John Dee's Angels

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I communicating with angels? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Egyptologist Garry J. Shaw to explore the intriguing life of John Dee, his mysterious meetings with angels and demons and the secrets he believed they uncovered. With help from the enigmatic alchemist Edward Kelly, Dee wrote the Angel Diaries detailing his attempts to communicate with the divine, and the secrets of the celestial language they believed could unlock the universe’s mysteries. Suzannah uncovers the complex relationship between Dee and Kelly, the apocalyptic visions, the inexplicable return of the burned manuscripts, and the dramatic breakdown after a scandalous wife-swapping decree.

Practical Magic: Prayers, Spells & Cunning Folk

https://open.spotify.com/episode/218bX6v64pMYZEEJT9sxE6

Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Alice Smith, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.
0:02.6	If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
0:10.5	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:16.0	including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release every week.
0:25.2	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:32.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to not just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise.
0:46.8	Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
1:03.4	Tuesday, 26 of March, 1583.
1:07.5	Two men sit in an incense-filled, candlelit chamber in Malt Lake, on the outskirts of London.
1:13.9	They are John D, mathematician and astrologer and trusted advisor to Queen Elizabeth I,
1:19.3	and his enigmatic companion, the alchemist Edward Kelly.
1:23.5	They're seated around a table they deem to be holy and are attempting to pierce the veil between worlds.
1:29.8	Kelly's eyes fix on a polished crystal as Dee prepares to document Kelly's every word and every vision.
1:37.0	Suddenly, in a swirling cloud, the Archangel Raphael materializes, so Kelly claims,
1:42.8	and proceeds to offer not just guidance, but a key to the
1:46.1	universe itself, the lost language of angels, a primordial tongue spoken by Adam, the very words
1:52.9	with which the first man gave names to the life around him in the Garden of Eden.
1:58.2	The angel promises to teach Dee this celestial language, so potent that it can
2:03.2	unlock the secrets of the cosmos and even hasten the coming apocalypse. What follows as a feverish
2:09.7	cascade of calligraphic symbols and scripts, D entranced transcribes as the angel dictates
2:15.8	through Kelly letter by letter, word by word.
2:19.8	Over the next 39 days, the men receive not only the alphabet, but entire texts in this mysterious language,
	...

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