Queen Elizabeth’s Magician – John Dee is a 2002 television show produced by the UK’s Channel 4 for their Masters of Darkness series. The show tells incredible story of Dee’s life, who was willing to risk everything for pursuit of knowledge – including the sought after secret formula to the Philosopher’s Stone! The program may not reveal anything new for serious Dee students, however, the show does serve as a good introduction.  Andrew Gough describes the man in a recent New Dawn magazine article, “Doctor John Dee (1527-1609) remains one of London’s most intriguing historical figures. Dee was a renaissance man; an occultist, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and navigator. In addition to his prodigious skills, Dee was a confidant of Queen Elizabeth I, who guided the nation through one of its most challenging eras, partly based upon Dee’s unique blend of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy. In fact, the Queen had so much faith in Dee’s calculations she had him choose her coronation date.”

Dee and Edward Kelley lived for many years on the Continent of Europe to further their occult pursuits. “The raw material for the Enochian magical system was “dictated” through a series of Angelic communications which lasted from 1582-1589. Dee and Kelley claimed they received these instructions from angels. While Kelley conducted the psychic operations known as scrying, Dee kept meticulous written records of everything that occurred. Kelley would look deeply into a crystal “shewstone” and describe aloud whatever he saw,” according to Wikipedia. The angelic communications represent, perhaps, most dramatic period for the magic-performing partners.

Dee and Kelley parted ways, when angelic communications advised to share everything, including their wives. Kelley enjoyed a brief period of success afterwards in convincing royalty he uncovered the secret formula to the Philosopher’s Stone, but soon fell out of favor when he failed to produce significant amounts. Kelley’s life ended sometime later while attempting to escape prison.

Dee died in poverty after returning to England, having tainted his earlier good reputation with his supernatural obsessions. Gough reports, in his article, on another Dee obsession, whether “…he had opened a supernatural gateway leading to a powerful and disgruntled spirit world.” Gough details Dee and Kelley’s discoveries: “In retrospect, we can glean that the essence of the Enochian dialogues centered upon a coming apocalypse, which Dee’s angels referred to as ‘the Harvest’. Dee and Kelley succeeded in manifesting the spiritual beings they had summoned, and what followed appears to have been the process of opening the gates to another dimension and obtaining the keys required to activate the angels’ agenda, an apocalypse of the mind – a poisoning of man’s spiritual essence and the rapid degeneration of society.” Dee believed he succeeded in opening the gates to an Enochian apocalypse!