All of these are extracted from English language Wikipedia. The theme of scripts and angels crops up herein. There are hints thereof in my recent dreams.
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John Dee (13 July 1527 – December 1608 or March 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, teacher, astrologer, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. As an antiquarian, he had one of the largest libraries in England at the time. As a political advisor, he advocated the foundation of English colonies in the New World to form a “British Empire”, a term he is credited with coining.
Early life
Dee was born in Tower Ward, London, to Rowland Dee, of Welsh descent, and Johanna, daughter of William Wild. His surname “Dee” is an anglicisation of Welsh du (black). His grandfather was Bedo Ddu of Nant-y-groes, Pilleth, Radnorshire; John retained his connection with the locality. His father Roland was a mercer and gentleman courtier to Henry VIII. Dee traced descent from Rhodri the Great, 9th century ruler of Gwynedd, and constructed a pedigree accordingly. His family had arrived in London with Henry Tudor’s coronation as Henry VII.
Dee attended Chelmsford Chantry School (now King Edward VI Grammar School) from 1535 to 1542. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge in November 1542, aged 15, graduating BA in 1545 or early 1546. His abilities recognised, he became an original fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge on its foundation by Henry VIII in 1546. At Trinity, he designed stage effects for a production of Aristophanes’ Peace. Using pulleys and mirrors, Dee was able to create the illusion of “the Scarabeus flying up to Jupiter’s palace” in a mechanical contrivance possibly based on rediscovered classical techniques. Dee would later claim this to be the source of his reputation as a magician. In the late 1540s and early 1550s, he travelled around Europe, studying at Louvain (1548) and Brussels and lecturing in Paris on Euclid.
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Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot ( 1 August 1555 – 1597/8), was an English Renaissance occultist and scryer. He is known for working with John Dee in his magical investigations. Besides the professed ability to see spirits or angels in a “shew-stone” or mirror, which John Dee so valued, Kelley also said that he possessed the secret of transmuting base metals into gold, a goal of alchemy, as well as the philosopher’s stone itself.
Legends began to surround Kelley shortly after his death. His flamboyant biography, his relationships with Queen Elizabeth I’s royal magus John Dee and Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, his repute of having great alchemical skill, and his claimed ability to communicate with angels have all led to his relative notoriety among historians.
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Angelical, the “Enochian” language
Kelley believed that angels communicated to him in a special language termed ‘Angelical’, subsequently called Enochian, which he then relayed to Dee. Some modern cryptographers argue that Kelley invented it (see for example the introduction to The Complete Enochian Dictionary by Donald Laycock). Some say that this was all a farce, but are not clear whether Dee was a victim or an accomplice. Because of this precedent, and of a dubious connection between the Voynich Manuscript and John Dee (through Roger Bacon), Kelley has been suspected of having fabricated that book too, to swindle Rudolf.
Kelley said that Angelical was dictated by angels who he saw and heard by means scrying in a crystal ball or mirror. He also described the angels as communicating by means of tapping out letters displayed in a rectangular tablet. The first third were tapped out with each Angelical word backwards; the following two-thirds with each word forwards. There are no significant errors or discrepancies in word usage between the first and following parts. The English translations were not tapped out but, according to Kelley, appeared on little strips of paper coming out of the angels’ mouths.
Dee considered the dictation of the Angelical material highly important for three reasons. First, Dee believed Angelical represented a documentable case of true glossolalia, thereby proving Kelley was actually speaking with angels and not from his imagination. Second, the angels communicated that their language was actually the original prototype of Hebrew: the language with which God spoke to Adam, and thus the first human word. Third, the Angelical material takes the form of a set of conjurations which would summon an extremely powerful set of angels who would reveal many secrets to those who sought them, especially the key to the philosopher’s stone, to god-like wisdom, and eternal life.
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Enochian (is an occult constructed language —said by its originators to have been received from angels—recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Kelley was a scryer who worked with Dee in his magical investigations. The language is integral to the practice of Enochian magic.
History
According to Tobias Churton in his text The Golden Builders, the concept of an Angelic or antediluvian language was common during Dee’s time. If one could speak the language of angels, it was believed one could directly interact with them.
Seeking contact and reported visions
In 1581, Dee mentioned in his personal journals that God had sent “good angels” to communicate directly with prophets. In 1582, Dee teamed up with the seer Edward Kelley, although Dee had used several other seers previously. With Kelley’s help as a scryer, Dee set out to establish lasting contact with the angels. Their work resulted, among other things, in the reception of Angelical, now more commonly known as Enochian.
The reception started on March 26, 1583, when Kelley reported visions in the crystal of a 21-lettered alphabet. A few days later, Kelley started receiving what became the book Liber Loagaeth (“Book [of] Speech from God”). The book consists of 49 great letter tables, or squares made of 49 by 49 letters. (However, each table has a front and a back side, making 98 tables of 49×49 letters altogether.) Dee and Kelley said the angels never translated the texts in this book.
Receiving the Angelic Keys
About a year later, at the court of King Stephen Báthory in Kraków, where both alchemists stayed for some time, another set of texts was reportedly received through Kelley. These texts comprise 48 poetic verses with English translations, which in Dee’s manuscripts are called Claves Angelicae, or Angelic Keys. Dee was apparently intending to use these Keys to open the “Gates of Understanding” represented by the magic squares in Liber Loagaeth:
I am therefore to instruct and inform you, according to your Doctrine delivered, which is contained in 49 Tables. In 49 voices, or callings: which are the Natural Keys to open those, not 49 but 48 (for one is not to be opened) Gates of Understanding, whereby you shall have knowledge to move every Gate…
— The angel Nalvage
But you shall understand that these 19 Calls are the Calls, or entrances into the knowledge of the mystical Tables. Every Table containing one whole leaf, whereunto you need no other circumstances.
— The angel Illemese
Phonology and writing system
The phonology of Enochian is “thoroughly English”, apart from difficult sequences such as bdrios, excolphabmartbh, longamphlg, lapch, etc.
Alphabet
The language was recorded primarily in Latin script. However, individual words written in Enochian script “appear sporadically throughout the manuscripts”. There are 21 letters in the script; one of those 21 may appear with or without a diacritic dot. Dee mapped these letters of the “Adamical alphabet” onto 22 of the letters of the English alphabet, treating U and V as positional variants (as was common at the time) and omitting the English letters J, K, and W. The Enochian script is written from right to left in John Dee’s diary. Different documents have slightly different forms of the script. The alphabet also shares many graphical similarities to a script, also attributed to the prophet Enoch, that appeared in the Voarchadumia Contra Alchimiam of Johannes Pantheus, a copy of which Dee is known to have owned.
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Liber Loagaeth
or
Liber Mysteriorum, Sextus et Sanctus
The Angelic Tables
revealed to John Dee and Edward Kelley
Edited by Joseph H. Peterson
© 1998 by Joseph H. Peterson; updated Feb 2, 2023.
INTRODUCTION
This sixth volume of John Dee’s Libri Mysteriorum consists entirely of a book “in the angelicall language” which was revealed in the scrying stone. Dee is told it is “a Book of Secrets and Key of this World”. Most of the book consists of tables of letters and numbers, each having forty-nine columns and forty-nine rows. Dee is told,
“God shall make clere whan it pleaseth him: & open all the secrets of wisdome whan he unlocketh. Therfore Seke not to know the mysteries of this boke, tyll the very howre that he shall call thee. For then shall his powre be so full amongst you, that the flesh shall not be perceyued, in respect of his great glory.” (April 18, 1583)
“Oute of this, shall be restored the holy bokes, which haue perished euen from the begynning, and from the first that liued And herein shalbe deciphred perfect truth from imperfect falshode, True religion from fals and damnable errors, With all Artes; which are propre to the use of man, the first and sanctified perfection: Which when it hath spred a While, THEN COMMETH THE ENDE.” (May 5, 1583)
I believe that the details of its production reveal a lot about its nature, so I will recap them briefly.
The bulk of the text from this book is taken from Sloane manuscript 3189. However that manuscript does not contain the complete text. The earliest parts of the book are recorded in Sloane manuscript 3188. They were revealed using an elaborate and time consuming method: Kelley read the name of each letter one by one, and Dee wrote them down. Later, they were written out in Roman letters. Kelley was temporarily endowed with a mystical understanding of the book for a time, and was able to give notes on pronunciation and translate some words and phrases. Apparently part of the problem with this method was that Kelley had not memorized the alphabet (for which he and Dee were chided by the angels) and presumably had to refer elsewhere for the names. This method is later abridged, and Kelley simply read the names (or Roman equivalents) and Dee wrote them down in Roman letters, thus omitting the names of each letter. This method was also too cumbersome, and in the end Kelley wrote the rest down himself resulting in Sloane Ms. 3189.
An early copy of this ms. can be found in Sloane Ms. 2599, possibly by Elias Ashmole.
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My commentary.
The notion of angelic scripts and language perhaps has a Tibetan cousin in dakini script. The so-called occult language of Senzar or Sensar is said to be ideogrammatic and not letter based. A brief look at a proto-Hebrew today shows a more ideograph like formation. At some stage language evolves(d) from picture or image into scripts. The early occultists like Crowley were fascinated by Hebrew script and Jewish Kabbalah. It always felt a bit cul-de-sac to me. They got all excited by the lack of vowels. The sound of the name of God was a big deal.
The wishful thinking for a Hitchhiker’s guide to life the universe and everything was clearly extant in the late 16th century. I speculate with confidence that the human mind would be unable to fully encompass such knowledge. It would be beyond assimilation. Yet people are always tempted by the promise of secrets, secret advantage. People have to make a living somehow. The “pitch” of talking with angels could not be disproved. Though why any angel would want to talk to geezers like Dee and Kelley is not explained.
Immortality in a puss filled world with life of often short duration seems an attractive notion. The Philosopher’s stone a powerful temptation. Possibly a good scam to put bread and wine on the table. In a world not renown for personal hygiene and Roman plumbing one needs some hope.
My own experience of looking into these things {before} is that they are like a dog chasing its tail. The answer, if there is one, is not intellectual nor will it arise from decoding letters and numbers. No matter how “Bletchley Park” one might be.
My yardstick is boredom. If something has an interesting hint, a whiff of something exciting, I am rarely bored by it. However if it is boring, I rapidly lose interest. The boredom-o-meter is an intuitional thing. It shows that there is no promise, no feeling of promise.
If one is underground a fresh breeze may indicate a way out of a cave.
Complexity is boring, though it may seem clever. It is often a mind-trap. Complexity stokes the embers of ego.
Anyway…I have front loaded some more stuff into waking consciousness. We shall see if there are any more dreams…
Dreamyoga 