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Abstract

This paper compares the Liber Scientiae Auxilii et Victoriae Terrestris with John Dee’s original diary entries. The analysis uncovers six discrepancies in the assignments of the Angels of the Twelve Tribes – most notably for Parts 66, 67-69, 72, and 87 – and shows how transcription errors in Dee’s manuscripts have been replicated across modern Enochian references. By highlighting these inconsistencies, the study demonstrates the importance of returning to primary sources for accurate Enochian scholarship.

Introduction

Liber Scientiae Auxilii et Victoriae Terrestris is one John Dee’s surviving angelic grimoires. It lists 91 Governors or Parts of the Earth, their names and sigils, with a number of correspondences. The text is very popular among the practitioners of Enochian Magic, as is clear from its contents being copied in many books on the topic. Despite its popularity, it is nevertheless little studied. Most studies focus on identifying the locations of these Parts on modern maps, with little attention being spent on their other attributions. In this paper we will therefore take a step into this unknown land. We shall examine the origin of the 91 Parts and compare Liber Scientiae with its sources.

Sources

Liber Scientiae lists the following information about the 91 Parts: Their Angelic and Latin names, their sigils, the corresponding Aires, numbers of Ministers, with their governing Angels of the 12 Biblical Tribes, and related compass directions. These are drawn directly from John Dee’s spiritual diary, though some relevant records appear to be missing, as the 12 Angels are only ever referred to by number, however the grimoire provides their angelic names as well as corresponding Israelite Tribes (see Table 1). According to the entry from 21 May 1584, Dee was to learn about the 30 so-called Aires.¹ These contain each three parts, with the exception of the 30th, which has four, for a total of 91. They were then delivered to him by angel Nalvage over two days, in groups of 42 and 49.²

The introduction of each group followed a somewhat different pattern, but for the most part we may distinguish three descriptions. It is an arbitrary division, however it allows us to compare repeated information.

• 1st Description: the division of Aires into Parts and their associated Angels of the 12 Tribes.
• 2nd Description: the Tribe Angels (repeated) and the number of their Ministers.
• 3rd Description: the Angelic names of the Parts, sometimes repeating the Tribe Angels and their Ministers.

The following day the Latin names for all of the 91 Parts were delivered all together.³ These do not repeat any of the information given before, so they are not relevant here.⁴ We shall then turn our attention to the three descriptions. Let us begin with an example of the very first Air. In the initial group (of 42 Parts), the first two descriptions were given at the same time. Here, the first line is what constitutes the first description, whereas the following – the second.

In the first Ayre, the Nynth, eleventh and seventh Angel of the Tribes, beare rule & govern.
Unto the Ninth, 7000 and 200 and 9: ministring angels are subiect.
Unto the eleventh - 2000, 300, 60.
Unto the seventh - 5000, 300, 60, 2.
Nal[vage]: Cownt the Number.
Dee: The whole summe of this government amownteth to 14931.
Nal[vage]: It is right.⁵

The third description was then given separately, thus:

Mark.
V
A
L
G
A
R
S
It answereth to the seventh Angel & to his Ministers 5562, which are the last part of the first Ayre.⁶

Here we see repeated the governing Tribe Angel and the Ministers. The number in this case is actually slightly different, though it is quite easy to validate it thanks to the sum in the previous description. Dee seems to have caught this right away, as he noted a correction in the margin.

Contrary to what the above might suggest, the Minister numbers were scarcely repeated in the third description. See for example the 29th Part, in the 10th Air. Note also the overall terseness.

The second of the Tenth, by the 7th:
C
O
M
A
N
A
N⁷

The second group (of 49 Parts), was a bit more scattered, with each description being given separately. In the below example of the first description of the 20th Air, we can also see brevity becoming a pattern.

The Twentith is allso threfold:
1 — 5th.
2 — 3th.
3 — 7th.⁸

In the second description, this enumeration gets more complicated, as the angels switch the way they refer to the Aires:

The first of the sixth, which is the 5th of the 12.
under him, 3000, 600, 20, 6.
The second of the sixth - the 3d of the 12.
7000, 600, 20, 9.
The third, which is the 7th of the 12.
under him, 3000, 600, 30, 4.⁹

Here, the sixth refers to the same 20th Air. This is because the first one in this group was the 15th Air. The count ends with the seventh or 21st Air, and restarts from the 22nd, which would be the first of the last seven. All these relative numbers are very confusing, and indeed Dee would occasionally trip over them.¹⁰ Luckily, he annotated each such description also with an absolute number, clarifying any potential misunderstandings.

The third description had the same format as for the first group, but while there the Tribe Angels were repeated consistently, here very few are given. Similarly, the Ministers were reported even more scarcely. For a full breakdown, see Appendix Comparison of the descriptions of 91 Parts.

Findings

Examining the descriptions in the diaries and comparing them with Liber Scientiae, we found that except the one example mentioned before, the numbers of Ministers were consistent across all the data sets. More interestingly, we found a total of 6 discrepancies in the assigned Angels of 12 Tribes. We shall analyse these more closely.

The 87th Part is consistently given the 5th Tribe Angel across all three descriptions, yet Liber Scientiae assigns it the 12th. Notably, the 12th Angel is attributed to the following 88th Part. This is therefore clearly a simple copying error on Dee’s part.

The 67th Part similarly has the 7th Angel twice in the diaries, yet the 4th appears in Liber Scientiae, suggesting another mistake. This is however a much more elaborate blunder. The three Parts 67-69 are all of the 23rd Air. The Tribe Angels assigned to them in Liber Scientiae are the same as the following 24th Air (see Table 3). It appears, therefore, that Dee committed the same kind of error, but with the entire Air.

Notably, the 69th Part has a discrepancy between the first and the second description. It is unclear which one is the correct Tribe Angel, however I suspect that the first, i.e. the 8th Angel, is correct. As mentioned before, the second description had a shift in counting of the Aires. This makes the 23rd Air the second in the last group of seven. Thus, Dee was likely to have mistakenly noted the second as the Tribe Angel.

The remaining two discrepancies of the 66th and 72nd Parts cannot be resolved with the available data. Perhaps in the future some pattern will allow us to reconstruct those with confidence. Until then, we advise that any text treating on the subject should provide both options.

The Weight of the Findings

We examined the following selection of the most popular works on Enochian Magic as of today, where the information from Liber Scientiae is reproduced:

• Geoffrey James, The Enochian Evocation of Dr. John Dee (1984), book four.
• Robert Turner, Elizabethan Magic (1989), p. 50-57.
• Donald Tyson, Enochian Magick for Beginners (1997), chapter 15.
• Lon Milo Duquette, Enochian Vision Magick (2008), chapter 18.
• Frater Yechidah, Enochian Magic in Theory (2012), chapter 12.
• Aaron Leitch, Essential Enochian Grimoire (2014), chapter 10.
• Kevin Klein, The Complete Mystical Diaries of Dr John Dee (2020), lib. XXII.
• Scott Michael Stenwick, Mastering the Thirty Aires (2022), chapter 4.

We found that Klein is the only source which takes note of the discrepancies (without an explanation),¹¹ but keeps the erroneous values in the grimoire transcription as to stay true to the manuscript. All the rest of them retain the errors from Liber Scientiae. This tells us that these mistakes have been propagated in most sources on Enochiana available today.

Conclusion

Our findings do not signify a large revolution, but they do warrant corrections in many widely-read books that perpetuate the errors here discussed. The diaries in question have been in publication since 1659,¹² so one cannot help but wonder what other revelations are sitting in plain sight. Clearly, Enochian scholarship still has significant ground to cover. This is the time for researchers to turn their focus toward the source material, where more untapped insights may await discovery.

Comparison of the descriptions of 91 Parts