Those Aren’t (Likely) Dee’s Tools in the British Museum

Greetings Dee Enthusiasts!

The (Surviving) Dee Collection at the British Museum

It’s not often John Dee pops up in the mainstream – so when he does, you can bet it’s going to get attention from the Angel-botherers. Especially the ones, like me, who count Dee as something of a personal hero. So it’s little surprise this article from CNN is currently making the rounds:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/world/obsidian-mirror-aztecs-queen-elizabeth-i-scn/

Before you get too excited, there is nothing really ground-breaking here – that is, for most of you who are likely reading this blog and clicked on this particular post. It just says they ran some tests that prove the obsidian mirror in the British Museum’s John Dee Collection is, indeed, from Mexico. Honestly, this was something we already knew – it’s an Aztec mirror. The test just finally proved it. For some reason.

But, of course, I had a few things to say about the museum’s collection of Dee’s magical tools. (I would warn you it might ruin some of your fantasies…. but you’ve already read the title of this blog post, so…) I first wrote a long comment on the Facebook post where I discovered the article. But once I realized how long it was, I decided to also copy it onto my wall in a post of its own. Now that post seems to be making the rounds all on its own – so I decided to post it here, to make it easier to find and share.

So, without further ado, here are some facts about the British Museum’s collection of “John Dee’s” magical tools, in two parts:

PART 1: The black mirror attributed to Dee is not only unproven to have ever belonged to him, but it seems even more likely it did not. Consider this object is in a collection that includes a large golden re-creation of Kelley’s Watchtower Vision – an object Dee was never told to create, that plays no role whatsoever in the magick, and Dee left no record of having created.

To be frank, NONE of “Dee’s” magical objects in the British Museum are certain to have been his. We don’t *know* he cast those wax Seals. Even the now-lost Table of Practice was described as being quite colorful; but Dee was told, when he asked the Angels about using color, they “had no respect of color.” So either Dee decided that meant he could add color, or not, as he wished (which is possible) – or he didn’t make that Table.

Considering these items are in a collection of things very unlikely to have belonged to Dee, AND the fact that old wizards at the time LOVED to claim they had artifacts from ancient wizards they didn’t really have…. well it’s not looking good for the “Dee” collection. (Maybe it should be renamed the “Stuff People Have Claimed Once Belonged to John Dee” exhibit?)

PART 2: Also, and I can’t stress this enough!, Dee never, ever, at ANY time in the journals, used a black mirror to scry the Angels! Not with Barnabus Saul. Not with Kelley. Not with Arthur. Not with…. damn I forget the last dude’s name. [NOTE: there were actually at least two: Bartholomew Hickman and a Mr. Nicholls – the latter of whom did not win Dee’s favor.] But not with any scryer at any time did Dee EVER use a black mirror.

He used a clear quartz stone [sphere] in a frame made for a crystal ball. And this was NOT the stone the Angels “gave” to him.

That one was yet another stone – about the size and shape of an egg, but also kind of flat. IOW – sort of like a lens. That one was for scrying the Parts of the Earth (aka – spying on foreign nations), and while we have the record of an Angel directing Dee to find it, there is no later record of him using it. (I say he probably did, but we don’t have those records. More than likely they were in a separate top-secret military journal that only the Queen and/or Walsingham could see.)”

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