John Dee - It's all done by mirrors. ( a little bit of magic)

John Dee was a noted Welsh mathematician, geographer, occultist, astronomer. astrologer and advisor to the Queen.He was one of the most fascinating characters of the Elizabethan period. The events of his life are filled with science, experiments, astrology and mathematics which he aligned with magic, the supernatural and alchemy.

Born in London on July 13th 1527, to a welsh father, his was an age of illusion and supernatural conviction. He was fascinated by the 'Dark Side'. His name, strangely enough, even reflects the life he would lead. The surname 'Dee' derives from the Welsh Celtic word 'du' which means black.

He went to St John's College. Cambridge at the age of 15 in 1542 where he developed a formidable reputation for his burning intelligence and as some kind of magician. He seemed possessed by a thirst for knowledge, driven by an otherworldly sense, with a taste for theatrics that were driven on by divine schemes, accompanied by alchemical secrets that coursed through his bloodstream.

Dee was a brilliant scholar. Interested in Mathematics, physics and astrology which he studied at Cambridge and in Europe. The Elizabethan era was the age of the Renaissance and new thinking and ideas. It was also the age of Nostradamus, Marsilio Ficino and Trithemius and the Renaissance fusion of Christianity, Hermetic Philosophy and its attendant sciences of magic, astrology and alchemy. His interest in science and mathematics led John Dee to a particular interest in astrology and all of its associated supernatural subjects. 

John Dee was well travelled and was obsessive in collecting books and manuscripts. He collected so many books that he created the greatest personal library in England, which he housed at his mother's residence at Mortlake, and was considered one of the finest in Europe. He also amassed a vast array of musical instruments from around the globe which he was more than capable of playing.John Dee and his extensive library attracted visits from the foremost scholars in England. 

Also a notable cartographer, Dee drew maps and routes (especially of the North Sea and across the Atlantic). It’s said that Dee possessed an impressive collection of maps, globes, and navigational devices. Dee, mystic that he was, believed that divine power could be exercised through these mathematics which he understood as a spiritual discipline During his early travels to Europe he was associated with the great cartographer Gerardus Mercator. 

It was to the  world of the occult that  he became engrossed and he came to believe himself in communication with angels and spirits, a  gentle, unsuspicious man, dressing and looking the part of a magus, wearing a long gown with a long beard as white as milk.
He became something of an expert on various occult disciplines, including alchemy and hermetic philosophy and engaged in the discipline of scrying.
Because of what people thought he knew he was courted by royalty, first by Queen Mary, which led to difficulties because he was charged with treason and swiftly thrown into jail,this could have been the end of his career, lucky for him however Mary passed away and her sister Elizabeth looked upon him more favourably, and he became her sort of errand boy, travelling on many occasions to the continent on her behalf, becoming in the end  a kind of personal consultant to her. He was also to have engaged on a number of spying activities on her behalf, an all seeing eye and all that.  It has been said that he invented British imperialism , because through his visionary experiences he found reasons for England's territorial claims on the New World and hence it's colonisation. He certainly perpetrated the Madoc myth, a story of a Welsh Prince who apparently discovered America in 1170 and together with other Welsh people settled with Native Americans, it was said that their were red indians who spoke Welsh, it is a story I would love to believe.
It must be said though that most of his magic seemed benevolent and philanthropic, and he did not seem to use his skills for personal advancement or to harm anyone with his powers, devoting himself to his dreams and prophecies, and a quest to find the secret of the Philosophers Stone and the secret of divining buried treasure, spending long hours crystal gazing. looking for future's glimpse to reveal themselves to him. In his time quite powerful,  popular too, pious but devoted. Feeding the intellectual streams of Elizabethan England. An active mind ,perhaps too busy for simple serene contemplation .

He has been painted as a deluded man who looked to the stars for guidance, dabbled in alchemy and communed with angels. But an alternative view is that he was one of the most brilliant men of the Renaissance, whose contribution has been muddied by centuries of slander. He was a polymath, engaged with the most cutting-edge science of his day, which at the time was intertwined with magic and the occult.

In 1564 he wrote the hermetic text Monas Hieroqlytica ( the Hicroglypic Moda,) an exhaustive mystical tract bringing together a myriad of strands that he was interested in, unifying numerology, mysticism and textual Qabalah using symbolist language and revelatory insight, and within it lay foundations for the spiritual ideas of alchemy. He was apparently held in high regard, and was courted by various luminaries.
John Dee's intellectual curiosity was at all times enormous, and there is little doubt that the occult interested him more than anything else, in spite of his great learning in other directions. However he was not a witch, and he bitterly resented his own all too firmly established reputation as a magician. In the Preface which he wrote to Henry Billingsley's translation of the Euchid's Elements in 1571, he complained of the injustice he suffered from those who think of him as 'a companion of Hellhounds, and a caller and a conjurer of wicked and damned spirits'. 
He married twice and had 8 children. Details of his first marriage are not readily available, but it is certain that in 1578 he married the 23 year old Jane Fromond when he was 51.

On March 10th 1582, he was visited by an irishman called Edward Kelley who seemed in awe of his power and wanted to learn more, unfortunately Kelley was a forger and coiner who had a bad reputation as a confidence trickster. Somehow Dee fell for his charms and had soon moved into Dee's house and during this period all manners of strange manifestations occurred, contacting spirits, with Kelley soon beginning to see himself as the master and claiming to have the gift of second sight. Together they developed a communication system from divine sources and established a dialogue with angels through  language called 'Enocha'.   Kelley himself was a fast learner. They summoned up a spirit who appeared and announced its name as Uriel, given directions for the invocation of other spirits. Perhaps under the influence of Kelley, Uriel urged Dee to engage Kelley as his regular scryer and telling him that him and Kelley should always work together. Any money that Dee made at this time wound up in the lining of Kelley's pockets. They travelled together to Europe and had a number of mystical adventures together. Whilst at Glastonbury Kelly was lucky enough to unearth a supply of the philosophers stone but this was of very dubious authenticity, whereas their was something of the genuine about Dee, for me I feel that Kelley was something of a charlatan.
Kelley was  a skilled manipulator, that Dee trusted ,and in April 1587 in Bohemia, Kelley saw in the crystal a naked woman who directed that in future the scryer and his master should have their wives in common. Dee at first could not accept this, but Kelley  pushed and pushed, telling Dee that they had to obey the command of the spirit, and in the end Dee succumbed to Kelley's will.
Dee himself wrote : ' On Sunday the third of May, Anno 1587, I , John Dee, Edward Kelley, and our two wives ( Jane Dee and Joan Kelley), covenated with God, and subscribed the same, for insoluble and inviable unities, charity and friendship keeping between us four; and all things between us to be common, as God by sundry means willed us to do.'
Their were probably many strange sexual encounters, but inevitably I suppose it did not work out, they quarelled constantly. In 1588 Kelley left for Prague where he ended up in prison, released after 4 years he was imprisoned again and was killed attempting to escape.  
Dee returned to England in 1589 to Mortlake and was received by the Queen at Richmond, and awarded him a pension of £200 a year that was her debt to him. Unfortunately his library had been ranshacked and lay in ruins and many of his beloved musical instruments were stolen. He spent his final days with his influence on the wain, but was given the wardenship of Manchester College.In 1604, he was evidently once again troubled by his own reputation for sorcery, or feared persecution, in view of the new Witchcraft Act then being debated in Parliament. He petitioned King James to have him 'tryed and cleared of that horrible and damnable, and to him the most grevious and damnable slander... that he is, or hath been a conjurer or caller or invocator of devels'. The King did not grant him his request, but did not bother him in any way.
He died peacefully, though sadly in poverty, though at the ripe old age of 82, four years later at Mortlake. His life had  long flown, but  he was still writing , still chasing his dreams. 
By then  the age of magic  and sorcery was passing too, but I for one am still dazzled and grateful for his story. Every passionate assertion calls forth some contradiction and every firmly-held creed knows at least some doubters and some sceptics.
Through time, he was not forgotten, Shakespeare's character Prospero was based on him, and he still flickers through the centuries in  many a fine book,and he is currently back in vogue due to Damon Albarn's English opera ' Doctor Dee.'His business as a wise man, still incredulous to this day. Tempests still hurled, and on the window sills , oceans of treachery.So follow your own dreams, your own paths, if you can!
Be careful who you mix with, sometimes destiny's forecast is everlasting.
Create your own way, with your own maps and scattered illusions. You only have one chance.

Further Reading:-

The Private Diary of John Dee - John Dee, Bastion Books.

The Queens Conjurer : the science and magic of Doctor Dee - Benjamin Woolley

The House of Doctor Dee - Peter Ackroyd. 

Oh incidentally first became aware of Dee, in the film Jubilee (1977) - Derek Jarman, where Queen Elizabeth is magically transported through time by Dee ( Richard O Brien)

and as for borrowing, it was the great Alan Moore, whose idea that Mr Gorillaz man inevitably pinched.


Richard O Brien as John Dee in Jubilee (1977)

On a Portrait of John Dee - Robert Minhinnick

( Spy, Astrologer, Mathematician.)

This black canvas n Elizabethan night.
Only the dimmed  lantern of the face,
That hand holding  a testament
Obstruct the gloom. Appropriate

The artis'ts doubt. How to decipher
code of this man's life, the lean
Courtier, bittern-necked, in corset of stiff lace,
His slightest thread of smile itself

A wordless cryptogram? Could oils preserve
A pale astrologer, whose superstitious
Scholarship transferred the evenings bestiary
Of stars to royal horoscopes, whose harmless

Chess became a skill deployed round living kings.
Such brilliant paradox must fascinate.
This squalid agent of a vicious state
Grew older, found retirement, and poses here

Respectable and rich. Profound John Dee
Your life suggests the real, essential irony
Our flatter lives conceal. You, modernist,
A riddle to our reasoning, our medieval mind.

Poetry Wales , Winter 1977, Volume 13 No.3

Olde England has vanished, but the hidden mysteries of the arcane still flow. 

Once upon a time in Rafah

A cartoon strip on Israel violence and depicting the response of a Palestinian child to the racist remarks of an Israeli kid has won the U.S best political Cartoon award.
The award was given to freelance political cartoonist Carlos Latuff. His work deals with a number of themes including anti-globalization and ant-capitalism. He himself has described his own work as controversial.
In the cartoon the Israeli child addresses rhe Palestinian child saying ' My father told me that you Arabs are evil terrorist animals. In response the Palestinian child says ' My father told me nothing, he was murdered by yours. Simple but effective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Latuff

The most important pun in the English language - Christopher Ricks.

Some words on truth

As with  sense, so with lie  the importance of a pun must be in the first place a matter of the enduring and central matters which it encompasses. Lies are important irrespective of any pun that may visit them. For one thing, the telling of the truth is necessary to those social and cultural agreements without which there cannot be a society or a culture. Even the devils know this, for as Sir Thomas Browne said ' so also in \moral verities, although they decieve us,  they lie not unto each other; as well understanding that all community is continued by Truth, and that of Hell cannot exist without it.'  For another thing, telling the truth is a necessary condition for the existence of a language at all. Which is why in the language - indeed, in most of all languages, one may guess - there is no truth verb that is the counterpart to the verb to lie. (And there are, from similar causes or with similar effects, no puns on true and truth that amount to anything.) You cannot truth , a fact which both makes the telling of a truth a less glib matter than lying ('the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'), and also brings out the speaking has to be posited on a presumption of the speaking of the truth. Even if it were not accepted that words about words all have a special force, though not necessarily a grater force than other words ( for this claim might be merely a literary critic's professional predilection), it is nevertheless the case that lie  has the special potency of immediate paradoxiical properties, since it strikes at the roots of language and may strike, self-incrimiinattingly, at itself. The importance of lying therefore ranges from all those daily falsehoods in the orinary world to such absract but intense considerations  of language, society, and philosophy. In 1970 there was published a book wholly devotted to the paradox of the liar.
Yet the importance of the phenomenem oflying is necessary but not sufficient condition of any claimed importance for the pun on lie and lying. Then there are the linguistic pressures on the word lie  which themselves make the word a creator of pressure. There is, first, a depoulation around lie which gives it the potency of salience. For instance, lie calls up no manifest etymolology for us; as ashort and simple Old English word, it seems - as does the word truth - to be a root concept behind or below which we cannot penetrate. ( The contrast would be with the words veracity  and mendacity  which sends our toughts abroad, in both senses.) Next there is the fact that there are no profound or memorable proverbs about lies or truth, so that the words themselves have to muster all the energy of the phenomena. A comparable depopulation, lending prominence and salience to lie and truth, is that by which a great many lie and truth terms have fallen out of the language, as if by some evolutionary concentration upon the survival of the fittest words. Middle English gab, to lie , survives only in its weakened child, gabble; leasing has gone as has the plural lyings;  the adjective lie ( from Old English  lyze, lying); various tansistive and quasi-transistive uses of to lie (OED 3 and 4 ); and 'to give the lieto' ( accuse of lyiing). You can no longer 'make a lie', you can only tell it; you can now lie only about, not - as you can only tell it; you can now lie only about, not - as you once could - of, on, or upon (OED 1b).
Again, there is the salience given by the marked absence of synonyms for lie; all we have is either ephemeral or infantile slang (bounce, crammer, whopper, fib - to cite Roget's Thesarus ) or eupehemisms: falsehood and untruth, neither of which strictly means lie and both of which therefore can on occasions have the special offence of a euphemism.
.... The final linguistic consideration is one of the many asymmetries between lie and truth,  one which lends to lie ( and to its pun) a range of suggestions which are denied to or disdained by truth. This is the fact that rhymes for truth are few, and only one of them * has much potentiality for discovering or urging insights...
This marked paucity of suggestive rhyming for truth, which lends it a lonely dignity and integrity, contrasts sharply with the manifest and manifold rhymes which crowd upon or from lie: fly ( with its altruism or cowardice), die ( with its moment of truth and its horizantality), I and my ( with their sincerity or insincerity), eye ( with its honesty or shiftiness), and so on.
... It is Shakespear's work which provides the transition from those linguistic considerations which give salience to the  lie/lie pun, to the more largely human considerations which give importance to it. For there is a prima facie likelihood that a pun which is so ubiquiously necessary to the greatest writer inthe language is a very important pun. Shakespear, who needs and wants the words lie, lies, and lying  hundreds of times in his work, has only three times thepunless form lied. We should ask ourselves whether the fretfulness or impatience which we sometimes feel with these puns is to Shakespeare's siscredit or to ours- have we lost, or bebome blinded to, the important considerations that presumably seemed to Shakespeare to raise above triviality such an insistence as this?

                                That, Lye, shall lieso heavy on my Sword,
                                That it shall render Vengeance, and Revenge,
                                Till thou the Lye-giver, and that Lye, do Lye
                                In earth as quiet, as thy Father's Scull.
                                                                         ( Richard 11 !V.i)
... The importance of the llie/lie is that it concentates an exraordinary wide-ranging and profound network of truth testing situations and postures. It brings mendacity up against those situations and postures which constitute thegreat moments or endurances of truth: the child-bed, the love-bed, the bed of sleep and dreams, the sick-bed, the death-bed, the grave....And even perhaps the modern secular counterpart to the confessional's kneeling: the psychiatrist's couch. It conentrates this network, or rather concentrated it, since historical and cultural circumstances are now disintegrating it.             

* The word 'youth'.

Christopher Ricks
Reprinted from:-
'Lies, in The Force of Poetry,
Oxford University Press, 1984.

NEWS OF THE WORLD GOOD RIDDANCE, THANK YOU MR MURDOCH, NOW WILL YOU FINALLY **** OFF.

So  it's good riddance to the News of the World. Hip Hip Hooray.

Now Rebecca Wade/Brooks  and her cronies the News International Gang repeatedly threaten that they won't forget those that pusued them. Well what she should realise is that the people will not forget what they - and those like Cameron and Bliar , who have colluded with them - have done to truth and our so called democracy. A democracy that allows a government to win an election because of  a higly manipulated biased press, who line their pockets.

While we still have the focus, while we still have the power, we must do what we can to stand up to Mr Murdoch and make him realise that enough is enough. Public opinion is now firmly against his proposed takeover of Bsky D, with voters finally ( have they been bloody sleeping for the last 30 years or so) to the fact  that Mr Murdoch has way to much power, and influence over U.K publications. We must stop buying his publications and stop watching his satellite T.V.
Finally David Cameron's position himself looks increasinly precarious, as the true scale of his connections to the News of the World phone hacking scandal emerges. Whilst they are tarnished, we must attack, and keep pounding, whilst they are weak , suffering from self-inflicted wounds, we must stand together resisting their failing powers. It is I feel the only way.United we can make them powerless.
In the meantime I'm off for a cold beer.

picture of a smug ******* 

oh and sign this

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/cameronresignnow

Neal Sparkes - affirmation ( the process of rituals) / on the corner

  

In London at moment, struck by its immediacy, its snake like charm, but all that glitters is not gold, just look at News International, anyway tonight I wont get drawn on that, the whole business is quite tiring, the whole way the media is, it needs desperate rearranging. The story seems to change every time I look on the computer, I suppose this is the power of the internet. It is nice to see Mr Camerons friends getting desperate, but we must remember their cunning and their deviousness.  liars and manipulators ,well practiced in the art of dark manouvering. It is nice to see the power of the people in this country getting listened too, but remember , where there is wealth, there is arrogance and lots and lots of spin, oh dear I did fall in. Will probably go down to news international on Friday to have a spit or two. Oh dear. 
On a different note an artist I have long admired is Mr Neil Sparkes ,best known for his work with Transglobal Undergound  and the Temple of Sound, curretly performing under his own moniker with the last Tribe. His work draws on a myriad of world sources, and resonates through both literary and cultural worlds. A questioning, reasonable mind   that offers hope, glimpses of positivity,  a fine wordsmith that give another taste to this strange ( but rather beautiful)  city I'm visiting. 
Here are two poems.

affirmation ( the process of rituals)

tell me when
that exchange
aching beautiful
as butterfly wings
slow opening
the best sex
was ever safe
- and i'm not
talking abut condoms

tell me we must
read medical journals
to know we are
dissapearing just as
fast as we're arriving
on the scene
- the ones that
make it that is,
not sucked out
on anonymous tables
early flushed
miscarriage
down the pan

tell me blood's
thicker than water
and the atoms
of the nuclear family
constitute a religious belief
- your creator's
packed his bags
and caught the
last bus to babylon

tell me we're happy
living in rooms
that cannot contain us
when once we slept outdoors
smoking summer leaf
turned on by the heat
of being alive  

tell me what we
know and believe

          tell me the sun
          is dancing on
          the river thames

tell me there's knowing
in doing and deeds
the physical knowledge
of making, of what
your body is capable
-even you'd be surprised

tell me of knowledge in memory
 served by instinct and necessity
in speech and words
the rhythym of hands
the heart beat of drums
and making drums

intiuition is that
known or a belief?
to trust chance and luck
on the back of doing,
certainly you will succeed,
in what?

tell me of the elements
the flesh and blood material
of the spirits that reside in these
their energies and forces tell me
of something ritual and instinctual
that cannot have one name
but to many will
individually be known
these we seek to acknowledge
to draw out
through rituals of music
sex and pictures
          a sacred dance
the process of rituals
does reveal and affirm
that which has been
        and will always be

now tell me we haven't
got anything in common

now tell me we can't
get along  


on the corner

city animal
urban ceature
spine of bass
their rhythm is the thing
chest and lungs
become djembe drums
beating out rhythyms
from the tombs
of our pain
singing the primal blues
sacrificial saxophones
weave threads between
thought and song
sexy as killers
hard as the red lips
of bought lovers
muted trumpets
speaking louder than the whispering
cruel corners of
the street
          on the corner
shopping for dreams
where you can
buy anything
if the price is right
betting shops the ace of spades
sleeping 'til mid-day
rising at dawn
rebuilding the city
in your own likeness
-in your dreams
       on the corner
speeding through the night
on the dance floor of a club
hot coffee in a cup
drank down before
it's gone cold
red wine rain water
pure grain alcohol
riding the main vein up town
catching the nightmare train
all the way home
          on the corner
tripping through a
city of sounds
dread warnings
fear and loathing
enough famine
and lawnessness
to drive us out of our minds
talking tall and still unsure
wanting everything
used to nothing at all
able and feaful
eating ourselves alive
          on the corner
lost in a city of sounds
as vast as the sky
and still, somehow
all up and down the street
the lights shining
from people's eyes
         on the corner

From : -Critical Quarterly
             WORD SOUND POWER
              volume 38, no 4, Winter  1996

Neal Sparkes has seveal collections of poetry available from Hangman Books. 

Committing Poetry

The documentary film Committing Poetry  in Times of War  tells the story of Bill Nevins, a humanities teacher and youth poetry coach who was suspended and later fired from his teaching job after standing up for a student who wrote a poem critical of the war in Iraq.
Is it not the job of teachers to help people see things in a different way, allowing students to question, challenge and crtically engage. The teachers who I remember fondly, encouraged me to do this.
With the current media under scrutiny, values of thoughtful inquiry, away from schools of conformity, should be more than welcomed.In the case of Bill Nevin's the people rallied round.Inspired by the notion of creativity as a tool of change.
I find it unbelievable that students are not taught to engage with their imagination like this every day. I disagree with a lot of things, luckily for me, I discovered the joys of freedom, the enemies of this are already at the gates. But I still deny fascism a platform, that too is my right.
As for Bill he simply carried on teaching elsewhere and engaged himself in writing his own poems
http://www.committingpoetry.com/

Brian Jones ( 28/2/42 - 3/7/69) His light shines on in some Painted Rainbows

Psychic T.V - Godstar

The pact he made was never ordinary
lucky or mistaken we shall never know,
behaviour fell off the mark
promises failed in stormy weather,
under the influence
out ov time,
nearby magic tearooms
and melodramas,
played under setting suns
rich in chemistry,
indolence raged
as Pan mischieviously led.

'Israel afraid of the truth'

Hopefully the Freedom Flotilla sailing from Greece should soon be on it's way soon.In the meantime we should demand that the Government and the powers in Greece allow this peaceful convoy to sail. They sail as an expression of world citizens involved in non-violent, direct action,confronting ongoing abuses of Palestinian human and political rights.
The way America has colluded with the Greek and Israeli authorities has been shameful.
I believe in hope and also that this siege must be broken.
" Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians" - Nelson Mandela.

Theodore Roethke ( 25/5/08 - 1/8/63) - Long Live the weeds.

Long live the weeds that overwhelm
My narrow vegetable realm-
The bitter rock, the barren soil
That force the son of man to toil;
All things unholy, marked by curse,
The ugly of the universe.
The rough, the wicked, and the wild
That keep the spitit undefiled.
With these I match my little wit
And earn the right to stand or sit,
Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
These shape the creature that is I .

Off too London town, cat sitting, opportunity again to reflect, I like doing that.
Time for a little Marx, Miro, Schielle, some driftin, reflecting.... find some reasons to be doubtful.
Emma Goldman reminds me to keep on dancing., carry on believing. 
In the evening find some music,  cross some fences, look at a pretty city, sit awhile, feel the beat underneath my feet. Lights will dazzle, for a while........ 
in the meantime I leave something in the air..
probably be posting sooner than I think....
hope I remember when it's gone.

J30 Tomorrow is everybodies day....

Tomorrow Job Centre workers , teachers etc are on strike to defend their pensions, but this is everybodies fight too.
The government's attacks on workers go hand- in-hand with their attacks on claimants. At the same time as lowering terms and conditions of workers, they force claimants into privately run workfare schemes through for profitcompanies like ATOS, Maximus, Skills Training and Careers Develoment Group. At the same time they force the vulnerable and ill off incapacity Benefit and onto JSA ( Jobseekers Allowance).
They say these cuts have to be made, whilst spending millions weekly on futile wars in Afghanistan, Libya etc., whilst Prince Charle's income is rising ever higher and higher.
Tomorrow I hope to go to Aberystwyth and join a broad resistance standing together to show their opposition to these cuts.
Meeting at the Morlan Centre at 12 0'Clock. Ed Milliband is saying he doesn't support these strikes, but that's just his inner nit coming out, a united breath is what we need, solidarity must be maintained.
Love today, love tomorrow. It's our job to wind up Mr Cameron, don't let him get the upper hand, he wants us to work longer, pay more, get less, miserable *******. Why should ordinary people pay for a crises bought about by the bankers and their friends.
Enjoy the sunshine, everybody out. 

Billy Bragg singing - Never crossed a picket line.