Anthony Testa - The Key of the Abyss.pdf

Chapter 4 : Dee and the Apocalypse
That the Enochian system of magic is heavily colored by both the
concept of apocalypticism and the book that is often associated with
that very concept – though it is properly the Revelation 35 of John – will
be shown in due course. As to why Dee may have been drawn to (or
possibly attracted to himself) beings that identified themselves as
figures that are to play major roles in that event is worth briefly
touching upon. That the England, and for that matter all of
Christendom, of Dee’s day was in a spiritual crisis is well known.
Luther and the Reformation were still some decades in the future but
the idea of reform was already in circulation in Dees time. Dee’s
actual religious convictions…have always been irritatingly opaque.
That he was a Protestant of some sort is beyond dispute. In the time of
Edward VI he associated with reformers. 36
While it would be interesting to know precisely what Dee did and did
not believe, it is not important to our purposes here. That Apocalyptic
fever was omnipresent in the various reformation movements that even
if Dee’s time were legion is a stretch, but not much of one. Luther,
perhaps sensing what the outcome of these two visions joined together
would produce, seriously considered excluding the Revelation from
the new (Protestant) canon. In any case, in Dee’s England:
(t)he apocalyptic ethos of the 1580s was exceptionally intense at the
time – or virulent, for the overcoming of Antichrist, the Pope in Rome,
was the cardinal priority in the scheme of things, coupled with the
defeat of Spain. John Aylmer, who had become bishop of London, had
years before assigned to Queen Elizabeth the messianic task of
destroying Antichrist in Britain, and latterly James Sandford, in his
1576 translation of Guiccardini's House of Recreation, had developed
the theme, seeing in Elizabeth "some diviner things" than "in the Kings
and Queens of other countries".18 Her role was to inaugurate a new
golden age. Sandford, who profoundly believed in a millenial age or
"status", was probably the "Mr Sandford" who features in Dee's
35
In fact the Greek word Apocalypse, according to the American Heritage Dictionary means
A prophetic disclosure; a revelation. (http://www.answers.com/apocalypse&r=67)
36
John Dee and the Secret Societies, Ron Heisler http://www.levity.com/alchemy/h_dee.html
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