Liber Loagaeth and the Angelic Alphabet
Liber Loagaeth is the most mysterious part of Dee and Kelly’s work. It is also known variously as the Book of Enoch and as Liber Mysteriorum Sextus et Sanctus. No one as yet has made serious attempts to use it, or to understand its nature beyond what is recorded in the diaries. According to the angels, "logaeth" means "speech from God"; this book is supposed to be, literally, the words by which God created all things. It is supposedly the language in which the "true names" of all things are known, giving power over them. As described in Liber Mysteriorum Quintis, the book was to consist of 48 leaves, each of which contains a 49-by-49 grid. The book as actually presented to Kelly is somewhat different. It contains 49 "Calls" in an unknown language, 95 tables of squares filled with letters and numbers, two similar tables unfilled, and four tables drawn twice as large as the others. Two "leaves" are recorded in Liber Mysteriorum Quintis; these are not included in the final book, and apparently serve as an introduction or prologue to the work. On the surface, the "Calls" of Liber Loagaeth do not appear to be a language as humans understand the term. There are no translations by which this might be judged in detail, but the text lacks the repetitiveness and consistent word-placement that is characteristic of the 48 Enochian Calls given in the next year. There is no apparent "grammar" to the text. Donald Laycock remarks that the language is highly alliterative and repetitively rhyming, while Robert Turner calls it "glossolalic". The angels said that each element of each table could be understood in 49 different ways, so that there were that many "languages" in it, all of them being spoken at once. The purpose of Loagaeth was said to be the ushering in of a new age on Earth, the last age before the end of all things. Instructions for using it to that effect were never given; the angels continually put it off, saying that only God could decide when the time was right. During the presentation of the two leaves in Liber Mysteriorum Quintis, an angel in the scrying stone would point to the letters successively, and Kelly would read out the names of the angelic characters. Dee transcribed a version using the Roman alphabet, apparently with the intention of redrawing it in angelic characters at a later date. The record indicates that at the start of each session a light would fly out of the scrying stone and into Kelly’s head; this light was seen by both of them. Once the light entered Kelly, his consciousness was transformed so that he could comprehend the text as he read it. He was firmly ordered not to provide a translation, with the explanation that God would select the time for it to be revealed. He nevertheless provided translations of a few of the words, but insufficient to gather the meaning of the text as a whole. When the light was withdrawn from Kelly’s head, he would immediately cease to understand the text, and was no longer able to see it in the stone. On a few occasions, the light continued in him for a short time after the end of the session, and at these times Dee notes that Kelly said many marvelous (and unrecorded) things about the nature of the texts. But the instant the light withdrew, Kelly could no longer understand it, or recall what he had said even moments before. The record says that the 23rd line of the first leaf was a preface to the creation and distinction of angels, and the 24th line an invitation pleasant to good angels. Nothing else is recorded of the purpose of the book. It soon became apparent that the method used was too slow. The angels were under some time constraint in presenting the book, and arranged that Kelly would be able to see the book at any time. He was to directly record what he saw rather than reading it to Dee. During this latter part of the work, Kelly apparently did not have the deep understanding of the book’s meaning, but only a visual apperception of its letters. The first leaf shown to Dee and Kelly contained the "angelic" alphabet displayed above the grid. The two were given the names and English equivalents of the letters, and told to memorize them before continuing. When Dee did not do so, and complained of the other demands on his time, the angels strongly rebuked him. The text of the leaves was drawn in the characters of this alphabet, and at the angels’ instruction they were also applied to the lamen and holy table of the Heptarchic magick. Several people have alleged that the angelic alphabet was copied from some earlier book. Laycock examined all of the possibilities, and while he recognized certain stylistic similarities with previous magickal alphabets, he concluded that none of them was sufficiently like it to count as an earlier version. |
