Calls three to six become the four principal tablet Calls in Crowley’s 1912 layout. That layout provides a readable organizing scheme while remaining a later interpretation of the manuscript series.
- Sequence
- Third through sixth Calls
- 1912 order
- Air · Water · Earth · Fire
- Manuscript
- Sloane MS 3191
Calls in this group
Motifs are original summaries of the 1912 English rendering. Assignments are from the same edition’s later apparatus.
- 03A circle holding twelve kingdomsAir tablet and Air of Air
- 04Southern thunder and the second angleWater tablet and Water of Water
- 05Olive Mount and lamps of comfortEarth tablet and Earth of Earth
- 06Nine spirits in the fourth angleFire tablet and Fire of Fire
Four very different English images
In the 1912 English rendering, the third Call describes a divine circle bearing twelve kingdoms, some linked to life and others to death. The fourth looks southward and speaks of thunder, a second angle, numbered powers, and increase. The fifth shifts to the Olive Mount, pillars of gladness, lamps, and comfort. The sixth names nine spirits of a fourth angle in a watery firmament, mixing warning for the wicked with benefit for the righteous.
An elemental shorthand such as “the fire Call” can be misleading when detached from an edition. The imagery inside a Call may mix fire, water, earth, numbers, and judgment. The elemental title in a printed ceremonial system is an assignment of use, not a complete description of the Call’s vocabulary.
The 1912 four-tablet arrangement
The 1912 Equinox article places the third with the Air tablet and Air of Air, the fourth with Water and Water of Water, the fifth with Earth and Earth of Earth, and the sixth with Fire and Fire of Fire. The text also says these Calls may be used in invocations of the Tablet of Union. That two-level statement is easy to flatten into a modern chart where each number appears to have one timeless, exclusive meaning.
The arrangement shows how an influential later occult writer organized the material. The British Library catalogue describes Dee’s folios, but it does not present them in this 1912 table of elemental correspondences. The two witnesses document different stages in the history of the Calls.
The four Calls in the wider sequence
The third through sixth Calls occupy four consecutive positions in the numbered series. Their varied images belong to the printed English rendering, while the Air, Water, Earth, and Fire labels describe the ceremonial roles assigned in the 1912 Equinox article. Dee’s autograph Keys preserve an earlier stage of the series; the elemental correspondences reflect a later arrangement.
The next twelve Calls are grouped by elemental subangles in the same article. After the four principal tablet assignments, Calls seven through eighteen fill the remaining pairings of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. Each principal tablet therefore receives three additional subordinate combinations in that scheme. This creates a recognizable pattern in the 1912 book without making that arrangement a heading in Dee’s sixteenth-century manuscript.
Sources and witness notes
- British Library, Sloane MS 3191 catalogue ↗Autograph volume, forty-eight Keys at folios 1r–13r, dated 13 April–13 July 1584.
- The Equinox, volume I, number 8 (1912), The Forty-Eight Calls or Keys ↗Original-issue article on printed pages 99–127; the Calls begin on page 103 and the Aethyr Call ends on page 127. Its English renderings and later elemental assignments supply the summary table.
- Christopher L. Whitby, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, vol. 1 ↗Scholarly analysis of the manuscript books, Calls, thirty Aethyrs, and ninety-one earthly parts.