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