John Dee

John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English/Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and occult philosopher, and an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. He spent much time studying alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. He also advocated turning England's imperial expansion into a "British Empire", a term he is generally credited with coining. To 21st-century eyes, Dee's activities straddle the worlds of magic and modern science, but the distinction would have meant nothing to him. He was invited to lecture on Euclidean geometry at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. He was an ardent promoter of mathematics, a respected astronomer and a leading expert in navigation, having trained many who would conduct England's voyages of discovery. Meanwhile Dee immersed himself in sorcery, astrology and Hermetic philosophy. Much effort in the last 30 years of his life was spent trying to commune with angels so as to learn the universal language of creation and bring about a pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind. A student of the Renaissance Neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, he drew no distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations of hermetic magic, angel summoning and divination: all his activities were different facets of the quest for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms underlying the visible world, Dee's "pure verities". He amassed one of the largest libraries in England. His high scholarly status also took him into Elizabethan politics, as an adviser and tutor to Elizabeth I and through relations with her ministers Francis Walsingham and William Cecil. He tutored and had patronage relations with Sir Philip Sidney, his uncle Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, Edward Dyer, and Sir Christopher Hatton.