A couple of weeks ago, my father contacted me about a book he had found in a used bookstore in Dallas that he thought I might find interesting.  The book was called something like A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits.  It appeared to be a rather old book and, on inspection, my dad found that it was priced at $250.  As much as he may love me, he passed on purchasing the pricey volume for me, and simply forwarded the information about it to me so that I might investigate it further on my own.  I love books, but I, too, draw the line at around $25. 

But with a catchy title like that, I had to look into this Dr. Dee, and discover on my own what indeed did pass between him and these spirits.  The first thing I found is that Amazon.com has a version of this book for sale for around $30 that was published in 1942 by Kessinger Publishing, LLC.  They also have the version my dad came across for sale here starting at around $235, but it was published as recently as 1992 by Magickal Childe.  The other thing I found was that the original title of the book (published in 1659) is actually A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed For Many Years Between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Qu. Eliz and King James their reignes) and Some Spirits: Tending (Had it Succeeded) to a General Alteration of Most States and Kingdomes in the World.  His private Conferences with Rodolphe Emperor of Germany, Stephen K. of Poland, and divers other Princes about it. The Particulars of his Cause, as it was agitated in the Emperors Court; by the Popes intervention: his banishment, and restoration in part. As also the letters of Sundry Great Men and Princes (some whereof were present at some of these Conferences and Apparitions of Spirits:) to the Said D. Dee. Out of the original copy, written with Dr. Dees own hand, kept in to library of Sir Tho. Cotton. With a Preface confirming the Reality (as to the Point of Spirits) of This Relation: and shewing the several good Uses that a Sober Christian may make of All.

Phew!  That’s a mouthful!  So who the heck is Dr. John Dee?

My take on this guy is that Dan Brown could write another great mystery-wrapped-up-in-untangling-the-conspiracy book like The Da Vinci Code based off of the strange, ecclectic and influential life this man led.  He was a mathematician, an astrologer, a map maker, a philosopher, an astronomer, a diviner, an occultist, and an alchemist, among other things.  In an age where science and magic were being systematically separated, Dr. Dee spent his time threading them back togother, seeing both sides as merely different ways to explain the same underlying questions of creation and the divine.  An established scholar, Dee even consulted and tutored Queen Elizabeth I, and earlier had landed himself a criminal charge of treason for a horoscope he had prepared for Queen Mary.  Eventually cleared of that charge, however, he moved on to have a good working relationship with her sister, and was a driving force behind the English getting their claim in on America when it was still the “New World”.

Later in his life, Dr. Dee turned to a crystal ball as a means to attain knowledge of a more supernatural origin, though he was known through his life as a very pious christian.  Dee was unable to record with any accuracy the things that occurred during his crystal gazing sessions, however, so he elisted the help of a medium.  The medium acted as a link between Dr. Dee and the “angels” during what are now called “spiritual conferences”.  He and this medium traveled together, living nomadically, for around 5 years, whereafter they split off their relationship amidst rumors of their heresy.  Dee’s life after this point appears to have been largely unsuccessful, and Dr. Dee eventually died poverty-stricken.  The True and Faithful Relation book is comprised of manuscripts of these spiritual conferences that were discovered about a decade after Dee died.

So what did pass between Dee and these spirits?  Much more than I can include here, I assure you.  But the book appears to be a journal of his travels and includes transcripts of Dee’s conversations with these spirits.   It delves deeply into Christianity and Christian beliefs, though at Cornell University, this book is part of their “Witchcraft Collection”.  There are people out there, however, who believe there is something to be gained from reading these manuscripts, and in fact, there is a society devoted to ensuring the publication of all materials that Dee had anything to do with.  Also included in these manuscripts is information taken from spirits teaching other “angelic” languages and evolving a new magickal system called “Enochian Magic” that is still practiced today.

So what is the moral of the story?  I suppose it is to keep your eyes open when you are in a second hand book shop.  You never know what you will come across.

 Yours in this life and the next!

GhOsTwRiTeR KiM

Sources: http://www.johndee.org/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee_(mathematician); http://www.esotericarchives.com/dee/tfr/tfr.htm#intro; http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=witch;cc=witch;view=toc;subview=short;idno=wit039; http://www.controverscial.com/Dr.%20John%20Dee.htm

Kings and knights, Princesses and priceless jewels: these are the things of great fairy tales and films.  Yet for Europe, these things are simply a part of history, not some elaborate Hollywood set.  Often romantic yet inevitably bloody, this incredible past has left behind more than castle ruins and crown jewels.  Many ongoing hauntings around Europe can be traced back to those violent historical eras.

King Henry VIII

One man alone is responsible for several famous British hauntings: King Henry VIII.  His penchant for lopping off the heads of his wives certainly helped that little claim to fame, but many others who are associated with him yet didn’t die by his whim are also still hanging around in certain castle corridors.

Naturally, Anne Boleyn is the most famous of these ghosts.  Henry married her after annulling his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.  Anne had been Catherine’s maid of honor.  A very short three years later, Jane Seymour captured the attention of the finicky King, and he trumped up a story of infidelity that put Anne in the middle of an incestuous relationship with her brother, George, and both were executed treason.  Both Anne and George are said to haunt their childhood home, Blickling Hall in North Norfolk.  Anne is said to approach the castle by coach, her decapitated head resting on her knee, each year on the anniversary of her death (May 19th, 1536), followed by her brother George walking behind the coach.  Anne has also been seen inside the fantastic country estate.

The crunching of gravel at midnight on May 19 at Blickling Hall heralds the ghost of Anne Boleyn

 Anne’s ghost has also been spotted numerous times at the Tower of London, where she was beheaded, and particularly in and around the chapel where she spent her last night on Earth.

Jane Seymour wed Henry shortly after Anne’s head rolled, and in October of 1537, she bore him a son, Edward.  She died of Puerperal fever shortly after his birth, and she is said to haunt Hampton Court, the palace she inhabited with Henry.  Her ghost is said to walk a staircase in Hampton Court with a lit candle, headed to the Silver Stick Gallery, where she passes through a halo of light and fades away. 

Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, had been a lady-in-waiting for his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, and had been Anne Boleyn’s first cousin.  She married Henry around 1540, when she was no older than 19, and he was pushing 50.  Henry was truly smitten with Katherine, believing her to be his “rose without a thorn” and “the very jewel of womanhood.”  What Henry didn’t know, however, was that Katherine grew up in a very permissive household and had taken several lovers before she met Henry, and, unfortunately for her, she didn’t give up that habit after marrying him.  Within just a year of their marriage, rumors of her infidelities began circulating.  Eventually, Henry discovered that she was having an affair with her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, and she was executed at the Tower of London in February of 1542.  When Katherine was arrested at Hampton Court, she managed to get away from her captors long enough to run screaming down the hall to the chapel where Henry was praying for her soul.  She begged him to spare her life, but he ignored her pleas, and she was dragged off to her execution.  Her spirit is a frequent sight at Hampton Court to this day.  She is often seen and heard repeating her screaming run down the hallway to the chapel, and is occassionally spotted in the garden.

Haunted Hampton Court

Other spirits that are said to make occassional appearances at Hampton Court who were at one point involved with Henry VIII.  One is Cardinal Wolsey, who built Hampton Court, sold it to Henry, was arrested for treason and died before his execution date.  Another is Dame Sybil Penn (known as the gray lady of Hampton Court), nurse to Henry’s children, Edward and Elizabeth.  She died of smallpox and it is said that she can be heard at her spinning wheel from time to time.  Several other less reknown hauntings have been reported at Hampton Court, though these mentioned above directly relate back to Henry’s time at the Palace.

Then there is my favorite haunting at Hampton Court.  Watch this:

That little video clip, supposedly taken from a security camera, got a lot of press there for a while.  My opinion?  Can you say “guy in a period costume having trouble closing a fire door?”  Seriously, if anyone really thought that was anything other than a flesh and blood, LIVING human being…???

Dismissing that and moving right along, the violence surrounding the life and wives of Henry VIII certainly makes for some chilling reading, and his daughters, Queen Mary I (a.k.a., “Bloody Mary”) and Queen Elizabeth I certainly weren’t boring during their reigns at the throne.  They seem to have left less residual spirit energy in their wakes, however, so we shall end our story here.

Yours in this life and the next!

GhOsTwRiTeR KiM