Dr John Dee

Dr John Dee

John Dee was born 13th July 1527. He was an English astrologer, alchemist and mathematician.
He became court astrologer to queen Mary Tudor, but she had him imprisoned for his interest in magic.
When Elizabeth I gained the throne, Dee was back at court too, and chose the best astrological date for her coronation.
He spent a lot of time touring European courts researching his interests of magic and alchemy, and demonstrating these to the nobility. But he was also in the employ of Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's enigmatic 'spy master'. In fact Dee's code number was 007, perhaps where Ian Fleming got the idea for James Bond's code number from.

Enochian Magic

John Dee is perhaps most famous (or even infamous) in occult circles for his development of Enochian Magic. The Book of Enoch is one of the Apocryphal books of the bible - one of the extra books that are sometimes included and sometimes excluded - it deals in particular with the interaction of angels and humanity. According to the book of Enoch some of the angels got bored in heaven and descended to earth where they created bodies for themselves and took human wives. These angels taught their wives various magical arts including herbal knowledge and root cutting, astrology, weather lore, enchantments and how to break them, magical charm and much more.
Dr Dee communicated with these powerful entities through the mediumship of his assistant Edward Kelly, and seemed willing and even eager to follow their instructions however outlandish or morally dubious they were. Kelly, on the other hand was not so happy with the proceedings and made his own notes on what the angels were telling Dee. Kelly wrote that 'Evil Angels' had revealed 'Manifold horrible heresies and blasphemous doctrines:
'They would have persuaded: That Jesus was not God.
That no prayer ought to be made to Jesus
That there is no sin
That man's soul doth go from one body to another childes quickening
That as many men and women as are now, have always been
That the generations of mankind from Adam and Eve is not a History, but writing which has another sense.'

In other words they taught: reincarnation; that souls were not going to be punished by eternal damnation in fiery pits; that the soul is immortal and that the Bible was not a book to be taken literally - a huge blasphemy to Kelly and to many fundamental christians still today.

The angels communicated with Dee both in code and in a special angelic language which has become known as Enochian. The 'Enochian Keys' are a collection of 19 invocations which unlock the powers of these angels. These were originally given in the Enochian language, but have also been translated into English.

For those interested here are a selection of books you can look out for:
The Enochian Magick of Dr. John Dee by Geoffrey James
The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey
Mastering Witchcraft by Paul Huson
Magic with Demons (A practical Manual for Sorcerers) by Britomartis - this one is a Corvus Publication and is available from Raven Magical Supplies