WEBVTT - From the Vault: John Dee, Part 1 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.680 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.559 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.360 time to venture into the vault for a classic episode 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.880 of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This one originally published 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.640 in December of and uh, I hope you like wizards. Yeah, 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.720 that's right. This is the first of two episodes that 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:29.280 dealt with the enigmatic Dr d Dr John d who 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.920 was quite an interesting character. He advised Queen Elizabeth, sought 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.960 communion with angelic being's advocated British expansion, and it just 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.200 generally plunged the depths of human knowledge in an age 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.360 of great change. Uh. He's a figure that we discussed 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:47.000 in our recent episodes on the Vontage Manuscript and uh 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.640 and it may well come up again, like very a 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.640 very notable historic figure, no doubt. We hope you enjoyed 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.440 this classic episode about Oh wait this episode, I'm not 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.720 on this one. Just to warn you. This is you 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.120 and Christian, right, This was an episode I did with Christian. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.800 Not like you need a warning. I'm just I'm about 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.880 to disappear. fALS warning Joe fans. Uh, He's not going 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.840 to be present in this episode. But it sounds like 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:17.800 a really good one. Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:27.560 From how stuff works dot com. Thy character must have 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.920 the names of the five angels written in the midst 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:35.000 of sigellum, a myth graven upon the other side in 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.720 a circle in the midst whereof must the stone be 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.520 which was also brought wherein thou shalt at time to 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:49.200 behold privately to thyself the state of God's people through 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:55.120 the whole earth. Go and thou shalt receive terry, and 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.840 you shall receive sleep, and you shall see. But walk 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.880 and your eyes shall be fully opened. One thing, which 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:08.720 is the ground and element of thy desire, is already profited. 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.000 And out of seven thou hast been instructed of the 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:22.000 lesser pot most perfectly. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.120 your mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Christian Sager. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.600 And from the beginning there you may think that we were, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.760 I don't know, performing a ritual of some kind and 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:33.200 trying to summon an angel, And you would be half right. 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:36.799 That's right. That is uh. That is a quote from 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:42.440 the writings of the legendary, the mysterious, the influential Dr 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.720 John d. The topic of both episodes this week. Uh, 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:53.120 and he is a fascinating character and elizabethan mathematician, UH, conjurer, 0:02:54.280 --> 0:03:00.560 possibly a spy cryptographer. The list goes on first and 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.120 foremost a mathematician, but it gets it gets a lot 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:06.400 more complicated than that. Is you try and piece together 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.080 this man, the world he lived in, and what he 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:14.400 really believed in. D Is is one of those characters 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.840 that we've We've been talking about doing an episode on 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.519 him for a while now, and when we dove into 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.560 the research, we we really realized, Okay, this needs to 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.160 be two episodes. And the way that we've decided to 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.760 split these episodes categorically is this first episode is going 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.520 to be more grounded in the sexy, occult magical stuff, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.920 and the second episode is going to be grounded in 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:43.360 his scientific endeavors and his state craft. Um. There's so 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.840 much about him that I learned doing this, and there's 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:53.400 so many different interpretations too. He's just this fascinating individual. UM. 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.400 If you're unfamiliar with him, I guess the best way 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.000 to describe him is that he was one of the 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.080 leading intellectuals of his time. It may not sound like it, 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.480 given some of the things we're gonna say in these episodes, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.280 but he had magical interests. But despite that, he brought 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:14.520 developments to England and cartography, navigation, mathematics, astronomy and cryptography, 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:20.400 and his reputation in alchemy and astrology totally influenced the 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.960 court of Queen Elizabeth the first. He was no doubt 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.240 influential in that respect. Yeah, he he he had a 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.080 rapport with with Queen Elizabeth. Uh. Some historians go as 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.159 far as to say that they were friends, and you 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.160 do get the idea that there may have been as 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.320 much of a friendship as was possible between the Queen 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.920 of England and uh, you know, essentially a common born 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:49.760 intellectual who dabbled in magic. Right yeah, um, we'll say 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.680 this later, but he did think of himself as her Merlin, 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.240 which is really fascinating and comes into play. So the 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.360 I said that we're going to split these episodes up, 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:02.920 but one thing that you have to keep in mind 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.960 is that the magic and the science overlap a lot too. Um, 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.080 and so even in things like when he's advising them 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:15.880 on national matters, on expanding the English Empire, he's still 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.880 thinking in magical terms, like he's Merlin and she's King Arthur, right, 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.200 He's he's a guy who, like I said, it's it's 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.839 essential to keep the mathematics and in mind. But it's 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.239 not like he's a guy who, all right, I'm gonna 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.200 do my job here, which is science or mathematics, and 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:32.560 then in my free time I'm going to do a 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.240 little sorcery and in and then also I have this 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.799 advising gig with the Queen. He saw it all connected. 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:44.760 He saw it as part of a single tapestry of cosmos. 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.839 And so there's a note I just want to provide 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.400 here before we really dive in deep, which is I 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.920 was reading an article in History Today that came out 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.560 earlier this year by a woman named Katie Burkewood, and 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.320 she says, keep in mind, the main sources for the 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:06.240 story of Dee's life are all his own. Um so 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.760 mainly what we're looking at. What we didn't look at 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:13.960 this We looked at people's interpretation of those primary sources. 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:19.200 That's true, But mainly his diaries, which cover the period 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.039 from fifteen seventy seven to sixteen oh seven, so about 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.039 from his age of fifty until he died. Those were 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.919 a big source of his uh. I guess life history, 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.440 and this also coincides with the period of time where 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.520 he was up to his most fantastic endeavors, so keep 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.919 that in mind. His early years were documented in his 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.760 own autobiographical account, which was written in fifteen ninety four, 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.320 and what he was trying to do is explain his 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.120 past to the crown, basically to Queen Elizabeth, because he 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.120 was trying to secure a royal position or an appointment 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:59.200 that would secure him a regular income. Uh. And another 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.440 source is the books that were recovered from his stolen collection. 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:05.760 So we're gonna talk probably a lot throughout the course 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.960 of these episodes about he had this infamously huge library 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.400 and it was ransacked at one point, and some of 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.560 those books have been recovered, uh. And he wrote extensive 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.960 annotations in their margins, so some uh D scholars, I guess, 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.840 go and find these copies and read those annotations to 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.760 try to learn more about him. Apparently much of that 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.320 library now resides with the Royal College of Physicians, I 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.400 think in England. Yeah, so it's it's kind of difficult 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.200 to tell truth from fiction in some of these cases. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.400 And Robert and I did our best when we read 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.920 something that sounded really strange to corroborate it with multiple sources, 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.720 and we we did find that, But then again, like 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.960 those sources were all mainly coming from D's own writings, 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.640 that's right there. There. Of course a number of wonderful 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.680 books out there on D and his work, some books 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.760 with with with different focuses than others. Uh. One book 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.040 that I kept looking at was the one by Benjamin Wooley. 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:11.600 Oh yeah, The Queen's Conjure. Uh, excellent book, very readable. 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.400 I recommend that to to anybody. But yeah, this is 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:16.800 a guy that is really, in many ways a near 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:21.000 unbelievable character, truly stranger than fiction. Like if if Alan 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.960 Moore wrote him into a story, you chalk it up to, oh, well, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.480 that's just Alan Moore's wondrous imagination and use of fictional 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.600 and historic and pop culture hybridization. The same if he 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.040 had appeared in an umberto Echo book, it might be 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.240 tempted to think, oh, this is a fantastic creation, this 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.720 Dr D. But but no, he this was a real 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.840 real man. He lived, he wrote, and I'm not sure 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.240 there has been anyone quite like him since. We we 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.600 see parallels and some of the figures that we've covered 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:53.280 on the show, and we'll and and are planning to 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.200 cover such as John c. Lilly or Jack Parsons, but 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.559 but D kind of stands alone. Yeah, And it's funny 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.880 that you mentioned Alan Moore because one of the sources 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.880 that I went to was a History Channel special that 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.880 aired in two thousand and two and it was narrated 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.480 by Brian Cox. It's all about John D's life, and 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.520 Alan Moore is one of the go to experts that 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.000 the summoned. You know, they cut to him every once 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.640 in a while and you hear that out in more voice. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.960 But he's he really knows his stuff about d um 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.720 I imagine because Alan Moore is really into sort of 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:34.800 like the history of English magic and stuff like that 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:39.680 outside of his own fiction. But um, yeah, he the 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:41.680 first first of all, I recommend, like, if you're really 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.320 into John D. Go check out this this video. I 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.880 watched it on YouTube, and uh, some of it's hilarious 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.400 and some of it's really illuminating. But there's um they 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:54.240 like do that thing that the History Channel used to 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.120 do where they like re enact scenes of a person's 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.520 life with actors and they have like kind of makeshift 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.920 low budget like sets and stuff, so like shadowy scenes 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.839 if somebody dressed as John D shuffling papers around sort 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:08.800 of yeah that thing, or like him looking into a 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.240 crystal ball, or him just walking across the field. Yeah. 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.439 So I think probably the best way for us to 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.920 to really first introduce you to John D is let's 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.360 just do a broad stroke overview of his life. You know, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.200 we've given you sort of the the two sentence summary 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.840 of who John D was, but we'll start with his 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.480 life and then we'll really dive in deep into the 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.760 magic stuff. Yeah, for with a guy like this, and 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.439 I feel like this is the best approach. We'll give 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.240 you the broad strokes and then we'll go back in 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.360 and discuss the areas that we we we have time 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.120 to discuss in these episodes. Yeah, Yeah, And I just 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.040 want to say to like, keep in mind that there 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.920 are people whose like entire career is writing about this guy. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.439 So what we cover in like two two and a 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.280 half hours and podcasts, maybe you may be out there, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:56.000 you may know some stuff about D and be like, well, 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.720 why didn't you you cover that? There's only so much 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.120 we could do here, So we really tried to condense 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.160 it down to fit the show. All right, well here 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:08.000 we go, let's kick it off with July. John d 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.319 is born in London, England. Yeah, and my first question 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.719 is who raises a guy like John D? Like, how 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:16.720 does he how does he end up like this? So 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.679 his father, Roland, was a merchant of fabrics and textiles 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.679 and he worked for King Henry the eighth. In fifteen 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.600 fifty three, his father was actually indicted and imprisoned in 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.360 the Tower of London, presumably because he had ties to 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:36.160 Protestant reformists and sympathizers of the late King Edward. So 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.240 there's a lot of This is a theme that goes 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.840 on throughout D's life, is the political struggles back and 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.320 forth between the Catholic and Protestant Church. Yeah, that's definitely 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.680 going on in the background the whole time. Now fifty two, 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.800 John d enters St. John's College at Cambridge. Yeah, and 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.520 so from what I read at the time, the curriculum 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.280 for such a college included something called the trivium, which 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:05.280 is grammar, rhetoric and logic. And once you master those 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:09.319 things you get your what would be your your bachelor's basically, uh, 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:13.320 and then the quadrivium is what you study for your masters, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.560 and that's astronomy, geography, music and mathematics. Now okay, again 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.160 this is self reported from his own thing that he 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.160 wrote to the Queen later in life. But D says 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.439 that while he was there he only slept four hours 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.800 a night, so all he could do is study. So 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.679 on one hand he was essentially applying for a position 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.000 in this but also as as as we discussed more 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.040 about John D, I don't really doubt this for a second. 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.199 He seems like the kind of guy who who may 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.559 have only slept four hours a night, he can constantly 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:51.080 consume information. So in fifty five he really he receives 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:57.280 that bachelor's degree in Arts and readership. Seven he takes 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.920 his first scientific learning excursion of the Low Countries of 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.840 continental Europe, and this becomes important later on because he 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.880 spends an increasingly increasing amount of times there on various excursions. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.920 Eight he gets his master's degree from Cambridge studying mathematics 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.960 and navigation, and then fifteen forty eight to fifteen fifty 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.839 one his second learning excursion to the Low Countries and 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.640 uh in particular. On this trip he studied under mathematician 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:33.520 cartographers pezro Nonez Gema for Silius, Abraham Ortelius and Gerardis Mercator, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.040 as well as through his own studies in Paris and elsewhere. Yeah, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.960 and these the second set of travels, these benefited England. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.240 What he would do is he'd share his findings from 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.320 these travels with Queen Elizabeth's associate. So for here's an example, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.719 in fifteen sixty two he discovered the works of Trithemius, 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.479 and we're going to talk about this later. He introduced 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.959 the court and subsequently Elizabeth to the study of modern 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:03.319 cryptography through this, ultimately changing I guess war games, right 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.760 with the way that they used cryptography. Yeah, yeah, well, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.000 we'll definitely get into that in this into the second episode. 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.160 But this was a time when when coded messages were 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.200 were really important. There was a mayor a matter of 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.920 life and life and death. Now, as you mentioned, at 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:18.920 this time, he is he's he seems to have his 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.280 sight set on official, on an official position with the crown, 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.800 and in doing so, he turned down a mathematical professorship 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:28.760 at the University of Paris, and he turned down a 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.280 similar position at the University of Oxford that was in 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.280 fifty one and fifty four, and then he returned to England. 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.080 He went to court and there he offered mathematical science 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:43.200 instruction to courtiers, to navigators, just generally trying to make 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.560 himself useful to the court. He served as a consultant 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.240 and an astrologer to, among others, Queen Mary the first. Yeah. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.920 So before he worked for Mary's court, he had a 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.240 patron who was the Duke of Northumberland, and this guy 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.080 tried to place his own utter in law on the 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.320 throne before Mary was placed there. He was charged with 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.160 treason and executed. And this is one of the first 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.119 of many times indeed's life where he had less influence 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.880 because he had sort of like followed the wrong person. 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.440 And he has these periods of like waxing and waning 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.440 influence over the English monarchy. Yeah, getting involved in the 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:25.320 machinations of of the court. Here, um, who's in and 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.520 who's out, Which which stars rising, which one's falling. So 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.840 then in fifteen fifty five, this is when he's jailed 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.400 on the charge of being a conjuror. He was soon 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:38.800 released thereafter. But let's let's pause for a second and 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.960 try to figure this out. So the thinking here is 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.640 that Queen Mary's examiners were the ones who jailed him, 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:50.440 possibly with charges of conspiring with her sister Elizabeth, who 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.840 was arrival at the time, and he was allegedly casting 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:58.760 horoscopes for Queen Mary and her family without their permission, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.680 and because the predictions were bad for Mary, it was 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:06.360 considered to be practicing witchcraft against the crown. The story 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.400 goes like this that while Elizabeth was under house arrest, 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:13.560 she asked d to perform her in Mary's horoscope, and 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.560 so he did, and it predicted that Elizabeth would have 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.200 a long reign and that Mary would die, which you 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.280 know kind of happened, uh, And this is what landed 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.000 him in jail. Now after this, after he gets out 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.880 of jail, he's placed under the charge of Edmund Bonner, 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.720 who is the Bishop of London. And in one of 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.880 these writings he actually refers to Bonner as his quote 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.000 singular friend, and there's some dispute about like are they 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.160 actually friends or is this like his sarcastic term for 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.360 this guy who's like kind of his jailer um. But 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:51.760 after this point, all of these written works included sections 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.600 defending his reputation from slander. So he was well aware 0:16:56.080 --> 0:17:00.120 that his mixture of astrology and magic and conjuring with 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.760 science and mathematics and statesmanship was under scrutiny, and not 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.720 for the last time. So in eight he published an 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:13.080 Afrotistic Introduction which presented his his own views on natural philosophy, philosophy, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.560 and astrology. And then fifteen fifty eight, the same year, 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.720 this is also when the rule of Queen Elizabeth the 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.480 First begins. Yeah, and so the rumor here again this 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:29.240 is from d Zone writings, is that when Elizabeth took power, 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:34.760 she asked d to choose her coronation date based on astrology. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.560 Now who knows. I mean, yes, there's evidence that he 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.440 was jailed performing horoscopes for her previously, so why wouldn't she. 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.240 But then, you know he's the one claiming this stuff, 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.840 and we know that later on in life he's just 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.320 constantly trying to gain favor of the court by sort 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:55.159 of but he's he's bolstering his resume. So yeah, he 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.640 becomes the scientific and medical advisor to the Queen and 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.840 uh and we're in the mid fifteen sixties. He establishes 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:06.400 himself at more Lake near London, where he builds a laboratory, 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.199 the largest private library in England more than four thousand 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.920 books in manuscripts, and he, uh, you know, we'll we'll 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:16.240 describe some more of the settings here. But it sounds 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.119 like a fabulous place. And he would he would invite 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.840 other scholars to come in and and use his books 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:23.680 if they needed to look something up. And of course 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.600 he was constantly in communication with other people, Like it 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.440 was I was reading just yesterday about how he had 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.960 these correspondence, uh, series of correspondence with with Chico Brahi, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:39.639 the really yeah, the famed astronomer. Yeah, famously lost his 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.640 nose in a sword fight, another fabulous character at the time. Yeah, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.480 we should totally do it, Tycho Brahe episode. Um. Yeah. 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.919 So the other thing about this to note, just for 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.480 context about the library, we say four thousand books, and 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:53.879 some of you are like, y, I got four thousand 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.520 books in my house, right. Well, here's context. He had 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:02.760 two thousand, six seventy menu scripts in that collection. Cambridge 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.199 University at the time only had four hundred and fifty 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.600 one manuscripts and Oxford University only had three hundred and 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.679 seventy nine. So this was considered a massive library at 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.400 the time. Like, if you're thinking about this, like uh, 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.800 going back to the Grimoire episode that you and I 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.160 did a couple of years ago, right, like, like, these 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:24.320 are not just like pulp books. They're not like soft covers, right, 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.280 Like some of these are written on parchment or their 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.280 palamp sests. Right, So I mean he's got like a 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.760 serious collection here in The books are unique too. Yeah. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.000 In many cases, these would be books where you're wanting 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.359 to read them. You might ask arounding and you'll find out, oh, 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.840 well Dr D has a copy of that. You should 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:42.760 go ask him. Maybe you'll get to look at it. 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.280 Here's another interesting thing I wanted to point out as well. 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.679 There's no evidence that he ever earned a doctoral degree, 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.080 but he was always referred to as Dr D. Kind 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:58.160 of interesting. Now. In a fifteen sixty four he published 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:02.160 the Hieroglyphic Monad, in which he offered a single mathematical 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:07.199 magical symbol as the key to unlocking, uh, the unity 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.520 of nature. Yeah, and this, I mean, I guess we'll 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.800 maybe like post this on the landing page or something 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.560 we we actually shared or you shared it on Facebook yesterday, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.480 kind of teasing the audience, say this is what we're 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.000 working on. One person got it and they referred to 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:24.479 him as the d um But it kind of looks like, 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.199 how do you pronounce that that German industrial band e' 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.120 Stretton's nine streads into a new Boton. Yeah, it does. 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.160 In fact, I had to look up a new Boton's 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.600 logo just to make sure that they weren't too similar, 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:38.639 because I'm like, I never thought about this before, but 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.159 you know, they're two distinct symbols, but they are reminiscent 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:44.880 of one another. Yeah, very much. So for some reason, 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:46.960 I also find it looks like it kind of looks 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.600 like it could be a character from a SpongeBob cartoon. 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.680 I don't know. It does have like an anthropologic quality 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:54.600 to it, of like a head with arms and legs 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.040 and then like devil's horns. Yeah, or it makes me 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.560 think of the the aliens from Slaughterhouse Five for some reason, 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:02.520 the ones that was like an eye on a hand. 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.160 I can't remember the name of them, but at any rate, 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.359 this was his his Lands and Slaughterhouse five. Yeah, there's 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.479 a there's an alien zoo for humans. I forgot all 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.760 about that. Yeah, okay, I just think about the horrors 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:24.200 of so In fifteen seventy he created the first English 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:29.240 translation of Euclid's Elements and added an influential preface that 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:34.240 offered a powerful manifesto unquote the dignity and usefulness of 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.199 the mathematical sciences, and he seems to certainly have highly 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.719 regarded mathematics is the key to understanding the natural world, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.600 but also believed in the value of the occult to 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.159 unlock the deeper mysteries of the universe. And again, his 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.920 ideas of the occult and mathematics are kind of intertwined. 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:54.200 This is definitely going to be a theme that we 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.080 returned to over and over again in these episodes. Mathematics 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.879 is like the through line for him, whether he or 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.440 odd he's trying to talk to angels or if he's 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.280 just trying to plot out maps for people to discover 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.199 the Northwest Passage. Yeah, I feel like his mind was 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.879 inherently mathematic. If you if he had lived in our age, 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.639 I feel like you would undoubtedly be a hacker or 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.680 a high level program in addition to to whatever else 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.200 he was into. The History special compared him to Stephen Hawking, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.200 and I thought that was an interesting comparison. Although I'm 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:27.760 still I'm still trying to I don't know if there's 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:32.280 anybody alive that that really has these two things together. 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.960 You're right, Lily and Jack Parsons are similar. But I'm 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.119 really trying to rack my brain for somebody who's like 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.480 a really influential intellectual but also dabbles in the occult right, 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.240 that's still very much an outsider in his interest and 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.840 speaking of being an outsider in his interest three three 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.000 through fifteen eighty nine, in order to unlock the deeper 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.160 mysteries of the universe, the sought communication with angelic entities 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.600 with the aid of convicted counterfeiter towards turn to occult sensation. 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.959 Edward Kelly, who's a very complex character and of himself, 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:08.399 will get into Kelly. So so these two end up 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:13.200 running around conducting seances in England, Poland and Bohemia and 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:19.960 have this rather volatile partnership. So it's like something out 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:23.280 of a reality TV show, like oh, you know how 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.960 like every time on the show, on this show, when 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:28.480 when we do some of these historical characters are like, oh, 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:31.760 this would make a great amc oh yeah show. The 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:35.920 Dr D Edward Kelly's show would be amazing because it 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:40.480 would be like them constantly like conniving behind one another's backs, 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.000 and then sitting in a room looking into a crystal ball, 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:45.160 talking to angels, and then like trying to figure out 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:49.000