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100: Books

One of the professions given to John Dee, when one is busy listing all the ways in which the Renaissance Man left a mark on history and culture, is that of bibliographer. He made an extensive effort to build a vast and impressive collection of texts -- both scientific and occult -- during his lifetime, trying to collate the sum of human knowledge in a way that England would have access to the secrets held therein. It's all, you know, about synthesizing the totality of human expression, after all. Shortly before his flight from England, he cataloged his collection at Mortlake, a bibliography than ran 170 pages.

I've been poking around in Dee's life these last few days, making notes here and there, and finding books that I might want to investigate:

Ramon Lull's Liber experimentorum. Lull was a 13th century Franciscan who laid a great deal of the groundwork for the combination of rational thought, philosophy, and spiritual consideration of the nature of the universe and man's place in it. It's probably overstretching to call him an occultist, but he was considered a "Doctor Illuminatus" and the Lullists ran hot and heavy in Spain for a while after his death. However, due to the revolutionary nature of his writings, even though he was martyred, he has never been canonized. Lost saint, in the end. Still, influential to Dee and the Cabalists and the Renaissance as a while.

Johannes Trithemius' Steganographia. Three books, two of which were finished (it can be found here) and which detail a method of long-distance communication using spirits and other summoned creatures to carry messages. The third part was all in code which wasn't broken until 1998 by Jim Reeds. His paper can be found here. The fact that the Internet coughs that up for me is amazing.

Jacopo Silvestri's Opus Novum... principibus maxime vtilissimum pro cipharis. An early work on the use of ciphers, including the Caesar cipher. Dee referenced this book on more than one occasion as a tool for learning about codes. (An early history of Cryptology is here, part of an extensive discussion about who wrote the Shakespearean plays.)

The Book of Soyga. The book is first referenced during one of the first encounters between Dee and the Angels where he asked of the original and meaning of the text. The book was thought lost until 1994 when it was discovered bearing an alternate title. Transcript and discussion of the text can be found here.

Doctoris Dee Mysteriorum Libri Quinti (Dee's Five Books of Mystery). These are the transcripts of his "actions," his investigations into the angelic mysteries by means of the "shewing stone" and the medium of Edward Kelly. This is generally known as Sloane MS 3188. Scans of the pages can be found here.

48 Claves Angelicae. The 48 keys are the Calls by which the Enochian Angels are summoned. Crowley got his hands on them during the early 20th century and added his own spin. One version is here.

Voynich Manuscript. While named after the collector who "discovered" it in 1912, there is some evidence that Dee had this at one time and sold it to Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor who Dee visited in Prague after his flight from England. It is still untranslated and, look at this, there is a whole domain detailing its mysteries.

I need to get my Latin back up to speed.

Posted by Teppo at September 2, 2004 09:47 PM

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