There is information about some mirror-polished black crystal that once belonged to the legendary personality of the second half of the 16th century - John Dee.
This magic mirror, in particular, was told by manuscripts that were at one time kept in the library of Cotognen. This mirror was included in the collection of rarities, collected by a certain Horace (Horace) Walpole from Strawberry Hill. It looked like a gorgeous black lump of coal, beautifully polished; hewn in an oval shape, with a dark ivory handle.
And although many said that it was coal, there is little certainty about this. Maybe it was some other mineral too. In any case, in the collection of the Earls of Peterborough this mirror was kept with a careful inscription: "The black stone through which Dr. Dee summoned spirits."
Elias Ashmole, the author of the outlandish and eerie book "Chemical Theater", talks about this black mirror in enthusiastic expressions: in the most remote chambers or caves that are located in the bowels of the earth."
It is known that neither the Peterborough family nor the Walpole family, fearing such power, never even tried to use a magic mirror. They did not do it themselves and did not give it to others, jealously protecting the relic from prying eyes. They feared big troubles that might arouse someone's undue curiosity.
But it just so happened that in 1842 Walpole's collection was auctioned off. During the sale, the magic crystal for twelve pounds (according to French sources - for 336 francs) was bought by a man who chose to remain anonymous. Despite all the investigations undertaken, neither this mysterious person nor John Dee's black mirror was found.
First takeoff, then landing …
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Who is this legendary Dr. Dee, whose "magical heritage" still excites the imagination? Oh, this was actually an outstanding person, about whom knowledgeable people speak with awe and respect to this day. And at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries, the fame of this learned Englishman, who signed the strange "Voo", walked all over Europe. She even reached Russia, and the Russian Tsar invited him as a scientific adviser.
He promised a huge salary, a luxurious house and a position that would make the scientist, as it was said in the tsar's letter, "one of the most significant people in Russia." But for reasons known only to him, John Dee refused such a tempting offer. As, however, and from others, no less flattering.
So, who was this man whom the monarchs of various countries longed to have at their court?
The son of a court officer to King Henry VIII, he was born in Wales and at the age of fifteen entered St. John at Cambridge. Then he continued his education in Holland and Belgium. As a young man, this contemporary of Nostradamus had already taught geometry to Charles V himself - the emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire", and at the age of 23 he read his famous lectures on mathematics in Paris.
A brilliant mathematician and astronomer, an outstanding natural scientist, an expert in classical philology and languages, a zealous collector and savior of ancient manuscripts, the owner of one of the largest private libraries in Europe, an outstanding philosopher, "the ideological father of Rosicrucianism", a visionary, a person who can sleep only two hours a day, - this is just an incomplete list of the characteristics of this mysterious personality. Add to this only that Dee is considered the prototype of Shakespeare's Prospero.
When Dee returned to his native England, he was not even thirty. But he was already known as an authoritative scientist, and Mary I Tudor appointed him the royal astrologer. She had just taken the throne and was in her prime, but "Dr. Dee" in some way known only to him (horoscope? Magic mirrors?..) learned that she would not rule for long: she would soon die without leaving an heir.
In a conversation with Elizabeth, the queen's half-sister, Dee shared his thoughts and predicted the imminent royal throne for this girl in disgrace. The courtyard was teeming with intrigues, and the spies immediately reported to Maria about such seditious predictions. The reprisal was short: the royal astrologer was thrown into prison "for trying to subdue the life of the monarch to magic."
The scientist spent two years in captivity. And yet, his prediction came true: Elizabeth soon ascended the throne. Infinitely trusting the young scientist, she immediately appointed him again the royal astrologer and even chose the date and hour of her coronation - January 14, 1559 - in accordance with his calculations. Apparently, Dr. Dee's advice was accurate: the almost half-century reign of Elizabeth I was extremely successful. It was accompanied by the flourishing of arts and sciences, the expansion of trade ties and geographical discoveries. To this day, there is a strong opinion among historians that the "Elizabethan Renaissance" owes much to John Dee.
Elizabeth also did not remain in debt. She provided John Dee with the widest opportunities for scientific activity. And, using the Queen's personal patronage, Dee did a lot for his homeland. The inventor of mechanical robots and the telescope, he pioneered the science of sea navigation and the use of binoculars and telescopes in the British army. He was one of the first to propose the use of solar energy focused using a huge mirror.
He took part in the reform of the Gregorian calendar, wrote a geography textbook, proposed the idea of the initial meridian, known today as Greenwich … Such was the scale of this extraordinary personality.
The secret life of the royal astrologer
But with such a vigorous activity, John Dee lived another - a secret - life, the content of which we can only partially guess from the preserved personal and "spiritualistic" diaries. Moreover, according to autobiographical treatises. Reading their lines, we can rightfully call the worldview of this unique person a bizarre mixture of mysticism and the most advanced science at that time.
Judge for yourself: along with purely scientific and practical activities, he was very serious about occult philosophy and magic - as a worldview that helps to penetrate the secrets of life. His fundamental philosophical work "The Hieroglyphic Monad" (Antwerp, 1564), according to researchers of secret societies and hermetic teachings, actually became the ideological basis of the future Rosicrucianism.
It is safe to say that John Dee devoted most of his time to the secret sciences: Kabbalism and numerology, alchemy, astrology, fortune telling … He also paid attention to the study of the properties of mirrors. Very little is known about this area of his research, and we can only judge about Dee's achievements by his own scanty notes. For example, according to this: "It is not difficult to make a mirror, which by the power of the sun, even hidden by clouds, turns into ashes all kinds of stone and metal." Or according to the testimony of contemporaries who claimed that there was some kind of camera for "mirror visions" in the house of John Dee.
And yet, almost the main hobby of Dr. Dee's whole life was the study of the "magical" properties of crystals and the art of predictions with their help - crystalomancy.
Among the curious details about various magic crystals of John Dee, information about a ring with beryl has been preserved, in which Dee could cause imaginative visions not only in himself, but also in those present. It is believed that the crystal in the ring was cut in a special way, known only to Dee himself - the same one that he hinted about in his famous "Hieroglyphic Monad": that only exists on earth and in water in the sublunary world … ". The history of the famous ring, as well as the magical black mirror, can be traced back to 1842, when it was auctioned to a mysterious stranger. His further fate is also unknown.
A prominent place among John Dee's "magic crystals" was a mirror made of polished obsidian (volcanic glass), brought by the Spaniards from distant Mexico. Apparently, it was a real relic, which the Aztecs once used for the same thing as John Dee - for divination. This version is supported, for example, by such a curious fact: the name of the all-seeing and all-knowing Tezcatlipoca - the god of volcanoes and volcanic glass of obsidian - means "smoking mirror" in translation.
The properties of the obsidian Aztec mirror were so unusual that Elizabeth herself came to her teacher's home to get acquainted with this magical instrument. Apparently, the mirror was really worth the attention. Records of that time have survived, telling that John Dee, who did not part with this mirror, observed in it the events that took place from it at great distances. For example, how the rabble incited by envious people burned down his "witchcraft" house with a unique collection of ancient manuscripts, rarities and a camera for "mirror visions".
Stoically enduring the loss and persecution of the scholar and religious fraternity, John Dee never lost interest in his research and continued to experiment with magic crystals and mirrors all his life. Every now and then, peering into their mysterious depths, Dee sometimes saw in them something that we can only guess about.
So, he especially remembered the day of May 25, 1581. There was even a short diary entry about him: "I stared into the crystal for a long time - and finally saw." What shocked John Dee we don't know. But maybe he wrote about this in another place: “I have been looking for this for many years, in different lands, far and near; I read many books and learned many languages, I communicated with different people, I worked hard to see at least a ray of true knowledge … Seeing this, I realized that wisdom cannot be achieved through human efforts, but only by Your will (O Lord) ".
The language of unearthly civilizations?
A year and a half passed, and an event occurred in the life of John Dee, exceptional in its consequences: he received a gift from unearthly beings. This happened in November 1582. During the evening prayer, against the background of the sunset window, a supernatural being surrounded by radiance suddenly appeared to him "in all its majesty" - a child whom John Dee later called the angel Uriel - "the spirit of light."
What they talked about remained a secret, but it is known that the "angel" gave the scientist a magic crystal "the size of an egg, transparent and shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow." As Dee himself writes, the Archangel Michael, who appeared immediately to his gaze with a fiery sword, ordered: "Go and take it, but let no more living soul touch him." Which Dee did.
Unfortunately, Dee himself did not always succeed in seeing through the "angel stone". And therefore he began to resort to the help of assistants more capable of clairvoyance. Those, peering into the crystal, told the scientist everything that they saw in it. Dee wrote down meticulously. One of these assistants, Edward Kelly, recounted how it all happened: "In the middle of the rock is a small circular flash of light that looks like a ball thirty inches [76 cm] in diameter or so." Kelly argued that in the brilliant realm it was possible to observe some kind of "spirit beings" who gave Dee a wide variety of information.
For the rest of his life - more than a quarter of a century - Dee did not part with this gift. And there were serious reasons for that. Judging by the information that has come down to us, with the help of this magic crystal, the scientist could not only penetrate into other worlds, but also look into the future.
According to John Dee himself, from intelligent beings of inhuman nature - an elf girl named Madina and "angels" named Ave and Raphael - he also learned a mysterious language. This happened after one day the "angels" showed him in a crystal some kind of table with letters, numbers and symbols. It was a very strange alphabet, the records in which still arouse the keenest interest of researchers.
After all, this most amazing invention of John Dee, in fact, was the first artificial language known in history (or maybe the first known language of unearthly civilizations?). Dee himself called it Enochic - the language of Enoch, spoken by the angels and the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden. Today's scientists consider it an absolutely complete system with its own alphabet and grammar, completely unlike any other human language.
Fragments of recordings made by John Dee in this mysterious language have come down to us. Researchers are struck by the fact that they contain mathematical knowledge, the level of which significantly exceeded that which existed at that time. Contacts with the "angels" lasted for several years, and all this time John Dee received from them amazing knowledge for that time.
The most amazing thing is that this magic stone did not disappear, as is often the case with legendary relics. For four centuries, it passed through the hands of different people and is now kept in the British Museum. The administration does not allow unauthorized persons to either use it or investigate it …
Vitaly Pravdivtsev