Scholars are trying to restore the reputation of the last English royal wizard, Dr John Dee, over claims dating back 400 years that he was involved in sorcery. Dee is regarded as one of the period’s leading scholars, who cast horoscopes for Queen Mary and her Spanish husband, Philip, and suggested the most auspicious date for the coronation of Elizabeth I.
But he was also said to use crystal balls to communicate with angels and collaborated with a conman who assured him the angels had suggested a spot of wife-swapping.Now a group of international scholars gathered in Cambridge has tried to restore his reputation, four centuries on. Jenny Rampling, who organised the weekend two-day conference at Dee’s old college, St John’s – where he became an undergraduate aged 15 – to celebrate him as a forgotten hero of English intellectual life.
Telegraph (Thanks Kelsey)
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I wondered where the angels stuff would come in. Darn, gotta go out now – v late thanks to you – and it’s networking and I’m quite crap at that and my mind won’t be on it now! I want to read more!
oh noes.
Brilliant fellah he was, don’t you think? Sorry, i’m from the Netherlands, so i don’t know the man. But nice to hear he was a straight honest man.
Don’t entirely know if his reputation needs saving, really. The Enochian alphabet is unquestionably the work of a genius, divinely inspired or no (no, obviously). But pretty much everything I’ve ever read about paints him as one of the premier thinkers of the day.
Still, should be a fun time for all involved even with the shonky premise.
ah wow. Love to think things like that were real. It.s so magical.
Yes, but what has John Dee got to do with James Bond..?
gee, john dee was only human, eh?
so was isaac newton…even tho some scholars have been having a hissy fit over his practice of alchemy fer quite a while now…
I preferred his dad, Simon.
I’ve heard of this man before…I’ve read a bit about him, and I vaguely remember going on a school trip somewhere where a few of his possesions had been laid out (including his ‘crystal ball’.) Despite his title as the last ‘royal wizard’, he doesn’t seem to have been a full blown potion-brewing, spell-casting, pentagram-bearing warlock (the sort you hear about today); more like a crypto scientist. So no, he doesn’t deserve to be labeled as a sorcerer.
P.s. Was he ever actually imprisoned for witchcraft? It’s just, I remember that on my school trip, we were taken to a cell (because we were naughty! Ha!) where someone had carved an astronomy chart on to the wall, and I’m almost sure it was him. It was a strangely beautiful carving.
“International scholars gathered in Cambridge, tried to restore his reputation”
Do you think anyone suggested a spot of wife-swapping???
no problem
If you haven’t already checked out “The House of Doctor Dee” by Peter Ackroyd, please do so. Forthwith.
That is all.
(Oh and then read the rest of his books, except that weird one about the UFOs – “First Light”- as that’s quite crap.)
As you were.
We nearly did a play about him in our dramatics society. We were a bit short of people; I was playing his wife Jane, his daughter Catherine and his other daughter Madimi. The play was never performed because two of the cast turned alcoholic and went off the rails. It wasn’t a good play in any case, it was as full of flashbacks as a Quentin Tarrentino film, and I had to be raped in two different time zones by his partner Edward Kelley.
Strangely enough, I’d bookmarked John Dee months ago as I was maybe going to write something about him at some point int future and he was mentioned on R4 today too.
I get all my World of Warcraft Character names from the Enochian dictionary :S
@Becky – Jeez, were there any other women at all in the cast? Were there any other people in the cast?!
So, Derren, what do we have to find out about John Dee then..? Hmmm. apart from the palindrome connection. And I see no bunnies in the hieroglyphs…
posted on the autumn equinox
what a freak
007……he came up with that…but how..hmmm..?!!!