John Dee's Conversations with Angels
Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature

This book is about Elizabethan England's most famous 'scientist' or natural philosopher John Dee and his 'conversations with angels'.

Deborah E. Harkness (Author)

9780521027489, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

268 pages, 7 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.6 cm, 0.375 kg

"This is a truly remarkable story and merits telling for its own sake. Harkness's version is beautifully written with rich footnoting and a good command of the sources. That she has told it unflinchingly and with sensitivity to its subject only adds to its value." Canadian Journal of History

John Dee's angel conversations have been an enigmatic facet of Elizabethan England's most famous natural philosopher's life and work. Professor Harkness contextualizes Dee's angel conversations within the natural philosophical, religious and social contexts of his time. She argues that they represent a continuing development of John Dee's earlier concerns and interests. These conversations include discussions of the natural world, the practice of natural philosophy, and the apocalypse.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations and conventions
Introduction
Part I. Genesis: 1. The colloquium of angels: Prague, 1586
2. Building Jacob's ladder: the genesis of the angel conversations
3. Climbing Jacob's ladder: angelology as natural philosophy
Part II. Revelations: 4. 'Then commeth the ende': apocalypse, natural philosophy, and the angel conversations
5. 'The true cabala': reading the book of nature
6. Adam's alchemy: the medicine of God and the restitution of nature
Epilogue
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]