J. Dee was a multifaceted and multidisciplinary figure in an era when it was easy to find researchers open to many traditions and disciplines. Today we disparagingly call them “know-it-alls”. Actually, their “horizontal” knowledge, so different from the verticality required of us today, made them, in the eyes of their contemporaries, as encyclopedic figures worthy of the highest esteem. We must thank their efforts and their insights if today many disciplines have found the necessary convergence for a shared vision. Definitely, J. Dee wanted to understand the whole.
I absolutely agree. Although, in his time, many alchemists considered him a great charlatan.
Perhaps because he didn’t “get his hands dirty with mineral powders”?
I think it was mainly for that reason. Many alchemists didn’t forgive him for the kind of optical short path he took.
So it’s true: J.Dee was looking for an alchemical path using optical instruments, and so going beyond chemistry?
No. J. Dee was trying to understand the reason for the traditional alchemical works we know. He reached certain conclusions and then set about developing systems to arrive at what he believed was the true origin: the stars. Regarding his tendency to go beyond chemical Alchemy, this was not entirely so. In fact, although his works speak little of chemical Alchemy, J.Dee’s efforts are all in trying to bring together macrocosm (in the sense of stars) and microcosm (in the sense of astral body). If the intent was ingenious, the procedures were still naive.
J.Dee was said to consider optical instruments as tools to “collect” stellar radiation. Or, to better specify, the occult possibilities of stellar radiations…
Not exactly. Rather than considering optical instruments as tools to “collect” stellar radiation, J.Dee considered these lenses as a trap for the occult virtues of the stars. Indeed, he claimed that a skilled optician could “magnify” the signature of stellar influence more than any other natural means. And these rituals had to be performed when a star was perpendicularly close and at the horizon. He recorded many of his experiments in optics in manuscripts (an example is MS Sloane 3854) in which he describes experiments with mirrors and lenses.
What was the purpose of those star-catching rituals?
According to J.Dee’s intentions, the use of some special optical instruments was supposed to transmute the raw substances on Earth into the pure version found in the stars. He planned to use those catoptric means to create “alchemical seals” and impress the star rays on any object, representing stellar influences on terrestrial materials as radiating geometric cones. J.Dee spoke of four great “wombs” that were in Fire, Air, Water, Earth.
A question arises spontaneously: was J.Dee’s catoptrical Alchemy rather a sonic Alchemy?
This is a question that many alchemists ask themselves. In fact, J.Dee treats light as if it were sound. Even his intuition that the zodiac signs represented a link between sky and earth supports a sonic conception of stellar influences. On the other hand, we know that J.Dee was very interested in forms of Kabbalah, not unlike many scholars of his time who “played” with names, acrostics and sounds without much discernment.
Could the purpose of J.Dee’s magical talismans have been analogous to the “god-making” of the ancient Egyptians?
It is unknown whether J.Dee was aware of these arcane rituals. Perhaps his intuition led him to think that magical talismans could somehow reach the most important and hidden core of ancient wisdom. The “god-making” of ancient Egypt represented the most arcane point of the wisdom of the high priests. Ritual differences aside, J.Dee focused on certain mineral materials, while Egyptian priests also worked on dead wood and living beings. My opinion of J.Dee’s catoptric rituals was that, while his intent was ingenious, his procedures were nonetheless naive.
J.Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica is a complex work, almost a summa of philosophical, scientific knowledge, as well as forma mentis, between the Renaissance and the Baroque.
On the other hand, a comprehensive view of J.Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica would be truly confusing and chaotic. We’re interested in shedding light on some aspects that are closely related to our main topic, namely light in Alchemy.
In conclusion, can we roughly say that the peculiarity of J. Dee’s experimentation with optics was the mixture of magical rituals that focused on the evocation of spirits and on astrology and the physical properties of the planets and stellar radiations?
Definitely. The belief that the signs represented a link between sky and earth is expressly divulged by J.Dee in his book.
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