You can find Part 1 here.
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âOccult and Psychical Sciencesâ is a DK group started by Angmar to appreciate and discuss all things spooky. The title refers to a book from Angmarâs youth. No claim of scientific authenticity is made, nor is any belief in the supernatural required. Please be polite; this isnât the best place for general arguments about skepticism versus speculation. Personal anecdotes are welcome!
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âThe Tragicall Hiftory of Dr. John Deeâ is lightly fictionalized history based on genuine sources. I have tried to be accurate to the best of my ability, though simplifications and interpretations are inevitable. Error corrections welcome. For bibliography, in addition to links within the story, please see the end of Part 1.
Itâs a longish read. Sorry. But thereâs art. :-)
* Trigger warning : Rape/sexual coercion, section VI *
IV. The Catalyst (contâd.)
Magical investigations always trod the thin edge of legality, and Dee had never fully recovered from the horror of being charged, years ago, with treason. He knew the English church hierarchy detested him.
Further, he was worried again about his standing with the Queen. Dee had provided her with recommendations to put England on the same updated calendar used in continental Europe. It seemed like a done deal; at the last moment, the bishops blocked it. The Queen eventually sent Dee 20 pounds, a pittance, and passed by Deeâs home at Mortlake on her way to Oxford without stopping. She once more rejected Deeâs petition for a regular pension.
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Dee and the swashbuckling but penurious Polish count Laski met at the lodgings of the Earl of Leicester -- Elizabethâs current and controversial favorite, destined for a bad end.
Laski came to stay at Mortlake. Dee and his scryer Edward Kelley quizzed the angels about him.
Following their usual ritual, Dee would summon an angel into a mirror or crystal and question it; Kelley, the only one able to perceive the angel, relayed the answers.
Laski would become king of Poland within a year, the angels declared. An angel named Jubanlaedec upped the ante: Laski would one day rule twenty-one kingdoms, posssibly including England. Laski offered Dee a pension of fifty pounds a year, and more for Kelley, if they would return to Poland with him.
Dee had suffered a nightmare: himself as a disemboweled body (traitorâs fate), vainly trying to argue with various people, while the Queenâs Chancellor seized his books. It haunted him. Perhaps it motivated his decision.
Dee borrowed 400 pounds for the journey from a cousin of Janeâs, Nicholas Fromoundes, on the security of his house and garden. He obtained passports good for two years and packed his most essential books and equipment in four carts.
Jane had three small children to care for on their flight: Arthur, age four; Katherine, two; and Rowland, under a year old.
Also travelling with them were Edward Kelleyâs wife and small stepdaughter. Joanna Kelley had been the wife of a John Weston. Left a widow while their child Elizabeth Jane was still an infant, Joanna had married Kelley. The travelling group also included several servants.
As Laski had been utterly broke, Dee may have paid the fare for the Count as well. Under cover of darkness, they left Mortlake.
They sailed for Germany on September 21, 1583. After several days windbound off the coast, they endured a difficult crossing to the port city of Bremen, on the river Weser. There the group remained stuck for a week while Laski wheedled a loan from another aristocrat.
Then it was onward, eastward, to Lubeck. Then Rostock. Stettin in Pomerania. The Dees and Kelleys lodged at inns of varying quality, while Laski relaxed as guest in various luxurious homes of noblemen.
Finally at the start of February (1584) they made it to the Countâs home at Lasko, which turned out to be an isolated village. The angels assured Dee that a new series of communications soon would reveal the âCabala of Nature,â re-establish the original language of mankind, âand then cometh the end.â
But Laskiâs wife was not pleased. After two weeks, the angels demanded a major move southwards to the Polish capital of Cracow.
Renting a house there for six months, Dee suffered a serious bout of illness. Kelley, however, proceeded with alchemy. He produced a âred powderâ seemingly as described in old manuals, long sought with prayer, and promised by the angels: the thing itself, perhaps â the actual philosopherâs stone.
Meanwhile an abortive revolution shook Poland. The ringleader was paraded through the streets of Cracow and then beheaded. Laski mearly met the same fate.
The angels directed Dee and Kelley to move on -- without the Count -- to Prague â capital of Bohemia and seat of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.
God had abandoned Laski, who should no longer receive the divine secretsâŠ.They brought with them the angelic promises of the Last Days and the Book of Enoch, the key to all the worldâs mysteries. Surely the Emperor must listen, or be cast down from his throne.
(Parry, p. 178)
Also, Jane was pregnant again.
V. The Garden of Delights
Rudoph II, Archduke of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, King of Hungary, and Holy Roman Emperor, all in one, was by all accounts an oddity.
Just over 30 years old, Rudolph had eight years before succeeded his father on the Imperial throne. Recently he had removed his Court from Vienna, traditional seat of Holy Roman Emperors, to Prague.
A member of the House of Hapsburg, which dominated Europe for nearly 300 years, Rudolph nevertheless took little interest in power politics.
And despite having passed his teens at the Court of his devout relative Philip II of Spainâwho reinvigorated the Inquisitionâ Rudolph, like Elizabeth, tried to avoid religious strife.
Also like Elizabeth, he never married.
Rudolph appears to have been bisexual. He engaged in a series of relationships with male favorites and, at the same time, maintained at least one long-term mistress who gave him several children.
Rudolphâs greatest passion was for science, scholarship, speculation and invention. A lavish patron, he bankrolled scientific and scholarly investigaton, scholars, magical investigators, artists, highly skilled artisans, and religious innovators.
Hiding himself in his great palace at Prague, with its libraries, its âwonder-roomsâ of magico-mechanical marvels, Rudolph withdrew in alarm from the problems raised by the fanatical intolerance of his frightening nephew.
(Yates, p.17)
(Philip of Spain, though 25 years older than Rudolph, was indeed Rudolphâs nephew -- a great-grandson of Emperor Charles V, while Rudolph was only a grandson. Philipâs attack on England by the Spanish Armada was still in the future.)
While the official faith of the Holy Roman Empire was necessarily Catholic, and Rudolph had to acknowledge papal authority, he was no persecutor.
Prague became a Mecca for those interested in esoteric and scientific studies from all over Europe. Hither came John Dee and Edward Kelly, Giordano Bruno and Johannes Kepler. However strange the reputation of Prague in the time of Rudolph it was yet a relatively tolerant city. Jews might pursue their cabbalistic studies undisturbed (Rudolphâs favorite religious advisor was Pistorius, a Cabalist) and the native church of Bohemia was tolerated. The Bohemian church, founded by John Huss, was the first of the reformed churches of EuropeâŠ.Rudolphâs toleration was extended to...the Bohemian Brethren, a mystical brotherhood attached to its teachings.
(loc. cit.)
In other words -- the very opposite the situation in England -- the magical pursuits in central Europe were associated not with the orthodoxy of Catholic faith but with religious liberalism. And it was disapproval by the Pope that posed a risk.
Prague Castle was like Deeâs house at Mortlake, on an imperial scale.
Eight days of bone-jarring travel by coach landed the Dee-Kelley entourage in Prague. Dee found a place to stay with scholar. But gaining support from the Emperor was not automatic. And Dee needed it, now that Laskiâs pension pomise had evaportated.
At last he obtained a one-hour interview with Rudolf.
In this session, Dee maladroitly chose to conclude by demanding that Rudolph renounce his sins, or, Dee predicted, he would find himself deposed. A second, seemingly friendly interview followed with the Emperorâs closest confidant. And then silence.
Autumn passed.
In December began a confusing set of shuttlings. Dee bounced around central Europe like a struck billiard ball. Hungary â records are missing of what he did there, but it seems to have produced a cash advance. Back to Cracow.
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Prague again.
There, the Catholic hierarchy had already become suspicious of Dee and Kelley, whom they noticed had developed a following. The two tried to win favor by formally reconciling with the Catholic church. But the papal nuncio was openly hostile, and around the start of March 1585, it seems they panicked.
The two families abruptly pawned some property and fled the city. Yet, on the road south, Kelley reported a fresh vision: Rudolph would soon be gone, replaced within a year as Holy Roman Emperor by the Polish monarch, Stephen Bathory. Back the families trailed to Prague, where Jane Dee shortly gave birth to her fourth child, Michael.
Once more in Cracow, Dee sat for another royal interview, this time with Bathory, who was not impressed with either the angels or the alchemical powder.
Yet another return to Prague, and this time real trouble.
A seeker-type of personality named Francesco Pucci sat in on an angel session and afterwards denounced the proceeding to the Jesuits. Called in for questioning, Kelley refused to renounce his activities. He was denied communion â a serious event.
A particularly strange episode in Prague followed. The angels
...ordered Dee to gather the angelic conversations, starting with Kelleyâs appearance four years earlierâŠ.They filled twenty-eight folio volumes (âfour times sevenâ as Dee could not resist cabalistically noting)âŠ.
The angels ordered Kelley to burn all of these, together with their two books of alchemy, and the âpowderâ, the philosopherâs stone given by God, in the large tiled stove next to Deeâs oratory. With Dee in the next room, in Deeâs narrative Kelley suddenly saw an angel walking amongst the flames, collecting the books and powder. Dee later sacrificed loose charts and papers to the fireâŠ.Dee and Kelly should dismount their show-stones and hang up their holy table as a memorial. The angelic conversations were overâŠ.
[Then, nearly three weeks later] Kelley observed a âgardenerâ pruning trees below, who invited Dee to come down before mounting up to heaven in a Biblical âgreat pillar of fire.â They searched the garden and found three of the books they had âburntââŠ
The spiritual âgardenerâ reappeared, apparently visible to Dee because as the angel led Kelley back into the house, his feet seemed not to touch the ground âby a foot heightâ, and the doors opened before him. Reaching into the stove the angel passed most of the books over his shoulder to Kelley, before disappearing âin a little fiery cloudâ. Kelley returned the books to Dee, still waiting in the garden. Other books and the âpowderâ were returned on an unrecorded occasion.
(Parry, pp. 190 f.)
Net result: The âburntâ manuscripts mostly survive to this day. And despite the dramatic renunciation, a few months later angel dialogues would resume.
Dee continued to rove about, viewing glassworks and paying a visit to Leipzig, but Catholic orthodoxy was hardening against him and Kelley. Finally the hammer fell: the two were banished from Hapsburg lands, and other countries received a warning against them. An interview with the Lutheran prince Wilhelm IV in Kassel failed to produce an invitation.
Once again, though, a rescuer appeared. Willem Rozmberk, of a distinguished Bohemian family, shared Rudolphâs esoteric interests. Earlier he had befriended Dee. Now he invited Dee and Kelley to settle on his estate at Trebon. Rudoph agreed to allow it.
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VI. âCross-Matchingâ
They arrived at Trebon in September 1586. Their stay was to last more than two years.
Though angel conversations restarted, Rozmberk, it turned out, cared little for political prophecies or mystic languages.
Rozmberkâs real interest lay in alchemy. And it was not a theoretical intrest; he needed gold to buy armaments against local rivals.
In Prague, Kelley had tinted metals gold with a mixture that included crystals scraped from the inside of wine barrels -- what today is called âcream of tartar.â (Tartaric acid is still sometimes used in gold-plating metal without the need for electricity.) At Trebon Kelley became the dominant partner. Kelley got higher pay than Dee.
At this point Dee would just as soon have returned home. But he had doubts of his reception. Rumor hinted that Dee might be under indictment in England for illegal magic.
He wrote Elizabeth from Prague about Kelleyâs work with cream of tartar and sent a sample of the product, but got no answer. The Queen was not pleased with how Dee had left and stayed away so long. Her far-flung network of spies had kept an eye on Dee and Kelley all this time.
In late 1586 a couple of English merchant brothers who traded with Russia turned up at Trebon. They conveyed an offer of employment by the Tsar. In fact, however, the Garland brothers were Elizabethâs spies.
Kelley performed a demonstration for them: from an ounce and a half of mercury and a tiny amount of his âred powder,â he seemingly produced about an ounce of gold. The news was carried to England.
In the spring of the New Year (now 1587), a spiritual crisis arose.
The angels informed Kelley that he remained childless because he had defied their commands in marrying. Suddenly they insisted that Dee and Kelley âshould participate with one another.â
(Parry, p.197)
This meant, in modern terms, âwife-swapping.â
Apparently scandalized by the sexual implications, Kelley withdrew from scrying, demanding that Deeâs son Arthur should replace him...
(loc. cit.)
But Arthur, hardly eight years old, failed at the task. Kelley resumed.
On April 18 the angels contrasted Godâs infinite mercy, which could turn apparent sin into virtue, with manâs corrupt judgementâŠ.
To Deeâs amazed grief the angels confirmed that they meant âcommon and indifferent using of Matrimonial Acts amongst any couple of us fourââŠ.
A spirit called âBenâ warned them that unless they obeyed the sexual injunction immediately, the powder of transmutation would become useless. Kelley...rambled wildly until 2 a.m., telling Dee
he did evil to demand proof of this doctrine and
would be led prisoner to Rome,
that Elizabeth and Philip II would be destroyed from heaven,
that the Pope would dieâŠ.
a Habsburg would conquer EnglandâŠ
parts of the Book of Enoch
were false; Antichrist would appear soon;
Elijah and Enoch would return from Paradise; St. John the Evangelist still lived, invisibly, and had killed Julian the ApostateâŠ.
...(In a later session) Raphael demanded they obey
or receive Godâs plague...
...Dee remained skeptical because of Kelleyâs previous lying. Yet, he told a distressed Jane Dee, he accepted that their âcross-matchingâ must be done for Godâs secret purposes.
(op. cit., pp. 197 f.)
The heart clenches. Contemplate Jane Deeâs situation.
Caught beween moral imperatives: adultery was a major sin, yet religion also demanded obedience to her husband. Entrapped, through no fault of her own, by a man she had always mistrusted and disliked, who must have taken sadistic pleasure in this revenge. A protective mother, herself without friends or family to protect her; isolated in a foreign country; lacking resources to flee.
#MeToo
Joanna Kelley didnât like it either.
But the angels â or Kelley â prevailed.
Jane stipulated the couples must all share one bedroom, âthat I might not be too far from her,â Dee wrote in his diary. On May 3 the four of them all signed a âcovenantâ agreeing to obey the angelic demand âas Abraham did when he sacrificed his son Isaac.â And on May 21 they consummated the pact.
The angels, unbelievably, later demanded blow-by-blow details; and apparently this âcross-matchingâ went on for some time, though specific records are lost. The matter was kept secret and only uncovered long afterwards, via Deeâs papers.
Nine months later Jane gave birth (February 1588) to a boy who was christened Theodore (âgift of Godâ). As to which man was the childâs father, it is impossible to know.
At Easter, Jane received Communion; so we may hope confession and absolution relieved at least a small part of her mental suffering. Concerning Joanna we can only speculate.
Meanwhile, the Garlandsâ visit brought consequences. While Jane was expecting Theodore, another English spy insinuated himself into the household, persuading Dee to emply him as a childrensâ tutor. Letters arrived from England, urging their return. Kelley shrugged them off.
Dee and Kelley argued. They took to pursuing their alchemical researches in separate buildings. The Kelleys turned viciously against the Dees, alleging that the couple âdealt with the devil.â The couples patched up a reconciliation, but it was fragile.
When Theodore was a few months old, in summer 1588, the English courtier and poet Edward Dyer arrived on a mission from the Queen, pressuring Kelley, to no avail. In contrast, Dee found himself ignored.
Just as Kelley had earlier driven off and taken the place of Deeâs scryer, now Kelley had pushed Dee out of the spotlight and replaced him there.
Dyer was still with them in August, when storm and shot shattered the Spanish Armada. He departed alone; a followup by some servants of Dyer was no moe successful.
Rozmberk intended to hold on to Kelley. But he saw no further use for Dee.
At the beginning of the New Year (1589), Rozmberk notified Dee that he was no longer welcome on the Trebon estate. Rozmberk next moved Kelley back to Prague (the prospect of gold outweighing Rudolphâs former order of banishment). He gave the Dees 40 days to get out. Most of the Deesâ servants went with Kelley.
The Dees departed Trebon in March of 1589. It took them a month to wend their way all the way back to Bremen. There they paused.
Dee lacked confidence in his own welcome, absent Kelley. He had written the Queen announcing his own return, and got no response. Dee might also have been broke. He still had some idea that Kelley might turn up. He rented a house and waited, hoping to connect.
Late summer, however, brought bad news.
Kelley had been made a Baron of Bohemia. He gave no sign of any intention to return.
The Deesâ Bremen landlord served them with an eviction notice for nonpayment of rent. Their last remaining servant left them to join Kelley. Jane Dee was pregnant again and deeply depressed.
Finally Dee again encountered the courtier and poet Dyer, passing through port on his way to make yet another pitch to Kelley. Dyer may have provided Dee with passage-money home.
After a sea voyage of two weeks, the Dees were welcomed at the house of merchant and government official Richard Young. Dee obtained an audience with the Queen, who gifted him 50 pounds. Dee may not have realized he was being cultivated under the mistaken idea that he still might influence Kelley.
Jane was seven months pregnant when on Dec. 15, 1589, the family straggled back to the house at Mortlake they had left in haste six years before. To their shock, they found the building almost competely stripped of its contents. Of the precious library, next to nothing remained.
Nicholas Fromoundes, who had advanced their journey money, explained that various creditors of Dee had descended shortly after their departure, so that Nicholas was forced to sell some of the Dees' property. The unattended house had tempted thieves as well. His books and scientific instruments were scattered â some sold, some claimed for debts, some evidently pilfered.
Nor was Dee in any condition to pay back the 400 pounds he had borrowed from Nicholas on the security of the house. On the contary, Dee had to rent back his own house from Nicholas, borrowing another 100 pounds to do so.
Jane gave birth for the sixth time in February. They gave the little girl an angel name: Madimi.
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VII. Entanglement
The Dees, though bereft, could count themselves fortunate â compared with the Kelleys.
Kelley reached the pinnacle of of his career in late 1590. Renouncing English citizenship, he took a seat on Emperor Rudolfâs Privy Council.
Dyer, however, persisted in shuttling between London and Prague. He spent time assisting Kelley and reported seeing the magician create a small amount of âperfect gold.â But Kelley hid the secret of his magic powder.
Suddenly, in May of 1591, Kelley was arrested. The official charge was murdering a royal official in a duel. In fact, Rudolph seems to have felt that Kelley was dragging his feet on the promise of alchemical riches. The Emperor may have feared the alchemist might go home with Dyer.
Dyer and all the other English citizens in Prague were under house arrest. The Queen had to send another official to rescue her emissary. Finally, Elizabeth and her counselors wrote off Kelley.
In detention, Kelley may have continued his work. Eventually he won release; then â still not having produced much gold â was arrested again. His family tried and failed to spring him. Reportedly Kelley died in 1597 or 1598 from injuries sustained while trying to escape â or by another account, he poisoned himself.
So ended the convoluted rise and sudden fall of Edward Kelley; Dee would survive him by more than a decade.
After the low point of his return, Dee seemed to undergo a renascence. Some of his lost books proved recoverable. For other lost property, he received compensation. Once again he had clients, and sponsors at court; if he was not Edward Kelley, at least Dee had worked alongside Kelley, had much to teach, and might possess the best chance of anyone other than Kelley, to produce the philosopherâs stone. A former scryer, Bartholomew Hickman, returned to him. The old, pre-Kelley days seemed almost to be returning.
Deep sadness intruded with the death of young Michael Dee from a fever. His father caught the sickness, but recovered. A new little one arrived to comfort the Dees.
Finally, after still more pleading, and many administrative complications, Dee in 1595, aged 68, at last was appointed to a prestigious job with a steady income.
He became Warden of St. Cross College, a theological seminary in Manchester.
The family moved north.
Alas, as usual, the gift horse proved to be sorely spavined. Dee held the job for 10 years, each year another martyrdom.
Even within the Church of England there were theological disputes; the faculty of St. Cross was riven by bitter ones. The staff included some dominant personalities who liked contention more than peace, and had no mind to be bossed by some outsider.
The St. Cross finances were a shambles; Dee could not draw the expected salary; eventually he had to pawn his familyâs silver-plate. Finally, as Dee took logical steps to straighten a few things out, the faculty found one point on which they could all agree: Dee was anathema. One teacher sued him.
The place was âno college,â Dee wrote Dyer, âbut a labyrinth.â
Every action became stymied; the local aristocracy were polite but unhelpful; the Dee family found itself socially isolated; also, talk circulated.
For instance, Dee unwisely had drawn attention to his conjuring history by involvement with several attempted exorcisms. Past matters were raked up. Meanwhile he rarely entered a classroom. Was this a fit person to train Church of England priests?
The college gatehouse collapsed from lack of money for maintenance.
Another daughter was born to the Dees in Manchester, surviving only a few years. Young Theodoreâs life was cut short at 14.
Profoundly depressed, Dee spent most of his time away from the college, either in Mortlake or London, following other pursuits; after all, he was accomplishing nothing at St. Cross, and the family needed his clientsâ money. James I came to the English throne in 1603, a man who had written a whole book against witchcraft, and who tightened the law on conjuring. A commission formed to look into Deeâs administration of the college.
He was not in Manchester when in 1605, plague struck the city. It carried off Jane and two more of their children.
Dee abandoned St. Cross.
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XIII. Finis
In 1607 (settlement year of Jamestown, first permanent English foothold in the Western Hemisphere) Dee began another round of alchemical investigations at Mortlake. During his days of prominence, Dee had advocated for England to establish colonies in North America. Now that his national vision began to be realized, he had declined into near-obscurity, concentrating on alchemy and magic, no longer associating with geographers and explorers, no longer part of the dialogue at court.
He was rejoined by scryer Bartholomew Hickman. His daughter Katherine remained by his side, caring for Dee â like Antigone with Oedipus â to the end of his life.
And once again the angels -- as Dee approached the age of eighty, ailing too, with some undiagnosed bowel complaint -- the angels again directed Dee...to pack up and move to the Continent.
The details of his demise are blurred by time.
Parry relates that Dee in the next year detached himself from business affairs and sold the house. He may have planned on relocating to Marburg, Germany, but was unable to muster funds. Alchemy failed, again, to grant the gold he sought.
John Pontois, a London merchant and believer, invited Dee to lodge in his home. There, in late 1608, Dee sustained some catastrophic medical event. He survived for more than three months afterwards, passing away in the pre-dawn darkness of March 26, 1609. Pontois inherited the books and magical implements Dee had kept with him.
Until lately it was thought that Dee had perished the previous year at Mortlake. FindAGrave still states that he is buried there, in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin. But there is no gravestone, and parish records for the period are missing.
The life of John Dee frustrates any comfortable summing-up.
Perhaps a classic tragedy has the best epitaph for this scientist and scholar, who chose his specialty unluckily, believing stars and crystal-prisoned angels could pierce for us, with mystic insight, the haze of time to come.
The end expected comes not;
God brings the unthought to be,
As here we see.
--Euripides
The Bacchae
405 B.C.E.
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Odds and Ends
1. Deeâs oldest son Arthur, just four years old when the family first decamped to Europe, became in his turn a physician and alchemist. King James I recommended Arthur Dee to Tsar Michael I; and for 14 years, Arthur made his home in Moscow. Charles I of England later became a client. Arthur died in Norwich, age 72, leaving 13 children.
2. Kelleyâs stepdaughter, Elizabeth Jane Weston, remained in Prague. She became a well-known and respected composer of neo-Latin verse and was one of the first women in Europe, if not the first, to publish her poetry. Married to a Czech legal scholar, she bore seven children, dying in childbirth with the last.
3. How did Kelley make his samples of âperfect goldâ as described by the Garland brothers and Dyer? We donât know, but one trick cheaters used was a metal rod with one end hollowed out. The magician would pack the hollow part with powdered gold and plug it with wax. When this rod was used to stir a crucible of heated mercury, the wax would melt, releasing the gold. Gold dissolves in mercury, creating a gold-tinted amalgam. The mercury vaporizes from it with cotinued heat, leaving behind pure gold. (This vapor btw is extremely toxic.) When Kelley demonstrated for the Garlands, he gave them the crucible â but kept the gold.
4. More of Deeâs library and equipment survived than might be expected. Pontois preserved some. Richard Young ended up with boxes of books. A couple named Jones in the 1600s discovered his manuscripts, with some of his scrying tools, in a second-hand trunk with a trick latch and false bottom (shades of Alastor Moody!) The Jonesâs kitchen-maid used some of the pages to line pie plates before they were rescued by Oxford librarian Elias Ashmole. More of Deeâs books came to rest in far-flung libraries, where theyâve been identified by their hand-written notes and inscriptions. H/t to Us on a bus for this fascinating piece on a Dee exhibition; do not miss the fold-out geomtery diagrams!
5. Deeâs life and reputation are thought to have partly inspired at least three classic English plays: Christopher Marloweâs Doctor Faustus (about 1589), Ben Jonsonâs The Alchemist (1610), and Shakespeareâs The Tempest (1611).
6. His work has descended to animate generations of mystics. For instance, the Rosicrucians:
The second Rosicrucian manifesto, the Confessio of 1615, has published with it a tract in Latin called âA Brief Consideration of More Secret Philosophy.â This âBrief Considerationâ is based on John Deeâs Monas Hieroglyphica, much of it being word for word quotation from the MonasâŠ.
Futher, Johann Valentin Andreaeâs Chemical Wedding of 1616 in which he gave romantic allegorical expression to the themes of the manifestos has Deeâs Monas on its title-page, an the symbol is repeated in the textâŠ.
(Yates, p. 39)
7. There is another possible aspect of Dee that this account might be missing. It is certain that some connection existed in the Renaissance between putative angel conversations and secret codes. The Steganographia of Johannes Trithemius (ca. 1499) provides the paradigmatic case. Was there more to Deeâs angel dialogues, to his travels in Eastern Europe, and his encounters with Engish spies, than appears? Was he on some secret government mission that is not reflected in his private diaries? Or an even more secret non-government one? The mid-century historian Frances Yates (quoted above) felt sure of it. Her intuition of a wider Hermetic matrix, however, has not so far been proven, so I have gone with the more mundane interpretation.
8. An interesting contribution to neglected social history: Childhood in the World of John Dee, by Debby Kilroy.
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Many thanks to Angmar for downloading most of the art,
which I could not do on this tablet!
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