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Enochian Chess. Four-player team variant of the Golden Dawn. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Jun 9, 2004 08:01 AM UTC:Was the spelling 'priviledge' a peculiarity of the Order of the Golden Dawn, and if so, did it have any special significance? It certainly has the ring of Victorian punmanship.
I believe the spelling of 'priviledge' can be attributed only to Mr. Zalewski and not to any earlier Golden Dawn practitioner. As far as I can tell, there is no evidence to indicate any special significance of this word within the occult framework of the Golden Dawn. Personally I had chalked the whole thing up to differences between American and British spelling.
I had a question regarding the board used. You state in the rules that the corner squares of the board are twice the size of any other square, but the 'air board' depicted doesn't seem to have this trait. Is this a mistake? Or did the Golden Dawn also use coins at the corners of the board to represent the larger squares?
At the beginning of the game the corner squares are at double capacity, a king and another piece. The original Golden Dawn method squeezes two pieces onto a normal sized square. The point of my odd-shaped board is that actual play is helped by using enlarged corner cells. This allows players to avoid crowding on the corner squares. The oddly shaped board shown in the diagrams is one of my own making. I know of no one else that has used or proposed such a board for Enochian chess. One can play Enochian chess on an orthodox 8x8 board. The only difficulty is the rather cramped conditions that the king and his guest on the throne square must endure at the start of the game. My board merely gives the king the elbow room that a personage of his rank is due.
Completely misses the point (and most of the information). http://enochianchess.com http://enochia.net http://enochian.net Enochian Chess is a Divination game, the important factor being the Ptah placement (not even mentioned). Look up my information on Enochian Chess in David Pritchard's Variant Encyclopedia
My impression is that perhaps the author doesn't so much miss the point as tailors the game to remove the divination aspect, as you see in the caveat he expresses at the end of his piece, but thank you for the info.
I believe that the divination aspect was very important in historical chess variants. Nigel Pennick, in 'Games of the Gods' (1988), discusses this aspect in games generally. The dice chess variants are particularly suited for divination, it seems, such as Oblong Shatranj with die. --Mats
While Mr. Nichols is certainly entitled to his opinion, I thought I made my intentions quite clear in this article. The divinatory aspect of Enochian Chess bears little interest to me, nor did I consider it within the scope of this site. If, as Mr. Winther suggest, chess games throughout the ages have been used for occult purposes then I would love to see more on the subject, as it may shed some light on the development of the game. However I am hardly qualified to comment on this area.
Jeff, concerning divination, this phenomenon of how the divine
coincides with the profane is evident in religious history. Prof.
Rangachar Vasantha says that '...[c]hess was genetically linked to
magical and religious rituals, which have been known in India from
ancient times. Chess and other board games were derived from, and
the moves of the pieces are being closely related to the movements
of the celestial bodies and their numerical symbolism.'
We modern people tend to see chess as simply a martial game for entertainment. But such a simplistic view was unthinkable for the ancient people.Pavle Bidev discusses these issues and how Murray,
typically, rejected the notion that original chess was 'based upon
certain fundamental conceptions of the Universe.'
http://www.goddesschess.com/chessays/bidev1.html
Game depictions notoriously appear at holy places. They could, in some sense, have been deliberate sacrifices to the gods, and the spirits of the dead, for their pleasure and entertainment. Hence, the gods are drawn to the temple. It is similar to the well-known food-sacrifice. In the Christian context the encircling of the Fox, in Fox and Geese, could be viewed as an expression of the cloister community's continuous work to encircle Christ. I mean, it could be viewed as an unconscious expression. Thus, it is not wholly profane.
A good example of a 'holy game' was the Egyptian Senet. The '...stratagems of the game reflect nothing less than the stratagems of the gods, [and] senet, when properly understood, can reveal essential Egyptian religious beliefs about the afterlife.'
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Piccione/index.html --Mats
(link updated today)
We modern people tend to see chess as simply a martial game for entertainment. But such a simplistic view was unthinkable for the ancient people.
http://www.goddesschess.com/chessays/bidev1.html
Game depictions notoriously appear at holy places. They could, in some sense, have been deliberate sacrifices to the gods, and the spirits of the dead, for their pleasure and entertainment. Hence, the gods are drawn to the temple. It is similar to the well-known food-sacrifice. In the Christian context the encircling of the Fox, in Fox and Geese, could be viewed as an expression of the cloister community's continuous work to encircle Christ. I mean, it could be viewed as an unconscious expression. Thus, it is not wholly profane.
A good example of a 'holy game' was the Egyptian Senet. The '...stratagems of the game reflect nothing less than the stratagems of the gods, [and] senet, when properly understood, can reveal essential Egyptian religious beliefs about the afterlife.'
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Piccione/index.html
(link updated today)
From someone that has studied enochian, I perferred his articles approach. 'This is how one plays the 'game.' I've been a member of the yahoo group for enochian chess for about 6 mos. this article is much more frank in how the board and pieces are used. Thank you!
The 'Queen' in this game moves like an 'Alibaba'. It does say there is a special rule about queen capturing another queen and to look in 'rules' section, but i can't seem to see anything. Edit: oh capture might be 'concourse of queens' rule. Anyway, would this be the first appearance of an 'Alibaba' in a game? Anyone know of an earlier game with the 'Alibaba', or, any old game it plays in?
'My board merely gives the king the elbow room that a personage of his rank is due.' Not only is this extra corner square confusing, but in the Golden Dawn game Osiris starts the game standing off the board completely which indicates his status representing Spirit rather than a terrestrial element, so the extra square is completely unnecessary. He is transferred onto the corner square when moving, or when the piece in the corner square vacates, or when checked (both pieces on the square come under attack incidentally). Once either the King or sharing piece moves off the corner square they can never again share the same space. Regarding any 'non-divination' non-magickal rules, these actually exist historically in the Alpha Omega GD instructions and are called the 'Lesser Battle Formulae' so I can see little point inventing a new version of them? http://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-nichols/enochian-chess-book-three-alpha-et-omega/ebook/product-18597021.html Steve-Nichols.com
Rearding earlier use of Ali-Baba.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_shogi
In Ko shogi of 18th century, Taoist priest and Spiritual monk moves as Ali-Baba, but can capture only other pieces of these kinds by replacement, other pieces can be captured igui if adjecent to destination space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_shogi
In Ko shogi of 18th century, Taoist priest and Spiritual monk moves as Ali-Baba, but can capture only other pieces of these kinds by replacement, other pieces can be captured igui if adjecent to destination space.
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