Camp Gagnon - The MACABRE John Dee: The Occultist Who Summoned Angels Through Enoch

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Who was John Dee, and could he really speak to angels? Today, we take a closer look at the dark life of one of the most famous historical figures. We’ll talk about who John Dee was, becoming Queen Elizabeth's advisor, John Dee’s obsession with scrying, traveling to Prague for alchemy, being the original 007, and other interesting topics. Welcome to CAMP! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsors: Sleep-Dust and Morgan & MorganIf you’re ready to revitalize your sleep Use promo code SLEEP for 20% off. when you visit http://www.sleep-dust.com/👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Who Is John Dee?3:41 Going to Cambridge at 15 Years Old5:10 John Is Arrested Over Queen Mary’s Horoscope9:04 Becoming Queen Elizabeth's Advisor13:10 John Dees Obsession w/ Scrying17:05 The Angel Uriel Teaches John Dee Enochian Language18:50 Edward Kelley Translates The Enochian Language26:57 Edward Has a Child w/ John Dee’s Wife30:50 Traveling to Prague For Alchemy32:32 Is John Dee The Original 007?40:09 The Fallout of John Dee & Edward Kelley46:25 Cults Using John Dees Teachings Today48:56 The Legacy of John Dee

It's England. In the 1580s, there's a man sitting in the world's largest private library, 4,000 books all owned by him. He's writing coded messages to the Queen. He's using the signature 007. He's convinced that he can talk to angels and he might be the first international spy in history. The man is John D., the smartest man in England, who was also maybe the most gullible. He's a devout Christian who dabbled in the occult. He's a mathematician that believes in magic, and he's the Queen's most trusted advisor who may have been duped by a world-class conman posing as a friend. He even coined the term the British Empire and taught navigation to the explorers who built it. This dude is absolutely fascinating.

And we literally wouldn't have the world, as we know today, without him. And centuries later, he has captivated occultists and historians and novelists alike. Everyone wants to know about John D. And today, so will you. We're diving into the world of the man who showed us that genius and delusion can exist, in the same brilliant but complicated life. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up people and welcome back to camp.

My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world, forever and always, from the past to the future and everything in between. As always, I'm joined by a dear friend, a brother, a compatriot, a mentor, and a child. Christos, Papalopoulos. So, before we begin, Christos, how are you? All right, so, guys, I'm not even going to let him,

he didn't even get the mic to his mouth, you know? The comments about Christos and his disruptions to the podcast have truly warmed my heart. And I just want to thank everyone for just, I don't know, standing up to injustice and, yeah, just recognizing that sometimes silence is not violence, you know? And sometimes silence is golden. And I think slowly Creos is going to learn that.

But you know what? We don't have time for all this nonsense, okay? Because today we're talking about the one, the only, John D. One of the most famous occultists of all time and a dear friend to Queen Elizabeth. Now, in order to understand this, we've got to go all the way back to 1580 to a country known as England. You probably heard of it, right? It's pretty popular place. So there's a man who historians have described as, quote,

tall and slender. Six-five, blue eyes. Trust fund. No, he's just tall, handsome. He wears a dark gown, like an artist's gown, hanging sleeves. Very fair, clear,

sanguine complexion, long beard, as white as milk, and a very handsome man. This is a quote about this gentleman. He's sitting in what is the biggest private library in the world. Four thousand books.

probably the most books ever owned by a person in that time. And there's a crystal ball on his desk, and he's writing coded messages to Queen Elizabeth. He is convinced he can communicate with angels, and he might actually be history's very first 007. That's right. The OG James Bond. Welcome to the world of John D. Now, this guy was potentially the smartest person in England at the time, but was also

possibly like the most gullible. He had an insane career in math, astronomy, like navigation, was able to, you know, help guide ships, but then mixed them with like divination and astrology and alchemy and all sorts of other stuff that was a little on the fringes. He was a devout member of the Christian church, but also leaned heavily into the esoteric and the occult. He advised the queen on basically everything from military strategy to, you know, what day she should be coronated and genuinely believed it was the angels revealing this hidden information. And maybe it was. Who am I to say no?

Right? But he, above all, believed it. And the world of Jondi is not only a world full of contradictions, but a world where you have one foot in facts and another possibly in the esoteric and the occult. And by the time we finish up this episode, you're going to understand why everybody from conspiracy theories to occulting. to historians and even like video game designers are still obsessed with this man four centuries later. Because John D. didn't just live through a crazy time in history.

He actually created the history and in some ways that you would not expect. So let's go to the beginning, shall we? John D. This guy's born in England, 1527. And right from the jump, he is different. This is not your average kid in the 1500s. He's brilliant at math, and he gets into Cambridge at 15, which, again, yes, a few things. One, Cambridge exists at this time. It is prestigious at this time, potentially even more so in a certain sense, because no one could go to college.

And so the fact that this guy gets into college at all, especially at the age of 15, is remarkable. And he got in not because he's like a Nepo baby. You know, there's no D library at the, you know, Cambridge campus, but because he's legit, brilliant. And while other teams are figuring out like basic math, he's already going into like deep technical geometry and astronomy and is kind of just like crushing it. And what makes him really special is for this time, he's not just book smart. He understands how dynamics work. So he understands how knowledge is powerful and he was going crazy trying to collect all the knowledge possible. So by his 20s, he graduates from Cambridge and becomes an original fellow at Trinity College.

he starts traveling across Europe, studying with the best mathematicians and astronomers of that time. And then he comes back to England with a rare collection of books, math tools, and, like, astrological sort of measuring devices and a whole lot of, you know, knowledge and expertise. And, you know, if knowledge is power, even maybe has a little bit of power. So back in England, our man, John D. was offered all sorts of cool gigs, right? He gets calls from English universities, including Oxford, who was like, hey, do you want to become a professor? But he turned them all down. And some say it's because he disapproved of how these universities were sort of prioritizing their subjects and that, you know, some of these schools had like full on, like grammar classes.

And, you know, they were trying to try to put like certain things more important than the things that John D thought was, you know, important. For example, putting grammar above philosophy felt like an affront to him. But others theorized that it might have been that D was holding out for, you know, a bigger offer. And that was landing a role with the queen. Now, Queen Mayor the first was not exactly, you know, like a good time kind of a gal, right? She was a little, you know, trigger happy with the Protestants. You know, she was a devout Catholic herself. So obviously, you know, shout to her.

And didn't offer a ton of wiggle room when it came to punishing anybody who, you know, who fell outside of her Catholic lifestyle. So Dee didn't exactly make a great first impression with Her Majesty. In 1555, Dee is 28, and he was arrested in charge with, quote, lewd and vain practices of calculating and conjuring. Now, what happened was Dee had cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth. To anyone who isn't familiar with this practice, it's not a curse. It's not witchcraft, and it's not necessarily going to hurt you, so to speak.

I mean, that's just, in my opinion, some people think differently. But a horoscope is just a map of the positions of the sun, the moon, and the stars at the, you know, time of a specific event. So, for example, someone's birth. And it can tell you unique things about that person's, you know, character or, you know, give you an idea of what might happen in their lifetime. And again, this is the idea behind the people that believe it. You know, this is not something I subscribe to. But some people do. And, you know, lots of ancient cultures had some type of beliefs.

around this loose philosophy that, you know, we call astrology. And they believe that, you know, the moment that you were born and where the stars were kind of dictate something about you. And, you know, white women love it. All that to say, horoscopes are, you know, relatively harmless, right? They can be used as a method of divination, which is, you know, maybe a little less harmless. But that's a different topic. So divination isn't just, you know, like a class you would take at Hogwarts.

it's actually, according to occultists, a real form of witchcraft. It's a method that occultists use to gain insights into a situation by using supernatural means. So, you know, they can read signs or omens or try to communicate with spirits or interpret their findings as messages, things like that. So in that context, you can see why the church and the English crown were obviously not so cool with John D's little magic trick back in the day. So these charges of conjuring and treason against Queen Mary were brought against John D, forcing him to appear in the court of the Royal Palace of Westminster,

also called the Court of Star Chamber. First off, great name, hilarious. Like, there's a guy practicing astrology, and you're like, dude, you're going to the Star Chamber court. You'd be like, dude, this is kind of ideal, you know. It sounds like George Lucas named it. Anyway, John D. Exonerated himself, but was turned over to a man named Bonner, who was a Catholic bishop who would be in charge of giving D, quote, a religious examination. But wouldn't you know it, Bonner was one of D's good buddies, which probably helped with getting some of the charges dropped.

In fact, it's reported that after this little incident, Dee actually became Bonner's chaplain. So pretty good save right there, right? So Dee wasn't ever really able to win his way back into the good graces with Queen Mary. He approached her in 1556 again with an idea to preserve old books and manuscripts and records and, you know, kind of like a vision to establish like a national library. But even though it was a good idea, Mary was not interested, you know, maybe because she didn't like the idea or maybe she didn't like old John D. who, you know, probably left a bad taste of her mouth from the year before. But don't worry because Dee wouldn't be blacklisted forever. Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth, becomes queen in 1558.

And she is not like her mother. She's young, unmarried, and half of Europe thinks that she has absolutely no business running England at all. And she needs advisors who she can trust. But more importantly, she needs advisors who will give her a little bit of an edge. And this is John Dee's chance. Now, if you remember our episode on Grigory Rasputin, a lot of this probably sounds familiar, but not to deviate too much. The first thing that Elizabeth asked John D. to do is pick the perfect date for her coronation, not based on politics or the weather, but based on star alignments. And D, he delivers. He uses astrology to choose January 15, 1559.

Elizabeth is so impressed that she goes as far as to make John D. her advisor. And from then on, D was Elizabeth's secret weapon. When English explorers wanted to sail to the new world, they came to D for navigation techniques. When the Queen needed to justify England's territorial claims, D wrote the propaganda, and when military commanders needed strategic advice, who do they go to? But calling him the Queen's advisor, really, it doesn't fully capture.

everything that John D. was doing for this woman. D. was running something closer to like a one-man think tank thing. Like he was analyzing maps and then trade routes and then helping England basically just like do everything on a world stage.

He was handpicking sailors and teaching them navigation stuff. He was training preparing them how to expand the colonies. And this was a project in particular that John D. was very excited about. D was actually the first guy who coined the term British Empire. publishing it in one of the many books that he wrote.

The guy becomes so essential that when other European courts want to understand what England is planning, they try to recruit D. And here's the crazy part, they succeed. Kind of. D starts traveling across Europe, meeting with emperors and monarchs and princes, all while technically still working for Queen Elizabeth, which brings us to this library idea, the one he built for himself when Mary turned to.

down his original idea. Four thousand books. It doesn't sound like a mutt, you know, a ton today, right? But in the 1570s, that's more books than most universities or any private collection or really anyone else in the world, any government, anything like that. And Dee's collection had become so legendary and the resources inside the library were so valuable that scholars would travel from across Europe just to access John Dee's private collection. He's basically running the Google of the Renaissance out of his home. Emergency broadcast. Guys, we have a brand new channel dropping.

It is Mark Gagnon Comedy, and we're going to be putting all my stand-up right there, as well as a new show we call You Ask for This. We pass out no cards to the audience, and they submit suggestions that then get put into a bucket, and then me and a friend, we will draw them out and riff on them, whether it's a current event, or maybe a personal story that happened to someone in the audience. Whatever it is, we get to the bottom of it. So, if you're interested in checking out the channel, you can click the link in the description. Please subscribe. It really, really helps everything work, especially after the show comes

out. Checking out the episodes and supporting is massive. We really appreciate it. You can check it out there. It is you asked for this. It is the name of the segment and the channel is Mark Gagel Comedy. We'll see you guys in the new spot. Thank you so much for always supporting. We'll see you next time. Let's get back to the show. So by 1581, D, got everything a man could want. He's the queen's most trusted advisor. He created basically by himself the biggest library in England. and European royalty is treating him like a rock star. But apparently, this success was just not enough. So being the smartest guy in England,

one of the most sought after advisors in Europe, John D. wanted more. You see, from childhood, John D. knew that there was more to the universe than what we could see. He studied math, science, astronomy, but he believed that these things were not one-off little subjects. He thought they were all connected. and that by studying nature in these ways he could uncover the secrets about the universe

and potentially even about God himself. And even with all his knowledge and all this power, as we talked about before, Dean knew that there was something that he was missing, and that is ultimately what he wanted. He didn't just want to know about the universe. He wanted to know how it worked, and he wanted to know more than answers. He wanted this divine wisdom, and he wanted to talk to God.

I mean, he's talking to the queen. He's like, I think there's someone above, and I want that guy. So he tried something a little edgier than prayer. And this is something we called scrying. Now, scrying, or also called seeing, is a supernatural practice rooted in this concept of divination that we talked about before. It involves gazing into a reflection of some kind, hoping to receive hidden messages or visions that could offer guidance or prophecy or really anything you can get. from the other side. Now, a scryer can be a number of various objects, really as long as it has some type

of reflection. So a crystal ball or today, even a smartphone. The object acts as an intermediary between the person and the angels or any other spiritual being that you're trying to contact. Again, this is the idea behind this amongst occultists. Methods usually involve trying to put yourself into a trance or entering a focus state that you know, we'll basically clear out all of your mental clutter, thus allowing the organic revelation of these visual images.

And these initial images, however, trivial, are amplified during the trance. Some scriers report that they can hear their voice affirming what they see or potentially hearing another voice or creating this type of like mental feedback loop. And this is where Dee's brilliant mind takes a little bit of a left turn. He becomes convinced that if he can just basically get the right technique, he can establish direct communication with angels. And the angels could tell him all the pieces of the puzzle that was missing in his studies. So he's basically just trying to get like a Zoom call with God, basically, and just trying to figure it all out.

And his straying was generally unsuccessful, you know. But props to John D for trying to figure it out. I mean, keep in mind also, this is illegal to. do, right? Like if you're caught scrying in England in the 1500s, you'd go to prison. So for months, D sat in his study with various crystals and mirrors and obsidian tablets, basically anything trying to cold call into the cosmos. And he's using the only methods he knows at the time. And that is, again, these ancient occult methods, which you really can't blame him for. You know, he was a devout Christian growing up. And he's not denouncing God necessarily by dipping his

toe into this kind of like witchy stuff, he in his mind is just trying to utilize his resources and doing whatever he thought would work to get him ahead. And he documented every attempt, every flicker of light, every shadow that seemed weird. I mean, the guy approached this, you know, scrying or divination with the same methodical precision that he used for math. And then on May 25th, 1582, Dee writes in his diary that it finally happened, first contact. After all those failed attempts, he claimed that he actually talked to an angel. And not just any angel either. The one introduces itself as Uriel or Uriel, one of the biggest names in the angelic hierarchy. And these aren't just friendly like, hello, how's the weather, how's, you know, heaven.

It didn't take a long time to get here. Boy, your arms are tired. Like that. It wasn't like that vibe, right? The angels start to teach D what they call a pure divine line. language, something that they claim was spoken before the Tower of Babel actually, you know, ruined all the languages of Earth. D. names it Anokian after the biblical figure Enoch, who supposedly walked with God. Now, D, unsurprisingly, becomes obsessed with this secret heavenly language. He's convinced that this is the original language of creation, then the words that God used to actually speak the universe into existence. And he spends hours learning the grammar, memorizing the vocabulary, trying to perfect his pronunciation of words that supposedly haven't been spoken correctly by humans in, you know, multiple, multiple millennia.

And though Dee was supposedly able to make, you know, angelic contact, he's really not as talented of a scryer as he would like to be. So a lot of his questions go unanswered and he eventually becomes frustrated with the lack of progress. So he takes on a business partner, someone who can compensate for some of D's blind spots. as someone was potentially running the greatest con job in history. So this is where the whole story takes a turn. That's maybe hilarious or sad, depending on, you know, how you look at and who you're related to. Because in March of 1582, there's a guy named Edward Kelly who shows up. And right off the bat, you can tell there's some stuff wrong with this dude, right?

First red flag, his ears are cropped. like how a dog like how they're like a dog like a doberman of their ears would it's like insane and it's not like a fashion thing you know

that's just what you did in the 1500s if you got caught forging documents so this guy literally has convicted criminal written on his ears but D

brilliant as he may be somehow looks past this and it's just like oh no it's cool he's got a he's elvin or something I don't know I don't know

he just let it go And probably because he, too, is, you know, guilty of breaking the law in some, you know, some ways. He just hasn't been caught yet. You know, who knows exactly what he's doing. But, I mean, the occult stuff, it's not exactly, you know, sympathico with the church. So it turns out that scrying is Kelly's specialty. Second red flag.

Hardly anything is known about his life prior to his time with Dee. He is definitely a criminal and is actually thought to be going by a fake name. But here's the thing. Kelly's little pitch to John D worked, or at least it worked for John D in some way. Suddenly, instead of sitting alone staring at these crystals hoping for divine contact, he's got this guy who's claiming to have full-on conversations with angels, and Kelly becomes D's interpreter, the middleman between Earth and Heaven. Now, if you understand anything about this hierarchy that we've built here, right, you have Queen Elizabeth, very important.

and then you have John D who's advising Queen Elizabeth and then you have John D who's talking to God and the angels and that is above but now who is the intermediary between John D and the gods and the angels is this guy Edward Kelly now if you're looking at him a little chart here that puts this guy above the queen so it's a powerful position now according to Kelly that the angels don't just speak to him they speak in that same inockean language that D has been trying to

learn. And Kelly claims that he can see these celestial beings in the clear crystals and they can hear their voices and translate their messages. And it's like having this actual angelic translator. Except this translator is a convicted con man, which, crazyly enough, is still not an issue. But D is completely sold. And finally, after all those months of failed attempts, he's got his direct line to the divine wisdom, bada bang, bada, boom. Life is good. Right? The angel conversation has become like a regular thing. Dee's asking questions. Kelly's relaying the answers. Both of them fill in notebooks with what they believe to be direct communication from God. John Dee asking questions. What do I do? Like, how much do I pay Kelly? And Kelly's like, oh, the angel said, give me a raise. Like, it's crazy. So now most people, you know, would maybe have like a few chats with, you know, God or angels. And they'd call it a day. They'd be like, all right, cool. Got all my answers. I got all my answers. Asked some questions. move on. But Dee, as, you know, the nerd that he is, goes full academic. And he's filling thousands of pages with detailed transcripts of every angelic conversation. And I mean, like,

meticulous records, who said what, when they said it, what it all means. And the angels are not just chatting about heaven either. According to Dee's notes, they're giving him instructions about reforming Christianity, uniting all the world's religions, creating a new spiritual order. They're telling him he's been chosen for this massive. of divine mission to transform the human understanding of God. And what makes this even crazier is that Dee isn't keeping this to himself. He starts incorporating his angelic revelations into his work for the queen. And he's telling Elizabeth that his supernatural contacts are giving him sort of strategic

insight for England and the empire. Now, the daily records that Dee kept are crazy to read, frankly. I mean, they're included in some of the books he published, including his personal diaries and, you know, the documents are not just the, you know, conversations, but like the angel's personality. Some are apparently more chatty. Some get impatient when he doesn't understand their instructions fast enough. It's like he's created in this entire mythology around these celestial contacts, you know, complete with character development and log lines and episode arcs. Like, it's crazy. And I have no idea what is actually happening. Now, what's fascinating

is that D never seems to doubt this at all. This brilliant mathematician, this, you know, royal advisor, global sensation, you know, sweetheart of Europe, is absolutely convinced that he's selected by the cosmos for the most important mission in human history. And he doesn't really ever stop to think, like, is this legit? Is this really, like, is this really divine? Now, looking back, it's, you know, there's a few different stories of what's happening. Kelly is out there making this stuff up as he goes along and is pulling off one of history's most, you know, elaborate gaslighting operations.

And modern cryptographers who studied the Anacian language think that it shows signs of being artificially constructed. But the real question is whether D was in on it or if he was somehow conned by this guy, Edward Kelly. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you a story. Imagine you're sitting in your house. It's cold outside. It's a little snowy. And you're like, man, I just want a pinini. So you go and you order it, you know, from a, from DoorDash or something like that.

And it never gets to you. You're looking at the app. You're like, dude, it's been four hours. Where's my Panini? You're calling. No one answers. Well, this is a true story that happened. There was a woman, a client that was working as a DoorDash driver.

And she slipped and fell on an icy walkway outside of a Panera bread and Fort Wayne, Indiana. She breaks her elbow, which leads to. surgery and hardware having to get insert into her arm. She can't work. And originally, you know, she sues Panera and Panera was like, okay, we'll give you like 125,000. But then the good people over at Morgan and Morgan fought for her and got her the million dollar verdict that she deserved. Yes. If you never heard of them, Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. Yes. And they're that way for a reason. They've been fighting for the people for over 35 years. Now, I'll be honest, If I ordered a pinini and the woman gets paid a million bucks because she slipped,

I mean, it's a tragic thing to happen, of course, but I deserve a little bit of that. I should get a cut at least, right? I have the one to order the pinini. If I never ordered that pinini, she never would have slipped, never got a million bucks, which obviously she deserved, you know what I mean? But maybe next time she gets a million and million point one, I can get a cool $100,000 out of that. Regardless, all I'm saying is if you're ever injured and you are looking to get the money that you deserved, the compensation that is entitled to you from your injuries, Morgan and Morgan could be the way to go. Hiring the wrong law firm can be disastrous. I mean, you can be locked up in litigant. It's a nightmare. But hiring the right law firm could substantially increase your settlement. And with Morgan and Morgan, it's easy to get started. Their fee is $0 unless they win. That's right. Their fee is free unless they win your case. You don't pay zero cents unless they win your case. You can visit for the people.com.

slash Gagnon, G-A-G-N-O-N-O-N, that is F-O-R-the-P-P-O-C-C-N, or dial Pound-Law that's Pound 529 from your cell phone, that's for the people.com slash Gagnon, or click the link in the description below. And thank you so much to the good folks over at Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring this program and making this show possible with this paid advertisement. Well, let's get back to the show. And then D and Kelly decide to take their show on the road. So by 1584, the Angels, quote-unquote,

start giving them some strange or unconventional instructions. Now, if at this point you're like, dude, maybe they legit are talking to angels, I respect that. Like, I'm not fully sold that that's not what's happening. It's possible. Who knows, right? But this is where things kind of take a break.

Kelly breaks it to deed that the angels want the guys to share everything, literally everything, including their wives. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this guy, Edward Kelly, is just, a genius. He says, look, I've been talking to angels, and they do want me to dog your wife out from the back. And Kelly convinces D that refusing this would be disobeying God. I mean, D, as you can imagine, he's not stoked about this, but he goes along with it, not because

he's into it. Like, again, he's trading places, you know what I mean? Like, he's, he's hitting Edward Kelly's a little shorty, putting her face in a pillow, but he's not happy about it. And you can hear his wife getting dogged into the room just like, what the fuck? Like, why do the angels need me to do this? Why is this a part of this? This whole cosmic drama, right? Again, he's worried that the angels are going to stop talking to him. And if the angel stopped talking to him, he's going to lose his position as a rural advisor.

He has to do this to save the British Empire, dude. You wouldn't do that? Would you rather become one of the richest men in Europe and be an advisor to the most powerful monarch in the entire continent and get your wife dogged out or keep your wife and, you know, just be a little peasant. Well, this was John Dee's real life. Jane, his wife, was also not stoked, as you can imagine. But eventually, she went along with it. And this, quote, cross-matching occurred on May 22nd, 1588. I mean, I couldn't even imagine being John D. It'd be like, babe, you're not going to believe this. The angel said that Kelly's going to have to absolutely just skull crush you. And she was like,

who talked to the angels? And he was like, oh, Kelly talked to him. No one thought this was weird. No one thought they should flag and be like, hey, can we get a second opinion? Is there another scryer in this big, beautiful country that can come in and just see if that's actually what they said?

Did they really say wife swap? Did they really say, hey, we're actually going to, we're swinging? Maybe they meant something different. You know, maybe there's other types of swinging that they meant. Oh, slinging. Oh.

They meant they want us to actually go and sling the word. They want us to go tell people about our visions. My bad. You don't think anyone thought of this? I mean, according to Dee's diary, he says, May 22nd, Mistress Kelly received the sacrament. And to me and my wife gave her hand in charity.

And we rushed not from her. Guys, what is going on? They want to know something crazy? nine months later Yeah February 1588 John D's wife had a son

and D baptized this boy and raised it as his own now remember May 22 fast forward nine months we're in February John D got absolutely cucked by this con man

that came over to him and said I can talk to the angels for you don't trip about it and the angels are telling me to dog at your wife, nut and her, paint the walls white, give you a baby, and you're going to raise it. I mean, guys, what the hell is going on? And it gets even better, right?

Because Kelly, this guy, Edward Kelly, right, also claims that he's figured out alchemy. Great news. Hey, John D. Not only you're going to raise my kid after I just dogged your wife out. I also know alchemy. I also know how to turn base metals, you know what I mean? Like copper or, you know, just like little aluminum. pin, whatever, I can turn these things into gold.

Now, every con artist in the 1500s claims that they could do this, but Kelly actually convinced some pretty important people, including Emperor Rudolph II over in Prague, who was obsessed with this kind of stuff. So Rudolph sends them an invitation to the court, and suddenly Dee and Kelly are packing up their families and their little crystal balls and their little empty balls and their fake kids, and they go on a European road trip, and they leave behind Dee's massive library, and, you know, his connections with the Elizabethan court and everything that made him powerful in England.

And the queen is like, hey, where are you going? And he's like, look, I got to go. You know, I got a meeting. And she's like, what's the meeting? Like, oh, it's with this guy about turning metal into gold and we talked to the angels and they said it was cool. And this guy Kelly said that, you know, he gave me all the stuff. So literally Kelly teaches, like, tricks this guy into leaving his entire family

and leaving his job and leaving his library. And this whole partnership is the perfect storm of Dee's, genuine spiritual seeking, you know, with Kelly's opportunistic scheming. I mean, it's just a match made in heaven. Dee wants to serve God and unlock divine secrets and get his wife blasted. Kelly wants money and status and probably finds it amusing that he can, you know, just bend over this guy's beautiful babe. Now, while Dee is busy, you know, being super gullible and just getting absolutely cocked,

his time of the road is not a total waste. so D might have at this point potentially become a spy Now this is where things get interesting Potentially again this is not confirmed but allegedly it's possible that he was running an espionage operation

and potentially one of the first in European history And the best part it may have been using his reputation as this mystical weirdo as the cover So picture this 1580s

All right European politics are a mess Spain wants to crush the Protestants in England and France is dealing with religious civil wars and the Holy Roman Empire is basically crumbling. And in the middle of all this chaos, you got John D. And his wife, you know, full of that good stuff from his buddy,

traveling around Europe and supposedly chasing these angels in conversation and trying to talk to different monarchs about how to turn metal into gold. But also, he might be collecting intelligence. So here's what we know for sure. D signed his most sensitive letters to Queen Elizabeth with three numbers. Zero, zero, seven. Now, these are not random numbers. The two zeros mean for your eyes only, and the seven was his personal lucky number. So yeah, Ian Fleming, you ever heard of that guy?

Absolute con artist, that Ian Fleming. He didn't invent 007. He borrowed it from the 16th century mathematician who used it as his coded signature. Now, think about Dee's cover story here, right? He's a famous scholar, a brilliant mathematician. He's got this reputation across Europe for being just a brilliant guy who knows about mathematics and astronomy and, you know, military and naval battles. And now is apparently talking to the angels. And every major court wants to meet him.

And now you've got emperors and kings and monarchs inviting him over for dinner. Princes are asking for advice. He is the Renaissance celebrity. And everybody wants a little peace. But here's the genius part. Well, everyone thinks he's just this eccentric academic. Dee's got access to information and, you know, he's got access to people that most spies would only dream of. He's basically sitting in private conversations with these rulers across Europe, and he's seeing their libraries and their maps and their servants and the people that they're talking to and their military plans and people are showing off their secrets to impress this famous scholar.

So let's go back to this trip to Prague, right? officially they're there because Emperor Rudolph the 2 wants to learn about alchemy and angel magic and scrying and all that stuff but Prague is you know in some ways the heart of the Holy Roman Empire it's where all the major political decisions for Central Europe get made and D spends months there

meeting with nobles and diplomats and military commanders not just from Prague but from all over and you think he's not paying attention to what Spain is planning or what the Catholic League is up to and Rudolph the second isn't the only one that's courting D. He's getting invitations from courts across the continent. So Poland wants him to advise their king. Italian princes are offering him a position.

Everyone thinks that they can use the famous English mystic for their own purposes. But meanwhile, it's possible that D is taking mental notes on everything that he sees and hears, and he's going back to his home girl, Queen Elizabeth. And the timing is, in some ways, too perfect to be. coincidental. You see, D's European travels happen right when England needs intelligence about Catholic plots against Elizabeth. And the Spanish are planning invasions.

The Pope is encouraging some assassination attempts. Various European powers are scathing to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne. And right in the middle of all of this political chaos, you have this tall, slender little cuck named John D. Wandering around Europe with access to basically anyone that matters.

So even his partnership with Kelly starts to make some more sense from this angle. Maybe D needed a partner who, you know, could potentially help him sell the mystical cover story while he was able to focus on intelligence gathering. You know, Kelly got this like showman personality and, you know, he's able to, you know, sell. And he can put on a good performance with the crystal ball and he keeps these nobles entertained while D is, you know, potentially observing things or walking around or talking to people. or even just jotting down some thoughts. It's a theory. Interesting one, for sure. Now, what's brilliant, though, is that nobody would suspect him, right?

It's, like, kind of the perfect cover. Who's going to think that someone that's obsessed with, you know, supernatural conversations is actually running this covert intelligence operation? You see, John D. gets written off as, like, a eccentric guy, which gives him the freedom to travel and ask questions and build these relationships without anyone being any wiser. Now, we'll probably never know for sure just how much of D's mystical pursuits were genuine and what was a cover for espionage work, if any of it at all. And maybe he really did believe in these angels and what happened to be, you know, this great intelligence gathering operation.

Or maybe it was, you know, just the spy stuff all along and that he never believed any of these supernatural revelations at all. I mean, that one, I think, you know, if you're going to let your wife get smashed, I don't think that's true. But either way, these moments in the spotlight with all that real favor is about to disappear. And when it does everything about this guy's life falls apart. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you need better sleep. I mean, if you're like me, you'll probably wake up feeling exhausted. You miss your workout.

You're drinking too much coffee. You feel wired the whole day because you're just shocking your nervous system. And the problem is that sometimes you don't sleep. and the sleep supplements that you do take are probably packed with melatonin, oftentimes 10 times the melatonin that your body actually produces. So as a result, you end up feeling more groggy and worse than you did before because this melatonin is knocking you out and you're not able to wake up easily. It's a big problem.

And that's why sleep dust came into the market because they saw this issue. And instead of knocking you out with massive doses of melatonin, it works with your body using five clinically backed all natural ingredients. That includes magnesium glycinate, is amazing for sleep. I take it every single night. Elthianine, glycine, and a microdose of melatonin that actually matches what your body makes. So as a result, you fall asleep faster, you sleep deeper, and you wake up refreshed and ready to crush your day. Sleep dust is third-party tested, contains no sugar, artificial ingredients, and it's made right here in the U.S. of A. They are so confident

that it will work for you and it will help you sleep that they offer free shipping and they back with a 60-day money-back guarantee. Now, I love this because all of these things are amazing. I'm already taking magnesium glycinate. I'm already taking L-P-thianine. And, I mean, sure, you could buy all of these supplements independently, or you could save money and time just by getting sleep dust. So if you are curious, you can go to www.com.

That is, S-L-E-E-P-D-U-S-T-com, and you can use the code sleep for 20% off. That is sleep-d-d-dust. Use the code sleep for 20% off. And look, if you don't like it, you got a 60-day money-back guarantee. That is how confident they are. So go check them out. And thank you so much for supporting the show.

We got the link in the description. Now, let's get back to it. So first is the alchemy thing. You see, this alchemy thing is a real problem because Kelly keeps promising Rudolph the second that he can turn lead into gold. And somehow, he never quite manages to pull it off. The emperor starts getting impatient,

and suddenly Kelly goes from, you know, honored guest to suspicious character really quick. So by 1586, the whole Prague adventure thing is kind of souring and Kelly is starting to panic about what happens when this con finally gets exposed. Meanwhile, D is getting letters from England that aren't exactly encouraging. You see, the political climate back home is shifting. Elizabeth Quartz have moved on from the whole like, oh, let's consult our mystical advisor phase and are getting much more practical and concerned with actual political scientists and scholars of the time. There are even some rumors that, you know, the queen's newer pals think that D's supernatural thing

is too far and this guy's too eccentric and, you know, he's lost it. Then comes the breaking point. In 1587, D and Kelly have a massive falling out. And the details are a little murky, but what it seems to come down to is that D finally starts to question whether Kelly has been playing him the whole time or whether he can actually talk to these angels. Maybe he caught Kelly in like a lie or there was some contradictory information or maybe his mathematical mind finally actually started to account for all these inconsistencies and red flags. Some sources say that it may have been due to Kelly wanting to

part ways with Dee and that perhaps after his own rise to fame across Europe, he wanted to be out from underneath John Dee's thumb and his employment and kind of go off on his own. They no longer shared these same goals as they once did. Whatever happened, they par ways, badly, for the record. D heads back to England at 1589, expecting to return to his old position as Elizabeth's trusted advisor, but when he gets there, it's, you know, the party is over. And the England that he left is not the England that he returned to. You see, Elizabeth's courts had all new faces and new priorities and new goals, and the alignments were a little bit off. And frankly, these new advisors, you know, they don't have cropped-eared business partners and crystal ball habits.

And the whole angel communication thing seemed pretty mysterious and intriguing in the early 1580s. But now, I mean, it's almost 10 years later and it's not really making a ton of sense. And so Dee went from being this cutting edge renaissance man to being kind of like the weird uncle that talks about the time that he saw God. Now, words off, John Dee's finances are wrecked. He had been living off imperial hospitality and promises of sort of alchemical gold for years. And that famous library, remember the collection of 4,000 books that basically made him like one of the most resource-rich academics at the time. He basically starts selling it off piece by piece just to pay for his basic expenses. Or, you know, basically what's left of it.

You see, when Dee returns to his home in Mortlake, he finds that his library had actually been ransacked. I mean, everything is stolen and some of it's destroyed and flipped upside down and some of it's burned. It's crazy. And the heartbreaking part of all this is that Dee genuinely doesn't understand what went wrong. He spends his final years writing petition after petition to Elizabeth asking for compensation for his years of service. And it's basically just him being like, hey, Hey, Liz, remember when I was like your buddy and you trusted me and I trusted you and, you know, all that intelligence work. Like, anyway, I could just get a pension or something.

But Elizabeth was not interested in acknowledging whatever spy work D may or may not have done. It's possibly too politically risky or maybe it was all, you know, fake to begin with. And, oh, all those angel conversations. Well, those are definitely not something that the courts want to be associated with at all. so D gets the royal equivalent of, you know, getting left on a red. And the only thing Elizabeth does end up doing for D is making him the Warden of Christ College in Manchester, where he's not even really respected by his fellows.

And meanwhile, Kelly's story ends exactly how you would expect a con artist story to end. He gets imprisoned by Rudolph II, probably for failing to deliver on those gold promises. And by 1597, he tries to escape from his tower prison and falls to his death. Now, whether this is an accident or a suicide or he's murdered, no one really knows, but it is a fitting end for someone who'd been, you know, cheating and running cons his entire adult life.

Now, D sticks around until 1608, and by all accounts, he dies in poverty. This guy who had once been one of, you know, Europe's most powerful and connected people ends up in some ways forgotten, obsolete, broke, and, you know, taking care of someone else's kid. But here's what gets me. According to the people who knew him in his final years, he never stopped believing. But right up until the end, he was convinced that he had been chosen by God for a grand mission. Here we go. Any minute now. All the angels, all that stuff, it's all real. Everything that he had done had the cosmic significance. And the remainder of that, giant library, one of the greatest intellectual treasures in Europe, it's just scattered into the

winds. Some books end up in other collections or sold to random buyers or just disappear and are completely stolen. It's like the Renaissance equivalent of like the library of Alexandria, right? Except it's not fire or war that gets rid of it. It's just neglect and poverty. And by the time Dee dies, most people had forgotten why he was ever important in the first place. So even in his own lifetime, people kind of lose scope of what this guy did or who he was. And he goes from being this legendary figure to being kind of just a cautionary tale about what happens when brilliant people get in over their heads and buy into things that are tough to prove, especially things that they can't control. It's after this that the world kind of starts to separate the world of science and spirituality even more. but in some ways John D

despite being gone is not forgotten in the modern day and I think a lot of people see this guy and are influenced by him not necessarily with his death and I don't think that his influence died with him you see after he died people kept on finding John D's stuff and those detailed records of the conversations with angels that seemed embarrassing occultists in the 18 and 1900s discovered them and they went crazy. And they decided that D had actually cracked the code

for supernatural communication. The Golden Dawn is one of the most influential magical societies in history, and they built entire rituals around D's Anokian system. Alastair Crowley, probably one of the most famous occultists in the 20th century, claimed that he continued John D's work. Modern chaos magicians still use techniques that they think John D. invented, and there are still people today who genuinely believe that you can summon angels by using methods that this 16th century mathematician wrote down.

And it's not just occultists. I mean, conspiracy theorists love John D because of the whole 007 thing. They see him as proof of, you know, these British intelligence services that have been running supernatural operations and using God to see through walls and get intelligence on people. Some people think that MI6 still uses these techniques that John D developed. Who knows? But, you know, that's how pop culture works.

I mean, even video game designers use John D. as a character because he's got this perfect combination of historical credibility and influence in sort of monarchial England, but then also like this mystical weirdness. So fantasy writers love him and, you know, they talk about him like he's a real person who lived this incredible fantasy like life. You know, there's novels and movies and shows and games, all featuring John D. And in some other ways, I mean, he made legitimate discoveries. I mean, John D. contributed massively to science, astronomy, mathematics,

like all sorts of things that people still use today in legit ways. You know, he was a huge supporter of the British Empire and coined the turn himself and was really instrumental in a lot of ways with setting up Britain's colonies at the time. It's weird, right? Because like the world legit would not be

what it is today, or at least not in the way that it happened without the works and influence of John D. And despite all, you know, the equivalent of, cult stuff and the conspiracy stuff and the science stuff, D's story teaches us some pretty important things about human nature and knowledge and power and how it all works. So first, curiosity really can take you anywhere. And D's hunger for understanding led him from being a math student to advising

the queen to believing that he was chosen by God for a causing mission. And this curiosity that made him brilliant also led him into some questionable territory. But without that drive to discover, he would never have achieved what he did. So I think it's important for curious people to have, you know, some threshold and that you can't be so open-minded that your brain falls out. Second, even incredibly smart people can be fooled. And D. wasn't stupid. He was probably one of the most intelligent people of his time, but for many reasons, he decided, you know, to go along with this guy, Kelly. Right, this intelligence doesn't make you immune to manipulation or deception. So Edward Kelly saw exactly what Dee was and basically D wanted to believe and Kelly just kind of showed him what he wanted to

see. And it's a reminder that being smart and being wise are different things. As Mark Twain says, it's easier to fool a man than convince a man that he's been fooled. Now third that I think we can take away from John D's story is that your network is really everything, right? It's not what you know, it's who you know. It's not about the grades you make. It's about the hands you shake. And D stayed relevant for decades across all these different countries because he knew everybody that mattered. His connections with the scholars, the nobles, the rulers gave him opportunities that, you know, pure talent alone was not going to do. And even when his angel obsession became kind of embarrassing, his reputation as a scholar and a well-connected academic

kept a lot of the doors open. And finally, and maybe most importantly, document everything. The only reason we know so much about John D and the work that he did and who he was as a human being is because he wrote everything down. The mathematical work, the intelligence reports, the angel conversations, his wife getting donkey in the back of a truck. He recorded everything with detail, all right? And most of his scientific contemporaries are, you know, footnotes and history books, whereas we know intimate details about John D's life because he treated his diary like a historical record. And the number of books published by D in all of his numerous areas of expertise, including the diaries, are just, it's an insane amount, right?

I mean, it'd be too much to list. And today, I think the story reminds us that there is a line between genius and crazy, obsessed person, and it is, as we probably know, thinner than we think, right? I mean, there's so many people in history, I feel like we can look to that are kind of on this. Like Newton was kind of like this, like just a genius, but also, like, obsessed with the cold stuff. I mean, Kanye West in some ways, like just a proper genius, but also like a little crazy. I mean, there's so many people you can think about that are in this kind of vein. And maybe that's one of the most important lessons that we can take away, that human beings are complicated.

You know, we are brilliant, but also gullible, rational and superstitious. Christian and loving God, but also occulty and kind of witchy, powerful, but vulnerable. And they all happen simultaneously. And D wasn't a, you know, a simple story of like a genius or a fool. he's both happening at the same time. So the next time, you know, someone calls you crazy for your hobbies. Remember, at least you're not, you know,

trying to talk to an angel with a stone. So anyway, ladies gentlemen, that is the life of John D. Did I miss anything? Is there anything in here that I overlooked? Anything that I got wrong? Please drop a comment. I read all of them.

YouTube, Spotify. I go through every last one. So just be nice about it, all right? Was John D. the brilliant polymath you got in over his head was he, you know, an intelligence gathering officer working for the queen going around Europe, picking up info, picking up clues.

Or was he, you know, just a dumb guy that got conned? Or was he all three all at once? Please drop a comment. Let me know. Christos, you ever heard of this guy? Haven't heard of him, but if they say you can't con a con a con man, I guess he wasn't a con man.

Yeah, I don't see him as a con man personally. I see him as like an intelligent dude that kind of wanted to believe this thing, needed it to be real, got seduced by this guy, and then one thing led to another, he got got. This is also one of our most requested topics. Oh, hell yeah. Well, shout out to all the people who requested it. Ask and you may receive. You are scrying into your YouTube comments. And here we are manifesting reality.

Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode, Gamp, as. David likes to say that I say Camp. It's just Camp. It's just Camp Gagnon. Anyway, check you guys out. Next time, if you want to come see me on the road in person in the flesh doing stand-up comedy,

check it out, Mark Gagnon live. All the links are in the description. Check out the merch at Camp R&D. And peace and love to all and to all a good night, good morning, or afternoon. See you next time. Peace.