Volume 52, Part 3  2005

Ambix

Contents

John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica. GUEST EDITOR: Stephen Clucas
Editorial Stephen Clucas	195
The Monas Hieroglyphica and the Alchemical Thread of John Dee's Career Nicholas H. Clulee	197
Interpretation and the Hieroglyphic Monad: John Dee's Reading of Pantheus's Voarchadumi Hilde Norrgrén	217
The Early Alchemical Reception of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica Peter J. Forshaw	247
Lady Margaret Clifford's Alchemical Receipt Book and the John Dee Circle Penny Bayer	271
Book Review	285
Notes on Contributors	296

Vol. 52, No.3, pp 197-215, 2005

The Monas Hieroglyphica and the Alchemical Thread of John Dee's Career

NICHOLAS H. CLULEE, Frostburg State University, Maryland, USA

Alchemy was a significant cultural current in the sixteenth century, and Dee was an important part of this. The Monas Hieroglyphica of 1564 has often been seen as the major expression of Dee's engagement with alchemy, but his involvement with the art did not begin and end in 1564. He avidly collected and studied alchemical works from the "classics" to the most up-to-date Paracelsian literature. He attempted to master the art of alchemy through experimental practice. He sought to transcend the limits of human learning with the instruction of the angels in Adam's true alchemy. Despite the frustration of his loftiest aspirations, his most enduring legacy was his integration of alchemy with his natural philosophy in the Monas Hieroglyphica. The Monas Hieroglyphica was a daring and inventive proposal for a symbolic language that had the power to reveal the divine plan of creation, to explain the workings of the material world in the principles of alchemy, and to assist the mystic ascent of the soul. Here alchemy finds a place within his conviction of the mathematical nature of divine creation, and the unity of the heavens and the earth. The cosmos may be understood by mastering the language of the geometrical cabbala of the real, which speaks the truths of alchemy and astronomy, and permits the magus to attain the exalted status of adept. In the alchemical dimension of the Monas Hieroglyphica, Dee participated in an important new direction taken by alchemy in the Renaissance, and provided one foundation for the spiritual idea of alchemy.

Vol. 52, No.3, pp 217-245, 2005

Interpretation and the Hieroglyphic Monad: John Dee's Reading of Pantheus's        Voarchadumia

HILDE NORRGREN, University of Oslo, Norway

John Dee's marginalia in his copy of Johannes Pantheus's Voarchadumia (now in the British Library) are an interesting source of information about the development of Dee's scientific ideas in the period between the Propaedeumata Aphoristica (1558) and the Monas Hieroglyphica (1564). In reading the book, Dee has systematically compared the text with Pantheus's earlier work, the Ars Metallicae, and noted any differences between the two largely identical works. Therefore, most of Dee's comments are not indications of his own interests, as has previously been assumed. Only the marginalia that are not concerned with comparing the two texts can be taken to express Dee's own views. These marginalia, probably written in 1559, provide evidence that Dee had already at this time a strong interest in cabbalistic methods as a means of gaining knowledge about natural substances. Cabbalistic speculation was to be central to Dee's thought in the Monas Hieroglyphica, and has previously been taken to indicate a dramatic change in Dee's scientific outlook, towards a spiritual quest. In his marginalia in the Voarchadumia, however, Dee appears to be using cabbalistic methods to gain information on wholly material, non-spiritual matters. The abundant use of the symbol of the hieroglyphic monad in the marginalia provides a further source of insight into the alchemical import of the symbol, five years before the publication of the Monas Hieroglyphica.

Vol. 52, No.3, pp 247-269, 2005

The Early Alchemical Reception of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica

PETER J. FORSHAW, Birkbeck College, University of London

Brian Vickers once described John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica as "possibly the most obscure work ever written by an Englishman," asking whether there were even ten references to it in the seventeenth century. This article considers Dee's reputation as an alchemist, in particular the reception of his Monas Hieroglyphica, in Latin, French, and German texts published in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and examines two themes: first, discussion of the Monas Hieroglyphica in the context of cabbalistic calculations and Pythagorean symbolic numbers; and second, references to, and appropriations of, the hierogIyphic monad in the context of chemical notation. It shows how Dee's work was read by alchemists influenced by Trithemius's exposition of the Emerald Tablet, including major promulgators of Paracelsian thought such as Gerard Dorn, Oswald Croll, Joseph Duchesne, and Heinrich Khunrath. The article also notes how the Monas Hieroglyphica appealed to purveyors of both physical and more theosophical forms of alchemy, such as the Rosicrucian Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. It concludes with a discussion of the somewhat surprising approval of Dee's enigmatic work from one who was utterly antagonistic to Paracelsian and Rosicrucian philosophy, the chemist Andreas Libavius, who openly admitted to using the hieroglyphic monad as the basis for the ground plan for his ideal laboratory.

Vol. 52, No.3, pp 271-284, 2005

Lady Margaret Clifford's Alchemical Receipt Book and the John Dee Circle

PENNY BAYER, University of Warwick

This first detailed analysis of "Lady Margaret Clifford's Alchemical Receipt Book," held in the Cumbrian Record Office, examines the basis for its association with Lady Margaret Clifford (1560-l616), placing particular emphasis on the connections in the manuscript book with the John Dee circle. After a brief introduction to the manuscript, which for brevity is referred to as The Margaret Manuscript, I describe the external evidence for its association with Lady Margaret, and discuss internal evidence within the manuscript that suggests links with the John Dee circle, in several ways - by source of receipts, signs of ownership and possible authorship, and access to Paracelsian books. Finally, I examine Lady Margaret's connections with John Dee, and suggest that she had the opportunity to obtain receipts and access to library material for the manuscript during her visit to Dee's Mortlake home in l593 and through intermediaries with Dee at Manchester during the period 1597-1600. A hypothesis for one of the main hands in the manuscript is put forward: that the alchemist-vicar Christopher Taylour compiled the receipt book for Lady Margaret by liaising on her behalf with members of the Dee-Kelley circle.