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Read researched articles and historical primers on alchemy, Gnosticism, ceremonial magic, grimoires, and the Western esoteric tradition. Every article connects back to a book.
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Matching John Dee.
Prague, 27 March 1587. Two English alchemists stand summoned before a bishop of the Church, accused of necromancy, in a city where the Emperor keeps…
In September 1583 a Polish aristocrat slipped out of England after four months of banquets, borrowed money, and conversations with angels.
In 1659 a London printer named D. Maxwell, working for the bookseller T. Garthwait, issued one of the strangest volumes of the century: the private diaries…
In the spring of 1587, in a castle town in Bohemia, two Englishmen and their wives signed a document they believed God himself had demanded. The men were Dr.
Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, and the dream became a symptom.
In February 1570 a foldout sheet left John Day's London press tucked inside the first English translation of Euclid's Elements.
Over twelve days in January 1564, if we take him at his word, John Dee wrote out one of the strangest books in the alchemical canon.
From Monas Hieroglyphica
Open a copy of the 1570 English Euclid to the propositions on solid geometry and the page rises to meet you.
On 25 January 1564, in a printer's house in Antwerp, an English mathematician put down his pen and declared a short book finished.
From Monas Hieroglyphica
On the evening of 17 April 1584, in a rented house on Szczepańska Street in Cracow, Edward Kelley stood up in the middle of a session, told John Dee that…
Open a copy of A True and Faithful Relation and the first thing you meet is not Dee's diary but a wall of preliminary matter: a title page promising…
On the evening of 3 May 1591, at an inn in the little town of Sobeslav south of Tabor, a tired Englishman lay down for an after-dinner sleep.