Firstly I feel it should be mentioned that if you're planning on making use of these Enochian experiments, you should have attained a sufficiently high degree of skill in some primary system of Hermetic ceremonial magick i.e. Golden Dawn, O.T.O./Thelemic, Aurum Solis, Servants of Light etc. While I realise the younger male audience might scoff at this (and I remember doing the same when I was younger and more keen to take risks for the shear hell of it), I can't stress enough the importance of a secure foundation of knowledge and practical (clairvoyant) skill prior to engaging in any Enochian work. What could happen if you haven't prepared yourself in that manner? Either of two things most likely - either you'll have no results and assume that you failed, or you might be successful but unable to see what you've summoned since you didn't possess the necessary clairvoyant skill yet. Either scenario is bad, but the second one is the more dangerous due to the potential for mental instability. Speaking from the viewpoint of a slightly more experienced practitioner (compared to my self of 10 years ago), I would say that it's best to commence Enochian work after you've developed your skills and absorbed a sufficient degree of occult knowledge and general living experience. Because of the nature of the spirits involved, you'll tend to get more out of Enochian magick if you bring more to it. More occult knowledge (technological knowledge helps too) and general mundane living experience (i.e. going to work, living on your own, supporting yourself, having relationships) provides those spirits with more mental concepts through which they can relay information to you. If you don't have many concepts that you're familiar with, then it'll be much harder for advanced entities to talk with you because they'll have nothing to say that is (or could be made) familiar to you and no way of dumbing down their concepts into language you can understand.
With that said, the purpose of this series of invocations, the initiatory workings adapted from a suggestion by the late Ben Rowe which I have provided on this site, is to serve as a large-scale purification as well as condensation/refinement of your personal energies, initiation/inoculation with the Enochian currents, and the beginning of a long series of personal studies. Ultimately, this will further you along on the path of personal Evolution. Once you decide to begin, do not stop before finishing the 16-week series; mental imbalance could (but will not necessarily) result. The workings were designed with a specific structure and order in mind. Perform each one, one at a time, once per week (recommended) for the most gradual and safe transition. More than once per week can EASILY be too much for even the most experienced, as it could cause too many changes in too short a time. Be sure you understand everything before commencing this operation. This is a semi-formal procedure; some reverence and seriousness is expected.
Visualize the particular Name as a force in front of you; even see the individual letters if possible. Inhale the name (as if taking a full hit off a cigarette), thereby taking the force into your body. Feel the force of the Name (or Key) fill you, traveling first from your head, throughout your body, and finally down to your feet. When it reaches your feet, suddenly expel the Name/Force from your body while saying it strongly. Use a LOT of AIR. It’s ok to do this a few times. (Some people expel the name slowly with lots of air so it vibrates the whole body. That is an old and effective technique.) If you do this correctly, it should sound to you as if the name were vibrating off the universe and traveling into infinity; however that would also attract lots of attention. You don’t always need to do it that well for a response, especially from the Enochian spirits. They will usually show up with little effort. Yelling or speaking loudly isn’t always necessary either, and can be inconvenient or impossible if you live with others. A forceful whisper can be effective provided you perform the procedure for invoking the force/energy/name correctly. My suggestion for beginners is to ONLY INVOKE DIVINE NAMES. When you invoke another entity or a force into yourself, it usually leaves a little residual energy behind. Invocation of negative or evil forces can potentially cause some corruption or perceptual distortion in the inexperienced student. If it is necessary to call such forces, then you could Evoke them instead; they never share your body with you that way (there are many texts on the subject should it become of paramount importance).
As this is a very advanced form of working, it is recommended that any experimenting be done in an orderly, scientific manner, rather than randomly and chaotic. Keep a detailed record if you should begin down that path so you don’t lose track of where you’ve been and degenerate into chaotic and dangerous foolery. There are several websites and books available for learning basic Enochian forms of magick. It is recommended that you read them to obtain a fundamental knowledge of this complex system with many variations.
In the Golden Dawn system, it is common practice to step into the Sign of Horus (to send out a current of energy, while expelling/vibrating a name) and then afterward following up with the Sign of Harpocrates (to seal off/stop the current). This technique may be of some use to the beginning student.
The Great Table as revised by the angel Raphael (4/20/1587) is the most correct version (for me) that I’ve found. When viewed with the astral sight, energy seems to flow the most freely in an organized fashion, and it just feels better to me. Donald Tyson’s recent changes are, in the opinion of some Dee purists, mostly the result of his personal opinions and spurious conclusions. Although Dee and Kelly also received biased information due to their religious views at the time, their documents are the best when they can be found. The advanced practitioner can easily make use of those original documents for his/her own purposes. The beginner will probably be confused until he/she has a basic understanding of the setup of the Enochian hierarchy and tablets.
It is my understanding that the Golden Dawn, in their system of Enochian magick, divided up the Great Table and its angles/watchtowers into 4 separate tablets (the Black Cross became the Tablet of Union) and applied elemental attributions to everything. Although not necessarily correct in accordance with the original Dee documents, this proved to be a very efficacious method of working and yielded good results worth looking into. Enochian energies can be applied to almost any system of attributions for different results- see below
The Enochian spirits are very flexible, at least on the surface. This is probably one reason why there are so many effective ways of working with them. For example, although there are not really any planetary/elemental energies specifically within the Great Table (though there are homologous aspects), the spirits and energies summoned from it can be applied to such applications for a more specific effect. That explains why the G.:D.: methods were so effective; by asking the Enochian entities to work within a specific system or bias/type of energy (elemental, planetary, zodiacal, etc.) you can often cause their energies to manifest in a more PARTICULAR and sometimes more effective manner for your purposes. Use your imagination on this one and be careful.
TRY NOT TO ALLOW YOURSELF to have any opinions or preconceived notions about the way the universe works before or during any Enochian working. Try to give them the freedom to show you the way things truly are, NOT the way you BELIEVE them to be. Again, these beings are very flexible and responsive to the magickian. They usually try to use your existing mental resources in order to teach you more efficiently; they’ll try to explain things to you in terms you’ll understand. While being an advantageous attribute, it also has the tendency to further misinformation at first. These spirits exist outside (or is it within and throughout?) of the traditional magickal universe as we know it, and as such are capable of viewing our realms more objectively since they’re not bound up in them like we are. They seem to be able to understand, teach, and work within virtually any system or style because of this. There appears to be no limit to their abilities; they will take you as far and as fast as you are able to go. As you grow, they will expand with and for you.
I've noticed during certain operations that traditional banishings done prior to a working can sometimes hinder the effects of a working. Some banishing of elemental energies may be necessary still, so I recommend the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram if you don't know any others. It’s a traditional microcosmic Hebrew/Qabalistic banishing that works quite well with Enochian workings. To remain in harmony with Enochian energies, you may make use of my Enochian Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. In a few of my workings I found that the (Golden Dawn's) Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram sealed off the entire area and made it hard for them to get through. I suspect this effect was most likely caused by my intent while performing the banishing at the time, so you'll have to use your own judgement.
Preliminary purifications are usually fine, although certain incenses and rituals may cause them to manifest somewhat differently again. Remember, they’re very responsive. Use your best judgement.
It is always best to see this series of Enochian invocations all the way through to completion. Don’t stop after only a couple of weeks! When you begin, you should intend to finish. Depending on the working, you may cause yourself some imbalance by not finishing the whole several-week-long series etc. I saw first hand the results of not finishing the first part of the Enochian Initiatory workings when a friend of mine began acting erratically and having minor freak-outs until he finished with the remainder of the workings. After doing that, he felt fine and more mentally balanced than he'd ever been.
WARNING: Excessive exposure to the energies inherent in this hierarchy of beings can and HAS caused mental instability in myself and others. Almost NEVER should you engage in this sort of work everyday. (I didn't believe the warnings until I had it happen to me, folks.) Always allow equal amounts of time of rest and work, if you must work heavily. But even this can get you into trouble. In this series of initiatory invocations, if necessary, you may perform the usual Hebrew/Qabalistic banishings to clear your head if you experience any problems such as: flights of ideas, psychotic/perceptual distortions, impulsive/fanatical behavior, run-away-brain, delusions of grandeur ("I’m attractive and everyone loves me"), spontaneous and inexplicable erection (just kidding on that one). You know...the usual. Try to keep an eye on yourself, and pay attention to anything that might be a bit out of the ordinary in your behavior. It is expected that you will possibly have increased intuitive knowledge as you progress, but the other things I mentioned are more of a concern. A possible reason for any strangeness that may occur, is that the Enochian spirits open your mind up to levels of reality (often many levels simultaneously) that most humans aren’t aware of or are ready for at the time. Progress should be slow and gradual for safety. Eventually, you’ll grow accustomed to the energies, but even then be very cautious.
Regarding the 1st and 2nd Keys/Calls:
The 1st Call seems to function on a more general scale than the 2nd. It is General, as opposed to Particular, and could be thought of as acting on a level homologous to that of Spirit; it is a high spiritual invocation often used as a general summoning of the Enochian forces. As the 1st Call is General, looking at the whole picture, the 2nd Call is more Particular and seems to deal more with the parts of the picture. In this way, traditional mages could apply their attributions to both Calls and say that the 1st is attributed to the Spirit (being General), and the 2nd is attributed to the lower 4 elements (being Particular). The traditional mage would not be entirely incorrect by doing this, since the Enochian system as we know it conforms in some ways to elemental viewpoints. However, the energies themselves are not always really elemental or even planetary in nature; they usually are only homologous to such energies. It is my belief that the spirits conformed to the traditional viewpoints of the time when they gave their information to Dee and Kelly in an effort to more easily inform them.
Bottom line and the present viewpoint I take while working: Use of the 1st Call in conjunction with an Enochian name will cause a more spiritual manifestation of that force or entity. Use of the 2nd Call in conjunction with an Enochian name will cause a more material manifestation of that force or entity. Notice how both ends of the polarity are covered between Spiritual and Physical. The 1st Call is the one most often used.
When the workings say the word God, I believe they merely reflect the views of the original documentors of the system. 'God' can refer either to a god (one of many), or the creator-god of the Enochian Angels, or the Point Source of All Things. You'll have to decide for yourself what may have been intended.
There are very few books I personally like that illustrate effective usage of the Enochian magick. Most of them are either too traditional (usually that of Crowley or G:.D:.) for my tastes or too cluttered with an author's personal views to even be usable. As a rule, I generally don’t follow any one particular system of usage, preferring to find my own ways. The spirits are very open-minded and usually don’t object to such viewpoints. BOTH highly traditional AND think-it-and-do-it-flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants styles of working can be equally effective, and I've had great success with both. Which methods you choose will depend on your purpose at the time. Some methods are more useful than others.
The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie isn’t a bad text to pick up if nothing more than for historical reference. The Golden Dawn group members had some unusual interpretations of the Enochian magick. The best info is available online however.
http://w3.one.net/~browe/ - This was the late Benjamin Rowe’s primary site. If it's still online, it has some of the best original work available in my opinion. I think more practitioners should publish their results openly like this.
Check out the other sites in my links section for more information.