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Saulimedes' Enochian Chess Posts 5/6: Getting Started

Saulimedes' Enochian Chess Posts 5/6: Getting Started

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All right. You've read four posts about Victorian occultists, angelic communications, concourse captures, and throne-seizure mechanics. You're either intrigued, confused, or both.

Now you want to actually do something. Here's how.

OPTION 1: The Minimalist Approach (Cost: Nearly Free)

The Chess Variants website confirms: "Enochian chess can be played on the 8x8 board of FIDE chess."

You need:

  1. Two standard chess sets (thrift stores work)
  2. Colored tape or paint (red, yellow, blue, black)
  3. A printed board diagram with enlarged corners
  4. Rules summary (free at chessvariants.com)

Color-code your pieces by element. Mark your corners larger. You're playing.

The traditional equipment (paper stand-ups with Egyptian god designs, four-triangle squares painted in elaborate color schemes) is beautiful but unnecessary for learning mechanics.

OPTION 2: The Digital Approach

Steve Nichols' software makes the game "immediately playable" without physical construction. This solves the biggest problem: finding opponents who know the rules.

OPTION 3: Full Immersion

Purchase Zalewski's book. Construct proper boards. Paint attributions. Create god-form pieces. This takes months but is, in Golden Dawn tradition, part of the training.

Or just use colored tape. The game doesn't care.

WHICH ARRAY TO START WITH?

Pick "Air of Air & Water" for first games. It's most commonly illustrated.

Remember: Fire or Earth board associations require "...of Fire & Earth" arrays. Air or Water boards require "...of Air & Water" arrays.

THE TRADITIONAL STARTING PROCEDURE

For authenticity:

  1. Select elemental board (determines who moves first)
  2. Select compatible array
  3. Players throw dice; from highest to lowest, each chooses their color

The Chess Variants essayist notes this seems odd: "The player who won the die roll gets the privilege of choosing which army to operate (and whether or not that player gets the first move), but the 'winner' is then at the mercy of others in regards to choosing a teammate."

Poor game design? Or deliberate teaching about limits of individual agency? With the Golden Dawn, it's genuinely hard to tell.

TWO PLAYERS OR FOUR?

Start with two. Each controls two allied elements. Each color still takes its own turn, so you alternate.

Graduate to four when you have friends who've learned the system. Or just play all four positions yourself while conversing with invisible partners. Mathers did.

KEY RULES SUMMARY

  1. Kings captured, not mated
  2. Captured king = frozen army (blocking terrain)
  3. Queen leaps exactly 2 squares, jumps over pieces
  4. Pawns promote only after losing a pawn, only to their type
  5. Throne squares start doubly occupied; both captured if taken before either moves
  6. Concourse of Bishops/Queens at five special positions
  7. Seize ally's throne to control their army
  8. Prisoner exchange by mutual agreement

DO YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

No.

"The magical practices of the Golden Dawn are of no concern to the chess variant community."

Many play Enochian Chess purely as an interesting four-player variant. The throne-seizure rules, concourse captures, and frozen armies create emergent situations unavailable elsewhere.

The Egyptian gods are flavor. The game is the thing.

(Though if you find yourself having unusually vivid dreams after extended play, or noticing "concourse formations" in workplace politics, don't say you weren't warned. Or don't attribute it to anything supernatural. Your call.)

WHERE TO FIND OPPONENTS

  • Chess.com forums
  • Reddit's r/occult and r/GoldenDawn
  • Chess variant communities
  • Local esoteric study groups
  • Yourself, with an invisible partner

WHAT TO EXPECT

First games: confusing. The Queen's leap takes adjustment. Four armies feels chaotic. Frozen pieces create strange board states.

Fifth game: patterns emerge.

Tenth game: you have opening preferences.

Twentieth game: you understand why this has fascinated people for over a century.

Whether that fascination is "mystical insight" or "appreciation for elegant game design" or "both" is entirely up to you.

Whose move is it?

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