Terence McKenna
c/terence-mckenna
The largest collection of talks by Terence McKenna — visionary ethnobotanist and advocate for the mindful use of natural psychedelics.
c/terence-mckenna
The largest collection of talks by Terence McKenna — visionary ethnobotanist and advocate for the mindful use of natural psychedelics.
…their weight. They're all out there, you know, Proclus and Plotinus and Plato and hypatia and Henry Cornelius Agrippa and John Dee and Robert Flood and Eliaphus Levy, they're all out there pulling for us. And every shaman and shamanist, every magician…
…is the age of Shakespeare and the court the rudolphine court in Prague this is the age of archimboldo and John Dee and Robert flood and that incredibly complex psychedelic, manneristic mishmash that those late Renaissance people put together. But there's a…
…mean what is this all about this stuff? It's even in our own culture as late as the 15th century, we have John Dee with his enochian calls and the angelologic language that was dictated to him through a scrying device: angels communicating. The need to…
…communicating. The need to have special languages actually turns out to be a tradition. It's in the western occult tradition that Dee inherited from Cornelius Agrippa Von Nettlesheim and it's in Islam as well. So it's a very strong strain in mystical Islam…
…cubensis with the UFO, the hyperobject seen in the sky. It was an image that was constantly before me through those times. John Dee with his scrying stone and the hieroglyphic monad is mixed up in the same set of images. Why did this circle get…
…of a generation old plan to create an alchemical reformation that had been hatched in the mind of the English Alchemist and mathematician John Dee. And the ending of the story is not a happy ending or perhaps it is. I mean we can talk about that on…
…understanding of the world that is genie like. That's the image I have when I sit down to it. It is all John Dee would have asked of his archangelic messengers. He wanted instantaneous information on the political situation in the course of Europe. He…
…we have to accept now I think, mathematics either in the new definition or the old one, in the Renaissance Cosmology of John Dee, Mathematics is seen as the joint therapist of father sky and mother earth or a kind of an intellectual, spiritual, elastic…
…the way. I mean this is what alchemy turned into and in the 16th century people like Gerhard Dorn and Robert flood and John Dee and Michelson De vorghese and all of these people were on the trail of what they called the lapis or the philosopher's stone…
…situation were in fact being guided and directed in the formulation of early science by disincarnate entities. In the case of John Dee, the great flower of Elizabethan Science, he actually had commerce with angels and all sorts of entities of this type…
…the history of that you probably know it. A e waite is derived from the enochian. The enochian is the revelation to John Dee of an earlier magic. And when we look in the literature of the pre Christian Jews and Jerusalem and especially in Alexandria,…
…and cheering us on lending their weight. They're all out there you know: Proclus, Epitonius, Plato, Octavius, Henry Cornelius, Eurydice, John Dee, Robert flood and Elias levy they're all out there pulling for us and every shaman and shamanist every magician…
…build a bridge from the otherwise nearly incomprehensible high magic of the late paleolithic. We can get it as near to ourselves as John Dee, who died in 1604. We can discover that it's no further away from us than the beginning of the thirty years war…
…astrological malefic influence, it was protected. And when we talk later about the alchemical aspirations of the rosicrucians and John Dee and Frederick the elector palatine of bohemia we'll see that this impulse toward an alchemical kingdom returns again and…
…into here. The only non hebraic magical language that I may mention will be enochian and enochian was an angelic language channeled to John Dee and used by him in his magical evocations and then later it was taken up by Aleister Crowley and the folks of…
…the, to my mind a giant figure casting an enormous shadow over the landscape of alchemy and modern science is the englishman John Dee. John Dee United in himself the complete spirit of the Medieval Magus and the complete spirit of the modern scientist. He…
…mind a giant figure casting an enormous shadow over the landscape of alchemy and modern science is the englishman John Dee. John Dee United in himself the complete spirit of the Medieval Magus and the complete spirit of the modern scientist. He invented…
…lending their weight. They're all out there you know Proclus and Plotinus and Plato and Hypatia and Henry Cornelius Agrippa and John Dee and Robert flood and eliaphus levy they're all out there pulling for us and every shaman and shamaness every magician…
…of a generation old plan to create an alchemical reformation that had been hatched in the mind of the English Alchemist and mathematician John Dee. And the ending of the story is not a happy ending or perhaps it is I mean we can talk about that on…
…was a revival of ancient star magic this is something I know Ralph has studied and I hope we can take up John Dee and others connected with particular stars and invoked the spirit of that star to connect with that intelligence, asking for its guidance,…
…present taken very seriously, if considered at all by the astronomical community, but one which I propose we might do. Ralph what was John Dee? Trying to do perhaps that's a historical fact maybe to fill us in on hmm, yes, well the star magic idea in…
…the polar constellations. They have a lot to say about the morphic field. But I forgot to answer your question about John Dee and his conversations with angels, and maybe now I see that might be appropriate here because mathematics was interpreted by him…
…threatened somehow by the human infection. We might reach out here for a more radical solution to the problem following the ideas of John Dee. So this is sort of how he did it traditional means there are the nine celestial spheres and there are the nine…
…people have individual angel guardians and so on. So I mean this was the accepted world view of everybody in the time of John Dee and he was a major expert of this view. But his intention was, like ours to get in contact with these intelligences as…
…understanding of the world that is genie like. That's the image I have when I sit down to it. It is all John Dee would have asked of his archangelic messengers he wanted instantaneous information on the political situation in the courts of Europe, he…
…because two years previously, the Sale of the vonage manuscript to the emperor being dated to 1586 two years previously, John Dee, the Great English Navigator, astrologer, magician, intelligence agent, occultist wait a minute I still am back on Friedrich. You…
…more later was fomenting at this very period right under the surface, and Friedrich patronized astrologers, magicians, alchemists. The reason John Dee had such a long stay at Friedrich's court was because his companion, Edward Kelly, claimed to be able to…
…house arrest and asked them to do this for him as a favor since he had patronized them very heavily. And when they were unable to, Dee was able to talk his way out of it. Kelly had been the one who had made the major claims and he was kept there…
…his feet one moonlit night when he was trying to sneak out of the castle. But I anticipate my story because I think John Dee and Edward Kelly are probably if they were not the, I certainly think they were the people who sold the emperor the vonage…
…drifts further and further from its roots. But my reconstruction of what must have happened is that in this period when Dee and Kelly were regaling Rudolf with tales of the alchemical prowess of Roger Bacon, that they ponied up this manuscript. Either…
…understanding of the world. That is genie like. That's the image I have when I sit down to it. It is all John Dee would have asked of his archangelic messengers he wanted instantaneous information on the political situation in the courts of Europe. He…
…strain of magic coming down from Trithemius is the d strain and it is a bit more accessible to people like ourselves because John Dee was an englishman and he wrote in English and so you don't have to conquer 16th century Italian or late Latin in order…
…don't have to conquer 16th century Italian or late Latin in order to read him although he wrote a lot in Latin as well. Dee is a very interesting character worth spending some time on because Dee is the last person to be able to unify into one world…
…read him although he wrote a lot in Latin as well. Dee is a very interesting character worth spending some time on because Dee is the last person to be able to unify into one world view science and mathematics and magic and astrology all together. So…
…and sending it all back to Elizabeth in these codes that he had learned from Trithemius not personally but from the stenographica and Dee a very strange incident happened which was on a cold day in April at his house in mortlake which is on the…
…the evolution of western thought. The straight people just say: whoa this is a bunch of crap. You know this guy Kelly first of all Dee was married to a much younger woman named Ann Dee and at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly were…
…and varied career. Indian musician, student of the magical systems of the Renaissance and of Dr D founding member of the John Dee Society. Founder of the institute for global analysis, IGA, and founder of the institute for visual mathematics. The author of…
…strain of magic coming down from Trithemius is the d strain and it is a bit more accessible to people like ourselves because John Dee was an englishman and he wrote in English and so you don't have to conquer 16th century Italian or late Latin in order…
…don't have to conquer 16th century Italian or late Latin in order to read him although he wrote a lot in Latin as well. Dee is a very interesting character worth spending some time on because Dee is the last person to be able to unify into one…
…read him although he wrote a lot in Latin as well. Dee is a very interesting character worth spending some time on because Dee is the last person to be able to unify into one worldview science and mathematics and magic and astrology altogether. So he is…
…and sending it all back to Elizabeth in these codes that he had learned from Trithemius not personally but from the stenographica and Dee. A very strange incident happened, which was on a cold day in April at his house in mortlake which is on the…
…episodes in the evolution of western thought. The straight people just say: whoa this is a bunch of crap. This guy Kelly, first of all Dee was married to a much younger woman named Ann Dee and at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly…
…that were top secret the French, the Spanish must be kept away from this stuff and these were navigational instruments created by John Dee that allowed him to locate himself anywhere on the globe. But John Dee was a man who, on a late summer evening…
…this stuff and these were navigational instruments created by John Dee that allowed him to locate himself anywhere on the globe. But John Dee was a man who, on a late summer evening in mortlake, in his house in mortlake outside London, the angel Gabriel…
…piece of polished obsidian. It's an aztec mirror is what it is, and there was a ruler of the aztecs named smoky mirror. How John Dee got this thing we cannot even imagine. I mean he says he got it from an angel. Nobody can really nay say that.…
…return to Spain from the new world he brought a number of objects with him that he had collected in Central Mexico and somehow John Dee got his hands on this thing and it was for him a television screen into the logos, and he used it over a number…
…So Edward Kelly was a very dubious character, I think. For one strong piece of evidence that he was a shady character was: John Dee was married to a much younger woman named Anne Dee, who by all accounts was quite a beauty, and after gaining Dee's…
…For one strong piece of evidence that he was a shady character was: John Dee was married to a much younger woman named Anne Dee, who by all accounts was quite a beauty, and after gaining Dee's Confidence as a scryer, the person who could look into the…
…could look into the that the angels and the entities coming and going in the show stone were putting forth Kelly revealed to Dee that the angels had instructed him to hit the hay with Anne, and this was a great crisis in their relationship. However,…
…Dee's Diary and so it was done, we read so you know, hanky panky didn't begin with the golden dawn, believe me in 1582 Anne Dee, John Dee and Edward Kelly set out for bohemia, and Rudolph, the mad King of bohemia held sway at that time. Now this is…
…and so it was done, we read so you know, hanky panky didn't begin with the golden dawn, believe me in 1582 Anne Dee, John Dee and Edward Kelly set out for bohemia, and Rudolph, the mad King of bohemia held sway at that time. Now this is another one…
…through and he rented, he ordered a castle put at their. The vonage manuscript figures in here too because Kelly's Entree to Dee was that he had a manuscript in an unknown language, and I believe that this probably was the vonage manuscript. The vonage…
…turns up in the estate of Rudolph, and the very month that he paid 14 000 gold ducats for it to a person's unknown Dee who was always writing back to the Elizabethan court hounding them to send money, entered in his account book that they received 14…
…court hounding them to send money, entered in his account book that they received 14 000 gold ducats from an unknown source. Dee was able to talk himself out of this alchemical imprisonment but not before he had written a book called the. Now you…
…a master mathematician as well as all these other things. This was how he was able to produce these navigation instruments. So Dee, while imprisoned in bohemia, wrote a book called the hieroglyphic monad, in which he proposed to prove, through a series of…
…slipped beneath his feet and he fell to his death and became so far as I can tell, alchemy's only true martyr. Well, Dee returned to England and he was now very old and he died at mortlake in 1606. Elizabeth died in 1604, Shakespeare was happening,…
…and he died at mortlake in 1606. Elizabeth died in 1604, Shakespeare was happening, sir Philip Sidney was happening. Through this period John Dee Reputedly had over 6 000 books in his library more books than any man in England. He had books we have a…
…Viii kicked the Catholic Church out of England, the northumbrian monasteries were looted by the earl of Northumberland and basically Dee was allowed to pick over the loot from these monasteries and there were Roger Bacon manuscripts which perished when Dee's…
…recensions of Faust and whenever you see an old man with a white beard and a pointed cap. This image is really referent to Dee. Well, Elizabeth died in 1604, I believe, and James I became King of England and James was a peculiar character. The wags of…
…is that your opinion of it? Well yes this is kind of a footnote on all of this. You remember I said that Kelly's Entree to Dee was that he had a mysterious book and you can tell from what I've said already, Dee was as big a sucker for books as I…
…this. You remember I said that Kelly's Entree to Dee was that he had a mysterious book and you can tell from what I've said already, Dee was as big a sucker for books as I am, and so this book, Kelly's story was that he had gone to sleep in the…
…unknown language which he called the gospel of st dunstable, possibly because this monastery had been dedicated to st dunstable. Well now Arthur Dee was John Dee's Son and he said that when in his own he became an alchemist in his own right and he said…
…he recalled that his father spent many hours puzzling over a book, as he put it all covered with hieroglyphics. But Dee, who elaborated the angelologic language called enochian, never actually wrote or discussed the book that he had received from Kelly. It…
…definitely not written in enochian. Enochian when grammatically analyzed by computers, has a curious relationship to 16th century English. But when Dee and Kelly traveled to Europe they were talking up Roger Bacon, who was a 14th century English Monk who had…
…Rudolph became very interested in this and wanted to obtain some of these baconian manuscripts. Now I suspect that what happened was that Dee by this time had given up on deciphering the gospel of st dunstable and decided that he would palm it off on…
…real bacon manuscript because they were too valuable to him. So for 14 000 gold ducats this thing changed hands and Kelly and Dee and Ann were able to pay their bills. And Frederick had I'm sorry, Rudolph had immense resources because of his position as…
…your intuition and then accept the consequences because this is what existential validity must be. As far as the relationship between Dee and Bruno. The relationship is that they were both derivative of the magical school that can be traced back to Henry…
…yesterday as the source of all the magical codes in the middle ages. If you're interested in a brilliant but fictional treatment of John Dee and Giordano Bruno, I'd like to recommend a novel to you. It's called Egypt, spelled a e g y p t. It has…
…two worlds but his book Egypt, Fully half of the book is a wonderfully rich retelling of the relationship between Bruno and Dee. Now some people have wanted to say that Dee and Bruno Actually crossed physical paths in London, but I've looked into it…
…of the book is a wonderfully rich retelling of the relationship between Bruno and Dee. Now some people have wanted to say that Dee and Bruno Actually crossed physical paths in London, but I've looked into it and they missed each other by about two weeks.…
…London, but I've looked into it and they missed each other by about two weeks. Bruno was setting sail for England as Dee was setting sail for France in the rosicrucian enlightenment episode that I talked about. Then someone asked about tantra and the…
…had it in their possession, then the mystery continues because where did they get it and what was it? It is true that Dee was under the patronage of the earl of Northumberland who, when Henry Viii broke with Rome and all of the English Monasteries were…
…There are 41 baconian manuscripts. Where are they? Oh they're at the bodleian library at Oxford in the British Museum. They have all this Dee Material. Have you seen it? No no, oh well it would be fun to see it. The most interesting thing is this huge…
…thing is this huge book called a true and faithful relation, which is the day by day seances with these spirits that says Dee and Kelly move all over Europe It's in that that it's recorded. Oh and this is a piece of circumstantial evidence I almost…
…of circumstantial evidence I almost left out that in the very month that the emperor paid the 300 gold ducats for the manuscript, Dee records in his diary that they received 320 gold ducats from a mysterious source. Now it is true that another angle on…
…dropper. So it's very interesting. Blake spoke with angels. He was the flower of English Poetry at a certain point in time. Dee spoke with angels he was the flower of English Science and mechanics at a certain period and perhaps the vonage manuscript is…
…of garbled material like an alchemist yes, that's what really alchemy is. It would have appealed to the alchemical imagination of Dee or Kelly or any of their educated, occult contemporaries to use this kind of method. So it's very interesting. What would…
…say: whoa this is a bunch of crap. You know this guy Kelly first of all Dee was married to a much younger woman named Ann Dee and at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly were together the angels of the show stone gave very explicit…
…first of all Dee was married to a much younger woman named Ann Dee and at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly were together the angels of the show stone gave very explicit instructions so this guy was a sharpie for sure. However, it's…
…puzzling because if he was a con artist he must have been a con artist of immense cleverness because often the way the Dee Angels would work is they would deliver very very long messages in Latin Backwards and Kelly would just dictate this stuff at a…
…they would deliver very very long messages in Latin Backwards and Kelly would just dictate this stuff at a very rapid speed and Dee would write it down and then they would put away the show stone and then they would very laboriously rewrite this stuff…
…and reel it off and then have it be reconstructed and make sense also there are you see this we know about this because Dee kept a diary over the years that this was all going on. It's one of the most astonishing books in all of English Literature…
…It's called a true and faithful relation or in full a true and faithful relation of what passed for many years between Dr Dee and some spirits with the annotation by morit casabon the guy who did the correct dating on hermetica, and it's a very…
…and it's a very interesting reading. It's as I say one of the most puzzling incidents in the whole history of science. What Dee was doing was eventually he came to REST at the Court of Rudolf Ii, Rudolf I of bohemia who ruled from Prague. Now…
…who ruled from Prague. Now you have to understand is that a hand up? Yeah is there evidence of of drug use by Dee not strong enough to warrant any getting thrilled about it? The great awareness of drug use came slightly later and strangely enough the…
…and said: once one has begun the habit of opium it must be maintained unto death. So in the thirty years after Dee there was a great hermeticist and alchemical thinker named Paracelsus who arose on the European Continent. Paracelsus is an interesting guy…
…magical symbols. And then there became stress on magical alphabets. Enochian is one of these magical alphabets or languages rather, John Dee remember I mentioned the whole ten year episode with the show stone well one of the subjects which these entities…
…John Dee remember I mentioned the whole ten year episode with the show stone well one of the subjects which these entities that Dee and Kelly were dealing with returned to again and again and again were the enochian, this language which they said was the…
…just say: whoa this is a bunch of crap. This guy Kelly, first of all Dee was married to a much younger woman named Ann Dee and at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly were together the angels of the showstone gave very explicit…
…of all Dee was married to a much younger woman named Ann Dee and at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly were together the angels of the showstone gave very explicit instructions that Dee should allow Kelly to marry Ann and it says…
…at one point in the ten years or so that Dee and Kelly were together the angels of the showstone gave very explicit instructions that Dee should allow Kelly to marry Ann and it says and in the light of god's will, it was done. It says that in his…
…puzzling because if he was a con artist he must have been a con artist of immense cleverness because often the way the Dee Angels would work is they would deliver very, very long messages in Latin Backwards and Kelly would just dictate this stuff at a…
…would deliver very, very long messages in Latin Backwards and Kelly would just dictate this stuff at a very rapid speed and Dee would write it down and then they would put away the showstone and then they would very laboriously rewrite this stuff from…
…pages of Latin and reel it off and then have it be reconstructed and make sense also, you see, we know about this because Dee kept a diary over the years that this was all going on. It's one of the most astonishing books in all of English Literature…
…called a true and faithful relation or in full, a true and faithful relation of what passed for many years between Dr Dee and some spirits with annotation by Marie Cassabon, the guy who did the correct dating on hermetica, and it's very interesting…
…hermetica, and it's very interesting reading. It's, as I say one of the most puzzling incidents in the whole history of science. What Dee was doing was eventually he came to REST at the Court of Rudolf Ii, Rudolf I of bohemia, who ruled from Prague. Now…
…bohemia, who ruled from Prague. Now you have to understand: is that a handout? Yeah is there evidence of drug use by Dee not strong enough to warrant any getting thrilled about it? The great awareness of drug use came slightly later and strangely enough…
…and said: once one has begun the habit of opium it must be maintained unto death. So in the 30 years after Dee there was a great hermeticist and alchemical thinker named Paracelsus who arose on the European Continent. Paracelsus is an interesting guy.…