The Enochian Tablet of Union

The Enochian Tablet of Union is a small tablet of twenty Enochian letters arranged in a five-by-four grid, representing the element of Spirit that stands above and unifies the four classical elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. In the Golden Dawn system of Enochian working, the Tablet of Union occupies the centre of the ritual space, placed on the altar to represent the spiritual principle that interpenetrates and governs the four elemental quarters whose Watchtower tablets hang or stand at the four cardinal directions.

The tablet is read as four five-letter words arranged in rows: EXARP, HCOMA, NANTA, and BITOM. These words combine with the formula of the elements to produce compound names indicating the elemental aspect of Spirit associated with each Watchtower: EXARP for the Air Watchtower, HCOMA for Water, NANTA for Earth, and BITOM for Fire. The invocation of these names in ritual draws together the elemental forces through their shared spiritual ground.

Symbolism and structure

The Tablet of Union embodies the Neoplatonic and hermetic principle that matter and the elements are held in being by a higher unifying principle. In Enochian cosmology this principle is Spirit or Ether, the fifth element that pervades and sustains the other four without being reducible to any of them. The placement of the Tablet of Union at the centre of the elemental working space is therefore cosmologically precise: Spirit is not one quarter among four but the ground that makes all four possible.

The letters of the tablet are treated differently from those of the four Watchtower tablets in terms of colour attribution. The Golden Dawn assigned the colour of Spirit, a white or luminous quality, to the central tablet, distinguishing it visually from the elemental tablets and reinforcing its role as the unifying principle among them.

The word BITOM (Fire of Spirit) appears in various Golden Dawn rituals as an invocation of spiritual fire, and its use has spread beyond strictly Enochian contexts into general Golden Dawn elemental workings.

How to work with it

In the context of the Golden Dawn’s Opening by Watchtower, the Tablet of Union is addressed last. After invoking the four elemental Watchtowers in sequence, the practitioner turns to the centre of the space and invokes the Spirit names of the Tablet of Union, drawing the elemental forces together under the governance of the highest principle. This creates what Golden Dawn instructions describe as a fully balanced elemental working space, properly oriented and charged for ceremonial work.

Outside this specific ritual context, the Tablet of Union serves as a focusing symbol for meditation on the unifying principle beneath elemental diversity. Practitioners who spend time with it as a contemplative object often find it useful for work involving synthesis, integration, or the resolution of apparent opposites.

The tablet is typically reproduced in a working version, painted or printed on card with the appropriate colour attributions, and placed physically on the altar during Enochian working. Its small size relative to the Watchtower tablets reflects its function: not as a dominant elemental force but as the quiet governing principle at the heart of the system.

In myth and popular culture

The theological concept that a fifth element or principle stands above and unifies the four material elements is ancient, appearing in Aristotle’s aether, in the Stoic pneuma, and in alchemical quintessence. The Golden Dawn’s Tablet of Union gives this concept a specific ritual embodiment within the Enochian system, translating a broad philosophical principle into a set of operative letter-names that can be invoked and worked with directly.

The word BITOM, one of the four words derived from the Tablet of Union, appears in various Golden Dawn rituals as an invocation of spiritual fire and has been adopted into broader ceremonial contexts beyond strictly Enochian working. Its use as a stand-alone word of power in fire-related workings gives it a modest independent life within the tradition.

The Opening by Watchtower ceremony, in which the four elemental tablets and the Tablet of Union are successively addressed, is one of the most complete ritual descriptions published by Israel Regardie in The Golden Dawn (1937). Its publication made the ceremony available to practitioners outside active Golden Dawn lodges and contributed significantly to the spread of Enochian practice through the mid-twentieth century.

Myths and facts

Several points of confusion arise specifically around the Tablet of Union.

• A common belief holds that the Tablet of Union is part of the original Dee-Kelley reception. The concept of a fifth element unifying the four is implicit in Dee’s cosmology, but the specific five-by-four letter arrangement of the Tablet of Union appears to be a Golden Dawn development rather than a direct transmission from the Dee sessions. Scholars including Aaron Leitch have documented this distinction.
• The word EHNB that sometimes appears as a fifth row or reading of the Tablet is a result of reading the initial letters of EXARP, HCOMA, NANTA, and BITOM together; it is not a separately transmitted name but a derived reading, and different sources handle it differently.
• Many practitioners assume the Tablet of Union must be placed physically on the altar to be effective. In some working contexts the tablet is visualized rather than physically present, and the tradition does not prescribe one approach exclusively; physical presence is traditional in lodge-style work but not universal.
• The four words of the Tablet of Union are sometimes described as names of specific angels. They are more accurately understood as attributions of the element of Spirit to each of the four elemental quarters, functioning as qualifying designators rather than as proper angelic names in the same sense as the seniors and other named entities of the Watchtowers.
• Some sources describe the Tablet of Union as the most important of the five Enochian tablets. Its function as the governing principle of Spirit does give it a qualitative primacy, but in terms of practical use it is typically the last addressed in ceremony and contains far fewer workable names than the four elemental Watchtowers.