WEBVTT - John Dee's Language of the Angels

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim

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<v Speaker 1>and Mild from Aaron Mankie listener Discretion advised.

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<v Speaker 2>The year was sixteen sixty two and the owners of

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<v Speaker 2>a little sweet shop in London were running their fingers

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<v Speaker 2>over their newest acquisition, an antique cedar chest. Their fingertips

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<v Speaker 2>found a strange opening in the body of the chest,

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<v Speaker 2>a hidden drawer. Perhaps they used a knife to pull

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<v Speaker 2>at it. The drawer opened, and inside not the treasures

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<v Speaker 2>they may have dreamt of, but a beaded necklace, a cross,

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<v Speaker 2>and some handwritten books the sweetshops made. Wasn't especially interested

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<v Speaker 2>in whatever someone's old books might have to say. She

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<v Speaker 2>had work to do. But as she baked her pies

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<v Speaker 2>atop the pages she was using as parchment paper, the

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<v Speaker 2>smell of caramelized sugar spinning in the air, it was

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<v Speaker 2>hard to ignore an uncomfortable feeling stirring in her gut.

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<v Speaker 2>When she looked at the books pages. They were strange. Yes,

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<v Speaker 2>they contained words and dated entries, as she might have expected,

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<v Speaker 2>But the pages also contained diagrams and signs and symbols

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<v Speaker 2>that she didn't understand. Unnerving symbols, triangles inscribed inside circles,

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<v Speaker 2>intricate stars that pointed toward what might have been Greek letters,

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<v Speaker 2>maps of what might have looked like planets, complex mathematical

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<v Speaker 2>symbols that could only be witchcraft. She quieted her mind.

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<v Speaker 2>She lifted the surely devilish pages one by one, and

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<v Speaker 2>one by one let them blacken in the fire beneath

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<v Speaker 2>her baking pies. But it didn't take long before other

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<v Speaker 2>people started noticing the strangeness of the pages that hadn't

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<v Speaker 2>been burned. One antiquarian realized that these pages weren't just

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<v Speaker 2>some devil's unhinged ramblings. They were the lost diary of Renaissance,

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<v Speaker 2>England's greatest conjurer, the occultist, once employed as astronomer to

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<v Speaker 2>Queen Elizabeth the First, a man named John Dee. John

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<v Speaker 2>Dee was one of the most fascinating characters in all

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<v Speaker 2>of Elizabethan court history. He was a learned mathematician and

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<v Speaker 2>also a magician, an astronomer, and an astrologer. He was

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<v Speaker 2>a trusted political advisor to the Queen. He was a scientist,

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<v Speaker 2>a cartographer, and even a special effects technician. He was

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<v Speaker 2>also an angelologist, a Christian lawmanser, an occultist and a

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<v Speaker 2>dabbler in alchemy. He was a student of Hebrew and

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<v Speaker 2>the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. In addition to Christianity,

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<v Speaker 2>he believed he spoke with angels, both angels from the

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<v Speaker 2>Old Testament and some of his own discovery. He recorded

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<v Speaker 2>completely credulously his angelic conversations with the likes of the

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<v Speaker 2>angels Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel. It may seem impossible

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<v Speaker 2>to us now that someone so invested in the occult

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<v Speaker 2>in sorcery could have had such a serious political career

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<v Speaker 2>in a royal court. But it was the fifteen hundreds,

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<v Speaker 2>the Renaissance. The classic Renaissance man did it all in

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<v Speaker 2>part because it all was not so neatly divided into

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<v Speaker 2>branches as it is today. Math, magic and miracle were

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<v Speaker 2>not entirely distinct from each other. Politics were ordained by God,

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<v Speaker 2>after all. Queen Elizabeth herself believed in the royal touch,

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<v Speaker 2>the magic of her fingertips upon her subject's next to

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<v Speaker 2>heal their ailments. The latest optical science was recognizing that

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<v Speaker 2>light could bend it separated into rainbows through lenses and

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<v Speaker 2>mirrors and crystals, where was the line between that science

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<v Speaker 2>and the idea that gazing into a crystal ball might

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<v Speaker 2>reveal concealed dimensions of God's creation, just as it revealed

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<v Speaker 2>the different bands of color concealed within light. John Dee

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<v Speaker 2>was a man who studied the heavens, and in fifteen

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<v Speaker 2>seventy two he looked up as all of England cowered

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<v Speaker 2>at a new star that suddenly appeared in the night sky,

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<v Speaker 2>followed by a range comet. In fifteen seventy seven, and

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<v Speaker 2>under the light of that comet, the Conjuror John d

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<v Speaker 2>made a political plan for his queen. He encouraged Elizabeth

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<v Speaker 2>to follow the path laid by King Arthur one thousand

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<v Speaker 2>years earlier, to expand England into a term he coined,

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<v Speaker 2>a British Empire. But the Great Conjurer would also do

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<v Speaker 2>something else. Under the light of that mysterious comet. He

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<v Speaker 2>would allow a man using a false name into his home,

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<v Speaker 2>a man who would ultimately be his downfall. This was

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<v Speaker 2>a man who would intercede with D's angelic conversations and

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<v Speaker 2>put a wedge between d and the court life he

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<v Speaker 2>was enjoying with Queen Elizabeth. When the Great Conjurer looked

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<v Speaker 2>up into the sky and calculated the positions of the planets.

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<v Speaker 2>It seems he couldn't have seen just how tenuous his

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<v Speaker 2>own position was. I'm Danish schwartz and this is noble blood.

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<v Speaker 2>John Dee was born in or around London on July thirteenth,

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<v Speaker 2>fifteen twenty seven, during the reign of King Henry the Eighth.

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<v Speaker 2>He was the son of a merchant who served within

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<v Speaker 2>the king's court. If you're into astrology, you're in luck.

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<v Speaker 2>With this episode, Dee mapped his own birth chart, as

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<v Speaker 2>well as the astrological positionings of many of the events

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<v Speaker 2>that took place throughout the sixteenth century. According to D's calculations,

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<v Speaker 2>Jupiter and the Sun were strong together in Cancer at

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<v Speaker 2>the moment of his birth. I'm sure some of you

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<v Speaker 2>listeners can interpret those signs better than I can. Biographer

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<v Speaker 2>Benjamin Woolley notes that the moon and the Sun were

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<v Speaker 2>in opposition in d'cas charts, and even I could tell

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<v Speaker 2>you that symbolically, at least in literary terms. That suggests

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<v Speaker 2>some internal conflict that might have been brewing inside him.

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<v Speaker 2>And so we begin today's episode appropriately in astrology, a

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<v Speaker 2>field with plenty of adherents still today a realm that

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<v Speaker 2>draws on astronomical science and then, at least in my estimation,

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<v Speaker 2>heads into the direction of belief. By fifteen forty seven,

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<v Speaker 2>John d was nineteen and England was transitioning from the

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<v Speaker 2>reign of King Henry the Eighth to that of his

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<v Speaker 2>short lived only son, King Edward. At that time John

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<v Speaker 2>Dee was in the midst of some personal drama of

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<v Speaker 2>his own, and I mean drama in the quite literal sense.

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<v Speaker 2>He was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, and he

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<v Speaker 2>was putting on a play. It was a play called

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<v Speaker 2>Peace by an ancient Greek playwright, Aristophanes, and it called

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<v Speaker 2>for a dung beetle to fly with an actor on

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<v Speaker 2>its back. This was the fifteen hundreds. D did not

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<v Speaker 2>have the benefits of electricity in staging his play, let

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<v Speaker 2>alone projectors, lasers or drones. And yet the actor on

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<v Speaker 2>stage instructed his scare a beetle to lift him into

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<v Speaker 2>the sky, and it did. There was a gasp in

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<v Speaker 2>the audience next craned backward to watch in awe. How

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<v Speaker 2>was it possible the flying beetle on stage was like

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<v Speaker 2>a miracle, or else some thought like magic or as

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<v Speaker 2>some whispered as the play went on, it was witchcraft.

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<v Speaker 2>D must have dealt with the devil. Only a few

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<v Speaker 2>people in the crowd recognized that the beatle must have

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<v Speaker 2>been some application of mathematics. D probably used some combination

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<v Speaker 2>of Pulley's mirrors, springs, and pressurized air or gas to

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<v Speaker 2>create the illusion of a flying bug. But this was

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<v Speaker 2>a time when mathematics as a discipline were viewed as

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<v Speaker 2>essentially indistinguishable from conjuring. D was cast under suspicion. In

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<v Speaker 2>another life, we can imagine that D might have gone

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<v Speaker 2>on to become the best practical effects guy of the

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<v Speaker 2>Elizabethan age. We can easily imagine a D who went

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<v Speaker 2>on to be an artist of the theater what D

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<v Speaker 2>himself called art mathematical. Of course, his beatle was considered wizardly.

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<v Speaker 2>After all, what is special effects technology today but something

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<v Speaker 2>we call movie magic. But aside from a brief stint

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<v Speaker 2>when he was a student, D wasn't really interested in

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<v Speaker 2>the theater. For D, the mathematical was only in service

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<v Speaker 2>of his true aim, which was the revelation of some

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<v Speaker 2>universal godly truth through the use of sciences that shaded

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<v Speaker 2>without distinction in his mind into magic, and eight years

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<v Speaker 2>later that lack of distinction between the occult and the

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<v Speaker 2>approved came home to D in the form of a

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<v Speaker 2>court order. It was fifteen fifty five and d was

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<v Speaker 2>under arrest. This was during Queen Mary's reign. D stood

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<v Speaker 2>accused of witchcraft, a serious charge under the new Catholic rule,

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<v Speaker 2>which was definitely not opposed to burning heretics at the stake.

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<v Speaker 2>D was also official accused of two other crimes, calculating

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<v Speaker 2>and conjuring. Again, in that language, you can see the

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<v Speaker 2>closeness of math and magic to this day. The word

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<v Speaker 2>we use for solving a math problem calculating, it means

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<v Speaker 2>something very different when applied to a person. A calculating

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<v Speaker 2>person implies that they're sly bad scheming. And John Dee

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<v Speaker 2>stood accused of doing the very thing that so many

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<v Speaker 2>astrologically inclined bridesmaids do for their friends today. That is,

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<v Speaker 2>mapping the horoscopes of Mary and her husband Philip to

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<v Speaker 2>see if they made a good match. Kind of touchingly,

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<v Speaker 2>de found in favor of Mary and Philip's union. It's

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<v Speaker 2>pretty sweet, actually, His calculations suggested that their marriage took

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<v Speaker 2>place under an auspicious rising sign for a new couple.

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<v Speaker 2>But of course flick Queen Mary, defensive about an unpopular marriage,

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<v Speaker 2>didn't exactly take the zodiac as a fun activity for

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<v Speaker 2>a bridal shower. Luckily, Forde he escaped the fate of

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<v Speaker 2>the heretics and outlived Mary, who died in fifteen fifty seven.

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<v Speaker 2>That was when Mary's younger Protestant half sister, Elizabeth, came

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<v Speaker 2>to the throne. Twenty five year old Elizabeth was the

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<v Speaker 2>daughter of King Henry the Eighth and the beheaded Anne Boleyn.

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<v Speaker 2>She was the second woman ever to ascend to a

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<v Speaker 2>throne that had been until recently only occupied by men,

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<v Speaker 2>and she needed to secure her reign. She appointed her

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<v Speaker 2>favorite Robert Dudley to advise her, and Dudley, needing the

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<v Speaker 2>good graces of not only the earthly but heavenly realms

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<v Speaker 2>as well as he put together Elizabeth's coronation, decided that

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<v Speaker 2>he needed the one man in England who could read

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<v Speaker 2>the planets better than anyone else. Robert Dudley called upon

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<v Speaker 2>John d. When John d agreed to choose the date

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<v Speaker 2>for Queen Elizabeth's coronation, it was the beginning of a

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<v Speaker 2>major life change for him. After being arrested under Queen

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<v Speaker 2>Mary's reign. Now he was not only set free, but

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<v Speaker 2>he was welcomed into Elizabeth's court. As his first order

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<v Speaker 2>of business, D consulted the stars. He measured and mapped

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<v Speaker 2>the angles between the planets, the positions of major constellations,

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<v Speaker 2>the twelve astrological houses, and rising signs. At last, he

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<v Speaker 2>decided that January fifteenth, fifteen fifty nine would be the

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<v Speaker 2>most Heavens approved date for the beginning of the Elizabethan Age. Obviously,

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<v Speaker 2>Mars was in Scorpio that day. After the coronation, history

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<v Speaker 2>loses track of D for about five years. I like

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<v Speaker 2>to imagine the stage magician's sleight of hand. Here D

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<v Speaker 2>ducking into a cleverly designed set piece through which the

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<v Speaker 2>audience of history can't see him. But he was somewhere

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<v Speaker 2>all along, studying the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. He

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<v Speaker 2>was seeking the secret names of God, learning the Hebrew

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<v Speaker 2>language and its mystical numerology, the alphabet arranged around the

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<v Speaker 2>first letter olive, middle mem, last tav, spelling out emmett,

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<v Speaker 2>the Hebrew word for truth. He was seeking divine truth

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<v Speaker 2>in increasingly more mystical modes, but D was far from

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<v Speaker 2>done with politics. Once history catches up with him again,

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<v Speaker 2>he steps out from behind the curtain. On June fourteenth,

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<v Speaker 2>fifteen sixty four, when he and Queen Elizabeth are walking

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<v Speaker 2>together at Greenwich Palace on the south bank of the

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<v Speaker 2>River Thames. D was holding something in his hands, a

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<v Speaker 2>slim book, and he was brimming with excitement and perhaps

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<v Speaker 2>a little bit of fear. He was about to show

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<v Speaker 2>the Queen the work of his soul, his Monas Hieroglyphica. Listener,

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<v Speaker 2>allow me to tell you the monas is truly wild.

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<v Speaker 2>It's a whole book dedicated to explaining a mystical symbol

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<v Speaker 2>of divine revelation that D invented himself. It looks kind

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<v Speaker 2>of like a cross between the artist formerly known as

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<v Speaker 2>Prince Symbol and Harry Potter's Deathly Hallows. D's symbol was

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<v Speaker 2>a millage of Latin wordplay, alchemy, numerology, celestial calculations, and

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<v Speaker 2>you know, his idea of the unity of all things.

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<v Speaker 2>So was no doubt excited but nervous as he walked

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<v Speaker 2>alongside the Queen, no doubt remembering how he had been

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<v Speaker 2>arrested for doing a Queen's horoscope. Years before, Elizabeth had

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<v Speaker 2>taken D's astrological advice for her coronation date. Though perhaps

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<v Speaker 2>she would be open to his new book of divine

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<v Speaker 2>celestial work, or perhaps she would have him arrested on

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<v Speaker 2>the spot. He offered her the book. Elizabeth paused for

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<v Speaker 2>a moment, observing the symbol. D's pulse pounded. Then he

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<v Speaker 2>saw Elizabeth's eyes light up in curiosity. I will be

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<v Speaker 2>your scholar, she told D if you explain this work

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<v Speaker 2>to me. And so John D sat with the Queen

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<v Speaker 2>of England and described to her his special invented brand

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<v Speaker 2>of mysticism. John D and the Queen went on to

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<v Speaker 2>have a good relationship. She paid him occasional visits at

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<v Speaker 2>his home. She consulted with him about whether she should

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<v Speaker 2>marry one of her suitors, the Duke of Anjou. He

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<v Speaker 2>said she shouldn't, and she didn't. But the greatest cause

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<v Speaker 2>De advocated with Elizabeth, and the one that would mark

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<v Speaker 2>ultimately the end of his close relationship with her at court,

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<v Speaker 2>was a bit of political fortune telling that would ultimately

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<v Speaker 2>come to pass in a big way. It was D's

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<v Speaker 2>deep belief that Elizabeth should set out to create a

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<v Speaker 2>British empire. D wasn't just fortune telling when it came

0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.560
<v Speaker 2>to this idea of empire, he was actively promoting it.

0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.399
<v Speaker 2>As Sir Francis Drake was circumnavigating the globe, D was

0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.399
<v Speaker 2>coining the term British empire. He was hearkening back to

0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.440
<v Speaker 2>King Arthur a thousand years before, arguing that the British

0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:07.160
<v Speaker 2>right to an extensive empire had been established a millennium ago.

0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:12.960
<v Speaker 2>He encouraged Elizabeth to challenge the Spanish and Portuguese claims

0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.560
<v Speaker 2>to the New World, especially Spain's claims in North America.

0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:23.439
<v Speaker 2>His suggestions were even more persuasive than usual, because just

0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.800
<v Speaker 2>as D was petitioning Elizabeth on the idea of expansionism,

0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.280
<v Speaker 2>there was a strange thing going on in the world,

0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:36.240
<v Speaker 2>something that could seem like a message directly from the heavens,

0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.640
<v Speaker 2>something no one in all of Britain, in all of

0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:44.040
<v Speaker 2>Europe could possibly miss. All anyone needed to do was

0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.880
<v Speaker 2>step outside and crane their necks back as they had

0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.560
<v Speaker 2>years ago to gaze at John D's flying beetle on stage.

0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.959
<v Speaker 2>But this time the magic was taking place on a

0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:01.560
<v Speaker 2>much bigger stage, the night sky itself, And if anyone

0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.879
<v Speaker 2>looked up to the night sky in November of fifteen

0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:11.320
<v Speaker 2>seventy seven, there it would be the great, glittering, terrifying thing,

0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:17.440
<v Speaker 2>the bright light with a luminous tail, a comet. Many

0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:22.679
<v Speaker 2>believed that the cosmic event signaled some vexation from God,

0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.280
<v Speaker 2>some calamity to befall mankind, or thought many of the

0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:32.560
<v Speaker 2>English to specifically befall England or the Queen. But Elizabeth

0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:37.480
<v Speaker 2>wasn't going to believe just anybody's fears about this strange

0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.960
<v Speaker 2>celestial happening. She was going to consult one man when

0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:46.520
<v Speaker 2>it came to the skies, John D. The comet is

0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.160
<v Speaker 2>nothing to fear, he advised her. It is not important

0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:55.879
<v Speaker 2>of approaching doom, but of your approaching greatness. Perhaps the

0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.240
<v Speaker 2>bright light with the tale that arcing through the sky

0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.879
<v Speaker 2>is a sign of England's destiny to be the bright

0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:08.000
<v Speaker 2>light with a long tail that is a global empire.

0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:14.040
<v Speaker 2>Of course, D's vision for English expansionism is exactly what

0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.800
<v Speaker 2>would happen. The English would defeat the Spanish Armada in

0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.320
<v Speaker 2>fifteen eighty eight, when D was not yet sixty years old.

0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:27.480
<v Speaker 2>But ultimately D had nothing to do with Elizabeth's actions,

0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.200
<v Speaker 2>as she set out in favor of the empire that

0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.600
<v Speaker 2>he had initially encouraged. The comet lit the sky, and

0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:39.080
<v Speaker 2>D's eyes were drawn heavenward. He lost interest in court.

0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.040
<v Speaker 2>He had begun his life with one interest, and it

0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.879
<v Speaker 2>was not the earthly realms of battle and conquest and bloodshed,

0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:51.119
<v Speaker 2>though his concept of empire would inevitably contain all three.

0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.120
<v Speaker 2>The comet faded from the sky, and John D left

0:20:55.160 --> 0:21:04.399
<v Speaker 2>his influence at court behind. From there, the rest of

0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.879
<v Speaker 2>D's life became ever more involved in the occult. He

0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:13.119
<v Speaker 2>worked closely with scriers, people who divined things via the

0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.400
<v Speaker 2>use of objects like crystal balls. Some or I might

0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:22.639
<v Speaker 2>say all of these were frauds. D's closest scrier was

0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:27.520
<v Speaker 2>a man who first entered his life calling himself Edward Talbot.

0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.800
<v Speaker 2>Talbot would later re enter D's life using his real name,

0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.760
<v Speaker 2>Edward Kelly, which goes to show the type of upstanding

0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:41.760
<v Speaker 2>honesty we're dealing with here. With Kelly's help, D communed

0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:46.760
<v Speaker 2>with the angels in a special language called Inokian. D

0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.840
<v Speaker 2>and Kelly conversed with some of the people you may

0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.679
<v Speaker 2>have learned about in religious schools, like Raphael and Michael

0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:59.919
<v Speaker 2>and Gabriel and Uriel. In his diaries, d earnestly record

0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:05.040
<v Speaker 2>these angelic conversations. Uriel would say things like, quote, we

0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:08.520
<v Speaker 2>cannot visit thee now at the twelfth hour, thou shalt

0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.480
<v Speaker 2>use us. Then at the twelfth hour Michael would say

0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.800
<v Speaker 2>something like, quote, divide the seven parts of the circle

0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:23.840
<v Speaker 2>everyone into seven by seven. All government is to my understanding,

0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:29.240
<v Speaker 2>It's not exactly a clear message. Sometimes D worried that

0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.200
<v Speaker 2>he and Kelly were communicating with devils instead of angels,

0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.800
<v Speaker 2>but for the most part D believed in Kelly. He

0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:42.240
<v Speaker 2>and Kelly even traveled to Poland and Prague together, where

0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.880
<v Speaker 2>they wound up banned by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph

0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:52.080
<v Speaker 2>the Second on suspicion of necromancy. Eventually, Kelly received a

0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:57.240
<v Speaker 2>message that he and D should share not only spiritual experience,

0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:02.280
<v Speaker 2>but something a little closer to home, their wives. This

0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:08.040
<v Speaker 2>experiment in sister wifing lasted only about one night. It

0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:13.040
<v Speaker 2>seemed like a horrible incident for D's wife Jane, and

0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.000
<v Speaker 2>in the end it sat very badly with D as well.

0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:21.919
<v Speaker 2>Shortly after his relationship with Kelly finally broke down. Still,

0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:26.720
<v Speaker 2>the timing of the wife swapping did throw the paternity

0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:30.600
<v Speaker 2>of one of D's sons into doubt. To Dee's credit,

0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:33.760
<v Speaker 2>he treated the boy as his own. He was an

0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:37.080
<v Speaker 2>involved father to all of his children with Jane, who

0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:40.920
<v Speaker 2>was his third wife. He was such an involved father

0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:43.280
<v Speaker 2>that he even asked one of his sons to be

0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.800
<v Speaker 2>a scrier for him, which ultimately wound up as a

0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:51.720
<v Speaker 2>failed experiment. By the final years of D's life, he

0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:56.040
<v Speaker 2>had outlived Jane and five of their eight children. He

0:23:56.080 --> 0:24:00.600
<v Speaker 2>had also outlived Queen Elizabeth. He died in in December

0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.359
<v Speaker 2>sixteen o eight at the age of eighty one. His

0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.199
<v Speaker 2>hidden diaries would be baked under the Sweet Shop Pies

0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:12.880
<v Speaker 2>fifty four years later. D may have been the inspiration

0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.520
<v Speaker 2>for a lot of canonical characters who are well known

0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:23.440
<v Speaker 2>to English lit majors. William Shakespeare's magician Prospero, Christopher Marlowe's

0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:29.200
<v Speaker 2>necromancer Faust, Edmund Spencer's meditative Old Sage in the House

0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:33.439
<v Speaker 2>of Temperance in The Fairy Queen. But above all, Dee's

0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:39.119
<v Speaker 2>legacy is as a figure who strived earnestly for divine revelation,

0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:44.520
<v Speaker 2>often in ways that seem profoundly unscientific to us today,

0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:51.200
<v Speaker 2>and yet even today, the great contemporary mathematician Edward Frankel

0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:55.679
<v Speaker 2>went on Lex Friedman's podcast this April to discuss the

0:24:55.800 --> 0:25:00.640
<v Speaker 2>present state of math. They talked about contemporary physicist and

0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:04.840
<v Speaker 2>the so far in vain quest for a grand, unifying

0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:09.200
<v Speaker 2>theory of everything, and they joked about when you show

0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:11.760
<v Speaker 2>up and meet God and there's one equation on the

0:25:11.760 --> 0:25:15.800
<v Speaker 2>board and the two of you just chuckle. Unlike D,

0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:21.760
<v Speaker 2>scholars today have separated math and science from religion. Yet

0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:26.280
<v Speaker 2>the image of God's chalkboard is still there, even metaphorically.

0:25:26.880 --> 0:25:30.120
<v Speaker 2>There's still some sense that when we try to derive

0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:34.680
<v Speaker 2>the mathematical and physical underpinnings of the world, we are

0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:39.520
<v Speaker 2>dealing with something bigger than ourselves. John D, for all

0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:44.120
<v Speaker 2>he foresaw and failed to foresee about the future, probably

0:25:44.119 --> 0:25:55.000
<v Speaker 2>would be happy about that. That's the story of Queen

0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:59.520
<v Speaker 2>Elizabeth's court astrologer John D. But stick around after a

0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:02.520
<v Speaker 2>brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about

0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:13.840
<v Speaker 2>his astrological birth chart. All right, for all of you

0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:17.439
<v Speaker 2>astrology buffs out there, let's dig some more into D's

0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:20.679
<v Speaker 2>birth chart. First of all, D wrote his chart in

0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.359
<v Speaker 2>the form of a square. More like the Vedic style

0:26:24.480 --> 0:26:28.200
<v Speaker 2>natal chart than the typical circular charts he might see today.

0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:32.000
<v Speaker 2>In a box at the center of D's chart, his

0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:37.320
<v Speaker 2>careful script recorded the following his birthday fifteen twenty seven

0:26:37.560 --> 0:26:43.280
<v Speaker 2>July thirteenth, his birth time four hours and two minutes

0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:48.080
<v Speaker 2>in the afternoon, and his birthplace latitude fifty one degrees

0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:52.680
<v Speaker 2>and thirty two seconds north latitude. We don't know what

0:26:52.800 --> 0:26:56.439
<v Speaker 2>D made of his own chart. Surely he read a

0:26:56.480 --> 0:26:59.240
<v Speaker 2>lot of meaning into it, but none of that made

0:26:59.280 --> 0:27:03.720
<v Speaker 2>its way to us today, which leaves many modern biographers

0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:09.640
<v Speaker 2>and podcasters a lot of interpretive wiggle room. Biographer Benjamin

0:27:09.760 --> 0:27:13.400
<v Speaker 2>Woolley notes that the star Antaris in the planet Mars

0:27:13.440 --> 0:27:17.840
<v Speaker 2>were together on D's chart, which, in his interpretation, was

0:27:17.920 --> 0:27:22.680
<v Speaker 2>a disturbing or threatening sign. We reached out to a

0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:26.360
<v Speaker 2>friend who's an amateur chart reader and with no knowledge

0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:29.800
<v Speaker 2>of whose chart this was. She looked at the eleventh

0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:34.560
<v Speaker 2>House and said, ruled by Mercury and reflects the archetypes

0:27:34.640 --> 0:27:40.080
<v Speaker 2>of Aquarius, so futuristic ideas, thinking about innovation and the future,

0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:45.400
<v Speaker 2>sort of space alien stuff. But a different friend replied

0:27:45.480 --> 0:27:49.199
<v Speaker 2>that astrology is pseudoscience and no place to end a

0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:55.199
<v Speaker 2>historical podcast, although to be fair, one could argue that historically,

0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:59.560
<v Speaker 2>during this period in question, astronomy was thought of as

0:27:59.600 --> 0:28:03.080
<v Speaker 2>a sign. But for those who think like the second

0:28:03.119 --> 0:28:07.600
<v Speaker 2>Friend and to be blunt, think like me. One final, cold,

0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:13.440
<v Speaker 2>hard fact the astronomy in D's chart is remarkably correct.

0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:19.040
<v Speaker 2>Using Ptolemy's formulas, decalculated the positions of the known planet

0:28:19.119 --> 0:28:23.240
<v Speaker 2>at the time of his birth with extreme accuracy, within

0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:28.080
<v Speaker 2>a few thirtieths of a degree. The least accurate calculation

0:28:28.240 --> 0:28:31.280
<v Speaker 2>he made was for mercury, and even then, with the

0:28:31.320 --> 0:28:35.520
<v Speaker 2>science of the sixteenth century, he was only off by

0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:36.760
<v Speaker 2>two degrees.

0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:47.720
<v Speaker 1>Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and

0:28:47.800 --> 0:28:52.160
<v Speaker 1>Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is created and hosted

0:28:52.200 --> 0:28:56.880
<v Speaker 1>by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by

0:28:56.960 --> 0:29:02.480
<v Speaker 1>Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman.

0:29:02.960 --> 0:29:06.760
<v Speaker 1>The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and

0:29:07.000 --> 0:29:12.680
<v Speaker 1>rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive

0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:16.480
<v Speaker 1>producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

0:29:16.960 --> 0:29:18.200
<v Speaker 2>For more podcasts

0:29:18.240 --> 0:29:23.840
<v Speaker 1>From iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

0:29:23.920 --> 0:29:25.440
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