This is the long-awaited paperback edition of the original 1978 hardback by Askin Publishers, Chiswick, England, now out of print and obtainable only second-hand from occult bookshops at extortionate prices. Donald Clarence Laycock was a colleague of mine, a specialist in the languages of Papua-New Guinea by trade, who had many side interests, the occult being one of them. This review is based on my copy of the original Askin hardback, which Don presented me, complete with a dedication in Enochian, for having written the software for the dictionary. Enochian is the "Angelic language" of the magical texts ("calls") collected by Dr John Dee, astrologer to Elizabeth I, through his medium Edward Kelley, the first of which starts: "Ol sonf vors g, goho Iad Balt" (I reign over you, says the God of Justice). The Enochian calls have been used by occultists for ceremonial magic, from Aleister Crowley to Anton Szandor La Vey of Satanic Church fame. Laycock was able to reconstitute the pronunciation of Enochian, as Kelley must have uttered it, from his knowledge of Elizabethan English. The bulk of his book, some 180 pages, consists of an Enochian-to-English (120 pages) and English-to-Enochian dictionary (60 pages), with Enochian pronunciation, variants and their sources. This is preceded by some forty pages entitled "ENOCHIAN: Angelic language or mortal folly?" where Laycock, after introducing John Dee, Edward Kelley and the mechanisms of the Enochian revelation, analyzes the language in thorough scholarly fashion, alphabet, pronunciation, grammar, syntax, and discusses other occultists' opinion, analyses and use of Enochian. This part features some black-and-white reproductions, including the Sigillum Emeth, a fac-simile of one of Dee's scrying sessions, and some magical alphabets.
The book concludes with the complete Enochian corpus and a comprehensive bibliography. An unusual book indeed: utmost scholarship applied to the occult with an open mind.