Until modern times it was an established cultural practice for men and women to seek the guidance of God daily in their lives. People also had a sincere desire generally to go out and do what they perceived to be God's good will. This did not mean that everyone saw God's will. Nor, or course, did everyone make decisions affecting others out of a pure spiritual fervor and love of God.

Indeed, the most pervasive pain and suffering among people century after century has been from religious persecution. In the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages persecution accelerated with radical intensity in the Albigensian Crusades of the 12th and 13th Centuries in particular, where Cathars particularly, and indeed some Jews and others, as well, were slaughtered or burned to death for heresy until their influence was driven underground. Whatever the Cathars had come to believe as a group, those doctrines that were based upon principles that applied to everyone equally elicited the respect of nobles and commmoners alike, and the roots of their influence for over a hundred years were deep.

Clergical courts of the Inquisition were designed to try and punish heresy as a way of maintaining the political power and wealth of both secular and religious ruling classes. Heresy was a practice based upon a belief system that was denounced by the legally sanctioned doctrines of the Holy Roman Church and regarded by the Church as likely to cause a schism or split in the Church. Even the threat of a schism by the practice of one's beliefs, especially involving others who may also follow an "outlaw" doctrine, was treated as treason against monarchies as well as the Church, and was punishable by torture and death.

Out of an ancient spiritual tradition that predates early Christianity, some men and women of the 16th Century continued to practice "magical" techniques based upon Natural Laws of God. It wasn't magic or miracles. They were using scientific fundamentals that are no more mysterious than the law of gravity as we know it today. Indeed their work alluded to leaders in early civilization, where the secrets of nature were revered widely and taught sacredly by tribal shamans, as they were demonstrated to them directly in the natural system and order of nature. Over time "civilization" had gradually suppressed the conscious, collective memory or history of these natural premises of life. These natural laws that came down through the generations to these men and women of the 16th Century elicited their conviction that they had a responsibility to work very hard to help bring humans back to God after being cut off psychologically, sociologically—spiritually and "naturally." The instituted supremacy of the governing laws of society had separated people from God ironically by "outlawing" Nature's Laws of God essentially.

The First Law of God and Nature

The first and primary natural law was about humanity's direct relationship with God, through what Jesus and many, many other spiritual leaders described similarly over many periods as, "the inner way," the "kingdom of God within," the kingdom of God that "is at hand." The first law of God is expressed by different groups in different ways, but it is this: "Thou shalt have no other gods before thee." These men and women felt that by helping all of humankind to reach high within themselves for direct, inner knowledge from God, that as each grew in this understanding, so would the spiritual evolution of all humankind rise high in the application of the natural laws of God. The evil persecution of this Earthly world would naturally stop under these conditions.

The Master Jesus said it this way:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

Dr. John Dee

John Dee was one of these men who has come down to us, recognized today by revisionist historians and scientists as perhaps the greatest of all Renaissance men of the 16th Century. Dee's greatest material accomplishments in life came as a result of his scientific contributions in the field of mathematics at a time in the world when math was still considered to be Black Magic. He was also responsible for the major advances in navigation and the proposal of programs for English ocean voyages to discover new lands during the Elizabethan Age. It was Dee who dubbed the land of America as "Atlantis" in 1583 in a plan for colonization which first occured in 1620 at Plymouth following his death. He was perhaps as much an antequarian as he was a scientist. Antequarians utilized legends as references from oral traditions that carry and protect important truths for contemporary historical perspectives. Dee also had access to most government records during Queen Elizabeth's rule.

"He was Elizabethan England's great magus."¹ He was Court Astrologer and confidant to the English Queen, Elizabeth I, and was well beloved by her as such. The Queen travelled regularly by horseback to visit Dr. Dee personally at his home estate, Mortlake. There he had an unusually large library collection of up to 4,000 manuscripts of some of the world's most significant classic writings of all time, before clergical laws were passed outlawing many of them. They were later destroyed by a fire at Mortlake while Dee was out of the country. Mortlake is also where he and Edward Kelly conducted the greatest documented experiments ever at the time with angel or "Spirit" communications.

John Dee was born July 13, 1527 in London, the son of Rowland Dee, a "gentleman server" in the court of King Henry VIII. He was a decendant of Roderick the Great, ancient Prince of Wales. Personally, however, John Dee arose from the long line of philosopher-magicians known as Hermeticists. His lifetime would see the the success of the Protestant movement out of the failure of reformation within the Roman Church itself, and the beginnings of the Rosicrucian movement out of the Hermetic tradition and an evangelical gnostic Christianity that had contributed during the Reformation to the eventual split of other monarchies from Rome.

As a way of introducing Dr. Dee, the following is a prayer of petition in its entirety that he wrote and said regularly. It demonstrates the sweet and humble nature of this man's spirituality, and the depth of his sincerity and devotion to God's works in his daily life.

Prayer of John Dee

O Almighty, Eternal, the True and Living God: O King of Glory: O Lord of Hosts: O thou, the Creator of Heaven, and Earth, and of all things visible and invisible: Now, (even now, at length,) Among others thy manifold mercies used, toward me, thy simple servant John Dee, I most humbly beseech thee, in this my present petition to have mercy upon me, to have pity upon me, to have Compassion upon me: Who, faithfully and sincerely, of long time, have sought among men, in Earth: And also by prayer, (full often and pitifully,) have made suit unto thy Divine Majesty for the obtaining of some convenient portion of True Knowledge and understanding of thy laws and Ordinances, established in the Natures and properties of thy Creatures: by which Knowledge, Thy Divine Wisdom, Power and Goodness, (on thy Creatures bestowed, and to them imparted.) being to me made manifest, might abundantly instruct, furnish, and allure me, (for the same,) incessantly to pronounce thy praises, to rend unto thee, most hearty thanks, to advance thy true honor, and to Win unto thy Name, some of thy due Majestical Glory, among all people, and forever." [Sloane Manuscript 3191, Folio 45; British Museum; presented here with today's spelling.]

Dee's Religious Hermeticism

Dee was no doubt a man of God. However, we must understand that he was not a Roman Catholic, and neither was he an ardent Protestant. He is categorized by historians as a 16th Century contemporary Religious Hermeticist. It is analogous to the labeling of "Deists" of the 18th Century, who adhered to no formal religion, but were unavoidably recognized in their time as men of God. They were such men as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and many other world members of the Royal Society, including founder Francis Bacon.

Dee wanted to help solve the religious problems of the world, and stop the effects of persecution which had grown into a social and political monster during the Middle Ages and the Reformation. But how does one stop a tidal wave of indirect, subtle, "willing" mental bondage that was instituted in effect by the heresy laws?

Hermetic Gnosticism

Hermeticism in various combinations with classic philosophy, was a very particular gnostic practice based upon the texts of Hermes Trismegistus (the Greek name for the Egyptian god Thoth). Hermetic gnosticism predated the historical Christian beginnings, but much of the Early Christian or Christian gnostic tenets included Hermetic principles. It was gnosticism that produced the writings of Hermes. The following principles, among many others, were commonly expressed by Hermeticists:

• the universe is ordered;
• stars are "living" entities that influence everything below on Earth and throughout the entire Universe;
• through the Universe there is sympathy and antipathy between all things;
• the personal Hermetic experience depends upon the development of the imagination—known to be connected, as well, with all knowledge from which ideas spring into our consciousness, a process called intuition today.
• there are four elements in all material expression—earth, air, fire and water—and these are a part of the Universal hierarchy of all life, as the notes of a music scale are hierarchal—yet, each is individually necessary to the absolute completeness of the whole;
• and, not last, Light is the first creation and is circular in motion, embuing and connecting all things together in the Universe.

Hermetic gnostic thinking was involved with many devoutly religious people, labeled "pagans," who stood up to the Holy Roman Empire all during the Middle Ages (500 A.D. - 1450 A.D.). The church and monarchies had ruling supremacy together, and to violate the laws of the church in those times was to violate the laws of both.

From Reformation to Protestantism

The Reformation was a 16th Century spiritual movement designed to reform the Catholic Church from within, due to its medieval practices. It resulted in establishing the Protestant movement, however, beginning with a branch of Lutheranism in Germany. The groundwork for the Protestant movement was inspired by the writings of Hermeticist, Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), who was a protégé of Abbott Trithemius. The Mennonites and Calvinists followed in Eastern Europe. By 1563 under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the Anglican Church was established as the official Church of England. It was her return to the "Church of England" established by her father, King Henry VIII—before Elizabeth's half-sister Mary Tudor, also known as "Bloody Mary," attempted to reinstate Catholicism as the official Church in England. In any case, the pattern of the church and monarchy ruling together continued for some time. Also, ruthless and brutal religious persecution continued at the hands of both Catholics and Protestants.

John Dee's Rosicrucian Movement

Revisionist historians specializing in 17th Century Europe have agreed that there is substantial evidence that Dr. John Dee's contributions played a major role in laying the foundation and opening the doors to what was to follow in the Age of Enlightenment. Also, that under the leadership of John Dee specifically, a group of scholars, noblemen and noblewomen began in the 16th Century what has been recognized as "the Rosicrucian movement" of the 17th Century.

The oral history passed down is that the movement actually was a continuation of a broad, ancient esoteric tradition that only included Hermetic gnosticism. Hermetic gnosticism had been built upon by Magi throughout the previous centuries, and was constantly protected from loss or destruction through the use of various arcane methods, partly through word of mouth from a lineage of leaders selected initiatically by each generation to carry on the sacred tradition.

Beginnings of the Age of Enlightenment

In the 16th Century, a number of books were written for the benefit of individuals who were the builders of the world—known then as "mechanists." They were the artisans who had no need for the university in their training—architects, masons, inventors, and so on. For the first time, "layman's" books were published in a language of the common people, instead of in Latin as was the custom for university use. In 1561 John Dee wrote an augmentation to Robert Record's Ground of Artes, a book that was written for the mechanists. It became the first universal textbook of arithmetic using the Arabic system of numbers—after the cumbersome Roman numerals that had been used for centuries.

Historian Peter J. French¹ has said that perhaps the true beginning of the Age of Enlightenment came from another landmark work of John Dee: "Mathematical Preface" to Euclide's Geometry, all done in English, also, for the common public. Considered by historians to be equal in stature with Francis Bacon's 17th Century Advancement In Learning, John Dee's "Mathematical Preface" was the first treatise in history that was specifically directed to scientists, and especially in English to all individuals who qualified as "Unfained Lovers of Truth," in order to open and expand the world of science for all people.

In the "Preface" to Euclide's, the application of mathematics to the various scientific disciplines was for the first time explained comprehensively, with added information that would substantiate applications also from the field of mysticism, metaphysics and philosophy. In fact, Dr. Dee saw mathematics as the key to all knowledge.

In 1564 while on a stay in Europe, John Dee also wrote a Hermetic treatise called Monas Hieroglyphica. He dedicated it to Maximilian II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1564-1576). In the Monas, which was referred to by contemporaries as a magical and Hermetic work, a "magic parable," he dealt with humankind's spiritual transformation and the need to return to our original divine nature. Written in the oral tradition, it was intended only for those who could recognize its meaning, intentionally disguised for his personal protection under heresy laws.

John Dee's Hermetic Tradition

The information that Dee provided was partly the result of his own experiments and personal experiences. It was also a part of the vast body of knowledge of Hermeticism developed by such previous scholars as Plato, Zoroaster, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Agrippa, Ficino, Bruno, Roger Bacon, Abbott Trithemius, and Lull—and the list goes on. It is very difficult to sort out the influences of individuals among groups due to the many cultural changes and effects to them from generation to generation. A key point to remember is that at certain points of each new cycle of activity of the esoteric movements of the oral tradition, it always became necessary to have someone be refreshed in the hidden understanding that transcended of the vast body of physical knowledge accumulated previously. This was accomplished orally in places "far from the madding crowd" as it were. This process in the oral tradition involves much more than a mere passing on of a lineage in ordial or common initiation. It sometimes took initiates far from home for private tutoring and inner illumination, or "gnosis," and in the "old world," it usually took the individual "to the East."

Hermetic gnosticism included the Valentinean teachings and those of St. John the Evangelist and certain disciples of the Johannite sect. Theoclitus of the 11th Century claimed his initiatic lineage was to St. John. Later gnostic lineages became somewhat blurred among various branches farther from the source. In some way, however, there was a connection the Cathars, who were tied with the Bogomils and the older Manichaeans, or followers of Mani. It was from here at the close of the Cathar influence in the Albigensian Crusades that a young boy of the German nobel house of Germel was prepared for training in Persia when he was to come of age. The legend of C.R.C. that was the focus of the first Rosicrucian manifesto published in 1614 was an allegorical vehicle based upon his life and work. Geoffrey de St. Adhémar had also been originally from a town in the Albigensian lands of the Cathars. He later was tutored in the tradition, and co-founded the first Militae Evangelicae in 1089.

In Dee's time there was the well known list of Hermeticists, of course, that inluded Michael Maier, Raymond Andrae, Robert Fludd, and Francis Bacon. A few other active initiates who have received little attention as Hermeticists were Simon Studeon and Heinrich Kunrath. More recently in 1762 was Count Ragoczy, who tutored Cagliostro. To be sure, women were actively engaged in the Hermetic tradition, as well, however knowledge of most of their work has survived only in the oral histories. This is due in large part to the cultural role of women at the time, and that records were not kept even of the direct inspirations, activities and advancements that specific individuals contributed to the pool of work protected under secrecy.

The Hermetic tradition was carried forward in each century under different names, not only by the inwardly initiated leader of each period, but by every fervent student of the Hermetic sciences. Hermeticists wrote or spoke in a secretive alchemical tradition in order to protect and preserve the Earthly resource of Hermetic knowledge for all future generations.

·         They knew that the language of the subconscious mind is in symbols.

·         Further, that "mind" has permanent "subconscious" memory, independent of the brain's conscious memory activity, and functions as Light embuing and connecting all things in the universe.

·         The subconscious is always a source of future recollection, whether through concentration and relaxation, or in other ways that mind functions to refresh conscious memory through the brain.

·         Through the use of imagination, the process of association accesses information piercing through the subconscious language of symbols, and produces a synthesis of information that is reliable, when not clouded by emotion, intellectual or conscious, logical thought processes.

·         Symbols, used in their oral and written communications, therefore, were one means of storing the discoveries of the Hermeticists for future generations.

Dee believed that the Divine essence, a part of God in every man and woman, was an aspect of humankind which had been lost or forgotten and must be rediscovered. He and others who viewed life in the Hermetic tradition were also very concerned indeed by the disastrous religious climate that was continuing to accelerate as a result of the prevailing attitudes of the contemporary ruling classes.

A Universal Hermetic Religion

The 16th Century Hermeticists envisioned the establishment of a universal religion, along with the promotion of education among the common people who had been previously denied formal education. Based upon a basic premise of universal Hermeticism—that everyone is an integral and inalienable part of the natural process of all life, whether they know it or not, and what affects one under the stars affected all others—they thought that if every man and woman could learn the Laws of Nature and God, as they had spent their lifetimes studying and discovering personally, then all people could independently direct their lives in accordance with the laws of nature to the benefit of themselves, in harmony with and to the benefit of all life on Earth.

No one is outside God's omnipotent laws of nature, so why not learn what they are as they apply to humans, and begin actively applying them individually?

Reformation Evangelical Christianity

Regarding John Dee's great concern for the spiritual well-being of all humankind, finally, the time came when he and a core group of his friends and associates decided to have a meeting to determine what they might be able to do regarding the religious tension in the world, the continuing persecution—and the helplessness of great masses of individuals who were not permitted to live according to choices of conscience—according to their chosen religious or spiritual convictions. Specifically at this time, they met to form an evangelical confederation against the Catholic league which was intent on maintaining power in France by preventing Henry of Navarre from ascending the throne. They believed that the solution of a universal religion was to be found in an evangelical Christianity, which involved a gnostic understanding of the gospels, about our direct relationship with God independent of priest intermediaries. Gnosticism refers to an inner experience that only one can know directly, not vicariously through someone else. Not least on their agenda was a vow to defend the use of the sacred cross from the abuse of those using it as a weapon of persecution in the name of God and religion.

Evangelical Christianity had grown alongside Lutheranism during the Reformation, both movements contributing to a series of domino events. Some of these indirectly led King Henry VIII to break with Rome, to allow the Christian Bible to be published in English, and to start his own Church of England. In the domino effect that had been set into motion, other monarchies began to follow his bold lead. Although in his heart, Henry remained a Catholic, Anne Boleyn's evangelical Christianity had had a specific indirect transforming effect in the affairs of England, radiating in his official decisions, all the way through King Henry's pursuit of a Church sanctioned divorce to marry her. All this was before he allowed Anne to be tried and executed in 1536 for false charges of treason.

Luneberg Meeting, 1586

Dee's core group held a meeting on July 17, 1586 in the town of Luneberg, Germany. Simon Studion was considered by the standards of his contemporaries to be somewhat of a bullish rebel philosophically by comparison with his peers, and in his Naometria of 1604, he boldly gave a first-hand account of the meeting. The Luneberg meeting included some evangelical Princes, some Church appointed Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, and representatives for Henry of Navarre, leader of the Protestant Huguenots (he later became Henry IV of France), also the King of Denmark, and Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Confederatio Militiae Evangelicae

The organization was called the Confederatio Militiae Evangelicae, but it was a spiritual and fraternal Order. The Militia Evangelica had existed previously by that name in the 12th Century, established in 1186 in the city of Cologne, Germany; it had also been known then as the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, Knights of St. John, and the Poor Knights of Christ. The Naometria chronicles evidence that the same Militiae historically was also the source of the later Rosicrucian movement that followed publication of the manifestos beginning in 1614. However, the Naometria, in a word that translates to "measurements of the temple," dealt at great length with the prophetic numerological information about the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

Rosicrucian Manifestos

The evangelical movement became public formally with the release of the Rosicrucian manifestos. In 1614 the Fama Fraternitatis of the Meritorious Order of the Rosae Crucis, and in 1615 the Confessio Fraternitatis were formally published. These were pamphlets reporting the existence of the Hermetic brotherhood and making an appeal to people regarding the way that religious reform would most peacefully happen. It involved the spiritual education of humanity. They went on to invite all interested people to join by making their interest known and waiting for a secret response from the brotherhood.

The Fama explained that before there could be a religious reformation, which the Protestant movement was intended to accomplish during the 16th Century, there must first be "an inner reformation within men's minds and hearts." It told the legend of "C.R.C.," a symbolic representation of a "Christian Rosicrucian." In the oral tradition, it was a play on the irony from the Hermeticist point of view, that this reference designated a true Christianity that harkens back to gnostic Christian beginnings, at least, but actually it was much older as a part of the oral tradition. The Rosicrucian movement was the Hermetic response to the anti-Christian dogma prevailing under the rule of the Roman Church at that time.

However, the oral tradition of the C.R.C. legend told the allegory of an individual who traveled to the East to be tutored in the source esoteric traditions, so that he could return and carry on a new cycle of activity with a refreshed body of knowledge—reborn into a new expression or a new lifetime of activity. The allegory also expressed the natural process involved in the unfolding of the inner consciousness in humans, known as spiritual illumination. Spiritual illumination happens at a point when one's inner realization reaches a "pitch" where the conscious awareness crosses over to a perception that transcends physical reality. It happens eventually to everyone, the "good news," and the Hermeticists wanted more than anything that people be free to pursue their own natural, inner inclinations that would eventually take them there as God intended for all humanity.

The Confessio further boldy advocated the elimination of papal tyranny in the personal lives of humankind. Interestingly, however, the attackers of the Rosicrucian movement were to be mostly Protestants—very few Catholics other than from the ruling class. In 1616, the third manifesto followed: the allegory called The Chemical Wedding, which further described the Brotherhood's purpose and methods by which humankind could learn about our personal and direct relationship to God and the universe.

Meaning of Rosae Crucis

The concept of the rose and cross is actually a derivative of an earlier usage from the German Hermetic tradition preceding the first known English or Latin documented in the 16th Century. That is, according to John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica, the German usage in some of the very old original manuscripts of Dee's library had already been, "Ros", which means "dew", and refers to the alchemical or transformational process of nature, and "Crux", which means "cross". The term "Rosicrucian" as a generic reference, or the Latin Rosae Crucis, means literally "Rose+Cross" in English. In subsequent cultural times, the unfolding rose has alluded to the natural unfolding of a human's true spiritual nature, as a result of personal, spiritual development through life's physical experiences, represented by the cross.

Necessity of Secrecy

When the Rosicrucians became publicly political in a campaign for a new and universal religion, which naturally could undermine the power of the Holy Roman Empire over the people, Rosicrucians were declared heretics. As they inspired more and more people concerning freedom of thought and personal education about spiritual matters formerly left to priests, Rosicrucians became more and more of a threat. With the start of the 17th Century in 1600, eight years before John Dee passed away, 13 years before the first Rosicrucian manifesto was published, Girodano Bruno, one of the revered Hermetic leaders, was burned at the stake in Rome for his "heresy." The participants of the Rosicrucian movement, for their personal safety and for the continued work of the movement at that particular time, recognized that they must continue to remain absolutely secret, thus, essentially "invisible."

Dee Discredited

When James I went to the English throne after Elizabeth I's death in 1603, he would have nothing to do with John Dee. Additionally, Dee was a victim of an insidious plot to discredit everything that he had ever accomplished during his lifetime. In spite of the genius of his scientific experiments and the advancement of mathematics among all people—his experiments in contacting "angels," or spiritual beings, were exploited to make him appear a lunatic. He was accused of being a sorcerer, rather than the "magus" he had formerly been under Queen Elizabeth I. Through a number of events, Dr. Dee was made out to be someone never to be taken seriously, and this reputation followed his name for 300 years—into the 20th Century.

Francis Bacon and John Dee

The Rosicrucian manifestos were published beginning in 1614, following John Dee's death in 1608, although they had circulated in manuscript form previously. The work of the particular evangelical confederation he had activated secretly in 1586 came to be known as "the Rosicrucian movement." There is no doubt by revisionist historians that Dee's hand was in the writing of the manifestos, nor doubt that Dee's influence privately continued to dominate the movement long after its beginning with his Luneberg meeting. Francis Bacon and Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, and numerous other highly learned and respected men of their time have been continously tied closely with the Rosicrucian work. In the past 20 years especially, however, the same work of the Rosicrucian movement from the earliest records in the 16th Century has now been tied inextricably to John Dee.

In the 17th Century Francis Bacon's name came to the fore in his advocation of a scientific approach to knowledge and learning in Advancement in Learning, his Novum Organum and in the utopian allegory, The New Atlantis; also, in his activities as a founding member of the Royal Society, which concerned itself with the scientific approach. Although Dee personally tutored Bacon in his youth, training him in ancient arcane arts, the name and reputation of John Dee was shelved necessarily by his own loving brothers and sisters to ensure the continued work of the Rosicrucians. They needed to avoid jeopardizing the greater objective of humankind's religious and philosophical freedom from persecution—or to state it more succinctly—to promote everyone's inherent and inalienable right to the freedom of individual thought and personal choice.

Subsequently it would require the research of disinterested parties to the esoteric traditions to get to the truth revealed from the records, before historical revisions would include Dr. John Dee's important role in the Rosicrucian movement. Today in the British Museum, Dee's significance to the early stages of the Renaissance as scientist, and philosopher-magician is highlighted on display. Many of his manuscripts and other contemporary publications revealing the intent of his work are also available in the British Library. Some of his more important writings also have been published in book form.

If ever there is an award for the man for all seasons, Dr. John Dee would probably be among the names nominated. His good name survived the long obscurity partly caused at the hands of his own brotherhood, and it now shines in the light of truth today under the scrutiny of those who would have no particular interest in promoting or not promoting an awareness of what he gave to humanity.

The esoteric traditions continue to recognize Dr. Dee for the powerful effect that his genius had intellectually and spiritually upon the world. Many freedoms enjoyed today are due to the effort and sacrifice, and the unrelenting devotion to service, of John Dee and others like him