The Scarlet Letter
Volume VI, Number 1 | March 2001
Play With PELE
Notes concerning the Enochian Ring of Dr. John Dee
by Fr. Sharash
PELEI just came into possession of a full size Holy Table (fixed from the erroneous Casaubon version via Robert Turner). Having never used Enochian in the classic John Dee style, I am pretty excited at the prospect of doing so. It was fitting then that I soon found myself doing a re-reading of Mysteriorum Liber Primus by Dr. John Dee (translated by Clay Holden). Eventually, I got to the part describing the Ring.
Dee writes:
“It shewed to be a Ring of Gold: with a seal graved in it: and had a rownd thing in the myddle of the seale and a thing like a V, throwgh the top of the circle: and an L, in the bottom: and a bar ——— cleane throwgh it: And had these fowre letters in it, P E L E.”
I’ve seen this ring quite a number of times and have always wondered what PELE referred to (aside from a Hawaiian Volcano Goddess and a Brazilian soccer player). Benjamin Rowe, describing the ring states: “The letters PELE (Latin for: he will work wonders) were inscribed in the four corners.” The problem with this translation is that it’s not Latin, it’s Hebrew.
Agrippa mentions in Book III Cap.11 of The Occult Philosophy, “that place in Judges” where the word pele or peli is used in the sentence: “Nomine meum quod est (Peh Lamed Aleph)”; meaning, “My name, which is [Peh-Lamed-Aleph]”. All I found in Dowry-Raines was the word mirabile (miraculous) where Agrippa said PELE should be. Due to this, I thought for a little while that it might just be the English “Aleph” spelled out in reverse—you know—the way Hebrew is normally written, right to left.
My research lead me to an Old Testament Hebrew version of Judges 13:18. There it was: alp, which in any Hebrew-English dictionary or concordance means, “wonders or miracles.” Perhaps to avoid confusion, these letters should be substituted in Hebrew on the ring instead of the Roman letters PELE.
One very interesting thing I’ve noted on the ring is the center design. It is extremely curious that Dee, in the paragraph on the ring says to use a “thing like a V” instead of just “V” in contrast to the very specific “and an L”. But if one notes the way the circle cuts through the V and L; turning the design upside down, the “thing like a V” becomes a thing very much like an “A.” And most have probably already put two and two together and noted that this spells “AL,” a very well known name of God. Again, it is my feeling that this should probably be in Hebrew also.
As an aside, regardless of how Dee translated PELE; my favorite theory is that it may have meant originally to be transmitted as ELEP (Aleph Lamed Peh) in reverse. This makes sense if you consider how Dee spells EMETH, (Aleph Mem Tau), and how some of the Enochian “mysteries” were transmitted in reverse, such as the word SOYGA from the Book of Soyga. Soyga is ‘Agios’ (Greek for “Holy”) spelled backwards. Thus, it would be no surprise to me if PELE were a phonetic reversal of Aleph. The only thing keeping me from buying into this whole cloth is a further message from Michael concerning the ring:
“Wonders are in him, and his Name is WONDERFULL: His Name worketh wonders from generation, to generation.”
In any case, I’m pretty firm in my belief that however you decide to translate PELE, it should certainly be spelled correctly and in the proper language!
my wife asked me "but where's the circle?". after a couple of minutes of thinking about it the answer was obvious: it's the navel/belly button.
read also jim huston's comments:
The symbols on the garments were taken directly from Freemasonry, with the two main symbols being the compass and square. Also Masonic symbols are the honey bee, the all seeing eye, the upright and inverted pentagram, sun stones, moon stones and many others. Freemasonry took many of these symbols from Kabbalism which was 12-13th century Jewish mysticism which was started by the Hasidic Jews in France and Spain.
Albert Pike, in the 1800's recognized that the Masonic traditions came from Zohar (principle texts of Kabbalism), and through that channel he claimed a tie to the temple of Solomon.
>The Kabalah is the key to the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists. (Morals and Dogma, p. 626)
(He had it backward, the Gnostics predated Kabbalism by a thousand years.)
>Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers, the Alchemists, all the Anti-papal Thinkers of the Middle Age, and Emanuel Swedenborg. (Morals and Dogma, p. 741)
>All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah, and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic associations owe to it their Secrets and Symbols. (Morals and Dogma, p. 744)
Morals and Dogma was the book given to candidates upon receipt of the 14th degree of the Scottish Rite for nearly 100 years. Pike was commissioned by the Supreme Council to take the earlier writings and develop a guide for the Scottish Rite similar to "Duncan's Masonic Ritual and Monitor" by Malcolm C. Duncan (1866), which was the handbook for York Rite Freemasons. Albert Pike was the Grand Commander of the Supreme Council for 20 years.
Gershom Scholem, the foremost expert on Kabbalism in the world has written several books on the subject and has pin pointed the birth of Kabbalism. While Kabbalism was initially conceptualized and has very early roots in France with the hasidut, however the development and writing was done in Gerona and Castile Spain and was not disseminated throughout Europe until there expulsion from Spain in the 14th Century.
Like Pike, Gershom Scholem has also recognized the influence of Kabbalism on Freemasonry.
Joseph Smith was a student of Kabbalism studying under Alexander Neibaur. He had also become a Mason. He felt he had it all under control. The Masons were in part an outgrowth Kabbalah traditions and Kabbalah claimed links back to Adam. Freemasons claimed links back to the Temple of Solomon.
A number of years ago a Mormon intellectual informed us that it was his understanding that one of the top scholars in the church had pointed out to church authorities that the words pay lay ale or pe le el could be translated from the Hebrew language as "mouth to God." This, of course, could be considered to be a condensed version of "Oh God, hear the words of my mouth!" That this translation is plausible can be confirmed by consulting Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, word #6310—"peh... the mouth." The Hebrew letter Lamed (transliterated in English as l) is often added on the front of words and means "to, at, for" (Hebrew Primer and Grammar, by C. P. Fagnani and A. B. Davidson, page 50). Word #410 in Strong's Concordance is "ale... God (god)." Kyle D. Williams has also pointed out to us that the Biblical name "Lael," found in Numbers 3:24, is translated by Strong (#3815) as "(belonging) to God." At any rate, we were told that the Mormon scholar was so convincing in his presentation to the leaders of the church that they changed the wording of the temple ceremony to "Pay Lay Ale."
In connection with this priesthood JS chose a new name - Baurak Ale which is a transliteration of a Hebrew name, also Baraqi'el, Barak-el, Barkayal or Barakel. This is a Kabbalah name of power. This was the name of 1 of the 7 archangels and 1 of the 4 ruling seraphim. He was known as the "Lightning of God" angel of the month of February and ruled Jupiter. JS was placing himeslf as a equal to Melchizedek as one of the archangels. It is again Hebrew, not the "Adamic language."
I don't have the translation of the third. I do have some further information. The reason that some of the words are not in the standard Hebrew dictionary is that at that time, Smith was learning Sephardi Hebrew from Joshua Seixas, which is a fairly minor dialect.
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