Experiments with the Second Enochian Key

by Benjamin Rowe

Copyright 1987, 1992 by Benjamin Rowe

Back To Main Enochian Page

Permission is granted to distribute this work in electronic form, with the these conditions:

1) No fees may be charged for the distribution or transmission of this document, other than standard charges for use of transmission lines or electronic media. Distribution for commercial purposes or by commercial entities is specifically prohibited.

2) All copies distributed must contain the complete, unedited text of the original document and this copyright notice.

3) Persons acquiring the electronic version of this document may make one printed copy for their personal use.

All other rights are retained by the author.

The proper use of the Second Enochian Key or Call has apparently not yet been established. The Golden Dawn and Aurum Solis methods of using the Enochian system give entirely different uses for the Second Key, and neither has a substantive rationale for their particular use. This paper summarizes my attempts to determine the proper use of the Second Key through experiment, and the conclusions reached as the result of those experiments.

In the Golden Dawn system, the Second Key is used solely to invoke the spirits of the column attributed to the element of spirit in the Tablet of Union. Gerald Schueler repeats this, and adds "as well as for all other angels". It is unclear whether he intends this to mean just the other squares of the Tablet of Union, or all the other angels of the Enochian system. At another point in his book, Schueler implies that the names in the Tablet of Union can be rotated in a manner similar to the Kerubic Angels of the Lesser Angles to produce names of subsidiary angels. This tends to support the former view.

The Aurum Solis system uses the Second Key as a preliminary to the Call of the Thirty Aethyrs. Alternately, it can be used alone with the invoking name PARAOAN, made up of the "free letters" not used in forming the names of the Angels of the Aethyrs. The A.S. considers the Second Key as invoking an aspect of the "Lower Mother", presumably meaning Malkuth.

All of these uses seem to have been arrived at by process of elimination. I found none of them to be entirely satisfying or productive of results in my own workings.

Examination of the Second Key shows it to have a strong elemental aspect. These lines obviously relate to fire, water, earth, and air:

"...whom the burning flames have framed within the depth of my jaws; "Whom I have prepared as cups for a wedding, or flowers in their beauty for the chamber of righteousness; "Stronger are your feet than the barren stone, "And mightier are your voices than the manifold winds!"

Unfortunately, this elemental aspect applies equally well to both the G.D. and A.S. interpretations, as well as any number of other interpretations. Both systems appear to rely on parts of the preceding line of the call to support their choice of use.

"Can the wings of the winds understand your voices of wonder, ye Second of the First..."

The G.D. founders apparently took the phrase "Second of the First" to mean "coming immediately after the First", or immediately after God. The column of spirit in the Tablet of Union being the most "spiritual" of the forces in the Tablets in their system, they applied the Second Key to this column. But if the Second Key is invoking the highest aspect of the Tablet of Union, then what is the First Key, with its precedence over the Second, meant to invoke? Not God; the Angels told Dee specifically that the First itself is only invoked by an unspoken key.

The A.S. system apparently takes the phrase "wings of the winds" and interprets this to refer to the Angels (i.e. winged ones) of the Aethyrs. This is plausible on the surface, since the names of the angels of the Aethyrs are formed by overlaying sigils on the Elemental Tablets. However, the description of these angels that was given to Dee implies that they are of a high character that would contradict the elemental aspect of the second key:

"They are governed by the 12 angels of the 12 Tribes, which are, in turn, governed by the 7 that stand before the presence of God." This quote would indicate an astrological character, not elemental.

"They are all spirits of the Air, not rejected, but dignified."

"Unto them, the province of eternal judgement is already opened."

Add to this the fact that all of the Aethyrs except the lowest are divided into three parts, not four, and the prima facie case for the A.S. method is destroyed, though the quotes suggest no alternative. Examination of the Key of the Aethyrs shows that Key precisely reflects the nature of the Aethyric Ministers as it is described elsewhere in Dee's records. Use of another key as part of their invocation seems superfluous.

The G.D. method fits with the elemental character of the Second Key, but I find it objectionable for what amount to aesthetic reasons. Why should an whole Key be devoted to the invocation of only four letters, which are not specially distinguished from the other twenty letters of the Tablet of Union? Elsewhere in the Tablets separate parts, the names of angels and gods with specific, distinctive characters, are carefully and regularly delineated. There seems to be nothing in Dee's records that would indicate that the first letters of the four names are in any way "higher" or otherwise special with respect to the other letters.

It seemed that it would be possible to determine the correct use of the Second Key by experiment. Examination of my previous experiments with the Keys and Tablets might point up a useful approach.

One of my prior experiments had involved invocations of all the Kerubic angels of the Tablet of Earth, which are clearly of an elemental nature. In that work, I had followed a consistent pattern in my invocations. First, I performed a banishing using the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram. This was followed by an invocation of the element of the Tablet using the Greater Ritual, and then Crowley's elemental invocation from Liber LXXXIX vel Chanokh. The invocation was completed by reciting the First Key, the Key of the Element, and the Key of the Lesser Angle in order. Then the God-names of 3, 4, and 5 letters were invoked, followed by the Elemental King (name of 8 letters), the god-names of six and five letters for that Lesser Angle, and the name of the Kerubic angel.

One would expect that this procedure would produce purely elemental results. Examination of the record showed that the results were always consistent with an elemental framework. But within this frame, there was a consistent intrusion of astrological symbolism. That is, the element of earth was frequently represented in terms of the three earthly zodiacal signs. Similarly for air, water, and fire in their respective Lesser Angles of the Earth Tablet.

The last square of the Watery Lesser Angle depicted Water of Earth almost entirely in terms of the planets Mars (ruler of Scorpio), Uranus (exalted in Scorpio), and Pluto (similar in action to Scorpio). The Airy Lesser Angle contained a hidden initiation ritual, which started out presenting Man as the Pentagram, but then went into a detailed examination of Air as ether, elemental spirit. Finally, the man was taken on a complete circle of the zodiac, backwards from Pisces to Aries. There were also significant intrusions of planetary symbolism in this Lesser Angle.

In the Lesser Angle Earth of Earth, where one would normally expect the elemental aspect of the symbolism to be at its peak, instead the visions took place almost entirely in planetary terms, with "Earth" being interpreted by the angels as the planet Earth, rather than strictly as the element.

It then occurred to me that another part of the Earth Tablet experiments had substantially duplicated the symbolism of the Airy Lesser Angle. That time I had invoked each of the Seniors of the Earth Tablet in turn, and recorded the results verbatim in The Book of the Seniors. That record also showed the symbolism of the man as pentagram passing backwards through the signs of the zodiac. The only difference between the Lesser Angle and the Seniors was that the former interpreted "man" in terms of the individual while the latter interpreted "man" in terms of the human race as a unit.

The only factor common to both sets of invocations was the use of the First Key. I noted that the results for the Seniors were substantially clearer in exposition than the Kerubic visions, and that there were no intrusions of purely elemental symbolism into the visions of the Seniors. Assuming that no higher power had been overriding the normal action of the Enochian intelligences, this led me to the conclusion that the First Key is intended to be used only in invocations of the parts of the Tablets embodying astrological forces; that is, the three Names of God, the Elemental King, and the Seniors. The use of that Key with the Lesser Angles resulted in an overlay of the symbolism normal to the Seniors on the elemental symbolism of the Angles.

So, if the First Key is to be used with the King and Seniors, it follows that the Second Key is not to be used with those intelligences. A large portion of the Tablets was thereby removed from consideration. The next step was to determine which of the remaining possibilities is the correct one.

To start, I decided to see what effects would be produced by invoking the Second Key in the presence of charged talismans of the Tablet of Union and the Great Table composed of the four elemental Tablets and the Tablet of Union names.

The Tablet of Union talisman was charged by invoking each of the names in turn using the pentagram ritual and the pentagrams of Spirit. Each name was invoked on a successive day, and all four were invoked and the accumulated charge directed into the talisman on the fifth day.

On the sixth day, I meditated on the charged Tablet until I could clearly see the energies in its astral double. I then invoked the Second Key, and directed the generated force so that it lay over the talisman. The result was a slight brightening and clarification of the twenty squares corresponding to the sub- elements. No particular effect was seen on the leftmost column attributed to spirit. It appeared to get

slightly weaker, but that could be accounted for by the contrast with the other squares. The energies were maintained in contact with the talisman for a period of ten minutes with no other effect being observed.

I then invoked the four names of the Tablet of Union again and observed the effect. In this instance, there was a definite dispersal of force from the leftmost column of the talisman, and the intensity of the forces in the other squares increased substantially. I also noted that the interaction of the Key with the talisman produced a sense of twisting or distortion, as if the Key's energies were trying to reshape the talisman energies to another form, to break them up into individual squares and set those squares in a different order.

Conclusion: The results invalidate the use of the Second Key proposed by the Golden Dawn system. There does appear to be some sympathy between the Tablet of Union equivalents of the sub-elements and the Second Key, but not in the order they take in that Tablet.

The Great Table talisman was charged by invoking the Third through Eighteenth Keys in order on successive days. The Third through Sixth Keys were invoked twice, once with the First Key, and using only the Three Names of God, the Elemental King, and the Seniors. The charges from these invo