John Dee

Damon Albarn of Gorillaz and Blur fame has gone all mystical recently and has produced an album called Dr. Dee based around the life of astrologer, scientist, navigator, royal advisor and occultist John Dee.

 John Dee

John Dee was a true renaissance man and his remarkable life story has given the singer-songwriter plenty of scope, yet many folks have never heard of Dee at all; so just who was John Dee?

John Dee was born on July 13th 1527 and became one of the most learned men of his age – not surprisingly he had one of the largest libraries in England at the time and hung out with the likes of  Elizabeth I, William Cecil and Francis Walsingham, so the good doctor was well acquainted with the movers and shakers of his day.

Astrology talents

The Queen even used his astrology talents to decide the best time for her Coronation and as her spectacular  reign developed one could say his choice was rather successful.

From the 1550s to the 1570s he acted as advisor to a number of expeditions and argued for the development of a British Empire. Throughout this period he published books some were on what we would consider mainstream science but others on mystical subjects both types were well received by his contemporaries.

Then, in the 1580s, Dee decided there was a quicker route to knowledge and he decided to converse with angels; he felt he needed help to do this and he found a sort of ‘medium’ in the shape of a man called Edward Kelley. Dee and Kelley produced a number of books which they claimed were dictated to them by angels using a language called Enochian.

In 1583 Dee and Kelley were invited to Poland by a Polish aristocrat called Albert Laski – they soon regretted their journey when they discovered Laski was penniless and out of favour with the Polish court, however, eventually, they managed to meet the king of Poland; Stefan Batory.

Events then took a rather surreal turn when Kelley relayed a most unexpected message from the angel Uriel demanding that Kelley and Dee should engage in a spot of wife swapping. Dee was understandably unhappy about such a turn of events, although it seems he did as the ‘angel’ suggested, then he decided he’d had enough of angels and, leaving Kelley behind, returned to England.

His return was not a success; his library and equipment had been looted and his finances were in meltdown so he begged Elizabeth I for a job. She made him Warden of Christ’s College Manchester in 1595, a post he found disagreeable but kept until his death.

When the queen died her successor; James I had no time for Dr. Dee and his mysticism and left the aging man to fend for himself and dependant on the help of Katherine, his daughter. Dr. Dee died at the age of 82 and, as befitted the greatest occultist of his age, it has been claimed that Dee accurately predicted his own demise.  Unfortunately, no one knows where exactly Dee was buried and if he ever had a tombstone it vanished long ago, so Albarn’s musical tribute will act as a memorial to the complex life of this amazing man.

 

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Post Author: Patrick Arundell

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