Was Kelley really a scammer?

[Frater R.P.G.]

Every biography of John Dee tries to paint Kelley as this evil charlatan and scammer, whose ears were cropped for his misdeeds, but after digging into sources I found that all this essentially comes from one book, John Weever's Ancient Funeral Monuments (1631), where he also accuses Kelley of grave robbing/necromancy - all this, as he admits, based on hearsay. This was reproduced in Casaubon's TFR, where it went on to become the main story about Kelley.

Now there is an account in Dee's diary of Kelley being accused of countefeiting money, but it doesn't seem like that got anywhere. It seems Kelley's ex-friend Husey was spreading rumours about him.

A legend about Kelley acquiring the famous red powder was popularised by Ashmole in Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652), in which the powder got dug out of a grave in Glastonbury Abbey, and which Kelley then purchased from (unaware of its value) peasants. This legend could perhaps be the source for the accusations of grave robbing.

Ashmole later realised though, that this legend also doesn't match Dee's diary where he states the powder was found on Northwick Hill, far away from Glastonbury.

Later on Kelley was imprisoned by the Emperor in Prague after working for him, but it's likewise not quite clear why.

Is there any real evidence that Kelley was a criminal, or is it all just rumours?

(I tried to keep this brief, but happy to provide more specific references if needed.)

 

[glaive]

Interesting question. I wonder how much of the general opinon of Kelley as a scammer is because he was the one scrying and receiving angelic communications. I think historians would look at those claims with skepticism, especially combined with his (failed afaik) claims that he could transmute base metals into gold.

In general, I tend to believe that people are communicating with spirits; at the minimum I at least believe that they believe they're communicating with the spirits they say they are. However, one of Kelley's communications I'm skeptical of is when he said that angels told him that he and Dee needed to exchange wives, in order that they "hold everything in common" in the spirit of "furthering philosophical partnership". Seems sus!

 

[Yazata]

There are a couple of strange things in Five Books. One that comes to mind now is when the second (or true) Lanen was given, and Dee days that Kelley's notebook was lying next to the skrying glass and miraculously had the same figure (or one very close to it) in Kelley's writing in it.
I think in this same session he (Kelley) had to get up suddenly to read a letter from his wife (or a prayer) by the window away from Dee. In the end I'm not sure if it even matters whether the whole system was made up or not.

 

[stalkinghyena]

The scam narrative is just an easy "fall to" position, and I think in large part it arose because it seems so obvious in trying to fit the story into our modern perspective. We think we know what a "con man" is today, but in the 16th century?
To be sure, Jane Dee screamed to her husband that EK was a "cosenser", and to take on such a person in her household must have been a horrible insult to her dignity and the management of finances. Not only that, but she probably felt his lustful eyes on her and was disgusted, steeling herself in perfect pious denial of any return of attraction, unaware that years later in a far off land that a missing "shewstone" would be found on her pillow, Hmm, there is much to wonder at in the soap opera/comedy. If only someone competent would make a movie...
But Hollywood writes politics now, not scripts. Cf. Starfleet Academy...

Of course, the angels themselves, always the critics, accused EK of "fishing and angling", warning him in the sessions to relate their messages with honesty. Dee himself probably saw EK's imagination as a tool to be esoterically decoded, whatever came through. while EK was a "work in progress" towards divine redemption. When EK repeatedly argued with both Dee and the angels that they were "devils", he might have considered himself qualified by the fact that he was doing grimoire magic on the side. This, added to his "gnostic" heresies which he had to renounce in session, just makes me shake my head and go, "You can't make this shit up!"

Oh, and the attempts to return to the arms of Catholicism - only the to have the nerve to come back at the Papal Nuncio with Protestant arguments that the priests lived in luxury while common people suffered.
The Nuncio's perspective, "You can have that conversation with the angels in heaven." Hint, hint.

Personally, I think Edward Kelley as a character was a man who was wrestling. He was wrestling with the material concerns of life, like everyone, and he did some dishonest shit. He probably deserved to have his ears clipped, if it was not a rumor. But he was also wrestling with his faith, and this comes out in Dee's diaries. Add to this he was also wrestling with John Dee, who was not the innocent old fool succumbing to the wiles of a con man. Dee had experience with the underworld of the era, especially in his hunger for illicit books and also in his function as "intelligencer". That he used Greek letters to disguise his English notes to conceal from EK is kind of silly and hilarious.

In fact, from all that I have read and considered, I think that both men were addicted to each other, in some sense needed each other, even after the partnership split. In broad reflection I think that EK found a rock of stability in Dee while simultaneously annoyed by an old man who might have been loonier than he was.

I think it was Tom Morris who related a story where Dee was wandering the streets of Prague, announcing the angelic revelations like a cardboard "end is nigh" homeless preacher - a grave violation of the angelic commandments - when Kelley had to pull him back inside for his own good (and EK's). Bit of a "senior moment" there? Of course there were instances of Kelley's public drunkenness, threatening people with his sword and punching John in the face during an argument. Given that both men, and there families, endured hardship and starvation together in their quest to become apocalyptic prophets, I think one can rule out a calculated "long con" on EK's part.

The "bait and switch" with the burning of the books with Francesco Pucci had me confused a bit, but in the end it turned out okay. The books returned in mystic fashion and eventually Pucci would end up in Rome, his head rolling sloppily across the floor. Maybe that's what you get for being lewd and rude in front of Dee's wife and kids.

My favorite now is the idea that Frater RC of the GD expressed that the "red powder" was in fact a psychedelic substance (aminita?) used in the sessions, and shared with friends like Rudolph II and others gives me a little bit of a knee slap and some fun ideas. That certain ideas come out in the skrying sessions which have eerie similarities to sources that could not have been available to D&K - Thunder, Perfect Mind, for instance - gives me hope that "Enochian Magic" isn't something you figure out based on reliable and trustrworthy sources, but something that figures you out and calls to adventure. In the end, only the angels know, "If you be angels" as EK said a couple of times.

Gotta love 'em.

 

[Frater R.P.G.]

Interesting question. I wonder how much of the general opinon of Kelley as a scammer is because he was the one scrying and receiving angelic communications. I think historians would look at those claims with skepticism, especially combined with his (failed afaik) claims that he could transmute base metals into gold.

In general, I tend to believe that people are communicating with spirits; at the minimum I at least believe that they believe they're communicating with the spirits they say they are. However, one of Kelley's communications I'm skeptical of is when he said that angels told him that he and Dee needed to exchange wives, in order that they "hold everything in common" in the spirit of "furthering philosophical partnership". Seems sus!

To your first point, there are records of him giving out golden rings that he (supposedly) transmuted to (all?) guests at his servant's wedding, each of a 4000 liras, which is quite generous. Could also be just rumours though.

The wife swapping is often cited and tbh is quite suspicious indeed, but actually there is some foreshadowing of this in the diaries over the years prior. For example, 28 April 1582, Michael says:

Mi[chael]. - This is One Action, in One Person: I speak of you two.
[Dee]. - You meane us two to be ioyned so, and in mynde united, as yf we wer one man?
Mi[chael] - Thow understandest:

So unless Kelley had planned 5 years ahead, the angels had.

There are a couple of strange things in Five Books. One that comes to mind now is when the second (or true) Lanen was given, and Dee days that Kelley's notebook was lying next to the skrying glass and miraculously had the same figure (or one very close to it) in Kelley's writing in it.
I think in this same session he (Kelley) had to get up suddenly to read a letter from his wife (or a prayer) by the window away from Dee. In the end I'm not sure if it even matters whether the whole system was made up or not.

The story is a little bit different than you described. After the Lamen was delivered and the operation finished, Kelley indeed stood up to read a letter from his wife, but then he grabbed a prayer book (that was there with them the whole time) and went to his room to pray, but then in that book found a similar lamen diagram (but with different letters) on a loose piece of paper. A spirit then appeared to him and said "Lo, this is as good as that other". Kelley then went to Dee and told him about it. They called on angels to ask about it and they said it was an evil spirit messing with them.

To be sure, Jane Dee screamed to her husband that EK was a "cosenser", and to take on such a person in her household must have been a horrible insult to her dignity and the management of finances. Not only that, but she probably felt his lustful eyes on her and was disgusted, steeling herself in perfect pious denial of any return of attraction, unaware that years later in a far off land that a missing "shewstone" would be found on her pillow, Hmm, there is much to wonder at in the soap opera/comedy.

I've heard this one before, but I don't remember this from my reading of the diaries. Do you know what is the source of this story?

Other than that, great points!

 

[stalkinghyena]

Do you know what is the source of this story?

I should note that the "lust part" was just playful conjecture, my contribution to "reading into" a story rife with holes and vague backgrounds. But as to Jane's rage, see Charlotte Fell Smith, John Dee, Chapter VI towards the end for "erased" data from May 6th, 1582. I think both Morris, Wooley and Yates also mention Jane's distaste for Kelley. The use of the term "cosener" was probably clustered with other uses of the term in my memory of stuff read long ago (though in my copy of the Private Diary EK refers to Barnabas Saul as such).

The last actual input on the ladies of the D&K household, however, was an ESOTERICA video Sledge put out fairly recently. If you have not seen this, Sledge kind of digs deep there in sympathy with both Jane and Joanna, though nothing new from any bios I have read. He also did a video on EK's alchemical tract, in which he gives high marks for competence, if you are interested.

Interestingly (to me, anyway), if I recall correctly, after telling of the swap, Tom Morris gives a list of Dee's mostly ill-fated children, and one was named "Edward". In a footnote to this name, he said something like "Some questions are better left unasked."

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

Personally, I feel like he was about half-half on the scammer thing. A lot of what he did felt like just him justifying his own sketchy actions, but then again a lot of what he did also wasn't awful.

I've worked a bit with some Enochian stuff back when I rolled with a bunch of hermetic kabbalists, so I've had some interesting experiences with some of the systems EK had a part in writing. Mainly the fact that Enochian and Hebrew are very similar in some ways and you can fairly easily transliterate the names of spirits from one to the other to get some wild effects. The group I was with was delineating angel names based on their guiding concepts, and while the names in Hebrew were fairly normal, once transliterated into Enochian they got weird. Mainly stronger manifestation but less controlled. When we called them in Hebrew we could reasonably ask and banish as necessary but when called in Enochian the spirits just sort-of did whatever they wanted.

As for EK's claims about things he had supposedly done, a lot of them just feel fake to me. The wife-swapping thing felt like he made it up for licentious purposes as opposed to any actual spiritual directives, and some of the other things he scried seemed a bit off. But again, I don't think he was 100% bullshit, probably about 60% bullshit though.