Anthony Testa - The Key of the Abyss.pdf

death should suffer death; if only injury was caused, imprisonment and
the pillory whould be the punishment. Any conjuration of an evil spirit
was to be punished by death as a felon, without benefit of clergy or
sanctuary. Any discovery of hidden treasure by magical means was
punishable by death for a second offence. But if 'magic' was tottering
on its throne, the reign of alchemy was still uncontested. 32
I must beg off addressing the obvious question at this point, which is
of course, why a man of Dee’s standing and education (not to say
intelligence) was drawn to Necromancy and Magic as it would take a
more or less completer biography to do the subject justice. One has
only to recall that Isaac Newton would follow Dee by several centuries
and surpass him in both achievement and fame, yet it is well known
that he spent a majority of his time pursuing alchemical experiments
and wrote extensively – some might say obsessively - regarding the
Revelation of John himself to see that the these were not viewed as
mutually exclusive as they would today. Consider for a moment what
would happen to the career of a physicist that began looking for the
Philosopher’s Stone or calculating the dates of the Apocalypse to see
the point, but it is, clearly, a very recent development that such ideas
would be considered strictly forbidden for those who wish to enter the
priesthood of that most jealous god, Science.
As for Kelley, there is not much to say concerning his life before
becoming entangled with Dee. Certainly a petty criminal, he may have
had his ears cut off for some offense. His real name was Talbot but he
was known to Dee (and so history) as Kelley. There are several
alchemical tracts extant which he is known to have written, so Kelley
was, at the least, no uneducated peasant. He came into Dee’s service
because Dee’s previous “skryer” and he had a falling out. Kelley
appeared and Dee recorded some of their first works together.
One Mr. Edward Talbot cam to my howse, and he being willing and
desyrous to see or shew something in spirituall practise, wold have
had me to have done something therein. And I truely excused myself
therein: as not, in the vulgarly accownted magik, neyther studied or
exercised. But confessed myself long tyme to have byn desyrous to
32 ibid., pp 40
30