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What did Doctor John Dee know and not know?

To: alt.magick
From: "Alex Sumner" 
Subject: Re: What did Doctor John Dee know and not know?
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 14:03:23 +0100

"Clint Knapp"  wrote in message
news:ajfdqq$49s$1@ins22.netins.net...
>
> > One of the miracles of occultism is that so much of Dee's Enochian
> > writings survived. We actually have most of them, rather than
> > half. They were divided into two main bunches at the time of Dee's
> > death. One bunch of papers, the later Enochian record, was sold
> > and became the text for Casaubon's TRUE AND FAITHFUL RELATION. The
> > earlier bunch of documents was locked away in the secret drawer of
> >   one of Dee's trunks, which was sold with no awareness of what it
> > contained. Decades later the drawer was discovered by the owner of
> > the trunk, who (it is said) used some of Dee's papers to line her
> > pie pans when she was baking pies. So it would seem that a portion
> > of the early record was destroyed in the process of baking
> > pastries. However, the majority of the early papers were collected
> > and sold, and only in the past few decades published.
>
> This is the only true version of the story yet. I applaud your research. A
> point of note though, the owner of the chest was Elias Ashmole and the
> papers were accidentally destroyed by his maid.
>

It was actually the (former) maid of the woman from whom Ashmole received
the papers.

[snip]

>
> > The Enochian records are the most remarkable example of spirit
> > communication that has survived down to modern times. It's
> > survival is so unlikely that it would tend to make a person
> > believe in the existence of spirits, and of magic. The reason Dee
> > had the papers hidden away was because King James I of England,
> > who came to the throne after his beloved sovereign Elizabeth I
> > died, was an amateur witch-finder, and would have taken much
> > delight in seeing Dee hanged (since witches were not burned in
> > England, as they were in James' own native land of Scotland). The
> > Enochian record would have provided more than enough evidence for
> > James to have had Dee condemned to death. That's how important Dee
> > considered this record -- he preserved it throughout his life,
> > with full knowledge that its discovery meant his death sentence.

It was not merely James I that Dee was wary of. In Elizabethan England,
Sorcery, i.e. evil magic was a capital offence. However, according to the
Renaissance mind-set, both Alchemy and Astrology were quite respectable,
being seen as branches of the sciences and Mathematics. Elizabeth I was
quite happy to use Dee as an Alchemist and Astrologer, but Dee would have
found his royal patronage evaporate if he ever got mixed up in conjuring
spirits - or anything that looked like conjuring spirits.

It is interesting to note that in 1604, Dee petitioned King James to put him
on trial for summoning evil spirits and so forth - Dee presumably thinking
that he would then be able to disprove all the rumours that were hanging
around him once and for all. The King refused. Dee, an old man, was spared
the ordeal of the trial - which would have led to the death sentence had he
been found guilty - but refused the opportunity to clear his name.

[snip]

AS
http://www.geocities.com/alex_sumner/



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