The KLANS of ENOK

by Barry William Hale

[Being] A unique set of Tartans created for the Spiritual Inhabitants of the Watchtowers of the Enochian magical system, received during the angelic operations of Elizabethan magician and polymath Dr John Dee and his seer Edward Kelley.

Inspired by an analogy made by Harry Everett Smith between the Watchtowers of the Enochian Magical system and the Highland
Tartans.

In my early twenties I became aware of the art of Harry Everett Smith. As a young Artist working with Crowley’s magical system the expression of Magick through Art became particularly fascinating. I first came across Smith’s analogy between the Enochian Watchtowers and the Scottish Highland Tartans in an early Magical Link.

This journey found me in Alphabet City in New York, late at night knocking on the door of the Harry Smith archives whose door was answered by Rani Sighn, who graciously accommodated my curious requests by pulling out some examples of Smith Artistic endeavours with the Enochian Magical System, and pointed me towards Khem Caigan who worked with Smith on an Enochian Language concordance.

Watchtower series : Harry Smith, courtesy of the Harry Smith Archives

What become apparent upon looking at this example of Smith’s work is that he had taken his cues from Crowley’s Liber Chanokh which contains the Golden Dawn’s representation of the Enochian Watchtowers refracted though an Elemental magical framework. Although Dee was familiar with the four elements of Aristotle, there is no explicit link made between the Watchtowers and these Elements in his writings. Rather they are associated with the four directions of the compass and each Watchtower is sub-divided into four angles.

In the Elemental Watchtowers of the Golden Dawn the lettered squares are represented by two-dimensional truncated pyramids, where each and every square has four sides to which is assigned a magical element with its associated colour. Each of the 624 squares of the Four Watchtowers has a unique ordering of associations – primarily elemental but which also include; zodiac, planets, geomantic symbols, tarot trumps, as well as Hebrew letters, by which every square can be located within the grand schema of Watchtowers

with a general familiarity of their structure……….

see full article in LEXICON MAG : The KLANS of ENOK