John Dee's Angelic Evocations and Magical Practices

could "honestly afford." John Dee confesses in a letter that he trusts in divine grace and in conferences with mysterious men whom he declares "difficult to find although seen daily" to steal the secrets of Abbot Trithemius. The year after having read and abundantly studied the Steganography, John Dee publishes what is perhaps his most important book: the Hieroglyphic Monad, which was to take up part of the discourse made by Trithemius in the Polygraphy. Trithemius Method With the discovery of Trithemius's Steganographia, things change, and he decides to use a different technique, which Cardano had already hinted at in De Rerum Varietate. This new technique was a true mediumistic session with a medium, and instead of trying to contact spirits of the dead, thanks precisely to the Qabalah, John Dee sought to contact angelic spirits to obtain supernatural knowledge. While on one hand John Dee continued an absolutely normal life, marrying, having about ten children, maintaining relationships with the scientific and court community, at the same time he devoted himself almost daily to this investigation of the Universe through occult means, and since he kept almost daily diaries of everything that happened, we know much about how it proceeded, and it was an extremely articulated procedure. This method needed a medium different from the operator, that is, from John Dee, so John Dee's first concern was to find a medium suitable for his purposes. There were several, but the most important is Edward Kelly. John Dee and Edward Kelly positioned themselves at the center of a circle called the Circle of the Earth, that was the main magic circle, inside was a red silk carpet, externally to the circle were 12 banners with the 12 names of God. This doctrine of the 12 names of God is a very important Qabalistic doctrine relating to permutations of the Tetragrammaton IHVH. On the red silk were then four wax tablets with cryptic symbols engraved on them, above these was placed a table encrypted in a particular language, covered then by a white silk cloth, above this table was then placed a wax seal containing some encrypted divine names (the Aemeth seal which you see here in a double version encrypted and not encrypted according to John Dee and according to Athanasius Kircher) and above this tablet a crystal stone that had been given to John Dee by the angels themselves and therefore obtained supernaturally. Angels that were invoked In this setup John Dee proceeded by invoking the appropriate angelic entities according to the mystery of nature he wanted to investigate. In particular, John Dee proceeded with many invocations, for example to the angels of medicine, of precious stones, of transformation, of mechanical arts, of the 4 elements, etc... but the main ones were of 3 types that reflect the structure of the angelic Universe that John Dee had found in his investigations: • 7 Royal Angels (in relation to the 7 planets): the Heptarchic Royal Family, whose invocation is described in the De Heptarchia Mystica that he had deduced on inspiration from Trithemius's book de Septem Secundeis; • 12 Angels of the Winds (in relation to the 12 signs of the Zodiac) • 4 Angels of the 4 Quarters: instead in relation to the four elements and the 4 cardinal points Each of these Angelic entities had to be represented always in this symbolic refinement of the Universe represented by Dee. This distinction on the angels he invoked is important because it makes us understand the meaning of all this furnishing that John Dee had set up. Setup to reproduce intelligences present in the Cosmos The meaning was to re-present symbolically an essential scheme of the entire Cosmos. We have in fact that first of all there is the circle called Earth, around this there should be the 12 banners that bore the 12 names of God and were in relation to the 12 Zodiacal Signs and were held by the 12 Angels of the Winds. The 7 Royal Angels or Archangels were represented in the Aemeth seal which was formed by a 7-pointed star, while the Angels of the 4 Quarters that had to be conjured at each session were represented in a talisman called "of the 4 Palaces" that Edward Kelly received directly through a vision: "The four dwellings are the 4 Angels of the Earth, who are the 4 Watchers and the Guard Towers, which the eternal God in his providence has placed as a bulwark against the enemy. [...] In each of these dwellings the Chief Watcher is a Mighty Prince, a mighty Angel of the Lord who has under him 5 Princes. The seals and authorities of these dwellings are confirmed at the beginning of the World. On each of them are 4 characters pledge of the presence of the Son of God." - John Dee These, in short, are the Angelic entities to whom John Dee asked all the mysteries of the Cosmos, of Medicine, of Alchemy and chemistry, etc... Angelic Evocations to discover the Mysteries of Nature Thus from 1569 (cf. The Angels of John Dee 2003) John Dee began the evocation of Angels developing a special alphabet for such evocations and operating a whole series of particular expedients. The purpose of these evocations was the understanding of the most hidden mysteries of nature, as he himself said: "From youth onwards I have desired and implored from God a pure and profound wisdom, and understanding of natural and artificial truths, so that God's wisdom, his goodness and power bestowed in the creation of the world might fall in abundant measure under the dominion of my capacity.[...] For forty years continuously, in multiple manners and different Countries, with great pain, attention and price, I have gradually sought to arrive at the best knowledge that man can obtain in the world; and I have discovered at the end how neither living man nor any book I have been able to know until now has succeeded."