Customer Reviews

Practical Angel Magic of Dr John Dee's Enochian Tables: Tabularum Bonorum Angelorum Invocationes as Used by Wynn Westcott, Alan Bennett, Reverend Ayto

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This volume does much to clarify aspects of Dee's magick that have long generated controversy, such as the correct directional assignments of the Tables and the specific invocational litanies appropriate to each type of Enochian Entity. Critics who claim there is nothing new here are mistaken in both their scholarship and the understanding of their practice. Skinner proves that enormous care was employed by whomever set out the Bonorum material, indicating that it might well reflect Dee's final and definitive organization. In addition, the G.D.'s secretive treatment of these texts testifies that they may well embody the master-key to Enochian work. No study of Enochian can be considered complete without this book!

This book is a must have on the shelf of any magickian. It is beautifully produced and will certainly impress.

A must read for students of the work of John Dee, Golden Dawn or Enochian magick. This book contains previously unpublished manuscripts, reproduced in full which make it of value to those of us who would like to work with original manuscripts but who can't afford trips to the various UK libraries where they are kept and who don't have access to private collections.

This is volume I and I am impatient for Volume II. The sign of a good book.

From two previously unpublished 17th century manuscripts on Angel Magic, with instructions for their use as used by Wynn Westcott, Alan Bennett, Rev. Ayton, F L Gardiner and other members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The authors have discovered what happened to John Dee's most important manuscript, his book of personal angeilic invocations which he kept in Latin, and how it was preserved and developed by 17th century magicians into a full working magical system. How only a small part of this material reached the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1880's. Even this was then suppressed by the chiefs of the Order, and it did not appear in Israel Regardie's monumental work on the Order rituals.

They have also traced how the classical techniques of invocation and evocation drawn from late mediaeval grimoires, were passed through John Dee's magic, via Elias Ashmole, to the aristocratic angel magicians of the 17th century, including some of the most powerful and influential figures in England.

In the 20th century many fanciful constructions were added to GD Enochian by writers such as Aleister Crowley, who were however all unaware of the completely developed system that already existed, and which is here published in full for the first time.

Like many books on occult topics, this one (by Skinner and Rankine) suffers from lack of a capable editor. Why this should be so prevalent I do not know. For example, however rigorous these authors' scholarship may be - and their scholarship is crucial to this volume's credibility (in that they have interpreted "many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore" in preparing this book and EDITED the manuscript) - on page 38 the authors state: "In the first page of the prologue to the present manuscript, mention is made of a writer called Du Bartas and his works... Guillaume De Salluste, Seigneur Du Bartas, lived from 1544-1592. In 1578 at the age of 34 he published his seminal work La Semaine; ou, Creation du Monde [sic] a hugely successful epic rhyming poetic work describing creation... La Semaine's seminal influence on his classic work The Inferno was acknowledged by Dante Alighieri." This last assertion is a schoolboy whopper as Dante Alighieri lived from 1265 to 1321. It is therefore very hard to imagine how a work penned and published over 200 years after his demise could possibly have been a "seminal influence" on Dante when he authored The Inferno.

Similarly, on page 45 we read that "[Baron] Somers was appointed Lord-Keeper, with the then very significant pension of 2000 [British pounds] a year..." The footnote to this sentence is, "Eighty pounds a year was considered a good income". However, this footnote was more apropos ten pages earlier on page 35, where we are told that Elias Ashmole offered Thomas Wales' son a job ... "for the then good salary of 80 [British pounds] per year". (Note also inconsistent use of "a year" and "per year" in referring to salary.)

On page 48, we see "the Nineteenth century" and immediately one paragraph below "the nineteenth century". Five pages later we see "the 17th to 20th centuries". There are also occasional simple typographical errors throughout.

Such desultory editing and obvious errors are factual and stylistic infelicities that any good editor would query before an otherwise fine volume like this went to press. No editor is acknowledged in the front matter, Skinner and Rankine apparently having chosen to omit that (particular) fact-checking step.

Generally, editorial lapses are distracting. But in volumes purporting to provide *precise* declensions and interpretations of occult phenomena, codes, and theory, such lapses are severe issues. Particularly is this the case in any volume attempting to deal authoritatively and in good faith with the Enochian tables and manuscripts of the Renaissance magus John Dee. Particularly when the authors' central work in this volume involves *redaction and editing* of four unpublished manuscripts.

In plain English, if Skinner and Rankine can't get standard English and simple facts right, how much faith can we really have in their redaction and editing of four unpublished occult manuscripts by an Elizabethan magus? In this volume the ghastly lapses in the simple facts we *do* see are severely disconcerting.

Readers rely on authors, and authors should rely on editors. Particularly in this volume.

This book is a high quality prodution. I enjoyed the thick feel of each page. Certainly a handsome book.

What I walked away with after finishing is the difference between what John Dee was doing and what the Golden Dawn is doing. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject and praise the authors for providing it to the occult community.