In the middle of his sixth decade of life, Dee was famed as Queen Elizabeth’s court astrologer, spymaster, and scientist, an influencer of the highest order. He had been entrusted with divining and selecting the date of her coronation, and for twenty years had enjoyed an exalted consultancy in the highest circles of London life. Recently, however, his political patronage had suffered due to a number of disappointing prophecies and rejected imperial recommendations. His mathematical studies continued to be praised and supported, but the world was changing around him. Every scientific advance in the sixteenth century was accompanied by a proportionate diminution of elemental magic.

This schism in the disciplines of science and magic resulted in his diminished influence within court circles and affected the patronage he had come to rely upon—that had, to state a fact, funded his Mortlake manor and subsidized the acquisitions both scholarly and esoteric that made his mind-castle the envy of all of Britain. Purposefully, and perhaps a bit desperately, Dee had of late turned more fully toward an exploration of the supernatural.

His aim was to repair the schism of science and magic, to bridge this divide through the practice of alchemy and divination. He sought an audience with experts in this realm: He sought communion with none other than angels.

This unorthodox pursuit had introduced Dee to an underground league of occultists and spirit mediums. After consulting various mystics who claimed to be in contact with higher realms, he partnered with Edward Talbot, whose real name was Edward Kelley but was using the pseudonym after a conviction for forgery a few years before. Both of Talbot’s ears had been removed by a magistrate as punishment for that crime, which was why Talbot wore a monk’s skullcap even indoors. Dee, however, overlooked all of Talbot’s past indiscretions, so enamored was he with the quality of Talbot’s spiritual consultation and the breadth of his knowledge of the uncanny arts, specifically his talent as a scryer.

“We must begin,” said Dee. “This is the most auspicious time, Edward…”

Talbot stood now in the center of the great library, his psychic attention focused darkly upon an orbuculum resting in the smooth, cupped palm of a bronze casting of a human hand. The crystal ball was flawless, a perfectly smooth sphere lit from below by three votive candles, giving it the appearance of illumination from within. John Dee wore his customary white gown, his silken white beard falling beneath his mustache in a perfect V, looking like a wizard immersed in a spellcasting. Talbot was deep in a trance, incanting in a language revealed to him and John Dee exclusively by Enochian angels.

There was a third participant in this ritual séance—although whether he was an active participant or merely a witness is known only by those in attendance.