Johannes (John) Dee
(1527-1608 e.v.)
by T. Apiryon
English alchemist, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, philosopher and magician. Dee was the court astrologer to both Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I, and, according to legend, conjured a windstorm which resulted in the defeat of the invading Spanish Armada. Dee was the editor of the first English translation of Euclid’s “Elements.” Dee, along with Edward Kelly were responsible for the Enochian system of magical intercourse with a hierarchy of angelic beings, a system of great importance in the magical technology of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and of Aleister Crowley, forming the basis of Liber CDXVIII: The Vision and the Voice (in The Equinox, Vol I, No. V, March 1911 e.v.) and Liber LXXXIX vel Chanokh (in The Equinox, Vol. I, Nos. VII and VIII, March and September 1912 e.v.). Some believe Dee to be the true instigator of the Rosicrucian movement.
His major published work was Monas Hieroglyphica (1564). Meric Casaubon’s A True and Faithful Relation of what passed for Many Years between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits, published in 1659, was a compilation of Dee’s diaries during his Enochian workings with Kelly.
References:
Barrett, Francis; The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer [1801], Citadel, Secaucus, NJ 1967
Casaubon, Meric; A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits [London 1659], reprinted by Magical Childe Publishing Inc., New York 1992
Crowley, Aleister; The Equinox, Vol. I, London, 1910-1913 e.v.
Head, Thomas; “The Enochian System” in The Complete Golden Dawn Sysem of Magic, ed. by Israel Regardie, Falcon Press, Phoenix, Arizona 1984
James, Geoffrey; The Enochian Evocation of Dr. John Dee, Heptangle Books, Gilette, New Jersey 1984
Laycock, Donald C.; The Complete Enochian Dictionary, Askin Publishers, London, 1978
Rohmer, Sax; The Romance of Sorcery, Causeway, NY 1973
Turner, Robert; Elizabethan Magic, Element, Longmead 1989
Yates, Frances; The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, ARK, London 1972/1986
Original Publication Date: 5/24/95
Originally published in Red Flame No. 2 – Mystery of Mystery: A Primer of Thelemic Ecclesiastical Gnosticism by Tau Apiryon and Helena; Berkeley, CA 1995 e.v.