INTRODUCTION
In offering this little book to the public, and particularly to the lovers of Wisdom who are partakers of this Art, we wish it to be understood that the task has been undertaken for two reasons: first, to enable students to appreciate this valuable work left by a man of great erudition and now, we believe, done into English for the first time; secondly, in token of the fact that even in this terrifically scientific age there are men who nurture the time-honoured Hermetic teaching and Art, believing that Nature conceals more than she reveals to the vulgar eye of mortal man.
It is but fitting that we should most gratefully acknowledge the assistance we have derived from the French translation by Grillot de Givry, published by the Bibliothèque Chacornac in Paris in the year 1925, which we have studied alongside the original in an endeavour to render the English translation more easily intelligible to the modern reader.
John Dee wrote this book in thirteen days. He tells us that he commenced it on 13th January 1564 when in Antwerp, and completed it on the 25th of the same month. If comment were needed it would be this: he certainly knew his subject.
The book was famous in its day. Dee brought out a second edition, published at Frankfort in 1591 ; the title, being translated, reads: “The Monad, Hieroglyphically, Mathematically, Magically, Cabbalistically and Anagogically Explained.”
It is from this edition, a copy of which was given to us by a very learned and dear friend, that the present work is produced.
However great its fame throughout Europe, the book was not popular with the Universities. In fact, Dr. Thomas Smith tells us in his “ Life of John Dee” (1707): “ Whatsoever was afterwards objected to in it by the most learned men of both Universities, he was accustomed to silence by this one answer, that they had so found fault with and censured that book because they did not altogether understand it.”
In the frontispiece we read: “Who does not understand should either learn, or be silent.”
It will be the same to-day; therefore, we are not concerned with the opinion of the Dons and men of academic degrees. We concede that they could have rendered a far more exact translation of John Dee's book, but as they do not appear to have done so in three and a half centuries, obviously they are neither concerned nor interested. There may be some, even amongst Hermetic students, who will look askance at our rendering of “ Luna Existens, Viva,” as “Argent Vive,” i.e. Mercury, or Quicksilver. We appeal to the known literature of the Hermetic schools to justify our interpretation; for we have laboured in these Sciences for thirty-five years, and the Masters have not been so niggardly as to keep back our “ Wages,”
In order to assist and encourage younger students who may wish to pursue their investigations along this line (of the Monad or Unit), we append our comments, including extracts from other writers on mystical subjects which, so it seems to us, strengthen and confirm the investigations and conclusions of our author.
We have omitted John Dee's long and laudatory preface to Maximilian, the King of Rumania, and have confined this production to the twenty-four Theorems, which contain the teaching.
There can be little doubt that Sir Edward Kelly was of tremendous influence in Dee's occult life; Dee's private diary contains numerous references to the association between the two men, and it would appear that where Dee may have been good in theory, Kelly was practical in the application of the Science.
There is a tract ascribed to Kelly in Ashmole's “ Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum” which commences:
“All you that fain philosophers would be, And night and day in Geber's kitchin broyle, Wasting the chipps of Ancient Hermes Tree, Weening to turne them to a pretious oyle, The more you worke the more you loose and spoile. To you I say, how learned soever you be, Goe burne your bookes and come and learne of me.”
Few historians have any good words to say of Edward Kelly, but that he possessed some occult power cannot be doubted if we are to credit the words of Dee himself, who records that on ioth May 1588 “ E. K. did open the great secret to me, God be thanked.”
We believe that both Dee and Kelly were profoundly versed in Hermetic Science and Alchemy, and eagerly sought the process of transmutation.
Reference may here be made to Dee's Library of Manuscripts, the catalogue of which survives, from which it is interesting to note that such well-known alchemists as Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Arnold de Villa Nova, Avicenna, etc. are well represented.
We now release this book to the “mangling tooth of criticism,” but think it well to admonish the reader in Dee's own words:
“ Who does not understand should either learn, or be silent.”
London, 1946.