12

On a Mission from God

MYSTERIORUM PRAGENSIUM CAESAREUSQUE. LIBER PRIMUS

At the Court of Rudolf II

On August 15, Dee and Kelly asked for instructions on next steps, and were given another terrifying vision of the Apocalypse. Kelly was first shown a vision of roses and lilies, followed by a vision of Revelation, featuring a white man and a lion. Madimi next appeared, bigger still this time.

“Believe me, many are the woes of the world,” Madimi said, “and great are the sorrows that are to come: For the Lord prepareth his rainbow, and the witnesses of his account: and will appear in the Heavens to finish all things: and the time is not long.”¹ Blessed were to be the believers, for faith would depart the planet, and they would be relegated to caves, unknown mountains, and secret parts of the earth that the Lord had made. In the meantime, great woes would come to the world: pregnant women would give birth to monsters, the kings of the earth would be destroyed, the vain and “such as paint themselves” would drink the blood of their neighbors and their own children, and seven woes would befall the false preachers, who are the “teeth of the Beast.” Virgins would despise their virginity and God, and become “concubines for Satan.” The merchants of the earth would become abominable and be dragged into the pit; even the world’s books would become corrupt and a “firebrand to the conscience.”²

The forces of evil were aligning against Dee and Kelly. The “king of darkness wetteth his teeth against thee,”³ Madimi said, and sought to destroy Dee’s house and children, and tempt his wife to suicide—luckily, they were all under the protection and watch of the angels. Madimi counseled that Dee’s household was to be moved to Prague. They were to write to Rudolph II, emperor of Bohemia, who had an abiding interest in the occult; they were then to go to him, saying that the angel of the Lord appeared before him, and rebuke him for his sins. If Rudolph was receptive, they were to tell him that he would triumph; if he was not, they were to tell him that the Lord would throw him from his throne. Yet if he were to forsake his wickedness, the angels assured, he would become the greatest emperor in history, and the devil himself would be his prisoner. Prague would be an apt venue for Dee and Kelly: the city, which had long been a center of alchemical study, had sheltered Europe’s Jews since the tenth century and had even been laid out to match Jerusalem, and therefore to symbolize the New Jerusalem to come after the final defeat of the Dragon, Beast, and Whore of Babylon in Revelation.⁴

Though the angels’ plan was a potential death sentence, Rudolf II was a compelling choice to receive their message, as he had worked to establish a tolerant rule, and many escapees from Catholic orthodoxy had flocked to him. Rudolf felt the Church’s Counter-Reformation threatened his power, as did the growing might of the Protestant bloc, and so attempted to stay aloof from sectarian combat. With the addition of his patronage of the occult (especially as Łaski’s funds as well as obedience were dwindling), this made Rudolf a compelling potential source of aid.⁵

Dee and Kelly had successfully received the angels’ system for initiating the Apocalypse; instead of technicians, they were now to take on the role of prophets, acting as the angels’ cat’s-paws in the grand game of European politics. The full scope of the angels’ plan was coming into focus. With the Apocalypse fast approaching, the angels were unveiling the spiritual machinery for enacting the salvation of the 144,000 souls (12,000 for each of the twelve tribes) to be returned to Christ at the end of days. As revealed in the vision of the barn and threshers, Dee and Kelly were not only to assist in this process of soul gathering, but would be rewarded with status among God’s elect in heaven as payment.⁶

To help prepare for this soul-gathering process, the angels had proposed a Terminal Monotheism, not only healing the rift between Catholicism and Protestantism but also bringing Judaism, Islam, and paganism into the fold of a new supra-Christianity. Like the collapse of the Tower of Babel in reverse, this new religion, delivered by the angels, would reassemble the broken pieces of the world, its scattered faiths, tribes, and languages, and become the religion of mankind after the Millennium and the return of Christ.⁷ Along with the revelation of the Real Cabala—the angelic transmissions—this was to fulfill Dee’s mentor Postel’s grand vision. In combining this new world religion with the plans Dee had already laid for a British Empire, the angels would unite the entire globe, fusing all humanity into one state, and one church, all directed by the angels themselves.^*57 Central to the angels’ apocalyptic plans was the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, also an obsession of Rudolf II’s.

Rudolf II is not remembered as a successful politician. Yet because of his personal interests, Rudolf was incredibly successful as a cultural leader, establishing an atmosphere of tolerance not only of Protestantism, but of occultists, alchemists, and scientists—one that may have had a larger role in fostering a tolerant and refined European culture than any other monarch of his time.⁸ An introvert and depressive, he shunned politics and statecraft for his personal obsession with the occult. He was also a patron of the arts, favoring arcane and erotic subjects and collecting mechanical curios, exotic animals, and even, allegedly, a copy of the Voynich manuscript (most of his collection was looted or destroyed by the end of the Thirty Years’ War). Like many European nobles, he was also a keen student of Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, magic, astrology, astronomy, chemical medicine, and Kabbalah (studying the latter personally under Judah Loew, supreme chief rabbi of Bohemia), and he cultivated the same interests in his subjects. Fascinated with alchemy and the quest for the philosopher’s stone, Rudolf was also rare in that he saw alchemy as a symbol of inner enlightenment as well as external riches. He also made forays into operative magic himself—after the death of his friend Tycho Brahe in 1601, Rudolf attempted a necromantic ritual to return Brahe to life; when it failed, he locked himself in his bedroom for a full week in despair.⁹

Rudolf became more withdrawn as he aged, dwelling on his own interests to the point that his empire began to collapse, until an illplanned and ill-fated new Crusade against the Turks (an attempt to unify Christendom) led to a revolt by his own subjects and his replacement by his younger brother. Never married, he had a string of affairs with both men and women, as well as illegitimate children. His oldest and most loved child, Don Julius Caesar d’Austria, was a schizophrenic who later murdered and disfigured a female lover—the ill-fated woman was found cut into pieces by a hunting knife, in the arms of a naked and excrement-smeared d’Austria, who was subsequently imprisoned by his father and killed without trial or ceremony four months later.

Around 1611, as his kingdom began to crumble due to his political incompetence, Rudolf resorted to using magic to attempt to reverse the situation, with similar results as his necromantic ritual. Surrendering to the brutalities of existence at last, he retreated into his own chambers and private world, and died alone, with no family, friends, or courtiers at his side; a committed occultist to the end, he refused last sacraments or confession on his deathbed unless a priest of his “own kind” could be found, probably meaning another magician. None was found, and Rudolf exited the world alone and in darkness.¹⁰

That was all in the future, however; when Dee came to Prague, Rudolf was in the prime of his life and the cultural flowering of his reign. In late August, Dee began correspondence with Don Wilhelmo de Sancto Clemente, the Spanish ambassador to Rudolf ’s court, seeking an audience with the emperor. The request was soon granted, and Dee began preparing his case. However, the forces of evil were already arraigning around the two men, looking for a way to interrupt the plan.

On September 1, Kelly and Dee were discussing their upcoming audience with Rudolf when Kelly saw three little creatures walk up and down in the sunshine—very small, like little shadows or smokes. Dee wanted to use the stone to talk to them, but Kelly said he would rather see them outside the stone. According to Dee, the stone helped to buffer from illuders, but outside the stone there was no such protection. Kelly didn’t care; he still wanted to see them outside the stone. The three spirits, who hailed from the third and fourth Watchtowers, identified themselves as Ga, Za, and Vaa, together comprising the name Gazavaa, and would direct Dee and Kelly’s practices.

Two days later, just prior to Dee’s meeting with Rudolf, Kelly had one of his worst blowouts. While out drinking with one of Łaski’s servants (named Alexander), Kelly (perhaps playfully) told the man that he would cut off his head, and touched the back of his neck with his walking stick. Alexander, also drunk, pulled a weapon, and the other bar patrons had to push him down before he killed Kelly.

Dee found Alexander crying against a stone, complaining of Kelly’s actions. He next walked to their host’s house, where he found Kelly asleep. After returning to his own lodgings, where he had stashed Alexander, he was forced to spend two hours calming the man down, after which he convinced him to sleep there instead of raging in the streets. When Kelly returned in the morning, the scryer said that he had been told what happened, but had no recollection of it transpiring. He shook hands with Alexander in gentlemanly fashion and apologized for the misunderstanding, as well as for what he had heard happened.

When the actual story of the faux beheading was recounted, however, Kelly went crazy again, and began shouting at and berating Alexander. Dee attempted to restrain him, but Kelly charged out into the street with a rapier, challenging Alexander to a fight. Alexander refused, and Kelly’s response was to throw a rock at him, as if he were a dog. Kelly returned to the house in a rage, furious that he couldn’t fight Alexander; his anger was so great that Dee was convinced that he was possessed, and trying to destroy himself, Dee, or the others around them. Dee took this incident as further proof that Satan was working against them, and struggled to understand how he could reconcile this with God and the emperor so that his chances at patronage were not scuttled, while being forced to humor Kelly until he settled down.

After getting a calming letter from his wife (for which he must have been very grateful), Dee received a second letter summoning him to meet Rudolf. He proceeded straight to the castle, where he met the emperor in the privy chamber. Rudolf sat at a table, with Dee’s letters and a copy of the Monas hieroglyphica next to him, which Dee had dedicated to Maximilian II, Rudolf ’s father. The emperor thanked Dee for the book and said that he believed Dee was truly affectionate toward him; he also complimented the Monas, but he said it was too advanced for his understanding. Yet, Rudolf said, the Spanish ambassador had informed him that Dee had information that would be to his advantage.

In their prior correspondence, Dee had said that Rudolf was blessed by God, and that Theorem XX of the Monas hieroglyphica suggested that Rudolf would not only be exalted as an emperor by God’s favor, but would even become one of the twenty-four elders or seniors of Revelation after his death.¹¹ This flattery had worked to get Dee’s foot in the door; now, alone with the emperor in his chamber, Dee delivered his message, with the key parts exactly as the angels had demanded.

Dee told Rudolf that he had spent four continual decades seeking the heights of knowledge available to humanity, but was unable to find teachers or books that could fulfill him, and so had turned to God, praying for true wisdom. After long attempts, God had answered, and over the last two and a half years the angels had given him “such works in my hands, to be seen, as no man’s heart could have wished for so much,” wisdom of such value that no earthly kingdom was of equal worth. He then had been commanded by God to speak to Rudolf; the angels had told him of Rudolf ’s sin, making a covenant with Dee that if Rudolf believed and repented, he would triumph on Earth, becoming “the greatest that ever was,”¹² and that the “Great Turk,” Ottoman Sultan Murad III, would become Rudolf ’s prisoner. Dee told Rudolf that this was the pure truth—even swearing upon it that he would forsake his own salvation if he was lying.

Rudolf replied that he believed Dee, that he thought that Dee loved him “unfeignedly,” and even that Dee had no need to grovel. Dee told the emperor that he wanted to be wholly open and show the entirety of the conversations to Rudolf, and, furthermore, to show him an actual scrying session. Rudolf replied that it would have to be another time, and though Dee tried to further convince him of the worth of what he was saying, Rudolf politely brushed him off. In all, Dee had been given an hour to speak with Rudolf, but had failed to impress him, instead bending his ear with apocalyptic rantings, which were received with awkward silence and, finally, the door. Though Rudolf indeed believed that he was destined to destroy the Turks, and regularly entertained “prophets” bent on convincing him of his own importance, Dee and Kelly’s visions held little interest for him. He’d heard it all before.¹³ Defeated, Dee returned home.

On September 5, Uriel appeared, his face covered so that the “eye which has offended God” could not see him. Satan, Uriel explained, was making short work of Dee, and had “blemished the eyes of [his] understanding.”¹⁴ Uriel transformed into a great spinning wheel of fire; after thrusting out his hands, the wheel appeared full of men’s eyes, with flames shooting out of it in four places.^*58 A great white eagle with monstrous red eyes, one the color of fire and one of crystal, now came and perched upon the wheel, carrying a scroll of parchment in its beak.^†59 Beneath this eagle appeared a great valley, within which was a great city six times the size of Krakow, full of ruined houses, with a river running by it.

Uriel explained that God had chosen Dee and Kelly to be witnesses—not in the office of apostles, but in the office and dignities of prophets, beautified with the wings of the cherubim, “with the voices that cry a thousand times in a moment before the Lord, and before the Majesty of his eternal Seat: wherein you do exceed the Temples of the earth: wherein you are become separated from the world, and whereby you are lifted up, as of the household of the Blessed, even by the very hand and finger of the Highest.”¹⁵ The end of the world was at hand—“Now shall those days open themselves, which are the days of vengeance.”¹⁶

The Holy City, Uriel taught, represented the Church, and those who dwelled therein had sought to usurp the authority of the Most High. They would be singled out for retribution, and “scattered like unto the mighty hail, that the spirits of the north have gathered against the day of revenge. They are become proud, and think there is no God. They are stiff-necked; for they are the sons of wickedness.”¹⁷ This was to come to pass during Rudolph’s reign. In the year “eighty-eight” the sun would move contrary to its course. The stars would increase their light, and some would fall from the sky. The rivers would run with blood. Woe would be unto women with children. The Prophet of the Lord would descend from the heavens.

When Dee asked for further assistance in understanding the tables, Uriel responded that as they had been allowed into the Garden of the Lord, they should simply “taste and eat.”¹⁸ In this garden, there was no hunger or thirst, but rather a filling spirit, a comforter. Awed by this display, Kelly made a pledge to never eat his supper or evening meal on Saturdays for the rest of his life.

On September 5, Dee sent thank-you letters to the ambassador, as well as the noble Octavius Spinola, whom he had met at Rudolf ’s court. Dee claimed to Spinola that he had decided to dedicate the rest of his life to showing the emperor what high favor God held him in—which could not have come across well. The letter was returned by the ambassador, who reported that the emperor had departed for his summer residence in Brandeish, or elsewhere, and that Spinola had gone with him.

Five days later, Dee once again conjured Ga, Za, and Vaa, who had been assigned to understand Rudolph’s doings. A hand appeared in the stone, upon which was written, in Latin, “He who has shall possess it; He who has nothing will not possess it.”¹⁹ Next it showed, “Do, and it will have been done, and more, I do not have.” Dee took this to mean that he should write to Rudolph himself, or the Spanish ambassador, or to Spinola in order to arrange another meeting with the emperor.

Dee revised his earlier letter, and sent it to Spinola again by way of Emeric Sontag, the secretary of the Palatine of Sieradz. Spinola received it, and ordered that Dee come immediately. Rudolph responded to Dee in writing that since he did not understand Latin, and was pressed for time, that Dee should be placed with a Dr. Curtz instead.

While communication continued back and forth, Dee and Kelly prayed that their spiritual enemy be kept busy. Uriel soon appeared, and revealed that those who are at one with God would not be judged wicked at the Last Judgment, and those at one with the Holy Spirit would be made one with God, without punishment. Otherwise, God’s judgment and punishment were to be unflinching. Yet not all that were punished would be damned, nor was it evident to the angels who would be saved. And while man should be reconciled with the Catholic Church, sins that were forgiven by the Church might not necessarily be forgiven by God. Eating of the Body of the Christ, however, would truly cleanse penitent sinners—seemingly another endorsement of the Catholic Church over the Protestants, as the reality of the Eucharist was a primary point of contention during the Reformation. Uriel was clear—sinners received the body of Christ for the remission of their sins. For the angels, however, the Eucharist was made valid by the belief of the individual receiving it—they had to choose to believe it was the body and blood of Christ in order for it to be so.²⁰ The angels’ doctrine was more complex than merely vetting Catholicism, however; they crafted their commands in such a way that Dee could partake in communion while still remaining beholden to the new angelic religion, rather than Rome. Ultimately, the angels were far less concerned with religious doctrine or affiliation than they were that Dee simply follow the example of the Apostles.²¹ Dee, for his part, was convinced that the angelic religion he had received was the truest dispensation, and that all others fell short.²²

Fig. 12.1. Albrecht Dürer, The Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Seven-Headed Dragon, 1511.

On September 15, Dee met with Dr. Curtz, who had long been aware of Dee’s fame and now welcomed him. Dee gave him the rundown on the last forty years of his study, why he had sought to consult with angels, and how God had sent him Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and many other spiritual creatures. Dee also presented his records—now totaling eighteen volumes—as well as the shewstone. Curtz said he would write up a report on what Dee had told him and present it to Rudolf in the next few days. Meanwhile, Kelly was visited by a “wicked tempter” who denied Christ,²³ told him that Curtz would use Dee like a serpent, that Kelly would be damned, and that their works come to nothing. As communication proceeded through Rudolf’s middlemen over the following days, Dee also began to suspect dishonest dealing.

On September 21, Uriel returned and explained that two things are the marks of Satan, which bring eternal death and damnation: lying, and obstinate or willful silence. He that taught false doctrine, opened his mouth against truth, or defrauded his brother is a liar, and would not be forgiven. Yet, Uriel explained, all flesh offends, and is a liar. So who would be saved, or escape eternal damnation?

“He it is (I say) that when he hath lyed, and spoken against the truth doth not forwardly drown’d, and keep down his sin in silence.”²⁴ Those who lied against the spirit of truth, and willfully continued to do so, without reconciliation to the Church, sinned against the Holy Spirit and were to face eternal damnation. As such, Dee and Kelly were to acknowledge their offenses, lest they also face damnation. Uriel further taught that in truth there was no such thing as sin against God, but that there was sin against the Holy Spirit. Whenever they offended, they were to acknowledge their sins to God and his angels, so that God could forgive them, and the angels could bear witness of that forgiveness. They were also to make confession of it in the Church, so that they would not be “drowned in froward silence” and therefore not face eternal death.²⁵

Rudolf, meanwhile, was to be destroyed, for he had refused to heed the angels. England was also on the chopping block—“Behold, I had determined to have rooted out the English people, to have made a wilderness, and desert of it; to have filled it with many strange people, and to have tied the sword to it perpetually”²⁶—but God would spare it, if only for Dee’s sake. After certain months, Uriel would bring Dee home. As to Łaski, since they had cared for him so much, and prayed for him, he would be reconciled to Uriel, and the anger against him would cease, despite his predilection for sin. Dee was also told that Rudolf was under the belief that Dee had the philosopher’s stone, and that Uriel would use Rudolf ’s greed against him to achieve the angels’ objectives. Dee was to write to Rudolf and say that he could make the philosopher’s stone, which Uriel would produce, so that Dee was not despised by the court. Rudolf ’s courtiers would perish before Dee’s face, and he would be blessed marvelously by Uriel. Dee asked what to do regarding Curtz and his forthcoming answer; Uriel told him to handle it like a man, for he would deceive Dee. Kelly, shockingly, asked that Curtz be killed, which was ignored.

Kelly was in a more pious mood on September 22, when along with Dee he prayed for guidance as to what to do with Curtz and Rudolf. Uriel again said to write and tell Rudolf that Kelly could make the philosopher’s stone, which would more firmly ensconce them within his good graces. This would give Dee and Kelly power over Rudolf and his court, and they would be able to rejoice when they saw their destruction. Gold was what Rudolf and his court most desired, but when they received it, they would perish. Moreover, Uriel said, Rudolf was possessed, and assisted by “Belzagal,” a cacodemon attendant upon the Turks, who knew that Rudolph’s kingdom would be short. Yet Uriel’s plan was simple: “Fawn thou upon Caesar as a worldling, that thou mayest draw him with the world, to see the glory of God: but to his destruction.”²⁷

Two days later, Dee asked about a letter written to the emperor, and also about his reputation—he had been slandered at the ambassador’s table as a conjurer and bankrupt alchemist who was only concerned with getting Rudolf ’s money. Uriel assured them that they were favored by God, and that the worldly hated them because of this. If they were to keep the images of God and Christ before them, remain together, and stay faithful in God, they would pass the thunders that were to come. Uriel promised that “Genii Immortalis,” or immortal guardian genii, were to bring all souls to justice before the terrifying throne of the father, and that the wicked souls would face Uriel, who would not forget their evil words and deeds in his day of revenge. Michael would also show himself and his bloody sword; the good would stand under his banner, and he would fight into the hills for them.

In another letter to Rudolf, Dee warned that the emperor tempted the wrath of God by not accepting the angels’ message. Following the angels’ direction, he also assured Rudolf that he could make the philosopher’s stone with divine aid. Seeking to salvage his slandered reputation, Dee next met with the Spanish ambassador and assured him that he had no interest in Rudolf ’s riches, but that he was sent by God, and had been falsely accused. To prove his sincerity, Dee showed the ambassador the records of the spirit actions; the ambassador also wanted to see the stone that Uriel manifested for Dee. He was suitably impressed, and agreed that the angels Dee was working with were indeed good spirits sent by God.

Upon his return, Dee found Kelly itching to travel home to England. This grieved Dee, but he put his trust in God to resolve the situation. Without Łaski’s support, Dee was unable to further fund his mission, and now found himself in poverty. Elizabeth was also displeased that he was gone (perhaps worried he would end up working for a foreign government or leaking state secrets), and the bishop of London was simultaneously intending to have him accused of conjuration.²⁸

On September 27, Dee again met with Curtz and complained of great injury done to him in Prague, after he came in good faith. The court was full of vicious backbiters, Dee claimed, who had slandered his name and spread rumors about him. In response, Curtz laid out what the emperor really thought of Dee’s claims:

To be plain with you, his Majesty thinketh them almost either incredible, or impossible: and would have some leisure to consider of them: and is desirous to have the sight of those Latin Actions you showed me, or a Copy of them, and especially, of that, which containeth a paraphrasis of the Apostolical Creed.²⁹

Dee wisely refused to hand over the originals, but promised to make a copy himself. The next day, Dee wrote another letter to the Spanish ambassador, in which he spoke of the secret and inscrutable actions of the angels, but professed humility, both before the true Catholic Church and also before God, noting that his works were “nothing else (entirely), other than the pen of a scribe writing swiftly through me.”³⁰ He asked for responses to his letters, saying that he needed to prepare a journey to bring his family, books, and other baggage to Prague before the harshness of winter set in, after which he could serve the emperor from time to time.

By October 1, Jane Dee was grievously ill; Dee and Kelly consulted the angels to ask why, and how to cure her. Gabriel asked them who they were to dare seek after science, and reminded them to grovel and to turn away from the sin of the world. After this chastening, Dee and Kelly were given a magical theory of disease; if sickness came from sin, Gabriel explained, it could be cured by prayer, or by the angels, as ministers of God’s justice. He offered to spend forty days teaching them medicine, and offered a diagnosis of Dee’s pregnant wife. The next day, they were given a recipe for a folk remedy by the angels, but told that they would have no more until they were repentant, and made apt again for the angels’ school.

Dee had been asked to become Rudolf ’s confessor, but he demurred, preferring that somebody else take the job—perhaps wisely, as being made privy to even minor state secrets would have meant that Dee would never again have been able to leave the emperor’s sight. Rather than confessor, Dee sought only to be a messenger that Rudolf was condemned by heaven. Consequently, Dee’s situation at court showed no signs of improving, and he asked for a passport for him and his family to pass quietly from the emperor’s domains. On December 20, Dee’s retinue departed Krakow for Prague, where they secured a new house by January 4, using funds from an unknown source.³¹

MYSTERIORUM PRAGENSIUM CONFIRMATIO

Stephen Báthory, Alchemy, the Vision of the Round House, and Gebofal

Having failed to win over Rudolf, Kelly was told that the angels were to shift their primary focus to Stephen Báthory, king of Poland, for the time being. Yet Dee and Kelly were now destitute,³² and petitions to Elizabeth for aid went ignored. Kelly was soon getting revelations suggesting he make the philosopher’s stone—called darr in Enochian—which the angels assured the pair would restore their standing with Rudolf, and presumably their finances.

Concurrent with these alchemical experiments, and following the commotion that Dee and Kelly had made in Krakow, the pair had attracted the attention of the last group they should have: the Catholic Church. Rome was keenly interested in whether the pair believed in the Eucharistic miracle, the wrong response to which would have marked them as heretics. Yet the angels themselves not only believed in transubstantiation, they also recommended that Dee and Kelly reconcile themselves with the Church despite its corruption, possibly an attempt on the angels’ part to keep Dee and Kelly alive in a lethal religious climate.

On January 14, Levanael—the angel from the very center of the Sigillum Dei—appeared, and revealed a garden full of fruit, within which was a four-cornered round house on fire, with the four elements rushing inward in a cross. This “vision of the round house” demonstrated how the currents of elemental energy moved through the four Watchtowers.³³

The sessions would continue with the angels counseling Dee and Kelly in practical alchemy, their aim being producing the philosopher’s stone in order to make another attempt to win Rudolf II to the side of the angels, as Uriel had planned. Alchemy had decayed just like everything else in the sublunary world, but with the angels’ help, it would be restored, and Dee would then be able to employ it in the restitution of nature.³⁴ As always, and particularly in this potentially mercantile period, they counseled the pair on humility and avoiding the devil’s snares, which could be anywhere and in anything—even the scriptures, if read with the wrong approach. Most read scripture to seek their own glory, not that of God, the angels explained, and therefore even the Word of God itself could become a tool of Satan for spoiling mankind’s life here and in the hereafter. They were also told that after the Fall, God had consented to place part of himself in mankind—not to partake in the fallen world, but that man might redeem himself.

The angels next gave Dee and Kelly an alchemical doctrine of creating and rejoining substances, and stated their doctrine was to be opened to Dee and Kelly’s wives. The set of ritual tools the angels had spent years transmitting was to be “placed upon the altar, wherein man may see, as in a glasse, How God through his Sacraments and holy institutions, sanctifieth, regenerateth, and purifieth man unto himself.”³⁵ After long years of transmitting this complex system, Dee and Kelly were now to be told how to use it—a holy art that the angels referred to as gebofal. This was the use of the nineteen calls to enter the forty-eight gates of Wisdom revealed in the leaves of Liber Loagaeth.³⁶ While this process would seem purely Gnostic—similar to the ascent through the thirty aeons of Valentinian Gnosticism, or the passage through the fifty gates of Binah in Kabbalah—the angels were meanwhile pushing Dee and Kelly toward rapprochement with the much more traditional Catholic Church. There was a battle in heaven, the angels counseled, which Dee and Kelly would be wise to be mindful of. Levanael further instructed them that to inherit eternal life, they were to follow the ten commandments, as well as Christ’s new commandment to love each other—but, Levanael clarified, this only applied to the confirmed of the Church. The doctrine the angels were giving the two men was authoritarian Catholicism.

On March 14, Dee’s son Michael was born—Jane Dee and her pregnancy being saved by the angels’ medicine—and was baptized Catholic at St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.³⁷ The boy was named after the arch-angel Michael (who, meanwhile, had been pronouncing that he would destroy Rudolf, and that he now hated Łaski).

The angels had continued to manifest more poltergeist phenomena as they appeared—Dee and Kelly both felt the spirits crawling in their brains, and on multiple occasions Kelly felt a being writing on his back. On March 20, a “piece of fire . . . of human shape and lineaments” crawled into Kelly’s skull, occasionally sticking its head out of Kelly’s ear.

“Against divine necessity is no prayer nor resistance,” the being ominously explained.³⁸ There had been innumerable lesser prophets, all full of the Holy Spirit, all of whom mortified their flesh for the love of God—but they could not even say why God had visited them, or justify it. This necessity was why they had been contacted, and how the infidels and nonbelievers would be returned to the fold. Prophets, the entity explained, were visited because God had found them punishing their flesh, despising the vanities of the world, and resisting Satan. Prayer—sanctified by the Holy Spirit—thus opened the way to God, and was the key to this contact.^*60 Though the angels explained that their authority superseded that of all worldly spiritual custodians, they also insisted on Dee and Kelly cleaving to the terrestrial Church.

“What is the Church?” Kelly asked. “I did not think that the angels were of any Church.”

“The Church is the number of those which are governed by the Holy Ghost,” the angels replied, “and that continually sing Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Zebaoth: But that we sing so, the Scriptures bear witness. Therefore we are of the Church, and our testimonies are true.”³⁹

MYSTERIORUM PRAGENSIUM CONFIRMATORUM

Catholic Complications

By March 20, 1585, the Dees were so poor that Jane Dee herself, perhaps at her wit’s end with her husband’s obsessions, decided to intervene and petition the angels herself, seeking meat and drink for her family. The angels said that they had blessed the Dees’ children, who would grow to have high social standing. The temptations the Dees had suffered were necessary, so that their faith could be strengthened.

Beginning on March 27, Kelly would be tempted by a far more immediately threatening force than evil spirits: the Jesuits. The attention of the Church was beginning to take its toll, and Kelly was becoming even more erratic and paranoid. The scryer demanded a copy of some of Dee’s documents to show to a Jesuit priest, to which Dee responded that the Jesuits were great devils, that he was too busy writing letters, and to give him a week. Kelly became enraged and violently demanded the documents be handed over to him at once, and had to be restrained before he calmed down.

So frightened was Kelly by his potential fate if Rome were to become fully aware of his and Dee’s heresy while they were out of reach of English protection—torture and death at the stake—that on April 4, Kelly flinched and confessed his sins to a Jesuit priest, who, unsurprisingly, was far more interested in Kelly’s involvement with the angelic sessions than his other wrongdoings, and began grilling him for information. The Jesuit decided that Dee and Kelly had been fooled by devils masquerading as “angels of light,”⁴⁰ and charged Kelly with criminal sorcery. The Jesuits had little doubt as to the veracity of Dee and Kelly’s visions—however, they were convinced that the transmissions came from evil, not good spirits; particularly given the fact that Dee was married, and it was believed that only celibate monks could be privy to visions.⁴¹

Yet Kelly stood his ground, stating that the angels had confirmed their good nature by several means, and mentioned the spirit diaries, which the Jesuit priest demanded be given to him. The priest quoted 1 Corinthians 6:3 to validate the Church’s authority, even over the angels themselves: “Do you not know that we shall sit in judgment over angels?”⁴² This was in stark contrast to the angels’ prior statement that their authority superseded the Church’s.

The Jesuit was no apostle, Kelly countered dryly, and no angels were to be judged in accord with the Pauline sentence. Furthermore, Dee and Kelly were not at odds with the Catholic Church; if anything, the angels were cruel disciplinarians, forcing them to be good Christians. The spirit actions themselves were Dee and Kelly’s “introductory lessons in a celestial school.”⁴³

MYSTERIORUM CRACOVIENSIUM STEPHANICORUM

An Audience with Stephen Báthory

A week later, Dee and Kelly returned to Krakow, where Łaski—having at last made amends with Báthory—secured protection for the pair. As Easter approached, Dee anxiously made a move to reconcile himself with Rome, making confession to the Hermetically-leaning Franciscan friar Hannibal Rosseli, who was working to publish an edition of the Corpus hermeticum, with the section dedicated to angels having just been released. Kelly also took Easter communion, which Dee was greatly pleased with. However, it seemed that despite the medicine of the sacrament, Kelly had not stabilized, and he raged at Łaski for not paying him. Despite the angels guiding the pair toward the support of Báthory, which Łaski had arranged, Kelly demanded a return to Prague, erupting in fury when Dee refused.⁴⁴

Perhaps tellingly, the angels also began to hurl invective at Dee, finding fault with his handling of Łaski, forbidding him to call them until he had rebuked Báthory for his sins, and even making threats on Dee’s son’s life for withholding angelic knowledge from the king;⁴⁵ an angel even threatened Dee unto the fifth generation for being a few days late in following an order. By this point, both angels and demons were utterly terrorizing the Dee household. Yet on May 22, Kelly was given a vision of a great mountain of fire hanging in the air, with a little boy standing upon it; Dee and Kelly were to become a strong sword, which would cut down the nations.

On May 23, Dee and Kelly met with Báthory, who soon joined the pair for a scrying session. During the resulting action, a green-clad woman appeared in a cloud, looking like a hollow shell or concave, oval figure. Like Rudolf, Báthory was commanded to atone for his sins, on condition of which the angels would back his further political ascendency in preparation for the Apocalypse. A child appeared with a circlet of air in his hand, with light in the stone as if shining like the sun. It turned to water with blood in it, then back. Stephen was to be blessed, but his wicked garments would be cut asunder. Báthory, however, was as underwhelmed with this message as Rudolf had been.

STEPHANICA MYSTICA REGIA

Stephen Rejects the Plan

Dee and Łaski were soon given another audience with Stephen Báthory. Dee counseled him that everything Christ prophesied would come true, and that Dee would present his twenty-four books recording the previous spirit actions.

Privately, Dee prayed deeply, reflecting on his progress in the angelic school and on the Continent. He expressed his gratitude to God and his angels for warning him of England’s malice toward him, and commanding him to go to the Continent so that he would escape harm there, meanwhile protecting his family and Kelly from misfortune. He also thanked God for joining him and Kelly as one being, and further attaching them to Łaski, “a man very friendly to your Catholic and Orthodox Religion, and a very bitter enemy of every Antichrist.”⁴⁶

Dee was counseled by the angels to tell Stephen that the depression the king suffered from was caused by his sins, and to repent. The kings of the world had been poisoned by the Harlot of Revelation, Babylon. By this point Dee must have sounded like an unhinged millenarian preacher or Anabaptist, fervently prophesying the end of the world—with the gall to tell even kings and emperors to repent of their sins. Báthory brushed Dee off; soon after, while scrying, Dee and Kelly heard the voice of God itself, echoing with heartbreak:

“I am full of sorrow,” God said, “for no man openeth his doors unto me, no man believeth me: no man remembereth that I made Heaven and Earth: Stay a while that I may weep with my self.”⁴⁷

UNICA ACTIO; QUAE PUCCIANA VOCETUR. PARS PRIOR & POSTERIOR

Pucci’s Action

Upon returning to Prague, Dee was accompanied by Francesco Pucci, a Florentine humanist philosopher and rogue mystic who had left the Church—and who, like Dee, had quested for a universal religion that would put the world’s divisions to right.⁴⁸

Fascinated by the angelic scrying sessions, Pucci soon joined in. In the morning of August 6, 1585, Dee and Kelly staged a private session for Pucci, to demonstrate to him the extent of the angels’ power and that they were telling the truth. Dee expressed to Pucci that their consistent communication with angels refuted the commonly held idea that miracles were no longer performed in the current period; it also undermined the Church’s view that since Dee was married, he could not speak with angels. Dee set out to disprove both assumptions by direct demonstration.

Dee and Kelly arranged the Holy Table with a single candle. After making calls, an angel appeared covered in white, with a long glass in his left hand full of loathsome materials, like blood and milk or curds mingled together. In his right hand he carried a staff about forty-five inches long. He set the end on the ground and pointed with the top to the Table of the Covenant.

Uriel explained that the old Church would be divided between the kings of the East and West. Afterward, an angel in a cloud of fire holding a book with a red, fiery cover and white-edged pages appeared; the book was sealed with seven golden clasps, suggesting the seven seals of Revelation. These seals were lettered, with the first reading E.M.E.T. T.A.V.⁴⁹

The blood of the end times would be washed away, they were told, and the Lamb would stand in the middle of the streets of the New Jerusalem; all nations would come to the House of David, into a great city.^*61 Yet though the New Jerusalem would stand as a testament to the eternal, Uriel had no kind words for the Church as it currently stood, calling them “grubby merchants” who had no true insight into the scripture they taught, for angels had not inspired their understanding. The Church fathers had been given true angelic insight and holy visions, but the current Church had long since lost contact with its founders. The present wardens of the Church were to kneel to the Holy Spirit, the true teacher—but instead, they interpreted doctrine as they wished, and were liars. Luther and Calvin’s rebellion had made no improvements in this situation, Uriel thundered, and these had their rewards—damnation in the fires of hell, along with the rest who had run astray of the true teachings. This particularly impressed Pucci, an anti-Calvinist.

The angels spoke to men, not the Church: “When angels brought the glad tidings of peace and consolation to the face of the earth,” Uriel said, “they did not take it to Jerusalem, nor to the Temple, nor the Holy of Holies, but they took it to the fields and amongst poor shepherds.”⁵⁰

Despite the corruption of the Catholic Church, Uriel again underlined that it was the true institution carrying Christ’s word. He countered the common Protestant assertion that the pope was the Antichrist, saying that the Antichrist was instead the literal son of the devil, born of Babylon, who would seduce the people in time. As far as the bishops of the Church, they could be both good and evil—even the Disciples themselves, who found salvation in Christ, were a mixture of good and evil. All men are flawed, after all, but it would be incorrect to be led astray from the Church due to the actions of the human sinners within it. The correct path was to cleave to the Church despite the transgressions of man, and submit one’s neck to its holy yoke and ordinance.

However, the angels would have their way with the current Church, starting with the pope, who would be cast down and chastened by Dee and Kelly themselves. They would throw out the churchmen just as Christ had thrown the moneychangers from the temple, for they had drunk from the Whore of Babylon’s cup of abominations and fornications.^*62

“You will be extirpated and eradicated,” Uriel threatened Pucci, “and the Church of God will be cleansed so that He may descend and dwell in it.”⁵¹

This, perhaps, constitutes the angels’ comprehensive say on the Reformation—and after this session, it is little wonder that the Church wanted blood. Like Łaski, Rudolf, and Báthory before him, the angels assured Pucci that great things lay ahead for him—were he to repent and fully reconcile with the Catholic Church, just as Dee and Kelly had. Pucci took the angels’ message seriously—so seriously that he decided that in order to fully reconcile and show his loyalty he would have to betray Dee and Kelly to the Jesuits. Aided by Pucci, the Church would quickly close in, in the meantime spreading rumors that Dee was an English and Protestant secret agent.⁵²

Germanico Malaspina, the papal nuncio (the permanent diplomatic representative of Rome) began to press heavily for opening friendly conversation with Dee, which Dee consistently tried to slip out of. On March 27, 1586, they could no longer resist, and were summoned to an audience with Malaspina. Pressed about the spirit actions, Dee stated that he was indeed in contact with angels, but made no mention of the angels’ views of the Church. A tactless Kelly, however, next erupted into a tirade about the Church’s corruption, commanding Malaspina that the Church itself repent and bow to the authority of the angels. Though Malaspina resisted the urge to execute both men immediately, by the next month the Jesuits were pushing Kelly to confess to the crime of direct conversation with angels. Kelly refused and was banned from Church services.⁵³

The angels, however, had a plan to get Dee and Kelly out of the fatal situation they had been placed in, in one of the most seemingly incredible incidents of the entire spirit actions. Just as Abraham’s faith had been tested when Jehovah commanded him to kill his only child, Dee and Kelly were now commanded to gather together the entire set of records of the spirit actions—and burn them, with Pucci witnessing. They did so, throwing the books onto the fire one after the other; Kelly saw a man dancing in the flames over the books as they burned.

Everything they had recorded over the last four years of sweat, pain, and sacrifice was gone, except a fragment of Liber Loagaeth and the record of the action they had just undertaken with Pucci, which Dee had been commanded to cut out and save. The angels promised that nothing would be lost, and that when the tyranny of the Jesuits and the Church ceased, the books would be returned in the same manner in which they were burned.

Because the Pucci action was removed by Dee from the records of the spirit actions, Casaubon did not have access to it for the original publication of A True & Faithful Relation. It was rediscovered in the Bodleian Libraries by Dr. Conrad Josten in the 1960s, and is reproduced in full in Stephen Skinner’s 2011 edition of Casaubon’s work.⁵⁴ The recovery of the missing section put to rest the long-assumed narrative that Dee and Kelly had burned their diaries because they were terrified of the spirits they had conjured, and revealed who they were truly terrified of: the Jesuits.

By commanding Dee and Kelly to destroy their records, the angels had not only saved Dee and Kelly’s lives, they had also prevented their doctrine from falling into enemy hands. Had they not done so, the spirit actions would now be sitting in a long-forgotten corner of the Vatican Library, and Dee and Kelly could well have been murdered by the Inquisition, with the spirit actions erased from history entirely.

LIBER RESURRECTIONIS, ET 42 MENSIUM FUNDAMENTUM

The Books Returned

On April 29, 1586, “a wonderful deed that ought to be remembered forever” occurred.

While standing at the end of a gallery by his chamber, Kelly looked over into the vineyard and saw a gardener pruning trees. The gardener walked over to the wall beneath Kelly, and said, “I beg that you say to the Doctor that he might come to me.”⁵⁵ He then went away cutting the trees “very handsomely,”⁵⁶ and by the cherry trees near the house, on a rock in the garden, he mounted up into the sky in a pillar of fire. Kelly asked his wife to go see who was in the garden, but she saw nobody.

Suspicious of the apparition, Kelly told Dee that there was a wicked spirit in the garden seeking to delude him. Dee accompanied Kelly to the garden to look, and within seven minutes they saw a sheet of white paper being tossed by the wind under an almond tree. Under the tree were three of the books that had been burned: Liber Loagaeth, the Forty-eight claves angelica, and Liber scientiae.

Dee and Kelly fell to their knees to give thanks to God. Miraculously, the books showed no sign whatsoever of having been in a fire. The pair sat under the almond tree for thirty minutes praising God, after which the gardener again appeared, with his face half turned away, similar to the way Ave often presented himself. He bid Kelly to follow him, during which time his feet hovered a foot off the ground and doors opened before him without being touched; the gardener led Kelly back to the house and upstairs to the study, and the furnace where the books had been burned. The apparition then reached into the furnace, where a great light poured out from a single missing brick, put his hand into the hole, pulled out the remaining books, and handed them to Kelly one by one. Everything was returned except the book from which the last revelation was cut, and Pucci’s recantation (these bits had been removed by Dee and kept aside).

The gardener next bid Kelly to go, and said that they would be given the rest later. He went before Kelly in a fiery cloud, with Kelly following along with the books under his arm, even gliding by Pucci’s chamber door without flinching. After the guide left him, Kelly brought the books to an astonished Dee, who was still sitting under the almond tree. After giving prayers of thanks on April 30, they were told that their sins were forgiven, that they would be fruitful and blessed with all of the gifts of nature, that the end of the world was still scheduled for the “year eighty-eight,”⁵⁷ and that new actions would proceed—albeit without Pucci, who was now called defiled.

The damage was already done—Dee and Kelly’s activities had angered the Church; on May 22, Pucci warned them anonymously that the pontifical legate had accused Kelly of necromancy. Dee was furious with Pucci, particularly as Dee believed he had been blabbing their secrets; in addition, he had engaged in some unspecified household behavior that was unacceptable to Dee and Kelly’s wives and family. Over the coming week, Pope Sixtus V personally put pressure on Rudolf II to expel them from Bohemia, with Rudolf issuing a Decree of Exile on May 29.

On July 13, Pucci informed Dee and Kelly that God had told them to go to Rome. Most conveniently, they had been provided with a letter of safe conduct to the Vatican to discuss their supernatural revelations with the supreme pontiff, and were promised that Sixtus V himself would free them of all fault and punishment for practicing the magical arts and reading books banned by the Inquisition. The angels warned Dee to cut Pucci off, and that Pucci and the nuncio were attempting to lead them into entrapment by the Jesuits.

Dee believed that Pucci was “false to the Pope, or us, or both, or rash, foolish, blind, &tc.,” and was double-crossing them.⁵⁸ Pucci was leprous, Dee wrote—infected with heresy and God only knew what else. The papal nuncio wanted to see the visible appearance of angels, and wanted Dee and Kelly’s experiences laid out before the pope. Only then—if Dee could prove the validity of his experiences beyond a shadow of a doubt—would critics’ mouths be shut. The nuncio added a chilling end to his letter of summons: “May God guide you thus with his grace, so that you might sometime be able to have a conversation with the Angels in heaven.”⁵⁹

The angels themselves were enraged at Rome. Meanwhile, Pucci wrote (perhaps condescendingly) that he was praying for Dee and Kelly as if they were “revered fathers.”⁶⁰ Pucci soon took a meeting with an Italian Jesuit; the Jesuits attempted to bait Pucci into siding with Dee and Kelly’s view that angels could be spoken to without the intermediary agency of the Church, which would have been heresy most supreme—not to mention competition with the Church’s hold on the market, especially after it had already been so grievously bled by Luther’s rebellion. So threatened was Sixtus by Dee and Kelly that he ordered them investigated for being agents of Elizabeth—astrologers, sorcerers, and spies working magically against Rome.⁶¹

While Dee and Kelly dodged Rome, they sojourned at the court of William IV in Germany, and on September 14 traveled to Třeboň in South Bohemia as guests of Vilém Rožmberk, the Burgrave of Bohemia, the richest and most powerful prince in Bohemia as well as a moderate Catholic, a student of the occult, and a patron of angelic magic and alchemy.⁶² Though they had been disappointed so many times before, the angels quickly seized on Rožmberk, offering him a covenant with God to achieve the angels’ political goals in Europe, should he bow to them and sanctify himself; they also hoped he would get Dee back in Rudolf ’s good graces.⁶³ So impressed was Rožmberk with the pair that he built them their own alchemical laboratory, situated in a tower in his castle in Třeboň.⁶⁴

On October 14, in Třeboň, Dee set up the Holy Table in the chapel adjoining his chamber. Kelly was given a vision of a plain or great field, a mile wide, with a high, rotten tree in the middle, and all of its grass withered and burned. A beam of fire from heaven lit on the tree, and water ran from its root, spreading over the plain as though it were becoming a sea. A man emerged from the tree with his hair and garment hanging to his feet. The earth drank up the water, and the man stood upon dry ground, with the grass now a cubit high. In the middle of the stone appeared a spark of fire, which grew to a globe twenty inches in diameter. Woe be unto the world and its worldlings, the man said; they would be controlled with an iron rod by Christ, peace would rest, and the New Jerusalem would descend. The world would bow to the cross and the name of the Lamb—but not before terror descended upon all nations.⁶⁵ Mulling over these visions and prophecies with Rožmberk, Dee wrote that this was a prophecy of religious reform in England, and of the exploration of the entire world—which would necessitate terrible bloodshed.

A few days later, Dee and Kelly finally found a way to rid themselves of the parasite Pucci: after fighting with him over money, they attempted to get him to take eight hundred florins, or else turn them down on record. The gambit was successful in shaking the backstabbing philosopher off.