John Dee and Edward Kelly's Visitor from the Ascended Realm

 

 

The autobiographical writings of Dr. John Dee (1527-1609) show what life was like in Elizabethan England for one who worked with 'scryers' (mediums) to chronicle interaction with ‘spiritual creatures’ and ‘good angels.’  There were many times when Dee wrote down the details as the scryer described what he saw and heard upon gazing into a crystal globe.  Consider this predicament as a Renaissance equivalent of ‘the movies’ for the scryer with ‘spiritual creatures’ (usually human emissaries) appearing in different settings along with assorted objects, letters and numbers; sometimes with symbolic or metaphorical significance.  The visions are described as featuring diverse attire, animals, furniture, transformations, swords, fire, trumpets, jewelry, beams of light, celestial sights, plants, smoke, gold, water, etc.  There were also occasions when there was interaction with visitors from 'the ascended realm' without the use of a crystal, as will be shown by the excerpt featured in this article.

I first learned about Dee during the period between 1985 and 1995 when I visited antiquarian book fairs searching for literary treasures and found a limited edition reprint of the 1659 book A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. And King James their Reignes) and Some Spirits: Tending (had it Suceeded) To a General Alteration of most STATES and KINGDOMS in the World.   The book may now be read without charge with an Internet edition.  The title page also divulged further contents: “His Private Conferences with Rudolphe Emperor of Germany, Stephen K. of Poland, and divers other Princes about it.  The particulars of his Cause, as it was agitated in the Emperors Court; By the Popes Intervention: His banishment, and Restoration in part.  As Also The Letters of Sundry Great Men and Princes (some whereof were present at some of these Conferences and Apparitions of Spirits:) to the said D. Dee.  Out Of The Original Copy, written with Dr. Dees own Hand: Kept in the LIBRARY of Sir THO. COTTON, Kt. Baronet.  With a PREFACE Confirming the Reality (as to the Point of Spirits) of This RELATION: and shewing the several good uses that a Sober Christian may make of All.  By Meric. Casaubon, D.D.”

The inside book jacket for the 1974 reprint described Dee as having attempted “to aid humanity by bringing peace and reconciliation to a Europe torn by war and religious intolerance.  He and his medium journeyed throughout 16th-century Europe to Bohemia, meeting leading political figures . . . Throughout their journey the two partners called upon the guidance and help of the spirits and we learn how these spirits were summoned, the help and advice they gave, and the commands that they had for Dee.”  Casaubon’s edition brings together twelve of John Dee’s books documenting what Dee referred to as his “actions with spirits.”  The book jacket also reminds that these 'spiritual diaries' were "written at a time when despite the risk of prosecution and public execution, Magic was widely studied and practised."

I am using contemporary English spelling for the passage that follows, except for a sentence in Latin.  Prague on April 30, 1586 is the setting for a unique event recorded by Dee.  Although it is mentioned that he had burned a large collection of his books and papers on April 10, an account of that day isn’t among those to be found in A True & Faithful Relation . . .

As E.K. stood at the end of the gallery by his chamber, looking over into the vineyard he seemed to see the little man the gardener, in all manner of behavior and apparel, who is the chief workman or overseer of Mr. Carpio his workman in the same vineyard.  He seemed very handsomely to prune some of the trees: at length he approached under the wall by E.K. and holding his face away-ward he said unto him, "Quæso dicas Domino Doctori quod veniat ad me."  [This sentence was translated as "Pray tell your learned master to come to me" in The Diaries of John Dee (1998) edited by Edward Fenton.]  And so [he] went away as it were cutting here and there the trees very handsomely, and at length over the cherry trees by the house on the rock in the garden he seemed to mount up in a great pillar of fire.

E.K. bade his wife to go, and she who was in the garden.  She came up, and brought him word, "Nobody."

E.K.  then came to me and said, "I think there is some wicked spirit that would elude me," and he told and said to me, as is before noted.  Then said I, I will go into the garden, and bade E.K. come with me.  We went down that way which this creature did go: but nothing we saw, went to the banqueting house in the vineyard, but that place pleased us not: so, we went along in the way by the cliffside, and sat down on the bank by the great pile of vine-stakes lying in the very south end of the vineyard.  And we had not sat there half a quarter of an hour, but I espied under the almond tree, and on the south side of it, being the westerly almond tree, that is it which is standing on  the westerly side of the straight path which leadeth from the north toward the south in the vineyard.  I espied (I say) like a sheet of fair white paper lying tossed to and fro in the wind.  I rose and went to it, and (to the praise of God His truth and power,) there I found three of my books lying, which were so diligently burnt the tenth day of April last.

1  The three books were, Enoch his book.

2  The 48 Claves Angelica.

3  And the third was the book of my gathering of the thirty airs, and entitled Liber Scientia terrestris auxilii & victoriæ.

Thereupon E.K. coming to me, I fell on my knees with great thanks yielding to the God Almighty, and so did E.K. whose mind and body were marvelously affected by the sight of the said books, having no show or sign that ever they had been in the fire, neither by color or favor, or anything wanting.

And after we had sat half an hour under the fore-said almond trees praising God and wondering at the miracle.  Suddenly appeared by us the self-same gardener-like person, but with his face somewhat turned away, and nothing thereof to be judged as of Ave the custom is.  He said, "Kelly, follow me," E.K. went, and I sat still, awaiting his return.

This gardener went before E.K. and his feet seemed not to touch the ground by a foot height.  And as he went before E.K. so the doors did seem to open before him, he led him up the great stairs on the left hand by the vineyard door, and so in at his own chamber door where E.K. hath his new study, and then the door going out of that to the stairs opened of itself, and he went up those stairs, & at length brought him to the furnace mouth where all the books and papers had been burnt the 10 day of this April.  And coming thither, there the spiritual creature did seem to set one of his feet on the post on the right hand without the furnace mouth, and with the other to step to the furnace mouth, and so to reach into the furnace (the bricks being now plucked away which stopped the mouth of the furnace, all saving one brick thick) and as he had reached into the furnace there appeared a great light, as if there had been a window in the back of the furnace, and also to E.K. the hole which was not greater than the thickness of a brick unstopped, did seem now more than three or four brick thickness wide, and so over his shoulder backward he did reach to E.K. all the rest of the standing books, excepting the book out of which the last action was cut, and Fr. Pucci his Recantation, also to E.K. appeared in the furnace all the rest of the papers which were not as then delivered out.

That being done, he bade E.K. go, and said he should have the rest afterward.  He went before in a little fiery cloud, and E.K. followed with the books under his arm all along the gallery, and came down the stairs by Fr. Pucci his chamber door, and then his guide left E.K. and he brought me the books unto my place under the almond tree.

Two previous blog articles concerning John Dee are "In Comparison: Pearl Curran, 'Miss Beauchamp,' John Dee and Edward Kelly" and "Some Further Observations about the 'Michael' Pattern".