The Enochian Watchtowers

The Enochian Watchtowers are four large tablets of letters that form the structural heart of the Dee-Kelley angelic system, each governing a quarter of the created cosmos and containing within their grids the names of the angels, intelligences, and servitors assigned to that region. Received during the Enochian skrying sessions of the 1580s, the tablets were described by the communicating angels as the four watchtowers from which the elemental forces of the universe are governed and from which its angelic guardians maintain order. They are the primary source of the hundreds of angelic names used in Enochian ceremonial practice.

Each Watchtower is a twelve-by-thirteen grid of Enochian letters, laid out in a specific arrangement that allows multiple layers of names to be read from the same tablet. A large cross divides each tablet into four sub-quadrants, and the letters of this cross, the sub-quadrant squares, and various rows and columns within them yield different classes of angels serving different functions in the Enochian hierarchy. The system is extraordinarily dense: a practitioner who has fully mapped a single Watchtower will have identified dozens of individually named angelic beings, each with specific attributes and areas of governance.

History and origins

The Watchtowers were received in their original form during the Cracow sessions of 1584, though the complete and corrected form of the Great Table (the arrangement of all four Watchtowers together) was given in 1587. Dee’s records show that early versions of the tablets were received with errors and subsequently corrected through further skrying, suggesting a process of refinement over time.

The tablets were not central to active magical practice for nearly three centuries after their reception. Meric Casaubon’s 1659 publication of Dee’s diaries preserved the material, but it was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn that first developed a working system based on the tablets in the 1880s. Golden Dawn founders S.L. MacGregor Mathers and William Wynn Westcott assigned elemental and Qabalistic correspondences to the tablets, developed colour attributions for each letter and sub-square, and created a set of initiation rituals and magical workings structured around the four elemental tablets.

The Golden Dawn’s arrangement of the tablets differs from Dee’s original in several respects, including the assignment of elements to compass directions and the detailed colour and Qabalah attributions that Dee and Kelley never specified. Aaron Leitch’s scholarly work, particularly Secrets of the Magickal Grimoires (2005) and The Angelical Language (2010), has done much to clarify what belongs to the original Dee system and what represents later Golden Dawn elaboration.

Structure of the Watchtowers

Each Watchtower has three primary structural layers. The Great Cross runs through the tablet horizontally and vertically, dividing it into four sub-quadrants. The letters on the Great Cross yield the name of the Great Senior of the whole tablet (a name of six letters, often called the Six-Letter Name) and the names of six senior angels specific to that elemental quarter, giving twenty-four seniors across all four tablets.

Each sub-quadrant is itself a smaller square of letters containing further names. Reading specific rows within each sub-quadrant yields the names of the Kerubic angels, four-letter names associated with the fixed zodiac signs and providing elemental stability. Reading further rows and columns yields the names of the servient angels, who govern specific practical areas and are called upon in more targeted magical work.

The letter attributions within each tablet connect to specific Enochian calls: calls three through eighteen each address a specific sub-quadrant of the Great Table, making it possible to invoke the angels of any particular sub-quadrant with the appropriate call.

In practice

Working with the Watchtowers in practice begins with learning the structure of the tablets and the procedure for reading out names from them. This is best approached with a copy of the tablets (available in numerous published Enochian workbooks and on the websites of various Enochian working groups) and a methodical approach to reading through the name-extraction procedures.

Many practitioners begin their Enochian work with the calls and the general invocations, building familiarity with the language and the feel of the system before engaging with specific Watchtower angels. When working with a particular Watchtower, the appropriate elemental call is used to open the invocation; the senior angels are called first to establish governance; and then specific servient angels may be called for more focused work.

The elemental direction of each Watchtower structures the physical orientation of the ritual. In the standard Golden Dawn arrangement, the practitioner faces the quarter corresponding to the tablet being worked, and the elemental weapons (wand for Fire, cup for Water, dagger for Air, disk for Earth) are used in the invocation. The Tablet of Union, a fifth smaller tablet, is placed centrally to connect the four elemental tablets through the fifth element of Spirit.

The Watchtowers reward sustained study and working over time. Practitioners who have spent years with the system report that the angelic names gradually accumulate associations, resonances, and a sense of recognisable presence that brief or casual engagement does not produce. The tablets are a map, and like any map, they become more useful the more thoroughly the territory they describe has been personally explored.

In myth and popular culture

The four Watchtowers, as angelic guardians of the four elemental quarters of the cosmos, connect to a widespread mythological pattern of cosmic guardians at the four directions. In Babylonian astronomy the four royal stars, Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, and Fomalhaut, were identified as the watchers of the four cardinal points of the sky. The Book of Revelation describes four living creatures at the four corners of the divine throne. In Zoroastrian tradition, four mighty star-angels guard the four directions. Dee’s Watchtowers participate in this ancient pattern of cosmic governance, translated into the specific letter-matrix format of the Enochian system.

Israel Regardie’s decision to publish the full Golden Dawn system in The Golden Dawn (1937), including detailed descriptions and diagrams of the Watchtower tablets, was controversial within the occult community but enormously consequential for the subsequent spread of Enochian practice. Regardie, who had been Crowley’s secretary and was a trained psychotherapist, believed that the widespread availability of the material would serve more good than the secrecy that lodge practice required. Many practitioners today work with the Watchtowers through the framework Regardie published.

The four elemental guardians of the quarters have been adapted into broader neo-pagan practice, where they are often called as elemental watchtowers or guardians in circle-casting without the specific Enochian content of the Dee-Kelley system. This broader use represents a simplification and popularization of the concept that detaches it from its specific Enochian context.

Myths and facts

Several misunderstandings about the Watchtowers circulate among practitioners new to Enochian.

• A common belief holds that the Watchtowers are the same in Dee’s original system and in Golden Dawn practice. The element-to-direction assignments differ between the two systems, and the Golden Dawn added color attributions, Qabalistic correspondences, and structural details not present in the original Dee-Kelley material. Both are encountered in practice, and knowing which system a source uses is essential.
• Many practitioners assume that the twelve-by-thirteen grid of each Watchtower was received all at once. The tablets were received over time during the Dee-Kelley sessions and were subsequently corrected; the final authoritative version was given in 1587 following correction of earlier errors.
• The Watchtowers are sometimes described as barriers or walls erected for protection. Their function in the system is better described as governing and connecting elemental forces than as defensive barriers; the “watchtower” metaphor refers to governance of a territory, not fortification against enemies.
• Some practitioners assume that each Watchtower governs only one element and has no involvement with the others. Each Watchtower’s four sub-quadrants are themselves assigned sub-elemental attributions, meaning the Fire Watchtower contains Fire of Fire, Air of Fire, Water of Fire, and Earth of Fire sub-quadrants, giving it internal elemental complexity.
• The assumption that beginners should start with Watchtower work and progress to the Aethyrs is the reverse of some practitioners’ actual recommendation. Various teachers advocate beginning with the Aethyrs through the nineteenth call as the more accessible entry point, leaving the complex name-extraction work of the Watchtowers for a more developed stage of practice.