John Dee is one of the most mysterious people of the late Middle Ages. For more than four centuries, his figure has attracted many writers, playwrights and poets, starting with William Shakespeare (John Dee was the prototype of the wizard Prosper in The Tempest), his contemporary Ben Johnson (creator of the drama The Alchemist) and ending with the works of our contemporaries (remember, for example, the novels "House of Dr. Dee" by Peter Eckrald and "Egypt" by John Crowley).
He was truly a multifaceted and mysterious person - a confidant of Queen Elizabeth I, court astrologer, owner of the largest library in the British Empire in the 16th century, mathematician, translator of Euclid's works, cartographer, astronomer, cabbalist, architect, navigator and secret agent of the British crown. Dee signed his reports to the British Queen "007".
One of the titans of the Renaissance, as he is called, was born in London on June 15, 1527 in the family of a court officer of King Henry VIII. The boy received an excellent home education for those times, and at the age of 15 he decided to take up science.
The first step was entering the famous Cambridge University. After finishing it, he went to continue his education in Holland, and then studied on his own all his life.
He was interested in the unknown in all its manifestations - he collected information about North America and studied the quadrium of sciences (arithmetic, geometry, chemistry and astronomy), conducted alchemic experiments on the transformation of base metals into gold and foreshadowed fate by drawing up horoscopes.
Dee's talents have been recognized in many European capitals. Even the Russian Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich offered him the position of a court physician. And in Prague, Dee spent three years - from 1581 to 1583 - working directly at the court of Rudolf II, who was not accidentally called the "king of alchemists."
When and where Dee met the medium Edward Kelly is unknown. But this union marked the beginning of a unique experiment, called the Jenochean - by the name of Jenoch - the only one of the prophets who, according to the Book of Genesis, was ascended to heaven during his lifetime.
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Under the supervision of Kelly, Dee repeatedly came into contact with certain spirits, falling into a trance in front of the amazed spectators and speaking in an unknown language to anyone living on Earth.
Was the multifaceted Dee also a bit of a crook who thus earned his daily bread? Perhaps it was not without that. It is known that the brilliant astronomer Johannes Kepler did not hesitate to draw up horoscopes on occasion, saying that astrology, although the illegitimate daughter of astronomy, but without her help, many astronomers would have died of hunger long ago.
The first session, during which complete success was achieved, took place in 1581. In the magic crystal, the medium saw the angel Uriel, who explained how to create a wax talisman - the seal of Emmett - with which it is easy to come into contact with the beyond.
During subsequent communication sessions, the celestial interlocutors explained to Dee and Kelly how to communicate with them and transmitted the alphabet of the Angelic or Yenochean language.
Then, pointing to the corresponding letters, the angels, they say, dictated 19 poetic texts to their friends, now known as the "Jenochean Keys".
Communication, however, was not limited to a purely spiritual level, during which Dee and Kelly, with the help of angels, predicted the future of one or another of the interested customers.
According to the surviving records, the angels gave their agents instructions on what to say to the monarchs in one case or another, how to plan their further travels, and even pointed to the movement of the Great Armada, giving the British the opportunity to properly prepare for a meeting with the Spanish fleet and defeat it.
Donald Tyson, a Canadian researcher of John Dee's legacy, for example, believes that his character treated his conversations with angels as a kind of service. He received information from a confidential source and passed it down the chain.
"Although many believe that the words of the angels are a deliberate hoax of Edward Kelly," he writes, "or fantasies generated by Dee's subconscious during the sessions."
He died in 1608, on a cold, foggy evening in London, in an old dilapidated house, forgotten and abandoned by everyone. The former secret agent hid his notes in a cedar chest with a double bottom, and for a long time they passed from hand to hand, not found by anyone. Only half a century later the secret of the chest was accidentally discovered by a certain Mr. Jones.
Some of the manuscripts were then burned down, because the servant undertook to lay the baking trays with the manuscripts. But the other part fell into the hands of Ellios Ashlon, a naturalist and mystic. He became interested in the find and began to collect the diaries of John Dee, scattered throughout the archives of Europe.
In the 17th century, Dee's written legacy was published, and the whole world learned about the secrets that the double-bottom chest kept.
