In the late 1500s, two alchemist-mages joined their magickal efforts and began to contact Angels. One of these men was Dr. John Dee- the most celebrated scholar of his day. He enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I, and was wholly dedicated to the furtherance of the English empire. His goal seems to have been to receive a system of magickal world-domination, by which he could influence the fates of neighboring (and hostile) kingdoms. His partner was Edward Kelley, a dedicated alchemist (who seems to have indulged in alchemical fraud a number of times) who sought the true mysteries of turning base metals into gold.
With these goals in mind, the two men summoned and conversed with a large family of Angels. Like the two mages, the Angels seemed to have an agenda of Their own- the transmission of an extremely powerful system of magick that would influence the world forever after. Not surprisingly, of these three goals (military power, gold, and magickal evolution), only that of the Angels came to pass. The Angelic system of magick thus delivered came to be known as “Enochian,” as it was supposed to have been delivered originally to the Biblical prophet Enoch before the Great Flood. It was eventually adopted, in part, by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late 1800s, and has thus become the very backbone of modern magickal knowledge.
John Dee made only one attempt to produce a Solomonic-style grimoire, which is published today as The Enochian Magick of Dr. John Dee, by G. James. However, this text has not been of nearly as much use to us as the journals he kept during his work with the Angels. There we witness Dee and Kelley interacting with the celestial intelligences on a daily basis, and the new system of magick delivered piece by obscure piece. Dee was in charge of summoning the entities (mainly by nothing more complicated than the recitation of Psalms), and Kelley would gaze into a crystal ball and report on what he saw. (In fact, much of the common stereotypes of “the wizard” that exist in our popular culture today- such as the crystal ball- are traced directly to Dee and Kelley and their magickal journals.) The sessions continued on a regular basis from 1581 to approximately 1607- and the heart of the work seems to have occurred between 1582 and 1585. The journals which are of primary relevance are as follows: