Christianity as Seen Through a Crystal Ball
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008A 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
