Dr John Dee and Edward Kelley (2024)

Now you see him, now you don’t. What connection was there between Merlin and John Dee?

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They both had Welsh antecedents, though Merlin’s (name derived from the Welsh Myrddin) go back much further, quite possibly into Antiquity. Dr John Dee’s were that he was born to Rowland Dee, of Welsh descent, and Johanna (daughter of William Wild.) The surname ‘Dee’ reflects the Welsh ‘du’ (grandfather was Bedo Ddu of Nant-y-groes, Pilleth, Radnorshire.) Dee claimed descent from Rhodri the Great, 9th century ruler of Gwynedd, and constructed a pedigree accordingly. Like his father, Dee was a courtier and advisor to a ‘Prince,’ though he lived in a problematic time when one’s religious affiliations, if they happened to be of the wrong kind, could get you into serious trouble. Nevertheless, his connections at Court brought him honour and status and even an income, albeit, an unreliable one. If he had been aware how people would draw a certain similarity (in later ages) between himself and the figure of Merlin, he would certainly not have relished what people believed of Merlin: that it was written of him that he was the offspring from the union between a demon father with a human mother. It meant being a cambion and it was the equivalent of being a changeling.

Merlin would sometimes be at court (most notably King Arthur’s) fulfilling some significant task or help fulfil someone’s destiny. Dee not surprisingly has been associated with Christopher Marlow’s Faust, Shakespeare’s Prospero, and yes, Merlin. Merlin the Enchanter, Merlin the Magus. And Dee’s association with these figures would have been totally justified, and possibly help evolve them to greater understanding and potency, if he had done what regrettably he didn’t do; what was in fact expected of him: if he had at least made a beginning opening a portal with the precious Angelic Keys he was given with the help of his scryer, Edward Kelley. But until the very end Dee is still asking: “What shall I do with all this?”

It has already been demonstrated Dee was conflicted and that he could not, would not, reconcile or perhaps it would be more correct and desirable to say, balance, ‘left hand brain’ knowledge: science, mathematics, with ‘right hand brain’ knowledge: the esoteric, the occult, alchemy, and magic. Dee would – and did – read a thousand books or grimoires, on Alchemy and other Occult subjects, notably the Kabbalah. The knowledge he gained stayed all in his head, however. It never approached being ‘hands-on.’

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At this point it may be appropriate to point out what is not well-known, and not often mentioned: that John Dee was in fact an ordained priest, and a Catholic one at that.

[The following extracts are from Glyn Parry, The Arch-Conjuror of England: John Dee (Yale 2011), pp.28-9]:

“By late 1553 John Dee faced multiple problems. Mary’s regime was already purging the Church of married, Protestant or otherwise undesirable clergy. To make matters worse, if that were possible, Dee’s patron the Earl of Pembroke had been deeply implicated in Northumberland’s plot. Pembroke so ostentatiously re-invented himself as a loyal Catholic that a Protestant pamphlet described him as a ‘hardened and detestable papist.’

John Dee’s need to ingratiate himself with Mary’s regime coincided with his patron’s requirement for ‘conspicuous orthodoxy’ amongst his servants. So with Pembroke’s active encouragement, Dee took the necessary step of becoming a Catholic priest. His ordination has been overlooked, although it appears in Bishop Edmund Bonner’s ordination register. Pembroke paid £20 towards Dee’s taxes to the Pope …

Very unusually, Dee took all the six degrees from first tonsure to the priesthood on a single day, 17 February 1554, which required Bonner’s personal approval [he may have pulled strings because he and Dee believed they were distantly related.] In November 1555 Bonner publicly acknowledged Dee as his chaplain.”

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Right at the start of the ‘Angelic Conversations,’ after Dee had acquired a new scryer, one Edward Kelley or Talbot as he first called himself, there was trouble. There had been trouble before, with scryer Barnabas Saul, Kelley’s predecessor. Dee had caught him having traffic with dubious or even evil spirits, and banished him.

The following extract tells us much about Dee’s lack and even distaste of ‘hands-on’ experience when it comes to practising magic:

Anno 1582. Martij die. 10. hora 11¼ Ante meridiem. Saturday

URIEL tells Dee (via Kelley):

UR: There is a spirit, named Lundrumguffa using you who seketh your destruction, in the hatred of men, in the hurt of thy goods. Discharge him tomorrow with Brymstone. He haunteth thy howse, and seketh the destruction of thy dowghter. His pretence was to haue maymed thee in thy Sholder the last night, and long ago. Yf thow do not dischardg him to morrow, he will hurt, both thy wife and thy dowghter. He is here now. Giue him a generall discharge from your familie and howse. He will seke Sauls death, who is accursed.

Δ (= the sign Dee uses for himself): I know no means, or art to do this by. For I did burn in flame of Brymstone, Maherion his name and Character, whan I fownd Saul priuilie dealing with him (which manner of wicked dealing I had oft forbydden him) and yet he cam after, and wold haue carryed Saul away quick: as Robert Hilton, George, and other of my howse can testify.

UR: The cursed will come to the cursed.

Δ: I beseche you to discharge him: and to bynde him somwhere far of, as Raphael did (for Thobias sake) with the wycked spirit Asmodeus.

UR: But Thobias did his part. Art is vayne, in respect of God his powre. Brymstone is a mean.

Δ: Whan shall I do this?

UR: To morrow at the tyme of prayers.

Δ: Gloria Patri et filio et Spiritui Sancto,

sicut &c.

Amen

But nothing much seems to happen. As an ordained priest, Dee should have learned at least the basics of how to exorcise evil spirits or elementals – all his reading in magical lore besides!

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Than presently cam in One, and threw the brave spirit down by the sholders: and bet him mightyly with a whip: and toke all his robes, and apparell of him: and then he remayned all heary and owggly: and styll the spirit was beaten of him, who cam-in after him. And that spirit, which so bet him, sayd to the hearing of my Skryer,

Lo, thus are the wycked skourged.

Δ: Are you Uriel, who speaketh that?

Uri: I am he. Write down and mark this: for it is worthy of the Noting.

This was thy persecutor Lundrumguffa. I browght him hither to let thee see, how God hath ponished thy enemy. Lo, thus, hath God delt for thee: Lo thus haue I delt for thee: Thank God. Δ: Blessed be his holy name; and extolled, world without ende.

E.T: He drew the wycked spirit away, by the leggs, and threw him into a great pitt, and washed his hands, as it were, with the sweat of his own hed: for he seamed to be all in a sweat.

URIEL, the Arch Angel of Earth, shows a very hands-on approach in banishing Dee’s persecutor, Lundrumguffa. He gives him a good hiding, strips him bare down to his ugly hairy self and throws him into a ‘great pit,’ afterwards washing his hands with his own sweat.

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There is however one way in which John Dee was indeed ‘a kind of magician,’ except ironically not the kind he is so readily and erroneously associated with: the Merlin-type Magus discussed above. His would have been a magic produced by a kind of clever mechanics he would have understood or even invented as a scientist-mathematician. He had not been at Trinity College long when Dee had created a mechanical flying beetle for the stage production of Aristophanes’s “Pax.” Apparently it was so realistic some people thought it the work of the devil. But the magic lay all in the ingenious use of pulleys and mirrors to create the illusion of ‘the flying scarabeus beetle.’ In Florence in an earlier Age Leonardo was pulling off similar tricks except on a grander scale.

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A century before, in his book ‘The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara (1570)‘ Dee mentions an “art mathematical” called “thaumaturgy… which giveth certain order to make strange works, of the sense to be perceived and of men greatly to be wondered at”. And so, in the 16^th century the word thaumaturgy entered the English language, meaning miraculous or magical powers. ‘Mathematicks’ then referred not merely to the abstract computations associated with the term today, but to physical mechanical devices which employed mathematical principles in their design.

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Δ

(Talk for Treadwell’s, 5^thDec 2016)

On the 23^rdof May 1587, the last spiritual action between John Dee and Edward Kelley and the Denizens of the Enochian Realms, was recorded. Since then a mountain of papers and books, from the academic to the more, let’s say, ‘personal gnosis’ variety, has sprung up on the subject of ‘The Angelic Conversations,’ as they are generally known.

Dee’s copious diaries alone, from the seven years that he and Kelley received their spirit visitors, have provided ample material for academics and would-be magicians and occultists alike, to delve into and linger over. Meric Casaubon transcribed it in his‘A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee . . . and Some Spirits’of 1659, although it is estimated that up to a third of the original material has been lost. What survives is spread between the Ashmolean, Oxford, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, and the British Library, here in London.

At the one end, academics want to divorce John Dee the brilliant Renaissance scholar, and scientist, even secret agent – Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Eyes’ or Noble Intelligencer – from John Dee the magician and occultist, who sought to communicate with Angels. This was a throw-back to the Middle Ages, they say, an unfortunate lapse in taste and discernment, and how could a man of his intelligence waste his time with such mumbo-jumbo?! This attitude shows up something of the split in Western Culture between science and religion, or the intellect and spiritual belief. Scholars of the Esoteric may have a fascination with John Dee’s supernatural interests, but only until their formidable vocabulary of words and ideas have shown that even exceptional people like Dee could suffer from some inadequacy or emotional need and distress, when they think they can speak with Angels.

At the other end there are those who have no qualms about Enochian Magic, occultists and so-called magicians. The magic word ‘magic’ alone fulfils a need and desire that has long been denied, repressed, or severely punished, by the Church in the Past, or rational materialism in the Present. For such as these, the Enochian Corpus presents an opportunity to fully engage with ‘the Romance of Sorcery.’ They may write books that have the word ‘Enochian’ in the title. It has a certain status in the world of the occult, and even beyond. It’s a catchphrase, almost a magical formula by itself. In addition to a few added comments, opinions and theories by the author at the beginning and then interspersed throughout the text, there is often wholesale copy-pasting of large portions of Casaubon’s manuscript, or from the Golden Dawn’s Enochian syllabus, or even Crowley’sThe Vision and the Voice, to which I’ll come back later.

An example: Donald Tyson wrote a book calledEnochian Magic for Beginners, in which he shares his belief that the Angels had an apocalyptic agenda. He reads certain words and phrases, such as Judgment, Seal, deliverance of the Keys, the slow and tortuous way the Enochian letters were conveyed – backwards! – phrases that seem to imply veiled threats (such as“for if we depart, thou shalt become a dark sellar,”which meant a dark house, a mad house.) All this seems to alert him that there’s something ‘apocalyptic’ going on. The archaic words and phrases may remind him of The Bible, specificallyRevelation, with its judgements and opening of Seals in Heaven, and coupled no doubt with his own view of life and the world, he interprets what he thinks is being played out as a coming apocalypse. The title of his bookEnochian for Beginnershowever, is misleading; he borrows heavily from the Golden Dawn’s Enochian syllabus, which was hardly for beginners. Besides, he copies a considerable amount of Casaubon’s text, which is a facsimile of what had survived at the time of what actually passed between Dee and Kelley and the Angels. It’s also not an easy work. For ‘beginners’ a book like Lon Milo Du Quette’sEnochian Vision Magickis far more suitable. The cover reads:“An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley,”and that is what it is. It gives you some of the history. It gives advice, practical and otherwise. It’s full of illustrations, such as the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, and other Enochian sigils and graphs, and advice on how to make your own. And you can even read about some of Du Quette’s own practice.

The question of language of course has played a significant role right from the start. The German-born humanist and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), had expounded on the metaphorical nature of the Word, the Logos, and Man as Magus, with language as a vehicle of Divine Power. Speech was capable of magical properties. But what kind of speech? Aleister Crowley would comment on the Enochian language as possessing“sonorous, stately and impressive”qualities.

It should be remembered that Dee & Kelley themselves never actually referred to the strange language that was revealed to them by their spirit-visitors as ‘Enochian,’ but simply ‘Angelic,’ and they conceived of it as amedicina Dei, something which had been lost since The Fall. The descriptor ‘Enochian’ has been added since, largely because it has been claimed – and was clearly believed by Dee & Kelley – that this was the Sacred Tongue which God Himself had spoken with Adam, that had been used for the naming of all parts of Creation in Eden. Enoch, seventh in line of the Old Testament patriarchs, according toGenesis, was said to be the last man to have actually walked and talked with God, before He then“took him up into Heaven”– apparently leaving behind a much-fabled (and, of course, lost)Book of Enochin which these conversations and their various revelations were recorded. If that original language could be restored, it would possess a unique quality to refer directly to the things in the world, naming their very essences.

The Enochian language was delivered in two forms. Firstly, there was a written alphabet of 21 curious characters, unlike anything anyone had seen before. Apparently a vision of this Heavenly script was revealed in the glass, in letters of radiant gold, no less, which Dee & Kelley were then able to trace. Then there is Enochian as it is spoken, and that is a rich and powerful ‘Barbarous Tongue’ indeed. The actual rules of pronunciation can seem fiendishly complex, and it appears from their records that even Dee & Kelley struggled to get it exactly right – all of which has led to some quite divergent approaches and attempts by magical scholars since.

Casaubon’s document, the papers that weren’t lost, is definitely worth studying, as it provides invaluable insights into what actually took place during those seven years. Casaubon, by the way, did not write in admiration or support of Dee, far from it – he was suggesting the good Doctor was having dealings with the Devil, and he wrote in order to put people off following in his footsteps! It may be one reason why in the centuries after Dee’s death, the Enochian Keys were barely even used.

It would be The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn who would do the most to re-introduce Enochian, regarding it as the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of their magical syllabus – but hardly for beginners. You were only allowed to practice their brand of Enochian Magic if you were well-advanced into the order. Someone who was rushing ahead, acquiring grades likes nobody’s business, was, of course, Aleister Crowley. Grades gave you initiatory status, but Crowley deeply craved initiation for himself alone, some feat that would set him apart from everyone else, something more than an initiation into an order. He decided that invoking the 30 Enochian Aethyrs would take him there.

On November 17th 1909, Crowley and his apprentice and lover, Victor Neuburg (who had recently become Frater Omnia Vincam of theArgenteum Astrum; there is little doubt that Neuburg looked to Crowley as his guru), set out to walk into the Algerian desert with only a few provisions. Crowley says that he had no particular magical objective in mind; they merely wanted to rough it a bit, and enjoy the austere experience of sleeping under the stars. He writes he had,“by chance”(!) in his rucksack one of his early notebooks which happened to contain a transcription of the Nineteen Calls or Keys obtained by Dee and Kelley during their Angelic Conversations.

And so he and Neuburg set about scrying the 30 Enochian Aethyrs, with Crowley as Seer and Neuburg as Scribe. Richard Kaczynski, in his definitive biography of Crowley paints this picture:“Crowley and Neuburg headed out of Aumale into the heart of Algeria. Crowley wore a robe and turban and read from the Koran as they marched across the desert. Neuburg’s head was shaved except for two tufts of hair that he twisted into the likeness of horns. Thus Crowley led his familiar Djinn about on a chain, to the amazement of the locals.”

He was not motivated to try and comprehend their profound nature and mystery; he was led far more by his overweening ego and a marked lack of respect, as well as his irrepressible inclination to blaspheme or break taboos whenever possible.

For instance, when Crowley arrives at the 6^thAethyr, MAZ, he does the usual: he gives the ‘Cry’ (as he calls the 19^thKey or Call), without distinguishing between the three Denizens. He makes the same error many who use the Enochian Keys make, or rather he was the first, and others followed. The majority of the thirty Aethyrs have three Denizens or Messengers. When you don’t take the trouble to address each of them individually, you may perhaps access a spiritual ‘location’ if you like – something that’s akin to the Golden Dawn’sRising on the Planes, exploring the paths or spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life for instance – or do a spot of ‘remote viewing,’ where you travel through a kind of fantasy land of your own making when you have managed to switch off your controlling conscious mind. But unless you invoke and address each Denizen of the Aethyr in question, you will not get any meaningful exchange. It is also better if there are at least two of you when it comes to true communication. There is a protective membrane between our realms, theirs and ours – think of it as an aethyric fire-wall – and to establish proper contact there must be a balance of two. It’s the only way to keep the channel open and stable.

The three Messengers in the 6^thAethyr are SAXTOMP, VAVAAMP and ZIRZIRD. They are robed initiates, hermits on the edge of the Great Sea of Time. Crowley doesn’t know this, because he hasn’t taken the trouble to call each one of them separately. He finds he cannot get through: the veil, the membrane, is too thick. He tries every trick he knows, but it’s no good. He hears a voice, suggesting to him that he should try and open his understanding to wisdom. What does he do after that?The Vision and the Voicetells us:“Accordingly, I wait in a certain magical posture which it is not fitting to disclose.”The footnote says: Beardsley’sBathyllus?Even if you don’t know the Beardsley drawing it refers to, it’s fromLysistrata, and shows a corpulent naked man with a finger up his anus. You may be familiar with the expression“pull your finger out,”meaning that if you have your finger in that particular orifice, you’re indicating you have other things on your mind than the subject under review. That’s typical Crowley – the Angels keep him waiting and suggest he“open his understanding to wisdom”– and he shows them what he thinks of that. This happens time and time again. But then, for Crowley,“the key of joy is disobedience”–“the word of sin is restriction,”after all.

He was also taking drugs: hashish, opium, and mescaline. Drugs may open you up to the Spirit-realm, but what you get tends to be a jumble: you may get something from the other side, you may see something, but it will be mixed up with your own fantasies, obsessions, fears, desires, projections. And when you come back, when the drugs stop working, it’s likely you won’t be able to tell the difference. You may not even remember much at all – you may just have had a trip.

Let us turn now to the lesser-knownHeptarchia Mystica. It was ‘discovered’ in a hidden drawer, 54 years after Dee’s death, and therefore is not included in Casaubon. It’s a system of Hierarchical Planetary Magic, transmitted early, mostly in 1582, though it was revised somewhat the following year. Dee worked it into a book he calledThe Mystical Rule of the Seven Planets. There are forty nine names, seven for each Planetary Court. (Even the Planets discovered later, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, have a current in there: Neptune is a ‘higher octave’ of Venus, for instance.) Each of the seven Planetary Spheres was assigned a King, a Prince, and five Ministers. What is also very marked, and Crowley is no exception, is that there is a general assumption that most of the Angels are male, which is not the case at all. They tend to be androgynous, and can appear as male or female – or even hermaphrodite. Having scryed and visited each Court and each Denizen thereof in turn with my partner, I can assure you there are a good proportion of females among them, including monarchs! But apparently they all appeared to Kelley in the crystal as male, probably because that is what he would have expected, or because he could not have born the true sight of them, as some are spectacularly exotic or strange indeed. They also came dressed in Elizabethan attire, not to disconcert Kelley (and Dee) too much. He was already having a difficult enough time of it. When the Mercurial Prince, BRORGES, appeared to him, there were“ugly fyrie flames”coming out of his sides. Again, this is not fire the way we know it, but Plasma Energy. Kelley experienced it as fire, though, and it freaked him out.

The Planetary Angels also instructed Dee and Kelly to make a number of magical items: the Ring, the Holy Table, the Ensigns of Creation, the Lamen, and the Sigillum Dei Aemeth. You can make them yourself. They don’t have to be of silver or gold, or other special materials. They can be made of board, or even drawn on paper. What matters is what is on them. They are about building a structure astrally, psychically, energetically. The various devices focus and refract and tune the relevant energies to bring Them into alignment with us, or vice-versa. From their perspective, if you are doing an Enochian working using the Apparatus, it is like a five-dimensional crystal has grown around you that better interfaces with the Aethyrs. But most people don’t use them; even the Golden Dawn mostly ignored them, and so did Crowley. Speaking of which, not to dismiss him totally, Crowley did have some genuine insight, if only because he had a sense of how the Enochian Realms bring together knowledge of all systems of magical doctrine, and how they all“fall into their proper places.”

There is a black scrying mirror Dee and Kelley used, on display in the British Museum, a short walk away from here. It is made of obsidian. We were curious about this, and decided to ask an Enochian Denizen to tell us more. The one we called is LABNIXP, from the 28^thAethyr BAG, who appears tall and black, with opal eyes, and bound with fire, an Aries-affiliated Fire Elemental. Yes, it was an Aztec Glass, and it had been among the booty taken from a Spanish ship by freebooters licensed by Queen Elizabeth. When its provenance was known, it was passed to Dee for examination. He wrote about it in his diary, LABNIXP said, but as a number of Dee’s journals have been lost, it may have been in one of those. To the Aztec priests it was known as a ‘smoking mirror,’ named for their god, TEZCATLIPOCA, whose name means just that. Obsidian is a volcanic glass, formed as a result of quickly cooled volcanic lava. The priests would burn copious amounts of copal incense before it during their ceremonies, and scry through the smoke. When Kelley looked into it, he got results the very first time. The mirror had been consecrated by blood and pain to their savage gods, and when Kelley made contact, he felt he was in a court of devils – the current still lingered. The black smoke threatened to choke him; he could feel the heat of the volcano it was born from. He asked Dee to put it away, and after they would use it only very sparingly.

Even though seven years seems a long enough time, the Transmissions did end abruptly and pre-maturely, with the infamous ‘Cross-Matching’ of the two couples, and the vision of the Daughter of Fortitude. But could they have gone on longer, with Dee using the Calls and the Apparatus he had been given? He needed Edward Kelley to scry for him and get in touch with the Other Side, as he himself was not psychic. He was one of the most brilliant minds of his time, comparable to a Stephen Hawking, or Albert Einstein. Dee was a scholar, scientist, cartographer, mathematician, astronomer, he knew several languages, and may even have been a spy for Queen Elizabeth, her secret ‘Eyes.’ He was also an astrologer and an occult philosopher, a Magus: it is said that he was the model for Marlowe’sFaust, and he almost certainly inspired Shakespeare to create the character of Prospero inThe Tempest. Yet, when he was about fifty, he felt he’d reached the limit of knowledge. He wrote in his diary:

“I found (at length) that neither any man living, nor any Book I could yet meet withal, was able to teach me those truths I desired, and longed for: And therefore I concluded with myself, to make intercession and prayer to the giver of wisdom and all good things.”

There has always been the wish to contact Messengers who exist on different planes. From the Cabalists to the Renaissance and on, magicians have tried very hard to interact with non-human intelligences, but most efforts were crude and confused. Much of what has survived of the Grimoires is specifically about angels, demons, spirits and the like. Conversations with Angels had long been a unique pastime for a certain kind of educated person in English society, for which Dee surely qualified. A certain secrecy was called for, however: taking personal initiative in acquiring knowledge that went outside the remit and authority of the Church was dangerous, to put it mildly. The key difference with Dee and Kelley was that, for the first time since Antiquity, it was decided to make known the Enochian Language and the Calls that could be used to communicate with the Angelic Realms more directly.

Kelley was a bit of a scoundrel, and there’s little doubt that he was in it primarily for gain. People will never agree on whether Dee manipulated Kelley more, or vice versa. Kelley was none too bright, and rather a slave to his appetites, an obstreperous, troubled man, whose visions were mixed with his own troubled mind, his own demons. He could be full of fear, and he had some reason to fear: because he was a natural psychic, he would see other-worldly beings at the drop of a hat. Sometimes the Angels would transmit their messages or material directly into his brain, and it didn’t always agree with him, as you can imagine. He would hold his head and cry that it was on fire. Sometimes even Dee would see this. This wasn’t actual fire, as we know it, but a kind of Plasma Energy they can transmit.

In general, the séances would start with Dee & Kelley repairing to Dee’s private study, after initial preparations that would include, fasting, abstinence from strong liquor, meat, and carnal relations, as well as ceremonial washing (itself no small thing in Elizabethan times, when it was not uncommon for even those at Court to go months without bathing!) Then would come long prayers, often interspersed with the recital of certain key Psalms, and then the actual scrying would begin, with Kelley peering into a quartz crystal,“the size of a hen’s egg”– or perhaps into the black mirror of polished obsidian – until any one of a number of angels would appear to him. As time went on, and because of what Kelley had to endure at times, he was often not convinced they were not always speaking to Angels of the Lord. And he wasn’t wrong.

Dee had his own vulnerabilities. He had a warm and naturally devout nature, but he was a little too much inclined to want knowledge for knowledge’s sake. He had a boyish delight in numbers and tables and puzzles. There was always that little bit more to know before he might consider actually using the Keys and Apparatus he had been given. The Angels wanted to teach him, but there was always something else, something more to know. The irony is that if he had taken the time to explore what had already been transmitted, he would have found himself less in need of Kelley, on whom he had come to rely too much. He was chasing an ever-retreating mirage, in a way. The Angels wished him to begin exploring for himself, but he wanted to be told all first, before he would dare to set out on the journey for himself

And while Kelley grew more troubled, even unhinged, there appeared a child called Madimi. At first she materialized as a little girl of eight or nine, playing among Dee’s books, because she knew it would charm him. Dee had a finely honed intellect, but his female soul was still childlike, fairly undeveloped. One does not necessarily preclude the other. As time went on, Madimi gradually matured until she was a full-grown young woman. She would slow proceedings down, taking Kelley on a number of detours and aimless wanderings, until it became harder and harder for the other Angels to get their messages and material across. One day Kelley read a message on a distant globe:“all sins committed in my name are forgiven. He who goes mad on my account, let him be wise. He who commits adultery because of me, let him be blessed for eternity, and receive the heavenly prize.”The next day Madimi again appeared to Kelley and“parted her cloak, to reveal that she was naked,”and“showeth her shame,”as Dee noted in his diary. He told her to go.“In the name of God, why find you fault with me?”she protested. Dee had his son Arthur with him, because he wanted to prepare him for when he and Kelley would part ways. During this incident the boy fainted. It may have been the fasting or for some other reason. Madimi then suggested to Kelley that he and Dee should swap partners. Dee hummed and harred, unsure whether it was God’s will or not, but finally he agreed. The next day, after the deed was done, Kelley had a vision of“the Daughter of Fortitude,”who was“ravished every hour from my youth.”She also said:“Disclose not my secrets unto women, neither let them understand how sweet I am …”It was May 23^rd, 1587. That would be the last transmission.

The figure of Madimi is problematic. You never hear a bad word spoken about her! On the contrary, she’s a favourite, a good angel, and some have even adopted her as a kind of mascot or spirit-guide. Even if she’s ‘bad’, she’s bad in that particular way that needs no comment. As one middle-aged male occultist writes:

“The other Spirit I have been Working with, and over a much longer span of time, is the same Madimi who communicated with Dee and Kelley . . . She is a supreme Enochian Initiatrix. She appears to me as a girl of about sixteen, with short, punky, dark hair, a wicked sense of humour, wearing a ‘punked’ school uniform, quite deliberately provocative.”

In contrast, every time we have spoken with the Enochian Denizens about Madimi, we were left under no illusions that she sabotaged the Angelic Conversations with her delaying tactics, and then her sexual antics. The criticism has ranged from the more polite to stronger expressions like“that accursed bitch.”

There was the intention by the Angels to transmit a manifestation of the Divine Feminine, the Female side of the Most High, if you will. It has been a terrible shortcoming of the Christian Church to have fallen short in that respect. Mother Mary really hasn’t cut the mustard. But by the time Kelley saw the Daughter of Fortitude, as she called herself, whose secrets were not to be disclosed unto women, the operation had been contaminated by the combination of Kelley’s psychotic state, Dee’s immaturity, and Madimi’s machinations.

Centuries later, Crowley took Kelley’s vision of the Daughter of Fortitude, and various other disparate female manifestations from the Aethyrs and Revelations, as the raw material for his ‘Babalon/Scarlet Woman’ travesty. What is seriously needed is a complete re-visioning, to unify the essence of the feminine – both DaemonicandDivine.

For a time, it seemed Enochian Magic was one more secret that the good Dr. Dee had taken to the grave with him, and it would only be the flimsiest and almost fated of threads that would connect his work to an eventual revival, courtesy of the Golden Dawn, and in particular the attention shown it by Aleister Crowley, that would bring Enochian back to life and into the Twentieth Century and Beyond.

Probably the most far-fetched version of Enochian – and certainly the furthest from anything Dee and Kelly would have recognized – begins with the self-styled ‘black pope’ of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey. Attempting to cash in on the surprise success of hisThe Satanic Bible, at the instigation of his agent, he hastily cobbled together a sequel,The Satanic Rituals, which among other things includes so-called ‘Enochian’ rituals, in which Angelic names have been swapped for those of demons, and every reference to the Most High has been substituted with the name of Satan. Surprisingly enough, those within the Church of Satan and successor organizations, such as the Temple of Set, who have worked with these bastardized, infernal versions of the Calls – and there have been many – still claim that this method is every bit as valid. While any success on their part may be a testament to the inherent power of the Enochian Calls, however abused or corrupted, one has to wonder as to the actual nature and validity of any powers or regions contacted in that way.

The Angels themselves are by no means the creatures of Christmas cards, stained-glass windows, or that you might meet at a New Age crystal counter. One has to agree with Crowley, when he wrote that they bring“all systems of magical doctrine into harmonious relation.”Their forms and natures have an infinite variety – they are adaptable – when they want to manifest to us, or walk among us, they will take different shapes, even be in disguise. Their wings mean they can move effortlessly from element to element, transform as they travel from dimension to dimension, and can do so with incredible speed.

People have liked Crowley’s version of the Enochian because he removed the Christian veneer. But what the Aethyrs contain is the Hermetic Universe. What has always underpinned Hermetic Philosophy was provided by the idea that all that exists is derived from something called the Pleroma – Fullness of Being – and that it was of One Essence. Humans, Gods, and Cosmos were linked, from the cosmological orderings through the theological and daemonological realms, down to the psychic or anthropological. In the Hermetic Universe, the Magician makes use of the principles of the Cosmos, which were the means by which the gods are also able to create, and to some extent guide the development of the world. This is what John Dee was after. And the Angels were prepared to help him with this, to communicate and disclose at least a portion of the Keys – literally! – by which you can begin to make use of the principles and codes that are known to the gods. Hermeticism is both Art and Science. And Balance is one of the keys, something we find so hard here, where we often swing between extremes.

The Church closed the Temples and put a prohibition on the Magical Arts. Magic makes use of the principles of the Cosmos. Divination, like the Magical Arts, must in the first instance be revealed to us by means of some clairvoyant communication. There was always some process of initiation involved, because it was not only what you did, but also what you had become, through initiation or election. Then it has to be carried on along secret lineages, so missing here in the West, which has played fast and loose with its spiritual legacy, although there has been an underground stream flowing, through Alchemy and Secret Societies. The Magic the West needs is not one of transcendence, but rather transformation. You do not develop science and technology as we have done here, to then transcend them.

With the Denizens of the Enochian realms there is a distinct sense of time-travel. You meet ancient beings, whose currents manifested in the Classical world, or even much further back in primordial times, but a number have also adapted to our period, and they are definitely up to date. If they have prohibitions, they are there for valid reasons of safety and security – as much for the person who would attempt to enter as it is for the contents. It’s not so much old-fashioned notions of morality, but a sense of personal responsibility that matters.

The seven years of the Angelic Conversations are not a closed, done-and-dusted chapter of esoteric history. There’s a lot in it that can be studied, examined, and taken forward. What the Enochian Angels wanted to do most of all is re-open the Book of Hermetic Magic and Art, which the Church had all-but-closed – except for what survived in the illicit underground stream. The Hermetic tradition is dynamic, and far from static. There are Enochian Angels you can contact with the Enochian Keys, who were there, also appearing in the Crystal to Kelley, who can answer your present-day questions – and I don’t mean the ‘how can I win the lottery’ variety! They can give you council, talk with you about the Cabala, the Graeco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, and the Hermetica; reveal secret chapters of history, and even appear to you in your dreams.

They are Spirits elemental and eternal, from beyond Time and Space – yet just as present Today as they were Yesterday, and just as relevant to the Here and Now, and Tomorrow . . .

The 19^thCall declares:“Open the Mysteries of your Creation and make us partakers of undefiled knowledge,”and the Angels of the Enochian Realms are still extending that same invitation.

All we have to do is be prepared to meet them halfway: it just takes the first step to begin the Journey.

Δ

(NB For an Introduction to our own personal application & exploration of the Keys & Realms, in the first instance please examine the Page headed: https://12000yearsofwonder.wordpress.com/laurence-tara/ Thank You.)

*

PREAMBLE

Even when they die, when the age and culture of which they were its best representation or manifestation, its best expression, runs out and ends, the gods are reborn in a new form, rising from the immortal source whence they came, which gave birth to them. Chaos is not wrong in itself – it is an essential part of the dance, but the dance must continue for new life to be born. In the same way that too much freedom brings about dissolution, too much order ends in sterility. There must always be the dance back and forth. If we invite and welcome them, the birth of a god is always the beginning of a new world, or at least a new aspect of the world. In exchange it requires of human beings a greater responsibility and active participation, which must be freely given, in the spirit ofghosti. In return it bestows a self-regard on us, and a mutuality between us and the Denizens of the Celestial realms not experienced for a very long time.

The Celestials are androgynous, and able to take on or change gender as required; some are more distinctly male, others more distinctly female. One of the wonders of knowing these Beings and their nature, is that gender-wise they are balanced. Balance flows through their realms like nectar. It is also a necessity for us. When the balance goes, bad things start to happen. When we ourselves are out of balance, it is reflected by what comes across from the other side.

***

In the Summer of 2017, on the strength of her previous articles and workshops on the subject of John Dee and Enochian Magic, Emma Doeve was commissioned to write an Introduction to a new translation of Dee’s The Hieroglyphic Monad (Von Zos, 2017.)

As the translator, Michael Zellman-Rohrer notes, “Dee … heralds fundamental new insights … in the fields of grammar, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, optics, metrology, mechanics (particularly hydraulics), medicine, cabala, divination by scrying, and alchemy.”

***

*

THEOREM:

An Introduction to the Monas Hieroglyphica of Dr. John Dee.

“The most Modest and Wisest Philosophers … will … provide with me,

Praise and Honor to that Phoenix.

From the Wings of its Lone Mercy, we have plucked,

with both Fear and Love, all those

extremely Rare Theoretical Feathers

against our Nakedness brought on by Adam.”

John Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica[1]

THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE

To many, Doctor John Dee (1527-1608), the mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, cartographer – even Queen Elizabeth I’s “noble intelligencer” – will always carry more weight than John Dee the occult philosopher and magician. There is the brilliant scholarship: Dee at fifteen at St. John’s College, Cambridge, making his eighteen hours study a day count; teaching Euclid’s geometry in Paris in his early twenties; a Natural Philosopher, who wanted to unify all branches of scientific knowledge, philosophy, mathematics, optics, astrology, and much more, into a new complete body of learning and engagement with the Natural World, which he called his Archemastrie. There’s his standing as advisor to the great Renaissance Queen, Elizabeth I, and the building of one of the finest and largest private libraries in Europe – and then there’s the work, not least his Monas Hieroglyphica.

On the other hand, contemporary occultists of various descriptions are having a field-day with the ‘other’ John Dee. They particularly focus on Dee the Magus, who spoke with the Enochian Angels, as they would come to be called (although Dee and his scrying-companion, Edward Kelley never referred to them by that name, nor to the miraculous language they revealed as ‘Enochian’ – rather, simply, ‘Angelic’), who delivered a restored Adamic language named Enochian. The fact that Dee needed a scryer to receive the Angelic Communications for him, not being psychically gifted himself, and that this was one Edward Kelley, a man of dubious record and credentials, for them only adds a darker, more interesting note.

Both camps generally acknowledge that Dee ‘straddled the worlds of science and magic,’ but to find a viewpoint that draws the two worlds into one frame of reference is difficult to formulate, and even rarer to find. The ‘law of the excluded middle,’ or tertium non datur (“no third possibility is given”), makes sure the opposites remain resolutely apart, and there is too little motivation or concern for building a bridge between the two. Comments on the Monas Hieroglyphica are a case in point. It is really surprising to hear statements like this, made by occult scholar Gerald Suster in John Dee, Essential Readings, and casually released into the public sphere:

“What is one to make of the Hieroglyphic Monad? Even Frances Yates confessed that the explanatory text ‘leaves the reader thoroughly bewildered.’ Commentators agree that the key is no longer with us, that key being Dee’s oral explanation … certainly Dee regarded it as his masterpiece, the summary and crowning synthesis of all the knowledge and wisdom he had acquired.”[2]

These kinds of candid admissions of bewilderment have been a gift for those who already considered Dee’s occult pursuits a sorry aberration at worst, or foolishness at best. They have also given the opposing side the go-ahead – by providing an empty, and therefore available, projection screen – to indulge in the most outrageous fantasy scenarios where the good Doctor is concerned. Being obliged to choose either Dee, the scientist mathematician, or Dee the occultist magician, is preferable to having to consider a non-dualist option. It gives both parties licence to ignore the other.

Where his esoteric interests were concerned, Dee was always anxious, and with good reason. The times were volatile and unstable. He writes to his printer, one Gulielmo Silvio, (‘William Silver’ in English,) whom he addresses as “my exceptionally good friend”[3] – and this is what he writes:

“The SECOND thing that I ask of you is indeed not a light matter. Make certain not to hand these Books indiscriminately to just any man. It is not that I begrudge them this, or anything better, but I suspect that bad things will result. These poor men may not be able to find their way through the Labyrinth (as they torture their minds in incredible ways while neglecting to take care of their everyday affairs.)”[4]

It is in fact doubtful whether Dee’s oral explanation of the Monas would have been of much help in any age, even our own. For where, he asks himself, can we find the man, who has:

“…searched deeply into the Causes of Celestial powers and Actions as well as the Beginnings, the middle States, and the Endings of Things … who has even begun to examine the true foundations of Nature … Where on the whole Orb of the Earth (and in these our sorry times) can such a Magnanimous and probably UNIQUE HERO be found?”[5]

And loading the dice against still more:

“…we ought to expect that this unique and most fortuitous specimen is one-in-a-thousand-million men of the common sort.”[6]

At the end of his life, after Elizabeth’s demise, Dee’s reputation was already in trouble: when James I became King in 1603, he would have nothing to do with “Doctor Dee the great conjuror.” Set adrift, without royal patronage, his occult experiments began to attract unwelcome attention, and he became known as a ‘sorcerer’ rather than the renowned magus he had been under Gloriana, ‘The Faerie Queen,’ Elizabeth. In subsequent decades, and then even centuries, his standing faded and his achievements sank into obscurity; that is to say, until the 20^th Century.

A MARRIAGE

Well then, almost two decades into the 21^st Century, let us examine, not so much John Dee’s reputation, which history, for good or ill, is already taking care of – at least so far! – but rather the nature of his work, and what were the sources of his inspiration, with, of course, special reference to his Monas Hieroglyphica.

We find the very Heart of the Matter Dee had in mind in writing his Monas embedded in the Introductory Letter he writes and dedicates to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, or the “Most Wise King of the Romans,” as he calls him. Given that Dee’s Unique Hero was “one-in-a-thousand-million men,” when it came to furthering his work, he went right to the top. For there is little doubt Dee considered this work, small as it was, to have a certain magnificence, a gift indeed fit for a King:

“I know well (O KING) that you will not be horrified if I offer this MAGIC Parable in your Royal Presence. Our Hieroglyphic MONAS possesses, at its Innermost Center, a Terrestrial Body. The MONAS explains, without Words, how that Terrestrial Body is ACTUATED. When ACTUATED, the Terrestrial Body is UNITED (in a perpetual Marriage) to a Generative Influence, which is Lunar and Solar. Previous to this, in Heaven or elsewhere, the Lunar and Solar influences were QUITE SEPARATED from the Terrestrial Body.”[7]

And he adds: “Such steep, difficult …? to reach Mysteries can only RIGHTLY[ORTHOTOMEIN] be judged by someone who sees their whole Amplitude.”[8]

These are hardly the outpourings of a scholar, who sees his project exclusively in a scientific light. First, Dee suggests the issue he is presenting to Maximilian II – a Terrestrial Body at the very centre of his Monas – is anything but child’s play, as indeed it isn’t. The wording is not as blunt as contemporary commentator Vincent Bridges presents in his re-phrasing of Dee’s statement, “it (the terrestrial [physical] body,) copulates in a perpetual marriage with the sun and the moon,”[9] but a kind of coupling is certainly implied.

Not only does the Monas harbour in its depth a miraculous telluric body, Dee’s ‘Mind’, has been pregnant with the Monas for seven years, a significant number: there are the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the seven planets, the seven sephiroth of the supercelestial world, which are the seven measures of the fabric of the celestial and inferior worlds, and so on. The labour it took him to bring the offspring forth into the world, he offers to Maximilian “because of the magnetic virtue you exert, even from such a great distance …” adding that “during the entire period of its birth, your pleasing face seemed to be present before my eyes. In this respect, you have made my Labors fruitful and helped me bring this work to Light.”[10]

We see Dee perform a dazzling, symbolic sex-change upon himself here: he internalizes a feminine, receptive state of mind: there is conception, pregnancy, and a speedy labour and peaceful birth. And there are his tender and almost excessively devotional outpourings to Maximilian II, the Holy Roman Emperor (a worthy father for his offspring, at least on paper.) By all accounts, Dee was a good husband and father, but when it came to the grand purpose he had in mind, he had a singleness of heart, and in this state, both genders were married within his own psyche, creating an androgynous condition. And if the Magnum Opus actually could be completed, the resulting Rebis would itself be a res bina, a ‘dual, or double matter.’

His grand purpose, the Great Work – it’s true the phrase reverberates to this day, although conceptions of what it entails have altered considerably – was to create a Theory of Everything, a work that would encompass all knowledge, and generate fertile connections between the physical world and the spiritual realm. Human understanding would be more closely linked with spiritual regeneration. Another big idea, interlinked with Dee’s Archemastrie, was the concept of The Great Chain of Being, which incorporates the complete hierarchical structure of the Cosmos: the elemental world, the planetary celestial worlds, and the world of intelligences. And at the top of course, abided the Creator of All Things.

Dee condensed his Theoria into twenty-four Theorems headed by the sign or visual formula, known as the Monas Hieroglyphica, which, when properly taught and understood, would lead to the kind of insight that would meet the particular aspirations of the Renaissance scholar. During the Renaissance, in Neoplatonic circles, the ‘Hieroglyph’ character was used (in various grammatical ways) to artistically express an esoteric idea. In Ancient Egypt, only Pharaoh and privileged, well-educated members of society – such as the nobility and the priests – were able to read its pictographic language. It meant ‘sacred writing’ in Greek, a very pleasing idea, and so Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica was a Sacred Glyph of interwoven esoteric ideas.

Interpretations of the Monas diverge wildly, as we know, but the common, not to be ignored, denominator are the geometrical components of lines, points and circles: mathematical abstractions, which nevertheless acted as keys to a system of knowledge of correspondences and transformations that Dee had done his best to formulate into a Unity, “A SACRED SYMBOL OF ONENESS” (as it declared on the title-page) with its mysterious “Terrestrial Body” at its innermost centre.

Dee separates out the different abstract elements of the Monas, such as the straight crossing lines, the circle, the half-circle at the top, or the two joined half-circles at the bottom. He then demonstrates how they can become, or be re-combined into, say, the Planetary signs, and opens up the world of astrology and astronomy. For instance: the two half-circles below, that are “joined together at a common point” forming a pair of horns, become the “Mystical Sign of Aries” the Cardinal Fire sign. The fact that they join at a common point signifies most appropriately the Equinoctial Nycthemera, the place of the sun on the Spring Equinox, the first day of Aries, Aries providing the much-needed aid of spiritual fire. Astrology had not yet begun to connect character and the astronomical determination of time. Through his Monas, Dee writes, the astronomical symbols, composed of the mathematical elements of lines, points and circles in his Hieroglyph, where formerly they had been “Barbaric marks, Dead or Dumb,” could now be imbued with new, even immortal life, “able to express their special meaning Eloquently to those of every Language or Nationality.”[11]

What starts deceptively simply, with a point, a straight line and a circle, multiplies into twenty-four Theorems in which Dee lays out his Theoria of the structure of the Cosmos and its workings and applications, both physical and spiritual. Dee’s mathematics were still immersed in the Platonic metaphysical view that its truths are discovered and not invented. Their existence is still independent from human existence and thought, language and practice, giving it a divine purity. However insightful and elaborate Dee’s scientific knowledge had become, he would still insist (in Theorem Twenty-Three) that under no circ*mstances should any harm (not even the slightest) be done to “our Mystical PROPORTIONS.”[12]

The term theorem itself, stems from the Greek theoria, which means ‘a sight or spectacle of the mind.’ In ancient days, sacred delegates sent to consult with the oracle at Delphi, were ‘theoroi.’ The ‘Matter’ Dee was handling was Sacred, its Materia formulated into a ‘spectacle of the Mind.’ In late antiquity, ‘theoria’ becomes ‘theorema,’ and then ‘theorem’ in English.

KABBALAH

The Kabbalah was a major resource of the Renaissance esoteric scholar’s philosophical intellectual apparatus, not least because traditional practitioners believed its origins to be incalculably ancient, lending mystery and weight to its arcane authority. In his statements about the Kabbalah, Dee makes a distinction between (what he calls) the “GRAMMATICAL Kabbalah or the Kabbalah of Saying,”[13] which is the common language, the letters, the alphabet we all know and use, the one written by humanity, and the “KABBALAH OF THE REAL… the Kabbalah of Being.”[14] The latter, he writes, was “born to us by the Law of Creation,”[15] and is more divine. If we can (re-)discover this ‘language’ within ourselves – and the suggestion is that the Monas can help teach those receptive to it, or at least point the way – it:

“…allows for the discovery of New Arts, and faithfully even explains the most difficult to understand Arts, as well as possibly aid the detecting and generating of New Arts.”[16]

Dee writes to Maximilian, that both the KABBALAH of the REAL, and the Kabala of Saying, had already been mentioned by him in the aphorisms delivered to his students in Paris some fifteen years ago. Now he is introducing his ‘Terrestrial Body’ at the centre of his Monas, which, when actuated and united in the perpetual Marriage of the Moon and the Sun, will generate an influence both Lunar and Solar: in other words, it will be a ‘Third.’ And it is imagined in almost physical plastic form, like a tangible ‘breath-body’ that cannot function as a component part of our rational consciousness. When, ‘God willing,’ this ‘Third’, this mysterious telluric body, which is of the Earth and yet not of the Earth at the same time, because it is drawing on influences from above – Sun and Moon among them – has been actuated, it can “no longer be nourished or watered on its Native Earth until the FOURTH great, and truly Metaphysical Revolution has been Completed.”[17] Dee allows himself to be carried away and writes:

“When this Advance has been made, he who nourished the MONAD will First Go Away into a METAMORPHOSIS, and afterwards, will very rarely be seen by the eyes of Mortals.”[18]

His formulation of his “Kabbalah of the Real” anticipates the reception, some twenty years later, of the Enochian language, the language in which Adam spoke with God and the Angels. He even augments the picture we have become familiar with – Dee and Kelley in a room having their ‘Angelic Conversations’ – by conjuring his scryer of the future, although Edward Kelley would not quite fit the description:

“The SCRYER… or crystal-ball gazer may see most accurately in a Crystal Lamin… all SUBLUNARY things that are of Earth or Water. And in a Carbuncle or Ruby he can explore the Region of Air and Fire.”[19]

Dee’s ideas, researches, and occult pre-occupations were sailing on an underground stream of rich exploration, experimentation and learning, two of whose tributaries were Alchemy and Rosicrucianism, uniquely Western forms of Hermeticism. Throughout the Monas we find alchemical references, the presiding Spirit of which was Mercury, or Mercurius, as he was often called. For Dee, this was primarily the Mercury of the Philosophers, of which Dee writes:

“He is the Messenger of our IEOVAE [Jehovah], sent so that we might be founders of a NEW discipline of this Sacred Art of Writing, or with this aid, renew one that was extinct and had been wholly wiped out of mankind’s memory…”[20]

And:

“This Mercury is properly called the rebuilder and restorer of our whole Astronomy. It is the rarest thing of all, that all this is embodied in One Unique Hieroglyphic Symbol, that is, MERCURY (fortified by a Sharp Point).”[21]

*

In Dee’s Monas, the Sun and Moon are just a little more intricately linked than in the Planetary sign of the silvery planet.

Dee’s interest in the Art’s tradition was descended from the Hellenistic era. He references ancient Ostanes – provenance unknown, possibly 5^th, 4^th century BCE – who by the 1^st century AD is quoted as an authority on alchemy, necromancy, divination: “As that Great OSTANES concealed in his most Secret Mysteries, ‘For Nature delights in Nature,’” Dee quotes.

Dee conceived of Alchemy, or the Royal Art of Transformation, as both a magia naturalis AND a magia speculative. Dee engaged deeply with alchemy, but he was unusual in that he spent less time watching and standing next to the furnace or labouring over the alembic, and more theorizing and making copious notes in his diaries, although he did also do practical work, as his diaries testify. He linked alchemical theory and process, with religion and human knowledge, other sciences, as well as spiritual regeneration. In the Monas, he rather distances himself from most other practitioners, who had given ‘alchymia’ a bad name with their vulgar pursuit of the material gold.

A WEDDING AND A SECOND COMING

*

As we already know, the Monas Hieroglyphica, encloses at its dynamic centre the site of a Perpetual Marriage, which, when, in true working order, generates a mysterious telluric body, which was also a ‘Materia Medica.’ Within the context of Dee’s work (and he is by no means the only one,) a wedding, a marriage, is often mentioned, but what is usually overlooked is the role the author himself plays in the drama. We’ve considered how Dee expresses himself about his Monas in terms of conception, pregnancy and deliverance of the offspring: he is passive to the force that impregnates him.

Let’s now briefly regard an almost contemporary (with the Monas) document (although it may be a re-working of an older manuscript,) created by Johann Valentin Andreae, who may-or-may-not also be the narrator of the tale he lays out in the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.

The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz is often described as the third of the original manifestos of the enigmatic “Fraternity of the Rose Cross,” the Rosicrucians, although it is markedly different from the Fama Fraternitatis and Confessio Fraternitatis in style and in subject matter. This Alchemical Wedding is one of the strangest, most intriguing documents ever written.

It starts with the narrator sitting quietly, in humble prayer, on the evening before Easter Day. But all is deceptive, because suddenly there is a powerful gust shaking the house, and a Presence enters the room where he sits, ‘touching him on the back.’ He turns round and beholds:

“…a fair and glorious lady, whose garments were all sky-coloured, and curiously (like Heaven) bespangled with golden stars; in her right hand she bore a trumpet of beaten gold, on which a Name was engraved which I could well read but am as yet forbidden to reveal it. In her left hand she had a great bundle of letters of all languages, which she (as I afterwards understood) was to carry to all countries. She also had large and beautiful wings, full of eyes throughout, with which she could mount aloft, and fly swifter than any eagle.”[22]

In later years, Johann Valentin Andreae would renounce this alchemical document, saying in his autobiography it had been but a ludibrium, a Latin word meaning a plaything or a trivial game. This, again, may or may not be true, but perhaps the sad and bitter words are those of a disappointed man. Perhaps the promise he received from the ‘fair and glorious’ Angelic Messenger, was never fulfilled, or he was not receptive (enough) to its meaning and significance. We cannot help but be struck by the scene as bearing a resemblance to an Annunciation: the somewhat demure demeanour of the narrator, the sudden spectacular visit by the celestial Messenger – could this be Gabriel in more androgynous or even female form? We never learn the name of the celestial visitor. Angels are known to appear as required, and a horn or trumpet are one of Gabriel’s attributes. Afterwards there is a swift departure on large wings. And “the great bundle of letters of all languages, which she (as I afterwards understood) was to carry to all countries” – does this not echo Dee’s words: “so that we might be founders of a NEW discipline of this Sacred Art of Writing, or with this aid, renew one that was extinct and had been wholly wiped out of mankind’s memory?”

In Dee’s case, his “KABBALAH OF THE REAL” remained a true passion, one which would bear fruit during an extraordinary episode in Western occult history, what has since come to be known as The Angelic Conversations.

A Terrestrial Body with extraordinary regenerative properties, Spiritual Gold, the Philosopher’s Stone, A New Logos. There was clearly something in the air in Dee’s time, and something afoot on earth. A fresh attempt to remind human kind of what the Church had tried to stamp down, and seal off: the potential divinity in a man or a woman. Perhaps the work of redemption was still unfinished, perhaps the lapis, or Dee’s Telluric Body, possessed qualities that were not exactly Christian in the regular sense of the word, qualities which still awaited liberation.

Dr John Dee was very much in love with numbers and abstract symbols in general. He was humble and willing enough to render himself passive to the power and creative influence of the Most High. But he could still write (in Theorem 4):

“The Semicircle of the Moon is shown here to be Above the Circle of the Sun. Nonetheless, the Moon obeys the SUN as her Master and King.”[23]

But there are surely hints of a deeper insight. There is an awareness of what is known as the Axiom of Maria the Jewess, Maria Prophetissima, in Latin. We know her from the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis. Like him, she was an early alchemist, probably Gnostic, probably from the Third Century. Her Axiom went as follows: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.”

It means completion and a greater balance between Female and Male, a long sought-for outcome, surely devoutly to be wished.

[1] Dee, John Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564)

[2] Suster, Gerald John Dee, Essential Readings (Crucible, 1986), p.31

[3] Dee, John Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p.10 verso

[4] Ibid, p.11

[5] Ibid, p.2 verso

[6] Ibid, p.3

[7] Ibid, p.7

[8] Ibid, p.8 verso

[9] Bridges, Vincent Notes to Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica, Appendix II to Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition, No.12, Vol.2. (Vernal Equinox, 2007)

[10] Dee, John Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p.10

[11] Ibid, p.3 verso

[12] Ibid, p.25

[13] Ibid, p.7

[14] Ibid, p.7

[15] Ibid, p.7

[16] Ibid, p.7

[17] Ibid, p.7

[18] Ibid, p.7

[19] Ibid, p.7 verso

[20] Ibid, p.4

[21] Ibid, p.3 verso

[22] The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (Strasbourg, 1616) – anonymous, but attributed to Andreae

[23] Dee, John Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p.12 verso

***

*

Part I

From time to time, throughout the transmissions between Doctor John Dee, scholar, occultist, scientist and ‘special agent’ of Elisabeth I Queen of England, his scryer Edward Kelley, and the Spirits, Dee would be asked what he wished for:

What wilt thou?And – as the transmissions progressed– What will you else?

And the answer would always be the same. Even after the Angel Michael – profusely sweating, his sweat becoming bloody as he did so – had delivered theTabula Angelorum Bonorumto the two men huddled in Dee’s study, the answer would again be: ‘wisdom and knowledge,’ or as it would sometimes be called ‘learning.’ There was no doubt that John Dee, a devout man, desired wisdom, but what kind of knowledge was he after, and – we may ask – what knowledge was he being given? And how would he process this knowledge?

Dr. John Dee

*

In Dee’s time stepping outside the Church’s prescribed boundaries, let alone having contact with preterhuman entities, was considered a heinous offence for which you might be thrown into prison or even executed. Yet Dee himself had asked for this: a more direct communication with the Realms Celestial, and at the Interface between divine and human, contactwasmade, and knowledge transmitted. Dee was not alone; having little spirit-vision himself, he employed a scryer: Edward Kelley.

Edward Kelley

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Dee needed to stay clear of the Church’s scrutiny and had taken refuge in numbers, which were his forte and his abilities developed early and prodigiously. At fifteen he was at St John’s College, Cambridge, making his eighteen hours study a day count. At eighteen, maybe nineteen, he graduates BA. He teaches Euclid’s geometry in Paris in his early twenties. He is a natural philosopher, who wanted to unify all branches of knowledge, philosophy, mathematics, optics, astrology, and much more, into a new complete body of learning and engagement with the Natural World. He becomes Queen Elisabeth’s special advisor. And he ventures into the world of the esoteric, reading prodigiously.

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He develops a curious tendency of playing a game of ‘hide-and-seek’ with himself, in part for his own protection. For instance, when hisMonas Hieroglyphicais published (in Antwerp, at a relatively safe distance from London), it contains a dedicatory letter to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, which is extravagant in its praise and vocabulary. Dee wonders where the man can be found,“who had searched deeply into the Causes of Celestial powers and Actions as well as the Beginnings, the middle States, and the Endings of Things.”Where could such a man be found, “who has begun to examine the true foundations of Nature … Where on the whole Orb of the Earth (and in these our sorry times) can such a Magnanimous and probably UNIQUE HERO be found?”

He offers theMonadto the Emperor as his ‘offspring’ – conceived in London, yet born in Antwerp – and he earnestly desires with all his strength,“that you do not disdain to become its Second Father.”Most startling is how explicitly Dee reveals what is at the heart of his aspirations:

“Our Hieroglyphic MONAS possesses, at its Innermost Center, a Terrestrial Body. The MONAS explains, without Words, how that Terrestrial Body is ACTUATED. When ACTUATED, the Terrestrial Body is UNITED (in a perpetual Marriage) to a Generative Influence, which is Lunar and Solar. Previous to this, in Heaven or elsewhere, the Lunar and Solar influences were QUITE SEPARATED from the Terrestrial Body.”

When, ‘God willing,’ this ‘Third,’ this mysterious telluric body, which is of the Earth and yet at the same time not of the Earth, because it is drawing on influences from above – Sun and Moon among them – has been actuated, it can,“no longer be nourished or watered on its Native Earth until the FOURTH great, and truly Metaphysical Revolution has been Completed.” Dee allows himself to be carried away:

“When this Advance has been made, he who nourished the MONAD will First Go Away into a METAMORPHOSIS, and afterwards, will very rarely be seen by the eyes of Mortals.”

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These words and the ideas they express can only come from a man with great self-regard. But ideas such as these were also in the air at the time, an air, a psycho-spiritual atmosphere, teeming with celestial and daemonic beings waiting to receive the call from above or below (and possibly in-between), to be ‘actuated.’ The Pleroma poured out a stream of ideas, beliefs, and philosophies, old and new. These contained as many weeds as rare fruits and flowers, probably more. In the case of John Dee, it would appear God took him at his word. Beings from the celestial realms made contact and communicated knowledge. And there was a language …

Dee had long been a student of the Kabbalah, a key source of the Renaissance esoteric scholar’s intellectual apparatus, not least because traditional practitioners believed its origins to be incalculably ancient, lending mystery and weight to its arcane authority. In his statements about the Kabbalah, Dee makes a distinction between what he calls the“Grammatical Kabbalah or the Kabbalah of Saying,”which is the common language, the letters, the alphabet we all know and use, the one written by humanity, and the“Kabbalah of the Real… the Kabbalah of Being, born to us by the Law of Creation.”If we but could (re-)discover this ‘language’ within ourselves,“it would allow for the discovery of New Arts, and faithfully even explains the most difficult to understand Arts, as well as possibly aid the detecting and generating of New Arts.”For good measure Dee adds, in his letter to Maximilian, that both the Kabbalah of the Real, and the Kabbalah of Saying, had already been mentioned by him in the aphorisms delivered to his students in Paris some fifteen years ago.

The formulation of his “Kabbalah of the Real” anticipates the reception, some twenty years later, of the ‘Angelic language’, the language in which Adam is said to have spoken with God and the Angels. He augments the picture we have become familiar with still further by conjuring his scryer of the future, although Edward Kelley would not quite fit the description:

“The SCRYER… or crystal-ball gazer may see most accurately in a Crystal Lamin… all SUBLUNARY things that are of Earth or Water. And in a Carbuncle or Ruby he can explore the Region of Air and Fire.”

However, after a certain time had elapsed, he had to admit, something distinctly out of the ordinary was required, something he called somewhat euphemistically the ‘Extraordinary Gift.’ It had to be nothing vulgar, or of human invention, but a supernatural means to acquiring knowledge. Dee needed the help of a scryer or ‘crystal gazer,’ someone with the ‘sight’ he did not possess himself, someone to act as an intermediary between himself and the non-human entities he wished to contact.

It’s always been a little bit unclear precisely how and why Edward Kelley found his way to the front door of John Dee, but portentous indeed for the both of them was Thursday 8th March, 1582, a day that would end with the skies over Mortlake apparently turning blood red, as though the clouds themselves had caught fire. The supposed ‘Magus of Mortlake’ had some prior experience of using scryers to assist in his attempts to contact the realm Angelic, as unfortunately he had little-or-no clairvoyant ability of his own. And, as it happened, procuring the services of such an agent of the Spirit-realms was not as difficult as might have been expected, even in a 16th-century England only recently torn by religious strife and still reeling from sectarian fear and paranoia.

Along with a succession of famines in the preceding decade, religious turmoil, and increasing urbanisation, the roads to London were crowded with wandering hopefuls of all kinds – something that the good Dr Dee had even commented on in one of his ‘state-of-the-nation’ reports to Elizabeth’s government. Among them, perhaps inevitably, were those who, originating among the ranks of ‘Cunning Men’ (and women) from more rural areas – or would-be scholars, whose esoteric studies had perhaps been abruptly curtailed by the dangerously turning tide of religious orthodoxy, who out of necessity tried to capitalise on what knowledge or skills they claimed to possess. Indeed, church records from the times show that most parishes possessed such figures, and for a time the more successful might even be found advising or entertaining aristocratic households – perhaps anticipating the kind of sensation-seekers who in later ages would enjoy nothing better than an after-dinner séance to titillate jaded palates? But whatever the motivation, this was a more-than-grey area by the mores of the day, and even though there was considerable call for such services – whether by the spiritually serious or merely thrill-seekers – considerable discretion was essential.

Dee’s previous scryer, one Barnabus Saul, had been brought to his attention by a Mr Clerkson, who seemingly acted as an informal agent, brokering introductions between the esoterically gifted and those who might require their services. When the never-entirely-satisfactory Saul vanished, all-of-a-sudden, with uncanny timing that reliable pimp-of-the-paranormal, Mr Clerkson, turned up on Dee’s doorstep again. He warned that Saul was not to be trusted, and had been badmouthing the good doctor to the locals, but also to make an introduction: a scryer and medium of rare and considerable talents, one ‘Mr Talbot.’ Later that evening, after Dee had invited the two of them to dine with him – during which there had no doubt been further warnings about the “naughty dealings” of the treacherous Saul, and a fair bit of cautious sizing up on both sides – ‘Talbot’ made his move. Taking the older scholar to one side, in a moment of ill-judged confidence, ‘Talbot’ confided in Dee that he would “do what he could to further [his] knowledge of magic . . . with fairies.” This may reflect the kind of services that he had been used to offering for the after-dinner entertainments of bored aristocrats, but here Kelley, as ‘Talbot’ would indeed turn out to be, almost blew the deal before there was even a handshake. Dee, who saw himself as both a serious scholar and a devout man of God, was already touchy enough about malicious gossip that he was “a companion of hellhounds,” and “a conjuror, or caller of divels.” The last thing he wanted anything to do with was anything that was, at best as frivolous, at worst as damnable, as “fairies.”

One can only wonder how the evening ended, but ‘Talbot’/Kelley was clearly determined to get his man (or, at least, sell his services and hopefully in the process secure a position in Dee’s household.) The next morning he returned, alone, and in doubtless more sober and reverent tones than the night before declared that he was “willing and desirous to see or show something in spiritual practice.” Whatever he said must have done the trick, for despite issuing a stern warning about “vulgarly accounted magic,” Dee nevertheless agreed to take Kelley on.

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Part II

What the Dee and Kelley documents reveal is both the endeavour by the Celestial Denizens to open a Dialogue and bestow priceless gifts, and the beginning of a profound crisis in the fabric of Western Spirituality, continuing to this day.

When in 2016 the Royal College of Physicians in London staged a prestigious exhibition named Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee, Mehzebin Adam, then working at the Science Museum, was asked to contribute a write-up for the ‘mystical objects believed to have been owned by Dee.’ These objects could be seen in the current RCP exhibition. Adam made statements such as, “[Dee] believed that he had an ability to contact angels and spirits and claimed that angels had dictated several books to him.”

It is true something very exclusive was transmitted to Dee via Kelley, which he would note in his diaries and divide into certain chapters, and grandly call ‘books.’ And there is no doubt that Dee wanted to be able to “contact angels and spirits,” and he was studying how this might be done. Like so many of his time (and ours!) he wished to learn Nature’s secrets. In one of the lengthy introductions about himself and his scholarly pursuits – perhaps comparable to writing a Blog today – he claims that his thirst for knowledge made him:

“labour with my own reasonable discourse, to find some inkling, gleam or beam of those radical truths, But after all my endeavours I could find no other way to attain such wisdom but by the Extraordinary Gift, and not by any vulgar school, doctrine, or human invention.”

What happened with Dee and Kelley at the Interface between the realms Human and Celestial still holds a fascination. There is the more specific interest in Dee the mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, astrologer, or even alchemist – and his being Queen Elizabeth’s ‘noble intelligencer,’ of course – but the so-called ‘Angelic Conversations’ have also entered the popular imagination, through the spicey combination of science and sorcery.

Even if we’re not astrophysicists or astronomers ourselves, it’s likely we’ve seen documentaries or movies in which the viewer is made to feel that they have travelled – if not physically, then by some miraculous means – to distant planets and stars and galaxies, often complete with alien populations. Or else wherein Earth and some of its specially chosen inhabitants in turn are visited, or sometimes colonized, or even attacked by extra-terrestrials.

The need and desire to be enthralled in a disenchanted world is spawning a host of such phantasies.

Where Dee and Kelley and what happened at the Interface is concerned, the irony is that, despite all the studies of ‘The Angelic Conversations,’ and the creation of a world of ‘Enochiana’ – too much of which simply copy-pastes and recycles material that has gone before – the fact that the Keys were never actually put to use by Dee and Kelley, was a fatal weakness in its foundation from the beginning.

There have also been some quite radical and downright shameless distortions, inversions, and even perversions, not surprising as the material was left too open to misinterpretation.

Surprising as it may seem to many, because of the role they played in the reintroduction of Enochian at the start of the Modern Occult Revival, first culprit for consideration here is none other than the much-hallowed Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. You see, the problem was that despite very much wanting to claim ‘Enochian Magic’ as the jewel-in-the-crown of their esoteric syllabus, Mathers & Co also wanted to use it to bolster their claim to be re-presenting a truly ‘Perennial Wisdom’ – one that dated back to before the Biblical Flood, or to Atlantis, perhaps – so they deliberately downplayed the role Dee and Kelley had in its reception.

Later, when former graduate of the Golden Dawn and self-styled ‘Great Beast’ Aleister Crowley decided to claim Enochian for himself, upon reading Dee’s original manuscripts he was disappointed to see just how much of the material related to all-too-worldly concerns of the Elizabethan Court and Dee’s European travels. So, Crowley overlooked what didn’t suit him, repurposing Enochian material-as-he-saw-it to try and make it into a more suitable vehicle for his ‘Thelemic’ New Aeon agenda.

Speaking of Thelemic re-purposings, one can only imagine what the God-fearing Dee – and, despite all his faults, Kelley – would have thought of Crowley-acolyte Jack Parsons performing his strange hybrid of Enochian- with O.T.O. ‘Sex-Magic,’ out in the Mojave Desert, masturbating over images of the Elemental Tablets to conjure his ‘Scarlet Woman,’ under the watchful eye of his scryer, L. Ron Hubbard . . .

As if all this wasn’t downhill enough for the Enochian Calls, Sixties California self-styled ‘Black Pope’ Anton LaVey would take them down to the positively infernal. Wanting some authentically magical-sounding rituals to pad out the flimsy manuscript of his Satanic Bible, he lifted Crowley’s versions from his journal, The Equinox, replacing all the divine references with diabolical ones, and in effect turning the Calls upside-down.

But in the final analysis, perhaps it didn’t really need anybody else to corrupt or distort the material, because Dee and Kelley did a bad enough job themselves from the beginning, by never actually using the Calls or working the material.

As a Denizen from the 3rd aethyr, ZOM, by the name of SAMAPHA said to us, ‘THE TRANSMISSION WAS DISTORTED FROM ITS INCEPTION – BEFORE IT COULD EVEN GET UNDER WAY IT WAS ALREADY FATED.’

If you wish to take a further look at Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee, take a look at the Royal College of Physicians website here: https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/scholar-courtier-magician-lost-library-john-dee#:~:text=Today%20the%20Royal%20College%20of,the%20physicians%20in%20the%201680s.