The Aethyrs, also called Aires, are thirty named orders in material associated with John Dee and Edward Kelley’s Angelical work. Lists on the web often jump directly from the three-letter names to modern visionary meanings. Dee’s manuscript and a 1912 printed name list preserve distinct stages of this tradition.
- Earlier book
- Dee’s Liber Scientiae, collected in 1585
- Named sequence below
- The Equinox I:8, 1912, p. 125
- Related earthly divisions
- 91 parts in 30 groups
All 30 Aethyr names, in order
This table transcribes the names and numbered order printed in The Equinox I:8 (1912), page 125. Its spellings are retained exactly for this witness. The last column gives the ordinal positions of the related earthly parts, calculated from the grouping described by Whitby. It is not a list of modern countries, spirits, or effects.
| Order | Aethyr | Part numbers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LIL | 1–3 |
| 2 | ARN | 4–6 |
| 3 | ZOM | 7–9 |
| 4 | PAZ | 10–12 |
| 5 | LIT | 13–15 |
| 6 | MAZ | 16–18 |
| 7 | DEO | 19–21 |
| 8 | ZID | 22–24 |
| 9 | ZIP | 25–27 |
| 10 | ZAX | 28–30 |
| 11 | ICH | 31–33 |
| 12 | LOE | 34–36 |
| 13 | ZIM | 37–39 |
| 14 | UTA | 40–42 |
| 15 | OXO | 43–45 |
| 16 | LEA | 46–48 |
| 17 | TAN | 49–51 |
| 18 | ZEN | 52–54 |
| 19 | POP | 55–57 |
| 20 | KHR | 58–60 |
| 21 | ASP | 61–63 |
| 22 | LIN | 64–66 |
| 23 | TOR | 67–69 |
| 24 | NIA | 70–72 |
| 25 | VTI | 73–75 |
| 26 | DES | 76–78 |
| 27 | ZAA | 79–81 |
| 28 | BAG | 82–84 |
| 29 | RII | 85–87 |
| 30 | TEX | 88–91 |
Select any linked name for an individual guide comparing the earlier manuscript setting with Crowley’s separately printed vision. 30 source-led guides are available, including every Aethyr from LEA through TEX.
Where the earlier material survives
The British Library catalogues Dee’s 48 Claves Angelicae at Sloane MS 3191, folios 1r–13r. It places the Liber Scientiae Auxilii et victoriae terrestris at folios 14r–31r and 52r–80v. The catalogue’s heading dates the first collected part to 2 May 1585 in Kraków. The gap in folio sequence matters: De heptarchia mystica occupies the intervening folios. Calling the whole bound volume a single undifferentiated “Enochian book” would hide these separate works.
The Liber Scientiae manuscript guide examines the folios and their place in the bound volume.
How thirty orders relate to ninety-one parts
Christopher Whitby describes the Liber Scientiae as detailing spirits governing ninety-one parts of the world and names for those places. In his account, the first twenty-nine Aethyrs each group three parts, while the thirtieth groups four. The arithmetic is 29 × 3 + 4 = 91. The ninety-one are therefore not ninety-one additional Aethyrs. They are a distinct set of earthly divisions arranged under thirty named orders in this scholarly reading of the text.
The numbered spans in the table make that structure inspectable without imposing today’s borders on a sixteenth-century geography. The searchable 91-name governor concordance supplies every printed name, its Aethyr group, and the spelling differences between a 1912 table and a modern Great Table reconstruction. A quick modern map of “Aethyr countries” would still require decisions about historical place names and changing geography that a name register cannot establish.
Why readers also encounter forty-eight Keys and nineteen Calls
Whitby describes eighteen fixed invocations in the Angelical material plus another invocation suitable for each of thirty Aethyrs. When the repeated form is counted once as a verbal pattern, readers speak of nineteen Calls. When its thirty named applications are counted separately alongside the eighteen, the count reaches forty-eight. The manuscript title 48 Claves Angelicae and the later convenient shorthand “nineteen Calls” thus answer different counting questions.
In the 1912 printing, the Aethyr name appears as the replaceable term in the Call of the Thirty Aethyrs. That observation does not mean each name has its own unrelated full text. The Keys and Calls guide traces the source distinction more fully.
What Crowley’s Aethyrs add
Aleister Crowley’s Liber Chanokh is a later occult summary of Enochian material. In its section on the thirty Aethyrs, it expressly leaves aside discussion of the corresponding parts of the earth and other assignments. His The Vision and the Voice is a separate visionary narrative: a 1911 edition is bibliographically recorded by WorldCat. Those editions are evidence for Crowley’s writing and reception of Dee’s material, not evidence that the visions happened as narrated or that Dee wrote Crowley’s interpretations.
Readers may find different spellings or spatial explanations in other editions and contemporary sites. The 1912 list spells five of the names ICH, KHR, NIA, VTI, and RII; other editions use different forms. Likewise, a modern description of a journey from the “outermost” to the “innermost” belongs to a particular interpretation; the manuscript’s named orders and earthly scheme need to be read on their own terms first.
Sources and further reading
- British Library, Sloane MS 3191 catalogue ↗Shelfmark, date, and folio ranges for the Keys and Liber Scientiae.
- Christopher L. Whitby, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, vol. 1, pp. 141–142 ↗Thirty Aethyrs, ninety-one earthly parts, and the grouping of 29 threes plus one four.
- The Equinox, volume I, number 8 (1912), p. 125 ↗The exact 30-name list printed on this page, including ICH, KHR, NIA, VTI and RII.
- Aleister Crowley, Liber Chanokh, section V, in The Equinox I:7 ↗Later occult summary that distinguishes its treatment from the earthly place column.
- WorldCat, 1911 Liber XXX Aerum / The Vision and the Voice ↗Bibliographic witness for Crowley’s later visionary text.