==== next - exerpt from 'Alchemical ENIGMA' new book from Teresa Burns- with Vincent Bridges
Others say that the knowledge of the Art was restored by Hermes Trismegistus, whose mind was a treasury of all arts and sciences; and alchemists are still called sons of Hermes.
Edward Kelley
The Theatre of Terrestrial Astronomy
Once upon a time, there was a young squire named Wolfram who had the good fortune to travel with his Emperor to Arles for his coronation as King. While there he heard the first whispers of a new legend concerning something that would be called the Holy Grail. Later, after Chretien's attempt at the story had become the equivalent of a medieval bestseller, Wolfram tried his hand at the yarn. He claimed that he had a better source and deeper insight into the story, and went on to create one of the true classics of the Middle Ages, Parzival.
Wolfram's version had many significant departures from Chretien's original narrative. The most significant concerned the nature of the Grail itself. In Wolfram's Parzival, the Grail is not a cup or a plate, or even a series of holy objects, it is a Stone, the stone of exile, or the stone that fell from heaven, depending on how you read Wolfram's pun. This change removes the Grail story from its supposedly Christian roots and places it in a whole different realm, that of alchemy.
We know that much of the Grail legend has its origin in Provence and southern France in general. Wolfram would also write a romance set in Septimania and Provence, and even Parzival can be largely mapped to southern France. But where did the idea that the Grail was a magical meteorite originate? That component cannot be traced to southern France; its closest cognates are all Middle Eastern, including Abraham's flaming torch, the Kaaba Stone and even the Cybele stone from central Turkey. So how did these stories become part of the Grail Legend for Wolfram?
The answer to our question takes us in an unusual direction, toward Bohemia. Wolfram claimed to be a Bavarian, but the probable location of his birthplace, somewhere in eastern Bavaria, makes him a subject of the King of Bohemia at the time of his birth. These were at best fluid loyalties, all tied to the person of the Holy Roman Emperor. After the death of Frederick Barbarossa, the Empire went into a period of anarchy and near civil war. We know that Wolfram fought in these wars, but we have no clues as to when, where or for whom. Curiously enough, one of the most likely places for Wolfram to have campaigned is Bohemia.
Ottokar I, "King" or Duke of Bohemia, spent these years scheming and playing one off the other in the Imperial struggles in order to secure for his family clear title to the rulership of Bohemia. It is likely that Wolfram either fought with Ottokar and Phillip of Swabia, or against them, in the period in which he was composing Parzival. Perhaps he even visited Prague while the ancient fortress at Vysehrad dominated it. That unfortunately, we will never know...
But the likelihood that Wolfram was in Bohemia at some point is very good, and as a careful listener to the local storytellers, he would have heard a curious legend.
Long ago, soon after the creation of the world but before man appeared, God and the Evil One fought a great battle in heaven. The Evil One lost, and was cast down into the far north of the world. As the archangel Michael struck the Evil One, a splinter from the great Green Stone was struck off and also fell to earth, landing in eastern Bohemia and Moravia. This essentially Persian/Iranian legend was told to explain the vast amounts of green glass-like stone found throughout the region.
In Wolfram's imagination, this became the Grail Stone, the stone of exile and the stone that fell from heaven at the same time. But how did the story, originally Persian, get to Bohemia? Archeology has the answer, and it seems that soon after the Islamic conquest of Persia in the late 7th century groups of Zoroastrians began to migrate north and west into central Europe. By the 8th century, there were centers of Persian Mithraism in several places in central Bohemia, including Prague, where a Persian fire altar occupied the center of the old town, just about where Tynsky Chram is today. A century or so later, Bohemia became officially Christian, and the local legends got a gloss of Biblical authority. By the time Wolfram likely heard the story, it was as an extension of Genesis.
That Kelley was a major influence on the history of alchemy in Europe is without doubt. His influence was strongest in Central Europe, but over the next century his works and ideas on alchemy spread from Bohemia to Germany, France and England. Along with Dr. Dee’s Monas Hieroglphica, Kelley’s work formed a cornerstone of Rosicrucianism. As his fame grew, so did his reputation, and it took on many of the components of the Faust legends, leading us to suspect that Kelley might have been one of the influences on Marlowe’s version.
(Teresa Burns writes:) I'd give two answers: the "magic book" must be both John Dee's spiritual diaries as distilled into Sloane ms 3191,
and the Folger Shakespeare Libraries "Magic book" referenced in this article.
Dr. John Dee, Elizabeth I’s court astrologer and the original secret agent 007, and Sir Edward Kelley, a mysterious occultist with a sinister past, are sent by the Angelic Beings on an apocalyptic missionary journey that draws in none other than a young poet and spy named Will Shakespeare. Their travels take them to Prague, a Gothic fairy tale of a city, ruled by the half-mad Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II who believes in Hermetic science and has a grudge against the Catholic Church. In this arena of politics and magic, intrigue and espionage, and against the backdrop of the Spanish Armada and Dee and Kelley’s angelic conversations, wife-swapping, and alchemy, Shakespeare grows from a wide-eyed innocent into the greatest playwright of all time, discovering his real talents, and finding the great themes of his future plays in his own experiences, including his tempestuous romance with the Dark Lady of the sonnets.
==
New Story Plotline
© VB/TB 2009, © VB 2011
(Dan-- this is the project Vincent and I started together --still have the signed documents to prove that-
As far as the plot below: I had different ideas about what should be included as a focus, but clearly the plot was going to be the way he wanted it, not the way I wanted it, which might have been fine except what he wanted, when he returned from Prague the first time, totally changed in head-spinning ways. Now, I’d asked what focus would better serve the higher awareness of the audience who is watching, and revise accordingly. I think many people care about personal transformation, and only a few care much at all about Shakespeare, Dee and Kelley did 400 years ago. So they need to be in service to the larger story of alchemy—which is what I see you doing in your outline—rather than the alchemy story being in service of what great alchemists this person or that person was.
Act One
Prologue – Dissolve from credits to montage of Kenilworth Progress, very dreamlike showing Leicester and Arden, Bride Ale Pageant, storytelling Captain, the Queen, etc. Voice-over comments…
Part One –
A) Flow into Dyer and Will coming into Prague from west, driving a rickety one horse coach past Billa Hora and royal forest preserve, then stopping for the night at monastery. Dyer spots the Archduke Ferdinand at the spring, and uses the sighting as an excuse to talk to Will, finally, concerning their mission. They are to find two important people, Dr. John Dee, the Queen’s friend and sort of wizard, “head intelligencer,” and his partner, co-conspirator or common swindler, Edward Kelley. “there’s more than a whiff of brimstone around the man…” Dee is Dyer’s main concern, but Kelley could be playing a very deep game. “Sir Francis knows him well, and Sidney met him once or twice… what he is doing with Dee, and why, in God’s great goodness, are they here? That’s our goal… And whatever you do, don’t stare at his ears…” Dyer stresses the importance of the mission, noting that he should be at Sidney’s side in the Low Countries instead of pursuing this kind of chimera in Prague’s cauldron of intrigue. “The Emperor is mad, and his brother is pure evil. The factions of Europe, from the Pope to the Emperor’s uncle the King of Spain, to Maltese Knights and Venetian bankers, are all here, circling like carrion…” Dyer explains the cover story… they are coming from the Emperor of Muscovy to ask about employing Dee as a scholar… Will is to speak as little as possible, and then in bad Latin.
B) Early morning trip down old road, past the bulk of the castle to the right then switching back to reveal a panorama of Prague, down through edge of Mala Strana, the Little Town, to Stone Bridge, and over to Old Town. They stop at the Black Star in Karlova Street, where Dyer engages two small upper floor rooms, and Will is sent to deal with the horse and coach. Will has spent a few months in London and Westminster, plus traveling across the German States with Dyer, but he has never experienced anything like Imperial Prague. Every race and language in Europe was represented, along with their food, leisure activities and religions. Will finds a stable near Old Town Square, and then is drawn into a solemn procession. It is the Feast Day of The Erection of the Holy Cross, September 14th, and the ancient Byzantine Catholic rite is taking its relics up to the cathedral inside the castle. Will follows along, through a climb up through newly rebuilt Little Town below the castle and up what seemed like an endless staircase to the Old Palace itself and the front of the cathedral, glowing with mosaic scenes from the Bible stories. Will is swept up and goes inside with the procession. The imagery is overwhelming; he has a vision of the shining ones and the light settles on one of the court ladies standing to the left of main altar. She is dark and sparkling, and Will, full of Dante and Petrarch and Sidney, falls in love with the weight of a revelation. As he leaves the church, he feels transformed, and the whole city, walking down from the castle, seems to glow with its own internal light.
C) Dyer has also been busy, collecting rumors about Dee and Kelley. He and Will spend a few days frequenting markets and taverns in Old Town, and listening to many of the local legends, including a vigorous rendition of the Faust story. They soon discover that Dee and Kelley are in Trebon, in southern Bohemia. They have been exiled, under pressure from the Vatican and the Spanish Ambassador, to the estate of Villem Rosenburg. Dyer and Will prepare for the trip, but are continually delayed. Dyer is afraid to leave Prague and his sources of information as things have taken a disastrous turn in the Netherlands. Sidney is wounded and dying near Zutphen, where Leicester and his allies have taken a sharp defeat. Dyer frets and Will loafs, roaming the city looking another glimpse of his vision, his Dark Lady…Just after the weather turns cold and wet and raw, Dyer and Will depart for Trebon. The trip takes two weeks, but by early December they arrive at Majdalena outside Trebon.
Part Two –
A) Two weeks on the road brings them to a small but prosperous village on December 8th. Rosenburg has a new town house in the center of the village, but Dee and Kelley are housed in the old castle a few miles outside the town. The place is spacious, but rather ramshackle, and most of it seems to be below ground in the maze of crypts and cellars. No one is there to greet them and the place seems almost deserted except for a few children and an old caretaker. The castle consists of a three story square tower, with the top floor semi-collapsed, along with a long farmhouse, a kitchen and some stables - a cluster of small houses with a lumpish looking Rathaus in their midst marks the crossroads - and sundry out buildings, enclosed by a crumbling stone wall and a moat mostly filled with generations of debris and garbage, the scene was far from the splendid manors of the court or even Rosenburg’s other houses. A roundish and seemingly ancient chapel stands just outside the wall.
Slowly the household emerges, the ladies, Jane Dee and Joanna Kelley, appear first bustling about their midday duties. A Latin tutor materializes and gathers the children. Dee huffs up - having been out on his morning constitutional and seen the coach coming up the road from Trebon - out of breath and somewhat harried. He apologizes profusely for not being there to greet them, and at the height of the commotion Kelley emerges from one of the crypts under the chapel, looking as if he had slept in his clothes, which he had, and deep in thought. He passes the group without seeing them and only at the entrance of the tower does he turn back to greet them. His hair is pushed back and the serrated edges of his ears poke through his hair. Will keeps staring at them. Dee makes them as comfortable as possible, as there is a shortage of beds, and the ladies lay in an early supper. Dyer and Dee are talking about the news from England and the lowlands while Kelley drinks and broods. Young Will can’t seem to keep his eyes off Kelley’s ears, so Kelley decides to provoke him. “Do you know how I got these ears?” No, Will answers. “Well sir, if you did know then, I’d probably have to kill you.” Will is shocked, but replies that all he knows is how funny they look. Kelley looks at him blankly then roars with laughter.
B) The weather turns bad, cold and damp with a constant drizzle and this odd collection of people are forced to stay indoors and basically underfoot. Dee is writing and conferring with Dyer, Kelley is apparently off in the crypts and Will is left with the ladies and servants. He plays Latin words games with Lizzie-Jane Kelley, works on his sonnet and talks with Jane Dee, who reminds him of Anne back in Stratford, and flirts with Joanna Kelley. Kelley appears infrequently, coming up from the crypts smelling of hellfire and moldy earth to drink himself insensible, rant about his destiny and the wrongs done him since birth, and generally disturb the smooth workings of the household. Will sees that Kelley has little use for his own wife and even less for Jane Dee, and somehow this makes him even more remote and sinister. Dee, whose main fault is that he loves the sound of own voice spouting platitudes, takes an interest in Will and tries to include him in his talks with Dyer. Will however is caught in the thrall of the spell back in Prague, and all he can do is work on his sonnet. “Therefore my mistress’ brows are raven black…”
C) One morning a week or so after their arrival, Kelley appears looking fresh and washed for the morning meal. He apologizes for his late temperament his mind has been on his work, but his work has reached a successful conclusion. “Gentlemen, if you so wish it, I will perform the magnum opus, right here in the crypt of this god-forsaken hovel, so that all may know that only from the lowliest, may come the Highest.” Everyone spends the day in a twitter, Kelley heads for Trebona and returns just before sunset. Jane cooks her Christmas goose a few days early, and after everyone is full and bursting with anticipation, the men head off to the chapel and its crypt. After a few narrow turns, they arrive at an old Romanesque vault, circular with a single giant pillar in the center, that Kelley has completely filled with alchemical equipment. As Dee explains the basic theory, and adds some extensive and comprehensive prayers, Kelley takes a lump of badly smelted lead, dumps it into a crucible and begins to heat it up. The room takes on a hellish glow and fills with the sharp tang of molten metal. Dee begins to pray in a language Will has never heard before as Kelley strains his crucible and stirs his lead. Kelly then takes the fresh wax he brought from town and shakes a few grains from the bottom of a small flask on to it. He wraps it into a ball between his thumb and forefinger and holds it above the crucible.
As Dee and Kelley begin a chant in unison in the strange language, Kelley drops the ball into the lead and covers the crucible. Silent falls; except for Dee’s quiet prayers and the knocking of Dyer’s knees, as Kelley sets a sequence of hourglasses. They wait, as the room grows dark and the air thick. Finally, Kelley relights the fire, moves the crucible and places it on the small wooden table in the center of the room. They gather around, and Kelley opens the cover and tilts the still molten liquid toward the light. “Gold, gentlemen, the great work is accomplished.” Kelley promises to give Dyer the crucible to show to whomever he thought best, then poured the gold into a mold.
D) Will didn’t remember how he got to his room on the ruined third floor that night. He dreamed, or lay in the dark and watched his visions on the back of his eyelids, until dawn. He remembered the Faust stories that he had heard in Prague and Dyer’s sneering appraisal of Kelley, and it grew into a conviction that he had just flirted with eternal damnation. But the next morning, the house seems so normal, and the weather brightens and so Will begins to feel better. He decides to find out just who these people really are, and what they are really doing, not just do his job and spy on them. He would figure it all out, and somehow that would get him back to Prague, back to the Dark Lady and perhaps, even to meet her.
Act Two -
Part One -
A) Dyer leaves for England with his crucible and packets of letters as soon as he can hire a better coach and horses. Young Will is left behind, without so much as an explanation, and everyone at the castle just assumes that he is meant to be there. Kelley and Dee hold endless discussions in languages Will can’t follow, and, as Jane has cooked the Christmas dinner a week early, the holidays are gloomy and slightly sad. It snows for two days and by the 26th everyone is in need of a little recreation. Jane gathers the group in the main hall and has a huge fire built and declares that they will have a merry holiday, or she will not be pleased. Joanna sings hymns and plays the small virginal, Dee tells a tall tale about the Christmas processionals at Cambridge. Even Kelley adds a gloomy tale of the Illyrian Duke and the Lady of Cyprus who loved him so much she became his servant just to be with him, and then wins his love while wooing his lady for him. A few mugs of warm spiced wine and the room sparkles with jokes, including a great deal of witticism on Dee’s choice of a nom de guerre for Will, Francis Garland. As this dies down, everyone turns to the young stranger in their midst. Tell us a tale, Will, the ladies urge him. Will says he knows no tales worthy of the company but the ladies nag him to at least tell his own story. Dee looks worried, buried in his beard and frowning, and Kelley seems bored. Will has no choice and so launches into his story – Stratford, his father, the vision at Kenilworth, his service in the north, then his uncle’s execution, the satirical ballad on Sir Thomas Lucy’s gate, being forced into service to Queen, having such hope only to see nothing come of it but a wife he didn’t even know, children that weren’t his, a small town life that seemed to swallow him whole, having to leave the twins and Susannah behind, London, rootless and lost on the road to Trebona. The plain tone and the quiet intensity of his pain moved the entire group. Dee says he will pray for him, Jane mothers him. Kelley, deeply moved, announces that Shakespeare has a new job, as his secretary. “Brother Garland,” Kelley declares, “we are your family now.” Will, speechless, stumbles up to his drafty bedchamber.
B) The next day, Dee and Kelley seem to have reached a conclusion. Dee will stay in Trebona and keep the alchemical experiments going while Kelly heads to Prague for more supplies and Rosenburg’s wedding, an event foretold by the angels but whose accomplishment had awaited the completion of the great work. Joanna of course wants desperately to go, Jane as well, but less so. However, Kelley is clear that he can’t do what he needs to do with a large family and servants along. This trip is light and lean, focused on important business, not a social occasion. Joanna sulks, but there is nothing she can do. Dee is quite happy to stay at the castle; he’s not fond of court functions in general. The experiments are set in order and early on the 30th, Kelley and Will set off to Prague. They arrive mid afternoon the next day at Kelley’s hideaway on the fringe of the Old Thief’s Market near Beggar’s Square behind Tynsky Chram. Kelley sheds his identity with his clothes and becomes Quick Eddie, the darling of the demi-monde of the Imperial City. Over the next week, Kelley educates Will about life on the underside of the Gothic Fairy Tale. Prague is a city of refugees, wanderers, heretics, criminals, geniuses and Jews, and Kelley is welcomed by various names in every den of iniquity in town. Will follows along, trying to stay out of trouble by being invisible, while Kelley does deals and arranges transactions. They meet Kelley’s “brother,’ Thomas, whom Joanna also claims as her brother, who is a musician at court and Kelley’s main source of information in the Castle. After a week or so, Kelley takes Will to a fine tailor in Mala Strana below the castle and has a suit of formal clothes made for him. Rosenberg’s wedding is coming up.
C) The wedding, on the Sunday of the Feast of Christ’s Baptism, was turning out to be a major event. Rumor had spread that Rosenburg’s marriage was a sign that things had happened on the alchemical front so every alchemist in town, from the lowest puffer to the most advanced philosopher wanted to be there. The wedding was to be a quiet affair at St. Vitus’ after mass, but in order to accommodate the crowd of the curious and the well wishing, Rosenberg was throwing an alchemical masked ball that evening at his palace in Hradcani. Not just the alchemists would be there but the cream of Imperial society. They too, particularly the people who actually ran Rudolph’s Empire, were very interested. Will is dispatched first, with instructions to watch the crowd and notice the alignments of power. Kelley will make his entrance later. As Will is leaving in his Green Lion mask, Kelley has a flash of a premonition and warns against the wiles of Queen Mab who gallops through lover’s dreams and steals their souls. During the long walk up to the garden palaces of the Imperial nobility, Will ponders Kelley’s advice. Arriving early, Will finds a good spot, a cloistered antechamber, from which to watch. He notes the introductions - who talks to Rosenberg and who makes only a perfunctory comment - and hardly notices when an Italian masque begins: an old favorite, Romeo and Juliet. As he watches, he is transported, so caught up in the story that he fails to notice when the music begins and the area in front of him opens into the dance floor. The dancers move like animated symbols, blending and changing like alchemical notations flowing through a beautiful dream. Will notices a richly dressed Diana the Moon Goddess dancing with an elegance that compels him to stare. Moving closer, he realizes that this is his own Dark Lady. She catches his movement in the shadows and carefully arranges to be near him at the end of the measure. A quick curtsy and she vanishes behind the tapestry and into the cloister where Will is standing. Breathless, she grabs his hand and, murmuring something in Czech, pulls him close to her. After a moment, she reaches up and kisses him, removing his mask as she does so. Will is stunned, hardly daring to move or breath but the kiss lights a spark and he returns it full force. After a long moment the music begins again and she pulls away, only to react in shock when she sees his face. He is definitely not who she expected to find and kiss in the cloistered aisle; and she is insulted that he allowed it. Such is clear from her manner and the torrent of quiet, angry Czech, as she vanishes once more back onto the dance floor, merging into the flow without a ripple.
As the music ends, a stir runs through the crowd. Kelley has arrived, dressed as the allegorical alchemist in black and silver with a gold chaplet topping a long black hooded cap. Rosenberg greets him warmly, and introduces him as Magister Dominus Kelley. They chat as the rest of the room shifts itself around to catch the Magister’s eye. Kelley, Will recognizes, is giving the performance of a lifetime, restrained and yet masterful, in complete control of the room and yet open and full of wisdom. This Kelley is the strangest of all to Will. So might the Devil have appeared before the angels to tempt them? There is some magic at work, Will decides, that is far beyond his comprehension. When the dancing begins again, Will notices that his “Diana” has gone, and that the light has left the room with her. He walks back, stimulated and frightened by the kiss, and filled with an odd sense of admiration for his friend and mentor. In less than a month, he has come closer to his Dark Lady than he ever dreamed possible. But where exactly were the shining ones in all this?
D) Two days later, Kelley and Will are up early on the road to Trebona. The air is chill and frosty and patches of leftover snow brighten the brown sameness of the landscape. The breath comes in big smoky explosions as they talk. First off, Kelley wants Will’s report, which he gives in sharp detail. Names were hard to get, but images and devices he remembers clearly, and Kelley is pleased. Kelley is as close to being in a good mood that morning as Will had yet seen. Kelley asks him how he managed at the ball, and Will, who can hardly contain himself, tells the whole story: seeing her at the Cathedral in September with the shining ones, not being able to get the image out of his mind, haunting the Old Town Square for a glimpse of her, how she kissed him at the ball expecting someone else… Kelley laughs so hard he almost falls off his horse. When Will wants to know what’s so funny, Kelley bursts out again. Will is somewhat offended, and rides a while in silence as Kelley mulls things over. “A thousand pardons, good sir,” Kelley apologizes. He explains that he was only partly laughing at Will, but mostly laughing with the Great Joker, Kelley’s sobriet for God, who seems to have taken a great interest young Will lately. Kelley explains about the Feast of the Holy Cross, how it marks a secret, the timing of the coming apocalypse, or lifting of the veil. “Indeed, many think 1588 is the date, but truly learned men know there is one planetary age to go yet.” Kelley refers to the great clock in the Old Town Square and explains that there are cycles within cycles, of which the clock notes only the smallest, or localized scales of life and death. The secret of why alchemy exists can be found in those cycles. “And of course, the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, points to John the Baptist initiating his son or brother Jesus, and holds an especial meaning for those of the Ancient Order, as Rosenberg certainly is. Your Dark Lady fixation has placed you at the center of the great conspiracy, my fine lad, the new Hermetic Brotherhood of the Golden Light of Dawn.”
Kelley doesn’t know who the Lady might be, but he is impressed with Will’s luck all around. Kelley lets him in on the big secret, the Angelic Conversations he and Dee have been having for years. The Angels have stage-managed the whole event and now they have something important in mind. A shift in the planetary age is often disruptive, and this coming shift might see the end of England, and the final victory for Philip II and the Spanish Inquisition, an end of this world, if not of the World. “The Angels have given warning and a certain amount of instruction, but somehow, and soon, I must have the rest of it. Time is short and my tide is high, ‘tis time to sail before the gathering storm.” What about alchemy? Will asks. “That’s one of the keys, a sort of demonstration of principle, which then must be applied on a different level.” Kelley muses a while in silence, “The only question is that of Time, the moment of being and non-being…” Kelley hardly says three words the rest of the trip. Shakespeare composes a sonnet in his head: “If I profane with my unworthiest hand…”
Part Two -
A) Kelley and Young Will ride slowly out from Trebona in a sleet-filled drizzle, pausing at the Rathaus in sight of the castle. Will questions their lack of progress, looking forward to a large fire, food and a warm bed. Kelley replies that he is girding his loins for the scene to come. “ Let him who can tame a shrewd wife, better than thus, let him come to me and fetch ten pounds and a golden purse,” Kelley sings in a quavering comic voice. He then tells Will the story of his and Joanna’s marriage: First husband was one of Dee business partners, his sad end while wool smuggling, Dee arranging the marriage as a way to give Kelley more respectability and a stronger covering identity, their complete lack of sympathy for or understanding of each others desires and drives. “I am afraid that while I have Rosenburg’s fine gift to Jane, I completely overlooked Joanna and so have nothing to even remotely compare.” This side of Kelley also surprises Will. Kelley cares about Joanna, but he doesn’t care for her. Kelley puts a good face on it, and they ride up to the castle.
The scene is as tumultuous as Kelley expected. Jane is pleased to happy tears with Rosenburg’s gift and Kelley’s kindness in bringing it to her, while Joanna sulks and makes unnecessarily pointed and unkind comments. Dee is pleased by everything and stunned when Kelley tells him that Rosenburg is on his way to Trebona and wants Dee and Jane and the family to come travel with him. The household erupts into happy chaos, and eventually Will gets his dinner and moves into Dyer’s old room. Kelley and Joanna can be heard arguing far into the night.
B) Two days later, Kelley is ready to depart for Prague and points eastward. Will finds that his status has changed again. Dee and Kelley have held long conversations, some including Will, and it is decided that Lucky Will, as Kelley now calls him, will be instructed in the arcane arts. Dee gives him a pile of manuscripts, The Monas with its commentary, the Aphorisms, Agripa, Trithemious, and various ancient texts to copy including the Black Venus, along with instructions on what to study, and what to analyze. Will is a little overwhelmed, but anxious to please and genuinely thrilled to be involved as one of the inner circle. He takes his magickal apprenticeship very seriously; including the oaths Dee has him swear. Soon after Kelley’s departure, word comes that Rosenburg is at his new house in town and ready to receive Dee and his family. Within a week, they are gone, leaving only Joanna and her children, the servants and Will at the old castle.
C) They settle quickly into a quiet routine. Joanna gets up early to get the servants in gear, Will soon joins her and they read and study by the kitchen hearth. Joanna reads her romances, and some verses including a few of Sidney’s works, while Will tackles the magical philosophy of the Renaissance, from Agripa to Bruno and back again, all referenced to the Hieroglyphic Monad, and all subject to examination on Dee’s return. Joanna is quiet in the beginning but her natural sociability soon takes hold and she takes every opportunity to interrupt Will, originally with simple comments and concerns, but these quickly turn to a fierce desire to know more about her husband and what is really going on with all the strange people, the house is always full of spies, and the mysterious Angels and the strange smells from the crypt. Will tries to deflect her questions as best he can, remembering the terrible oaths he has sworn to Dee, but constantly suspects that Joanna is reading more into his evasions than he would like. Their talk after a few weeks turns to love, and Will hears her side of the family tragedy, and he reads her his first finished Dark Lady Sonnet: “In the old age black was not counted fair…”
She is impressed and turns up the flirtation a notch. Will, while pleased and somewhat amused, is clearly not interested. The talk of love becomes stilted and soon Joanna is back to prying details of Kelley’s other lives out of him. So it is a relief when Kelley breezes through in mid February. He stays a day or two, and then is off again after Dee and Rosenburg. The Dee’s arrive for a brief stay a few days after Kelley leaves, and then they are off again as well. For another three weeks, the same awkward dance continues, except now Joanna tries her musical skills and sings and plays the virginal every afternoon. Will daydreams about his Dark Lady playing such an instrument and Joanna mistakes his arousal for a sign of interest. Supper is strained, and Will turns in early only to find his sleep interrupted near dawn by a warm and needy Joanna. He turns her down, which is hard, both on him and on her. She takes it badly and makes a scene, rudely commenting on his friendship with Dyer the pederast, and storms out. A few hours later, the whole group, Dee, Jane, the family and Kelley arrive from Trebona.
D) Three days later, just as everyone has settled in and Will been given his written examination, word arrives that one Lord Biberstein, a courier of Rosenburg’s, is at the Inn on the Crumlaw road and wants to talk with Dee and Kelley. They ride off together, and Dee returns before sunset; Kelley has gone with Biberstein, riding away toward Crumlaw. Will is a little nervous that Joanna will return to his chamber, but the night passes quietly. Kelley returns early the next afternoon, and Dee and Kelley take turns giving Will his oral examination. Will passes, but supper is strained by Jane’s exuberant discussion of Dee’s new position with Rosenberg and all the important people she met while away. Joanna tries to ignore it, but is drawn into the discussion against her will when Jane launches into a description of court fashion, including the latest gossip on Joanna’s brother Thomas’ betrothal to one of the Countess’ ladies in waiting. Dee squelches the discussion quickly, and Kelley is oddly amused.
After supper, Dee, Kelley and Will head for the small chapel and more serious discussions. Everything is in place to begin the Third Action, all the players are on the board, and with Lucky Will’s influence the time is exactly right. Kelley gives a brief overview of the previous Angelic conversations: the shaky start back at Mortlake, the slow success at receiving an angelic language, the first glimmers of understanding, the apocalyptic warnings, and then Laski and the call to Prague. Dee adds his perspective, and Will gains a glimpse of why Dee is considered the smartest man on the planet; from navigation to British destiny in the new world to a grasp of continental politics, Dee’s mind is wide ranging and all encompassing. He explains how he and Nostradamus saw all this coming back in the 1560s; how he had worked first for Maximillan II, Rudolph’s father as a book agent and dedicated the very secret material that Will had been studying to the Emperor, how Maximillan II allowed the formation of the Hermetic Brotherhood, which Dee considered a secret college of adepts struggling to bring enlightenment to the increasingly dark world around them. Kelley then continues with the early days in Prague; going first to Cracow with Laski while the arrangements were made for a visit to the Emperor; the first visits to the Castle, their reception, giving the Emperor a few Cabalistic texts, and the unreadable manuscript and vial of projective powders that Kelley had tried to sell Dee at their first meeting. Dee continues with the angelic conversations in Prague and the continued shaky relations with the various court factions. Kelley tells of his dismay at finding that the prized powders were in fact worthless. Dee interjects the wonderful, nay miraculous, discovery of certain mineral sands at the mines outside Prague. That saw the beginning of the first action, basic test of method and theory, and that was completed October last. The second action, that of actually making gold, you saw for yourself in December. Now it is time for the Third Action, which is transforming the nature of the time, the planetary shift of angelic intelligence, just as we transformed lead into gold.
Kelley is silent for a while after Dee finishes. “The first two actions were framed by what we know of the ancients, but the third action is something that is only hinted at. We have little or no guidance so must trust our own in this matter. I have, admittedly, been seeking the wisdom of some pagans” – Will has a flash of the Asiatic house in Prague and thinks he knows which pagans, which makes him smile - “and thinking over some of the texts, such as the Black Venus and I think I have an idea…” Jane, who, using as trivial a contrivance as she can muster, makes her way nosily into the chapel, interrupting them. The meeting adjourns for the night.
The conversations continue over the next week. Jane, to help mollify Joanna and make the household run smoother, introduces her to the ladies at Newhouse in Trebona, This is a small group of Rosenburg’s unmarred and widowed female kin, who had formed a sort of pious Christian coffee klatch around the local cult of the Magdalene. Joanna blossomed and was cheerful as spring slowly crept up and exploded over the landscape. Jane, however, was a different matter. Will always marked the shift at the moment she barged into the chapel, but there had been signs. Simply put, Jane had seen the Light and wanted in on the Big Secret.
Ea) By April 4th, the Third Action was ready to start, timing a half moon cycle that would end on the 18th. The goal was to open contact with the energy of the coming planetary cycle, that of Venus, and simply ask for guidance. This working marks the first real magick for Will. He finds the experience exhilarating and in his mind images from the scrying ball and the alchemical ball mix with the flow of the ritual into a kind of alchemical theatre. For the very first time, he feels that there is something he is good at.
b) But things continued to be strained at the castle. Joanna takes every opportunity to visit at Newhouse, and Jane uses her absence to spend hours talking with Dee. Kelley took up the slack of helping Will with his lessons, but it seemed to Will that Jane was asking Dee almost the same questions. Soon, Jane begins to suggest that Arthur, her son, might in fact be a better scryer than Kelley, particularly if Kelley would teach him. Dee agrees and suggests that they train Arthur to be the seer in the closing Third Action working. Kelley announces that Dee will have to take responsibility for including Arthur; he will have nothing to do with it. Dee prepares the boy and on Wednesday sits him down at the Holy Table with the angelic shewstone present. He struggles, but sees very little. Dee puts him to it again the next afternoon, with even less results. By Friday, Kelley decides to intervene, interrupting their session with a breezy tale of spirits flying around the chapel, then looks in the crystal and delivers a sharp warning about what is to come in the voice of an ancient Goddess.
c) The next day, the 18th and the last day of the working, Kelley returns to the crystal at Dee’s urging after Arthur, seeing nothing, faints dead away. Kelley reports a vision of a naked Madimi, (a somewhat unusual spirit that seems to have been guiding the move to Prague, but which hasn’t been heard from for three years,) who announces an alchemical union of the four, Kelley, Joanna, Dee and Jane, and that nothing is unlawful that is lawful unto God. Kelley professes to be shocked and swears off the entire endeavor. Dee talks him out of it before supper, but Dee’s calm acceptance triggers a powerful reaction in Kelley and after hitting the home brewed slivovice, Kelley goes off on a rampage. He explodes up from the crypts shouting of small gnomes and a tricksy sprite named Ben. He rants about doom and destruction, spins wild fantasies of the fall of nations and empires, and accuses Will and Dyer of being spies. Dee comforts him and they sit talking until two hours past midnight. Will has been a witness to the whole event, and long after Dee has gone up to bed, where Jane can be heard stirring restlessly, and Kelley has collapsed into a drunken heap, Will remains frozen in place.
d) It takes a full day for Kelley to recover, but by the afternoon of Monday the 20th he emerges looking much the worse for the experience. After a little food, and much water, Kelley reports that the spirits swamped him but that one caught his attention. It said Join Enoch his tablets; give every place its running number. Kelley explained that this was the great breakthrough, a way to make the angelic tablets into “something tangible, something truly describable only by a kind mathematics we have yet to create.” Dee believes him, and forgives him for his outburst. Will is in shock, as is both Jane and Joanna. The air is so thick it would take a sharp knife to cut it. The tension goes up a notch on the 21st when Kelley rejects Dee original agreement, and writes a statement condemning the whole arrangement. It builds for another two days, with Jane taking to her bed, and Joanna looking morose and distant. No one talks about Kelley’s explosions, and not even Dee seems to have much to say.
e) The next day, Friday, the day of Venus, is also Will’s 23rd birthday. The working that day, called by Kelley in order to achieve some clarity, was all anyone could have wished for; levitation, lighting tricks, physical materializations, topped off by one of the spirits actually making off with Dee’s angelic orb. Kelley is distraught, almost to the point of a heart attack, and then after recovering somewhat, undergoes a kind of kundalini experience. Dee is thrilled by the goings-on, and his mind is made up on the spot concerning the proposed union. As Kelley recovers over the next week, the household dynamic shifts once again. The tension is gone and Jane acts as if she is the cat that swallowed the canary, and even Joanna has brightened up a bit. Only Will is sinking deeper into a funk.
f) On May 1st, Kelley shows Dee how to use the crystal, and for the first time, Will is not invited. Two days later on Sunday, the pact is signed and sealed between John Dee, Jane Dee, Edward Kelley and Joanna Kelley. There remained only the matter of details, it seemed. The following Wednesday, the 6th, Dee and Kelly, with Will along this time, go to the chapel for approval of their agreement. Madimi approves, and disappears in a swarm of spiritual beings like a vast crescent moon. Two weeks later, on the 20th, they are at it again. This time Madimi does a few magic tricks with the covenant seal then turns to a Christ analogy for a closing. Will has a strange feeling that something is happening just beyond his senses. For the whole two weeks between workings, Dee and Kelley have been discussing something. Will guesses it is a new ritual, one connected with the covenant, but he is not included on the discussions. Curiously enough Jane is included, and Will feels even more lost.
f1) That evening they break it to him. All four surround him in his hearth corner. Kelley begins: “Will, lad,” his brogue thickening, “are you ready to go back to England?” Will of course says no, and Kelley replies “then we have to know we can trust you on this thing.” Dee jumps in, saying that they need his trust, that they need him for the next working, and they need him to trust them enough to do it and not ask any questions. Joanna smiles, in her best manner, and Jane looks like she wants to mother him. Will feels trapped, caught in a situation that he doesn’t understand, between powerful egos and forces, completely out of his depth. He doesn’t want to go back to England, for many, many reasons, and he doesn’t want to let everyone down, still… There’s that faint whiff of hellfire lingering…
f2) Then Dee continues: “We want you to be a vessel or host for the archangel Michael; you can actually be one of your shining ones.” Will felt his mind tilting, and slowly his head nodded in agreement, and he heard himself saying, all right, then, I trust you. The next day is full of odd preparations, Joanna gives Will a bath in herbs and Jane is hidden away doing something. They have been feeding him teas of various flavors since dawn, and so Will almost doesn’t notice Joanna’s attention to detail. He remembers being oiled in something that stung behind his knees and under his armpits, dressed in clean white robes, and given a strong cup of something to drink. He remembers voices chanting down a long tunnel and some bright Italian sky spreading out endlessly, and nothing else until he awakens in bed the next day.
Ga) Everyone is kind to him, but not much is said on any subject. The next day, Kelley recovers Dee’s lost scrying crystal, finding it in Jane Dee’s pillow. Will finds this curious, but no one bothers to explain. On the 23rd of May, a working is done to get Madimi’s approval and further assistance. She approves and morphs through a sequence of goddess images, ending with a Sophia-like Green Woman, “Wisdom is a piercing beam…” She promises Kelley his revenge, and then vanishes for good.
b) And just that quick, the tone changed. Things shifted, Jane sang in the mornings and Joanna seemed to enjoy planning for her brother, or brother-in-law’s wedding. Dee was happy, puttering around doing absurd jokes for the children. Even Kelley seemed spent, exhausted and calmed. He had the air of someone just waiting on events, breathing and hoping for another miracle like it every minute. Will, released from his magical duties, worked on his sonnets. On the morning of June 9th, the whole entourage decamps for Prague and Thomas Kelley’s wedding.
Part Three -
A) They take up residence in Dee and Kelley’s old house on the corner of Karlovo Nemesti, near the old Bohemian fortress of Vysehrad. Will is immediately lost sight of in the swirl of wedding planning and politics. He leaves and finds himself walking north through the heart of the New City, Nove Mesto, drawn like filings to a magnet toward the Old Town Square. The New City ends sharply at the edge of Stare Mesto, the Old City. Two centuries drop away and the tight streets and warrens of ancient tenements are like something from the dark ages. But Will knows to turn right at the Horse Market and a short clogged street away is the Old Town Hall, with its miraculous clock. Now of course, he sees the clock in a different light, and he sees that 72 clicks of the large cycle, the year, would make one click on the larger clock cycle of the great year, or 25, 920 clicks of this small scale yearly clock. In a rush, the material he had been learning flew together into a larger pattern. Of course, INRI, the alchemical elements and much more, would also be a week, 270 years, of the great year. Feeling dizzy, Will sits on the Town Hall steps, and struggles with the concept of time. The Clock strikes the hour, the Apostles peer out through the windows, Death rings the chimes and the golden cock crows; another hour of eternity has passed.
B) A few days later, Thomas Kelley’s bachelor party or dowry meeting is held at the Sign of the Golden Wheel at the juncture of Karlova and Husova streets. Kelley attends with Will as his retainer, Thomas arrives with a group of court musicians, including Krystof Harant, and a few of Kelley shadier friends show up as well. On the bride’s side is her father, brother, a few retainers, and the personal entourage of the Imperial Chancellor, who is the Bride’s father liege. The tavern is crowded, and the talk mostly bawdy, but with a sharp edge of business. The Chancellor acts as if he is buying Kelley, not marrying a retainer’s daughter to his brother, and Kelley is diffident and offhand in his reply. Tempers rise, and the Chancellor makes a remark about Kelley’s ears, and the whole place almost comes to blows. Cooler heads prevail, but the Chancellor takes his leave. The party goes back to simpler jokes and quiet bargaining. Will and Thomas and Krystof Harant decide to take the air outside. They are standing in the edge of the street when a carriage pulls up. The coachmen calls out a question, Kristof answers him, and for just a second, a beautiful but veiled face appears at the carriage window. It is the Dark Lady. She leans back at the answer and the coach moves off up Husova Street. Will is shocked, and asks who was that? Kristof answers him: that was the Chancellor’s wife, Countess Catarina de Monfort Hradec. Will is dumbstruck, suddenly weak in the knees and sick. His Dark Lady, his love, is the wife of the most powerful man in the Empire, even counting the Emperor…
C) Wedding
D) Seduction
E) Departure
Act Three – - end of earlier treatment- started by Teresa Burns and Vincent Bridges
===============================
By in-depth analysis of coherent and geometric pattern recognition, Alan Green reveals John Dee's cutting-edge scientific knowledge and cryptographic mastery as the revelation motor in the mystery of Shakespeare’s identity. This completely new information has profound implications that will surely restore Dee’s maligned reputation from the dustbin of history to the pinnacle of respect and awe we all know he rightfully deserves.
Green has worked in seclusion for twelve years to bring the world a previously unsuspected side to the Enochian Tables as Rosetta Stone, unpacking an amazing spiritual science hidden deep within the Shakespeare subterfuge. By matching the 624 Enochian squares to the 624 characters of Shakespeare’s Gravestone, Monument, and Sonnets Dedication, Green reveals Dee and “Shakespeare” to be the mathematical / poetical / spiritual polymaths of the Age!
