John Dee and the Empire of Angels

Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of Empire

Dr. John Dee (1527─1608), Queen Elizabeth I’s court advisor and astrologer, was the foremost scientific genius of the 16th century. Laying the foundation for modern science, he actively promoted mathematics and astronomy as well as made advances in navigation and optics that helped elevate England to the foremost imperial power in the world. Centuries ahead of his time, his theoretical work included the concept of light speed and prototypes for telescopes and solar panels. Dee, the original “007” (his crown-given moniker), even invented the idea of a “British Empire,” envisioning fledgling America as the new Atlantis, himself as Merlin, and Elizabeth as Arthur.

But, as Jason Louv explains, Dee was suppressed from mainstream history because he spent the second half of his career developing a method for contacting angels. After a brilliant ascent from star student at Cambridge to scientific advisor to the Queen, Dee, with the help of a disreputable, criminal psychic named Edward Kelley, devoted ten years to communing with the angels and archangels of God. These spirit communications gave him the keys to Enochian, the language that mankind spoke before the fall from Eden. Piecing together Dee’s fragmentary Spirit Diaries and scrying sessions, the author examines Enochian in precise detail and explains how the angels used Dee and Kelley as agents to establish a New World Order that they hoped would unify all monotheistic religions and eventually dominate the entire globe.

Presenting a comprehensive overview of Dee’s life and work, Louv examines his scientific achievements, intelligence and spy work, imperial strategizing, and Enochian magick, establishing a psychohistory of John Dee as a singular force and fundamental driver of Western history. Exploring Dee’s influence on Sir Francis Bacon, the development of modern science, 17th-century Rosicrucianism, the 19th-century occult revival, and 20th-century occultists such as Jack Parsons, Aleister Crowley, and Anton LaVey, Louv shows how John Dee continues to impact science and the occult to this day.

You can learn even more about the book at the John Dee and the Empire of Angels minisite.

“John Dee is the original Elizabethan mage-scientist, who invented the British Empire and invested it with magical power. He is to Elizabeth what Merlin was to Arthur, except he was real. Here’s the original technology of weaponized memes, psyops, and empire building in a gripping, authoritative account of how and why we became an occult society.” – Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and author of Aleister and Adolf, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, and Present Shock

“Any biographical treatment of John Dee must be nothing less than epic—and Jason Louv has gloriously achieved this in John Dee and the Empire of Angels, a truly comprehensive, broad-spectrum, and lavishly beautiful historical study of the master magus and the counter-current of secret history Dee launched into the world, which has affected us all.” – Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America and The Miracle Club

“A crazy plunge into the weird world of angels and those brave or foolish enough to try to contact them. Be prepared, for this book illuminates the dark corners of history that many institutions would prefer to go unexplored and unmentioned—I’m thankful for the angels that aided Jason in his creation of this mind-spinning, glorious work of occult genius.” – Duncan Trussell, host of The Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast

“Renaissance magus John Dee boldly set out to systematically tap the mind of God by communicating directly with a complex hierarchy of ‘angelic’ intelligences. It can be argued that he succeeded. His magical diaries have long held intense fascination among Qabalists, alchemists, and explorers of human consciousness who have developed workable magical systems from these records. Jason Louv’s work succeeds, with breathtaking thoroughness, to tell this amazing and true magical tale. More importantly, he also reveals the profound geopolitical significance of Dee’s magical explorations—effects that still shape the global realities of today.” – Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Enochian Vision Magick: An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley and Enochian World of Aleister Crowley

“Jason Louv’s John Dee and the Empire of Angels is a groundbreaking new assessment of one of the Western world’s most influential polymaths. It brings together a staggering amount of research on Dee’s life and multivalent contributions to the fields of science, mathematics, esotericism, and religious thought. Louv is an assured guide, patiently unknotting each thread of Dee’s output—angelic or otherwise—then weaving them all together again to show how these ideas form the very fabric of modern ‘reality’ as we know it. Through a combination of intellectual rigor, sensitivity to both historical and current socio-political climates, and perhaps a bit of his own intuitive scrying, Louv offers us a crystalline view of John Dee’s visionary mind and complicated legacy.” – Pam Grossman, author of What Is a Witch and host of The Witch Wave podcast

“Our current magical revival is largely defined by the restoration of context. It is pleasing to see Dee and Kelley put back into the historical currents that they both defined and were defined by, where they can come alive once again after more than a century’s relegation to the cabinets of Victorian orders. The Queen’s conjuror returns to Mortlake.” – Gordon White, author of The Chaos Protocols and Star.Ships, host of the Rune Soup podcast and blog

“Jason Louv’s masterful account of the enigmatic Elizabethan magus John Dee places him in the top tier of new esoteric writers… Louv’s assertion of Dee as both a creator and custodian of Western civilization is thought-provoking, and is backed up by meticulous research. Highly recommended.” – Brendan McCarthy, artist, designer and co-writer of Mad Max: Fury Road, creator of Dream Gang, Rogan Gosh

“The Dee story is among the most mystifying and important in the entire history of the Western Esoteric Tradition. And here, Jason Louv has given us the most complete, complex, and balanced account yet of Dee and his aftermath. An awesome achievement.” – Ralph Abraham, professor emeritus of mathematics, University of California, Santa Cruz; chaos theorist; author of Chaos, Gaia, Eros and coauthor of The Evolutionary Mind and Trialogues at the Edge of the West

“Jason Louv’s book is absolutely invaluable. It contextualizes the very bedrock that Western ceremonial magic is based on. Dee and Kelly’s legendary experiments are the cornerstone of our Western understanding of how magic works. But there’s more to it than that. Louv’s impressive work is not only an enjoyable, adventurous journey into esoteric history but also one into the multifaceted—and sometimes dangerous—machinations of the human mind.”– Carl Abrahamsson, author of Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward

“John Dee was a crucial piece within the formation of the Elizabethan age. Jason Louv weaves a masterfully poetic web that first introduces you and then sucks you into Dee’s luminous world of magick, Hermetic philosophy and occult divinity. He gracefully presents Dee’s mind blowing relationship not just with Elizabeth I but with the British Empire as a whole, whose influence on the modern world is felt even today. John Dee and the Empire of Angels is not just a book about the occult and magick, it’s also a unique historical reference guide that I found to be a hypnotic read. Jason is a brilliant mind and writer, and this proves that.” – Zach Leary, host of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and It’s All Happening podcasts

“Dee’s sixteenth century work in magic and angelic technology is the precursor to the unconscious, technology-driven times in which we now live, with our iPhones and iPads (the scrying glasses of the twenty-first century). Dee was a kind of ‘divine Coder’. He saw the future not in binary, not in ones and zeroes, but in the harnessing of living angelic hierarchies that could be mastered consciously, inwardly and outwardly, as a key towards an enlightened utopian vision for mankind. Never has there been a more valuable and prescient time than NOW to have John Dee and the Empire of Angels published.”– E. Elias Merhige, director of Begotten and Shadow of the Vampire

“This is the first book I’ve seen where Dee’s angelic magic is neither discussed in isolation, nor dismissed as an eccentric sideline, but recognized as a key part of Dee’s philosophy and political influence right up to the present day. I only wish I had found a book like this when I first became interested in John Dee.” – Lionel Snell (a.k.a. Ramsey Dukes), author, My Years of Magical Thinking