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Blurry Photos

Ep 231: John Dee part 1

Blurry Photos

David Flora

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences

4.71.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2019

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dee-viously Dee-lightful history! Flora is back with the beginning of a mega episode all about John Dee! Conjurer, magus, sorcerer, astrologer - these are but a few things the 16th century polymath John Dee was called. History knows him as a smart man who chose an occult path. He cast horoscopes. Talked with angels. Practiced alchemy. Continually searched for the secrets of the universe through math and natural science. But history often paints with a harsh light. What was this enigmatic genius really like? Was he the sorcerer and mysterious advisor to Elizabeth I that he's portrayed as? Or has he been maligned, misunderstood, and misrepresented? David has hit the books to get to the real man behind the myth. In the first of 2 parts, the first half of this interesting man's life is covered. He also hits some very fascinating history, with such figures as Gerardus Mercator, Francis Drake, and more. Part 2 will cover the second half of Dee's life, including his occult practices and scrying with Edward Kelley. Grab your cross staff and rent a room for calculing, you'll be traipsing through some fun history on this episode of Blurry Photos! Music Myst on the Moor, Ghostpocalypse - 8 Epilog, Ghostpocalypse - Crossing the Threshold, Wizardtorium - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0   Sea Of Thieves by Serge Narcissoff | https://soundcloud.com/sergenarcissoff Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Gavotte - French Dances of the Renaissance
Ancient Instrument Ensemble of Paris Missa Nigra Sum - Kyrie by Palestrina Performed by Stanislav Ossovskiy Qui Tollis by WA Mozart European Archive, Public Domain Trois Gnossienne by Satie Performed by Edward Rosser, Public Domain Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky European Archive, Public Domain Concerto for 2 Trumpets in C by Vivaldi Arranged by Michel Rondeau, Public Domain Concerto for 2 Violins in A minor by Vivaldi Performed by New Trinity Baroque Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Concerto No. 4 in F minor Winter, by Vivaldi Performed by the USAF Concert Band, Public Domain Concerto in E major Spring, by Vivaldi Performed by the Modena Chamber Orchestra, Public Domain Concerto No. 4 in F minor Winter, by Vivaldi Performed by the Modena Chamber Orchestra, Public Domain   Sources Bellot, Gabrielle. Finding Refuge in a Queer Vampire Novella. Lithub. Nov 1, 2017. https://lithub.com/finding-refuge-in-a-queer-vampire-novella/
  • Woolley, Benjamin. The Queen's Conjurer: the Life and Magic of Dr Dee. Harper Press. London. 2001. Print. Get a copy HERE
  • Louv, Jason. John Dee and the Empire of Angels. Inner Traditions. Vermont. 2018. Print. Get a copy HERE
  • Sherman W.H. John Dee: The politics of reading and writing in the English Renaissance. University of Massachusetts Press; Amherst, MA: 1995.
  • Devine, Michael J. John Prestall: A Complex Relationship with the Elizabethan Regime. University of Wellington. 2009. Web. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41339754.pdf
  • O'Conner and Robertson. John Dee. School of Math and Stats, U. of St. Andrews, Scotland. 2002. Web. http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Dee.html
  • Rampling, Jennifer. John Dee and the Sciences: Early Modern Networks of Knowledge. Elsevier, Ltd. Cambridge. 2012. Web. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3778877/

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is sponsored by Overcast, an independent podcast app that embraces the open world of

0:05.8

podcasting instead of locking it down. No exclusives, no premium content, no paywalls, just a great

0:11.9

podcast app for everyone.

0:14.0

Get it for free in the app store. This tale is a tragedy.

0:27.0

Its themes are grandiose, its players are larger than life. Its ending is not a happy

0:40.0

one. It's a tale of reality, the reality of struggling for fantasy and the outcomes all

0:48.8

too often provided by the cold indifference of life.

0:53.6

It's a tale of philosophy, of holding to virtues, of yearning for spiritual perfection, of grappling

1:01.0

with one's own preservation, both body and soul.

1:05.0

It's a tale of love, spiritual, physical, monetary,

1:12.0

a tale of addiction, compulsion, bad timing, worse luck. And it's set against the backdrop

1:20.0

of an incredibly exciting and fascinating period of history and draped in the enchanting and mysterious motifs

1:28.0

of occultism, astrology, and alchemy. This tale centers on the life and works of John Dee. One of the brightest

1:39.9

minds of the late English Renaissance, D's advice was highly sought on various subjects early

1:46.2

on in his career, not least of which by Queen Elizabeth I.

1:52.4

But for all his learning and connections to upper echelons of society, his path in life was

1:58.8

bizarrely fraught with hardship and strange twists and turns.

2:05.0

His studies led him to chase lofty concepts

2:08.0

and seek assistance from supernatural sources,

2:11.0

higher powers than those of Queens and emperors on earth.

2:16.9

His search for the secrets which lay in the language of the angels from before the fall of man

2:22.4

led to his pinning of several books which have greatly influenced

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