Hi, M.P Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at Kings College London and the LMU in Munich online at history of philosophy

net. Today's episode if this be magic let it be an art John D.

I suppose that most of you out there are listening to this because you are interested in philosophy and history or both, but there might just be a few who follow the podcast in hopes of getting inspiration for a new movie script.

If you're one of that select group, then today's episode is for you.

Because our subject is the mathematician, alchemist, astrologer, magician, and philosopher John D.

Amazingly, his life has never been made into a film, though there is a documentary about him, and he has a walk-on role in that movie where Kate Blanche had played Queen Elizabeth.

Yet the Hollywood pitch almost writes itself.

Here we have a man who met or communicated with many of the most significant figures of the Elizabethan age,

like Philip Sidney, Peter Ramos, Thomas Harriet, and the Queen herself.

Dee was involved in Martin Frobisher's catastrophic attempt to find a northwest passage to certain navigate the globe.

He invented the concept of a British Empire.

He produced horoscopes for the rich and powerful and consulted with Elizabeth about astrology.

Before she came to the throne under Queen Mary, he had been arrested for magic, but before long,

hey presto, he was working for the Catholic government helping interrogate other suspects.

But he might have been a Protestant spy.

He traveled across Europe, going as far as Poland, where he might have been a spy again.

Sorcery, exploration, intrigue, this story has it all,

and I haven't even mentioned the fact that Angels gave him

rather scandalous advice about his sex life.

But this podcast is not a sensationalist Hollywood movie.

What follows will, of course, be a sober, nuanced discussion of Deed's thought, which will just happen to include sorcery, exploration, intrigue, and angelic, or possibly demonic

advice about sex. In fact, to forestall any accusations that my approach here will be in any way

...