Today I want to tell you about Edward Kelley who was born on this day in 1555 in Worcester, England. He was born at 4pm. We know this because the famous mathematician and occult philosopher, John Dee wrote out a horoscope for him and because Edward Kelley said so.
We don’t know much about his early life. He may have studied at Oxford under an assumed name. He may have had both of his ears cut off as a punishment for counterfeiting. Maybe both of those things happened. However in 1582 he met with John Dee. What followed was an extremely tortuous seven year working relationship in which it is not clear which of them was the bigger victim.
In the sixteenth century the study of science and the belief in magic were not mutually exclusive. Dee was advisor to Queen Elizabeth I on astrological and scientific matters as well as being a skilled mathematician. He was also very keen to speak to angels which he thought he could do with the aid of a scryer (a crystal ball gazer). Kelly presented himself as a man with just such a skill and Dee was terribly impressed.
The following year Kelley approached Dee with an alchemical book called the Book of St Dunstan. Kelley claimed that he had been led by a spirit creature to Northwick Hill where he had found the book along with a box containing a red powder. The book explained how to use the powder to turn base metals into gold. He seems to have used the powder to produce small quantities of gold over the years, but Dee was still mainly interested in talking with angels. He believed they could grant him god-like wisdom and eternal life. Dee and Kelley along with their families spent six years travelling around central Europe, moving from one court to another, Dee wanting to talk to the angels, Kelley wanting to pursue alchemy.
Kelley could see the angels in either a crystal ball or a mirror and they spoke to him in an angelic language that Dee describes as the language that Adam used to speak to God, the original, lost language of Man. It is entirely possible that it is a language made up by Kelley but, if so it is not clear whether Dee was complicit in the deceit. The angels tapped out letters on something that sounds a bit like a ouija board. They delivered the first third of their message backwards and the rest forwards. They also provided Kelley with a translation into English in the form little strips of paper coming out of their mouths. It all sounds like nonsense, but the style of the angels messages is very different from Kelley’s own. He may have been plagiarising another source but none has ever been found. Kelley genuinely didn’t like doing it. He was afraid of the beings he saw and didn’t trust them. The fact that Dee insisted on long scrying sessions almost every day almost drove him to the brink of madness.
Among the messages that the angels provided were that Jesus was not God and that there was no sin. This sort of talk got them into a lot of trouble with the Catholic Church. It led to a hearing with the papal nuncio in Prague and Kelley almost being thrown out of a window for mentioning the awful behaviour of Catholic priests. Throwing people out of windows was quite popular in Prague at the time, so he probably had a lucky escape.
The angels also told Kelley that he and Dee should share everything, including their wives. Dee was reluctant but had to do what the angels said. Nine months later Dee’s wife gave birth to a child that was probably Kelley’s. Dee returned to England shortly after that and the two did not see each other again.
It has been speculated that either Kelley, or Dee and Kelley together were responsible for concocting the Voynich Manuscript and selling it to Emperor Rudolf II for 600 gold ducats. It is an unusual document which is written in an unknown language. It does sound like their sort of thing.
It’s hard to know whether Kelley really believed in what he was doing or not. He is generally thought of as a charlatan. Historian A. N. Wilson calls him a ‘spurious wizard’ but it also looks to us as though Dee was a bit of a slave driver. He ended his life imprisoned by Emperor Rudolph II in a castle not far from Prague. In a series of events that sound like the story of Rumpelstiltskin, but without the happy ending, he had convinced the emperor of his ability to turn base metals into gold. Having failed to do so, he had been locked up. He died as a result of a broken leg following a fall. The injury is said to have happened whilst he was trying to escape. But did he jump or was he pushed?
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