10.4: John Dee

John Dee was born in London in 1527 and died in 1608 or 1609 at his home in Mortlake, Surrey. He was a mathematician, astronomer, consultant to explorers, alchemist, translator of angelic language, and amassed one of the most impressive libraries in Europe gathering around three thousand books and another thousand manuscripts. His reputation as an occultist has lasted through the centuries and is perhaps his largest claim to fame today, but it belies his effort late in life to try and distance himself from the label of conjurer. Dee married three times. His first two wives were childless. His third wife, Jane Fromond, was twenty-five years younger than Dee but they seem to have had a happy marriage and had eight children together. Only three of his children survived him which is not such a surprise seeing that he lived eighty years during a time of religious upheaval, rioting, and plague. Dee's long life is especially impressive given his regular appearance at the various courts of Europe and the accusations leveled against him of necromancy and espionage. Today we are going to do a bit of skrying, seek the philosopher's stone, and elicit John Dee's occult confession.