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

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The Monas Hieroglyphica and the

Alchemical Thread of John Dee’s CareerNICHOLAS H. CLULEE

Frostburg State University, Maryland

Alchemy was a significant cultural current in the sixteenth century, and Dee was an impor-tant part of this. The Monas Hieroglyphica of 1564 has often been seen as the major expres-

sion of Dee’s engagement with alchemy, but his involvement with the art did not begin andend in 1564. He avidly collected and studied alchemical works from the “classics” to themost up-to-date Paracelsian literature. He attempted to master the art of alchemy throughexperimental practice. He sought to transcend the limits of human learning with the instruc-tion 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 theMonas Hieroglyphica. The Monas Hieroglyphica was a daring and inventive proposal for asymbolic language that had the power to reveal the divine plan of creation, to explain theworkings 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 understoodby mastering the language of the geometrical cabbala of the real, which speaks the truthsof alchemy and astronomy, and permits the magus to attain the exalted status of adept. Inthe alchemical dimension of the Monas Hieroglyphica, Dee participated in an importantnew direction taken by alchemy in the Renaissance, and provided one foundation for thespiritual idea of alchemy.

In July 1581, John Dee made the following record:

The 24 day the silver [designated by a crescent moon, or luna] was set to dissolve being 3 ozwith as small a quantitie of aquafortis as I could, or thus 9 oz of aquafortis unto 3 oz of silver. And all that was dissolved was poured off while it was very warm in a cold glass andforthwith it did thicken and there most of the silver did settle to the bottom, then pouring on10 oz and a half of water upon it was left, and it being dissolved poured it to the rest, and thenwas there poured 15 oz of faint aquafortis thereon which was too strong, and therefore therewas about 6 gallons of rain water poured thereon which would not strike it down until therewas put thereon strawberry water of the sea which did presently strike it down but I supposethat 3 gallons of rain water, with a little strawberry water of the sea, would have served and

if that the faint aquafortis had not been put in which was with the strongest and it didlengthen the time.

Th 31 d th t b i d ff b i till ti it t t d d h it

AMBIX, Vol. 52, No. 3, November 2005, 197–215



198 NICHOLAS H. CLULEE

Thus reads one of the fragmentary records that survive of a number of chemicaprocesses that John Dee carried out in 1581, in this case one that seems to have almost goout of hand. I will return later to what might be going on here; for now, I present thexample as an indication of Dee’s interest in and practice of alchemy. This was not a passininterest. Only shortly after he completed his master’s degree at Cambridge, Dee acquired h

first alchemical text in 1551, and in 1556 he recorded a list of “alchemical authors I readuring July.”2 At the other end of his career, there is another record of a series of chemicaprocesses he conducted from 4 December 1607 to 21 January 1608, less than two yearbefore his death.3

Clearly, Dee’s interest in alchemy spanned his entire career, and must be considered aimportant thread woven among his myriad other interests. The Monas Hieroglyphica o1564 has most often been seen as the major expression of Dee’s engagement with alchemybut his involvement with the art did not begin and end in 1564. Juxtaposed to the theoreticatreatment of alchemy in the highly enigmatic Monas Hieroglyphica stands Dee’s very hand

on practice of alchemy. How these two dimensions of Dee’s incorporation of alchemy inthis activities might be related is a question that offers an opportunity to survey the dimensions of Dee’s engagement with the art and theory of alchemy, and how he approached and deployed it in the various activities of his career, and in his thinking about nature. Whawe will find is that his engagement with alchemy was wide and evolving, that there wermultiple dimensions to his deployment of the art, and that it played an important role in thevolution of his natural philosophy. The Monas Hieroglyphica was a daring and inventivproposal for a symbolic language that had the power to reveal the divine plan of creation, texplain the workings of the material world in the principles of alchemy, and to assist th

mystic ascent of the soul. In the alchemical dimension of the Monas Hieroglyphica, Departicipated in an important new direction taken by alchemy in the Renaissance, anprovided one foundation for the spiritual idea of alchemy.4 While Dee’s involvement witalchemy was broader than the theory of the Monas Hieroglyphica, the lofty aspirationhe maps out in that text never seem to have materialised, which may be one source of aimportant undercurrent of frustration in his career.

A useful way to approach Dee’s engagement with alchemy will be to survey the ways iwhich he learned about it.5 Alchemy never seems to have been part of the formal universitcurriculum, so anyone who wanted to learn the art had to do it on their own. To this end

there were several paths that singly, but usually in combination, were available and necesary in acquiring alchemical knowledge. The first route was through the written records leby other adepts, i.e. through books. We are in a particularly good position to know wha

2 J. Roberts and A. G. Watson (eds.), John Dee’s Library Catalogue (London: The BibliographicSociety, 1990), 191–93.

3 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1486, art. v.4 N. H. Clulee, “Astronomia inferior: Legacies of Johannes Trithemius and John Dee,” in Secrets o

Nature. Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. W. R. Newman and A. Grafton (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001), 173–74; W. R. Newman, “Thomas Vaughan as an Intepreter of Agrippa von Nettesheim,” Ambix 29 (1982): 129–30; W. R. Newman and L. M. Princip



19THE MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA

books Dee had and possibly read, because of his library catalogue and other lists of hreadings.6

Dee’s study of alchemy begins with a burst in 1556. Prior to this date, there is littindication of alchemy in Dee’s library collection, most of which comprised classics, mathematics, and astronomy, fitting with his university studies and the scientific interests of h

trips to Louvain in the late 1540s. The burst in 1556 is reflected in the list of “alchemicaauthors I read during July,” which records fifty-five texts, including works by Geber, RogeBacon, Raymond Lull, Arnold of Villanova, Ortolanus, George Ripley, Thomas NortonJohn Dastin, and other lesser known authors, and anonymous works.7 It is not cleawhether these are texts he owned, but Dee collected alchemical texts throughout the rest ohis life.

These, as well as other authors, are well represented in the 1583 catalogue of his libraryDee’s catalogue is generally in no clear order; in their edition of the catalogue, Roberts anWatson suggest that it reflects the order of books on the shelves, since the main division between bound and unbound volumes, and within these categories they are divided by sizSo, the separate grouping of the alchemical texts into sections labelled “Chemici libri &compacti” and “Chemici latinè non compacti” suggests a particular interest in this subjectDee’s use of the term “chemici” deserves some comment. We are accustomed to think o“occult” alchemy and “scientific” chemistry as quite separate, but this was not always soIn the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the two terms were interchangeable and referreto the same thing. Alchemy/chemistry, or chymistry as William Newman and LawrencPrincipe propose, did not have a monolithic essential character but involved different theo

retical foundations and encompassed a range of practices.

9

In its broadest sense, alchemencompassed theories of the composition and generation of metals and minerals that coulsupport the possibility of the transmutation of the basic metals. It also encompassed a bodof techniques for manipulating and modifying material substances whose aims ranged fromgold-making to metallurgy, assaying, dyes and pigments, perfumes, and chemical medcines. The literature that Dee collected and studied encompassed this entire range, with titleof “de alchimia,” “de artis metallica,” “chimica collectanea,” “de mineralibus,” and “dmetallorum transmutatione,” among a variety of other titles under his headings of “Chemilibri” and “Chemici latinè.”10

Between the manuscripts and printed books, Dee had access to practically all alchemcal authors through the fourteenth century, as well as many more recent alchemical workand commentaries on the older authors. Surviving copies of many of these have annotationand markings indicating active reading and study. Some of these notes mark key words ithe text or mark passages of interest. Others are practical, noting ingredients and processefor putting what he was reading into practice — and his reading did flow through to hpractice, as indicated by a reference to Ripley in his laboratory notes.11 Still other noteoften incorporating Dee’s symbol of the monas, mark passages that Dee thinks support ocorrespond with his ideas. Dee also had an extensive and up-to-date collection of works o

6 Roberts and Watson, John Dee’s Library Catalogue.




metallurgy, which, in the areas of assaying minerals and testing materials for purity, sharecommon ground with alchemy.12

An important new dimension to Dee’s engagement with alchemy begins to appear ithe 1560s, when he appears to have begun to collect Paracelsian literature in a serious wayBy 1583, when Dee drew up the catalogue of his library, he had ninety-two editions of work

by Paracelsus grouped, like his chemical books, into separately labelled sections dividebetween bound and unbound, and German and Latin. In addition to works by Paracelsuhimself, Dee also had a significant number of books by Adam von Bodenstein, Alexandevon Suchten, Gerard Dorn, Leonhardt Thurneyesser zun Thurn, Joseph Duchesne, PetruSeverinus, Michael Toxites, and others who were proponents of Paracelsus, and whoswritings served as the vehicle for the revival and promotion of Paracelsian ideas in thlate sixteenth century.13 The concordance, provided by Roberts and Watson, between thParacelsian entries in Dee’s catalogue and Sudhoff’s Bibliographia Paracelsica provides aindication that Dee’s collecting covered the whole range of Paracelsian literature.14 All indcations suggest that Dee’s interest in Paracelsus dates from the early 1560s, and was relateto his trip to the continent from 1561 to 1564. On 23 April 1563, during that trip, Dee visiteConrad Gesner in Zürich. Gesner noted Dee’s interest in Paracelsus in conjunction witDee’s signature in his Liber amicorum, suggesting one topic of their conversation.15 Amonthe Paracelsian books in the 1583 catalogue, the earliest are 1562 imprints, and these arfollowed by imprints from almost every year to 1582. So, in addition to traditional alchemyDee had access to the full range of Paracelsian alchemy and chemiatry (chemical medicinesas well as medicine and cosmology.

A second source of knowledge about alchemy would be communication with livinpractitioners. While we do not have extensive indications of such communication in Deecase, as exist for the later Robert Boyle, there are intriguing hints. On 12 August 1580Dee records receiving through his agent in Antwerp letters from “Doctor Andrew Hellearned in occult philosophy,” and with the letters “the mercurii mensitam or sigillumplanetarum.”16 Two years later, on 20 May, “Robert Gardner of Shrewsbury brought m

12 Examples include: Roberts and Watson, John Dee’s Library Catalogue, items 1425, 1448, 1471482, 1524, M35, 184, DM 74, 75, 76, 81, 94, 105, 109, 121 and 131 for annotations, items DM 9

98 and 100 for works copied by Dee, and items 678, 978 and D16 for Dee’s use of the hieroglyphmonad. See H. Norrgrén, “Interpretation and the Hieroglyphic Monad: John Dee’s Reading oPantheus’ Voarchadumia,” in this issue.

13 Roberts and Watson, John Dee’s Library Catalogue, 11; item nos. 1461–501 (bound German1502–57 (bound Latin), 2220–40 (unbound Latin), and 2241–77 (unbound German); N. H. Clule“John Dee and the Paracelsians,” in Reading the Book of Nature. The Other Side of the Scientif

Revolution, ed. A. G. Debus and M. T. Walton (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal, 1998113–14.

14 Roberts and Watson, John Dee’s Library Catalogue, 198–200.15 Clulee, “John Dee and the Paracelsians,” 113.16 E. Fenton (ed.), The Diaries of John Dee (Oxfordshire: Day Books, 1998), 14. Dee’s “diaries

consist of notes in various places, primarily two ephemerides (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmo




happy news about the matter of the philosophers’ stone, divinely revealed to him.”17 Thredays later, the same Robert Gardner “declared unto me hora 4½ a certain great philosophcal secret.”18 When Dee travelled to Prague in 1584, he initially found lodging in a house oTadeàš Hàjek, an alchemical adviser to Emperor Rudolph II. Later, in 1588, ThomaSowthwell told Dee of a Mr. Smith the philosopher, who had given Sowthwell a lump of thphilosopher’s stone.19 These few small notes in Dee’s diaries show him eager for communication with others who might have some special knowledge. We have already noted Dee’s visto Conrad Gesner during his stay on the continent in the early 1560s. Dee covered mucground during this time, his itinerary including visits to Antwerp, Louvain, PressburgVenice, Urbino, Padua, Rome, and possibly Paris, in addition to Zürich.20 Since he collectealchemical writings during this time, even having several alchemical manuscriptcopied, it is possible that he also took advantage of meeting alchemists. Dee was alsacquainted with Giovanni Baptista Agnelli, a Venetian alchemist living in London, from

whom he received Giovanni Agostino Pantheus’s Voarchadumia as a gift in 1559.21

Dee’s extensive annotations to Pantheus’s Voarchadumia are perhaps his earlieextended employment of his hieroglyphic monad symbol in an alchemical context, and looforward to his Monas Hieroglyphica of 1564, which embodies Dee’s most extensive published treatment of alchemy.22 Despite the extent of Dee’s evident interest and involvemenwith alchemy, he wrote little directly on the subject. When he did refer to it, it was most ofteby way of establishing alchemy’s relationship to his interests in mathematics and astrologyand its place in a cohesive understanding of the creation and the natural world. So, at thpoint, I want to turn from Dee’s learning and practice of alchemy to look at how De

integrated alchemy with his broader natural philosophy.The conviction that there was a relationship between the heavens and the earth wa

fundamental to Dee’s conception of nature. The Renaissance notion that alchemy was type of “inferior” or earthly astronomy, or even a terrestrial astrology, provided Dee witthe foundation for incorporating alchemy into a comprehensive view of nature.23 A hint othis idea is found in his first work, the Propaedeumata Aphoristica, published in 1558 whehis interest in alchemy was first emerging. Here, he developed a theory of the operation oastrological influences on the terrestrial sphere based on the emanation of celestial virtues arays that propagate in the same way as visible light. Because of this, celestial virtues could bstudied and manipulated by the science of optics.24 This feature of nature makes possible th“greatest part of the natural magic of the ancient wise men” — the imprinting of heavenlrays upon terrestrial matter — which Dee links with “the very august astronomy of th

17 Fenton, Diaries, 44–45.18 Fenton, Diaries, 44–45.19 Fenton, Diaries, 134, 236; D. E. Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels. Cabala, Alchem

and the End of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28.20 N. H. Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy. Between Science and Religion (London and Ne

York: Routledge, 1988), 123 and n. 17.




philosophers, called inferior”; that is, with alchemy.25 Alchemy, therefore, as astronomi

inferior, or lower/terrestrial astronomy, is also a branch of natural magic. Dee also indicatethat the symbols of this terrestrial astronomy are included in “a certain Monad” representeon the title page of the Propaedeumata Aphoristica. The scroll surrounding the symbol telus that “In this Monad is whatever wise men seek” and that “Mercury, endowed with

sting, is like all the planets.”26

How this is so is only explained in Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica of 1564, which takes uthe theme of alchemy as inferior astronomy under the influence of not only his new interein Paracelsus but also his study of Hebrew and cabbala, and his more thorough absorptioof Renaissance Neo-Platonist cosmology from Marsilio Ficino, Agrippa von Nettesheimand Johannes Trithemius. These new interests were the focus of his search for those expert i“the science De numeris formalibus [of formal numbers], the science De Ponderibus mystic

[of mystical weights], and the science De Mensuris divinis [of divine measures]: by whicthree the huge frame of this world is fashioned, compact, rered, stablished, and preservedduring his trip to the continent in the early 1560s, which culminated in the publication of thMonas Hieroglyphica.27

This work centres on the diagram and symbol that is Dee’s hieroglyphic monad (thfigure in the oval at the centre of the title page). The legend on the title page explains tha“Mercury becomes parent and king of all the planets when perfected by a stable pointehook.” Other parts of the title page strike an alchemical theme: the four elements, the suand moon raining down their influences, and the quotation from Genesis “may God givthee of the dew of heaven and of the fat of the earth,” which in alchemical literature refers t

philosophical mercury and sulfur. Dee realised that the Monas Hieroglyphica was a difficuwork even for contemporaries, so he warns that “who does not understand should either bsilent or learn.”28 One source of difficulty is that the Monas Hieroglyphica is about a symboand only indirectly about anything concrete. It is also important to stress that Dee’s texconcerns more than just alchemy; it is dense and rich, and lends itself to a wide range ointerpretations.29 Here my focus will be primarily on the alchemical theme; the followindoes not claim to be an exhaustive discussion of the text and its interpretation. Dee

25 J. Dee, Propaedeumata Aphoristica (London, 1558), LII; W. Shumaker and J. Heilbron (eds.), Joh

Dee on Astronomy: “Propaedeumata aphoristica” (1558 and 1568) Latin and English (Berkeley anLos Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 148–49.

26 Shumaker and Heilbron, John Dee on Astronomy, 102–3.27 John Dee to Sir William Cecil, 16 February 1562, Philobiblion Society, Bibliographical and Histor

cal Miscellanies 1, no. 12 (1854): 1–16; Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy, 101–5, 123–24.28 J. Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, in C. H. Josten, “A Translation of John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphic

Antwerp, 1564, with an Introduction and Annotations,” Ambix 12 (1964): 112–13.29 Important treatments of the Monas Hieroglyphica are: the introduction to Josten, “A Translatio

of John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica”; M. T. Walton, “John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica: Geometrcal Cabala,” Ambix 23 (1976): 116–23; P. J. Zetterberg, “Hermetic Geocentricity: John DeeCelestial Egg,” Isis 70 (1979): 385–93; Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations, 77–90; H. HåkanssonSeeing the Word. John Dee and Renaissance Occultism (Lund: Lund University, 2001); P. Béha




essential argument with regard to alchemy is this: first, the monas symbol replicates thstructure of the cosmos; second, because of this, it embodies a language of nature; anfinally, the ability of this language to give insights into nature is illustrated by what thmonas says about alchemy.

This hieroglyphic monad, which is generated exclusively from a point, a line, an

a circle, reveals the process of creation because “the first and most simple manifestation” othings happened by means of the straight line and the circle, but, since the line is generateby the flowing of a point, and the circle by a line rotated around a point, “things first begato be by way of a point and a monad.”30 The geometrical process of the construction of thmonas captures the essence of cosmogeny, and the resulting symbol epitomises all creationThe point represents the earth, and the circle represents both the sun and the entire frame othe heavens surrounding the earth. The semicircle represents the moon, and the doubsemicircle at the base represents the zodiacal sign of Aries, the first sign of the zodiac and thsign under which creation took place, and suggests the entire zodiac and the fixed starWhile the circular components of the monas relate to the heavens, Dee relates the croscomposed of straight lines in four segments, to the sublunar realm of the elements, the realmof change and imperfection.31

This correspondence of both the construction of the monas with divine creation, and othe derived components and meanings with constituents and processes of the natural worldis the key to Dee’s central claim to have discovered a new and sacred art of writing olanguage that is an alphabet of nature. This language is a “writing of things” because corresponds to the “written memorial . . . which from the Creation has been inscribed b

God’s own fingers on all Creatures” and therefore speaks of “all things visible and invisiblmanifest and most occult, emanating by nature or art from God himself.”32 As a language onature, the cabbalistic techniques of notarikon, tsiruf , and gematria can be applied to thmonas and its components to reveal an esoteric knowledge of creation through what Decalled the “cabbala of the real” or the “cabbala of that which exists.” So, when Dee has thpoint represent the earth, this is a kind of notarikon in which symbols represent words anconcepts. In this case, the point refers to the earth. As in tsiruf , in which individual letters owords are rearranged to find other words, the parts of the monas can be recombined to yielother symbols and meanings. Thus, the monas can be disassembled into the various compo

nents shown in the centre of figure 1. These can be combined as in the character marked awhich Dee claims resembles a wine flask, a retort, and, with a slight alteration, the Greeletter alpha. Likewise, v is another vessel, and the Greek omega, and d and l, represent mortar and pestle. Thus, the monas embodies everything from alpha to omega. These sampieces may be combined and oriented in such a fashion that symbols for all the planets, iaddition to the sun and the moon, are contained within the monas (figure 2). In gematria

the numerical equivalents of letters are used, a technique Dee applies to the “cross of thelements,” which yields the quaternary (1, 2, 3, 4) as well as five (V), ten (X), fifty (L), andhost of other numbers based on these.33

While this idea of a language of nature is as central to the Monas Hieroglyphica as alchemy, which has often been seen as its central subject, Dee illustrates the power of thi




“cabbala of the real” primarily by applying it to illuminating the alchemical process, which

for Dee, was encompassed by two themes from the Tabula Smaragdina or Emerald Tablet oHermes Trismegistus. The first theme is the monadic character of the philosopher’s ston(th ) f hi h ll thi d d i il t th ti f th i f

Fig. 1. Cabbalistic transformations of the monas. From John Dee, Monas

Hieroglyphica, fol. 22 (Rare Book andSpecial Collections Division, Library ofCongress).

Fig. 2. Signs of the planets generated from the monas. From John Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, fol. 1(Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress).




descend to the earth, and unite together the powers of things superior and things inferior.”Incorporating a direct quotation from the Emerald Tablet, Dee summarises these celestialalchemical relations when he says, “this whole magisterial work depends upon the Sun anthe Moon, which a long time ago that thrice-great Hermes admonished us when he assertethat the Sun is its father, and the Moon its mother; and we know that it is nourished i

Lemnian earth by lunar and solar rays which exert a singular influence around it.”35 Key tDee’s understanding of these themes as magic and mathematics was Johannes Trithemiusidea of the alchemy of the Emerald Tablet as a magic by which composites of the four elements are reduced to purity, simplicity, and unity by fire. For Trithemius, the essence of thmagic is a process by which diversity is restored to unity. All things proceed from an origincreative monad, which is the source of all number. The order, number, and measure thaestablish the harmony of the universe are governed by the Pythagorean tetractys, througwhich diversity returns to unity in the decade through the ternary and the quaternary arepresented in the sequence 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, which equals unity. It is through understanding these numbers that the soul can ascend to mystical insights, gain insight into occumysteries, and achieve the power to perform miraculous feats, one of which is the alchemicwork.36

Although quite abstract, these associations reflect the concrete alchemical backgrounto the Monas Hieroglyphica, which is the sulfur–mercury theory of the generation of thmetals.37 The mercury and sulfur in question are not the ordinary substances of those namebut hypothetical intermediary substances, often called philosophical or sophic mercury ansulfur, whose purity and nature are only approximated by ordinary mercury and sulfu

Under the influence of the planets, different metals form in the earth from the combinatioof mercury and sulfur, depending on their relative purity, and differences in the proportionof the two principles in the combination. If perfectly pure and combined in perfect equilibrium, they produce gold; otherwise, one of the inferior metals results. Yet, since all metahave the same constituents as gold, purification and readjustment of the proportion of thconstituents by means of suitable elixirs should transform the inferior metals into gold.38

The problem for the alchemist was how to imitate this natural process and speed unature in its production of gold. In most views, this involved the creation of an elixir othe “philosopher’s stone,” which had the power to rapidly transform large quantities o

imperfect metals by rectifying their imperfect composition. The actual process involvetaking some substance, which could be any common substance, breaking it down into itconstituent qualities, and subjecting these qualities to a series of operations through whic

34 Clulee, “Astronomia inferior,” 174–75; J. Ruska, Tabula Smaragdina: Ein Beitrag zur Geschich

der Hermetischen Literatur (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1926), 2; J. Read, Prelude to Chemistry: a

Outline of Alchemy, its Literature and Relationships (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1961), 54 (givea translation); Clulee, “Astronomia inferior,” 182–83.

35 Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, 164–67.36 Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy, 104–5, 112; Clulee, “Astronomia inferior,” 191–97.37 W. R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: the Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in th




accidental imperfections are purged and the remaining purified substances are combineand unified, first into philosophical sulfur and mercury, and then into the stone.39

The exact process for the production of the stone varied from author to author, anusually involved some sequence of standard chemical operations, including such thingas calcination, solution, sublimation, distillation, and fermentation. This sequence wa

frequently presented as following some kind of cycle that corresponded to some naturapattern.40 The text that comes closest to the presentation of the process in the Mona

Hieroglyphica is Thomas Norton’s the The Ordinall of Alchemy. Presaging Dee’s discussioof symbolic numbers as revealing numbers, weights, and measures, Norton’s process beginwith breaking down the beginning matter into the four elements, whose qualities are therecombined:

By ponders right,With Number and Measure wisely sought,

In which there resteth all that God wrought:For God made all things, and set it sure,In Number Ponder and in Measure,Which numbers if you do chaunge and breake,Upon Nature you must doe wreake.41

The process by which this recomposition occurs involves seven circulations of the elements presided over by the astrological influences of the planets. The seven circulations ardivided into two sequences. The first begins with (1) fire acting on (2) earth, producing (3pure water, leading to (4) air. The second sequence begins with (5) air and proceeds throug

(6) clean earth to return to (7) fire.42

In carrying out this process, the alchemist is thus an imitator of the creator, analchemy is a replication of creation on a local scale. Dee’s quotation/paraphrase from thEmerald Tablet, indicating that the “una res,” the philosopher’s stone, “is nourished iLemnian earth by lunar and solar rays” (the stone’s mother and father) suggests that in thMonas Hieroglyphica, elemental earth is the basic matter of the alchemical process, througwhich philosophical mercury (the moon) and philosophical sulfur (the sun) are drawforth, refined, and generate the “stone.” More than just a concatenation of astronomicaalchemical symbols, Dee derives from the writing of his monas an account of the process o

the alchemical work that resembles Norton’s model. In his first ten theorems, for instancethe hieroglyphic writing of the monas yields the message that “the sun and the moon othis monad desire their elements, in which the denarian proportion will be strong, to bseparated, and that this be done with the aid of fire.”43

This message results from applying the technique of tsiruf to the monas, by which thsymbols for all the planets are constructed from components of the monas. This techniquyields alchemical significance in revealing by analysis both the astral and the elementacomponents of the philosopher’s stone, and astronomical significance in revealing thcharacters and interrelationships of the planets. Dee divides the planets into a lunar grou

39 Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy, 99; Clulee, “Astronomia inferior,” 184.




and a solar group, on the basis of the presence of the symbol of the moon or of the su

in their symbols. The lunar group, displaying the cross of the elements and a semicirclecomprises the sequence of Saturn, Jupiter, Moon, and Mercury, represented by the unconventional symbol of a semicircle on top of a cross (figure 3). As the figure indicates, eacsuccessive symbol in the series is related to the one before it by a simple rotation of thsymbol, or the addition or subtraction of parts, implying, according to Dee, that thesfour lunar planets constitute a hierarchy in which the shared lunar quality is progressivelenhanced. Reference to this sequence as the result of four revolutions of the lunar naturaround the earth, in which the work of “albification” (whitening) is carried out by applyinthe moon to the elements, invokes the alchemical dimension. The moon has already bee

identified with mercury, and what seems to be at work here is the separation and purification (albification) of the mercurial or lunar principle from the elements to yield lunamercury, represented by the cross topped by the lunar crescent.44

Mars and Venus, along with the Sun, are solar planets interrelated by a shared characteristic, and their sequence, from Mars to Venus, involves a similar progressive enhancement of the solar principle, or sulfur, inherent in the elements. These three solar revolutionof the elements, when joined to the previous lunar revolutions, unite lunar mercury witsolar sulfur to yield the conventional symbol for mercury, containing both the lunar semcircle and the full solar circle.45 Driving home the theme of astronomia inferior, Dee labe

the diagram illustrating this seven-stage process the “principal monadic anatomy of thtotality of astronomia inferior” (figure 4).46 Through an egg-shaped figure, Dee evokes common alchemical image.47 Within the egg, the seven planets are in their Ptolemaic ordeand follow geocentric paths, but in addition, the Sun and the solar planets Mars and Venuare shown within the yolk, while the Moon, lunar Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn are showwithin the white. In Dee’s suggested interpretation, the shell, which commonly representeearth, is dissolved by heat, and compounded with the lunar mercury of the white, followinwhich the mixture is saturated with the solar sulfur of the yolk by repeated rotation.48 Thes

44 Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, 160–63; Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy, 107.45 Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, 162–65.

Fig. 3. The genesis of lunar mercury. From John Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, fol. 14 (Rare Book anSpecial Collections Division, Library of Congress).




rotations, echoing the seven revolutions previously discussed, are represented in anothefigure as a spiral through which the “terrestrial centre” of the monas ascends through sevestages corresponding to the planets.49 Thus, in representing the planets and the metals, an

embodying the essence of the alchemical work, the egg is an analogue of the monas, whicitself is a hieroglyph of the cosmos and the alchemical work rather than a component oeither.

The monas also contains the sign for Aries, which is the house of Mars (strength) anthe exaltation of the Sun, and the sign of Taurus, which is the house of Venus (love) and thexaltation of the Moon (figure 5). Thus, after telling us to separate the elements of the suand the moon by means of fire, the monas summarises the remainder of the alchemicaprocess as the “exaltations of the Moon and the Sun by means of the science of thelements.”50 This idea of the monas as a hieroglyphic writing containing a discourse oalchemy and its celestial correspondences also emerges in the “magic parable” of the letteof dedication to King Maximilian II Habsburg. Here, Dee says that the monas “teachewithout words” how the terrestrial body at its centre is to be actuated by a divine force anunited with the generative lunar and solar influences that have been separated both in thheavens and on earth.51 In sum, as a mirror of the cosmos, the symbol of the monad yieldthe symbols of the planets and the alchemical metals of the lower world. Cabbalistimanipulations reveal the parallel astronomical and alchemical processes through which thelements ascend through a series of seven revolutions corresponding to the planets, and arrestored to unity and purity in the monad.

Besides explicating the core alchemical process of the cosmos and thereby revealing thunity of astronomy and alchemy (astronomia inferior) the sacred art of writing of th

Fig. 4. The seven stages: the “principal

monadic anatomy of the totality of astronomia inferior.” From John Dee,Monas Hieroglyphica, fol. 14v (RareBook and Special Collections Division,Library of Congress).




cabbala of the real has two other consequences. The first is that the new discipline of hieroglyphic writing embodied in the monas implies a radical reorganisation of the traditionadisciplines. Not only does this new language supersede and replace the “vulgar” linguistidisciplines of grammar and Hebrew cabbala; it transcends and almost makes obsolete thtraditionally legitimate disciplines of arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, optics, etcwhile at the same time legitimating and elevating the status of esoteric disciplines, includinalchemy, divination, and magic, which were traditionally considered to be illegitimate, anmarginalised.52 The second consequence is that the natural philosopher, by mastering thlanguage, is given access to the innermost secrets of the cosmos, raising the philosopher tthe level of “adeptship.”53 Adeptship grants the philosopher command of a cabbalistimagic that includes mastery of the “magic of the elements” (alchemy), and also a spirituamagic that opens the way for the metamorphosis of the adept and his ascent to the horizo

aeternitatis (figure 6).54 In the bottom four rows of this chart, Dee presents various hiera

chies involved in the progression of the alchemical work: the quaternary, the four elementthe seven stages, and changes in colour. These span the realms of body, spirit, and southrough the terrestrial and celestial worlds, and culminate at the “horizon of time.” 55 Thtop level evokes the “great and truly metaphysical revolution,” a metamorphosis consumat

through which the adept ascends through the supercelestial realm to the threshold of thdivine at the “horizon of eternity.”56 Since the alchemical process parallels the progressiofrom body to soul, the mystical ascent of the soul is analogous to alchemical transmutationIt may even be that the alchemical process is the medium through which the ascent of thsoul is accomplished.57

52 Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, 114–25; Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy, 82–83.

Fig. 5. The “exaltation of the moon and the sun by the science of the elements.” From John Dee,Monas Hieroglyphica, fol. 15 (Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress).




This implication that alchemy has a spiritual dimension runs counter to recent historography. Newman and Principe place early modern alchemy in an entirely new light bundermining the linkage between alchemy and occultism. Although there is much piety iearly alchemical texts, this reflects contemporary religious culture, not a spiritual dimensiointrinsic to alchemy. Alchemical symbolism can be decoded into chemical practices to reveathat early modern alchemists were working with material substances towards materiagoals.58 The dichotomy of an occult alchemy and a scientific chemistry derives from thrhetoric of the enlightenment, where alchemy was relegated to the realm of superstition anthe irrational, along with magic and other non-scientific practices. By the early nineteentcentury, alchemical literature and symbolism were found predominantly in associatiowith magic, witchcraft, and other traditions of occult and secret knowledge. Because of thassociation, a renewed interest in alchemy accompanied the occult revival that began ithe nineteenth century. But this association also meant that alchemy became of interest noas the historical practice of working with material substances, but, like the other occusciences, as an esoteric embodiment of spiritual wisdom. Thus emerged the “spiritual” intepretation of alchemy as an art of internal illumination, in which alchemical processes anchemical language do not refer to physical processes and substances, but represent spiritua

moral, or mystical meanings and transformations of the adept.

59

Fig. 6. Horizon aeternitatis. From John Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, fol. 27 (Rare Book and SpeciaCollections Division, Library of Congress).




The implications of Dee for this historiography are ambiguous. For Dee, alchemwas not merely a metaphor for the spiritual transformation of the adept, as the spirituainterpretations of alchemy would have it. As we shall see below, Dee still practised with reachemical stuff and he never abandoned laboratory work. The Monas Hieroglyphica is mofundamentally about the hieroglyphic monad embodying a new form of writing that revea

the hidden divine plan of creation. Mastery of this writing gives the adept access to a magwith the power to illuminate and transform all dimensions of creation. Applied to thelements, this magic is alchemy; applied to the adept, it shows the path to spiritual ascenYet, in the framework of the Monas Hieroglyphica, the ability to practise the magic of thelements requires the attainment of an occult wisdom that is profoundly spiritual, anthe success of this magic seems inescapably and intimately part of the spiritual ascent othe adept. Even if Dee maintained in his mind that alchemy was a concrete practice witmaterial substances, and not exclusively a metaphor of internal illumination, he left a texthat could easily support the spiritual interpretation of alchemy among readers inclined tfind it.

Another legacy of Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica is its contribution to the developmenof a new conception of alchemy in the Renaissance. Medieval alchemical texts show littconcern with the relationship of alchemy to astronomy or astrology, and concern themselves largely with the transformation of material substances. The cryptic statements of thEmerald Tablet, for instance, were seen as a recipe to be deciphered.60 Trithemius’s linkagof alchemy with astronomy gave the Emerald Tablet a much broader cosmological meaninThis transformation begins with a brief passage in Marsilio Ficino that associates thalchemical quintessence with the cosmic spirit of the world.61 Following Ficino, Agrippvon Nettesheim developed the linkage of the alchemical quintessence with the spiritu

mundi , and also, following his teacher, Trithemius, identified the philosopher’s stone as thelemental correspondent of the “monas” or “una res” of the Emerald Tablet.62 Dee was aheir to these developments, and one of Dee’s historical legacies is the role that the Mona

Hieroglyphica played in disseminating this unification of alchemy with astrology and magiOf all of Dee’s writings, the Monas Hieroglyphica evoked the most interest in the centurafter its publication, primarily within the culture of alchemy.63 A pirated edition of thMonas Hieroglyphica appeared in Frankfurt in 1591, and it was included in both the 160

and 1659 editions of the Theatrum Chemicum, the great four-volume compilation that wathe repository of alchemical texts in the seventeenth century.The aspirations to adeptship and alchemical transmutation leading to the philosopher

stone embodied in the Monas Hieroglyphica were lofty ambitions, particularly considerinthat there is no evidence that Dee had any practical experience with alchemy before 1564. Athird means of learning alchemy was to actually practise it, and Dee pursued this course awell, as is indicated by the brief account with which I opened. However, it is only when Desettled at the family house at Mortlake sometime after his return from Antwerp in 1564 thahe had a settled place that allowed him to practise the alchemy he had been studying

60 Newman, “Thomas Vaughan,” 130; Newman, Gehennical Fire, 215.




Mortlake was much more than a domestic residence; Deborah Harkness’s characterisatioof it as an “experimental household” is perhaps the most telling description.64 Here Deinstalled and expanded his great library, drew on its resources to provide expert knowledgfor projects at court and in the city, and hosted students and visitors consulting Dee’s learning and, through him, the learning embodied in the library.65 When describing what he ha

invested in learning, Dee mentions a variety of scientific instruments, in addition to bookmanuscripts, and documents, and “to my foresaid library and studies . . . my three laboratories, serving for Pyrotechnia, be justly accounted an appendix practical.”66 He claims that hhad spent over twenty years and £200 on the construction and renovation of these buildingfor this purpose, collecting equipment and “chemical stuff” from far and wide, and furnishing these buildings with “vessells (some of earth, some of metall, some of glass, and some omixt stuff) and with materials to be used or prepared in diverse sorts.”67 He also mentions trip to Lorraine in 1571, from which he returned with a “great cart lading of purposely madvessells, etc.”68

Three buildings and all this “chemicall stuff,” as Dee called it, make alchemy more thaa minor sideline of Dee’s “experimental household.” To maintain these operations, Dee haseveral assistants. Roger Cook, who joined Dee in 1566 or 1567 when he was fourteen, wastill at Mortlake tending Dee’s stills until 1580, when he left Dee’s service amidst disagreements. Yet Dee presented him with “some pretty alchemical experiments: whereupon hmight honestly live.”69 In September 1600, Roger Cook was back with Dee, promising “hfaithful and diligent care and help, to the best of his skill and power, in the practices chemcal.”70 By November, Roger was distilling again. There is also mention of a Harry Waters i

connection with alchemical practice, who also “went away malcontent.”71

Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the precise nature of this practice. Dee’s diarhas fragmentary notes that refer to longer processes. For instance, on 9 January 1580, hnotes that “Hora 11½ ante merid., silver was placed in a closed furnace to break it open foits salt, by extracting the mercury.”72 Later, in 1581, he notes, “at the first day of Septembeit did no more ascend, as it did the first day of setting it into balneum: although it had a versmart heat of the balneum in the end.”73 And in another note he writes, “I set the two earth(left of the 28 oz. of the Animal mercury) with their water again upon them, in horsdung.”74 More extensive notes, such as the account I opened with, have been preserved i

64 D. E. Harkness, “Managing an Experimental Household: the Dee’s of Mortlake,” Isis 88 (1997242–62.

65 W. H. Sherman, John Dee. The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissanc

(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), 21–26.66 J. Dee, “The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee . . . 1592,” in Autobiographical Tracts, ed

J. Crossley, Chetham Society, Remains Historical and Literary of Lancaster and Chester Counties

(1851): 30.67 Dee, “The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee . . . 1592,” 28–31.68 Dee, “The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee . . . 1592,” 30.69 Fenton, Diaries, 7, 15.




two manuscripts. One of these records what appears to be a series of processes carried ouin 1581, and the other relates an extended process in 1607–1608.75 These notes present number of obstacles to understanding. They are rough laboratory notes, often cryptic andifficult to decipher; they are fragmentary and incomplete; and they do not reveal the purpose of the experiment. Urszula Szulakowska has speculated that they may involve Depractising Paracelsian preparations, as well they might because of his interest in Paracelsialiterature.76

Whether Paracelsian or traditional, these experiments are probably Dee’s efforts tfollow instructions and recipes that he learned from his contacts or readings. In thesattempts, Dee faced difficulties that anyone trying to learn the art would confront. Chemicsubstances went by a variety of names, often cryptic or in code, and these substances wernot the standardised pure reagents of modern chemistry. Measures were also nostandardised, and control of temperature was far from precise. Accordingly, results wer

often unpredictable. The process quoted above begins by combining silver, for which he usea crescent moon symbol for luna, with aqua fortis, or nitric acid. These react, producinsilver nitrate, which he then dissolves in water. He then adds “faynte” aqua fortis, whicturns out to be too strong, and the reaction seems to get out of hand. He therefore tries t“stryk it down,” first with rainwater and then with “strawberry water of the sea,” whicI have not yet identified.77 What I find interesting, irrespective of the particular experimenare indications that Dee was concerned, as befits a mathematician, to establish quantitativmethods. He is frequently weighing, noting not just the precise measures of ingredients, bualso changes in weights at various stages of a process, as well as recording durations fo

various steps. There is also an element of fine-tuning. At one point, there was too much heaat another, “it was not altered because the heat was too little.”78 He adjusts the heat severatimes to produce some change, and records the results.

Dee’s practical interest in alchemy carried over to his public life, along with otheendeavours of his experimental household.79 As a mathematician, Dee became involved iadvising English sailors on navigation, including for the voyages of the Muscovy Companand Martin Frobisher’s three voyages to the north of Canada between 1576 and 1578 isearch of a northwest passage to the Orient.80 When Frobisher brought back some ore thawas thought to contain gold, Dee was appointed as one of the commissioners to oversee thassaying of the ore, and this is perfectly consistent with his alchemical interests. It is perhapnot surprising that Giovanni Baptista Agnelli, from whom Dee received the seminaVoarchadumia, participated in these assays.81

75 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D 241, for 1581, and Ashmole MS 1486, art. v, for 1601608.

76 U. Szulakowska, “Paracelsian Medicine in John Dee’s Alchemical Diaries,” Cauda Pavonis 1(1999): 26–31. See also U. Szulakowska, John Dee and European Alchemy, The Durham ThomaHarriot Seminar, Occasional Paper No. 21 (Durham: University of Durham, 1996).

77 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D 241, fol. 6.




Alchemy also wove itself into another endeavour at the Mortlake “experimental household”: Dee’s experiments to see spiritual creatures in a crystal; that is, his conversations witangels through a skryer, which consumed much of Dee’s attention during the 1580s. Thiphase of Dee’s life poses many difficulties and is fraught with temptations to sensationalismand it has been so well covered by Deborah Harkness in John Dee’s Conversations wit

Angels that I will touch on it only briefly in terms of its relevance for Dee’s continued inteest in alchemy.82 There were two aspects to this phase of Dee’s life: the angelic conversationand their message; and continued alchemical experimentation. Both of these were rooted iDee’s growing intellectual and spiritual frustrations. Despairing of attaining “pure ansound wisdome and understanding of your [God’s] truthes natural and artificial” throughis own study, which he aspired to in the office of adept in the Monas Hieroglyphica, Desought “to have help in my philosophical studies through the company and help of thblessed Angels of God.”83 In the particular case of alchemy, there is no indication that Deealchemical practice yielded any success in obtaining the philosopher’s stone. In fact, despit

his aspirations, Dee seems to have been a rather indifferent alchemist. When he intervieweDee in 1589, Hugh Plat was disappointed in what he could learn from Dee about alchemyfinding him evasive and providing stock answers from texts that Plat already knew rathethan empirically grounded information.84

Dee’s most productive skryer, Edward Kelley, was important in regard to both thangelic conversations and alchemical experimentation. First, Kelley, as skryer, facilitateDee’s quest for more direct access to the truths of creation by providing access to Godspiritual creatures.85 Second, after a trip away from Mortlake, Kelley returned with a scroin strange characters, a manuscript purportedly by St. Dunstan, and a red powder, whic

promised to be the secret to transmutation.86 The exact nature and use of this powdebecame the subject of questions to the angels and ongoing experimentation, as Dee anKelley pursued an audience for the angels’ message and patrons in eastern Europe. Thalchemical dimension of the angels’ message was to supply a form of alchemy not practisesince the time of Adam. This alchemy would yield the “medicine of God,” which, throug“the true, and perfect science of natural combination, and proportion of known parts,would heal the sickness at the heart of the decay and corruption of the natural world.87 Othe practical side, “E. K. [Edward Kelley] made a public demonstration of the philosopherstone in the proportion of one grain (no bigger than the least grain of sand) to 1 oz and a ¼

of common mercury, and almost 1 oz of the best gold was produced.”88 Thus, Kelley succeeded in gold-making and won for himself the patronage of Rudolph II, which Dee hasought on the basis of the angelic teachings. Dee’s lack of success in the alchemy that promised wealth to patrons was perhaps not as important to Dee as his insights into the mysterieof creation, but that did little to help his career.

82 Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations.83 J. Dee, Libri mysteriorum, British Library, Sloane MS 3188, fol. 7; Clulee, John Dee’s Natur

Philosophy, 208–9; Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations, 4–5, 60–61.84 D. Harkness, “Interview with an Alchemist: Hugh Plat’s Pursuit of Natural Knowledge in Earl

Modern London”, paper presented at History of Science Society, November 2003.




In conclusion, alchemy was a significant cultural current in the sixteenth century, anDee was an important part of this. He avidly collected and studied alchemical works fromthe “classics” to the most up-to-date Paracelsian literature. He attempted to master the aof alchemy through experimental practice. He sought to transcend the limits of humalearning with the instruction of the angels in Adam’s true alchemy. Despite the frustratio

of his loftiest aspirations, his most enduring legacy was his integration of alchemy with hnatural philosophy in the Monas Hieroglyphica. Here, alchemy finds a place within his conviction of the mathematical nature of divine creation and the unity of the heavens and thearth. The cosmos may be understood by mastering the language of the geometrical cabbaof the real, which speaks the truths of alchemy and astronomy, and permits the maguto attain the exalted status of adept. Later readers of the Monas Hieroglyphica may nohave fully understood its intricacies, but it was read and Dee’s symbol of the monad warepeatedly employed, giving Dee a lasting place in the early modern culture of alchemy.

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

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