11

Aethyrs and Watchtowers

LIBER PEREGRINATIONIS PRIMAE (SEXTI MYSTICI PARADROMUS)

Travels in Europe and Announcements of Apocalypse

Dee’s diary entries between Liber sexti and Liber peregrinationis primae, entitled Liber tertiarius sexti: librum decimum,¹ are no longer extant. Consequently, Dee’s published records pick up again two and a half months later, with Dee and his retinue departing England for the Continent. They would be gone for 175 days.

On September 21, 1583, Dee, Kelly, and their families departed Mortlake for Poland. Łaski met them on the Thames, and in the darkness of the night the party traveled from Greenwich to Gravesend, where they met with ships in the morning. With Dee’s group in one ship and Łaski’s attendants in another, they hoisted sail for the Continent, by way of the Netherlands. Their voyage was fraught with constant peril, but was successful. Dee and Kelly had brought their scrying equipment; when faced with a storm, they used it to summon the archangel Michael, who appeared as a six-foot figure in the clouds and gave spiritual and terrestrial guidance. They were also shown an image of the Royal Palace in Krakow in the scrying ball. The angels counseled that the forces of hell itself were now arrayed against Łaski, for they knew he would be glorified by God. Like the earlier appearance of Galvah, the angels were often accompanied by haloes of foul creatures—spiders with human faces, locusts, monkeys, serpents, creatures vomiting fire, and so on. Perhaps the angels were subduing these evil creatures, perhaps they were being accompanied by them, or perhaps they were demons themselves.

On October 26, at Breame, an angel named Ilemese appeared and gave a prophecy of the end times, which were to occur over the next five years.

“I will plague the people, and their blood shall become Rivers,” Ilemese said. “Fathers shall eat their own children, and the earth shall be barren: the beasts of the field shall perish, and the waters shall be poisoned. The air shall infect her creatures, and in the deep shall be roaring.”² Thus would Great Babylon be built, and the Dragon arise. During this time Dee would have power, to glorify God thereby. After transmitting this vision, Ilemese disintegrated into ashes.

“The sins of the people, and filthiness of places, are put between virtue and the things Sacramental,” an angel called Aphlafben told them. “Therefore, it is not true, that thou mayest lawfully call upon the Name of God in unhallowed places.”³ Even the crudest temples in Israel would be sanctified, however, for the land was holy; yet Holland was filthy, and obscured the messages of the angels. Dee and Kelly were to flee the company of drunkards while abroad.

On November 13, the apparition of a giant two-edged, fiery, bloody sword appeared in the sky, with the angels pronouncing that “many are the Harlots that swarm upon the earth.”⁴ Humanity was castigated for its “Horedom,” by which the angels meant the behavior of those who do not love God, and instead love themselves or the vanities of the world. For “I brought you from iniquity, to the intent you might be purified,” an angelic voice stated, “but the more I cleanse you, the more you are defiled,” suggesting the state of humanity as a whole.⁵ God had sent mercy to the world through Christ, his Apostles, and his Church, but humanity had continually returned to its worship of idols and wicked ways: “I have brought you from fire, but you are entered into flames. And why? Because you defile your selves with the wickednesse of deceivers.”⁶ To purify itself, humanity had the intercessory medium of Christ, in whom all power was given, and the Church, into which all power was also delivered; even though its doubters (Protestants) alleged that the Church was “infected with errours,”⁷ the angels assured it was not. Only the errors of a few were considered unrighteousness, not the error of the institution as a whole. The angels continued to underline that the world, and the flesh, were to be renounced, and that the battle of purification was to be regularly fought. Even if Dee and Kelly were worldly and weak men, their struggle to overcome had to be made, and this would benefit the whole world.

“Make flesh subject, and strangle your Adversary,” the angels told them. “For unto such belongeth the entrance into my Chambers, and the use of my will, as the Horn of my glory.”⁸

Between November 20 and 25, an evil spirit appeared and tried to persuade Dee and Kelly that the angels they had sworn fealty to—as if it were a covenant with God—were evil angels. The spirit cited even great men of God, including St. Antony of Egypt, who had been beguiled by false spirits. This, the spirit told them, was worse than error, for they now followed false doctrine, and had forgotten their own knowledge. The spirit also said that Łaski would fall and that they were being lured to destruction by sirens.

The evil spirit told Dee that “I am sent from God as a Messenger to call thee home.”⁹ They had dishonored God, and would be made laughingstocks, cast out, and abandoned by their friends—perhaps so that they could be purified of the world. This indeed happened; the curse on Dee and Kelly’s names and reputations remains to this day.^*37

“But why dost thou write words of contempt against us? For One in our number is All; And we are, all, One.”¹⁰ The angels would dwell in all elements for them, between them and their sources of temptation, and also between them and their imaginations. They were also advised to burn their “blasphemous” books. The angel became a pillar of crystal higher than a steeple, ascending upward into clouds, leaving a little circle.

While Dee and Kelly were enrapt in the divine drama that the angels had laid out for them, things were going very wrong at home. Shortly after they had departed England, Mortlake was ransacked. The looters included many of Dee’s associates, including his creditors, who were given access by Dee’s brother-in-law Nicholas Fromoundes, who also took and sold what he found in Dee’s house. The motive for the ransacking seems to have been recouping debts (perhaps the £400 Fromoundes had loaned Dee for the Continental voyage), as well as sheer greed and the need to quickly turn a profit through fencing stolen books and goods, rather than a politically or religiously motivated attack, although Walsingham himself had planned to raid Mortlake at the first opportunity. Fromoundes sold Dee’s alchemical equipment for 80 percent of its value.¹¹ Dee’s anchors in England—his social standing and his property—were not just eroding but being destroyed. Instead, he was now caught up in Łaski’s plans, though the angels counseled that “all your life is not of him: nor he of you.”¹²

On January 12, Dee decided to show Kelly part of the Apocalypse of John. A voice said to him, “A white horse is the beginning of your instruction, and it is the word of God.”¹³ This was a reference to the white horse of Revelation 19—Christ. (Another white horse appears in Revelation 6:2, whose rider is one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse—in some readings, the Antichrist.)^*38 Uriel now told them that this was what 2 Esdras 9 referred to, and that these were the end days, wherein no faith would be found on Earth—but this faith would be restored. Christ was to return and bring justice. Dee and Kelly fell to studying Esdras.^†39

The next day, Uriel urged them to read 2 Esdras 6, another prophecy of the end of the world, foreshadowing Revelation. Kelly alighted on the twenty-eighth verse, which adds the hopeful note that faith and truth will eventually triumph over corruption. Appearing in the shewstone, Uriel revealed himself as the light and hand of God, who had comforted Esdras in his affliction. He prophesied “the last sleep of the world . . . for the earth hath cried vengeance, and hath cursed herself, and despaireth. Come (I say) For I will place the seat of righteousness. That my Kingdom may be in One: And that my people may flourish: Yea, even a little before the end.”¹⁴

Uriel stated that the Antichrist would be unveiled to the world within three years—about January 1587. At that time “shall the Son of perdition be known unto the whole world: Suddenly creeping out of his hole like an Adder, leading out her young ones after her, to devour the dust of the earth.”¹⁵

At the time of Antichrist, woe would be unto the kings of the earth, for they would all be chosen anew, and they would also all perish, their kingdoms to be overthrown. Rivers would fill with the blood of men and beasts. The Turkish Empire would be cast from the earth.^*40 Łaski would “fly through his kingdoms, as the greyhound after his spoil, devouring his possessions, and cutting down the wicked,”¹⁶ but he would become proud, and the prophets of the Lord would next descend from heaven.^†41

Uriel also prophesied that despite Edward Kelly’s stubbornness, because he had not offended God by partaking in earthly things, he would be made a great seer, and would “judge the circle of things in nature.” Yet heavenly understanding and spiritual knowledge were still to be sealed from him, for he had “cried out” against the saints. Dee and Kelly were to spend their lives together, and would be “workmen of nature, looking into the chambers of the earth: the treasures of men.”¹⁷ Shortly thereafter, Kelly was given a vision of the throne and twenty-four elders from Revelation 4.

Dee and Kelly continued their travels through Poland. On January 25, Dee would make a telling comment in his diaries, in Latin (perhaps to hide it from his companion): “The great danger to my life has come from the iniquity of E. K. against me.”¹⁸ A few days later, he fought briefly with his wife. The Continental jaunt was raising tensions in the group to a breaking point.

On February 11, now in Łaski’s hometown of Łasko, Poland, Dee and Kelly prayed the penitential psalms and again began scrying. Kelly reported that he felt something around his head, clawing at him as if with a hawk’s talons. A great natural vista appeared to Kelly in the eastern corner of the study, after which a new angel arrived, who was to play a crucial role in the sessions: Nalvage, who stepped forward out of a cloud.

Nalvage was covered with a sleeveless red-and-purple robe that came to his knees, his head covered with down feathers, his face like a child’s, his neck and legs bare. He stood upon a great round, white, crystal table, written with infinite letters, in the middle of which was a large swelling or knob of the same substance, which Nalvage’s feet were upon—this came to be known as the Round Table of Nalvage. He introduced himself as a spirit of Wisdom^*42 and the Most High (Iaida in the angelic tongue). Nalvage also said that he could not be seen for a long time. Nalvage verified that the spirit actions were true, and that the fruit of them would be the destruction of the kingdom of darkness of the evil spirits; therefore, there would be regular attempts by the spirits of darkness to interfere with the sessions and thwart Dee and Kelly.^*43

Within the forty-nine pages of Liber Loagaeth, Nalvage explained, were contained the mystical and holy voices of the angels. These tables were to be written by Galvah. Within these tables would be numbered the entire world, and all of its creatures. To be delivered in five spans of time, this would be the true Cabala of Nature or Real Cabala, spoken of by name by Nalvage, which Dee had long hypothesized. This Cabala of Nature would be revealed in full, in preparation for the Second Coming, and the rule of Christ on Earth.

Alarmingly, Kelly was given a vision of Dee’s house being put to the torch by a mob, with Dee’s wife being dragged out, Dee falling to his knees, and his precious books being destroyed, while evil spirits laughed. Though Dee had not given up his piety in the vision, his house burned completely. Jane Dee was shown raped and murdered, with the right side of her face and teeth battered in. Dee’s servant Mary was pulled out of a pool half dead, and carried out of the gates. In the vision, Dee went running through the fields and then through waters, with men chasing him.

The vision faded. When Nalvage appeared again, he was weeping. It was a warning from God, he said, so that Dee might escape this fate. Mortlake had indeed already been ransacked after Dee departed England—perhaps a scene like the one in the vision may have played out in reality if they had stayed.

The spirits of darkness were arrayed against Dee. Even this year, they were told, many troubles would begin, along with the entrance of Łaski into the “bloody service” of the world.¹⁹ Dee was terrified, and all of the angelic protection he had been promised now seemed to no longer be sufficient. He fell to begging Christ.

Another young female spirit appeared, curtsied, and said she had just been at Mortlake, and all was well. (Unbeknownst to Dee, however, his library and possessions had already been ransacked.) The queen missed him, and the lord treasurer had assured her that Dee would be back soon. The spirit also reported that Sir Henry Sidney had died, which was false; Dee footnoted that this may also have been a lie of the devil. Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, was supposedly an enemy of Dee’s. Madimi told them to leave Łasko for Krakow, where they would meet many princes and learned men. If he was to go to Krakow, Madimi counseled, nothing like the vision of destruction would happen. They were not to set up the Holy Table in Łasko; as Madimi so biblically put it, “This Wilderness, is not forty years.”²⁰

Dee begged Madimi that the operation of demons no longer be permitted in the sessions, citing the incident in which Kelly felt his head being clawed. Madimi replied, puckishly or chillingly depending on your viewpoint, “He may rejoice, they clawed not his soul.”^*44 21

Madimi was growing. After delivering her message, she went away bigger, in a gown. Three days later, she had grown even more, and departed the session naked, her body covered with blood on the side that faced Kelly. By February 22, she had become a full-grown, tall, mighty woman.

At the next scrying session, Kelly heard a great buzzing in his ear.^*45 The angels next gave the two men a general medical theory: that bodily infection is a lower reflection of spiritual infection, which is therefore the work of Satan. This infection could not be healed by the angels unless it was the will of the Holy Spirit, which descends through them and into the terrestrial Church, whereby disease could be cured.

The year to come would be of great bloodshed, the angels warned. Great troubles would arise in England. One would rise up against another, to cut each other’s throats. Yet by now the angels had soured on the unfaithful Łaski, who would not be up to the coming conflicts in Europe. Łaski would be felled before his time, Madimi promised, because of his weakness. Kelly, too, would be destroyed. Dee begged Christ for mercy from the wrath of God, citing Job 33 for the modes of God’s mercy to man. Łaski, however, had already been cast out of God’s grace.

Meanwhile, back at court, the new calendar was dropped for political reasons in April 1584. As with Dee’s plans for the British Empire, Elizabeth assured him that delays would not get in the way of eventual acceptance. Yet while Elizabeth could wait, Dee, languishing in debt, could not do so quite so comfortably. Dee may have felt he had no options left. Berated by the angels for his sin and disobedience, and exhorted to turn his back on the physical world of corruption and decay, he began to abandon what was left of his attachments to Elizabeth’s court and turn wholly toward the angels. All that was left to Dee was his own private mythology, consistently confirmed by Kelly, who, we must not forget, was on payroll and therefore somewhat beholden to Dee’s view of reality. Likewise, Łaski would have been encouraging Dee, as he believed the magus was assisting him in furthering his political career (and may well have been interested in procuring the secrets of alchemy from Dee for financial gain).

Such a setup provided little in the way of checks and balances for sanity. Instead, Dee was descending into his and Kelly’s mutual hallucination, one that would be marked with both increasingly penitent attitudes—what had Dee done wrong to deserve his current state?—and grandiose, self-important schemes for world domination.

MENSIS MYSTICUS SAOBATICUS. PARS 1 AND 2

The Reception of the Calls Begins

Having completed the transmission of Loagaeth, Dee and Kelly were next prompted to begin receiving the forty-nine calls, the central gem of the angelic system, which would open the regions of the world to the angels to carry out the events of Revelation.

In Krakow, Nalvage appeared again, in the form of King Edward VI. The table he stood upon now consisted of mother-of-pearl. The sections of this round table were related by Nalvage to the Holy Trinity—the substance being God the Father; the circumference God the Son, the finger of the father and mover of all things; and the order and knitting together of parts in due and perfect proportion being God the Holy Spirit, beginning and end of all things.

On April 12, several evil spirits manifested, including a hell-hound. Each claimed to be Nalvage, and each was rebuked until the real Nalvage appeared—he explained that there was a continual fight between the angels and Satan, wherein the angels vanquished by patience.²² The devil was subtly infecting Kelly’s imagination, mingling imperfect forms with Nalvage’s utterances.

Now began the transmission of the forty-nine calls themselves. These were transmitted by Nalvage backward in order to prevent their utterance, and afterward were to be reversed by Dee and Kelly. The calls were of more worth, Nalvage said, than the kingdom of Poland;²³ they would give understanding of many thousands of secrets, wherein Dee and Kelly were yet but children.²⁴

On April 13, Nalvage stated that he had privately given counsel to Kelly to give up dealing with evil spirits. This suggests Kelly had been doing so on his own while not in Dee’s direct company, which would explain the many demonic appearances at the scrying sessions. It was revealed that Kelly had also been asking questions about Łaski on his own. On April 17, a spiritual creature said to Kelly that the good spirits would not deal with him, casting Kelly back into frantic doubt. By April 19, Kelly was again claiming to Dee that their spiritual tutors were deluders. Within the last two years, he protested, they had not given Dee and Kelly anything practical. In the same amount of time, Kelly said, he could have learned all seven liberal sciences; he would burn all of the records of the angelic sessions if he could. If Dee wanted to keep talking to angels, Kelly jabbed, he could use his son as a scryer.

Two days later, Gabriel had another stern message for Kelly. Were not all things possible with God? Gabriel asked. Since they were, Kelly was to trust and do his duty. All of these actions were of God, and all would soon be delivered.

“By August next?” a beleaguered Kelly asked.

“What if it were a hundred Augusts?”²⁵ Gabriel shot back.

Gabriel next spelled out, for the first time, the story of the Fall from the angelic perspective, including the history of the angelic language. Man had been created an innocent, partaking in the power and spirit of God and his good angels and naming the objects in the Garden. Yet the devil—called Coronzom in Enochian^*46—envied him, and perceived that his lesser nature was frail, and so began to assail him. Falling to temptation, Adam was accursed and cast from the Garden, and driven out into the bramble-covered earth, now unable to speak as he had lost the angelic language. At this point he began to speak ancient Hebrew, a pale and guttural reflection of the angelic tongue, which was divided into three, seven, and twelve parts,^†47 but lacked the true forms and pronunciations of Enochian. Modern Hebrew itself was a degeneration of ancient Hebrew; little to nothing was left of the original language²⁶—that is until now, as the angels were disclosing the angelic language to mankind for the first time through Dee and Kelly, a “tongue of power” that was only to be used to work the power of God and for delivering wisdom, and for no other reason.

This profound message must have helped move Kelly, for by April 24 he decided to grant Dee two hours a day of scrying. On April 25, Gabriel and Nalvage appeared, and said that God did not appear to the reprobate: “For the reprobate hath not visitation, but in the rod of Justice.”²⁷ Man’s purity and acceptance of God was the measure by which God might visit him. Yet these spiritual visions could be taken away; to be given such visitations was thus a goad to become even more humble. Obedience to the angels’ commands would be the best indicator of this humility.²⁸

The transmission of the calls now began in earnest. (The first table, they were told, could have no call; for it was of the Godhead.) Dee, enraptured by the information being unveiled to him, began to affectionately refer to the angels as “our Schoolmasters.”²⁹ Łaski, however, was not present; this disobedience to God’s commands enraged the angels.

As the transmission of the calls progressed, Dee and Kelly were also given remarkable visions. On April 27, Gabriel and Nalvage delivered a stunning apocalypse in which a prophet named Damida searches the world, finding the merchants and common people unworthy of the Holy Spirit until he discovers Dee, depicted as a naked man carrying nothing but “mosse, leaves, flowers, and herbs.”³⁰ The prophet gathers up Dee and continues his quest until they discover Kelly, depicted as a child that the prophet decides may one day become a man. They are led up a hill that represents the world, and are told of the coming of the Holy Spirit, depicted as a whale who has swallowed a chest in which are the chambers of wisdom (likely the Aethyrs). Dee is told to sit and wait until Kelly becomes a man. Below them, the king of the world, who is Satan, plots against the whale for he knows that its coming will destroy his kingdoms. The seas around the hill do arise and flood the kingdom, and the winds and thunders that are the judgments of God lash the world. Four beasts, representing the four elements, come to the top of the hill where Dee and Kelly dwell with the prophet; Dee and Kelly are commanded to kill them. They unleash the elements at their death, and reveal Christ; as the world is ravaged and destroyed, Dee and Kelly are initiated into the mysteries of the Crown (Godhead) and the Aires or decanates of the zodiac.

Finally, the firmament and waters are rejoined and the Holy Spirit itself arrives as the whale, “like unto a legion of storms: or as the bottomless Cave of the North when it is opened: and she was full of eyes [on] every side.” The waters recede and leave the whale laying on the hillside, “roaring like a Cave of Lions,”³¹ and the prophet leads a terrified Dee and Kelly to enter its mouth. Afterward, they are given riches; the naked Dee is clothed, and Kelly is given the full secrets of the Aethyrs. Christ, they are told, will return twenty-one times in one year, but not all at once.

On April 30, they were given an image of seven priests in white opening seven gates—another foreshadowing of apocalypse.

LIBRI SEPTIMI, APERTORII, CRACOVIENSIS, MYSTICI, SABBATICI. PARS 3

The Thirty Aethyrs, Ninety-One Parts of the World, and Forty-Nine Calls

On May 7, Gabriel and Nalvage appeared and transmitted an explanatory vision of a city on a hill, envied by serpents. The city on the hill and the people who dwelled within it represented the world, which from time to time was quenched by God’s wisdom according to their need. The serpents below were evil people.^*48

The angels also took the opportunity to rebuke Kelly for his use of grimoire magic. Kelly argued that Moses and Daniel had been skilled in Egyptian magic, which did not stop them from being faithful servants of God. Why, then, should it stop him? Gabriel’s answer was eminently practical—that magic was only a shadow and pale imitation of the ways of God by the devil, and that even the “doings of the Egyptians, seem, and are not so.”³² What the angels had revealed was the workings of God—higher wisdom that put magic itself to shame. The devil could only seem to triumph over the world, but his works were false, and hollow, and a pale imitation of God’s natural law. This was a consistent lesson to Kelly, the slow student in the angels’ school.

Fig. 11.1. The thirty Aethyrs. From MS. Sloane 3191.

By May 21, the first seventeen calls had been delivered. The eighteenth call, which would be modified to produce thirty calls (for each of the thirty Aethyrs), was next. Dee and Kelly were told to be still and patient, for the place was holy. Nalvage prayed, then made a cross to the four quarters of the world with his rod. They were told that the thirty calls to come were “the Calls of Ninety-one Princes and spiritual Governors, unto whom the earth is delivered as a portion. These bring in and again dispose Kings and all the Governments upon the earth, and vary the Natures of things: with the variation of every moment; Unto whom, the Providence of the eternal Judgment, is already opened.”³³ These ninety-one parts of the earth were governed by twelve angels assigned to the twelve tribes of Israel, which are governed by the seven Spirits who stand before the presence of God.^*49 These tribes of the original sons of Adam, which had been divided by God, would be regathered to partake of the New Jerusalem as described in Revelation 21. The numbers and names of the Governors of the thirty Aethyrs were given—totaling ninety-one Governors—along with what tribe they were each governed by.

An angel named Mapsama told the two, “These Calls touch all parts of the World. The World may be dealt withall, with her parts; Therefore you may do anything. These Calls are the keys into the Gates and Cities of wisdom.^†50 Which Gates are not to be opened, but with visible apparition.”³⁴

This was to be had by calling every table. They were to go in humbly—not brashly, but rather to allow themselves to be drawn in. By August, they were promised, assuming they displayed utmost humility and obedience, the angels would show them how to know and use the good and evil spiritual creatures, and for what purpose they were being given this gift by the Highest.

LIBRI SEPTIMI APERTORII CRACOVIENSISMYSTICI, SABBATICI. PARS 4

The Book of Forty-Eight Silvered Leaves, the Parable of the Threshers, the Horrible Doctrine, the Golden Talisman, the Watchtowers, and the Parable of the Adder

On May 23, the angels showed the two men a spinning globe. Dee wanted specific measurements, by longitude and latitude, of how to map the Governors of the Aethyrs to the world. Nalvage replied that this was simply not how angels did things. They were now given the parts of the world, with each of the Governors corresponding to a terrestrial area of the globe.

The next day, Kelly locked himself in his room, refusing to have anything more to do with the spirit actions. When he emerged, he had in his hand a copy of Agrippa, wherein were reprinted the sections of the world taken from Ptolemy. Kelly claimed that the spirits had to be frauds, because they must have copied their material from this book. Dee thought that this only proved that the angels were giving them good information, fulfilling what previous magicians had grasped at but not fully comprehended, and that the angels had only done exactly what Dee had requested. Kelly was unconvinced.

They were next to make a silvered book of forty-eight leaves, containing the calls. The angel Mapsama arrived to impart information on how to do so, despite the fact that he was deeply disappointed with Dee and Kelly’s continued wickedness, presumably meaning Kelly’s distrust of the angels. An exasperated Kelly replied to Mapsama’s chastising by saying, “I thought you would say so.”³⁵

Afterward, they were to journey to the emperor’s court. Dee asked what he should do with the book once he had bound it. An already bitter Kelly replied that it should be burned. Mapsama replied that on the fourteenth day of their rest, the cloth on the Holy Table would be spread for a banquet for the angels of the Lord, in the middle of which would be laid the book of silver leaves. Dee had already entered the emperor’s heart, and even were he to become “willful,” there would still be four months for him to change his mind. On their voyage, they were to take only the tablecloth, the shewstone, and the silvered book.

On June 2, Gabriel prophesied apocalypse and bloodshed. He delivered Dee and Kelly a parable of a “barn”—Dee and Kelly were to enter service in God’s barn, within which grew corn, representing souls, which had long been unkempt. Dee and Kelly were to take up God’s flails, representing the angelic doctrine that had been delivered to them, the testimony of the Holy Spirit to come. With their flails, they were to thresh the corn, “wherewith you shall beat the sheafs, that the Corn which is scattered, and the rest may be all one.”³⁶ Their reward for this would be nothing save the privilege of serving God and assurance of entrance to heaven, and they were not to begin the threshing—the harvesting of the 144,000 souls to be saved at the outset of the Apocalypse, via the use of the temple furniture and the thirty calls—until they were commanded to do so.

Fig. 11.2. John Dee with golden talisman, compass, and square. Courtesy of Wellcome Images.

Gabriel explained that he had told them of the manner and power of God, of the nature of hell, of the course of the world, of their election and the end thereof, and of Łaski and why he was elected. He now exhorted them to make themselves fully humbled and sanctified. They were to remember hell, to go to meet Emperor Rudolf II, to love together, and to humbly persevere until the end of their Great Work.

On June 4, following the Lord’s Prayer, Gabriel again appeared and railed against idol worship, stating that idolatry was why the Jews became captives. He also again castigated Kelly for his faults. Yet, for once, the angels expressed compassion and love for the two men. God loved them despite their faults, and the affection of God was greater even than a father’s love. Even the doings of the devil were a necessary part of God’s plan, because they allow for resistance by which faith may be tested and grow stronger. One who grew strong by resisting the devil could prove to the “powers and spirits of Heaven” that he was worthy of eternal life.³⁷ Demons were sent either to the wicked, who openly consorted with them, or to the very elect, who were tested by them; Dee and Kelly were therefore to continue resisting them, in the hope that the angels would testify their name before the heavens and the God of Justice.

At this, both Kelly and Dee fell into tears. On February 18, 1584, they had been shown a vision of hell at Mortlake. How steadily the angels had worked to keep them from it. Gabriel explained to them the jealousy of God, how the house of God must be made clean and spotless, and finally why devils appeared. Kelly was so overcome by this offering of Grace, and so willing to now relinquish his evil ways and receive the blood of Christ, that he revealed to Dee many of the false doctrines that evil spirits had given him, his notes on which he was now ready to burn. In his own private experiments with wicked spirits, Kelly had been given a “manifold horrible Doctrine,” whereby demons tried to persuade him:

That Jesus was not God.

. . . That no prayer ought to be made to Jesus.

. . . That there is no sin.

. . . That man’s soul doth go from one body, to another child’s quickening or animation.^*51

. . . That as many men and women as are now, have always been:

That is, so many human bodies, and human souls, neither more nor less, as are now, have always been.

. . . That the generation of mankind from Adam and Eve, is not an history, but a writing which hath another sense.

. . . No Holy Ghost they acknowledged.

. . . They would not suffer him to pray to Jesus first; but would rebuke him, saying, that he robbed God of his honor, &c.^†52 38

Dee marveled at how thoroughly the angels had purified Kelly, to bring him to the point where he was able to relinquish all that he had learned before and make a full Christian conversion, and that his life would no longer be a scandal to the Lord. Kelly’s conversion was so dramatic that Dee had no doubt that it had been anything but sincere. Kelly even confessed that only nine or ten days earlier he had plotted to escape Krakow and Dee’s employ with the aid of evil spirits, “with whom he had so long dealth: And therefore that till now, he dealt hypocritically.”³⁹ If Kelly was indeed performing grimoire magic privately, a holdover from his previous magical education and practices before meeting Dee, this helps explain the regular appearance of evil spirits during the angelic conversations, in addition to the angels’ own explanation that the elect are tempted of necessity.

Kelly revealed that the leverage the evil spirits held over him was that they had so often threatened him with homelessness. Yet now, he reported, he no longer cared, “and that he now made more account of God his favor and life eternal, then he doth of all transitory wealth and riches, and to be entangled within the danger of these wicked spirits their snares, with all.”⁴⁰ Bitterly, Kelly noted the irony that it was only by being paid by Dee that he could even temporarily renounce the evil spirits. Never again, he said, would he doubt the veracity of the spirit actions. (This vow would, of course, not hold.) In this section of the diaries and earlier—even in Kelly’s more hysteria-fueled moments—Dee’s affection for Kelly, the younger and more troubled man, comes across clearly. Despite the punishing lengths to which he pushed his employee, it seems that Dee truly cared for Kelly, who was half his age and beset by a wide range of personal afflictions.

On June 18, after prayers of thanks for Kelly and for aid to Łaski, a mighty and long arm and hand appeared in the air to grab the shewstone. Kelly reached out for the stone to save it, but the stone was suddenly “teleported” next to the cushion on the table. Michael appeared by the stone, and Kelly was next given a vision of Groano Castle in Lithuania, where the king (presumably Báthory) was. He set down a sword on a table engraved with magical characters, which Gabriel said would fail him. Smoke spirits were also summoned.

Łaski was poor, and still unfit, but the angels were now willing to stand behind him if he was obedient, in which case he would be king of Poland as surely as the sun shone. “To talk with God for money is a folly, to talk with God for mercy, is great wisdom,” the angels counseled, also telling them that the illuding spirit arm had been sent by the king’s enchanters—but that the king still did not know of their doings.⁴¹

On June 20, Kelly was to have a vision that would reveal the next crucial part of the angels’ system—the four Watchtowers. The vision came to him while lying in bed awake in the morning, during which Kelly felt an angel, clothed in feathers, pat him on the head to make him more vigilant.

Fig. 11.3. The Golden Talisman. From Casaubon.

The vision showed four castles, from which ranks of angels proceeded toward a central point. A depiction of this vision was later engraved on a golden talisman, leading to this often being referred to as the “vision of the golden talisman” in later writings. It gives an overview of the system of the Watchtowers, which would later be fleshed out as elemental tablets giving the actual names of the beings in the angelic language.

From each of the four castles, standing in the four parts of the world, came the sound of a trumpet, after which a cloth was thrown out on the ground in front of it. These cloths—red (later elaborated as “after the new smitten blood”) for the east, white (“Lilly-colour”) for the south, green (“the skins of many Dragons . . . garlick-bladed”) for the west, and black (“Hair-coloured, Bilbery juice”)⁴² for the north—delineated the colors of the elements. From each castle now proceeded a retinue of spirits. In sequence, from each castle, there came a trumpeter, three ensign-bearers, six ancient men with white heads and staves, a comely man with much apparel on his back with a long robe-tail carried by five men, a great cross in a cloud like a rainbow, four lesser crosses in the air in a white cloud with the faces of men on each of the four parts of each cross, sixteen white creatures, and, following them, an infinite number of spirits. These spirits’ names and hierarchy were later given in the Watchtowers.

Now a new angel appeared—Ave, one of the Sons of Sons of the Light from the Sigillum Dei Aemeth. Ave said that he would reverse the workings of Satan and shower out blessings upon Dee and Kelly, after which he further expounded the vision. Ave explained that the four castles were the four angels of the earth, which are the overseers and Watchtowers that God has placed as bulwarks against the workings of the devil.^*53

“What Satan doth, they suffer,” Ave explained, “and what they wink at, he wrasteth: But when he thinketh himself most assured, then feeleth he the bit.”⁴³

In each of the castles or houses was a mighty prince, the chief watchman and angel of the Lord (later to be called a king), under whom served five princes. The seals and authorities of the castles were “confirmed in the beginning of the World,” and each was given four characters, which were tokens of the presence of Christ, and by which he would come again to judge the earth and redeem humanity. Unto each of these four characters belonged four angels.

The ancient men were the twenty-four seniors—the elders before the Throne of God in Revelation 4:4. These judged the “government of the Castles,” and fulfilled the will of God.

The twelve banners—divided into angelic names of three, four, and five characters—were the twelve names of God, which governed “all the creatures upon the earth, visible and invisible.” From the crosses, they were told, came the angels of the Aethyrs (the names of the Governors of the thirty Aethyrs were later to be found enciphered on the Watchtowers), who were obedient to the will of men, and by the use of which they would “subvert whole Countries without Armies: which you must, and shall do, for the glory of God,” and by whom they would gain the favor of princes, know the “secret Treasures of the waters” and the “unknown Caves of the Earth.”⁴⁴

Hereby, it seems, was at last revealed the magical means by which Dee’s dreams of a new world order would be realized; the causal engine behind the fulfillment of Revelation—a magical system that, when worked by Dee or those to come after him, would initiate a new terrestrial ordering, followed by the millennial rule of Christ.

Ave told the pair that he would return the following Monday to give further instruction, and that in the meantime Dee and Kelly should pray for what things were necessary for them. Following this, they were granted another vision, “the sign of the love of God towards his faithful.” The castles again appeared, and three trumpet blasts were heard from within them, following which the carpets were again cast forth. The trumpets again sounded and the gates opened; from each of them came four trumpeters whose trumpets “are a Pyramis, six cones, wreathed.”⁴⁵ Next came three spirits holding up three banners (making up the twelve banners and names of God), next a king with five guardian princes holding up the tail of his long robe, the crosses, and sixteen “dispositors” carrying out the will of the kings. The twenty-four seniors conducted themselves to the center of the courtyard, where they consulted with each other.

Fig. 11.4. The twelve banners. From MS. Sloane 3191.

Starting June 25, the Great Table itself was revealed. As in the vision of the golden talisman, the angels removed black, green, white, and red carpets or cloths from it. Four sigils were revealed for each of the four quadrants of the table. After a mist covered the table and was cleared, an infinite number of creatures that looked like worms with heads appeared over it.^*54 Higher in the air, above these, were several small, blackish things, bigger than “motes in the sun.”

“Now hath it pleased God to deliver this Doctrine again out of darknesse,” a voice said, “and to fulfill his promise with thee, for the books of Enoch: To whom he sayeth as he said unto Enoch.”⁴⁶ These evil spirits were next taken away from the table, and a tablet made of twelve by thirteen squares was revealed. These squares contained characters showing the true images of God and his spiritual creatures. While Kelly transcribed the table, he heard a voice telling him that he was writing out his own damnation; but an angel next told him that he was actually inscribing the damnation of the evil spirits.^†55 The characters revealed were also “the parts of the whole earth,”⁴⁷ meaning that the names and Governors of the Aethyrs could also be drawn from them.

Four of these tablets—representing the Watchtowers and the four elements—made up the Great Table, with a central black cross dividing them. Ave described the uses of the subservient spirits to be drawn from the Watchtowers: they would bring all human knowledge, medicine, the knowledge of the elementals, knowledge of finding and working with metals and stones, the conjoining of natures, the destruction of nature, the knowledge of all mechanical crafts, and alchemical transformations. Kelly, suffering from a migraine (perhaps from the overclocking of his brain by the angels), was also told how to use the spirits for the knitting together of natures, carrying things from place to place, and knowledge of all handicrafts and arts.

A ritual was also given, in which Dee and Kelly were to assess “One book of perfect paper. One labour of a few days. The calling them together, and the yielding of their promise, the repetition of the names of God, are sufficient.”⁴⁸ This operation was meant to consecrate the tables and to call forth the angels within them for use by Dee and Kelly, after which time the angels would follow them and be about them at all times. Over the course of four days, Dee and Kelly were to call on the names of God from the twelve banners, followed by fourteen days in which they were to call the angels by petition. On the fifteenth day, they would clothe themselves in white linen, and then would have the “apparition, use and practice of the Creatures. For it is not a labor of years, nor many days.”⁴⁹ Kelly compared this operation to grimoire magic, but Ave rebuked him, saying, tellingly, “Nay, they all played at this.”⁵⁰

Fig. 11.5. Dee’s handwritten version of the Great Table. From MS. Sloane 3191.

Several prophecies and supernatural events followed the reception of the Great Table. It was revealed that Dee and Kelly would set up the sign of the cross in Constantinople by September 15. They were also given the “Parable of the Adder,” in which the Lord led them like a mother adder guiding small serpents.^*56 On June 30 a large face appeared with wings around it, and afterward was shown in a great globe of fire. Dee had many doubts, but in response to Dee’s battery of questions, the angel counterquizzed him to show his ignorance.

It also seemed the pair’s fascination for evil spirits had not abated despite their constant chastening. In a footnote, Dee remarked that Kelly had once evoked an evil spirit named Soudenna, who appeared in many forms, until he took the form of a triangle of fire, after which, when he was constrained to a circle, he appeared as a great giant. Despite all the warnings to the contrary, and the damage caused by Kelly’s trafficking with evil spirits, Dee was still curious about how to call evil spirits, but was not indulged by the angels. Instead, on July 5, Gabriel continued to drive home the message that the two magicians were to renounce the world. “John Dee, be of comfort, for thou shalt overcome,” Gabriel assured him.⁵¹

Following this, the English translations of the calls were given (comparing the Enochian and English of the calls side by side is the primary source for deriving the lexicon and structure of the angelic language). But by July 7, Ave was again blasting Dee and Kelly for their faithlessness and doubt. God had tested the faith of the biblical patriarchs, and rewarded their faith, but Dee and Kelly were “of little faith, and starvelings, withered grasse, and blasted willows.” Even if they were in hell, God could deliver them, and yet they still lacked faith to the point that they worried over the logistics of carrying out the angels’ commands. This lack of faith was endangering them, for “Nititur enim, omnibus modis, Sathanas ut vis devoret”—Satan strives in every way, so that he may devour you.⁵²

Ave confirmed that what had been delivered to Dee and Kelly was the same knowledge that God had delivered Enoch, who labored for fifty days, and the calls the book of Enoch. Ave also confirmed that Enoch himself had similarly made tables, of “Serpasan” (a kind of slate stone, Dee noted) and plain stone, as had been appointed to him by an angel of the Lord. (Even Enoch and Esdras, the angels explained, had only known a fragment of the divine language now being delivered to Dee and Kelly.)⁵³

LIBRI QUINTUS CRACOVIENSIS MYSTICUS APERTORIUS. PARS 5

The Curse on Creation and the Terminal Monotheism

Continuing the translations from the previous Libri, the English translation of the nineteenth call was given. The call disturbed Dee, and appeared to him to be a curse on humanity, containing lines such as, “The work of man and his pomp, let them be defaced. His buildings, let them become Caves for the beasts of the Field! Confound her understanding with darkness! For why? it repenteth me that I have made Man.”⁵⁴

Dee asked if this was the curse that was spoken before the creation of humanity, and was told that God had indeed cursed the earth, leading mankind to prey upon each other, and the kingdoms of the world to rise up against each other, with servants rising up against their masters and wicked sons against their fathers. Perfect love had been taken  out of the world and replaced with malice, and it would be so until the end of the world, the only possible remedy for which is to “after God [treat] thy brother as thy self.” This corrupted world, as we currently experience it, is the world that Adam was punished by being cast out into, “a prison prepared for him before, if he offended.” If the world were not a prison of misery, it would not be a punishment for Adam. For “as Jesus Christ brought all blessedness, and comfort into the world: So did Adam, accursed, bring all misery and wretchedness into the world, and in the same instant, when Adam was expelled; The Lord suffered the earth to be accursed for Adam’s sake, and then, said the Lord these things, and gave unto the world her time: and placed over her Keepers, Watch-men, and Princes, for years, months, and days.”⁵⁵

Following the completion of the calls, Gabriel told Dee and Kelly that God had kept his promise with them and delivered the keys of his storehouses, “wherein you shall find, (if you enter wisely, humbly, and patiently) Treasures more worth than the frames of the heavens.”⁵⁶ They were to prepare to enter these storehouses come August: “See that your garments be clean. Herein be not rash: Nor over hasty; For those that are hasty and rash, and are loathsomely appareled, may knock long before they enter.”⁵⁷

Gabriel also counseled them that they would never understand the mysteries of all that had been spoken. They were only to love together, and dwell together in the same God, and God would therefore be merciful to them. Dee was certainly in need of grace, as his son Rowland was extremely sick. Dee swore that if God let Rowland live, he would only eat one meal on Saturdays. On July 23, however, a dark man appeared and told Dee that he had broken the commandments of God.

“Thou art one of those,” the angel said, “that when I command thee to leave nothing with life, yet thou savest the fatlings to offer before him that abhorreth such sacrifice.”⁵⁸ Dee was compared to St. Paul. “The Lord oweth thee nothing for thy labor: he hath paid thee to the uttermost. As for Lasky, I will give him over to the spirit of error: and he shall become more poor, so that his own children shall despise him.” They were counseled that this was not yet to come, and that they were to remain obedient to the utmost, “for if you had been obedient, the very stones of the earth should have served your necessity.”⁵⁹

Ten days had been appointed for the journey, but Dee and Kelly had missed the deadline and were to be punished. “I have not sealed this sin unto thee [Dee] but yet I have measured out a plague, and it shall light upon you all. But unto Lasky I have sealed it, and it shall be heavy,” the black man told them.⁶⁰

So chastened, they left for Prague by coach, and arrived on August 9, 1584, after a week’s journey, dreading that God might be angry with them forever. By August 15, they had taken shelter in a study lent to them by Dr. TadeáÅ¡ Hájek, a Czech astronomer, physician to three Habsburg emperors, and alchemist. Here, they resumed the angelic sessions and prepared to undertake the next step of the angels’ plan. Like Tycho Brahe, Hájek had keenly observed the 1572 supernova, which occurred the same year Báthory was crowned and was taken throughout the empire as a sign that his reign would be short-lived.⁶¹ Recommencing their occult experiments, they were instructed to test spirits by checking to see if they professed belief in Christ.

Dee and Kelly now found themselves in the alchemical hub of Europe, a Hermetic country where their work was to find fertile soil, resonating years—even centuries—into the future.