Angels which contains 49 double-sided tables of (apparently) random letters. It is in Edward Kelly’s handwriting.» — la entrada de James para Sloane 3189: el Libro de Enoc revelado a Dee, cuarenta y nueve tablas a doble cara de letras aparentemente aleatorias, y de puño de Kelley, no de Dee.

«SLOANE MS. 3191. This manuscript is the only book of ceremonial magic extant in Dee’s handwriting. It consists of three separate ‘books,’ each dealing with a different aspect of Dee’s angelic magickal system. The books are:— 49 Claves Angelicæ Anno 1584 Cracoviæ (Liber 18) which contains Dee’s transcription of the Angelical Keys (often called the Enochian Keys or Enochian Calls.) Liber Scientiæ Auxillii et Victoriæ Terrestris which contains a complex system of magic based upon the Great Table (often called The Table of Watchtowers). It is entirely in Latin, and related to the Call of the Thirty Aires. De Heptarchia Mystica which describes a complete system of planetary magic, along with excerpts from the various scrying sessions.» — la entrada de James para Sloane 3191, el único libro de magia ceremonial de mano de Dee: las Claves Angélicas de 1584 en Cracovia, el Liber Scientiæ enteramente en latín sobre la Gran Tabla, y la De Heptarchia Mystica con el sistema planetario completo.

«Actio Tertia Trebonæ Generalis covering April 4, 1587 to May 23, 1587, and containing a complex series of corrections to the Watchtowers and the infamous wife-swapping episode.» — una de las trece entradas del Cotton Appendix XLVI según James: junto a las correcciones a los Watchtowers va el episodio del intercambio de esposas, nombrado en el inventario sin más comentario.

«Some of this material has been published in more modern times in books that are still readily available. Foremost of these are A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits,3 and John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery.4» — las dos ediciones modernas que DuQuette declara accesibles y por las que citará: la relación publicada por Casaubon en 1659 y los Five Books of Mystery.

«To make things a bit easier for the reader to access more readily available source material, I will, wherever possible, try to make references with the text and in notes to passages in these modern works.» — la política de citación que DuQuette anuncia, con su reserva: siempre que sea posible remitirá a esas ediciones modernas en vez de a las signaturas.

«Vyasa: There’s something secret about a beginning. I don’t know how to start. Ganesha: As you claim to be the author of the poem, how about beginning with yourself? –THE MAHABHARATA5» — el epígrafe del primer prólogo no es voz de DuQuette: es el diálogo entre Vyasa y Ganesha que él toma de la pieza teatral de Jean-Claude Carrière y atribuye al Mahabharata.

«There is indeed something secret about a beginning, secret and invisible like the soul of infinite potential that broods in the heart of every living seed.» — DuQuette recoge el epígrafe por su cuenta y lo convierte en imagen del comienzo como potencia sellada.

«And so, in pale imitation of the poet Vyasa, I will heed the wise counsel of my elephant-headed lord, the remover of obstacles. I shall begin this work of magick by telling you something about myself.» — la decisión de método que abre el libro: DuQuette declara que empezará por sí mismo, con lo que instala desde el arranque el registro anecdótico que Holden le elogia en el prólogo.

«Miracles are part of my job, for I am a magician. I’m not the type of magician who creates illusions to entertain audiences, but the type of who seeks to dispel the myriad illusions that hinder my own spiritual growth and enlightenment.» — la definición de mago con que DuQuette se presenta: no el que produce ilusiones para un público sino el que disipa las propias. La capa de texto imprime the type of who, sic.

«Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), the great twentieth-century magician, defined magick as the “science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will.”7 This is obviously a very broad definition of the term. In my opinion, however, it is the only one that is entirely accurate.» — DuQuette adopta la definición de magia de Crowley —ciencia y arte de causar cambio conforme a la Voluntad— reconociéndola amplísima y marcando como opinión propia que sea la única enteramente exacta.

«Personally, I’ve come to the realization that the only real changes I can effect with magick are changes in myself. By changing myself, I change the world around me, hopefully for the better.» — el límite que DuQuette le pone de inmediato a esa definición: los únicos cambios reales que declara poder causar con magia son cambios en sí mismo, y el efecto sobre el mundo lo enuncia con un hopefully.

«Early in my career I was befriended (and many times guided) by some very wonderful, and in their own ways masterful, magicians to whom I owe an immeasurable debt: Israel Regardie, Phyllis Seckler, Helen Parsons Smith, and Grady L. McMurtry.» — la genealogía que DuQuette se reconoce: Israel Regardie, Phyllis Seckler, Helen Parsons Smith y Grady L. McMurtry, es decir, la línea de la Golden Dawn y de la O.T.O., no la académica.

«Readers who are familiar with the body of my work know that I am occasionally taken to task by knowledgeable critics who accuse me of writing for beginners and who chide me for diluting or oversimplifying complex and esoteric concepts. Against these charges I can say very little in my defense except to confess that I am indeed a simple man who, by conventional academic standards, is a lazy and undisciplined student.» — DuQuette recoge la objeción de sus críticos —escribir para principiantes, diluir lo complejo— y responde concediéndola en lugar de rebatirla.

«Yes, I’m proud to write for beginning students of magick. But first and foremost I write to explain things to myself. I write to find out what I know. I write the books that I wish I could have studied during the first five years of my magickal studies—books that might have saved me years of frustration, blind alleys, and wheel-spinning.» — la respuesta de DuQuette a esa objeción: escribe para explicarse las cosas a sí mismo y para dar el libro que le habría ahorrado los primeros cinco años.

«I began my study of this most curious of quaint and curious subjects in late 1979 and began practicing it in earnest in autumn of 1980.» — DuQuette fecha su propio recorrido: estudio desde finales de 1979, práctica desde el otoño de 1980.

«The only person I actually knew who had any significant hands-on experience with the system was Dr. Francis (Israel) Regardie,8 who cautioned me in no uncertain terms that I probably shouldn’t be dabbling in such things.» — según DuQuette, el único practicante con experiencia de primera mano que conocía era Regardie, y lo que Regardie le dijo fue que no se metiera. La advertencia queda consignada, no discutida.

«Nevertheless, armed with my copy of Aleister Crowley’s Gems from the Equinox9 and the two-volume set of Regardie’s The Golden Dawn,10 I naïvely plunged into what I thought was the deep end of the Enochian magick swimming pool.» — con qué entró DuQuette al sistema pese a esa advertencia: los Gems from the Equinox de Crowley y la edición en dos volúmenes de la Golden Dawn de Regardie, es decir, la recepción y no las fuentes.

«THE AUTHOR DEDICATES THIS WORK TO THE MEMORY OF DAVID P. WILSON, THE MOST TALENTED SCRYER I HAVE EVER MET.» — la dedicatoria del volumen, impresa en versalitas y en tercera persona; nombra a David P. Wilson, que reaparece en los agradecimientos y en el apéndice V como el vidente de la primera sesión transcrita.

«Thy Name be mighty, O God, which canst open the veil whereby Thy All-Powerful Will may be opened unto men. Power, Glory, and Honour be unto Thee, For Thou art the same God of all things, and art life eternal. —PRAYER OF NALVAGE, APRIL 10, 1584» — el epígrafe del volumen: no es voz de DuQuette sino una oración atribuida al ángel Nalvage y fechada el 10 de abril de 1584, es decir, tomada del diario que el libro enseña a usar. La misma oración vuelve al final del apéndice I como despedida del espíritu, y ahí la grafía cambia a Honor y añade Amen.

«List of Illustrations Figure 1. A simple alphanumeric magick table Figure 2. The Ring Figure 3. Pattern for a paper Ring Figure 4. Cross of 343 letters and numbers Figure 5. The forty-nine good angels (seven kings, seven princes, thirty-five ministers)» — arranque de la lista de ilustraciones, aparato del volumen: el manual se sostiene sobre 105 figuras numeradas —tablas alfanuméricas, patrones recortables, sellos y tablas elementales—, y esa lista es lo único del aparato figural que sí tiene capa de texto.

«Figure 104. Multiple-lettered Elemental Tablet of Earth Figure 105. The Great Table (Unreformed) with the Symmetrical Characters» — la lista cierra en la figura 105; las planas donde esas figuras se imprimen enteras salen sin capa de texto y son los cuatro huecos del troceo declarados en Notas de carga.

«This book could not have been written without the inspiration and generous assistance of the following friends, scholars, and master Enochian magicians: David P. Wilson (S. Jason Black), Clay Holden, Christeos Pir, David R. Jones, Robin Cousins, Josh Norton (Benjamin Rowe), James Wasserman, Judith Hawkins-Tillirson, Rick Potter, I.Z. Gilford, Poke Runyon, Christopher S. Hyatt, and Robert Powell» — los agradecimientos de DuQuette nombran la red de la que sale el libro: magos y estudiosos enoquianos en activo, no bibliografía académica. La cita se corta antes de la mención de la logia porque la capa de texto parte con guion el nombre Heru-ra-ha al final del renglón.

«My thanks also go to Brothers Michael Strader, for his rendering of the Ensigns of Creation in the angelic script, and Robert Powell for his beautiful images of the Tablet of Union and the four Elemental Tablets. They are perhaps the clearest black and white renderings of these complex figures ever published.» — DuQuette acredita por nombre a quien dibujó cada figura: Michael Strader las Ensigns of Creation en escritura angélica y Robert Powell la Tablet of Union y las cuatro tablas elementales; el aparato gráfico del manual es obra de terceros y él lo dice.

«I also draw the reader’s attention to Brother Holden’s original image of John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica that adorns the cover page of each of the five books that make up Enochian Vision Magick. This image is in itself a most profound and historic element in the entire» — la imagen de la Monas Hieroglyphica que abre cada uno de los cinco Books es una recreación de Clay Holden, no un facsímil de Dee; DuQuette la presenta como elemento del libro y no como ornamento. El párrafo sigue en la plana siguiente.

«book for it represents a solution of a geometric puzzle going back to ancient Greek mathematical texts—that is, the production of a regular heptagon in a circle using only a compass and ruler.» — continuación del párrafo anterior: la razón por la que DuQuette llama histórica a esa imagen es geométrica —la construcción con regla y compás de un heptágono regular en un círculo—, y remite al prólogo de Holden, que la explica.

«Finally I offer very special thanks to Jan Johnson, Brenda Knight, and Amber Guetebier of Weiser Books who patiently (and graciously) forgave several deadline breaches.» — el agradecimiento editorial nombra a Jan Johnson, Brenda Knight y Amber Guetebier de Weiser Books, y de paso deja constancia, con humor, de los plazos incumplidos.

«Enochian magick is the core of the Western esoteric tradition. It supersedes all that came before and is the root of all that came after. Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Golden Dawn, Thelema—all of these are training wheels meant to prepare candidates for contact with what you now hold.» — la tesis con que Jason Louv abre su prólogo: lo enoquiano no es una rama del esoterismo occidental sino su centro, y la masonería, el rosacrucismo, la Golden Dawn y Thelema quedan reducidos a preparación. Es su afirmación, no la de DuQuette, que en el cuerpo trata a la Golden Dawn y a Crowley como reelaboradores discutibles.

«Enochian Magick is Western magick’s enlightenment engine. It will destroy everything you hold dear. It will erase everything that you call “you,” as if you never existed at all. And it will cremate the remains, leaving nothing but ash in the infinite, featureless desert.» — Louv presenta el sistema por lo que destruye y no por lo que da; el registro es de advertencia deliberadamente disuasoria, y él mismo lo llama después no un argumento de venta.

«Enlightenment is the resetting of consciousness to its pristine, original nature. It is available to all sentient beings at all times.» — la definición de iluminación con que Louv encuadra el sistema: restablecimiento de la consciencia a su naturaleza original, disponible siempre y para todo ser sintiente.

«First, is that it is perhaps the most truly universal magical system we have. Despite its origins in Renaissance Europe, it will work for you regardless of your background.» — primera de las ventajas que Louv le atribuye al sistema: pese a su origen renacentista europeo, funcionaría con cualquier trasfondo, porque las entidades se presentarían en el lenguaje y los símbolos del vidente.

«This was the plan of the angels—to provide a Rosetta Stone system for enlightenment that could be used by the entire planet, completely bypassing the need for human priestcraft or church authority, a plan no less revolutionary today than it was in the 16th century.» — Louv adjudica a los ángeles una intención declarada: un sistema de piedra Rosetta para todo el planeta que saltara la mediación sacerdotal y la autoridad eclesiástica.

«Additionally, it is a top-down delivered system, rather than a bottom-up, human-invented one. The angels—whatever you believe they were—told John Dee and Edward Kelley that the Enochian system is the true and complete system of magick, and that everything else (Agrippa, the grimoires, Neoplatonism, Qabalah, and all the rest of it) was only a crude attempt by simian humanity to approximate the methods of the angels.» — según Louv, lo que los ángeles dijeron a Dee y a Kelley es que el suyo era el sistema verdadero y completo, y que Agrippa, los grimorios, el neoplatonismo y la cábala eran aproximaciones burdas. Louv agrega su propia reserva entre guiones sobre qué fueran esos ángeles.

«Enochian Magick works by two methods: Sanctification and Illumination. Sanctification means purification by fire—fire that burns off your lower nature, complexes, delusions, bad behavior, and anything else keeping you chained to your animal, demonic, and maybe even human nature rather than reaching for the level of the angels. Illumination, or enlightenment, is the carrot to that stick.» — los dos métodos que Louv describe remitiendo a su propio libro, John Dee and the Empire of Angels: santificación como purificación por fuego e iluminación como recompensa.

«Occultists in the West are all outsiders. This largely means that intrepid would-be adepts—even those that belong to magical groups, which come with their own set of entanglements and impediments—are mostly on their own, making the Great Work a profoundly solitary and lonely pursuit. There will be no great reward, no accolades at the end of the rainbow. Just look outside—our culture is barely more evolved than it was in Dee’s time, perhaps even less so. Consider, as the late magician E. E. Rehmus did, how few English speakers are even capable of understanding Shakespeare now, in our supposedly hyper-advanced technological utopia. How much less the utterances of angels? The adept walks alone.» — la segunda pega que Louv señala es la falta de sostén cultural en Occidente, frente al hinduismo y el budismo; cita al difunto mago E. E. Rehmus para medirla por la lejanía del inglés de Shakespeare.

«And while the many alleged “dangers” of Enochian Magick that occult people love to gossip about second hand are mostly nonsense, one very real danger is that the system can become an all-consuming hobby that can easily distract» — Louv desestima los peligros de salón que circulan de segunda mano y pone en su lugar uno doméstico: que el sistema se vuelva una afición absorbente. El párrafo sigue en la plana siguiente.

«Enochian Magick is concerned with the world of angels, not humans. It will not pay your rent, it will not keep you employed, and it will not keep your partner engaged and satisfied.» — continuación del anterior: Louv separa los planos y advierte que el sistema no atiende obligaciones humanas. En el mismo párrafo compara la Mesa Sagrada con una consola de videojuegos isabelina —la capa de texto parte con guion *Elizabethan-era* al final del renglón— y añade la cita siguiente.

«Points accrued in the game cannot be carried over into the real world.» — el remate del símil: los puntos ganados en ese juego no se transfieren al mundo real.

«So: Keep your life in order. Do not mix the system with drugs. Exercise regularly. Keep a sense of humor and a tight leash on your cognitive biases. Maintain a day job and healthy relationships.» — la lista de higiene práctica con que Louv cierra la advertencia: orden, nada de drogas mezcladas con el sistema, ejercicio, humor y correa corta a los sesgos cognitivos.

«Without argument, it is the best, most accurate, most comprehensive practical guide ever published on the subject. You need nothing but this book to begin, and end, not only your practice of Enochian, but your practice of magick as a whole.» — el juicio de Louv sobre el libro que prologa, en superlativo y sin acotación.

«—Jason Louv Author of John Dee and the Empire of Angels: Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of the Modern World and Head instructor and teacher of magick at www.magick.me» — la firma del prólogo, con las credenciales que el propio Louv declara; la página de derechos le reconoce copyright propio sobre este texto.

«What particularly impresses me with Lon’s book is not only the sheer volume of material covered or the clarity with which it is presented, but its immense readability and the fact that he has struck an elegant balance between classical scholarship, practical magickal instruction, and anecdotal events.» — Clay Holden, del John Dee Publication Project, elogia el libro por el equilibrio entre erudición clásica, instrucción práctica y anécdota, no por su novedad doctrinal.

«The self-important tone of many so-called “Enochian Magick” texts is entirely absent, replaced by clear and well-organized content.» — Holden opone el tono del libro al de la literatura enoquiana que conoce, a la que atribuye engolamiento.

«When I first encountered Enochian magick, the only available published materials were Regardie’s Golden Dawn and Crowley’s Gems from the Equinox, fascinating but largely incomprehensible to me. Next was the first of several largely incoherent books on Enochian Magick by Gerald Shueler, which elaborated on the Golden Dawn material and added much of his own invention, most of it of dubious value.» — el mapa bibliográfico que Holden traza de su propio aprendizaje, con juicios sin matizar: la edición de Regardie y los Gems from the Equinox de Crowley como incomprensibles, y los libros de Gerald Shueler —así, sin c, imprime la capa de texto— como incoherentes y en buena parte invención propia.

«In hindsight, they seem more suitable for Dungeons and Dragons than serious magickal work» — el remate del juicio de Holden sobre Shueler, que él mismo acota enseguida recordando que David Jones le señaló que el juego de rol es una buena disciplina introductoria al trabajo ritual.

«Then came Geoffrey James’s The Enochian Evocation of John Dee, a completely different matter altogether. Still more of a synopsis of a system than a workable guidebook (based largely on Sloane MS. 3191, Dee’s precis of the materials received between 1582 and 1587), it gathered together the bulk of Dee and Kelley’s work, and gave a sense of where it all came from. Still incredibly useful many years later, when coupled with an examination of the original scrying sessions that produced the material, it still does not serve as a proper guidebook through the system. The heart is there, but the how and why are largely absent.» — Holden concede a Geoffrey James haber reunido el grueso del material a partir de Sloane MS. 3191, y le niega lo que busca un practicante: el cómo y el porqué.

«When looking at what the Golden Dawn and Crowley and their successors put together as “Enochian Magick,” it seems clear that they were missing huge chunks of this “how and why,” along with many critical pieces to understanding what they were dealing with, and their attempts to graft basically everything else in their magickal system onto it produce a cumbersome thing that Dee and Kelley would not recognize as what they pulled through.» — la objeción central de Holden a la línea Golden Dawn-Crowley: no que se equivocaran, sino que injertaron el resto de su sistema mágico sobre un material del que les faltaban trozos enteros. Es un desacuerdo con la recepción moderna que la ficha consigna sin arbitrar.

«I have likened their resulting patchwork as similar to what happens when one attempts to open a Word document or a highly formatted database file in a text editor: one can read and even extract a good bit of raw data, but the formatting and links to other programs are entirely unreadable and bear little resemblance to the original document.» — el símil informático con que Holden describe ese remiendo: abrir un documento con formato en un editor de texto plano permite extraer datos crudos y pierde el formato y los enlaces.

«Without an understanding of Dee and Kelley’s early material, mostly presented in Sloane MS. 3188, what comes later on, while workable on its own, will be largely incomprehensible.» — Holden fija la prioridad de lectura en el material temprano de Sloane MS. 3188, y matiza en el mismo párrafo que el sistema tardío de las tablas elementales puede defenderse como independiente.

«To my aid came Elias Ashmole’s “fair-copy” of the diaries (Sloane MS. 3677), transcribed many decades later, in a beautiful hand which was much easier to read than Dee’s. It also has the benefit of being more complete in some cases than Dee’s original, as the manuscript was in considerably better shape in the 1600s than it is today, and Ashmole made notes indicating where materials were missing.» — Holden explica por qué la copia en limpio de Elias Ashmole, Sloane MS. 3677, es a veces mejor testigo que el original de Dee: la letra es más legible y el manuscrito estaba en mejor estado en el siglo XVII.

«Given the difficulty in reading the original texts, it occurred to me to begin transcribing the diaries into electronic texts, laid out exactly as Dee had in the original manuscripts, and this was the birth of the John Dee Publication Project.» — el origen que Holden declara para su propio proyecto de transcripción electrónica de los diarios, con la disposición del manuscrito conservada.

«While Lon in this book suggests that, rather than trying to reproduce Dee and Kelley’s work, one ought to use the system they transmitted, I found it of inestimable value to read through the text of Mysteriorum Liber Secundus, where the layout and working of the Sigillum is systematically laid out, and fill in each of the squares in a blank Sigillum as I went through it.» — el desacuerdo explícito del prologuista con la tesis que da título al Book I: Holden dice que a él le resultó de valor inestimable rehacer paso a paso el trabajo de Dee y Kelley llenando un Sigillum en blanco. Se consigna sin armonizar con la prescripción de DuQuette.

«Case in point: at the bottom of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, both in Dee’s original illustration at the end of Mysteriorum Liber Secundus and in virtually every version published since, one finds the character “y” with a “14” under it. The text however clearly gives this number as “15.”» — el error que Holden dice haber encontrado al rehacer el Sigillum: el dibujo de Dee y casi todas las versiones publicadas ponen 14 bajo la letra y, y el texto da 15.

«If one adds and subtracts the numbers at the top and bottom of the letters around the outer ring of the Sigillum (having corrected the “y/15”), one arrives at a total number of 440. Adding the “1” in the con-centric circles that is given at the end of the instructions on the outer ring (accompanied by the statement “Omnia unum est”), the total comes to 441, the gematric value of the Hebrew “Aemeth,” or Truth.» — la comprobación gemátrica con que Holden sostiene su corrección; la capa de texto imprime *con-centric* partido dentro del renglón.

«Without the correction of the “y/15” square, the total remains 440, the gematric value for “Meth,” or Dead. Thus, the Sigillum may be considered as a Golem, and the published version an inactive and unworkable “dead” talisman.» — la consecuencia que Holden extrae: sin la corrección el total da 440, valor de *Meth*, muerto, de modo que el Sigillum publicado sería un gólem inactivo. Es su lectura, no la de DuQuette, que en el cuerpo trabaja con la figura tal como la imprime.

«It further demonstrated that Dr. Dee, in fact, lies in certain places in the record, indicating that there is material hidden even there that he did not want to be visible to an unthinking reader.» — la tesis fuerte de Holden sobre el registro: Dee miente en ciertos pasajes del diario, y lo hace para ocultar material al lector desatento.

«Mi. [...] Thow shalt sweare by the Living God, the strength of his Mercy, and his Medicinall vertue, powred into man’s soule never to disclose these Mysteries» — voz transcrita del diario, no de Holden ni de DuQuette: el arcángel Michael exige a Dee juramento de no revelar los misterios, en la grafía isabelina del Mysteriorum Liber Secundus.

«MIC. This is a Mystery, skarse worthy for us, ourselves, to know, muche lesse to Reveale. Art thow, then, so Contented?» — cierre del mismo intercambio transcrito: Michael declara el misterio apenas digno de que los propios ángeles lo conozcan, y mucho menos de revelarse.