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It's England in the 1580s. There's a man sitting in the world's largest private library. 4000 books all owned by him. He's writing coded messages to the Queen. He's using the signature 007. He's convinced that he can talk to angels. And he might be the first international spy in history. The man is John Dee, the smartest man in England, who was also maybe the most gullible. He's a devout Christian who dabbled in the occult. He's a mathematician that believes in magic. And he's the Queen's most trusted advisor, who may have been duped by a class con man posing as a friend. He even coined the term the British Empire and taught navigation to the explorers who built it. This dude is absolutely fascinating. And we literally wouldn't have the world as we know today without him. And centuries later, he has captivated occultists and historians and novelists alike. Everyone wants to know about John Dee, and today, so will you. We're diving into the world of the man who showed us that genius and delusion can exist in the same brilliant but complicated mind. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal, so there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mint mob.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to 15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. C mint mobile.com. what's up, people? And welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Cagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world forever and always, from the past to the future and everything in between. As always, I'm joined by a dear friend, a brother, a compatriot, a mentor, and a child. Christos Papalopoulos. So before we begin. Christos, how are you? All right, so, guys, I'm not gonna let him. He didn't get the mic to his mouth. You know, the comments about Christos and his disruptions to the podcast have truly warmed my heart, and I just want to thank everyone for just, I don't know, standing up to injustice and. Yeah, just recognizing that sometimes silence Is. Is not violence, you know, and sometimes silence is golden. And I think, slowly Chris is going to learn that. But you know what? We don't have time for all this nonsense, okay? Because today we're talking about the one, the only John Dee, one of the most famous occultists of all time and a dear friend to Queen Elizabeth. Now, in order to understand this, we gotta go all the way back to 1580 to a country known as England. You probably heard of it, right? It's a pretty popular place. So there's a man who historians have described as, quote, tall and slender, six five, blue eyes, trust fund. No, he's just tall, handsome. He wears a dark gown, like. Like an artist gown. Hanging sleeves, very fair, clear, sanguine complexion, long beard, as white as milk, and a very handsome man. This is a quote about this gentleman. He's sitting in what is the biggest private library in the world. 4,000 books. Probably the most books ever owned by a person in that time. And there's a crystal ball on his desk and he's writing coded messages to Queen Elizabeth. He is convinced he can communicate with angels and. And he might actually be history's very first double oh, seven. That's right, the OG James Bond. Welcome to the world of John D. Now, this guy was potentially the smartest person in England at the time, but was also possibly, like, the most gullible. He had an insane career in math, astronomy, like navigation, was able to, you know, help guide ships, but then mixed them with, like, divination and astrology and alchemy and all sorts of other stuff that was little on the fringes. He was a devout member of the Christian church, but also leaned heavily into the esoteric and the occult. He advised the Queen on basically everything from military strategy to, you know, what day she should be coronated and genuinely believed it was the angels revealing this hidden information. And maybe it was. Who am I to say no, right? But he above all believed it. And the world of John Dee is not only a world full of contradictions, but a world where you have one foot in facts and another possibly in the esoteric and the occult. And by the time we finish up this episode, you're going to understand why everybody, from conspiracy theorists to occultists to historians and even, like, video game designers, are still obsessed with this man for centuries later. Because John D. Didn't just live through a crazy time in history, he actually created the history. And in some ways that you would not expect. So let's go to the beginning, shall we? John D. This guy's born in England, 1527, and right from the jump, he is different. This is not your average kid in the 1500s. He's brilliant at math and he gets into Cambridge at 15, which, again, yes, a few things. One, Cambridge exists at this time. It is prestigious at this time, potentially even more so in a certain sense, because no one could go to college. And so the fact that this guy gets into college at all, especially at the age of 15, is remarkable. And he got in not because he's like a Nepo baby, you know, there's no D library at the, you know, Cambridge campus, but because he's legit brilliant. And while other teens are figuring out, like, basic math, he's already going into, like, deep technical geometry and astronomy and is kind of just like crushing it. And what makes him really special is for this time, he's not just book smart. He understands how dynamics work. So he understands how knowledge is powerful. And he was going crazy trying to collect all the knowledge possible. So by his 20s, he graduates from Cambridge and becomes an original fellow at Trinity College. And then he starts traveling across Europe studying with the best mathematicians and astronomers of that time. And then he comes back to England with a rare collection of books, math tools and like astrological sort of measuring devices and a whole lot of, you know, knowledge and expertise. And, you know, if knowledge is power, even maybe has a little bit of power. So back in England, our man John Dee was offered all sorts of cool gigs, right? He gets calls from English universities, including Oxford, who was like, hey, do you want to become a professor? But he turned them all down. And some say it's because he disapproved of how these universities were sort of prioritizing their subjects and that, you know, some of these schools were had, like, full on, like, grammar classes and, you know, they were charting, trying to put, like, certain things more important than things that John D. Thought was, you know, important. For example, putting grammar above philosophy felt like an affront to him. But others theorize that it might have been that D was holding out for, you know, a bigger offer and that was landing a role with the Queen. Now, Queen Mary the First was not exactly, you know, like a good time kind of gal, right? She was a little, you know, trigger happy with the Protestants. You know, she was a devout Catholic herself, so obviously, you know, shout out to her and didn't offer a ton of wiggle room when it came to punishing anybody who, you know, who fell outside of her Catholic lifestyle. So Dee didn't exactly make a great first impression with her majesty in 1555, Dee is 28, and he was arrested and charged with, quote, lewd and vain practices of calculating and conjuring. Now, what happened was Dee had cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth. To anyone who isn't familiar with this practice, it's not a curse, it's not witchcraft, and it's not. That's really gonna hurt you, so to speak. I mean, that's just my opinion. Some people think differently. But a horoscope is just a map of the positions of the sun, the moon and the stars at the, you know, time of a specific event. So, for example, someone's birth, and it can tell you unique things about that person's, you know, character or, you know, give you an idea of what might happen in their lifetime. And again, this is the idea behind the people that believe it. You know, this is not something I subscribe to, but some people do. And, you know, lots of ancient cultures had some type of belief system around this loose philosophy that, you know, we call astrology. And they believed that, you know, the moment that you were born and where the stars were kind of dictates something about you. And, you know, white women love it. All that to say, horoscopes are, you know, relatively harmless, right? They can be used as a method of divination, which is, you know, maybe a little less harmless, but that's a different topic. So divination isn't just, you know, like a class you would take at Hogwarts. It's actually, according to occultists, a real form of witchcraft. It's a method that occultists use to gain insights into a situation by using supernatural means. So, you know, they can read signs or omens or try to communicate with spirits or interpret their findings as messages, things like that. So in that context, you can see why the Church and the English Crown were obviously not so cool with John Dee's little magic trick back in the day. So these charges of conjuring and treason against Queen Mary were brought against John Dee, forcing him to appear in the court of the Royal palace of Westminster, also called the Court of Star Chamber. First off, great name. Hilarious. Like, there's a guy practicing astrology and you're like, dude, you're going to the Star Chamber Court. You'd be like, dude, this is kind of ideal. You know, it sounds like George Lucas named it. Anyway, John D. Exonerated himself, but was turned over to a man named Bonner, who was a Catholic bishop who would be in charge of giving D quote, a religious examination but wouldn't you know it, Bonner was one of De's good buddies, which probably helped with getting some of the charges dropped. In fact, it's reported that after this little incident, D actually became Bonner's chaplain. So pretty good save right there, right? So D wasn't ever really able to win his way back into the good graces with Queen Mary. He approached her in 1556 again with an idea to preserve old books and manuscripts and records and, you know, kind of like a. A vision to establish like a national library. But even though it was a good idea, Mary was not interested. You know, maybe because she didn't like the idea, or maybe she didn't like old John Dee, who, you know, probably left a bad taste in her mouth from the year before. But don't worry, because Dee wouldn't be blacklisted forever. Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen in 1558. And she is not like her mother. She's young, unmarried, and half of Europe thinks that she has absolutely no business running England at all. And she needs advisors who she can trust. But more importantly, she needs advisors who will give her a little bit of an edge. And this is John Dee's chance. Now, if you remember our episode on Grigory Rasputin, a lot of this probably sounds familiar, but not to deviate too much. The first thing that Elizabeth asks John Dee to do is pick the perfect date for her coronation. Not based on politics or the weather, but based on star alignments. And D, he delivers. He uses astrology to choose. January 15, 1559. Elizabeth is so impressed that she goes as far as to make John Dee her advisor. And from then on, Dee was Elizabeth's secret weapon. When English explorers wanted to sail to the New World, they came to Dee for navigation techniques. When the Queen needed to justify England's territorial claims, Dee wrote the propaganda. And when military commanders needed strategic advice, who do they go to? But calling him the Queen's advisor, really, it doesn't fully capture everything that John Dee was doing for this woman. D was running something closer to like a one man think tank thing. Like he was analyzing maps and then trade routes and then helping England basically just like do everything on a world stage. He was hand picking sailors and teaching them navigation stuff. He was trained in preparing them how to expand the colonies. And this was a project in particular that John Dee was very excited about. Dee was actually the first guy to coined the term British Empire, publishing it in one of the many books that he wrote. The guy becomes so essential that when other European courts Want to understand what England is planning, they try to recruit Dee. And here's the crazy part, they succeed, kind of. D starts traveling across Europe, meeting with emperors and monarchs and princes, all while technically still, still working for Queen Elizabeth. Which brings us to this library idea, the one he built for himself when Mary turned down his original idea. 4000 books. It doesn't sound like a much, you know, a ton today. Right. But in the 1570s, that's more books than most universities or any private collection or really anyone else in the world, any government, anything like that. And Dee's collection had become so legendary and the resources inside the library were so valuable that scholars would travel from across Europe just to access John Dee's private collection. He's basically running the Google of the Renaissance out of his home. Emergency broadcast Guys, we have a brand new channel. Dropping it is Mark Agnon comedy. And we're going to be putting all my stand up right there as well as a new show we call you ask for this. We pass out note cards to the audience and they submit suggestions that then get put into a bucket. And then me and a friend, we will draw them out and riff on them. Whether it's a current event or maybe a personal story that happened to someone in the audience. Whatever it is, we get to the bottom of it. So if you're interested in checking out the channel, you can click the link in the description. Please subscribe. It really, really helps everything work, especially after the show comes out. Checking out the episodes and supporting is massive. We really appreciate it. You can check it out. There it is. You asked for. This is the name of the segment and the channel is marked Mark Agno comedy. We'll see you guys at the new spot. Thank you so much for always supporting. We'll see you next time. Let's get back to the show. So by 1581, Dee got everything a man could want. He's the Queen's most trusted advisor. He created basically by himself the biggest library in England. And European royalty is treating him like a rock star. But apparently this success was just not enough. So being the smartest guy in England and one of the most sought after advisors in Europe, John Dee wanted more. You see, from childhood, John Dee knew that there was more to the universe than what we could see. He studied math, science, astronomy, but he believed that these things were not one off little subjects. He thought they were all connected and that by studying nature in these ways, he could uncover the secrets about the universe and potentially even about God himself. And even with all his knowledge and all this power, as we talked about before, Dee knew that there was something that he was missing. And that is ultimately what he wanted. He didn't just want to know about the universe. He wanted to know how it worked. And he wanted to know more than answers. He wanted this divine wisdom. And he wanted to talk to God. I mean, he's talking to the Queen. He's like, I think there's someone above and I want that guy. So he tried something a little edgier than prayer. And this is something we called scrying. Now, scrying, or also called seeing, is a supernatural practice rooted in this concept of divination that we talked about before. It involves gazing into a reflection of some kind, hoping to receive hidden messages or visions that could offer guidance or prophecy or really anything you can get from the other side. Now, a scryer can be a number of various objects, really, as long as it has some type of reflection. So a crystal ball, or today even a smartphone. The object acts as an intermediary between the person and the angels or any other spiritual being that you're trying to contact. Again, this is the idea behind this. Amongst occultists, methods usually involve trying to put yourself into a trance or entering a focused state that, you know, will basically clear out all of your mental, mental clutter, thus allowing the organic revelation of these visual images. And these initial images, however trivial, are amplified during the trance. Some scryers report that they can hear their voice affirming what they see or potentially hearing another voice or creating this type of, like, mental feedback loop. And this is where Dee's brilliant mind takes a little bit of a left turn. He becomes convinced that if he can just basically get the right technique, he can establish direct communication with angels, and the angels could tell him all the pieces of the puzzle that was missing in his studies. So he's basically just trying to get like a. Like a zoom call with God, basically, and just trying to figure it all out. And his drawing was generally unsuccessful. You know, but props to John D. For trying to figure it out. I mean, keep in mind, also, this is illegal to do, right? Like, if you're caught scrying in England in the 1500s, you go to prison. So for months, D. Sat in his study with various crystals and mirrors and obsidian tablets, basically anything trying to cold call into the cosmos. And he's using the only methods he knows at the time, and that is, again, these ancient occult methods, which you really can't blame him for. You know, he was a devout Christian growing up, and he's not denouncing God necessarily by dipping his toe into this kind of, like, witchy stuff. He, in his mind, is just trying to utilize his resources and doing whatever he wants thought would work to get him ahead. And he documented every attempt, every flicker of light, every shadow that seemed weird. I mean, the guy approached this, you know, scrying or divination with the same methodical precision that he used for math. And then on May 25, 1582, Dee writes in his diary that it finally happened. First contact. After all those failed attempts, he claimed that he actually talked to an angel. And not just any angel, either. The one introduces itself as Uriel or Uriel, one of the biggest names in the angelic hierarchy. And these aren't just friendly like, hello, how's the weather? How's, you know, heaven didn't take a long time to get here. Boy, your arms are tired like that. It wasn't like that vibe, right? The angels start to teach D what they call a pure divine language, something that they claim was spoken before the Tower of Babel actually, you know, ruined all the languages of Earth. Dee names it Enochian, after the biblical figure Enoch, who supposedly walked with God. Now Dee, unsurprisingly, becomes obsessed with the secret heavenly language. He's convinced that this is the original language of creation, than the words that God used to actually speak the universe into existence. And he spends hours learning the grammar, memorizing the vocabulary, trying to perfect his pronunciation of words that supposedly haven't been spoken correctly by humans in, you know, multiple. Multiple millennia. And though D was supposedly able to make, you know, angelic contact, he's really not as talented of a scryer as he would like to be. So a lot of his questions go unanswered, and he eventually becomes frustrated with the lack of progress. So he takes on a business partner, someone who can compensate for some of Dee's blind spots. And this someone was potentially running the greatest con job in history. So this is where the whole story takes a turn that's maybe hilarious or sad, depending on, you know, how you look at and who you're related to. Because in March of 1582, there's a guy named Edward Kelly who shows up, and right off the bat, you can tell there's some stuff wrong with this dude, Right? First, red flag. His ears are cropped. Like how a dog. Like how they're like a dog, like a Doberman, their ears would. It's, like, insane. And it's not like a fashion thing, you know, that's just what you did in the 1500s if you got caught forging documents. So this guy literally has convicted criminal written on his ears. But D, brilliant as he may be, somehow looks past this and is just like, oh, no, it's cool, he's got a, he's Elvin or something. I, I don't know, I don't know. He just let it go. And probably because he too is, you know, guilty of breaking the law in some, you know, some ways he just hasn't been caught yet, you know, who knows exactly what he's doing. But I mean, the occult stuff is not exactly, you know, simpatico with the church. So it turns out that scrying is Kelly's specialty. Second, red flag. Hardly anything is known about his life prior to his time with D. He is definitely a criminal and is actually thought to be going by a fake name. But here's the thing. Kelly's little pitch to John Dee worked, or at least it worked for John D. In some way. You know, suddenly instead of sitting alone staring at these crystals, hoping for divine contact, he's got this guy who's claiming have full on conversations with angels. And Kelly becomes Dee's interpreter, the middleman between earth and heaven. Now if you understand anything about this hierarchy that we've built here, right, you have Queen Elizabeth, very important. And then you have John Dee who's advising Queen Elizabeth, and then you have John D. Who's talking to God and the angels, and that is above. But now who is the intermediary between John Dee and, and the gods and the angels is this guy, Edward Kelly. Now if you're looking at my little Chartier, that puts this guy above the queen. So it's a powerful position now according to Kelly, that the, the angels don't just speak to him, they speak in that same Nochian language that Dee has been trying to learn. And Kelly claims that he can see these celestial beings in the clear crystals and they can, he can hear their voices and translate their messages. And it's, it's like having this actual angelic translator. Except this translator is a convicted con man, which crazily enough is still not an issue. But D is completely sold. And finally, after all those months of failed attempts, he's got his direct line to the divine wisdom. Bada bang, bada boom. Life is good, right? The angel conversations become like a regular thing. Dee's asking questions, Kelly's relaying the answers. Both of them fill in notebooks with what they believe to be direct communication from God. John D. Asking questions. What do I do. Like, how much do I pay Kelly? And Kelly's like, the angel said, give me a raise. Like, it's crazy. So now most people, you know, would maybe have, like, a few chats with, you know, God or angels, and they'd call it a day. They'd be like, all right, cool. Got all my answers. I got all my answers. Ask some questions, move on. But Dee, as you know, the nerd that he is, goes full academic. And he's filling thousands of pages with detailed transcripts of every angelic conversation. I mean, like, meticulous records, who said what, when they said it, what it all means. And the angels are not just chatting about heaven either. According to Dee's notes, they're giving him instructions about reforming Christianity, uniting all the world's religions, creating a new spiritual order. They're telling him he's been chosen for this massive divine mission to transform the human understanding of God. And what makes this even crazier is that Dee isn't keeping this to himself. He starts incorporating his angelic revelations into his work for the Queen. And he's telling Elizabeth that his supernatural contacts are giving him sort of strategic insight for England and the empire. Now, the daily records that Dee kept are crazy to read, frankly. I mean, they're included in some of the books he published, including his personal diaries. And, you know, the documents are not just the, you know, conversations, but, like, the angels personalities. Some are apparently more chatty, some get impatient when he doesn't understand their instructions fast enough. It's like he's created this entire mythology around these celestial contacts, you know, complete with character development and log lines and episode arcs, like it's. It's crazy, and I have no idea what is actually happening. Now, what's fascinating is that D never seems to doubt this at all. This brilliant mathematician, this, you know, royal advisor, global sensation, you know, sweetheart of Europe, is absolutely convinced that he's selected by the cosmos for the most important mission in human history. And he doesn't really ever stop to think, like, is this legit? Is this really. Like, is this really divine? Now, looking back, it's, you know, there's a few different stories of what's happening, right? Kelly is out there making this stuff up as he goes along and is pulling off one of history's most, you know, elaborate gaslighting operations. And modern cryptographers who studied the Enochian language think that it shows signs of being artificially constructed. But the real question is whether Dee was in on it or if he was somehow conned by this guy. Edward Kelly. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick. Cause I gotta tell you a story. Imagine you're sitting in your house. It's cold outside, it's a little snowy. And you're like, man, I just want a panini. So you go and you order it, you know, from Doordash or something like that. And it never gets to you. You're looking at the app, you're like, dude, it's been four hours. Where's my panini? You're calling? No one answers. Well, this is a true story that happened. 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If I never ordered that panini, she never would have slipped, never got a million bucks, which obviously she deserved. You know what I mean? But maybe next time she gets a million and million point one, I can get a cool a hundred thousand out of that regardless. All I'm saying is if you're ever injured and you are looking to get the money that you deserved, the compensation that is entitled to you from your injuries, Morgan and Morgan could be the way to go. Hiring the wrong law firm can be disastrous. I mean, you can be locked up and litigate. It's a nightmare. But hiring the right law firm could substantially increase your settlement. And with Morgan and Morgan, it's easy to get started. Their fee is $0 unless they win. That's right. Their fee is free. Unless they win your case. You don't pay a zero. You pay zero cents unless they win your case. You can visit forthepeople.com Gagnon G A G N O N. That is F O R the people.com Gagnon. Or dial pound law. That's pound 529 from your cell phone. That's for the people.com Gagnon. Or click the link in the description below. And thank you so much to the good folks over at Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring this program and making this show possible. We're with this paid advertisement. Let's get back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Prime delivery is fast. How fast are we talking? We're talking puzzle toys and lick pad delivered so fast you can get this puppy under control fast. We're talking chew toys at your door without really waiting. Fast pads, cooling mat, peg, hammer. Fast and fast. And those training t r e a t s faster than you can say sit fast. And now we can all relax and order these matching hoodies to get cozy and cute. Fast. Fast. Free delivery. It's on. Prime. And then Dee and Kelly decide to take their show on the road. So by 1584, the angels, quote, unquote, start giving them some strange or unconventional instructions. Now, if at this point you're like, dude, maybe they legit are talking to angels, I respect that. Like, I'm not fully sold that that's not what's happening. It's possible. Who knows, right? But this is where things kind of take a break. Kelly breaks it to deed that the angels want the guys to share everything, literally everything, including their wives. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this guy, Edward Kelly is. Is just a genius. He says, look, I've been talking to angels and they do want me to dog your wife out from the back. And Kelly convinces D that refusing this would be disobeying God. I mean, d, as you can imagine, he's not stoked about this, but he goes along with it. Not out of, like, not because he's into it. Like, he, like, again, he's trading places. You know what I mean? Like, he's. He's hitting Edward Kelly's a little shorty, putting her face in the pillow, but he's not happy about it. And you can hear his wife getting dogged in the other Room. Just like, what the. Like, why do the angels need me to do this? Why is this a part of this, this whole cosmic drama? Right? Again, he's worried that the angels are going to stop talking to him, and if the angels stop talking to him, he's going to lose his position as a royal advisor. He has to do this to save the British Empire. Dude, you wouldn't do that. Would you rather become one of the richest men in Europe and be an advisor to the most powerful monarch in the entire continent and get your wife dogged out or keep your wife and, you know, just be a little peasant? Well, this was John D's real life, Jane, his wife, was also not stoked, as you can imagine. But eventually she went along with it. And this quote, cross matching occurred on May 22, 1588. I mean, I couldn't even imagine being John D. And being like, babe, you're not gonna believe this. The angel said that Kelly's gonna have to absolutely just skull crush you. And she was like, who talked to the angels? And he was like, oh, Kelly talked to him. She's. No one thought this was weird. No one thought they should flag and be like, hey, can we get a second opinion? Is there another scryer in this big, beautiful country that can come in and just see if that's actually what they said? Did they really say wife swap? Did they really say, hey, we're actually gonna. We're swinging? Maybe that's. Maybe they meant something different. You know, maybe. Maybe there's other types of swinging that they meant. Oh, slinging. Oh, they meant they want us to actually go and sling the word. They want us to go tell people about our visions. My bad. You don't think anyone thought of this? I mean, according to Dee's diary, he says, May 22, Mistress Kelly received the sacrament and to me and my wife gave her hand in charity, and we rushed not from her. Guys, what is going on now? You want to know something crazy? Nine months later. Yeah. February 1588, John Dee's wife had a son. And Dee baptized this boy and raised it as his own. Now, remember, May 22nd. Fast forward nine months. We're in February. John D. Got absolutely cucked by this con man that came over to him and said, I can talk to the angels for you. Don't trip about it. And the angels are telling me to dog at your wife, nut in her, paint the walls white, give you a baby, and you're gonna raise it. I mean, guys, what the hell is going on? And it gets even Better, right? Because Kelly, this guy, Edward Kelly, right, also claims that he's figured out alchemy. Great news. Hey, John D. Not only gonna raise my kid after I just dogged your wife out, I also know alchemy. I also know how to turn base metals. You know what I mean? Like the copper, you know, just like a little aluminum, tin, whatever. I can turn these things into gold. Now, every con artist in the 1500s claims that they could do this, but Kelly actually convinced some pretty important people, including Emperor Rudolph II over in Prague, who is obsessed with this kind of stuff. So Rudolph sends them an invitation to the court, and suddenly, Dee and Kelly are packing up their families and their little crystal balls and their little empty balls and their fake kids, and they go on a European road trip, and they leave behind Dee's massive library and, you know, his connections with the Elizabethan court and everything that made him powerful in England. And the Queen is like, hey, where you going? And he's like, look, I gotta go. You know, I gotta. I got a meeting. And she's like, what's the meeting like? Oh, it's with this guy about turning metal into gold. And we talked to the angels, and they said it was cool. And this guy Kelly said that, you know, he gave me all the stuff. So literally, Kelly teaches, like, tricks this guy into leaving his entire family and leaving his job and leaving his library. And this whole partnership is the perfect storm of Dee's genuine spiritual seeking, you know, with Kelly's opportunistic scheming, I mean, it's just a match made in heaven. Dee wants to serve God and unlock divine secrets and get his wife blasted. Kelly wants money and status and probably finds it amusing that he can, you know, just bend over this guy's beautiful babe. Now, while Dee is busy, you know, being super gullible and just getting absolutely cocked, his time on the road is not a total waste. So De might have, @ this point, potentially become a spy. Now, this is where things get interesting, potentially. He. Again, this is not confirmed, but allegedly, it's possible that he was running an espionage operation and potentially one of the first in European history. And the best part, he may have been using his reputation as this mystical weirdo as the COVID So picture this. 1580s, all right? European politics are a mess. Spain wants to crush the Protestants in England, and France is dealing with religious civil wars, and the Holy Roman Empire is basically crumbling. And in the middle of all this chaos, you got John Dee and his wife, you know, full of. Full of that good stuff from his Buddy traveling around Europe and supposedly changed, you know, chasing these. These angels in conversation and trying to talk to different monarchs about how to turn metal into gold. But also, he might be collecting intelligence. So here's what we know for sure. D signed his most sensitive letters to Queen Elizabeth with three numbers. 0, 0, 7. Now, these are not random numbers. The two zeros mean for your eyes only. And the seven was his personal lucky number. So, yeah, Ian Fleming. You ever heard of that guy? Absolute con artist, that Ian Fleming. He didn't invent double oh, seven. He borrowed it from the 16th century mathematician who used it as his coded signature. Now, think about D's cover story here, right? He's a famous scholar, a brilliant mathematician. He's got this reputation across Europe for being just a brilliant guy who knows about mathematics and astronomy and, you know, military and naval battles, and now is apparently talking to the angels. And every major court wants to meet him. And now you got emperors and kings and monarchs inviting him over for dinner. Princes are asking for advice. He is the Renaissance celebrity, and everybody wants a little peace. But here's the genius part. While everyone thinks he's just this eccentric academic, D's got access to information and, you know, he's got access to people that most spies would only dream of. He's basically sitting in private conversations with these rulers across Europe, and he's seeing their libraries and their maps and their servants and the people that they're talking to and their military plans. And people are showing off their secrets to impress this famous scholar. So let's go back to this trip to Prague, right? Officially, they're there because Emperor Rudolph II wants to learn about alchemy and angel magic and scrying and all that stuff. But Prague is, you know, in some ways, the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. It's where all the major political decisions for Central Europe get made. And D spends months there, meeting with nobles and diplomats and military commanders, not just from Prague, but from all over. And you think he's not paying attention to what Spain is planning or what the Catholic League is up to? And Rudolph II isn't the only one that's courting D. He's getting invitations from courts across the continent. So Poland wants him to advise their king. Italian princes are offering him a position. Everyone thinks that they can use the famous English mystic for their own purposes. But meanwhile, it's possible that Dee is taking mental notes on everything that he sees and hears, and he's going back to his homegirl, Queen Elizabeth. And the timing is, in some ways Too perfect to be coincidental. You see, Dee's European travels happen right when England needs intelligence about Catholic plots against Elizabeth. And the Spanish are planning invasions. The Pope is encouraging some assassination attempts. Various European powers are scheming to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne. And right in the middle of all of this political chaos, you have this tall, slender little cuck named John D. Wandering around Europe with access to basically anyone that matters. So even his partnership with Kelly starts to make some more sense from this angle. Maybe D. Needed a partner who, you know, could potentially help him sell the mystical cover story while he was able to focus on intelligence gathering. You know, Kelly got this, like, showman personality, and, you know, he's able to, you know, sell, and he can put on a good performance with the crystal ball. And he keeps these nobles entertained while D. Is, you know, potentially observing things or walking around or talking to people or even just jotting down some thoughts. It's a theory, interesting one for sure. Now, what's brilliant, though, is that nobody would suspect him, right? It's like kind of the perfect cover. Who's going to think that someone that's obsessed with, you know, supernatural conversations is actually running this covert intelligence operation? You see, John D. Gets written off as, like, a eccentric guy, which gives him the freedom to travel and ask questions and build these relationships without anyone being any wiser. Now, we'll probably never know for sure just how much of these mystical pursuits were genuine and what was a cover for espionage work, if any of it at all. And maybe he really did believe in these angels and what happened to be, you know, this great intelligence gathering operation. Or maybe it was, you know, this just the spy stuff all along, and that he never believed any of these supernatural revelations at all. I mean, that one, I think, you know, if you're gonna let your wife get smashed. I don't think that's true. But either way, these moment in the spotlight with all that royal favor is about to disappear. And when it does, everything about this guy's life falls apart. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you need better sleep. I mean, if you're like me, you'll probably wake up feeling exhausted, you miss your workout, you're drinking too much coffee, you feel wired the whole day because you're just shocking your nervous system. And the problem is that sometimes you don't sleep great. And the sleep supplements that you do take are probably packed with melatonin, oftentimes 10 times the melatonin that your body actually produces. So as a result, you end up feeling more groggy and worse than you did before because this melatonin is knocking you out and you're not able to wake up easily. It's a big problem. And that's why Sleep Dust came into the market, because they saw this issue and instead of knocking you out with massive doses of melatonin, it works with your body using five clinically backed all natural ingredients. 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That is sleep-dust.com, use the code sleep for 20 off and look, if you don't like it, you got a 60 day money back guarantee. That is how confident they are. So go check them out. And thank you so much for supporting the show. We got the link in the description, now let's get back to it. Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL and I'm CD Lamb, wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. You know I'm here for Abercrombie's Cowboys gear. That's not a question, but I need a whole wardrobe to go with it. No shade to the guys, but I'm used to having the best tunnel fits. This season, Abercrombie has me covered. Shop NFL by Abercrombie in the app, online and in store. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com so first is the alchemy thing. You see, this alchemy thing is a real problem because Kelly keeps promising Rudolph II that he can turn lead into gold, and somehow he never quite manages to pull it off. The emperor starts getting impatient and suddenly Kelly goes from, you know, honored guest to suspicious character really quick. So by 1586, the whole Prague adventure thing is kind of souring and Kelly is starting to panic about what happens when this con finally gets exposed. Meanwhile, Dee is getting letters from England that aren't exactly encouraging. You see, the political climate back home is shifting. Elizabeth's courts have moved on from the whole like, oh, let's consult our mystical advisor phase and are getting much more practical and concerned with actual political scientists and scholars of the time. There are even some rumors that, you know, the Queen's newer pals think that De's supernatural thing is too far and this guy's too eccentric and, you know, he's lost it. Then comes the breaking point. In 1587, Dee and Kelly have a massive falling out. And the details are a little murky, but what it seems to come down to is that D finally starts to question whether Kelly has been playing him the whole time or whether he can actually talk to these angels. Maybe he caught Kelly in like a lie or there was some contradictory information, or maybe his mathematical mind finally actually started to account for all these inconsistencies and red flags. Some sources say that it may have been due to Kelly wanting to part ways with Dee and that perhaps after his own rise to fame across Europe, he wanted to be out from underneath John Dee's thumb and his employment and kind of go off on his own. They no longer shared the same goals as they once did. Whatever happened, they part ways badly. For the record, Dee heads back to England in 1589, expecting to return to his old position as Elizabeth's trusted advisor. But when he gets there, it's, you know, the party is over and the England that he left is not the England that he returned to. You see, Elizabeth's courts had all new faces and new priorities and new goals and the alignments were a little bit off. And frankly, these new advisors, you know, they don't have crop eared business partners and crystal ball habits. And the whole angel communication thing seemed pretty mysterious and intriguing in the early 1580s, but now I mean, it's almost 10 years later and it's not really making a ton of sense. And so Dee went from being this cutting edge Renaissance man to being kind of like the weird uncle that talks about the time that he saw God. Now, worse off, John, Dee's finances are wrecked. He had been living off imperial hospitality and promises of sort of alchemical gold for years. And that famous library, remember the collection of 4,000 books that, you know, basically made him, like, one of the most resource rich academics at the time. He basically starts selling it off piece by piece just to pay for his, you know, basic expenses or, you know, basically what's left of it. You see, when Dee returns to his home in Mortlake, he finds that his library had actually been ransacked. I mean, everything is stolen and some of it's destroyed and flipped upside down and, like, it's. Some of it's burned. It's crazy. And the heartbreaking part of all this is that Dee genuinely doesn't understand what went wrong. He spends his final years writing petition after petition to Elizabeth, asking for compensation for his years of service. And it's basically just him being like, hey, Liz, remember when I was like, your buddy and you trusted me and I trusted you and, you know, all that intelligence work, like, any way I could just get a pension or something? But Elizabeth was not interested in acknowledging whatever spy work Dee may or may not have done. It's possibly too politically risky, or maybe it was all, you know, fake to begin with. And, oh, all those angel conversations, well, those are definitely not something that the courts want to be associated with at all. So Dee gets the royal equivalent of, you know, getting left on red. And the only thing that Elizabeth does end up doing for Dee is making him the warden of Christ College in Manchester, where he's not even really respected by his fellows. And meanwhile, Kelly's story ends exactly how you would expect a con artist story to end. He gets imprisoned by Rudolph ii, probably for failing to deliver on those gold promises. And by 1597, he tries to escape from his tower prison and falls to his death. Now, whether this is an accident or a suicide or he's murdered, no one really knows, but it is a fitting end for someone who'd been, you know, cheating and running cons his entire adult life. Now, Dee sticks around until 1608, and by all accounts, he dies in poverty. This guy who had once been one of Europe's most powerful and connected people, ends up in some ways forgotten, obsolete, broke, and, you know, taking care of someone else's Kid. But here's what gets me. According to the people who knew him in his final years, he never stopped believing. But right up until the end, he was convinced that he had been chosen by God for a grand mission. Here we go. Any minute now. All the angels, all that stuff, it's all real. Everything that he had done had the cosmic significance. And the remainder of that giant library, one of the, you know, greatest intellectual treasures in Europe, it's just scattered into the wind. Some books end up in other collections or sold to random buyers or just disappear and are completely stolen. It's like the Renaissance equivalent of like the Library of Alexandria, right? Except it's not fire or war that gets rid of it. It's just neglect and poverty. And by the time D dies, most people had forgotten why he was ever important in the first place. So even in his own lifetime, people kind of lose scope of what this guy did or who he was. And he goes from being this legendary figure to being kind of just a cautionary tale about what happens when brilliant people get in over their heads and buy into things that are tough to prove, especially things that they can't control. It's after this that the world kind of starts to separate the world of science and spirituality even more. But in some ways, John Dee, despite being gone, is not forgotten in the modern day. And I think a lot of people see this guy and are influenced by him, not necessarily with his death. And I don't think that his influence died with him. You see, after he died, people kept on finding John Dee's stuff and those detailed records of the conversations with angels that seemed embarrassing. Occultists in the 18 and 1900s discovered them and they went crazy, and they decided that Dee had actually cracked the code for supernatural communication. The golden dawn is one of the most influential magical societies in history, and they built entire rituals around Dee's Enochian system. Aleister Crowley, probably one of the most famous occultists in the 20th century, claimed that he continued John Dee's work. Modern chaos magicians still use techniques that they think John Dee invented. And there are still people today who genuinely believe that you can summon angels by using methods that this 16th century mathematician wrote down. And it's not just occultists. I mean, conspiracy theorists love John Dee because of the whole 007 thing. They see him as proof of, you know, these British intelligence services that have been running supernatural operations and using God to see through walls and get intelligence on people. Some people think that Mi6 still uses these techniques that John Dee developed. Who knows? But you Know, that's how pop culture works. I mean, even video game designers use John D as a character because he's got this perfect combination of historical credibility and influence in sort of monarchical England, but then also like this mystical weirdness. So fantasy writers love him and, you know, they talk about him like he's a real person who lived this incredible fantasy, like life. You know, there's novels and movies and shows and games all featuring John Dee. And in some other ways, I mean, he made legitimate discoveries. I mean, John Dee contributed massively to, you know, science, astronomy, mathematics, like all sorts of things that people still use today in legit ways. You know, he was a huge supporter of the British Empire and coined the term himself and was really instrumental in a lot of ways with setting up Britain's colonies at the time. It's weird, right, because like, the world legit would not be what it is today, or at least not in the way that it happened without the works and influence of John Dee. And despite all, you know, the occult stuff and the conspiracy stuff and the science stuff, Dee's story teaches us some pretty important things about human nature and knowledge and power and how it all works. So first, curiosity really can take you anywhere. And D's hunger for understanding led him from being a math student to advising the Queen, to believing that he was chosen by God for a cosmic mission. And this curiosity that made him brilliant also led him into some questionable territory. But without that drive to discover, he would never have achieved what he did. So I think it's important for curious people to have, you know, some threshold and that you can't be so open minded that your brain falls out. Second, even incredibly smart people can be fooled. And D wasn't stupid. He was probably one of the most intelligent people of his time. But for many reasons, he decided, you know, to go along with this guy Kelly, right? This intelligence doesn't make you immune to manipulation or deception. So Edward Kelly saw exactly what dude was and basically Dee wanted to believe, and Kelly just kind of showed him what he wanted to see. And it's a reminder that being smart and being wise are different things. As Mark Twain says, it's easier to fool a man than convince a man that he's been fooled. Now, third, that I think we can take away from John D's story is that your network is really everything, right? It's not what you know, it's who you know. It's not about the grades you make, it's about the hands you shake. And Dee stayed relevant for decades across all these different countries, because he knew everybody that mattered. His connections with the scholars, the nobles, the rulers gave him opportunities that pure talent alone was not going to do. And even when his angel obsession became kind of embarrassing, his reputation as a scholar and a well connected academic kept a lot of the doors open and finally, and maybe most importantly, document everything. The only reason we know so much about John Dee and the work that he did and who he was as a human being is because he wrote everything down. The mathematical work, the intelligence reports, the angel conversations, his wife getting donkey in the back of a truck. He recorded everything with detail, all right? And most of his scientific contemporaries are, you know, footnotes and history books, whereas we know intimate details about John Dee's life because he treated his diary like a historical record. And the number of books published by Dee in all of his, you know, numerous areas of expertise, including the diaries, are just. It's a. It's an insane amount, right? I mean, it'd be too much to list. And today, I think the story reminds us that there is a line between genius and crazy, obsessed person. And it is, as we probably know, thinner than we think. Right? I mean, there's so many people in history I feel like we can look to that are kind of on this. Like, Newton was kind of like this, like just a genius, but also like obsessed with the cult stuff. I mean, Kanye west, in some ways, like just a proper genius, but also like a little crazy. I mean, there's so many people you can think about that are in this kind of vein. And maybe that's one of the most important lessons that we can take away, that human beings are complicated. You know, we are brilliant, but also gullible, rational and superstitious, Christian and loving God, but also occult, being kind of witchy, powerful but vulnerable. And they all happen simultaneously. And D wasn't a, you know, a simple story like a genius or a fool. He's both happening at the same time. So the next time, you know, someone calls you crazy for your hobbies, remember, at least you're not, you know, trying to talk to an angel with a stone. So anyway, ladies and gentlemen, that is the life of John D. Did I miss anything? Is there anything in here that I overlooked? Anything that I got wrong? Please drop a comment. I read all of them. YouTube, Spotify. I go through every last one. So just be nice about it, all right? Was John D. The brilliant polymath who got in over his head? Was he, you know, an intelligence gathering officer working for the Queen, going around Europe picking up info, picking up clues? Or was he, you know, just a dumb guy that got conned? Or was he all three all at once? Please drop a comment, let me know. Christos, you ever heard of this guy? Haven't heard of him. But if they say you can't con a con man, I guess he wasn't a con man. Yeah, I don't see him as a con man personally. I see him as like an intelligent dude that kind of wanted to believe this thing, needed it to be real, got seduced by this guy and then one thing led to another. You got got. This is also one of our most requested topics. Oh hell yeah. Well, shout out to all the people that requested it. Ask and you may receive. You are scrying into your YouTube comments and here we are manifesting reality. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode. Camp. As David likes to say that I say camp. It's just camp. It's just Camp Ganyon. Camp Gagnon. Anyway, check you guys out next time if you want to come see me on the road in person, in the flesh, doing stand up comedy. Check it out. Mark Yagnon live. All the links are in the description. Check out the merch at Camp R D. And peace and love to all. And to all a good night, good morning or afternoon. See you next time. Peace.