John Dee and the occult in California | Hacker News Reader

John Dee and the occult in California

theparisreview.org

60 pointsmr_tyzic45 comments

So that's the Dee from cstross's quote:

"for iterator count from zero to number of entropy sinks within ground state, hear ye, hear ye, I open the gates of starry time for ye that you may feel the ground beneath your feet and the air upon your skin; I invoke the method of Dee and the constructor of Pthagn, forever exit and collect all the garbage, amen."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fuller_Memorandum)

Like Bob Howard, Dee knew a bit about math & hiding secrets a.k.a. crypto.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/tech_journals/john_dee...

> Dimethyltryptamine [is] the reason people lick the backs of Mexican toads to get high.

Not correct, Colorado river toads have 5-MeO-DMT, not DMT. Confusing the two could easily be deadly.

Very true, and licking the toads can also deliver cardiotoxins (people who really, really want to harvest the 5-MeO-DMT from them apparently "milk" their glands and then smoke it, which sounds like more trouble than it's worth). Sorry for the mistake on my part - I should have looked into that one more.

I don't particularly like the OTO because of the distortion of Enlightenment Era groups and Freemasonry. Crowley and some of the esoteric philosophies are interesting but there's not many concrete ideas there.

John Fleming wrote a great book related to this called The Dark Side of the Enlightenment: Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Reason.

There's a distinction between Freemasonry, philosophy, and DMT; and the speculative ideas of John Dee, the OTO and mystical reasoning. A lot of the most fascinating things are polluted with ridiculous claims and beliefs.

Fleming on the Dark Side of the Enlightenment is great, I agree. But I wouldn't say his book is trying to separate the dross of ridiculous belief from the gold of "true" science or philosophy. What I take away from that book is a to me more interesting claim that Enlightenment ideals and methods have always been entangled with varieties of magical beliefs, be they utopian idealism or alchemy or (in a contemporary context) transhumanism. I wrote about this at more length in an article about the history of drugs that appeared in Aeon magazine a few months ago, if you're interested: http://aeon.co/magazine/altered-states/yesterdays-drugs-are-...

Welcome to HN, by the way!

Aeon and The Appendix have both been sources of some excellent posts here. We'd like to see more such material—the more in-depth, the better. I'm excited to see what you do with The Appendix. There's a crying need for more substantive general-interest articles online.

HN has a largely technical orientation, but its mandate is for intellectual diversity and we're a little low on historical nutrients these days.

I hope this was horribly mangled by some chthonian sub-editor, because I hate to think that this rambling disconnected potpourri is considered acceptable output from a PhD candidate as the bio claims.

As the PhD candidate in question, I would have to agree that it is rambling - but I hope you wait to read my actual dissertation before judging my scholarly output as a whole!

I should also add that I have no connection to the O.T.O. or any similar group (and speaking frankly, I find all such contemporary occult groups to be faintly silly). But I do think their intellectual genealogy is super interesting.

It's a great subject, which I think is why I was so disappointed in the article. I was looking forward to a few thousand words on the odd modern history of alchemy and its continuing allure, but I really feel you tried to pour a quart into a pint pot here. I would be delighted to read a scholarly dissertation on this or a tangentially related topic.

My dissertation is actually about the origins of the drug trade, but I think you'd be interested in the journalist George Pendle's Parsons biography, Strange Angel, which I think does a great job of teasing out what alchemy meant for 1940s practitioners: http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Angel-Otherworldly-Scientist-W...

I also touch on the topic a bit (albeit from the perspective of the history of medicine) in the Aeon article that I link to further down in the comments, although that's also aimed at more of a popular audience. Another person who you might find interesting is Pamela H. Smith of Columbia University, who's actually recreating an early modern alchemical lab there as we speak.

Thanks, I will look into Pamela Smith's work - I was already familiar with George Parsons, and in fact there was an interesting thread on here about that a few weeks ago.

Your dissertation sounds just as interesting, I'd like to read it when it's done. I'm going to read your Perspecties article on it this evening.

For clarification, this article is unrelated to the well-known gaming company Wizards of the Coast: http://company.wizards.com/

Nice clarification. I kept reading through it trying to get the connection -- knowing that I had missed something. Eventually I realized that they weren't related at all except both used the same phrase (which I don't think is a common one).

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have read it, if I had known that it wasn't related. After having read it, I'm not sure I would have recommended to my past self to do so (not that it's bad, just not something I'm interested in).

And comments like these are why I pop into the comments before I open the story.

Cheers :]

Another clarification: the Philosopher’s Stone may be known by Americans as the Sorcerer's Stone. The US publishers of the first Harry Potter book thought American children wouldn't want to buy and read a book with the word "philosopher" in the title, and so renamed it to suggest magic and instant gratification, rather than thought or learning.

Ok, we'll take that out of the title.

What does this have to do with technology or "hackers" ? Real wizards code in Lisp.

Please re-read the site guidelines. Hacker News is about interesting things.

Not everyone will find this story interesting, but that's true of any story. The post certainly isn't off-topic.

How is posting this article any different than handing out a thinly disguised pamphlet for a religious organization ? If someone were posting material here about how some people in California are into "accepting jesus as their personal savior" I would find it every bit as boring and off-topic

This is a historical sketch. Pretty sure the author isn't trying to convert followers for John Dee, Alastair Crowley, or L. Ron Hubbard. (The Hubbard-Parsons-Crowley link is fascinating, btw. Who knew?)

It's pretty rare that someone would be interested in all 30 items on the front page, so if complaining about personal boredom were the thing to do, it would quickly dwarf everything else on the site. Therefore it's not the thing to do.

shrug. That parsons-hubbard connection was trotted out not too long ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7641580

I'm not trying to hate on it, post whatever you find interesting, just saying to me it reads more like a phamplet for a particular 'society' or religion, see the last paragraph.

If that's interesting to you, check out _Going Clear_, by Lawrence Wright, who also wrote _The Looming Tower_, which is also an excellent book.

Occultism is based around personal experiences and beliefs. I know of no occultist or pagan that actively recruits in the way like Christians and Moslems do. In a way, I don't want you to be an occultist. You be the way you are, and I'll be mine.

Now, I don't mind talking about various occult facets. It is a very interesting area of study, wether you believe or not. And some phenomenon, like the Icelandic guy who can stay warm no matter what does seem remarkably similar to the Tibetan art of tumo.

Real wizards code in Reality.

"Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction."

William Blake

The history of Queen Elizabeth's court astrologer, John Dee is a very interesting chap.

He was well versed in Western Astrology, as well as the joint creator of a symbolic magic called Enochian Magic. He was also considered as Elizabeth's spy.

For what there is in the occult, I really am surprised that more technologically minded people don't dabble. Things like Chaos Magic and the like are well suited for applying scientific method to the esoteric.

I suppose what I mean is that I don't think it's fair that fundamentalist christians don't get to post on HN about how they have a savior who performs miracles but yet it's relatively socially acceptable to have posts about "Magic" which is a reference to the same type of thing as miracles but yet it's considered "esoteric" instead of "religious" and is therefor socially acceptable. I mean lets not forget that with the discussion of Dee and Kelly we ARE talking about the scrying of the same Archangels from the old testament, so in some way it is related to the abrahamic religions. That's why I don't see why it gets a special category instead of being labeled 'religious'

I see you are somewhat versed in Enochian workings. I'm a bit surprised, but the tech community has knowledge extending every direction. Yes, Enochian Magic was created by John Dee in reference to the apochryphal book of Enoch. It entails in working with both positive and negative angels under YHVH (Judeao/Christian/Moslem deity).

That's one of the reasons why I mentioned chaos magic. It is devoid of any deity worship, and is more that of being a sorcerer.Golden Dawn also used Enochian magic, albeit only the second book. And they also involved themselves with YHVH, Egyptian deities and Celtic deities. For no deity workings, perhaps Tantra or Chaos would apply.

I suppose if the original post had been about chaos magic alone I wouldn't have chimed in to refer to it as religious speech. I would even suggest that there are more and more scientific authors showing up who are helping to bridge the gap between "chaos magic" concepts and hard science (see Rupert Sheldrake, Bruce Lipton, Michael Talbot, and others)

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." – Max Planck. 1931.

Fundamentalist Christians are still seen in the U.S. as the "oppressing majority" that want to impose their belief system on others or want at least to make others feel bad for not adhering to their beliefs or not conforming to their moral code. This view is outdated.

The Evangelical+Fundamentalist Christians had their latest political and cultural heyday in the 1980's with the "Moral Majority" movement. They've been in steady decline since, with the book "The Great Evangelical Recession" (http://www.amazon.com/Great-Evangelical-Recession-The-Americ...) arguing that the U.S. population can count only between 7% and 9% as part of the "true believer" Evangelical or Fundamental Christian set. The other 30% to 50% that loosely associate themselves with Christian churches have only limited knowledge of what Christianity teaches.

Politicians, advertisers, tastemakers all are slowly realizing this declining influence and focus of Christian groups. Many "free thinking" folks though still see Fundamentalist Christianity as the big bogey-man. Those dabbling in the occult or most other religions are generally seen as interesting and as having no agenda to impose moral beliefs, and so are much less threatening and downright fun and interesting. The California occult even had raucous sex parties, yay!

> Fundamentalist Christians are still seen in the U.S. as the "oppressing majority" that want to impose their belief system on others or want at least to make others feel bad for not adhering to their beliefs or not conforming to their moral code. This view is outdated.

No, they're more often seen as an oppressing, politically-powerful minority that wants to do that. Which, while somewhat imprecise (Evangelicals/Fundamentalists and those seeking to impose conservative policies either based on religious motivation or by leveraging others' religious identity aren't identical groups, though there's significant overlap), isn't outdated in any sense.

> twith the book "The Great Evangelical Recession" (http://www.amazon.com/Great-Evangelical-Recession-The-Americ...) arguing that the U.S. population can count only between 7% and 9% as part of the "true believer" Evangelical or Fundamental Christian set. The other 30% to 50% that loosely associate themselves with Christian churches have only limited knowledge of what Christianity teaches.

That's kind of silly, for one thing because it presumes that every Christian who isn't a "true believer" in one of two closely-related subsets of Protestantism is only "loosely associated" with a Christian Church.

Doing any form of magic is political suicide in mainstream politics. You might win a spot here and there but you will never have any pull in this country if you practice magic.

And political aspirations tend to wither away when one starts working with the occult.

You realize how significant and how insignificant one is. And as well, you focus on the betterment of oneself and your environment. Political energy and fervor seems at best tertiary. There are much more important things, like finding oneself.

You're joking right ?

The history of religion is not religion, the history of magic is not magic, and to study a thing is not to advocate it. There is no issue here. Please stop.

The guys I know who stuck with this stuff got themselves involved in the modern OTO or gnostic ceremony or whatever. They aren't exactly what I'd call focussed people, they might not make great programmers. In all honesty, I couldn't get my head around it. They vocally rebel against their Catholic upbringing yet replace it with... dogmatic rituals based on Catholicism.

It's notable about John Dee that he was doing this stuff as part of the British elite inner circle, royalty, rather than of a rebellious clique (Crowley, Yeats) or of privileged, decadent society (like the Hellfire Club).

His life was pretty tragic though. His partner in scrying was clearly a chancer and serial bullshitter, who used Dee's obsession to take everything from him - including his wife.

I'm not sure how you make 'the British elite inner circle' and 'a privileged, decadent society' two different categories :)

Magic and science do not mix. That's why I don't dabble or anything else.

Tell that to Newton. There is a fine line separating the various realms of the unknown and inventors are merely the most successful of the insane as they have made flesh of their delusions.

This is hardly Newton we're talking about or the unknown appearing as magic as Asimov pointed out all new technology might appear. No this is doing spells and trying to call on mystical powers. And where I'm from, that's called bullshit. If you want to practice science then do so. But don't pretend doing a spell led to a certain result because you "believe".

I agree that the methodology is somewhat suspect to say the least, but I also think that the impulse that leads folk to try and practice magic is more or less the same as the impulse that leads them to try and study science and which route you take is more often than not an accident of culture.

There are many examples other than Newton of scientists who were heavily involved in trying to do magic. Go look up the founder of the JPL and noted Thelemite occultist Jack Parsons, for instance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_%28rocket_engineer...

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/newton-papers-q-and-a/

Dee was also doing real science, for example taking measurements of the super nova of 1572 and the comet that appeared 5 years later, and corresponding with Tycho about the same. Along with Tycho, he helped establish that the comet was further away than the moon, which helped dissuade people of the belief that all changes in the heavens happened between the moon and the earth.

If you are going to dismiss Dee on the basis of his irrational beliefs, than you must dismiss Newton, Tycho, Kepler and many others as well.

There's a british writer called Lionel Snell who has made a number of interesting observations on the philosophical problems and discussed them in relation to art, anarchy, political institutions etc.

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