Speaker 1: I am Scott and I'm then and work from car Stuff.
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Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Welcome to you Stuf to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind from housetop work dot com. There is, gentle reader,
Speaker 1: nothing the works of God, only set apart, which so
Speaker 1: much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man,
Speaker 1: as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences. Many
Speaker 1: arts there are which beautify the mind of man, But
Speaker 1: of all none do more garnish and beautify it than
Speaker 1: those arts which are called and mathematical, unto the knowledge
Speaker 1: of which no man can tane without perfect knowledge and
Speaker 1: instruction of the principles, grounds and elements of geometry. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and my name is Christian Seger. And if
Speaker 1: last episode sounded like we were invoking a ritual to
Speaker 1: summon angels or demons, this sounds like we are teaching
Speaker 1: ap calculus. Yeah, that those are the words of Dr
Speaker 1: John D. Those are from his preface, his mathematical preface
Speaker 1: to the fifteen seventy translation of Euclid's Elements. Now at
Speaker 1: this point we should we should mention that if you
Speaker 1: did not listen to our previous episode on John D,
Speaker 1: you definitely need to go back to that one, because
Speaker 1: that that is the episode where we we really dove
Speaker 1: into his timeline and discussed in broad strokes the major
Speaker 1: events of his life. Yeah, we also focused on the
Speaker 1: sort of magical occult aspects of John these beliefs and
Speaker 1: life in that episode. This episode, we're really going to
Speaker 1: focus on his scientific education, his ability with mathematics, um,
Speaker 1: how he participated in state craft in England and in
Speaker 1: fact advocated for expanding the British Empire and especially developed
Speaker 1: cryptography as we know it today. Yeah, and it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting too, and that even though you know, in a
Speaker 1: sense the last episode was magic and this one is
Speaker 1: the is the science. This is more rooted in the
Speaker 1: real world. John D was not so firmly rooted. He
Speaker 1: seemed to to live simultaneously in the mathematical and the
Speaker 1: magical world. He did not really see a division like
Speaker 1: like the spiritual, the mathematical, the magic. It was all
Speaker 1: part of the world as he perceived it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: get ready, as we're talking about this stuff, it may
Speaker 1: seem like, oh, we're going over some historical science here,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you know, Merlin will
Speaker 1: pop up, or may be some angelic influence here there. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: it's it's really important to note here too, though, that
Speaker 1: as unique as he was, this mixing of magic and math,
Speaker 1: this suspicion of math even was it was not unique
Speaker 1: to him, it was it was very much a part
Speaker 1: of the day. Uh, mathematics was regarded in some circles
Speaker 1: with suspicion at the time. During the Tutor era, mathematical
Speaker 1: books were sometimes burned as alleged conjuring books. This according
Speaker 1: to seventeenth century antiquarian John Aubrey. And it was and
Speaker 1: it was still very much associated with the dark arts.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to think to think Pythagoras Key
Speaker 1: in the history of mathematics, was also considered a magician. Uh.
Speaker 1: Numbers had inherent powers, and this is a theme that
Speaker 1: ran through the works of Kepler, Newton, Euclid and others.
Speaker 1: So there was a long tradition of mathematics and and
Speaker 1: magic kind of sharing the same space. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I read was a mathematics were considered disreputable
Speaker 1: and connected to witchcraft because they were associated with numerology.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned this in the last episode the Jewish
Speaker 1: mystical tradition of the Kabbalah. Uh And we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about the cryptography stuff in a minute. But tri Themius,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book that D really worked off of
Speaker 1: to create his version of cryptography. That guy was also
Speaker 1: suspected of wizardry, so this had a long standing tradition.
Speaker 1: Uh D. For his part, though, in terms of mathematics,
Speaker 1: his lectures on euclid were wildly popular, as he was
Speaker 1: seen as a leading scientific figure of his day. I'm
Speaker 1: picturing that he's like the Neil degrass Tyson, right Like
Speaker 1: he's he's giving lectures. Everybody's really interested. Uh These lectures
Speaker 1: earned him an offer to join the faculty at the
Speaker 1: Sorbonne in Paris in fifteen fifty one. We mentioned that
Speaker 1: real briefly last time, But he turned stuff like this
Speaker 1: down because he was hoping to obtain an official position
Speaker 1: with the English crown. He was also Robert read from
Speaker 1: this at the beginning, but it's worth pointing out the
Speaker 1: editor of the first English translation of Euclid's Elements, and
Speaker 1: in that he added his preface, which what Robert read
Speaker 1: came from. This preface argued for the usefulness of mathematics,
Speaker 1: like people didn't regard mathematics as being important at that time,
Speaker 1: and in fact, this was the first time the public
Speaker 1: were introduced to the symbols plus minus, x, fra, multiply,
Speaker 1: and the little dot uh dash dot for division. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In this uh this, this preface, the mathematical preface, he
Speaker 1: proposed an arts mathematical that he compared to thomaturgy, which
Speaker 1: is a the use of magic for religious purposes. So
Speaker 1: he saw mathematics, rather than magic, as the key to
Speaker 1: thomaturgical wonder Men's work could rival the gods if they
Speaker 1: could utilize mathematics correctly. And and in this you know
Speaker 1: you say d was correct. I mean, we may disagree
Speaker 1: on whether math is a human invention or human discovery,
Speaker 1: but it has thus far proven to correspond to the
Speaker 1: inner workings of the cosmos. It's our our best tool. Essentially.
Speaker 1: He saw this reflected in the creation of automatons, those
Speaker 1: of Alberta's magnus uh and others. So you know, all
Speaker 1: these various mechanical devices that mimicked the the the appearance
Speaker 1: of life, and the movement and the and and the
Speaker 1: willfulness of life. And in fact, that's where that his
Speaker 1: FX work in fifty six comes into play. That's what
Speaker 1: he was essentially dabbling in. Yeah, we talked about this
Speaker 1: in the last episode. He apparently created this giant automaton.
Speaker 1: Reportedly it was a mechanical flying beetle. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it actually flew or not, but apparently it was.
Speaker 1: It was so impressive that people thought that it was magic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was very much in keeping with his view
Speaker 1: of what math was and what what science was was
Speaker 1: capable of doing. That it could replicate the wonders of
Speaker 1: nature by manipulating the same properties. And he saw he
Speaker 1: saw things like automatons and even his own special effects
Speaker 1: work UH as proof of that. He saw the optics
Speaker 1: of his special mirror is kind of reverse mirror that
Speaker 1: he would wow people with. He saw that as an
Speaker 1: example of look, the these amazing feats are possible through optics,
Speaker 1: through mathematics, through science, and Ultimately, his mathematics led to
Speaker 1: him advocating for the expansion of the British Empire, and
Speaker 1: he reportedly is the one who coined the term British Empire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is crazy, and it's also it's it's sometimes you
Speaker 1: forget like it's it's hard to think back to a
Speaker 1: time where the British Empire wasn't a thing, not only
Speaker 1: in in actuality but even in concept. So we're traveling
Speaker 1: back to seventy seven here, and this is kind of
Speaker 1: what was going on at the time. Sir Francis Drake
Speaker 1: was preparing for an epic voyage around the globe. Um
Speaker 1: Washingham spies had exposed another plot against the British crown,
Speaker 1: and he had noted a significant problematic comment amid the
Speaker 1: meaning saturated stars. And on November twenty eight, amid all
Speaker 1: of these excitements, he comes and he proposes this concept,
Speaker 1: this idea to the Queen of England that she should
Speaker 1: challenge Spain's imperial claim to the New World. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: a lot of this was based around how do I
Speaker 1: put this? He so on top of being a brilliant mathematician,
Speaker 1: he was able to apply that to cartography and mapping
Speaker 1: out routes or understanding the geography of the New World. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you mentioned cartographers here. We mentioned in the past
Speaker 1: episode that that he uh he'd learned from and was
Speaker 1: in correspondence with with noted cartographer um Garatis Mercator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh Mercator is apparently the guy who filled him
Speaker 1: in a about this idea, that that there was a
Speaker 1: precedence for the British Empire set by a legendary incursion
Speaker 1: into the northern in drawing seas around the Pole by
Speaker 1: King Arthur in the year five thirty lands that had
Speaker 1: hence been claimed by Iberian nations. This is where he
Speaker 1: got the whole idea. He being d got the whole
Speaker 1: idea for him being the modern day Merlin and Elizabeth
Speaker 1: being the modern day Arthur. He actually presented Elizabeth with
Speaker 1: a treatise on Britain's imperial limits at one point, and
Speaker 1: it suggested that the America's had actually been discovered by
Speaker 1: King Arthur centuries before. Yeah, and and and also that
Speaker 1: the British Empire was already a thing. This this concept
Speaker 1: is not something that that England could claim for itself,
Speaker 1: but reclaimed. This was a This was part of its
Speaker 1: identity already. Yeah, so you might be wondering what's a
Speaker 1: courtier anyways. Right, it's a lot of people when they're
Speaker 1: describing d they just say, well, was a court here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. Apparently it is a
Speaker 1: man that is concerned with the operation of the Royal
Speaker 1: Court and by extension, the Kingdom, of which it was
Speaker 1: an effective ruling body. So it was in his interests
Speaker 1: to make sure that the ruling body of Britain expanded. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the court as well, because
Speaker 1: the court at the time was was was lavish and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, rather impressive to behold. But at the same
Speaker 1: time he was horribly in debt. The likewise, the the
Speaker 1: English military was weak, the political condition was far from stable,
Speaker 1: where England was a relatively poor nation, and the idea
Speaker 1: of challenging Spain, Imperial Spain in such a manner was
Speaker 1: was highly ambitious, if not outright ridiculous. Remember, at the
Speaker 1: time there was a there was a papal bull uh
Speaker 1: dividing the Americas between the Spanish and the Portuguese. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't just that England should challenge Spain, it was
Speaker 1: that English England should challenge the papacy's division of the globe.
Speaker 1: This was this was this was not just hey, we're
Speaker 1: we're we're pretty awesome. We should go over and claim this.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, we This involves a leveling up of
Speaker 1: the nation that might not be practical, and it worked
Speaker 1: um And for his part, the way that d assisted
Speaker 1: was with his knowledge of cartography and mathematical modeling, so
Speaker 1: he instructed captains and pilots and the principles of mathematical navigation.
Speaker 1: He would prepare maps for their use and he furnished
Speaker 1: them with various navigational instruments. In the fifties and fifties
Speaker 1: he actually advised Richard Chancellor's expedition through the North Sea
Speaker 1: so that he could establish a trade route between England
Speaker 1: and Moscow. And there's there's some evidence that D was,
Speaker 1: I guess uh financially involved in that as well, like
Speaker 1: he had he had something to gain from this um
Speaker 1: trade route. In fIF teen seventy two, a new star
Speaker 1: appeared and it was visible for seventeen months. Now today
Speaker 1: we know that this was a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia.
Speaker 1: Uh D saw this as the signal for the beginning
Speaker 1: of the English Protestant Empire. And so he also instructed
Speaker 1: an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage to China in
Speaker 1: fifteen seventies six. Now, I've talked a lot about Northwest
Speaker 1: passages before the or d Northwest Passage and expeditions through
Speaker 1: it before on the show, because I've done research on
Speaker 1: the past. Um, you know, like like almost all of these,
Speaker 1: it was totally fruitless, but it did lead to English
Speaker 1: settlements in Canadian North America. And this is where it
Speaker 1: gets crazy. Deformed his own company to colonize the Americas,
Speaker 1: and there's some evidence that he was the intellectual force
Speaker 1: behind Francis drake circumnavigation of the globe, and D would
Speaker 1: be awarded rights to any new newly discovered land that
Speaker 1: was north of the fiftieth parallel. If Drake had gone
Speaker 1: any further north than Oregon, this basically would have given
Speaker 1: him all of Canada. So D would have like, if
Speaker 1: this had all worked out, D would own Canada. How
Speaker 1: different might Canadian history be if it had been founded
Speaker 1: by a wizard right exactly? Um, And you know we
Speaker 1: talked about this in the last episode. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: D moved his family to crack up Poland and three.
Speaker 1: A lot of it had to do with the whole
Speaker 1: angela communication thing and Lasky and and Kelly as we
Speaker 1: previously described, but some believed that the whole reason he
Speaker 1: was there was actually to act as a spy. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second suspected
Speaker 1: D that's when he was banished from the empire, and
Speaker 1: he went to a small town called Trebonn in at
Speaker 1: what the time was southern Bohemian I imagine now it's
Speaker 1: probably part of the Czech Republic or maybe Slovakia. But
Speaker 1: um uh, this is fascinating. That's what gets him kicked
Speaker 1: out when, as we know from last episode, he just
Speaker 1: basically went up to Rudolph and was like, hey, angels
Speaker 1: told me you're possessed by demons. And Rudolph was like whatever.
Speaker 1: But then he's like, maybe this guy's a spy and
Speaker 1: he gets rid of him. Now here's a really fun factor.
Speaker 1: You're ready, everybody. D signed his letters to Elizabeth as
Speaker 1: double O seven. Yeah, a secret sign of cipher that
Speaker 1: at least looked like double os. Yeah. So I mean
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that's where um uh Ian Fleming got
Speaker 1: the idea for double seven from or if it's maybe
Speaker 1: an actual has a historical precedence. So I've read two
Speaker 1: different versions of this. One is that Ian Fleming was
Speaker 1: reading about John D at the time directly got this, uh,
Speaker 1: this idea from these writings. And I've also read some
Speaker 1: people cast doubt on this whole connection that oh, well,
Speaker 1: actually John D didn't really use double A seven. So um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly where the truth lies there somewhere
Speaker 1: in the middle. But but we will get back to
Speaker 1: this whole spying thing, this whole espionage thing, because as
Speaker 1: incredible as everything has been thus far, um, it really
Speaker 1: gets crazier in the episode where we're not even talking
Speaker 1: about angelic communication all that weight. Okay, why don't we
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the cryptography aspects of the career. What
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Speaker 1: The title of the series is Life After. That's all
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Speaker 1: download it today. Alright, we're back. So cryptography the the study,
Speaker 1: the creation and the breaking of codes and ciphers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we we've already covered this slightly. But D was
Speaker 1: taken with the work of German abbot Trithemius uh and
Speaker 1: he was an important figure in the history of cryptography
Speaker 1: as well as occultism. And in fifteen sixty four, while
Speaker 1: D was in Antwerk, he tracked down a copy of
Speaker 1: truths most famous work, The stick I'm gonna get this wrong,
Speaker 1: the Stagana of Grafia and copied it. Now, you were
Speaker 1: telling me that there is this like whole weird thing
Speaker 1: about the copying of it. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty strange. So certainly Trithemius was a big deal again,
Speaker 1: important figure in the history of cryptography and occultism and
Speaker 1: uh and and D was already a fan. He owned
Speaker 1: several copies of his of his book Polygraphia, which was
Speaker 1: the first printed book about the subject of cryptography. Uh,
Speaker 1: not to say, you know, certainly not the first book.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that there was there was an
Speaker 1: Arabic book that that was already out there in the world,
Speaker 1: and this book was by a man by the name
Speaker 1: of al Kindy. But this was the first that was,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly the first Western tone dealing with cryptography. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were twelve rotating paper, a cipher discs embedded within
Speaker 1: the pages, and even today they're in remarkably good condition.
Speaker 1: They still turn. Uh. So it was a pretty phenomenal book.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of thinking of I don't think you've seen
Speaker 1: this movie yet, but that Doctor Strange movie came up.
Speaker 1: You saw it, Yeah, you know, the library and that
Speaker 1: that's what I'm imagining. Yeah, yeah, very much. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: certainly there's a lot of like circular devices and and
Speaker 1: glyphs that should pop up in that movie that that
Speaker 1: feel right at home in the world of John D.
Speaker 1: Except not glowing and spinning in the air, right unless
Speaker 1: you're talking to Edward Kelly and he will say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see those disks probably. Uh so, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: finds out there's a copy of Steganographia out there, which
Speaker 1: was a rare book. It was an essentially an an
Speaker 1: abandoned work of the Athenius is because it dealt with,
Speaker 1: at least on the surface, dealt with angelic communication. It
Speaker 1: dealt with communing with spirits and using spirits to relay
Speaker 1: messages over vast distances. Okay, hold on a second, I
Speaker 1: think I've got a theory here. Let's see if this
Speaker 1: plays out as we're talking more about Trithemius. What if
Speaker 1: so we know that D was really into Trithemius, and
Speaker 1: then he gathered all of this information before he met
Speaker 1: Edward Kelly. What if Edward Kelly was using Trithmius to
Speaker 1: create his version of a Nokian that eventually D wrote
Speaker 1: down and and and hearkened as the angelic language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's it. It sounds it sounds compelling to me.
Speaker 1: I guess I should probably say a little more about
Speaker 1: Trithemius before I by go any any further here. But
Speaker 1: this guy alone was pretty fascinating. This was the man
Speaker 1: who served as advisors to emperors, was among the most
Speaker 1: erudite German book collectors of his time, author of more
Speaker 1: than fifty books himself, and the founder of scientific bibliography.
Speaker 1: He was, as previously noted, the first printed author on
Speaker 1: the subject of cryptography in the West. And um and
Speaker 1: yet then here's this book, this seems to be devoted
Speaker 1: to angelic magic that he was forced to and in
Speaker 1: writing because he was talking to other people about it
Speaker 1: and they were like, Oh, I don't know about about
Speaker 1: this book you're working on Acthemius. Uh. Even as he
Speaker 1: was making writing it, he made claims that the text
Speaker 1: would enable communication over vast distances, to communicate one's thoughts
Speaker 1: by fire and other claims. So basically, like like other
Speaker 1: individuals hearing about this, they were like like, well, this
Speaker 1: means this makes it sound like either you're lying or
Speaker 1: you're a demonic sorcerer, right smiled upon Yeah, not so
Speaker 1: much in the uh, in the church. So the crazy
Speaker 1: thing is that over the centuries, it's been revealed that
Speaker 1: all three volumes of this work are concerned with cryptography,
Speaker 1: the most and most recently volume three. So pretty early
Speaker 1: on commentators figured out, all right, well, these first two
Speaker 1: books are only like surface level about angelic magic. They're
Speaker 1: really about cryptography and codes and ciphers. But they thought
Speaker 1: for the longest, well, this third book, though, this just
Speaker 1: seems to be about magic. There's no code here. Um
Speaker 1: and that's kind of a fitting read for the life
Speaker 1: of John d. The idea of like, at what point
Speaker 1: does the magic become the main thing? But here's the
Speaker 1: crazy part. This only this a view of the third
Speaker 1: book of Steconographia only lasted until the late nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: That's when two individuals experienced unrelated breakthroughs and cracking it
Speaker 1: German linguist Thomas Ernst and Jim Reid's, who is working
Speaker 1: in the mathematics and cryptography research department at A T
Speaker 1: and T. That this is Wait, so A T and
Speaker 1: T paid for somebody to research this old book on
Speaker 1: Angela communication and cryptography. Well, it's uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he did. I'm not certain if he did. This
Speaker 1: part on the A T and D died, but reads
Speaker 1: is a guy who's subsequently written a few different books
Speaker 1: on this and other D related works. Um and uh.
Speaker 1: He he wrote about about this particular work in summing
Speaker 1: it up with the following uh, which is I think
Speaker 1: rather illuminating as we continue to look at these obsessions quote.
Speaker 1: The question now is why did Trimetheus so thoroughly embrace
Speaker 1: the rhetoric of magic for such a non magical as
Speaker 1: we regarded purpose. Did he regard cryptography as inherently magical
Speaker 1: or was his choice of the language that language a
Speaker 1: solution to the stylistic problem that all authors of cryptographic
Speaker 1: exposition have to solve, how to sustain the reader's interest
Speaker 1: through example after example of usually tedious plain texts, possibly
Speaker 1: tedious explanations of cryptographic techniques, and always tedious cipher texts.
Speaker 1: Trimetheus use of angel language might thus be a rhetorical
Speaker 1: strategy to engage the reader's interest. If so, he was
Speaker 1: vastly successful, even if he completely miss calculated how his
Speaker 1: book would be received, because this basically, like I said that,
Speaker 1: he was an important figure in in occult circles because
Speaker 1: for the longest like, that's what these books look like,
Speaker 1: That's what those books mean. If you're not breaking the
Speaker 1: crowd the code and sort of finding the deeper symbolism
Speaker 1: that the deeper purpose of the text. Yeah, so he's
Speaker 1: he's thinking along the lines of I'm gonna write this
Speaker 1: really groundbreaking, uh piece of linguistic science, but that's not
Speaker 1: really sexy, so I'll tell everyone it's about angels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or it's like it's kind of thinking. You think about
Speaker 1: it like this. If you have you have a grammar lesson,
Speaker 1: what kind of sentence are you gonna use? You're gonna
Speaker 1: use a boring sentence or an exciting one. So in
Speaker 1: a sense, he used the exciting sentence. Uh, he put
Speaker 1: he put a dog in a sentence. So another okay,
Speaker 1: another theory. And again I'm no d scholar, and I
Speaker 1: know there's lots of people out there who have poured
Speaker 1: through his diaries, but maybe D was doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: Well that that that becomes the the crazy thing to
Speaker 1: try and figure out, like where where we're what we're
Speaker 1: D's interest here? Was he interested in the magic? Was
Speaker 1: he interested in I mean, clearly he was interested in cryptography.
Speaker 1: He'd read his other book, That's why he sought out
Speaker 1: this one. There was the whole wife swapping thing though,
Speaker 1: so there is a certain amount of him actually believing
Speaker 1: angels are telling him to do things he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to do. It makes one think, like, at what point
Speaker 1: in studying cryptography through the language of magic, do you
Speaker 1: become kind of ensourcefuled by the magic, by the language
Speaker 1: of of of of magic. Uh yeah, it's crazy. Now
Speaker 1: now back to this whole expedition where he ends up
Speaker 1: finding this copy of this rare book. So, as Benjamin
Speaker 1: Willy points out in his book, this was no small accomplishment.
Speaker 1: It was a really difficult book to steal a peek
Speaker 1: at it was. It was banned. It was actually actually
Speaker 1: the Church had placed it on the Index Liberalum Prohibitorum
Speaker 1: in sixteen o nine and it remained there until nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1: So this was this was a this was a band book.
Speaker 1: This was like a dark book and uh magic, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is a dangerous text. Uh.
Speaker 1: So d had to spend money to travel, He probably
Speaker 1: had to pay bribes, and he worked with a mysterious
Speaker 1: nobleman of Hungary who required that the in turn quote
Speaker 1: pleasure him with such points of science as he requireth
Speaker 1: that that sounds filthy. I hope it's not. I hope
Speaker 1: it's not. Maybe he was just like performing scientific tricks
Speaker 1: like I don't know, fire like or it kind of
Speaker 1: sounds like you have like in this case with the
Speaker 1: nobleman of Hungary, kind of like a rich science fanboy
Speaker 1: who has access to something amazing and then therefore uses
Speaker 1: it and as as an excuse to make the real
Speaker 1: scientists slash magician hang out with him. And then on
Speaker 1: top of this, so I mean these whole thing was
Speaker 1: not only to look at it, not only to read it,
Speaker 1: but to copy it so he would have his own
Speaker 1: cop And this was a difficult book to copy because
Speaker 1: it's it's full of tables and charts, moving parts, apparently
Speaker 1: meaningless names, angelic language, and uh he only had ten
Speaker 1: days to get it all copied down, likely with this
Speaker 1: Hungarian guy just standing over over him the whole time
Speaker 1: trying to make a small talk. Oh wow, Then you
Speaker 1: really feel for John do when you dive into the
Speaker 1: details here, you know, I mean, yeah, he wasn't the
Speaker 1: greatest guy in the world. He did, you know, make
Speaker 1: his young wife sleep with his squire at one point,
Speaker 1: but he really seemed to be doing his best to
Speaker 1: try to gather this information up for the benefit of
Speaker 1: I guess, like as he saw it mankind. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I increasingly sympathize with d through through all these adventures
Speaker 1: and misadventures, increasingly more misadventures than an adventure. Right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're forced to try to understand the role of this
Speaker 1: book really in Indeed's life and what his his obsession
Speaker 1: with this book tells us about his life. A book
Speaker 1: that is at once both concerned with purely with codes
Speaker 1: and also concerned with with very strange magical concepts, with
Speaker 1: very esoteric concepts. I imagine he kept this in the
Speaker 1: internal part of his uh, his sanctum sanctis was this
Speaker 1: was definitely an inner library product. Here. Now, according to
Speaker 1: to contemporary cryptologists Simon singh Um, it's important to note
Speaker 1: here that UH that you know, encryption had been around
Speaker 1: for a while. He particularly mentions that al Kindi book
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier, UH in the simplest forms, encryption
Speaker 1: is about swapping letters for symbols and the use of
Speaker 1: frequency analysis to break it. And by the Elizabethan era,
Speaker 1: UH cryptography was already getting a bit more advanced. This
Speaker 1: was again a time of plots, espionage, deep political intrigue,
Speaker 1: and encryption UH was was an important tool. Code making
Speaker 1: and code breaking was very much a part of the
Speaker 1: the actual game of thrones of the day. One example
Speaker 1: that seeing it throws out is just considered the intrigue
Speaker 1: surrounding Mary, Queen of Scott's. She wanted to take the
Speaker 1: English throne, so Elizabeth imprisoned her, but she used But
Speaker 1: then Mary used coded messages that she sent out to
Speaker 1: her co conspirators looking to work with the Spanish to
Speaker 1: put her on the throne instead of Elizabeth. Chief codebreaker
Speaker 1: Thomas Phillips. Uh, this is Elizabeth's. A codebreaker came along.
Speaker 1: He broke this code she was using, and he broke
Speaker 1: it easily because she was using an outdated, simple form
Speaker 1: of cipher. So Mary was found out, she was tried,
Speaker 1: she was executed in seven So this serves as an
Speaker 1: example that the codes, the making of the use of codes,
Speaker 1: and the breaking of them was life and death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider, like how much of this story
Speaker 1: that we've already told has involved political actors traveling around Europe. Uh,
Speaker 1: suspected of being spies, but you know, basically just saying
Speaker 1: like either like oh, I'm just here to see the
Speaker 1: sites or I'm here to scrib crystals and talk to
Speaker 1: angels or whatever. Right, Um, So, code and cryptography would
Speaker 1: be essential to them passing messages back and forth either
Speaker 1: from their home countries or to their associates in these
Speaker 1: these other empires. That's right, So we're going about to
Speaker 1: take another break. Uh. But as we take the break,
Speaker 1: think to yourself, which which is better? Is you're out
Speaker 1: traveling around continental Europe to be found out and accused
Speaker 1: as a spy or a magician? Which which is the
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Speaker 1: mailing things. All right, we're back. Okay. So we asked
Speaker 1: which was better to be accused of being a spy
Speaker 1: at the time or a magician. Now, given what we
Speaker 1: know about how many people accepted quote magic as being
Speaker 1: a part of not I wouldn't say daily life, but like,
Speaker 1: uh uh the sciences. Probably being accused of being a
Speaker 1: spy was worse. I think there's there's less ambiguity, isn't
Speaker 1: there Because if you can you imagine you're you're accused of,
Speaker 1: oh you're trying to speak to angels and you have
Speaker 1: all this angelic language, you know, depending on some individuals
Speaker 1: would certainly be very quick to condemn you and say, well,
Speaker 1: you're practicing horrible magic and this is bad, but there's
Speaker 1: seems like you have a certain amount of wiggle room there. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean consider d zone case. Right. He goes to
Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Emperor and he says, angels told me
Speaker 1: you're possessed by demons, and the guy was like whatever.
Speaker 1: But then they think he might be a spy. Kick
Speaker 1: him out of the country. Yeah at least, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: or or throw him into a dungeon, execute him, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So so that's the the the the question that one
Speaker 1: raises here was John the a spy? The answer kind
Speaker 1: of varies because it seemed undoubtedly he played a role
Speaker 1: in introducing some some concepts in cryptography to his Elizabethan masters.
Speaker 1: He had a great cover story. Yeah, he did a
Speaker 1: cover story. That's the other thing. To what extent is
Speaker 1: this a guy who end up buying into his cover story,
Speaker 1: like he went so deep cover that he himself had
Speaker 1: vast difficulties uh re emerging and returning to Relizabeth in England.
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah, It's it's difficult to piece it together because
Speaker 1: we have a guy here who seems to have been
Speaker 1: a pretty serious Christian, but he was also engaged in
Speaker 1: all of this, Uh, these occult interests. We have a
Speaker 1: guy who believed mathematics was the key to unlocking the
Speaker 1: secrets of the universe, who studied cryptography, who advised Queen
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First, who traveled rather extensively throughout Europe during
Speaker 1: a time of plots, political unrest, in war, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: this has led some his stories to ponder weather, uh well,
Speaker 1: not really whether, but to what degree John d was
Speaker 1: engaged in the espionage of the day. As early as
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century English polly math Robert Hoke suggested that
Speaker 1: these Book of the Spirits was actually a book of
Speaker 1: code rather than an account of angelic conversations, and that
Speaker 1: it would be to go back to our our previous question,
Speaker 1: that it would be far better to be charged with
Speaker 1: being a quote, pretend enthusiast rather than a real spy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm starting to lean more and more towards
Speaker 1: that as a theory. Here's another interesting, uh tidbit. Following
Speaker 1: these um copying of the Steganographia in fifteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: he certainly wrote to William Cecil that's Queen Elizabeth's key
Speaker 1: minister at the time, uh, and who was just beginning
Speaker 1: to put in place the espionage network that, under his predecessor,
Speaker 1: the spy master Francis so Walshingham um would become one
Speaker 1: of the most formidable and effective um uh spy systems,
Speaker 1: sp and our systems in Europe. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: the origins of M I. S X. Basically, basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the he he he wrote in writing to Cecil,
Speaker 1: he's writing to one of the one of two key individuals, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and laying the groundwork for a vast network of spies,
Speaker 1: a vast coded network of spies. It depended on Coats
Speaker 1: d wrote to Cecil, apparently with great enthusiasm, telling him
Speaker 1: that this book was quote the most precious jewel that
Speaker 1: I have yet of other men's travails recovered, and that
Speaker 1: it would benefit quote the advancement of good letters and
Speaker 1: wonderful divine and secret sciences. So Benjamin Woolley and his
Speaker 1: book notes that that Cecil was a very practical conservative
Speaker 1: sort of fellow, and not the kind of guy to
Speaker 1: put a lot of stock in occult rituals. He was religious.
Speaker 1: He probably believed in spirits, you know, in kind of
Speaker 1: an abstract sense of the word that he wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: go rattling off a list of angel names or anything.
Speaker 1: So the secret sciences that we're talking about here might
Speaker 1: very well refer to interest far more earthly, uh, far
Speaker 1: more espionage related than anything to do with you know,
Speaker 1: angelic communication. So maybe D was duping Kelly. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: he used a known occultists, alchemist criminal as his companion
Speaker 1: for ten years, possibly so that he could travel around
Speaker 1: and pretend like he was doing these rituals when in
Speaker 1: fact he was up to something a little bit more concrete. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I think one of the difficult things in trying
Speaker 1: to figure out someone like D is we kind of
Speaker 1: look for this not certain not maybe not a simple interpretation,
Speaker 1: but we want to a solid interpretation. And I guess
Speaker 1: the the way I keep trying to make sense of
Speaker 1: it is to think, all right, every one of us
Speaker 1: has a fairly complex worldview, a lot of contradictions, a
Speaker 1: lot of I we believe in various ideas simultaneously even
Speaker 1: though they don't match up, and we all have you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna generalize here, and let's say, let's say
Speaker 1: we all have very fairly normal brains, and D had
Speaker 1: an abnormal brain. D was a brilliant man, one of
Speaker 1: the most brilliant men of his day, and therefore perhaps
Speaker 1: his contradictions were just that that much greater, that much stranger,
Speaker 1: that much more out of proportion to what the rest
Speaker 1: of us live with. Yeah, I think I can see
Speaker 1: where you're going with this, That there's there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of truth to all of this. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's where I keep coming coming back to, because it's
Speaker 1: it's tempting to say, oh, well, he was only in
Speaker 1: it for the he was only in it for the codes.
Speaker 1: He was a spy the whole time. He wasn't duped
Speaker 1: by this this this weird Edward Kelly character. Uh, he was.
Speaker 1: He was the secret the secret master the whole time.
Speaker 1: But as as Willie Wright said, D didn't see uh
Speaker 1: the steganographia as a purely diplomatic or political tool like
Speaker 1: based on his writings, he he clearly considered it to
Speaker 1: have far more esoteric uses. He believed that the cryptography
Speaker 1: could help him decipher other ancient texts, such as the
Speaker 1: Book of Siga, an anonymous tone that he believed to
Speaker 1: have been written in the in the the Anochian language,
Speaker 1: and another was a book that was attributed to Roger Bacon,
Speaker 1: the Voiage Manage, which is still yet to be deciphered. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Voyage Manuscript is something that comes up a lot around here.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I I know several of our other shows
Speaker 1: here have done episodes on it and how stuff works,
Speaker 1: like a pretty long Windage Manuscript article as well. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe d Then he's playing all sides for
Speaker 1: his own and interests, you know, like he believes in
Speaker 1: the angel stuff, but he's also playing it out for
Speaker 1: this code stuff. He has interests in mathematics and discovering
Speaker 1: the origins of the universe, in bettering the English Empire,
Speaker 1: and all of those coincide with talking to angels and
Speaker 1: spycraft and assisting trade agencies and being a courtier to
Speaker 1: the queen. It's all it's all very I mean, it's
Speaker 1: alien to us from present day perspective. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: does it does seem seem to be the case that
Speaker 1: it was all connected to him. Yeah. This was this
Speaker 1: was the world that he lived, and he lived in
Speaker 1: a world in which the British Empire had great things
Speaker 1: ahead of it, that things were cosmically aligned for it
Speaker 1: that he himself was kind of the the second coming
Speaker 1: of Merlin, that that that mathematics was the key to
Speaker 1: to understanding and manipulating the forces in the world around him,
Speaker 1: and that you could you could use some of these
Speaker 1: properties to communicate with essentially extra dimensional beings who would
Speaker 1: reveal the secrets of science to you. It's not like
Speaker 1: he was looking to cast fireballs and lightning bolts. He
Speaker 1: just wanted to know how the world worked. He was
Speaker 1: he was he was endlessly curious. Huh. And that's John
Speaker 1: d the Good Doctor. So you know, he's got this
Speaker 1: reputation now that's endured as an astrologer and a magician.
Speaker 1: But I think you know what we should get out
Speaker 1: of these two episodes should be remembered that D was
Speaker 1: an accomplished mathematician and he influenced the field as well
Speaker 1: as physics, music, philosophy, optical theory, and mechanical engineering. I
Speaker 1: mean he really Robert and I were talking about this
Speaker 1: outside of the studio. I mean, he was very influential
Speaker 1: in the history of the world in a lot of ways. Uh.
Speaker 1: We remember him as being this deluded guy who could
Speaker 1: talk to angels, but he contributed to your European Intellectual History.
Speaker 1: There's actually an organization called the John D Society, uh
Speaker 1: that I found in my searching around. It's an organization
Speaker 1: dedicated to producing standard editions of his work, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to reconstruct his library. So they're assembling an archive
Speaker 1: of this material as they find it on microfilm, although
Speaker 1: I imagine, uh that they're probably scanning it in digitally
Speaker 1: at this point. And I'd like to leave us with
Speaker 1: a quote from one of the books that I was
Speaker 1: consulting by R. W. Baron, is called a reputation History
Speaker 1: of John D. The Life of an Elizabethan Intellectual, and
Speaker 1: he says, four centuries after his death, we are still
Speaker 1: debating and wrestling with where D's work fits into the
Speaker 1: Elizabethan world picture and what contributions, if any, he made
Speaker 1: to those intellectual advancements. So there we have it. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a fascinating fellow. He seems to have influenced our sciences.
Speaker 1: He's perfect for for stuff to blow your mind. You know.
Speaker 1: He's got a little bit of the weirdness of the bizarre,
Speaker 1: bringing it into his understanding of the world, bringing wonder
Speaker 1: to these things, and then simultaneously using things that we
Speaker 1: now consider every day like optics or cartography or or
Speaker 1: or just basic math. Uh, in the same respect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's just amazing that he's one of
Speaker 1: these guys that we know a fair amount about, and
Speaker 1: yet you the more you read about him, the more
Speaker 1: you just ask who who was this guy? You know
Speaker 1: what he was? He he really liked what what what
Speaker 1: was the world he saw when he looked out the window,
Speaker 1: you know? And uh, yeah, it's just just an amazing character.
Speaker 1: So it's been a great pleasure to to research him
Speaker 1: and discuss him here on the podcast. Yeah, I for one,
Speaker 1: next time I'm in London, I am definitely gonna go
Speaker 1: to the British Museum and trying to get a look
Speaker 1: at some of those occult artifacts. And I'd really like
Speaker 1: to visit the site of more Lake. I kind of
Speaker 1: see what it's like to from looking at Google Maps,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's that far southwest of London. So, uh, hey,
Speaker 1: anybody out there, have you been there? Have you seen
Speaker 1: this stuff in the British Museum? Maybe you know? Uh,
Speaker 1: Like I said at the top of all of this,
Speaker 1: there's so much research into John d that maybe you
Speaker 1: know there's stuff that we don't know about that we
Speaker 1: missed here. Maybe there's something you'd like to add that
Speaker 1: we could read in a future listener mail episode. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, or Instagram,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to visit stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com, which is our landing site where we'll have
Speaker 1: images of the company of this episode, as well as
Speaker 1: all of the blog posts and all of the videos
Speaker 1: and all the other podcasts that we do here. Oh
Speaker 1: and real quick, on a personal note, I just want
Speaker 1: to thank my my cousin father be Price, for suggesting
Speaker 1: research into these life and studies. Yeah, thank you, y.
Speaker 1: This was this was really a pleasure, all right. So
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with the old
Speaker 1: fashioned way, put aside the your your very scrying instruments,
Speaker 1: put aside the magic mirror, and to simply send us
Speaker 1: an email I blow the Mind and how stuff Works
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