3933 – Reproduction painting of John Dee and Edward Kelley

Physical description:

Colourful image showing two men sitting at a table, one is older and bearded (holding a pen - Dee), the other is younger staring at an angel in a globe (Edward Kelley). The room is an imagining of an Elizabethan study. The spirits El and Madimi can be seen int he background (white outlines). The Seal of God is on the Holy Table in the foreground.

Museum classification:

Ritual Magic

Size:

40cm x 25cm

Information:

This picture illustrates one of the most significant events in the history of Ritual Magic.  In it, Doctor John Dee and Edward Kelley look into the “shew stone” to receive communications from the angelic realms. 

On the left hand is John Dee (holding the pen, with a white beard).  Cecil Williamson said that Dee was, “appointed by Queen Elizabeth I to be her astrologer and occult adviser, generally nicknamed by the public as "Queen Elizabeth's Merlin".  He was one of the most learned men of his age but he said that he wanted more, “All my life time I had spent in learning…I had…sought to come by the best knowledge that man might attain unto in the world; And I found…that neither any man living nor any Book…was able to teach me those truths I desired and longed for…”  As a result of his prayers, Dee said that God’s holy angels began to inform him.

For several years in the 1580s, Dee worked with Edward Kelley.  Kelley became his scryer.  He would gaze into a crystal which was described by Dee as, “as big as an egg, most bright, clere and glorious.”  Kelley then reported what he saw and Dee wrote it down.

The spirits were quite explicit about how to contact them.  The crystal was to be put on top of “The Seal of God”.  This was to be rested on the Holy Table and seals of God made from wax were to put under each of the four table legs.  The spirits showed them the design of each of the seal and the table.

“It is so terrible, I tremble to gather it.”  John Dee.

Sometimes the spirits would come out of the crystal, this picture shows two of the spirits who appeared most regularly: a young elfine like girl called Madimi and a spirit that dressed like a jester or fool who opened up his chest to show his heart where the word “El” was inscribed.  This spirit sometimes spoke in a language that Dee didn’t understand, it then told Dee that within 28 days he would receive the legendary Book of Enoch or the Liber Logaeth “which in your language signifieth Speech from GOD” the Spirit explained.

Kelley sat in front of the crystal.  An angel would appear with a wand.  The angel would then point to the board and Kelley would explain what he saw.  Dee wrote this down on a pre-prepared table or grid.  Over a series of encounters, a whole language was communicated to Dee and Kelley.  This was said to be the language of God and the angels, the language which Adam originally spoke in and which he used to name all the plants and animals in the Garden of Eden.  Knowledge of this language, it was said, could give one power and understanding like a God.

The language Dee and Kelley wrote down has become known as Enochian (in the Bible, Enoch is Adam’s great great great great great grandson, he is said to have walked with God, to have lived for 365 years, he may have entered Heaven while still alive and is believed to have been the last person to speak the original divine language before Dee and Kelley wrote it down in the 1580s).

“Enochian is a complete language of its own, with its own alphabet, grammar, tablets, Aethyrs, kinds, seniors, and has a complete system of “Calls” of its own. 

There is no reference to it prior to Dee’s time and no positive record of its having been worked out between the date of Dee’s death and when it was adopted by the Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn in England about 1875.” Richard Deacon, John Dee (1968)

Above: a modern reconstruction of the Holy Table with the Seal of God in the centre and also under the table legs.

Above: the Thirty Aethyrs or planes as recorded by John Dee.  Each aethyr is governed by several angels (or governors).

Above: this diagram is based on a vision recorded by Dee.  It shows the Four Watchtowers which are depicted as fortified castle towers.  From each tower, a coloured carpet was rolled out and hierarchies of angels processed down the carpet.  The watchmen protect the universe from chaos.  The Golden Dawn equated the watchtowers with the four cardinal points or the quarters (North, South, East, West) and they have become associated with the elements and are invoked during the creation of circles in rituals. 

Dee is a hugely influential figure in the history of magic as Cecil Williamson said: “Dee considered himself a faithful Christian in spite of his hermetic researches. But his absorption in look for spectres in magic stones and his burrowing into the most esoteric aspects of sorcery places Dr. John Dee in the forefront of the history of magic and sorcery.”

Aleister Crowley and John Dee

Crowley believed himself to have lived several past lives.  In one of these lives, he was Edward Kelley.  Crowley learned Enochian and could write it.  There are recordings of him speaking/invoking in Enochian. 

He, “…invoked the Aethyrs of Dee and Kelley...[and] deliberately followed in their footsteps.  What is more, the only complete records that exist of any other persons who invoked the “Calls” and employed the Enochioan language were those supplied by Crowley…” Richard Deacon

Crowley first began making use of the Enochian calls in 1900.  In 1909, he travelled to Algeria with Victor Neuberg.  While there, he described making the calls at night in the desert using the notes from a notebook he had in his rucksack.  Crowley and Neuberg performed acts of sex magic before the calls.  He said that he was as aware, “...of the phenomena of those worlds as ordinary men are of this.”

Crowley wrote about his experiences of the Aethyrs: “I am in a vast crystal cube in the form of the Great God Harpocrates.  This cube is surrounded by a sphere.  About me are four archangels in black robes.”   He also described seeing a multititude wearing white robes from whom there dropped a rain of blood, a Golden Sun having an eye, an Archangel with a flaming book within which was drawn a fiery scorpion, an eagle-angel, a lion and a bull with a great sword.   After experiencing the Aethyrs, “Then I returned within my body…”  The Equinox

See also object 3877, object 3869, object 2030.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Ink, paper, glass and wood (framed)

Copyright ownership:

Sebastian Haines

This picture illustrates one of the most significant events in the history of Ritual Magic.  In it, Doctor John Dee and Edward Kelley look into the “shew stone” to receive communications from the angelic realms. 

On the left hand is John Dee (holding the pen, with a white beard).  Cecil Williamson said that Dee was, “appointed by Queen Elizabeth I to be her astrologer and occult adviser, generally nicknamed by the public as "Queen Elizabeth's Merlin".  He was one of the most learned men of his age but he said that he wanted more, “All my life time I had spent in learning…I had…sought to come by the best knowledge that man might attain unto in the world; And I found…that neither any man living nor any Book…was able to teach me those truths I desired and longed for…”  As a result of his prayers, Dee said that God’s holy angels began to inform him.

For several years in the 1580s, Dee worked with Edward Kelley.  Kelley became his scryer.  He would gaze into a crystal which was described by Dee as, “as big as an egg, most bright, clere and glorious.”  Kelley then reported what he saw and Dee wrote it down.

The spirits were quite explicit about how to contact them.  The crystal was to be put on top of “The Seal of God”.  This was to be rested on the Holy Table and seals of God made from wax were to put under each of the four table legs.  The spirits showed them the design of each of the seal and the table.

“It is so terrible, I tremble to gather it.”  John Dee.

Sometimes the spirits would come out of the crystal, this picture shows two of the spirits who appeared most regularly: a young elfine like girl called Madimi and a spirit that dressed like a jester or fool who opened up his chest to show his heart where the word “El” was inscribed.  This spirit sometimes spoke in a language that Dee didn’t understand, it then told Dee that within 28 days he would receive the legendary Book of Enoch or the Liber Logaeth “which in your language signifieth Speech from GOD” the Spirit explained.

Kelley sat in front of the crystal.  An angel would appear with a wand.  The angel would then point to the board and Kelley would explain what he saw.  Dee wrote this down on a pre-prepared table or grid.  Over a series of encounters, a whole language was communicated to Dee and Kelley.  This was said to be the language of God and the angels, the language which Adam originally spoke in and which he used to name all the plants and animals in the Garden of Eden.  Knowledge of this language, it was said, could give one power and understanding like a God.

The language Dee and Kelley wrote down has become known as Enochian (in the Bible, Enoch is Adam’s great great great great great grandson, he is said to have walked with God, to have lived for 365 years, he may have entered Heaven while still alive and is believed to have been the last person to speak the original divine language before Dee and Kelley wrote it down in the 1580s).

“Enochian is a complete language of its own, with its own alphabet, grammar, tablets, Aethyrs, kinds, seniors, and has a complete system of “Calls” of its own. 

There is no reference to it prior to Dee’s time and no positive record of its having been worked out between the date of Dee’s death and when it was adopted by the Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn in England about 1875.” Richard Deacon, John Dee (1968)

Above: a modern reconstruction of the Holy Table with the Seal of God in the centre and also under the table legs.

Above: the Thirty Aethyrs or planes as recorded by John Dee.  Each aethyr is governed by several angels (or governors).

Above: this diagram is based on a vision recorded by Dee.  It shows the Four Watchtowers which are depicted as fortified castle towers.  From each tower, a coloured carpet was rolled out and hierarchies of angels processed down the carpet.  The watchmen protect the universe from chaos.  The Golden Dawn equated the watchtowers with the four cardinal points or the quarters (North, South, East, West) and they have become associated with the elements and are invoked during the creation of circles in rituals. 

Dee is a hugely influential figure in the history of magic as Cecil Williamson said: “Dee considered himself a faithful Christian in spite of his hermetic researches. But his absorption in look for spectres in magic stones and his burrowing into the most esoteric aspects of sorcery places Dr. John Dee in the forefront of the history of magic and sorcery.”

Aleister Crowley and John Dee

Crowley believed himself to have lived several past lives.  In one of these lives, he was Edward Kelley.  Crowley learned Enochian and could write it.  There are recordings of him speaking/invoking in Enochian. 

He, “…invoked the Aethyrs of Dee and Kelley...[and] deliberately followed in their footsteps.  What is more, the only complete records that exist of any other persons who invoked the “Calls” and employed the Enochioan language were those supplied by Crowley…” Richard Deacon

Crowley first began making use of the Enochian calls in 1900.  In 1909, he travelled to Algeria with Victor Neuberg.  While there, he described making the calls at night in the desert using the notes from a notebook he had in his rucksack.  Crowley and Neuberg performed acts of sex magic before the calls.  He said that he was as aware, “...of the phenomena of those worlds as ordinary men are of this.”

Crowley wrote about his experiences of the Aethyrs: “I am in a vast crystal cube in the form of the Great God Harpocrates.  This cube is surrounded by a sphere.  About me are four archangels in black robes.”   He also described seeing a multititude wearing white robes from whom there dropped a rain of blood, a Golden Sun having an eye, an Archangel with a flaming book within which was drawn a fiery scorpion, an eagle-angel, a lion and a bull with a great sword.   After experiencing the Aethyrs, “Then I returned within my body…”  The Equinox

See also object 3877, object 3869, object 2030.