John Dee

Biography

Youth

Dee was born with Tower Ward, London. Its name derives from the word Welsh of the meaning " noir". His/her Roland father was merchant. Dee made its schooling in Chantry School of Chelmsford (become nowadays the King Edward VI Grammar School ), then - of 1543 to 1546 - with St John' S College, Cambridge. His potential very quickly was noticed, and it took part in the creation of the Trinity College. At the end of the years 1540, he travelled in Europe, studied with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven of Leuwen then to Brussels and gave courses on Euclide to Paris. He studied with Frisius and became a close friend of the Cartographe Gerardus Mercator. Dee returned to England, bringing back with him an important collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments. In 1552, it met Gerolamo Cardano with London: they joined in order to study a Machine with perpetual motion as well as a supposed Gemme to have magic powers .

In 1554, Dee refused a pulpit of mathematics to the Université of Oxford either because it wished to be devoted to its writings and hoped for a place at the court, or because it found that the university insisted more on the Rhétorique and the Grammaire (these two last partners with the Logique forming the academic Trivium ) that on the Philosophie and science (most complex Quadrivium composed of the Arithmétique, of the Géométrie, the Musique and the Astronomie). In 1555, Dee became member of a corporation of tradesmen, the Worshipful Company off Mercers, following his/her father.

The same year 1555, it was stopped and shown “to have calculated” the Horoscope S of the Reine Marie and the Princesse Elisabeth; with regard to Marie, the charges were worsened, active to the chief of Trahison. Dee appeared before the spangled room, the Camera Stellata (court of the Palais of Westminster) and succeeds in being cleared partly, on the condition of undergoing a religious examination practiced by the catholic priest Edmund Bonner (this last being sadly famous for its role in the persecution of the Hérétiques under the reign of Marie). It is possible that the mania which the mystery around its activities had Dee to cultivate envenimé the things. This episode sinks was only most dramatic of a series of attacks and calumnies to which it was not going to cease having to face. At all events it succeeds in once again being cleared and even with becoming a close relation of Bonner.

In 1556, Dee presented to the Marie Queen a creation project of a national Bibliothèque having like vocation the conservation of old books and manuscripts. This project not having been retained, it decided to extend its own library, of its house with Mortlake. It unceasingly accumulated books and manuscripts recovered in England and on all the Continent of Europe. Its library became a true training college out of the universities, and attracted many scholars and students.

When, in 1558, the Queen Elizabeth reached the throne, Dee became its personal adviser in science and astrology. It chooses itself the date of its crowning. Years 1550 to 1570, it was to advise of navigation at the time of the Great Discoveries, and was the first to use the term of British Empire . In 1577, it publishes General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte off Navigation , a study in which Dee describes its vision of a maritime empire and an English territorial influence on the Nouveau World. It joined Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Philip Sidney.

In 1564, Dee wrote a hermetic work, the Monas Hieroglyphica ( Monade Hiéroglyphique ), an interpretation Cabalistique supplements of a glyphe that it created itself. This glyphe was supposed to express the mystical unit of any creation. It is a work which was very appreciated contemporaries of Dee, but the loss of the oral tradition of the circle of Dee nowadays make a work difficult of it to interpret.

In 1570, it published a Mathematical Préface with the English translation of the Éléments of Euclide , in which it stresses the importance of mathematics and their influence in arts and science. Intended for a public other than the Universities, this text became most famous and most frequently printed. It published this same year with Federico Commandino of Urbino a version translated from Arabic of the treaty lost of Euclide on the division of surfaces .

As from 1580

With the beginning of the year 1580, Dee became increasingly dissatisfied of its projection in the training of the secrecies of nature. It then turned to the Surnaturel in order to acquire knowledge. It mainly tried to come into contact with the Ange S by using a Boule of crystal which would be used as intermediary between him and the angels.

Its first attempts were failures, but in 1582 it was very impressed by Edward Kelley. Dee engaged Kelley and was devoted entirely to the study of the supernatural forces. These " Conferences spirituelles" , or " actions" were carried out in an intense piety Chrétienne, always realized following one made purifying period of Prière S and Jeûne. Dee was persuaded of the benefit which there could bring to Humanity (the motivations of Kelley, as for them, remain hard to define: some think that it acted by pure cynicism. The goals of Kelley are remarkable by the imperceptible side that it gave them). Dee explained why the majority of its books were dictated to him by the angels, in a language Enoch IEN.

In 1583, it met the Polish Albert Łaski. This last invited Dee to accompany it in Poland. It accepted, supposedly thorough by the angels. Dee, Kelley, and their respective families left in 1583, but Laski curled the Banqueroute and was unpopular in its country. Dee and Kelley carried out a life of Nomade S in Central Europe, which did not prevent them from continuing their spiritual conferences, that Dee deferred méticuleusement. It had private audiences with Rodolphe II of the Holy roman Empire and the King Stefan in order to convince them of the importance of its communications angelica. None the monarchs took it with serious, rather regarding it as a spy of the Queen of England according to certain sources.

At the time of one of its spiritual conferences in Bohemia, Kelley learned in Dee which the angel Uriel had ordered that they divide their wives. It is thought that Kelley, then becoming an alchemist whose reputation exceeded that of Dee, used this means in order to put an end to these conferences. The order of Uriel strongly disturbed Dee, but this last not questioning the motivation of the angel, decided to accept. However, it put a term at its conferences, turned over to England in 1589, and revives Kelley never again.

Private life

Dee married three times and had eight children, whose elder one, Arthur Dee became him also an alchemist and a hermetic author. John Aubrey, a biographer, gives the following description of Dee: “It was large and thin. It wore its dress like an artist, the flared sleeves and adits… a white and blood dye… a long white beard like milk. A very charming man. ”.

Last years

Dee returned in Mortlake six years later and discovered that its library had been devastated and that the majority of its invaluable objects had been stolen. He asked for the assistance of Elisabeth, who, in 1592, named it directing of Christ' S College, Manchester (today the Manchester Grammar School). However, he was now seen like a diabolic magician and was made hate his pars. He left Manchester in 1605. Elisabeth had died, and the king James I, opposed to all that is connected to the supernatural one, did not offer any help to him. Dee lived its last days with Mortlake, in misery. He died in 1608 or 1609. There is no trace of its Tombe or the registers of the registry office.

Achievements

Thought

Dee was true piles Chrétien, but its Christendom was deeply influenced by the hermetic doctrines Plato icians and pythagoriennes which was dominant during the Renaissance. He thought that the numbers were at the base of any thing, and that they were the key of the knowledge. He thought that creations of God were acts " chiffrés". Study of the Hermetism, Dee concludes from it that the man had in him a divine potential, and that this potential could be exerted through mathematics. Its cabalistic magic angelica (which was largely based on numerology) and its work on mathematics applied (navigation, for example) were quite simply the aspects complementary to a philosophy, and not two paradoxical activities as it nowadays is thought. Its ultimate goal was to bring to the world a Religion unified by gathering the Church Catholique and Protestante and by capturing the gasoline of the pure Théologie of old.

Myth and made

The black legend

Approximately ten years after the death of Dee, the Antiquaire Robert Cotton acquired the field of Dee and put at research manuscripts and of artefacts. He discovered many books, the majority account-being returned communications angelica. The son of Knitting machine gave these books to Méric Casaubon which published them in 1659, adding a long introduction ( to it has True & Faithful Relation off What passed for many Years between Dr. John Dee (has off Mathematician Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James Reigns) and nap spirits. ). This book being the first public revelation of the conferences of Dee, he was a great success and was very quickly exhausted. Casaubon, believing in the existence of the spirits, explains in its introduction why Dee was the involuntary instrument of the diabolic spirits whereas he thought asresser of the angels. This book was at the origin of the sulfurous reputation which continued Dee during the two following centuries, making it pass for a charlatan, a fanatic or a mentally ill.

Approximately at the same period that the publication of this book, of the members of the order Rosicrucien affirmed that Dee had been theirs. There exists however a doubt as for the existence of a Rosicrucien movement organized at the time of Dee; and there is no proof that it belonged to any fraternity. The reputation of Dee as a magician and his experiments with Edward Kelley made of him an appreciated character of the storytellers, writers of horror and other amateur of magic. The plots concerning the life of Dee are numerous, which supports the absence of information over certain periods of its career remained very obscure.

The rehabilitation

It is with the Twentieth Century that the character of Dee was rehabilitated, partly thanks to the work of the historian Frances Yates, which brought a new way of apprehending the role of the magic and the development of modern science to the Renaissance. Dee enjoys at present a reputation of man of serious study; he is regarded as one of the most cultivated personalities of his time.

Its personal library was most important of the country, and was held for one of most interesting of Europe, perhaps was it hardly less important than that of Jacques-Auguste de Thou. Dee, in addition to being an astrologer, scientist and advising geographical of the Queen, was the precursor of the colonization of the North America and the widening of the Britannique empire beyond the North Atlantic.

Dee was a keen partisan of sciences of navigation and Cartographie. He collaborated with Gerardus Mercator, and had an important collection of astronomical charts, spheres and instruments. He invented instruments and specific techniques of navigation for the areas Polaire S. As a personal adviser of forwardings, he chooses itself the navigators who it formed.

The importance of mathematics in its vision of the things makes of him a character more modern than Francis Bacon, although it is thought that Bacon voluntarily made the dead end on mathematics taking into account the climate of suspicion which surrounded the occultism under Jacques Ier. It should however be stressed that the mathematical Paradigme of Dee is radically different from that of the modern mathematicians.

It seems obvious that the greatest concern of Dee was to promote mathematics out of the universities. Its Mathematical Préface with Euclide was intended for a public not having had access to the university, and was very popular among the mechanics (“mechanics”), a new class of inventive craftsmen who will become our modern engineers. Its foreword was made up of mathematical principles.

Dee was friendly of Tycho Brahe and knew work of Copernic. The majority of its astronomical calculations were based on Coperniciennes presumptions, but he never married truly the thesis of the Héliocentrisme. He applied the theories of Copernic to the problem of the reform of the Calendrier. Its recommendations however were not taken into account for political reasons.

One often associated it with the Manuscrit of Voynich. Wilfrid Mr. Voynich, which bought the manuscript in 1912, suggested that Dee had been owner of the manuscript, and that it had sold it with Rodolphe II. However, the reports/ratios that Dee maintained with the latter were less important than than one thought, and the newspapers of Dee at all do not refer to such a transaction.

Artefacts

The British Museum has many objects having belonged to him. These objects for the majority, summer used at the time of the spiritual conferences:

the Speculum, or the Mirror of Dee (object of worship Aztec makes Obsidian, whose form is similar to that of a mirror with hand, reported in Europe in 1520), which was held by Horace Walpole
small a Sceau waxes some, supposed to support the legs of its " count of exercice" (the table on which it practiced the vision of its Crystal Ball)
the large one and famous " Seal of Dieu" , used to support the crystal ball.
a Amulet out of gold, on which the representation of one of the visions of Kelley is engraved.
a crystal ball six centimetres in diameter. This object remained unimportant a long time in the collection of Minéraux. The source of this object is more doubtful than the others.
a knife whose end of the blade is gilded and who would have been " soaked in Large Elixir".

In December 2004, a crystal ball having belonged to Dee and an explanation of its written use by Nicholas Culpeper in years 1600 were stolen with the Science Museum; but were found shortly after.

Dee in the fiction

Jean Ray, in one of the adventures of Harry Dickson: " The Rouge" Studio; : one speaks about John Dee and especially about his black mirror: " black stone with the means of which John Dee evoked the esprits". The red studio is appeared in volume 9 of the adventures of Harry Dickson published by the library marabout, Gerard editions & C° in 1970.
Ian Fleming created James Bond by using features of John Dee and its famous signature 007.
William Shakespeare worked the character of Prospero according to John Dee.
Gustav Meyrink utilizes John Dee in his novel the green Face (1916)
Peter Ackroyd, in his novel The House off Doctor Dee (1994) tells the history of a man who inherits a house which was inhabited by Dee. ISBN 0140171177
Armin Shimerman in several of its books, adds a great part of Science fiction in news whose Dee is the hero.
Dee seems a supporting character in The Queen' S Fool (2004), of Philippa Gregory.
In the news of H.P. Lovecraft the Abomination of Dunwich (1929), it is John Dee who is at the origin of the English translation of the Necronomicon .
Dee, Kelley, and Giordano Bruno is the protagonists of the series Ægypt of John Crowley.
In the angel of the western window of Gustav Meyrink (1927), Dee is the secondary protagonist.
In the Pendulum of Foucault , Umberto Eco makes of Dee the central figure of the “Plan”.
Dee is at the origin of the intrigue of a film of Derek Jarman, Jubilee .
John Dee is also the name of an Super-unpleasant at cd. Comics, Doctor Destiny, which, like true Dee, uses the magic and science and can control the dreams.
In the graphic Novell Marvel 1602 of Neil Gaiman, the position of Dee as an adviser of the Queen Elizabeth was taken by Doctor Strange.
In Gloriana or the unsatiated queen of Michael Moorcock, Dee appears in a court close to that of the Queen Elizabeth.
the character also was too trying for a compiler like Jacques Bergier not to appear in one of its parascientific constructions: a chapter is devoted to John Dee in the cursed books (1971. Chap. the book of Enoch ).
Dee is the main character of Deathscent of Robin Jarvis, from which the history occurs in a fantastic version from England élisabéthaine.
In its book Praga Magica , Angello Maria Ripellino devotes to him some chapters very documented on the stay pragois of Dee and Kelley in magic and precise Prague my image of John Dee legendary and is seen under the angle of Bohemia .
In the Czech Literature, Dee generally seems a emberlificotor, thus in Král Rudolf (King Rodolphe) of Jiří Karásek, Dee and his/her son tries to poison the emperor Rodolphe II.
In Borges and the orangs outans eternal of E. Verissimo, Borges mentions of John Dee and the work of this one.
In cartoon W.E.S.T of Dorison, Nury and Rossi (Volume 1, board 34), it is refers of John Dee.
the title of the song " Faaip de Oiad" , in the album " Lateralus" American group Tool, is in énochien.

References

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15402156 'Of vulgar mathematics to the hieroglyphic monade: Elements of Euclide seen by John Dee: Reception of the Elements of Euclide to the Middle Ages and the Rebirth (From common mathematics to the hieroglyphic monad: John Dee' S view off the Elements off EUCLID: The reception off EUCLID' S Old Elements during the Middle and the Rebirth', MANDOSIO Jean-Marc, Review of history of sciences, ISSN 0151-4105, 2003, vol. 56, no2, pp. 475-491 (17 pages)
Calder, I.R.F. (1952). " John Dee Studied ace year English Neo-Platonist." University off London Essay. Available online.
Casaubon, Mr. (1659, repr. 1992) has off True and Faithful Relation What Passed for many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee… . New York: Magickal Childe. ISBN 0-939708-01-9.
Dee, John Quinti Libri Mysteriorum . British Library, ms Sloane 3188. Available at Elias Ashmole, ms Sloane 3677.
Dee, John John Dee' S five books off mystery: original sourcebook off Enochian magic: from the collected works known quinque ace Mysteriorum libri/Joseph H. Peterson, Editor. Boston: Weiser Books. ISBN 1-57863-178-5.
Fell Smith, Charlotte (1909). John Dee: 1527 - 1608. London: Constable & Company. Available online.
French, Peter J. (1972). John Dee: The World off year Elizabethan Magus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Woolley, Benjamin (2001). The Queen' S Conjurer: The Science and Magic off Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

External bonds

biography and various articles on the Alphabet Enochien
an article on Hieroglyphic Monade
http://www.oeildusphinx.com/John_dee.html an article on John Dee and Steganographia de Trithème
the page of Heresie.com on Dee.
This section of the E-newspaper Azogue contains original reproductions of the texts of Dee.
carryforwards of the conversations angelica of John Dee and Kelley published in pdf by Clay Holden:

Mysteriorum Primus Liber (with Latin translations)
Notes with the Primus Liber by Clay Holden
Mysteriorum Liber Secundus
Mysteriorum Liber Tertius

English Translation of the '' Monas Hieroglyphica '' by J.W. Hamilton-Jones
Monas Hieroglyphica, Ambix Volume 52, Left 3 2005

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