www.atlasobscura.com/art...lchemist-secret-code.amp

It's interesting to see how cypher experts struggled to break down the code.

It is taken from a notebook of Arthur Dee, John Dee's son.
I am curious what they could tell about the Enochian alphabet, which Dee found and worked with in his more than curious life story.

Apparently his assistant medium, Edward Kelly, was used to receive large amounts of these gibberish codes by the means of channeling, whereas some historians said, that, if he would be lying about his skills and only improvising in his head with this code language, it would be more than a mathematical genius.

I remember reading in one of Terence Mckenna's books that he speculated John Dee was the author of the Voynich Manuscript or at least an owner at one point. I'm reading Chris Bennetts book about alchemy and cannabis and he is pretty sure that most of the elixirs of life were cannabis and opium tinctures, if you've studies Paracelsus and his writings it's fairly obvious opium and cannabis were used.

Dee was indeed owner of the voynich manuscript, that would later be sold to rodolph, the bohemian alchemist king and athansius kircher, the best known decypherer of that age got his hands on it. Dee was the owner of europes largest private library until a crowd of people burned it for his occult activities. We may have lost a lot of treasures there.

There is a 17th century alchemist script in German that really clearly says that the philosophers stone is amanita muscaria, a stone that is not really a stone, white and red, within all of natures secrets will become attainable.

Given the vast permutations of collating information in communicable forms with regard to layerings of levels on semantics and syntax, along with the polyvalency of symbols makes complete sense why it can be so hard to decipher old codes of many kinds (not to mention cultural factors that influence all of the layers of communication in a given language or code). Makes me reflect on the difficulty of consensus with regard to ancient languages like Egyptian.

I do enjoy divining with some good ol Enochian chess though.

One love

That was a fun article. But where is the formula for the elixir?
I had to look this one up!
Do you have a physical set?

There is a short article from the couple

https://ecp.ep.liu.se/in...w1VrzGY0znTI4C-XI9DsT9q

I think the final results of this work in progress are not yet published.

I have a friend (who is the one that introduced me to the mystic concept) that is into Enochian modality. He has made several resin boards for all of the elements. He gave me an earth board and a mini air board. When we play (which it has been quite some time, like before we the pandemic) we would just use regular chess pieces (though less of them) and whichever board was appropriate for the query.

One love

Interesting. I've used the old viking game, hnefatafl, for divination by deriving a variation involving the roll of a die. I'm not sure any more what the rules for divination were, but it made a lot of sense while under the influence of a cactus brew!

Also interesting. Going to look more into hnefatafl. Early on, dice were also used through the gampe-play of Enochian chess. This reminds me that I've been meaning to buy some runes (Viking) and some cowrie shell (Yoruba Divination).

One love

Everything is connected. In Dee's time, several divinations were used, the Tarot Deck (i am almost sure it comes up from neoplatonians like Ficinus and Bruno) , and geomantie, which is curiously close to the Yi king System. The geomantic system is Arabic, and the Ifa is African. They are all so close together in HOW they work and WHAT they mean, that there is mutual inspiration as one possibility or universal inspiration from the great secret as the other. Of course they are all connected to the stars and the psyche. I spend long hours studying all of them.

But Ifa in special needs to be learned with the help of a babalawo, like it isn't literary in the strict sense, and is given from master to disciple since long time on every continent.

I dabble more than anything, but they are all connected and can sometimes provide different views of some things, like looking though a different side of a prism. Tarot definitely has a long evolutionary history of influences from many cultures and sources (and too many for me to try to recount in my current sick state). Then there are also some of the lesser known forms of divination as well.

And I had heard that about Ifa divination, which isn't surprising since the oral tradition was highly prevalent until about the 18th/19th centuries.

One love

Yes, of course, especially in yoruba derived religions like santeria, voodoo, mayombe or candomble, illiteracy is still a manner.

Also in Renaissance Europe, people weren't so much used to own books. The whole art of memory had as one of his functions to memorize entire books word for word, as you couldnt walk around with a copy of your several hundred favorite books on your tablets like we do

It's interesting to be aware of various cognitive variances over time with advents of new technologies. It will be interesting to see where things stand in the next 20 years with regards to topics like these.

One love

Thanks for the OP donfoolio . Just wanted to mention that Ifa bears some interesting resemblance to I Ching

Man, thanks for the article!

A lot of us here who have any interest in the history of Western occultism probably have some awareness of John Dee, but i for one did not know anything of his son's role as an alchemist. John Dee's life story is insane for it's twists and turns, and tragic for the losses he encountered from his experiments. I recently read Jason Louve's occult-leaning biography of him, John Dee & the Empire of Angels, which deals also in part with his role in the creation of the British Empire while in Queen Elizabeth's court and the whole immanentizing the eschaton thing, a game that some Western leaders have more or less openly engaged in since...

But like the article points out:

So yeah, apparently Arthur Dee found the Philosopher's Stone, something I don't think his father ever succeeded in doing, and recorded his secret in this cipher, which the article's subject(s) de-ciphered. Cool... I wish the article had some images of the pages in question, I tried looking it up (Sloane 1902) but no images online.


I guess you have to buy their book to get the formula to everlasting wealth and life...


Ideas cross-pollinate as they travel with people across spaces, yes. Tarot is a great example of seeding an idea with many others from different times and places creating a whole set of dialects within a cultural language. But divination emerges in the first place from something innate within us as humans; if all cultures were islands, all would have some form of it in use at some time, I think. I imagine they were using divination at Altamira 40,000 years ago, it is something people do, informed by a deep need to see the unseen and illumined by the light that shines through the mystery from the eternal source. Perhaps the secret is conscious and the inspiration arises separately but universally in consciousness as a way (for the secret/consciousness) to know itself across vast experiences?

Not so much Enochian Chess, but I have played with cards or runes or sticks for most of my life, since very young. I use my tarot cards regularly, and typically incorporate them into any other visionary or ritual action I may be doing as a way to open my receptivity. I think the various methods are great tools that can be translated and used on many levels, from visionary to decision-making, esoteric to psychological, and so,... yeah. All this is again kinda off topic for the OP; poor Arthur, he just can't ever get out from under that titanic shadow of his enigmatic creator of an occult language of a Dad.

https://www.anoniem.org/...w1VrzGY0znTI4C-XI9DsT9q

In this article, there are three little pictures. Just to get an idea. I will try to get some more directly from the authors.



You're right, this man needs some respect. I will change my signature directly.


Here is a link to a digital copy of Dee's work.

https://books.google.fr/...arthur%20dee&f=false

This was very interesting read, thanks for sharing.
It would be funny if the actual described process produces some potent psychedelic substance

What about his great great grandson, Ellis?

But I did when I saw you've actually changed your sig!

That has been a possible interpretation of several alchemical texts.