ColossiansOne

divine name · 1583–1584

The Enochian Alphabet

Twenty-one letters dictated square by square from lettered grids, in a script the sessions claimed was the language Adam spoke.

England, John Dee's householdChristianEnochianAngelic scriptAdamical alphabet

What the sources claim for it

In the sessions' own claim, the language of creation. As an object, a complete constructed script with a received liturgy attached.

History

Where does the Enochian Alphabet come from?

Between 1583 and 1584 Edward Kelley reported letters and words seen in a shewstone, and Dee recorded them, building up an alphabet of twenty-one characters with their own names and order, written right to left. With it came a body of text — the Calls or Keys — with English translations supplied in the same sessions.

The corpus takes no position on the sessions and can be precise about the artefact. The script is internally consistent, the received texts have a stable vocabulary and a grammar sparse enough that its status is argued over, and the whole thing was transmitted through the Golden Dawn into modern ceremonial practice, where it is used as given. Whatever else it is, it is one of the most complete constructed writing systems produced before the twentieth century.

Afterwards

What did it turn into?

Adopted wholesale by the Golden Dawn in the 1880s and by Crowley after them, and now the standard ritual language of a substantial part of modern ceremonial magic.

Which texts describe it?

None, and here is why

Waiting on the same edition. The letters are recorded in Dee and Kelley's own diaries, printed by Casaubon in 1659 and long out of copyright. Until that text is in the corpus this page can say what the alphabet is and cannot show a passage describing it.

Nearby

Related marks

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