Sunday, January 23, 2011




johnny Dee was a lifelong friend of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen who would visit his home  Mortlake which had the largest library in Europe with over 6,000 volumes.   He counseled and read the stars for Edward and Mary Tudor.  His maps helped Drake explore the Americas.  He claimed to have caused the storms that drowned the Spanish Armada.  A contemporary described his appearance,
He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit.... A very fair, clear sanguine complexion... a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man."
in addition:
he founded Trinity at Oxford
at 20 was a professor in paris
scheduled elizabeths coronation
coined the term "British Empire"
joined the  court of Rudolph II
discovered newfoundland
and listened to an angel
who said his wife should
sleep with his best friend

He spent a decade transcribing the trance
of  Edward Kelley, a scryer
his best friend
who with Dee looked into this
mirror or shew stone














volcanic glass
from Mexico
from the mexican god of rulers and  sorcerers
             Tezcatlipoca
or           smoking mirror












the black stone showed
angels pointing at tables














its case has a  label from 1771,
'            The Black Stone into which Dr Dee used to call his spirits ...'.




Dr. Dee wrote:
The Elements being far from their accustomed places, the homogeneous parts are dislocated, and this a man learns by experiment, for it is along the straight lines that they return naturally and effectively to these same places. Therefore, it will not be absurd to represent the mystery of the four Elements, in which it is possible to resolve each one into elementary form, by four straight lines running in four contrary directions from one common and indivisible point. Here you will notice particularly that the geometricians teach that a line is produced by the displacement of a point: we give notice that it must be the same here, and for a similar reason, because our elementary lines are produced by a continual cascade of droplets as a flux in the mechanism of our magic.

Propaedeumata Aphoristica
Compendium Heptarchiae Mysticae
Mysteriorum Libri Quinque
Mysteriorum Liber Sextus et Sanctus
De Heptarchia Mystica
Hieroglyphic Monad











Dr. Dee drew



















In 1589 he came back to England and his library had been  burned .
Decades later, a man, E ashmole recovered some of the books and wrote:
On the 10th: of the said Sept: Mr: Wale came thither to me againe, & brought his wife with him, from her I received the following account of the preservation of these bookes, even till they came to my hands, vizt: That her former husband was one Mr: Jones a confectioner, who formerly dwelt at the Plow in Lumbardstreet London, & who, shortly after they were married, tooke her with him into Alde streete among the joyners, to buy some houshold stuff, where (at the corner house) they saw a chest of cedarwood, about a yard & halfe long, whose lock & hinges, being of extraordinary neate worke, invited them to buy it. The master of the shop told them it had ben parcell of the goods of Mr: John Woodall Chirurgeon (father to Mr: Thomas Woodall late Serjant Chirurgeon to his now Maiestie King Charles the 2d: (my intimate friend) and tis very probable he bought it after Dr: Dee's death, when his goods were exposed to sale.
Twenty yeares after this (& about 4 yeares before the fatall fire of London) she & her said husband occasionally removing this chest out of its usuall place, thought they heard some loose thing ratle in it, toward the right hand end, under the box or till thereof, & by shaking it, were fully satisfied it was so: Hereupon her husband thrust a peece of iron into a small crevice at the bottome of the Chest, & thereupon appeared a private drawer, which being drawne out, therein were found divers bookes in manuscript, & papers, together with a litle box, & therein a chaplet of olive beades, & a cross of the same wood, hanging at the end of them.
They made no great matter of these bookes &c: because they understood them not, which occasioned their servant maide to wast about one halfe of them under pyes & other like uses, which when discovered, they kept the rest more safe.
About two yeares after the discovery of these bookes, Mr: Jones died, & when the fire of London hapned, though the chest perished in the flames, because not easily to be removed, yet the bookes were taken out & carried with the rest of Mrs: Jones her goods into Moorefields, & being brought safely back, she tooke care to preserve them; and after marrying with the foresaid Mr: Wale, he came to the knowledge of them, & thereupon, with her consent, sent them to me, as I haue before set downe.