JOHN DEE'S ACTIONS WITH SPIRITS

1026 Pages·2011·32.55 MB·English

JOHN DEE'S ACTIONS WITH SPIRITS:
22 DECEMBER 1581 TO 23 MAY 1583
in 2 vo1unes
by
Christopher Lionel Wh.itby
VOLUME I
Submitted. in. partial fulfilment for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
October 1981
Synopsis
This thesis presents an investigation of the nature of the
earliest extant records of the supposed communication with
angels and spirits of John Dee (1527-1608) with the assistance
of his two mediums or 'scryers', Barnabas Saul and Edward
Kelly. The form chosen is a transcription of the records in
Dee's hand contained in Sloane MS 3188, together with an
introduction and commentary to the text, which has been
transcribed only once before, by Elias Ashmole in 1672. In
the Introduction the physical state of the manuscript is
described and a hypothesis advanced as to how it arrived in
the Sloane collection. Biographical details of Dee and his
scryers are provided and a further chapter presents some
background to Renaissance occult philosophy and the practice
of scrying. Arguments that the manuscript represents a
conscious fraud or a cryptographical exercise are examined and
disproved and the magical system and instruments evolved
during the communications or 'Actions' are described. The last
chapter of the Introduction examines Dee's motives for
believing so strongly in the truth of the Actions and suggests
that a principal motive was the conviction, not held by Dee
alone, that a new age was about to dawn upon earth. The
Commentary aims primarily at explaining the many obscurities
of the text. The thesis includes a photograph of an engraving
of one of the magical instruments (the Holy Table) and a
bibliography.
This thesis contains approximately 95,000 words, excluding
the transcription of Sloane MS 3188.
Contents
Volume I
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter I The Manuscript
a) Provenance 1
b) Physical Characteristics 7
c) Missing Leaves 10
Notes 16
Chapter II Biographical Details
a) John Dee 19
b) Edward Kelly 1+3
c) Other Scryers L.9
Notes 55
Chapter III Magic and Scrying
a) Magic 63
b) Scrying 75
Notes 91
Chapter IV Fraud and Cryptography 101
Notes 113
Chapter V The Magical System 116
a) The Angels 117
b) The Sigillum Dei 118
c) Tile Forty-Nine Spirits 121+
d) The Lamine 129
e) The Ping 131
f) The Pod 'El' 132
g) The Seven Ensigns of Creation 1.31+
h) The Show-Stones 137
i) Magical Books 1 1+1
j) Tile Holy Table 11+9
Notes 155
Chapter VI Motives 157
Note 178
Conclusion 180
Commentary 183
Contents (2)
Volume II
Conventions and Usages in the Transcription
The Transcription

Appendix (The Holy Table) Lf08
Bibliography /09
Abbreviations

Cal d er I.P.F. Calder, 'John Dee Studied as an
English Neo-Platonist', unpublished University
1952.
of London Ph.D. dissertation,
'The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee his
Dutifull Declaracion,and Proof of the Course
and Race of his Studious Lyfe' Autobiographical
Tracts of Dr. John Dee, Warden of the College
of Manchester, edited by James Crossley,
Chetham Society Publications, vol. XXIV
(Manchester 1851), pp. 1-45.
Diary The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee, edited by
James 0. Halliwell, Camden Society Publications,
vol. XIX (London 1842).
DNB The Dictionary of National Biography, 21 vols
(London, later Oxford, 1885-1909).
PM John Dee, General and Rare Memorials Pertayning
to the Perfecte Arte of Navigation (London
1577), facsimile edition, The English Experience
No. 62 (Amsterdam and New York 1968).
Josten,Ashniole Elias Ashmole, his Autobiographical and
Historical Notes, his Correspondence, and other
Contemporary Sources Relating to his Life and
Work, edited by C.H. Josten, 5 vols (Oxford
1966).
Josten, 'Unknown
Chapter' 'An Unknown Chapter in the Life of John Deet,
edited by C.H. Josten, JWCI, 28 (1965), pp. 22-
257.
Monas John Dee, Monas hieroglyphica, translated by
C.H. Jostezi, Ambix, XII (1964), pp. 84-221.
0cc. Phil. Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult
Philosophy, translated by J[aniesj F[renchJ
(London. 1651).
OED A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles,
edited by James A.H. Murray et al., 10 vols
1884-1928).
(Oxford
Preface John Dee, 'Mathematicall Preface' to The Elements
of Geometrie of the Most Auncient Philosopher
Euclide of Megara, translated by Sir Henry
Billingsley (London 1570)
Meric Casaubon, A True and Faithful Relation
of What Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr: John
Dee..and Some Spirits (London 1659).
Abbreviations (2)
Walker D.P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from
Ficimo to Campanella (London 1958, reprinted
1969).
THE MANUSCRIPT
1
Sloane MS 3188 contains the 'Actions with spirits' conducted
by John Dee (1527-1608) and his scryers, principally Edward Kelly
(1555-1595), between 22 December 1581 and 23 May 1583. These
Actions are the records of visions of angels and other spirits and
the messages delivered by them as seen and heard by the scryers with
the aid of a crystal ball, and then immediately related to Dee, who
though present saw and heard nothing. The manuscript contains 104
folios in Dee's hand which form his fair copy of notes recording
the events taken at the time the Actions were conducted.' A short
preface by Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) and some notes in cipher by
William Shippen (1635-1693) are also contained in the present binding.
a) Provenance
In 1662 or 1663 a Mr. and Mrs. Jones of Lombard Street in
London had occasion to move a chest, which they had bought shortly
after their marriage, from its customary place in their house.
Hearing something rattle they looked closely at the chest and Mr.
Jones discovered a secret drawer containing various manuscript
papers and a rosary and cross of olive wood. Being unable to
understand the contents of these papers, they paid no great atten-
tion to them and many were eventually lost through being used by
their maid to line pie dishes. 2 Two years later Mr. Jones died
and although the chest perished in the Fire of London, the manu-
scripts, such as were left, were preserved. Mrs. Jones married
again, this time to Thomas Wale who was a warder at the Tower of
London and acquainted with Elias Ashmole. Learning the story of
the discovery of the manuscripts and that the chest had once
belonged to John Dee, Wale sent them to Ashmole on 20 August 1672
for his perusal.
2
The importance of the manuscripts was not lost upon Ashinole.
Thirteen years before, most of the records of Dee's magical
dealings from 28 May 1583 until his death had been published
by Meric Casaubon as a warning how easily man may be deluded
3
into dealing with devils. Now Ashinole had in his hands four
magical books written by Dee and also the diaries of his magical
experiments between 22 December 1581 and 23 May 1583 that imined-
iately preceded those in Casaubon's edition. Here were the
'Actions with spirits' that formed the ground of all those con-
tained in A True and Faithful Relation and without which the
latter could not properly be understood. Consequently on 5
September 1672 Ashmole exchanged a copy of his popular work on
the Order of the Garter4 for all the manuscripts that had been
discovered in the chest.
After the attention of the Jones's maid the manuscripts were
in a rather poor condition and Ashmole bound them and made trans-
cripts of his own. 5 He also spent much time trying to solve some
of the difficulties and inconsistencies of the magical system that
was evolved during those early years and began to collect inforinat-
ion concerning Dee. In January of 1672 John Aubrey (1626-1697)
had written to Anthony a Wood (1632-1695) that he hoped to be able
to persuade Ashmole to write a biography of Dee and Ashmole seems
to have considered the proposal seriously for he began to search
for the MSS of Dee's that were reputed to be in the hands of Sir
• • 6
William Boswell, ambassador to the Hague. Anthony a Wood took
up the task of writing Dee's biography, however, or at least of
writing something concerning him within a larger work, 7 and Ashmole
decided to leave the project in his hands, writing that he would
contribute such material as he had towards Wood's study. Yet
3
although much of Ashmole's information concerning Dee's life and
magic, including his own annotated copy of TFR,9 were handed over
to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford either with the Tradescant co].-
lection in 1683 or in the legacy of 1,758 books (which included
620 MS volumes, 311 in folio) that reached Oxford by 22 August 1692
after his death, 1° the manuscripts discovered by Mr. and Mrs.
Jones and Ashmole's transcripts of them were not included. They
would else still be in the Bodleian with the other relevant manu-
scripts of both Dee and Ashmole. The reason concerns the direct-
ions given in Ashmolets will. This granted to Oxford all printed
books and MSS, bound and loose, which would be found at the time
of his death 'in the two uppermost Studies in my Turret at my house
in South Lambeth' and in the inner closet 'within my lower Study
over the Milke house' in the same house. Evidently the manu-
scripts that now form part of the Sloane collection were not to
be found there. It seems that they were not in the house at all
since they were not catalogued among the 12 folio MSS that formed
part of the collection of Ashmoles library that was auctioned
after his death on 22 February 1694 at Roll's Auction House in
Petty Canon Alley by St. Paul's Churchyard.12
C.H. Josten writes that 'it is not known how these Dee manu-
scripts, and Ashmole's transcripts of them, have found their way
into the Sloane collection of manuscripts at the British Museum3
There are a few hypotheses that may be put forward, however, based
upon evidence from the manuscripts themselves. On the flyleaf of
Sloane MS 3188 Sir Frederic Madden, head of the manuscripts depart-
ment at the British Museum from 1837 to 1866, wrote in January 1854:
This volume [was purchased at the sale] is in Dr. Dee's
own handwriting, [of Sir Joseph Jekyll's library in January
1739/40] as far as fol. 108. [Lot]