secretary to record them, and he secured a young notary, 

 Edward Kelley b3' name, who was installed in his "mystical 

 study" as "skryer," or clairvoyant, while Dee wrote down 

 the "angellical" revelations. 



Crystal-gazing is now a recognized agent of auto-h3 r pno- 

 tism, and at first Dee was probabh r self-deceived; but the 

 young notary was an unscrupulous knave who found it 

 profitable to impose on the credulous Doctor and he soon 

 excelled him in "skrying" spirit communications. 



Kelley, whose black skull-cap scarcely concealed his 

 J mutilated ears, a souvenir of punishment for forgery, was 

 experienced in the tricks of alchemists and the nummeries of 

 necromancy, and he obtained a masterful hold on the super- 

 stitious Dee, who abandoned his serious studies and spent 

 months and 3 r ears over the shew -stone ; the results of this 

 misplaced devotion were afterwards published by Dr. Meric 

 Casaubon in a folio volume entitled: "A True and Faithful 

 Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John 

 Dee and some Spirits," (London, 1659), and it is hard to 

 in print a more amazing farrago of nonsense. 



Dr. Dee was a truly devout worshipper of God, and in 

 'True and Faithful Relation," he always began his 

 ! crystal-vision with pious prayers to the Almighty, but as 

 Dr. Casaubon remarks, Dee "mistook false lying Spirits for 

 Angels of Light, the Divel of Hell for the God of Heaven.'' 

 And as Butler has said: 



"Kelley did all his feats upon 

 The Devil's looking glass, a stone." 



The fame of Dee and Kelley as magicians spread rapidly, 

 and was enhanced by their claims to success in the manu- 

 facture of gold from base metals, a claim that ill-accorded 

 with the chronic poverty in Dee's household. The Philo- 

 sophers' stone used in transmutation had been found by 



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