Enochian Chess

There has been more hype written about the Enochian system of magic then just about anything else within all other magical systems.

There are many and varied reasons that this is so. Most of it being a desire to trace the system back to its point of origination.

The fact is that the system was devoid of color and occult correspondences until the early Adepts of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn added all the features that have become associated with the system.

What Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley left were a number of sigils, several diaries, and many angelic names. This is not to minimize the importance of the Enochain Calls or the Angelic language. But it was the brilliant work of William Wescott and S.L.Mathers that produced the system as we know it today.

Once the Enochain system was fully systematized it was used for scrying, divination and evocation. Eventually Westcott would produce a further systemization of the Angelic derivations and marry them to a game based on Charatuga, an Indian form of four handed Chess. This became known as Enochain Chess. It’s at this point that little is known or been handed down to us from the Golden Dawn. The Game became a part of the Adepts magical curriculum and arsenal but was never fully expanded or played at any level. Pat Zalewski suggests that the Chess papers were given out to Theoricus Adeptus Minors within the GD. Even if this were the case, little work was done on that level since the Golden Dawn fragmented at the time most Adepts of the Order had reached that level in their work.

The game was finally introduced to the public in the early nineteen eighties and carried on into the 90’s by Steve Nichols of Multisell Ltd, with a set of four boards based on the Serviant Squares from the Watchtowers, colored according to carefully defined Golden Dawn methods. The pieces are based on the Gods of the Egyptian mythology.

The rules are more akin to backgammon than chess since the game play is based on the chance role of the Die rather than strategic movement of the pieces. The final result of play is based on moving the Prime Players King to a predetermine square and maintaining that position for one round of play.

Today, Steve has taken the game a step further by blending it with Computer programming technology and producing the game on CD-ROM. And what a brilliant and magnificent game it is. The features in the game include multiple placement of the pieces according to the boards and angles of the boards. By placing the curser over each square on the board in play a set of correspondences show up in the lower left hand corner of your screen; i.e. Tarot Card, Geomantic figure, Enochian letter (or English), Astrological symbol, Hebrew letter association and each elemental color according to the angle. The Gods are placed according to value, a different set according to the board used. Random Die defining the movement of play and a move by move analysis of play, or a full game analysis after each move. Play can be against the computer or up to four human players. The Computer gives a choice of historical figures you can play against, Mathers, Yeats, Dee, Kelley, Georgie Yeats, Westcott and Steve Nichols (opting as your partner).

Much more can be said about the game, but space in an HTML review is limited and there is much more on this CD then the Chess game. Included is a four hundred page Encyclopedia with text documents that include the Fama Fraterninatis, The Secret Book of Enoch, The Confessio, Atlanta Fuegen and other alchemical and Rosicrucian textual material.

The index appears to be almost comprehensive with a hot link back to all relevant material. Discussion pages give information on the Egyptian God forms used in play with an outline of the mythologies.

All in all a major programming achievement and a welcome addition to the world of Occult and Golden Dawn multimedia computer environments.

As of this writing Magus Books at http://www.magusbooks.com is planning on selling this item in the US or for more pricing information contact Steve Nicholes at http://www.multi.co.uk

This Enochian WebRing site owned by Fr PAAL. Previous 5 Sites § Previous § Next § Next 5 Sites Random Site § List Sites