Dee Day Conference March 2006

Dee Day Conference Thistle Hotel – Albion Room March 11th 2006 Robin Cousins – Gave an illustrated talk of where Dee lived in Mortlake (Dee’s house no longer exist but his name lives on in a modern block of flats that are now on the site, called ‘John Dee House’) – And then on to the places in Poland and Czechoslovakia that Dee and Kelly lived. Most of these sites illustrated with colour slides taken by Robin himself. Helene Hodge gave a small talk on the use of incense and its use for evoking spirits/angels. – And the seven planetary incenses mentioned by Dee in his writings. Helene also had brought along samples of incense to smell, not to mention burning mostly aloes during her talk, which elevated the senses. She also mentioned that it was possible an ecclesiastical incense would have been burnt in the skying sessions with the angels, which mostly consists of Frankincense, that she reveals contains THC the same potent chemical that’s found in Cannabis Tobias Churton originally down as one of the speakers had to drop out and was replaced by an alchemist, Gary Nottingham. This was his first visit to London in 20 years, as he lives remotely out in the Welsh countryside. Gary looked every bit the alchemist and oozed radiant good health. He passed round many samples of his work (unfortunately no gold!) salt of sage, wine tartar, sulphur tartar, lavender stone, to illustrate the point that alchemy is not purely a spiritual science or by the same token not purely chemical. He also showed a curious photo, taken on his altar of some processed fennel seeds radiating light/energy, which would baffle the science community to explain. Alan Thorogood an Enochian practitoner of some 20 years talked on the ‘Liber Loagaeth’ (pronounced ‘Logger’) and his ongoing research into the nature of the 48 keys and their purpose relating to the Aethyrs. He gave an interesting breakdown on the table of Nalvage and how it would of related to ‘distinguished’ and ‘undistinguished’ levels of spirituality as depicted on a round table drawn by Dee. Alan also stated the important conclusion that the Liber Loagaeth is NOT the same as ‘The Book of Enoch’ as is commonly thought, a mistake inherited from ‘Casaubon’s’ incorrect allocation in ‘A True and Faithful Relation’. Peter Forshaw a academic, gave a most energetic, erudite and at times funny talk on Dee’s Monad Hieroglyphic and it’s influence on other philosophers and chemists/alchemists of the time. How Dee in his day was revered for his learning, as opposed to being thought of as a somewhat wacky outer fringe character in modern day times. If you get a chance to see Peter talk please do so, to be amazed by the depth of his learning and see a gifted entertaining speaker in action. David Rankine covered grimorie’s through the ages with some of the angels contained within those texts and their hierarchies. Gave a tip to call upon the angel Gabriel if you have a migraine! David also briefly mentioned Dr Thomas Rudd, Dee’s successor as a practitioner of angelic magic and which’ with his co-author Stephen King they has written a book about, to be published later in the year. The last speaker was Stephen Skinner,following on understandably from David Rankine, he gave a talk on the Goetia. Stephen, who now lives in a remote part of Malaysia, brought up a fact on Gardener as having learnt some of his magic in Burma when Gardener use to live there as a government Inspector. Stephen mentioned the the Goetia as being incomplete for lacking information of calling a corresponding angel to the demon you wish to invoke, as well as wearing a lamen to protect yourself. These angels are derived from the unmentionable 72 letter name for God. He also brought up Dr Thomas Rudd and illustrated a rather ornate breast-plate lamen that Rudd recommended to be worn, which will also serve as the cover page of the new book co-authored with David Rankine. There was a brief questions and answers of the topics covered at the end of the day with all the speakers, who most of them ran out of time during their talks, such is the sheer scale of Dee’s contribution to magic and human knowledge. The whole conference was filmed and a DVD of the event will be made. Ormyritus