John Dee

The most notorious wizard in English medieval history was the Tudor alchemist and court astrologer Dr. John Dee. He reached the height of his fame during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and was known across Europe as a scientist, scholar and sorcerer. He enjoyed a period of considerable wealth and influence, but eventually fell from grace, and died nearly penniless. He left behind him a legacy of philosophical, wizardly, astrological and chemical writings and translations that remain important today.

John Dee was born in 1527 and educated at the Chantry School in Chelmsford. From there, he proceeded to Cambridge University and entered St. John’s College before transferring to Trinity College. In 1547, aged 20, he made his first journey to continental Europe, and spent some time discussing various matters with assorted people in the various Dutch universities. The next year he travelled to Europe again, to the University of Louvain in France, where he obtained his degree as a doctor.

Dr. John Dee

In 1551, Dee obtained an introduction to the Court of King Edward VI, to whom he had already dedicated two of his books. He returned to court in 1553, when Mary Tudor gained the throne. By this time he was known as an astrologer, and was invited to prepare the Queen’s natal horoscope for her. He also calculated a horoscope for a young Elizabeth, at that point still a princess.

Shortly after this time he began to experiment with magic. He quickly ended up in trouble, being arrested on the testimony of a man called George Ferrys, who accused Dee of cursing his children, killing one and blinding another. Other rumours accused Dee of trying to curse the Queen. His home was searched and he was brought to trial in front of the Secretary of State, but he was cleared of all charges. Astrology was a common fascination right throughout society at the time, and anyone with a skill at casting horoscopes was in high demand. Dee’s reputation ensured that his fame as an astrologer spread. He became quite a common figure at court.

Dee's scrying device, the 'Black Mirror'

When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, her first commission for Dee was to name an auspicious day for her coronation. Shortly after she was crowned, she invited him to enter service in her retinue, and promised him a master’s position at St. Catherine’s Hospital. On one occasion when a wax effigy of the Queen was found lying in a prominent position outside a minor royal building with a large pin stuck through its chest, the general consensus was that someone was attempting to inflict disease or death upon the Queen. Dee was summoned, and his verdict was that it offered no danger to the Queen, which pleased her.

In 1570, Dee moved to the riverside London district of Mortlake, taking his library and research lab with him. The Queen occasionally stopped at his home to see his latest wonder or invention, and was said to be anxious that Dee become her official court astrologer. He was an active alchemist at this time, and his search for the Philosopher’s Stone may have had something to do with the Queen’s eagerness to recruit him. He is said to have held discussions about the transmutation of metals with her in Westminster.

In 1581, Dee met up with a would-be medium and alchemist named Edward Kelly, who convinced Dee of his abilities. Kelly claimed to have found a pair of caskets containing mysterious red and white powders with which he was able to turn base metals into gold. Dees diaries record Kelly using his powders to turn mercury into gold, and later pieces of brass, copper and other metal. This process is described as involving nothing more than adding Kelly’s powders to the metal and warming it a fire – with Kelly coming nowhere near the experiment.

Although Queen Elizabeth’s favour protected him to a certain extent, it was commonly said that Dee was a magician of dubious reputation. He openly practised the sorcerous art of divination, and held séances at which he claimed to raise spirits. His divination was conducted with the aid of an oval mirror of black obsidian, which he claimed could conjure an image of a person into thin air. The mirror itself can now be found in the British Museum in London.

An Enochian tablet

Dee’s magical legacy has earnt him a place of honour in modern occultism, too. In 1583, Dee and Kelly began a series of séance works with the black mirror. In this sequence of researches, Kelly entered a state of trance and worked with Dee to produce details of a special system of magic. This system, known now as Enochian magic, was based around the hierarchy of angels, their responsibilities, and their language, referred to as “Logaeth” (pronounced ‘Logah’). The Angelic spirits dictated several tables of letters to Kelly, along with instructions on how to use the tables to derive the names of all the various angelic spirits at all levels of authority. Specific words of Logaeth were dictated to Dee (“MRE”, pronounced ‘Emm-Ree’, meaning ‘with’, for example) , and letters were assigned numeric value, so that a word of a given numeric value was linked to all other words of the same value. This system of sorcery allowed for all manner of good spirits to be given sorcerous tasks to carry out on behalf of the wizard. Enochian magic is still practiced by thousands of people world-wide today, although they generally keep quiet about the results they get.

Dee and Kelly later travelled to Europe to raise funds to work on the large-scale transmutation of base metals into gold. Although Dee returned to England in 1588, Kelly did not – he was imprisoned on and off by the Emperor Rudolph of Prague, who wanted his secrets, and he died in 1595 after falling from a turret window whilst trying to escape. Queen Elizabeth, meanwhile, took pity on Dee’s poverty and appointed him warden of the Collegiate Church in Manchester. Accusations of wizardry continued to harass him however, and he had to defend himself further against accusations of devil worship and conjury. He presented a petition to the King on 5^th June 1604, begging for a trial and exoneration to clear his name from the slanders which followed it. Dee died peacefully in 1608, aged 81, and was buried in Mortlake church, near his long-time home.