Origin 1584
The thirtieth and innermost of the Aethyrs, nearest the material world in Dee's ordering, and the only one of the thirty to hold four Governors rather than three: Taoagla, Gemnimb, Advorpt and Doxmael. That extra Part is what makes the total ninety-one rather than ninety, and no reason for the anomaly is given anywhere in the received material. Crowley, working the sequence in reverse, made TEX the first and lowest station of an ascent, so the Aethyr Dee placed nearest the earth became the modern practitioner's point of entry.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1584 1Tradition: John Dee and Edward Kelley's angelic sessions Origin Period1888 to 1900 2Tradition: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Origin Period1900 to 1909 3Tradition: Thelema Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountCompiled into Liber Scientiae, dated 2 May 1585 4Tradition: Dee and Kelley's Enochian records Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountSessions ran from 1583, completed 13 July 1584 4Tradition: Dee and Kelley's Enochian records Place of OriginCracow and Prague, under Albert Laski's patronage and the imperial court 5 Place of OriginDee's house at Mortlake for the earlier sessions 5 Attributed Author / CompilerEdward Kelley scried and spoke the answers Dee wrote down 5 Attributed Author / CompilerJohn Dee, mathematician and royal adviser, asked the questions 5 Attributed Author / CompilerNo independent witness to the sessions exists 5 Origin of the NameSourced to the subject's own accountNo etymology, not derived from any known language 6 Origin of the NameSourced to the subject's own accountReceived letter by letter through Kelley's scrying in 1584 6 Origin of the NameSourced to the subject's own accountSet down in Dee's record 6 LanguageSourced to the subject's own account Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceSourced to the subject's own accountCrowley scried the Aethyrs in 1900 and 1909, centuries after Dee 4Tradition: Dee and Kelley's Enochian records Meaning in the Attesting SourceSourced to the subject's own accountDee's record gives only a name and its Governors, nothing else 4Tradition: Dee and Kelley's Enochian records Meaning in the Attesting SourceSourced to the subject's own accountVisionary landscapes and guardians are the Golden Dawn's 1888 synthesis 4Tradition: Dee and Kelley's Enochian records Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryA modern system making claims scholarship never entertained; it never held scholarly standing 5 Whether Kelley reported or invented what he saw is an open question Learn More
The Thirtieth Aethyr, TEX
TEX is the thirtieth of the thirty Aethyrs, or Airs, of the Enochian system, the thirty spiritual regions delivered to the mathematician John Dee and the scryer Edward Kelley in 1584, and named in the record Dee compiled from those sessions. Its three-letter name, TEX, was received letter by letter through Kelley's scrying.
Place in the system
Each Aethyr is said to contain four Governors among whom the ninety-one Parts of the Earth are divided. As the last of the thirty, TEX is counted the lowest and nearest the earth; alone among the Aethyrs it holds four Governors rather than three, bringing the total to ninety-one.
The thirty Aethyrs are the raw gift of the Dee-Kelley sessions; the elaborate visionary content attached to them in modern practice belongs to a later layer, above all Aleister Crowley's The Vision and the Voice, his record of scrying all thirty Aethyrs in 1900 and 1909. The Aethyr is described here as an element of that documented historical tradition, studied as such, its entities not reified.
TEX, the One That Holds Four
Any statement about the thirtieth Aethyr belongs to one of three layers of the record, and they are roughly three centuries apart. Saying which layer a claim comes from is most of what can honestly be said about an individual Aethyr.
The one with four
TEX is the thirtieth and, by the convention of the material, the nearest of the Aethyrs. It is also the only one of the thirty to hold four governors where every other holds three, which is how the ninety-one of the Dee and Kelley material are arrived at: twenty-nine threes and one four.
Because the numbering runs from the most remote to the nearest, TEX is where Crowley began his ascent, and it is the first Aethyr in his working order and the last in the numbering.
Crowley, 1900 and 1909
Almost everything said about the character of an individual Aethyr in modern circulation comes from Aleister Crowley. By his own account he began the series in Mexico in 1900 and completed it with Victor Neuburg in the Algerian desert in late 1909, and the record was published as The Vision and the Voice. Those descriptions are Crowley's visionary record of 1909, not Dee's, and they are not in the sixteenth-century diaries at all.
Why the layers are kept apart here
The three are separated in this atlas because they make different kinds of claim. The diaries supply the names and the structure, the order supplies a ritual context, and Crowley supplies the descriptions. Attributing any of the three to another is the commonest error made about this material.
Connections
Addressed By
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
Disciplines That Use This
The thirty aethyrs of the Enochian system.
Source The Vision and the Voice (Liber CCCCXVIII, XXX Aerum vel Saeculi)Aleister Crowley
Member Of
One of the thirty Aethyrs of the Enochian scheme.
Members
Source Liber Scientiae, Auxilii et Victoriae TerrestrisJohn Dee and Edward Kelley
Source Liber Scientiae, Auxilii et Victoriae TerrestrisJohn Dee and Edward Kelley
Source Liber Scientiae, Auxilii et Victoriae TerrestrisJohn Dee and Edward Kelley
Source Liber Scientiae, Auxilii et Victoriae TerrestrisJohn Dee and Edward Kelley
In the Other Atlases
Same As
Also in Computing Atlas: the same subject.
Sources
1. A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits
John Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon, T. Garthwait, 1659the 1659 edition's title page and imprint, as digitized at archive.org (record truefaithfulrela00deej)Quote, the 1659 edition's title page and imprint, as digitized at archive.org (record truefaithfulrela00deej)
A true & faithful relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John Dee ... and some spirits : tending (had it succeeded) to a general alteration of most states and kingdomes in the world
2. The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order 1887-1923
Ellic Howe, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972on the order's foundation in 1888 and the composition of its knowledge lecturesQuote, on the order's foundation in 1888 and the composition of its knowledge lectures
An unsentimental yet fascinating history of the Golden Dawn, a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from its early beginnings, through the height of its influence and then eventual decline and dissolution.
3. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Oxford University Press, 2008the chapter on Crowley and Thelema, and on what the Golden Dawn passed to himView the Source 4. Liber Scientiae, Auxilii et Victoriae Terrestris
John Dee and Edward Kelley, 1585The tables of the ninety-one
The Aethyr names, their ordering and the Governors assigned to each are given in the tabulation Dee compiled in May 1585 from sessions worked with Edward Kelley the previous year.
- Members: Advorpt
- Members: Doxmael
- Members: Gemnimb
- Members: Taoagla
5. John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature
Deborah E. Harkness, Cambridge University Press, 1999the chapters on the continental journey of 1583 to 1589View the Source 6. Mysteriorum Libri Quinque and Liber Loagaeth (British Library Sloane MSS 3188 and 3189)
John Dee and Edward Kelley, 1583Dee's manuscript record of the sessions and of the received namesQuote, Dee's manuscript record of the sessions and of the received names
ff. 1r-169v: John Dee's conferences with angels, 22 December 1581-30 May 1583, in five books.
The Vision and the Voice (Liber CCCCXVIII, XXX Aerum vel Saeculi)
Aleister Crowley, The Equinox I(5), Special Supplement, privately printed, London, 1911The Cry of the AethyrsQuote, The Cry of the Aethyrs
Crowley scryed the thirty Aethyrs and published the record in 1911. Nearly all modern material on the Aethyrs derives from this work rather than from Dee, and it reverses Dee's ordering by working from the thirtieth inward to the first.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.