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The
renowned 16th century alchemist, theurgist and clairvoyant
Edward Kelly began his early career practicing as a lawyer,
though he was soon arrested for forgery and was sentenced
to having both ears cut off. Ashamed and humiliated, Kelly
fled to Wales where he went for some time under the name of
Edward Talbot. In wales, he happened upon a withered manuscript
which he, with his knowledge of Latin, discovered had been
written by the Christian alchemist St. Dunstan of Glastonbury.
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His
enthusiasm sparked by the alchemical and hermetic contents of
the manuscript, Kelly travelled to London to show it to his acquaintance,
Dr. John Dee. The two started a long collaboration of alchemical
and ceremonial experiments based largely upon the writings of
St. Dunstan, and reportedly summoned angelic beings as well as
produced significant quantities of gold.
Although
the two men had very different personalities, Dee being the somewhat
more rational and discrete of the two, Kelly and Dee found themselves
embarking as companions on an arduous series of séances
that would demand several years to undertake. Following an invocational
formula, the two would contact and converse with angels and disembodied
spirits. Seated at a table laden with various tools and symbols,
Kelly would gaze into a crystal ball and report his visions to
Dee, who acted as scribe. In this way they received the "secret
angelic language" to which the initation ceremonies of the
Golden Dawn refer. This complicated tongue, whether or not once
actually spoken by an ancient race, is nevertheless a true language
in every sense of the word, with a vast vocabulary and a syntax
and grammar of its own. This language is the most important contribution
of Dee and Kelly, although the magical work of the two men was
not limited to that purpose alone.
Travelling
through Central and Eastern Europe, Dee and Kelly found a suitable
environment for their work among the famed alchemists' stalls
at the palace court of emperor Rudolf II in Prague. Here, while
Dee kept his Art mostly to himself, Kelly would hold public demonstrations
of the art of gold-making and was even knighted after a showing
off his powers to the court. So impressed was the emperor by him,
that Kelly gained a prominent position and was put in charge of
producing alchemical gold for the state. Unable to meet the demands
of the emperor and having killed a local in a duel, Kelly was
imprisoned. After two years in imprisonment , Kelly took a dire
fall and broke his leg badly while attempting to escape, which
led to a ghastly amputation. After another unsuccessful escape
during which he broke his other leg, Sir Edward Kelly died, either
by his own hand or suffering from the poor prison treatment. Dr
Dee long outlived Kelly and died at eighty years of age in Manchester,
England.
