Jason Louv - John Dee and the Empire of Angels: Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of the Modern World

For Devi

John Dee
AND THE
EMPIRE
OF
Angels

Renaissance magus John Dee boldly set out to systematically tap the mind of God by communicating directly with a complex hierarchy of angelic intelligences. It can be argued that he succeeded. His magical diaries have long held intense fascination among Qabalists, alchemists, and explorers of human consciousness who have developed workable magical systems from these records. Jason Louvs work succeeds, with breathtaking thoroughness, to tell this amazing and true magical tale. More importantly, he also reveals the profound geopolitical significance of Dees magical explorationseffects that still shape the global realities of today.

LON MILO DUQUETTE, AUTHOR OF ENOCHIAN VISION MAGICK

Jason Louvs John Dee and the Empire of Angels is a groundbreaking new assessment of one of the Western worlds most influential polymaths. Through a combination of intellectual rigor, sensitivity to both historical and current sociopolitical climates, and perhaps a bit of his own intuitive scrying, Louv offers us a crystalline view of John Dees visionary mind and complicated legacy.

PAM GROSSMAN, AUTHOR OF WHAT IS A WITCH AND HOST OF THE WITCH WAVE PODCAST

Jason Louvs masterful account of the enigmatic Elizabethan magus John Dee places him in the top tier of new esoteric writers.... Louvs assertion of Dee as both a creator and custodian of Western civilization is thought-provoking, and it is backed up by meticulous research. Highly recommended.

BRENDAN MCCARTHY, ARTIST, DESIGNER, AND COWRITER OF MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

The Dee story is among the most mystifying and important in the entire history of the Western esoteric tradition. And here, Jason Louv has given us the most complete, complex, and balanced account yet of Dee and his aftermath. An awesome achievement.

RALPH ABRAHAM, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF MATHEMATICS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ, CHAOS THEORIST, AND AUTHOR OF CHAOS, GAIA, EROS

Jason Louvs book is absolutely invaluable. It contextualizes the very bedrock that Western ceremonial magic is based on. Dee and Kellys legendary experiments are the cornerstone of our Western understanding of how magic works. But theres more to it than that. Louvs impressive work is not only an enjoyable, adventurous journey into esoteric history but also one into the multifacetedand sometimes dangerousmachinations of the human mind.

CARL ABRAHAMSSON, AUTHOR OF OCCULTURE: THE UNSEEN FORCES THAT DRIVE CULTURE FORWARD

Jason Louv weaves a masterfully poetic web that first introduces you and then sucks you into Dees luminous world of magick. This book is not just a book about the occult and magick; its also a unique historical reference guide that I found to be a hypnotic read. Jason is a brilliant mind and writer, and this book proves that.

ZACH LEARY, HOST OF THE MAPS AND ITS ALL HAPPENING PODCASTS

Never has there been a more valuable and more prescient time than NOW to have John Dee and the Empire of Angels published.

E. ELIAS MERHIGE, DIRECTOR OF BEGOTTEN AND SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE

This is the first book Ive seen where Dees angelic magic is neither discussed in isolation, nor dismissed as an eccentric sideline, but recognized as a key part of Dees philosophy and political influence right up to the present day.

LIONEL SNELL (A.K.A. RAMSEY DUKES), AUTHOR OF MY YEARS OF MAGICAL THINKING

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a lonely occupation that is only made possible by a network of good will, patience, and understanding.

A great thank you to my girlfriend, Devi Brul, whose love and patient support carried me day in and day out during the time I wrote this book. A thank you as well to my parents, who encouraged me throughout its creation. Serious thanks must also be reserved for my many students at Magick. Me, who made it financially possible for me to take the time off to write this book.

Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing commissioned and published the original article that became this book, and Jon Graham of Inner Traditions commissioned the full work and was greatly supportive of its writing. Thank you as well to Jennie Marx and Manzanita Carpenter Sanz at Inner Traditions for helping it into manifestation.

Many people assisted along the way with encouragement, information, or by aiding in my research trips, including Daniel Andrew Nava, Dennis Woo, Alan Green, Adam Parfrey, Michael Le Tigre, Christie Casey-Young, Eli Lee, E. Elias Merhige, Detlev Auvermann, Thomas Negovan, Grant Morrison, Dr. Gregory DePies, and William Kiesel. Maria V. Montgomery and David Richard Jones provided scans of the original Dee manuscripts and assisted with additional information and context, particularly in regard to the chapter on Aleister Crowley. Years prior to writing this book, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Caleigh Fisher helped foster my interest in John Dee and the connection of Christian eschatology to imperialism, and Lon Milo DuQuettes books and live seminars provided a handle on understanding Dees magic. Many people have aided me in experimental research into Dees natural philosophy over the years; respect for personal privacy dictates that I must thank them as a whole.

A final thanks to all of the Dee scholars and biographers on whose work I stand and whose research has proven invaluable to the present work, including Dame Frances Yates, Glen Parry, Benjamin Woolley, Nicholas Clulee, Deborah Harkness, Gyrgy Sznyi, Hkan Hkansson, and Stephen Skinner.

Veritas Praevalebit.

And the Lord God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

GENESIS 3:2224 (NIV)

The great secret known to Apollonius of Tyana, Paul of Tarsus, Simon Magus, Asklepios, Paracelsus, Boehme, and Bruno is that: we are moving backward in time. The universe in fact is contracting into a unitary entity which is completing itself. Decay and disorder are seen by us in reverse, as increasing. These healers learned to move forward in time, which is retrograde to us.

PHILIP K. DICK, VALIS

In the Garden

Beginning it all: A man, a woman, and a Dragon.

Around them, the Garden of Eden. A single, shining instancebefore time began, with all its stupidity of suffering, loss, and waste. In which there is only the devotion of God for his Creation, and man and woman together, in love.

Blissfully unaware, Adam and Eve sleep sheltered in each others arms beneath the Tree of Life. They speak with the language of angels, and with it, Adam begins to name the things around him. Imagine yourself as Adam, naming all that you see, watching as each facet of eternity comes into being as a separate object, divided from the supernal totality that is the body of God.