Low Magick by Lon DuQuette (the reading strategies book TXT) 📕

to get to work—but get to work doing what? Standing there in my nice clean body and clothes, in the nice clean empty universe of my living room temple, I needed now to announce to myself and the magical cosmos what exactly I was here for. I had to frame my magical intention in words. I had to take the oath. I grabbed my magical diary and a pen and quickly composed an oath that encapsulated my magical intent for this operation. I fired up some charcoal in the censer and covered it with pure frankincense. As the sweet-smelling smoke rose to the heavens, so did my ninety-three-word oath:

I, Adeo Sat Bene,51 Zealator and Ninth Degree, swear to the Supreme What-It-Is of the Universe that I will charge this deck of tarot cards and every other deck of this design that currently exists, or will exist in the future, with the force of every spiritual entity in the universe that I am capable of conjuring and binding into it. May their presence in the cards serve to contribute only to the enlightenment and spiritual health and well-being of all with whom it comes in contact. So mote it be!

With the banishing, purification, and oath out of the way, I got down to business. I would start by charging the fifty-six cards of the tarot’s Lesser Arcana: The four Aces (Ace of Wands, Ace of Cups, Ace of Swords, Ace of Disks) the sixteen Court Cards (four per suit—a Knight, a Queen, a Prince, a Princess), and thirty-six Small Cards or pips (2 through 10 of each suit).

In the middle of the floor, I assembled several items of the elaborate magical equipment associated with the Enochian magick of Dr. John Dee. For this operation I would use the four Elemental Tablets and the small Tablet of Union that rules them. These tablets and the way they are constructed have a direct correlation to the structure and organization of the tarot. They offered me the perfect consecrated centerpiece for my operation.

Space does not permit me here52 to elaborate fully on the magical significance of the Enochian Tablets. But, in order for this part of the story to make any sense at all to anyone who is completely unfamiliar with Enochian magick, I must at least point out a few landmarks of the system—particularly those that modern Enochian magicians refer to as “Elemental Tablets.” There are four of them; one each for fire, water, air, and earth. Each Elemental Tablet is made up of 156 squares or truncated pyramids arranged in a large tablet twelve squares wide by thirteen squares high. Each pyramid is lettered with the one-letter-name of an elemental angel. Combined with one, two, or many other letters within the tablet, an almost infinite number of larger and more complex angels are generated, forming an elaborate (and painfully logical) hierarchy of elemental angels. It is a breathtakingly elegant system, and can be the subject of a lifetime of study.

This system parallels the hermetic structure of the tarot. The four Elemental Tablets are the equivalent of the four Aces of the tarot. For example; put the Ace of Wands under a magick microscope and you will see the entire Enochian Elemental Tablet of Fire teeming with the living hierarchy of angels that inhabit it. Do the same with the Ace of Cups and see the Elemental Tablet of Water; the Ace of Swords for the tablet of Air, and the Ace of Disks for the tablet of Earth.

Each Elemental Tablet is equivalent to a tarot Ace.

Each of the Enochian Elemental Tablets is subdivided into four equal-sized quarters by a cross made up of two vertical columns and one row. This cross is made up of thirty-six lettered squares (more on that in a moment). Each of the four quarters created by this cross is assigned to one of the four elements. For example: the fire tablet has a quarter for fire (fire of fire), one for water (water of fire), one for air (air of fire) and one for earth (earth of fire). The Elemental tablets of water, air, and earth are divided in exactly the same way.

These subquarters (often called subangles) of the four Elemental Tablets are the equivalent to the sixteen Court Cards of the tarot. The Knights are fiery, the Queens watery, the Princes airy, and the Princesses are earthy aspects of their respective suits.53

For example: put the Knight of Wands (fire of fire) under a magick microscope and behold the fire quarter of the Elemental Tablet of fire and all the Enochian angels living inside it. Look at the Queen of Disks (water of earth) with the magick microscope and see the water quarter of the Elemental tablet (Ace) of earth, etc. I’m sure you are getting the picture.

Each Elemental Tablet is divided into four sub-elemental quarters

which are equivalent to the four tarot Court Cards of each suit.

The remaining cards of the Lesser Arcana are the thirty-six Small Cards (or pips), the 2s through 10s of each of the four suits. The Small Cards also are populated by a rich assortment of traditional spirits, angels, and demons, many of which are arranged in neat hierarchical families dictated by their place in the zodiac and the zodiacal year.

[Warning! If all this technical Enochian magick talk is putting you to sleep—Wake up! It’s going to get good!]

Each of the thirty-six Small Cards represents one decan (ten degrees) of the zodiac. In groups of three:

The nine Small Cards of the suit of Wands naturally live in the three fire signs of the zodiac (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius).

The nine Cups live in the water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces).

The nine Swords live in the air signs (Libra, Aquarius,

Gemini).

The nine Disks live in the earth signs (Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo).

Starting at 0 degrees Aries, these thirty-six Small Cards spread themselves in perfect 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, order through the zodiac with elegant simplicity:

All four groups of