I have deep respect for the sophistication of the system the Golden Dawn developed, but as a general rule, when I’m toying with alternative divination systems, I want to err on the side of simplicity and straightforwardness. Reason number 2: Enochian chess is fricking complicated. And while that’s all well and good, what I really want is a divination system based on regular, black-versus-white, King/Queen/Bishop/Knight/Rook/Pawn chess. There are three main reasons I feel like Enochian chess doesn’t scratch my chess-as-divination itch. It is, to say the least, rather complicated. Intended as a synthesis of everything else in the Golden Dawn system of magic, Enochian chess incorporates Tarot, astrology, the four elements, angels, and more. This was the ultimate divination system of the Golden Dawn: A four-handed chess game played on a specially painted elemental board designed after the Tablets of the Watchtowers in Enochian magic. If you’re the copyright owner and would like me to take the image down, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Before we get into my home-made chess divination system, though, I figured I should talk through two pre-existing variants. While I doubt I’ll ever use chess-based divination regularly (it does seem like a hell of a lot of work, when I could much more easily just pick up a Tarot deck), it’s a fun intellectual exercise. This is a thing I do when I get bored I turn things into divination. Given this context, it was, perhaps, inevitable that I would eventually try to make a divination system out of chess. As a casual player, I don’t have the experience or dedication it takes to move beyond basic proficiency. The path to success involves a lot of practice and a lot of lost games. This is largely, I expect, because I just haven’t put enough work into it contrary to what movies and TV would have us believe, almost nobody gets good at chess just by being really smart. But for whatever reason, those skills just haven’t transferred to chess for me.
I come across as the sort of person you’d expect to be good at chess, which is to say I’m really freaking smart and generally good at managing lots of moving parts. This tends to surprise people who know me. I’m an okay chess player, on the poor side of average, where I can win a game or two but I just don’t have the all-encompassing vision and foresight necessary to be really good at chess. I could probably get better, given practice and serious dedication, but it’s not something that’s ever come naturally to me.
My second confession, however: As much as I love chess, I’m really, really bad at it. I loved-and still love-the cleanness of it, the elegance, the strategy. When I was in elementary school (I don’t remember exactly when, but probably second or third grade), I signed up for my school’s chess club.
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