Background
John Dee was born on July 13, 1527 in Tower Ward, London, England. He was the son of Roland Dee, a London mercer, and his wife, Johanna Wilde.
One of the portraits of John Dee.
Dee attended the Chelmsford Chantry School (now King Edward VI Grammar School) from 1535 to 1542.
Dee was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, receiving the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1545 and the Master of Arts degree in 1548.
Dee's glyph, whose meaning he explained in Monas Hieroglyphica.
Objects used by Dee in his magic, now in the British Museum.
An image of John Dee and Edward Keeley.
Claude glass, believed to be John Dee’s scrying mirror.
John Dee’s crystal.
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Written in thirteen days in 1564 by the renowned Elizabethan magus, Dr. John Dee, The Hieroglyphic Monad explains his discovery of the monad, or unity, underlying the universe as expressed in a hieroglyph, or symbol.
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1564
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Astronomer mathematician occultist alchemist astrologer
John Dee was born on July 13, 1527 in Tower Ward, London, England. He was the son of Roland Dee, a London mercer, and his wife, Johanna Wilde.
Dee attended the Chelmsford Chantry School (now King Edward VI Grammar School) from 1535 to 1542. Then he was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, receiving the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1545 and the Master of Arts degree in 1548.
Dee was a fellow of St. John’s and a foundation fellow of Trinity College (1546). He traveled to Louvain briefly in 1547 and to Louvain and Paris in 1548-1551, studying with Gemma Frisius and Gerhardus Mercator. Throughout his life Dee made extended trips to the Continent and maintained cordial relations with scholars there.
For more than twenty-five years Dee acted as adviser to various English voyages of discovery. His treatises on navigation and navigational instruments were deliberately kept in manuscript; most have not survived, and are known only from his later autobiographical writings. His “fruitfull Praeface” to the Billingsley translation of Euclid (1570), on the relations and applications of mathematics, established his fame among the mathematical practitioners.
Dee spent time abroad collecting books for his library, and studying astronomy, astrology, mathematics, coding, and magic - all topics which were linked in his mind as he struggled to understand the ultimate truths about the universe. By 1566 he was living with his mother at Mortlake, in London, to reduce his living costs. There he built up a remarkable collection of scholarly works in his library as well as a collection of astronomical instruments, globes (including one given to him by Mercator) and accurate clocks.
In 1577, Dee published General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation, a work that set out his vision of a maritime empire and asserted English territorial claims on the New World. In 1564, Dee wrote the Hermetic work Monas Hieroglyphica ("The Hieroglyphic Monad"), an exhaustive Cabalistic interpretation of a glyph of his own design, meant to express the mystical unity of all creation.He published a "Mathematical Preface" to Henry Billingsley's English translation of Euclid's Elements in 1570, arguing the central importance of mathematics and outlining mathematics' influence on the other arts and sciences.
His high status as a scholar also allowed him to play a role in Elizabethan politics. He served as an occasional adviser and tutor to Elizabeth I and nurtured relationships with her ministers Francis Walsingham and William Cecil. Dee also tutored and enjoyed patronage relationships with Sir Philip Sidney, his uncle Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Edward Dyer. He also enjoyed patronage from Sir Christopher Hatton.
Edward Kelley entered Dee's life in March of 1582. He was a medium who claimed to be able to contact angels and spirits and he did so by gazing into a crystal ball. Although this was not the first time Dee had been involved in such practices, at first he was still highly suspicious that Kelley's visions were real. Two things convinced him, however: Kelley was highly skilled in his art, and secondly Dee so longed to understand the ultimate truth about the universe which he had failed to find by other means. The lack of reaction of others to his scientific work was also a factor, as was the fact that he had been accused of magic so often in his life. Dee became more and more deeply involved in conversing with angels and spirits through Kelley and, sadly, it dominated the latter part of his life. This took place over a period of about five years.
Dee made a proposal to Queen Elizabeth for calendar reform in February 1583. He proposed the removal of eleven days to bring the calendar into line with the astronomical year. It was, of course, exactly the right course of action and Dee's proposal gained support from several of Elizabeth's advisors. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury opposed the scheme, partly because he was engaged in a longstanding argument with Elizabeth, partly because he considered such a scheme to be close to what the Catholic Church had adopted in the previous year. Dee's scheme was, however, a better one than that adopted across Europe after the proclamation by Pope Gregory XIII. The Gregorian calendar was based on the date of the Council of Nicaea in 325, while Dee proposed a calendar with an astronomical base rather than a political one as he clearly pointed out. The failure of Dee's calendar reform proposal would mean that England retained a calendar at odds with that in the rest of Europe until 1752.
Dee and Kelley visited Poland and Bohemia (1583-1589), giving displays of magic at the courts of princes. Kelley achieved fame and wealth and was knighted. On the other hand Dee, still in severe financial problems, returned to Mortlake in December 1589 to discover that much of his library had been stolen, as were his scientific instruments. Around this time Dee must have become friendly with Thomas Harriot. The two discussed the allegations of atheism made against Raleigh's school and discussed which of them was being referred to as "the conjurer that is master thereof." They also discussed scientific and mathematical matters in the 1590s. In 1590 Harriot sent Dee a copy of one of his books in which he had written "To my dear friend".
Later Dee retreated almost wholly into mysticism and psychic research. Dee was certainly duped by his medium, Edward Kelley, but he himself was sincere. He felt that he had been ill rewarded for his many years of serious study and looked for a shortcut to the secrets of the universe through the assistance of angelic spirits.
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1564Dee was an intensely pious Christian, but his Christianity was deeply influenced by the Hermetic and Platonic-Pythagorean doctrines that were pervasive in the Renaissance.
His ultimate goal was to help bring forth a unified world religion through the healing of the breach of the Catholic and Protestant churches and the recapture of the pure theology of the ancients.
Dee was a student of the Renaissance Neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino.
He did not draw distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations into Hermetic magic, angel summoning and divination. From Hermeticism, he drew the belief that man had the potential for divine power, and he believed this divine power could be exercised through mathematics.
Quotations:
"Neither the circle without the line, nor the line without the point, can be artificially produced. It is, therefore, by virtue of the point and the Monad that all things commence to emerge in principle."
"O comfortable allurement, O ravishing persuasion to deal with a science whose subject is so ancient, so pure, so excellent, so surrounding all creatures, so used of the almighty and incomprehensible wisdom of the Creator, in distinct creation of all creatures: in all their distinct parts, properties, natures, and virtues, by order, and most absolute number, brought from nothing to the formality of their being and state."
Although Dee was a man of undoubted scientific talents, his interests always tended toward the occult. Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable.
His favor in court circles was due largely to his practice of judicial astrology.
His interest in alchemy and the search for the philosopher’s stone led to the gradual abandonment of other work.
Physical Characteristics: Dee is described as "of very fair, clear sauguine complexion, with a long beard as white as milk - a very handsome man - tall and slender. He wore a goune like an artist's goune with hanging sleeves."
Dee was married twice: first to Jane Forman, and then to Catherine Dee. He had eight children.