Enochian resonances

I really enjoyed Greg's article "Her sweet murmur" in Darklore recently. A lot of it got me thinking about aural experiences I have had over my years as a psychic explorer. Thank you Greg for such an interesting and well written article

The most interesting time this happened to me was about five years ago now when I was starting to experiment with the Enochian calls. When I first started looking at the call I read out the first call aloud mostly to get a feel for the actual sound. As I write this, I am beginning to wonder if maybe it was because I was focussing on the actual sound of the calls rather than the content that things unfolded as they did.

Anyway, that evening I read the first call. speaking subjectively the call certainly had an effect on me although I didn't have any visions of angels at the time. I felt that I was being pulled apart as if every atom of my being was on an elastic being pulled out. I finished feeling quite high, grounded myself and spent the rest of the evening doing mundane things.

Later I had a dream which I am certain was connect to the calling. I was flying over a large golden city. There were a number of other people present in the city, either walking along its streets and gardens or flying through it like me. Throughout all this there was a music playing in my ears. I remember thinking at the time that these were the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard and whilst I cannot recall the music I still feel stirred when I think about it. The emotion it released in me was really quite profound.

I'll finish my account before I start analysing; although it is the music I am interested here Nothing else really happened in my dream and I woke up a little later at around 12:30am. I could only have been asleep for about 20 minutes although I felt totally refreshed as if I had been asleep for hours. I felt so good in fact that I started planning reciting the next call the following evening - just to see what would happen next.

Sadly a door once opened swings both ways and the rest of the night was less fun. I kept waking up in a cataleptic state with the sense of entities moving closer and closer. The final straw came just before dawn when I awoke paralysed. I became aware of a large black bird or raven fly through my closed bedroom door and circle above my head. It persisted for quite some time - I had broken the paralysis and could still see it. The paralysis and the Raven worried me for a time after that mainly because it wasn't invited. As someone who regularly experienced sleep catalepsy and entity intrusion (although sadly never a succubus) I have got rather blasé about it now and work from the conclusion that whilst there are certainly neurological aspects to this - the brain switching of the body so we don't act out our dreams - there are also occult aspects and I believe that whilst paralysed we enter a highly psychic state although are also prone to our own psychology projecting things out as well.

Back to the music - I call it that but it was much more like a humming with a changing resonance. I have heard it twice more although only for very brief snatches, both in dreaming or whilst drifting off to sleep. In all three events there was a lot of vibration - either during the periods of catalepsy after my foray into the Enochian city, or in the lesser occasional whilst the music was playing.

Its all very reminiscent of the vibrations which are felt when people have an OBE (or approach one) - Robert Monroe wrote about this in his "Journeys out of the body" and again this is something I have felt on many occasions. Although I have never managed to induce a controlled OBE I have found that following Monroe's techniques can often get me to the vibrational state. This works (at least for me) using either the projection method Monroe describes in his book and using his binaural beat tapes.

Monroe's tapes use a process called hemi sync. As many people are aware people brainwaves tend to fall within certain states, alpha, beta, theta and delta as summarised below:

Delta 3Hz (sleep state)
Theta 4-7Hz (Dreamy states and meditation)
Alpha 8-12Hz (Awake and relaxed)
Beta 12-30Hz (Thinking and concentrating)

It has long been known by neurologists that the brain responds to certain beats and mimics them and this tends to put the mind of the listener in that state. The problem is the beat is below the threshold of hearing so we cannot physically head a sound of say 4 Hz. however Monroe discovered that if you play a sounds of say 50 Hz in one ear, and 54HZ in the other ear, the brain will "hear" the difference as a beat. This will entrain the brain leading it into the required state.

It is also possible to get to the paralysis state by using one of the Monroe Institute's hemi sync tapes, then stopping it halfway through and trying to sleep. Interestingly when I experimented with this my paralysis was never accompanied by a sense of presence as it often is when this happens naturally. At least this confirms that there is a neurological component to these experiences and whilst they are no less uncomfortable when artificially generated in this way, at least familiarity with this state has served to alleviate the fear factor such paralysis often induces.

Another example of (again Enochian) sounds affecting things came as an account told to the audience of one of the Psychic Questing Conferences talks by Andrew Collins. I don't have the full details on hand (I don't think he wrote this in a book) but he mentioned that prior to an investigation of a chapel he recited one of the Enochian calls. This seemed to have kicked off a lot of phenomena during the investigation so it seems that the experience was shared however implying that it is more than just a psychological phenomena.

I think we need to draw a contrast between the differences between using a tool such as hemi sync and magical chantings /Enochian. Hemisync (whilst effective) is really a neurological phenomena. It works on the brain, inducing it into adopting a particular state which assists thinking and feeling in that area. For example recreating an alpha state helping meditation to occur and persist with less internal interruptions.

The use of "words" such as Barbarous words, Enochian etc seems to work differently. When intoned, the vibrations work outwards setting parts of the body and even parts of the local environment vibrating to the tone. Magicians even take this further by visualising the vibrations extend out to the ends of the universe which is interesting because (assuming that if this didn't work it would have been omitted from instructions) this brings the vibration onto it on the astral as well.

Regarding the semantic nature of such names and calls, I am not too sure at this stage how important these it. The original instructions given to Dee was that the calls were supposed to be written down with the English translation below them - like so:

OL SONF VORSG GOHO IAD BALT
I Reign Over You, Sayeth The God Of Justice,

LANSH CALZ VONPHO.
In Power Exalted Above The Firmaments Of Wrath.

Perhaps we could ask the question as to whether this will have the effect of supplying a semantic content to the words? The calls themselves serving to open up the magician, tune the magical environment etc then the English "translations" shape the experiences. Presumably this is in line with the beliefs held by the magician performing the work.

Thinking back, going to a rock concert, it seems to me that is the vibrations rather than the sound or volume often contribute to its power. I think that this detail is perhaps behind the power in music that bands such as Fields of the Nephilim can create in their audience. I remember when my girlfriend and I first listened to Fields of the Nephilim "Mourning Sun" on cd when it came out. I actually turned off the cd when I started hearing it as I could feel the magical power rise in the air as the music played.

Their concert last year was even more imposing and the soundscape created was magically phenomena. With bands such as Nephilim who are versed in magic including (at a reasonably well informed guess) Enochian it seems that they have a (perhaps intuitive) understanding of vibration and its effect on people. In this sense they are the magical heirs to the shamanic traditions which practiced this kind of thing.

I think that the key to this is the nature of the resonance. Looking at a resonating object it seems that when it is resonating the actual vibration becomes a carried medium for things. In a sense the resonance itself (whilst it is dependant upon a medium to carry that resonance) becomes a separate object which is very soft in nature. Once could for example "beat" the resonance and use that to carry information. This strikes me as a perfect medium for perichoresis (as described by Kenneth Grant) to occur. Anything existing on a different dimension would be able to effect the resonance and use this as a medium of transfer in a similar way to how a sympathetic string in music is played - it is not directly played - rather it vibrates due to the effect of the vibration of another string which is played by the musician.

I think that there is a lot to explore here

Cheers Paolo