In Genesis Chapter 5, Verse 24, it is said that the patriarch Enoch "walked with God: and he was not; for God took him". This is generally understood to mean that Enoch, like the prophet Elijah, did not suffer physical death but was carried bodily into heaven. Since then he has spent an eternity talking with angels in their own tongue, which has since been called Enochian.

The Enochian language was first revealed by angels to humans in the sixteenth century, it is said, as a consequence of the occult experiences of John Dee and Edward Kelly. The two men first encountered one another in 1582 when Kelly called upon Dee and asked to see a magic crystal reported to be in his possession. For seven years the two men were to spend much of their time in each other's company. Dee was a scholar with an international reputation. He was employed by Queen Elizabeth I of England as Astrologer Royal. Dee was deeply interested in magic. Kelly, on the other hand, was a very dubious character. His ears had been cropped for forging a deed, and he was suspected of having practiced the black arts. Yet Dee took to Kelly who, unlike him, could read the crystal ball. Either Kelly was a natural psychic, or he was a con man of genius. As soon as he first looked into the crystal he reported angelic visions so spectacular that Dee employed him as a full time scryer or crystal gazer.

For the next few years the two occupied themselves largely with the reception of angelic communications. Kelly did the scrying; Dee confined himself with recording the teachings received through Kelly and obeying the sometimes confusing instructions of the angels. The two men parted company not long after Kelley reported that the angels had commanded that they share everything between them, including their wives. Dee's wife, Jane, was none too pleased and "fell aweeping and trembling for full quarter of an hour, then burst forth into a fury of anger".

The core of the material that Dee and Kelley received consisted of five lettered squares, the details of which were supplied by the angels. These are known as the tablets of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. Just as important were the 19 Enochian "calls" that they used to invoke the angels at the start of each scrying session. In Enochian, the first phrase of the Seventeenth Call reads as "Ils d ialprt, soba upaah chis nanba zixlay dodsih".

The strange thing was that the two Elizabethian occultists made little or no use of the angelic learning that they had been given - neither man made any attempt to apply it practically. Indeed, Dee was offered, and turned down, an enormous salary to work for the Czar of Russia, so it seems financial gain was not at the forefront of his thoughts. It has been suggested that Dee used his interest in the occult for his espionage activities, and that the Enochian language was an elaborate code developed by Dee or Kelley and used to ass onmessages. However, there is no doubt that Dee's interest in magic was genuine, nor is there any doubt that Enochian is a translatable language, with its own alphabet and grammer.

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