Product Description
This novel centres on the famous 16th-century alchemist and astrologer John Dee. Reputedly a black magician, he was imprisoned by Queen Mary for allegedly attempting to kill her through sorcery. When Matthew Palmer inherits an old house in Clerkenwell, he feels that he has become part of its past. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Postmodern Tricks in Shakespearian Times
It's a regular trick among postmodernist authors to interrupt their own work by inserting themselves into the prose as a narrator or a character.You find this in John Fowles, Martin Amis, B.J. Johnson, and now Peter Ackroyd.Some authors (the less skillful ones) do this just for fun - their presence in their own work adds nothing to the story, the theme or the aesthetics of what they're doing.More skillful authors pull this stunt for some specific reason.The most skillful do it with both purpose and fun in mind.I have no idea yet whether Ackroyd avails himself of this tactic in his other work, but I'm happy to report that it happens in "The House of Doctor Dee" for both reasons.

As the title implies, the action of this work revolves around a house in the Clerkenwell section of London that comes into the possession of one Matthew Palmer, an independent researcher, through his father's will.He shortly learns that the house belonged to John Dee during the reign of Elizabeth I back in the mid-1500s.John Dee was an actual person, a philosopher, mathematician, astrologer and student of ancient lore.He himself narrates about half the chapters in this novel, and Matthew Palmer narrates the other half.That is, their identities remain that separate and distinct until the influence of the house (among other things) confuses matters, and Ackroyd has to intervene.

This is all very well, of course, but what are Palmer and Dee up to in their separate ages that makes them figures of interest?There, as Dee's contemporary Shakespeare said, is the rub.And as it turns out, to no one's surprise, the two of them have some similar issues to deal with.Both lose their fathers, have problematic relationships with men who join them in business, and discover that they have lived without love for far too long.However, while Palmer seems to flail around looking for some sense of purpose, Dee spends his time trying to talk to spirits and create new life in a test tube.Goodness gracious.

Ackroyd has declared that the true subject of all his fiction is the city of London (which makes his directions hard to follow if you don't happen to live there), but even without knowing just where Wapping is or how long it takes to get to the Historical Library, the author's sense of place adds a tremendous amount to the story.For one thing, even with all the shouting vendors and animals and mud, the city is a much more comprehensible place in John Dee's time than in Matthew Palmer's - twentieth-century London is a nighttime city in this novel, full of blinding neon and roads you can't see to the end.So it makes a certain amount of sense that Palmer feels lost while Dee has a plan, however bizarre.On the other hand, Dee might feel himself a little too much in control for his own good; it takes a major domestic catastrophe to humble him and make him realize that his world could be much larger and warmer than he allowed it to be.

The tricky part with this sort of two-level, two-story structure is, of course, joining the stories together at the end - if the author doesn't do that, you've got two novellas rather than a novel with no good reason to have them both between the same covers.Now, because "The House of Doctor Dee" has to do with such metaphysical subjects as talking to spirits and living without love, you can't expect the close of the novel to wrap things up neatly - if Peter Ackroyd could do that he'd be a prophet, not a novelist, and we'd be living in a very different world than we are at the moment.So we don't get a scene where Matthew Palmer and John Dee meet up physically over a beer at the local pub, or even in the Garden of Eden.Nothing that cheap, thankfully.The actual conclusion is very abstract; the fact that I won't say much about it has less to do with my reluctance to give away the ending and more to do with the fact that I don't completely understand it myself.(I won't hide anything from you guys.)Still, this novel concludes with at least a sense that all the characters have learned one lesson - the pursuit of knowledge is a great thing, but not if it costs you love.

My biggest complaint about the novel is a curious sense of imbalance at work.Once the two stories merge in psychic space, Matthew Palmer more or less disappears.John Dee is a much more interesting character, to be sure - far more active, far less at the mercy of his circumstances, far more determined to make choices and cause his life no matter what.Nevertheless, however passive Matthew is, to lose him altogether is rather dissatisfying.Indeed, it's his very passivity that makes him a good candidate for whatever breakthrough the plot points toward - if we saw that breakthrough's operation on him rather than on John Dee, this novel's emotional impact might have been that much greater just because the contrast between the old and new Palmers would be that much greater than that between the old and new Dees.A bit of a miscalculation on Ackroyd's part, I'm afraid.

Regardless, here's a piece of postmodern writing, with all the expected distancing mechanisms, that, remarkably, addresses the human need for love in a way that actually makes you feel something for the characters.As with several other postmodernist works of this kind, "The House of Doctor Dee" shows that the style has apparently moved away from its initial coldness and now has something to say in a humanist fashion to us regular human readers.About time, you ask me.

Benshlomo says, There's more to life than being clever.

Patchy, and uneven,
The book starts beautifully, with all the obsessive and brilliant attention to detail we have come to expect from the excellent Ackroyd. There is also a powerful psychogeographic undertow and undercurrent to the first chapters, reminiscent of the occulture works of leaders and innvoators of that style, Stewart Home and Iain Sinclair. It is, for the first few chapters, captivating and difficult to put down.

However, as the book progresses, it loses direction -- Ackroyd can't make up his mind whether he wants to create a magical psychogeographic text about the streets of London, or whether he wants to give us authentic historical detail about the minutiae surrounding Dee's life and environment, or just a plain old British 1930's style ghost story.

It starts so very well, but gradually falls apart and becomes very unconvincing. I found it tough getting to the end of the book -- I had lost interest, and the narrative, prose and character depictions were just not strong enough to hold my attention.

Ackroyd is a talented, insightful writer, who can transform the reader with his words -- alas, he doesn't do so here.

Read "Albion" instead, or any number of his online interviews/book reviews. ... Read more

Product Description
Hardcover. 8vo. Small Quarto. 156pp. Bound in high quality black cloth, with a gilt sigils stamped on front & rear covers, blind rules, and gilt title etc. on the spine. Printed on acid-free paper, sewn, Color frontispiece and one colour plate, b&w illustrations and tables, appendixes, index. Edition limited to 777 numbered copies. The book comprises a detailed examination of the history and structure of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth of the Elizabethan scholar and Magus, Dr. John Dee, as well as a study of its use in the practice of ritual magic. The appendixes include a new transcription and translation of Dee's Liber Mysteriorum Secundus, and an important new translation of the section of the famous grimoire, The Sworn Book of Honorius, that gives details of what is clearly an early form of the Sigillum Dei. The author has written that from the perspective of a practicing magician, the work has two principal aims: "to demonstrate the importance of the pattern established by Dee's Sigillum Dei as opposed to its implementation, and to bring the Sigillum Dei out of the limited confines of the Enochian temple and into its role as a powerful magickal system in its own right. The recognition of the patterns established in the construction of the Sigillum Dei allow us to view the seal in a new light, not as a static framework decided once and for all hundreds of years ago in the study of a Rennaissance magician, but as one that can be reconstituted in the light of modern interpretation. Furthermore, the seal is, in essence, a system of evocation - the very same method of communication used by Dee & Kelley in its reception. This book explains the nature and method of this approach and how the practicing magician is able to use the Sigillum Dei in the manner in which it was truly intended - as a powerful system of planetary magick." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book!
I actually left a negative feedback on this book at first thinking it was just another rehash of information contained in other books on the subject, I was definitely wrong and am really sorry. This book is a must have for any serious enochian researcher or practitioner. This book reveals angelic hierarchies previously unrevealed in any other text on the subject, kudos to the author for a wonderful piece of work!

A more than welcome addition to the body of Enochian material
For too long, the only published work on Enochian was a series of beginning-level books of varying quality, from the superb to the absurd. In recent years the field of Enochian studies has begun to see scholarly works by Szulakowska, Szonyi, Clulee, and others. Meanwhile outside the confines of academia, Enochian books that go beyond the merely introductory are likewise growing. To this latter field Colin Campbell's newest work is a more than welcome addition. Campbell delves into that most mysterious symbol, the "Sigillum Dei Aemeth" or "Symbol of God's Truth," without which many believe no Enochian operations can be successful. In this book the author, an accomplished explorer of Enochian, explains in detail the sigil and its background, uses, and connections to the rest of the Enochian system, as well as offering his own original research into a 'reformation' of the sigil to correct some possible errors. This beautifully-crafted volume includes more than half a dozen appendices on related topics. I consider it a must-have for any intermediate-to-advanced researcher of Enochian, and give it an unconditional 5 stars.

A Gem among scrap
Upon reading this book I realized that it is among the best if not the best in regards to Enochian Magick. It deciphers completely and explicitly the "Sigillum Dei Ameth" the "Sigil of GOD's Truth". It provides unique insight into the rituals and invocations performed in Enochian Angellic Vision Magick. This book is for serious Enochian practitioners and aspirants. I feel that this book is a cut above the others in this subject because it updates and sheds light the gaps of knowledge between Elizabethan Dr Dee and the knowledge of today. This book is certain to make one privy to the facts. There are only 777 copies.. ... Read more

Product Description
Stephen Skinner has been interested in magic for as long as he can remember. He wrote, with Francis King, the classic "Techniques of High Magic" in 1976. He followed that with "Oracle of Geomancy and Terrestrial Astrology" which has become the standard work on Western divinatory geomancy. Books on Nostradamus and Millennium Prophecies followed, in highly illustrated editions. Stephen is also the author of eight books on feng shui, including the first one written in English in the 20th century. In the 1970s he was responsible for stimulating interest in John Dee and Enochian magic by publishing the first reprint of "Casaubon's True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years between Dr John Dee and some Spirits", and Dr Donald Laycock's key reference book on the angelic language, "The Complete Enochian Dictionary". With David Rankine, he discovered what happened to Dee's most important manuscript, his personal book of angelic invocations which he kept in Latin, and how it was preserved and developed in the 17th century into a full working Enochian system.Only ten percent of this material reached the unpublished archives of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and even this, was then suppressed by the chiefs of the Order, so it did not appear in Israel Regardie's monumental work on the Order rituals and documents. They have also traced the routes down which were passed the classic techniques of invocation and evocation from late mediaeval grimoires, through Dee's magic, via Ashmole, and the aristocratic angel magicians of the 17th century, and Frederick Hockley to the senior magicians of the Golden Dawn. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Obfuscating Derivation of Dee's manuscripts.
The would be substantial material in this book is, an inaccurate copy of John Dee's manuscript, housed in The British Library, filed as Sloane MS 3191/Claves Angelicae. Be aware that this seriously flawed book is not even based on Dee's manuscript, but a sloppy copy of an ad lib copy of the original, by Thomas Rudd(1583-1656). Add to this that only a portion of the afore mentioned MS 3191, is utilized; Namely what has erroneously been labelled as Tabula Bonurum, in the title of this book. What correctly should be called Tabula Angelorum Bonorum 49, i.e. The Table of the 49 Good Angels, belongs to a section of MS 3191, called: De Heptarchia Mystica, none of which is included in this travesty of a book.

What we are given is a botched copy of the Elemental Tables, and the invocations. Missing also are the 18 Calls, and The Call of the Aethers, and all the charts and their attendant sigils etc. for the 30 Aethers, & 91 parts of the Earth.

You would do much better to get hold of a copy of Geoffrey James's Enochian Evocation, & or Robert Turner's HeptarchiaMystica, which while they also contain errors (oversights in proofreading), at least they are taken from the original source.

I felt compelled to write this as I have worked from the manuscript (which one can view online), and feel annoyed at how the copiousness of Rankine and Skinner's work exceeds their quality. Note how they use Crowley's spelling for "that mighty devil CORONZOM" (that's the actual spelling via manuscript source). They use the usual over proliferated CHORONZON.

It is well known that the Golden Dawn used inaccurately copied material from the manuscripts.

If your not bothered about accuracy, you may as well write your own. Doubtless the authors would deride me, and Pragmatic Magicians, should think it a waste of time to quibble, as much as to bother delving into the book. An armchair magick primer.

It seems magicKians (I am evidently not one myself), are above such menial integrity, as honest transcription and proof reading.

Speaking of angels
Like many books on occult topics, this one (by Skinner and Rankine) suffers from lack of a capable editor. Why this should be so prevalent I do not know. For example, however rigorous these authors' scholarship may be - and their scholarship is crucial to this volume's credibility (in that they have interpreted "many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore" in preparing this book) - on page 38 the authors state: "In the first page of the prologue to the present manuscript, mention is made of a writer called Du Bartas and his works... Guillaume De Salluste, Seigneur Du Bartas, lived from 1544-1592. In 1578 at the age of 34 he published his seminal work La Semaine; ou, Creation du Monde [sic] a hugely successful epic rhyming poetic work describing creation... La Semaine's seminal influence on his classic work The Inferno was acknowledged by Dante Alighieri." This last assertion is a schoolboy whopper as Dante Alighieri lived from 1265 to 1321. It is therefore very hard to imagine how a work penned and published over 200 years after his demise could possibly have been a "seminal influence" on Dante when he authored The Inferno.

Similarly, on page 45 we read that "[Baron] Somers was appointed Lord-Keeper, with the then very significant pension of 2000 [British pounds] a year..." The footnote to this sentence is, "Eighty pounds a year was considered a good income". However, this footnote was more apropos ten pages earlier on page 35, where we are told that Elias Ashmole offered Thomas Wales' son a job ... "for the then good salary of 80 [British pounds] per year". (Note also inconsistent use of "a year" and "per year" in referring to salary.)

On page 48, we see "the Nineteenth century" and immediately one paragraph below "the nineteenth century". Five pages later we see "the 17th to 20th centuries". There are also occasional simple typographical errors throughout.

Such things are factual and stylistic infelicities that any good editor would query before an otherwise fine volume like this went to press. No editor is acknowledged in the front matter, Skinner and Rankine apparently having chosen to omit that (particular) fact-checking step.

Generally, editorial lapses are distracting. But in volumes purporting to provide *precise* declensions and interpretations of occult phenomena, codes, and theory, such lapses are severe issues. Particularly is this the case in any volume attempting to deal authoritatively and in good faith with the Enochian tables and manuscripts of the Renaissance magus John Dee. Particularly when the authors' central work in this volume involves redaction and editing of four unpublished manuscripts.

Readers rely on authors, and authors should rely on editors. Particularly in this volume.

Mandatory material for serious Enochian practitioners
This volume does much to clarify aspects of Dee's magick that have long generated controversy, such as the correct directional assignments of the Tables and the specific invocational litanies appropriate to each type of Enochian Entity. Critics who claim there is nothing new here are mistaken in both their scholarship and the understanding of their practice. Skinner proves that enormous care was employed by whomever set out the Bonorum material, indicating that it might well reflect Dee's final and definitive organization. In addition, the G.D.'s secretive treatment of these texts testifies that they may well embody the master-key to Enochian work. No study of Enochian can be considered complete without this book!

Fantastic
This book is a must have on the shelf of any magickian.It is beautifully produced and will certainly impress.

A must read for students of the work of John Dee, Golden Dawn or Enochian magick. This book contains previously unpublished manuscripts, reproduced in full which make it of value to those of us who would like to work with original manuscripts but who can't afford trips to the various UK libraries where they are kept and who don't have access to private collections.

This is volume I and I am impatient for Volume II.The sign of a good book.

The Real Enochian from Dee's 16th century successors
From two previously unpublished 17th century manuscripts on Angel Magic, with instructions for their use as used by Wynn Westcott, Alan Bennett, Rev. Ayton, F L Gardiner and other members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The authors have discovered what happened to John Dee's most important manuscript, his book of personal angeilic invocations which he kept in Latin, and how it was preserved and developed by 17th century magicians into a full working magical system. How only a small part of this material reached the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1880's. Even this was then suppressed by the chiefs of the Order, and it did not appear in Israel Regardie's monumental work on the Order rituals.

They have also traced how the classical techniques of invocation and evocation drawn from late mediaeval grimoires, were passed through John Dee's magic, via Elias Ashmole, to the aristocratic angel magicians of the 17th century, including some of the most powerful and influential figures in England.

In the 20th century many fanciful constructions were added to GD Enochian by writers such as Aleister Crowley, who were however all unaware of the completely developed system that already existed, and which is here published in full for the first time.
... Read more

Product Description
This very rare and ancient manuscript is Dr. John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica, written in Latin. Dr. Dee was known for ripe scholarship, for deep knowledge in chemistry and for rare skill in mathematics and astronomy. ... Read more

Product Description
This rare and very old manuscript discusses the general and rare memorials pertaining to the perfect art of navigation. This present two-fold treatise written in Old English, is written under the names of three diverse proprieties, states or conditions of man. ... Read more

Product Description

Derived from two previously unpublished seventeenth century manuscripts on angel magic, this coveted book contains the final corrected version of John Dee's great tables and an expansion of his most prized book of invocations.

Discover what happened to John Dee's most important manuscript, his book of personal angelic invocations, and how it was developed by seventeenth century  magicians into a full working magical system. Learn how only a small part of this material reached the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was suppressed—never appearing in Israel Regardie's monumental work on the Order rituals.

Customer Reviews (1)

A controversial work of uncertain provenance
This is the Llewellyn reprint of the original Golden Hoard Press Edition from 2005. This work has been surrounded by controversy as to the authenticity of the material and the accuracy of the work in question. Those of the Magickal Community with informed opinions are rather divided on these points.

The authors of this book state that they are presenting two previously unpublished 17th Century manuscripts on Enochian/Angelic Magic. Only a fraction of this material survived to be utilized by the Golden Dawn in the late 19th/early 20th Century. The provenance of the original manuscripts is in question, as is the identity of the presumed scribe, the mysterious Dr. Rudd (also responsible for The Goetia of Dr Rudd.

That said, this is a seriously beautiful book; the layout and tables are striking and eye-catching: Msrs. Symonds and Rankine production efforts on each of their "Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic" have yet to disappoint. One day a serious Dee scholar will set this, and other Dee attributed manuscripts (such as the recently discovered "Ordines Descendes") in their proper historical and magickal perspectives; until then, the student/magician is encouraged to contrast and compare this with such works as John Dee's Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic, Enochian Vision Magick: An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley and The Enochian Magick of Dr. John Dee: The Most Powerful System of Magick in its Original, Unexpurgated Form, to name but a few. ... Read more

Product Description
Dr. John Dee was an alchemist and spiritualist, as well as a very learned man. He did his best by petitions and otherwise to stimulate interest in the rescuing of manuscripts from the dissolved monastic libraries and to induce the sovereign to establish a central national collection of them. This work contains a catalog of Dr. Dee's library of manuscripts, with notes by James on the books. ... Read more

Product Description
John Dee 1527 to 1608 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. Although this work is scanned from an original edition of the book, it is guaranteed to be of the utmost quality. This popular classic work by Charlotte Fell Smith is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Charlotte Fell Smith then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1909.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
This work argues that the Elizabethan polymath John Dee was not the influential intellectual he was purported to be. Dee's scientific works were anachronistic and in no way heralded the new age of experimental science. This book traces the course of Dee's life showing how he was a marginal figure and his works had little lasting value. It also provides a useful historiographical summation of Dee's life and career. The life and career of John Dee, Elizabethan polymath and scholar of diverse and sundry pursuits, is an enigmatic one. Much of Dee's own writings place him at the cutting edge of the Elizabethan intellectual world. Dee saw himself as a scholar involved in all aspects of mathematics and the application of scientific endeavours to the pursuit of both personal and national goals. Dee would have his readers believe that he was the leading light of his age, consulted by all the key players on the Elizabethan national stage. This work also maps the trajectory of Dee's posthumous reputation to the present day showing how Dee has been understood, and misunderstood, for the past four hundred years.In short this work provides a useful historiographical summation of Dee's life and career. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 26 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Romance of Sorcery, by Sax Rohmer. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766132242. ... Read more

Product Description
Dr. John Dee was the Warden of Manchester. He was a restless and ambitious spirit. Dr. Dee was known for ripe scholarship, for deep knowledge in chemistry and for rare skill in mathematics and astronomy. At the time he became Warden, Dr. Dee had devoted himself to the blighting influence of occult investigations, intermingling with them in credulous simplicity what remained in him of Christian faith. This rare manuscript contains Dr. Dee's diary, written in Old English with a biographical sketch of this most wise and brilliant man. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Rare View Inside the Life and Mind of Dr. John Dee!
Dee was an intensely pious Christian, but his Christianity was deeply influenced by the Hermetic and Platonic-Pythagorean doctrines that were pervasive in the Renaissance. He believed that number was the basis of all things and the key to knowledge, that God's creation was an act of "numbering".

From Hermeticism, he drew the belief that man had the potential for divine power, and he believed this divine power could be exercised through mathematics. His cabalistic angel magic (which was heavily numerological) and his work on practical mathematics (navigation, for example) were simply the exalted and mundane ends of the same spectrum, not the antithetical activities many would see them as today.

His ultimate goal was to help bring forth a unified world religion through the healing of the breach of the Catholic and Protestant churches and the recapture of the pure theology of the ancients.

One can capture the essence of Dee in his Diary and can truly see inside the mind of this amazing man.It is written in Olde English, so you must appreciate that fact and that is a very rare reprint only recently made available through Kessinger Publishing copied from a very old manuscript. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
A hard-to-find biography of the gifted spiritualist and Rosicrucian, Dr. John Dee. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Weak, boring....
This book is not for anyone intested in the Dee's work.It's a history of his life and an incomplete one at that.Look elsewhere.

Insightful and informative
Being a descendant of Dr. Dee I found the book very informative.It gave an insightful explanation of his conversations with angels and presented it in a fair manner.It also presented some good information on his personallife and family.It would have been nice to have more information on hischildren, however, even though the title indicates that it would focusmainly on his abillities as a mystic and astrologer.It is much easierreading than Mr. French's book, and coupled with Dr. Dee's diary, it helpsto give good background and information on this very intelligent butunrewarded, underappreciated and greatly misunderstood man. ... Read more