Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations and Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I Genesis
- 1 The Colloquium of Angels: Prague, 1586
- 2 Building Jacob's Ladder: The Genesis of the Angel Conversations
- 3 Climbing Jacob's Ladder: Angelology as Natural Philosophy
- Part II Revelations
- Epilogue
- Select Bibliography
- Index
3 - Climbing Jacob's Ladder: Angelology as Natural Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations and Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I Genesis
- 1 The Colloquium of Angels: Prague, 1586
- 2 Building Jacob's Ladder: The Genesis of the Angel Conversations
- 3 Climbing Jacob's Ladder: Angelology as Natural Philosophy
- Part II Revelations
- Epilogue
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Unlike other things alive –
Birds that wing their way through air
Fish that in chill waters dive
Beasts that tread the earth
and leave their footprints there –
Man, by reason made aware,
Solely judges and discerns;
Man approaches angels by the things he learns.
Francesco Stelluti in Galileo Galileo's Assayer, 1623For a decade after the “Mathematical Preface” a veil falls over our knowledge of John Dee's interest in intermediary agencies, his commitment to ascending to the supernatural levels of the cosmos, his fascination with universal sciences, and his provocative “archemastrie.” The veil lifts in 1581, just as Dee was about to enter into his collaboration with Edward Kelly, when he addressed a prayer to God explaining how and why he communicated with angels. Today it stands as the preface to the first surviving angel diary. The preface captures another important moment in the history of the conversations, in this case not an ending but a beginning, a moment of reflection for Dee as he made a transition between two scryers and renewed his attempts to climb to the heavens and achieve certain wisdom. The political difficulties Dee would later experience in the Rudolphine court in Prague, the serious danger posed by his overexposure to so many curious eyes, and the struggles he would have with his irascible new scryer were all in the future.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- John Dee's Conversations with AngelsCabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature, pp. 98 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999