WEBVTT - Artes Mathematicall: The Conjurer John Dee 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:13.720 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. From house thy 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.440 character must have the names of the five angels written 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:21.079 in the midst of sigellum, a myth graven upon the 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.160 other side in a circle in the midst whereof must 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.960 the stone be which was also brought wherein thou shalt 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.800 at time to behold privately to thyself the state of 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:40.479 God's people through the whole earth. Go and thou shalt 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:46.280 receive terry, and you shall receive sleep, and you shall see. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.840 But watch, and your eyes shall be fully opened. One thing, 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.680 which is the ground and element of thy desire, is 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:59.480 already profited. And out of seven thou hast been instructed 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:08.960 of the lesser pot most perfectly. Hey, welcome to stuff 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:10.960 to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.039 I'm Christian Seger. And from the beginning there you may 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:16.319 think that we were, I don't know, performing a ritual 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.039 of some kind and trying to summon an angel, And 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.880 you would be half right. That's right. That is uh. 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.920 That is a quote from the writings of the legendary, 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.800 the mysterious, the influential Dr John d the topic of 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.720 both episodes this week. Uh, and he is a fascinating 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:44.200 character and elizabethan mathematician, uh conjurer, possibly a spy cryptographer. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:50.160 The list goes on first and foremost a mathematician, but 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.440 it gets it gets a lot more complicated than that, 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.559 is you try and piece together this man, the world 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.160 he lived in, and what he really believed in. D 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.440 Is is one of those characters that we've We've been 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.160 talking about doing an episode on him for a while now, 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.200 and when we dove into the research, we we really realized, Okay, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.639 this needs to be two episodes. And the way that 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.160 we've decided to split these episodes categorically is this first 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.919 episode is going to be more grounded in the sexy, 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.080 occult magical stuff, and the second episode is going to 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:30.040 be grounded in his scientific endeavors and his state craft. Um. 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.120 There's so much about him that I learned doing this, 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.560 and there's so many different interpretations too. He's just this 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:43.160 fascinating individual. Um. If you're unfamiliar with him, I guess 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:44.920 the best way to describe him is that he was 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.240 one of the leading intellectuals of his time. It may 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.480 not sound like it given some of the things we're 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.959 gonna say in these episodes, but he had magical interests. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:59.000 But despite that, he brought developments to England and cartography, navigation, mathematics, 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:05.959 astronomy and cryptography, and his reputation in alchemy and astrology 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.640 totally influenced the court of Queen Elizabeth the first. He 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.240 was no doubt influential in that respect. Yeah, he He 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.040 had a rapport with with Queen Elizabeth. Uh. Some historians 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.160 go as far as to say that they were friends, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.120 and you do get the idea that there may have 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.359 been as much of a friendship as was possible between 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.440 the Queen of England and uh, you know, essentially a 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:36.360 common born intellectual who dabbled in magic. Right yeah, um, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.920 we'll say this later, but he did think of himself 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:45.120 as her Merlin, which is really fascinating and comes into play. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.000 So the I said that we're going to split these 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:49.760 episodes up. But one thing that you have to keep 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.600 in mind is that the magic and the science overlap 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.760 a lot too. Um, and so even in things like 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.160 when he's advising them on national matters, on expanding the 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.880 English Empire, he's still thinking in magical terms, like he's 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.440 Merlin and she's King Arthur. Right, He's he's a guy who, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.880 like I said, it's it's essential to keep the mathematics 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.760 and he in mind. But it's not like he's a 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.440 guy who, all right, I'm gonna do my job here, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.120 which is science or mathematics, and then in my free 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.240 time I'm going to do a little sorcery and in 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.799 and then also I have this advising gig with the Queen. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.039 He saw it all connected. He saw it as part 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:33.599 of a single tapestry of cosmos. And so there's a 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.159 note I just want to provide here before we really 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.880 dive in deep, which is I was reading an article 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.200 in History Today that came out earlier this year by 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.919 a woman named Katie Burkewood, and she says, keep in 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.760 mind that the main sources for the story of Dee's 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.360 life are all his own. Um so mainly what we're 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.520 looking at. What we didn't look at this, We looked 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.800 at people's interpretation of those primary sources, but we da 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:06.440 that's true. But mainly his diaries, which cover the period 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.320 from fifteen seventy seven to sixteen o seven, so about 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.200 from his age of fifty until he died, those were 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.200 a big source of his uh I guess life history. 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.719 And this also coincides with the period of time where 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.800 he was up to his most fantastic endeavors, so keep 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.240 that in mind. His early years were documented in his 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.880 own autobiographical account, which was written in fifteen ninety four, 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.599 and what he was trying to do is explain his 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.400 past to the crown, basically to Queen Elizabeth, because he 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.400 was trying to secure a royal position or an appointment 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.480 that would secure him a regular income. Uh And another 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.719 source is the books that were recovered from his stolen collection. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.039 So we're gonna talk probably a lot throughout the course 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:57.240 of these episodes about he had this infamously huge library 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.680 and it was ransacked at one point, and some of 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.800 those books have been recovered, uh and he wrote extensive 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:08.279 annotations in their margins, so some uh D scholars, I guess, 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.120 go and find these copies and read those annotations to 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.000 try to learn more about him. Apparently much of that 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.599 library now resides with the Royal College of Physicians, I 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.680 think in England. Yeah, so it's it's kind of difficult 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.479 to tell truth from fiction in some of these cases. 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.640 And Robert and I did our best when we read 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:34.120 something that sounded really strange to corroborate it with multiple sources, 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.960 and we we did find that. But then again, like 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.200 those sources were all mainly coming from D's own writings, 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.920 that's right there. There of course a number of wonderful 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.960 books out there on D and his work, some books 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:51.000 with with with different focuses than others. Uh. One book 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.440 that I kept looking at was the one by Benjamin Wooley. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:58.840 Oh yeah, The Queen's Conjure. Uh. Excellent book, very readable. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.800 I recommend that to anybody. But yeah, this is a 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.200 guy that is really, in many ways a near unbelievable character, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.920 truly stranger than fiction. Like if if Alan Moore wrote 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.240 him into a story, you chalk it up to, oh, well, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.760 that's just Alan Moore's wondrous imagination and use of fictional 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.840 and historic and pop culture hybridization. The same if he 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.320 had appeared in an umberto Echo book, you might be 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.480 tempted to think, oh, this is a fantastic creation, this 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.000 Dr D. But but no, he this was a real, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.119 real man. He lived, he wrote, and I'm not sure 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.480 there has been anyone quite like him since we we 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.840 see parallels and some of the figures that we've covered 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:40.560 on the show and we'll and and are planning to 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.760 cover such as John C. Lily or Jack Parsons, but 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.880 D kind of stands alone. Yeah, And it's funny that 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.280 you mentioned Alan Moore because one of the sources that 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.480 I went to was a History Channel special that aired 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.320 in two thousand and two and it was narrated by 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:03.559 Brian Cox all about John D's life, and Alan Moore 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.720 is one of the go to experts that they summon. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.760 You know, they cut to him every once in a while, 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.560 and you hear that out in more voice, he's he 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.520 really knows his stuff about d um I imagine because 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.600 Alan Moore is really into sort of like the history 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:22.720 of English magic and stuff like that outside of his 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:27.640 own fiction. But um, yeah, he the first first of all, 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:29.800 I recommend, like, if you're really into John D, go 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.000 check out this this video. I watched it on YouTube, 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.640 and uh, some of it's hilarious and some of it's 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.360 really illuminating. But there's um they like do that thing 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.120 that the History Channel used to do where they like 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.840 re enact scenes of a person's life with actors and 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.280 they have like kind of makeshift, low budget like sets 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.200 and stuff, so like shadowy scenes of somebody dressed as 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.960 John D shuffling papers around sort of yeah, that thing, 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.199 or like him looking into a crystal ball, or him 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.960 just walking across the field. Yeah. So I think probably 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.720 the best way for us to to really first introduce 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.120 you to John D is let's just do a broad 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.240 stroke overview of his life. You know, we've given you 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.680 sort of the two sentence summary of who John D was, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.800 but we'll start with his life and then we'll really 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.360 dive in deep into the magic stuff. Yeah, for with 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:20.640 a guy like this, I feel like this is the 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:22.880 best approach. We'll give you the broad strokes and then 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.640 we'll go back in and discuss the areas that we 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.000 we we have time to discuss in these episodes. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.200 And I just want to say to like, keep in 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.920 mind that there are people whose like entire career is 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.760 writing about this guy. So what we cover in like 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.880 two too and a half hours and podcasts, maybe you 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:42.640 may be out there, you may know some stuff about 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.880 D and be like, well, why didn't you you cover that. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.320 There's only so much we could do here, so we 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:49.520 really tried to condense it down to fit the show. 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:51.680 All Right, Well, here we go, let's kick it off 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:57.320 with the July. John d is born in London, England. Yeah, 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.400 and my first question is who ray this is a 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.839 guy like John D. Like, how does he how does 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.720 he end up like this? So his father, Roland, was 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.920 a merchant of fabrics and textiles and he worked for 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.640 King Henry the Eighth. Uh. In fifteen fifty three, his 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.840 father was actually indicted and imprisoned in the Tower of London, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:21.480 presumably because he had ties to Protestant reformists and sympathizers 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.360 of the late King Edward. So there's a lot of 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.640 This is a theme that goes on throughout D's life, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.160 is the political struggles back and forth between the Catholic 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.040 and Protestant Church. Yeah, that's definitely going on in the 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.360 background the whole time. Now fifty two, John D enters St. 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.800 John's College at Cambridge. Yeah, and so from what I 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.720 read at the time, the curriculum for such a college 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:50.920 included something called the trivium, which is grammar, rhetoric and logic. 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.720 And once you master those things you get your what 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.240 would be your your bachelor's basically, uh. And then the 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.000 quadrivium is what you study for your masters, and that's 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:06.360 astronomy geography, music, and mathematics. Now, okay, again this is 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.800 self reported from his own thing that he wrote to 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.960 the Queen later in life. But D says that while 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.040 he was there he only slept four hours a night, 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.559 so all he could do is study. So on one 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.560 hand he was essentially applying for a position in this 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.920 but also, as as as we discussed more about John D, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.760 I don't really doubt this for a second. He seems 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.120 like the kind of guy who who may have only 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:35.640 slept four hours a night, could constantly consume information. So 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.439 in fifty five he really he receives that bachelor's degree 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:45.440 in Arts and readership. Fifty seven he takes his first 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.160 scientific learning excursion to the Low Countries of continental Europe, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.560 and this becomes important later on because he spends an 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:57.920 increasingly increasing amount of times there on various excursions. Eight 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.880 he gets his master's degree from Cambridge studying mathematics and navigation, 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.160 and then fifteen forty eight to fifteen fifty one his 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.239 second learning excursion to the Low Countries and Uh in particular. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:15.280 On this trip he studied under mathematician cartographers Pezro Nonez 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:21.720 Gema for Silius Abraham Ortelius and gerardis Mercator, as well 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.240 as through his own studies in Paris and elsewhere. Yeah, 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.280 and these the second set of travels, these benefited England. 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.480 What he would do is he'd share his findings from 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.600 these travels with Queen Elizabeth's associate. So for here's an example, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.960 in fifteen sixty two he discovered the works of Trithemius, 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.760 and we're going to talk about this later. He introduced 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:45.200 the Court and subsequently Elizabeth to the study of modern 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:50.480 cryptography through this, ultimately changing I guess war games, right 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.000 with the way that they used cryptography. Yeah, yeah, well, 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.280 we'll definitely get into that in this into the second episode. 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.439 But this was a time when when coded messages were 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.480 where really important. There was a mayor a matter of 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.200 life and life and death. Now, as you mentioned, at 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.200 this time, he is he's he seems to have his 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.520 sight set on official, on an official position with the Crown, 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.079 and in doing so, he turned down a mathematical professorship 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.000 at the University of Paris, and he turned down a 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.560 similar position at the University of Oxford that was in 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.559 fifty one and fifty four, and then he returned to England. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.360 He went to Court and there he offered mathematical science 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:30.480 instruction to courtiers, to navigators, just generally trying to make 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.800 himself useful to the court. He served as a consultant 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.520 and an astrologer to, among others, Queen Mary the first. Yeah. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.200 So before he worked for Mary's court, he had a 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.520 patron who was the Duke of Northumberland, and this guy 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.319 tried to place his own daughter in law on the 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.559 throne before Mary was placed there. He was charged with 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.439 treason and executed. And this is one of the first 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.400 of many times indeed's life where he had less influence 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.160 because he had sort of like followed the wrong person, 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:03.720 and he has these periods of like waxing and waning 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.719 influence over the English monarchy. Yeah, getting involved in the 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:12.600 machinations of of the court. Here, um, who's in and 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.800 who's out, Which which stars rising, which one's falling. So 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.120 then in fifteen fifty five, this is when he's jailed 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:23.640 on the charge of being a conjuror. He was soon 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.080 released thereafter. But let's let's pause for a second and 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.240 try to figure this out. So the thinking here is 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.920 that Queen Mary's examiners were the ones who jailed him, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.720 possibly with charges of conspiring with her sister Elizabeth, who 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.120 was arrival at the time, and he was allegedly casting 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:46.040 horoscopes for Queen Mary and her family without their permission, 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.920 and because the predictions were bad for Mary, it was 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.640 considered to be practicing witchcraft against the crown. The story 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.680 goes like this that while Elizabeth was under house arrest, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.480 she asked d to perform her and Mary's horror scope, 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.760 and so he did, and it predicted that Elizabeth would 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.120 have a long reign and that Mary would die, which 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.160 you know kind of happened, uh, And this is what 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:14.080 landed him in jail. Now after this, after he gets 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.160 out of jail, he's placed under the charge of Edmund Bonner, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.960 who is the Bishop of London. And in one of 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:24.440 these writings he actually refers to Bonner as his quote 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.240 singular friend, and there's some dispute about like are they 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.440 actually friends or is this like his sarcastic term for 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.640 this guy who's like kind of his jailer um. But 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.040 after this point, all of these written works included sections 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.840 defending his reputation from slander. So he was well aware 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.360 that his mixture of astrology and magic and conjuring with 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:52.040 science and mathematics and statesmanship was under scrutiny, and not 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.000 for the last time. So in eight he published an 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.560 afrotistic Introduction which presented his his own views on natural philosophy, 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:04.200 forspy and astrology and h then fifteen fifty eight the 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.120 same year, this is also when the rule of Queen 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.800 Elizabeth the First begins. Yeah, and so the rumor here 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:15.320 again this is from d Zone writings, is that when 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.880 Elizabeth took power, she asked d to choose her coronation 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.040 date based on astrology. Now who knows. I mean, yes, 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.600 there's evidence that he was jailed performing horoscopes for her previously, 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.440 so why wouldn't she. But then you know he's the 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.400 one claiming this stuff, and we know that later on 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.600 in life he's just constantly trying to gain favor with 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.720 the court by it sort of, but he's he's bolstering 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.880 his resume. So yeah, he becomes the scientific and medical 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.120 advisor to the Queen and uh were in the mid 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.400 fifteen sixties, he establishes himself at more Lake, near London, 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.880 where he builds a laboratory, the largest private library in England, 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.640 more than four thousand books and manuscripts, and he ut, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.800 you know, well, we'll describe some more of the settings here, 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.720 but it sounds like a fabulous place. And he would 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.240 he would invite other scholars to come in and and 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.399 use his books if they needed to look something up. 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.600 And of course he was constantly in communication with other people, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.440 Like it was I was reading just yesterday about how 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.080 he had these correspondence, uh, series of correspondence with with 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:26.040 Chico Brahi, the real Yeah, the famed astronomer. Yeah, famously 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.200 lost his nose in a sword fight. Fabulous character of 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:34.760 the time. Yeah, we should totally do it, Tycho Brahe episode. Um. Yeah. 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.720 So the other thing about this to note, just for context, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:39.840 about the library, we say four thousand books, and some 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:41.480 of you are like, yeah, I got four thousand books 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.639 in my house, right. Well, here's context. He had two thousand, 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:50.560 six hundred and seventy manuscripts in that collection. Cambridge University 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:52.680 at the time only had four hundred and fifty one 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.560 manuscripts and Oxford University only had three hundred and seventy nine. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.520 So this was considered a massive library at the time. Like, 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.439 if you're thinking about this, like, uh, going back to 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:05.520 the Grimoire episode that you and I did a couple 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.000 of years ago, right, Like, like, these are not just 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.880 like pulp books. They're not like soft covers, right, Like 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.760 some of these are written on parchment or their palap sests. Right, 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.000 So I mean he's got like a serious collection here 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.800 in The books are unique too. Yeah. In many cases, 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:23.840 these would be books where you're wanting to read them, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:25.760 you might ask arounding and you would find out, oh, well, 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.199 Dr D has a copy of that. You should go 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.400 ask him. Maybe you'll get to look at it. Here's 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.560 another interesting thing I wanted to point out as well. 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.960 There's no evidence that he ever earned a doctoral degree, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.360 but he was always referred to as Dr D. Kind 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:45.440 of interesting. Now. In a fifteen sixty four he published 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.440 the Hieroglyphic Monad, in which he offered a single mathematical 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:54.000 magical symbol as the key to unlocking, uh, the the 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.560 unity of nature. Yeah, and this, I mean, I guess 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.720 we'll maybe like post this on the landing page or 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:01.760 something thing we we actually shared or you shared it 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.320 on Facebook yesterday, kind of teasing the audience. Hey, this 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.679 is what we're working on. One person got it and 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.960 they referred to him as the d um but it 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.040 kind of looks like, how do you pronounce that that 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:17.040 German industrial band ein Stretton's nine streas into a new Boton. Yeah, 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.520 it does. In fact, I had to to look up 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.000 a New Boton's logo just to make sure that they 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.200 weren't too similar to them. Like, I never thought about 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.920 this before, but you know, they're two distinct symbols, but 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.879 they are reminiscent of one another. Yeah, very much so. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:33.679 For some reason, I also find it looks like it 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:35.480 kind of looks like it could be a character from 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.399 a SpongeBob cartoon. I don't know. It does have like 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.040 an anthropologic quality to it, of like a head with 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.879 arms and legs and then like devil's horns. Yeah, or 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.880 it makes me think of the the aliens from Slaughterhouse 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.080 Five for some reason, the ones. It was like an 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.080 eye on a hand. I can't remember the name of him, 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.600 but at any rate, this was his there's his lands 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:59.200 and Slaughterhouse five. Yeah, there's a there's an alien zoo 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.840 for humans. I forgot all about that, but okay, I 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:08.080 just think about the horrors of world Mongola do so 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.399 in fifteen seventy he created the first English translation of 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:17.040 Euclid's Elements and added an influential preface that offered a 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:21.639 powerful manifesto en quote the dignity and usefulness of the 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:26.040 mathematical sciences, and he seems to certainly have highly regarded 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.240 mathematics is the key to understanding the natural world, but 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.280 also believed in the value of the occult to unlock 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:36.040 the deeper mysteries of the universe. And again, his ideas 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.920 of the occult and mathematics are kind of intertwined. This 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:41.879 is definitely going to be a theme that we returned 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.480 to over and over again in these episodes. Mathematics is 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.600 like the through line for him, whether or not he's 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.360 trying to talk to angels or if he's just trying 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.520 to plot out maps for people to discover the Northwest Passage. Yeah, 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.359 I feel like his mind was inherently mathematic if he 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:59.440 if he had lived in our age, I feel like 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.440 he would under probably be a hacker, right or a 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.080 high level program in addition to to whatever else he 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.440 was into. The History special compared him to Stephen Hawking, 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.440 and I thought that was an interesting comparison. Although I'm 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.040 still I'm still trying to. I don't know if there's 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.560 anybody alive that that really has these two things together. 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.240 You're right, Lily and Jack Parsons are similar. But I'm 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.399 really trying to rack my brain for somebody who's like 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.760 a really influential intellectual but also dabbles in the occult right, 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.520 that's still very much an outsider in his interest and 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:36.120 speaking of being an outsider in his interest three three 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.280 through fifteen eighty nine, in order to unlock the deeper 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.400 mysteries of the universe, de sought communication with angelic entities 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.840 with the aid of convicted counterfeitter towards turned occult sensation 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.199 Edward Kelly, who's a very complex character and of himself 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.040 into Kelly. Uh So, so these two end up running 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:00.679 around conducting seances in England, Poland and Bohemia and have 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:07.280 this rather volatile partnership. So it's like something out of 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.679 a reality TV show, like oh, you know how like 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.440 every time on the show, on this show, when when 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:15.719 we do some of these historical characters are like, oh, 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:19.600 this would make a great amc H show. The Dr 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.440 D Edward Kelly's show would be amazing because it would 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:27.720 be like them constantly like conniving behind one another's backs, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:30.280 and then sitting in a room looking into a crystal ball, 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.359 talking to angels, and then like trying to figure out 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.960 how to sleep with one another's wives. Yeah, this is 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:40.719 another situation where d described Kelly as a friend and 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:44.560 it makes me wonder, like what it makes me question his, uh, 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:48.200 his criteria for friendship because he talks about Kelly who 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.920 was arguably a scoundrel and may have been conning him 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.000 half the time at least. And then there's Queen Elizabeth, 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.080 who you know, there's no way they were really friends. 0:22:58.080 --> 0:22:59.439 They were you know, like I say, as much of 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.080 a friendship. So you could have with the Queen of England, Uh, 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.040 that bishop I mentioned earlier. Yeah, and then his his 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.840 his the warden of his prison essentially at the time. 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:10.880 So I don't know, I don't know if he ever 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:15.320 really got friendship exactly, but it's difficult in life. So 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:20.240 Kelly and him, they they end up going to essentially 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:24.160 Poland and then Bohemia, conducting their seances all along the way, 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:27.320 and then they come back. Yeah, that kind of falls 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:32.280 comes back, their their relationship falls apart. He returns to 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.959 England nine to try and try and put things back together. 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.240 He finds his home vandalized, his library has been ransacked. Uh, 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:42.359