TABULA ANGELORUM BONORUM 49 (1991)
(A composition for computer-processed voices based upon the mystical investigations of the Renaissance mathematician/astrologer John Dee with psychic medium Edward Kelly)

Of all the major figures of the Elizabethan epoch, one of the most important and yet oddly neglected by historians has been that of John Dee. While his significant contributions to mathematics, astronomy and optics are readily acknowledged as footnotes to the history of Western science, it is as if he has been dismissed for his avid pursuit of astrology, alchemy, and occult philosophy through historical silence. However, it is more likely that the fact of someone regarded during his lifetime as the most learned man in Europe, being obsessed with attempting to communicate with incarnate entities and angelic beings is too contradictory to be reconcilable with our current view of the history of science as a rational enterprise. Better to remain mute on the subject of Dee then to wonder if he had something authentic to tell us from the angels' mouths.

I personally find something very compelling about the idea that the man whom historian Frances Yates has pegged as the model for both Shakespeare's Prospero (The Tempest) and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus apparently felt that science was not sufficient to satisfy his need for direct communion with a divine source.

When I contemplate the image of Dr. Dee (1527-1608) and his hired seer Edward Kelly (1555-1595) sitting in a room surrounded by the ornate paraphernalia of their magical art, it is easy to either feel a tinge of sadness or to giggle outright. It all smacks a bit too much of modern Ouija boards and psychic mediums in Florida trailer parks. However, when one looks beneath the surface of this image one is confronted by the profound context of Renaissance occult philosophy and a body of knowledge of immense proportions. As the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper has stated: "The biographical side of Dee is no doubt straightforward. But to understand his work...one has to learn a new language to interpret the natural magicians of the pre-Baconian world."

Most sources agree that John Dee and Edward Kelly met on March 10, 1582. Even though Dee had previously sought out the assistance of other mediums to aid him in his magical experiments, none of them can compare with the significance of Kelly's clairvoyant abilities. Whether or not the visions which he saw, and which Dee took so seriously, were something other than the delusions of a mentally ill charlatan, I obviously cannot say. However, as many current philosophers and psychologists have so aptly pointed out, the boundary between shamanic knowledge, spirit possession and schizophrenia are tenuous. The angels and demons unleashed through depth psychology and cross-cultural research into traditional techniques of trance induction such as glossolalia, suggest that what Dee and Kelly tapped into might be part of an ancient and essential part of the human experience. The messages offered by the psycho-active ecstasy of plant teachers carrying the dimethyltryptamine molecule also hint at worlds populated with entities that might be regarded by an Elizabethan magician as angels.

Almost immediately after their initial meeting Dee and Kelly went to work to establish dialogue with the angels. It is from this period that the De Heptarchia Mystica (1582), Dee's documentation of their early magical experiments and the work upon which the accompanying sounds are based, emerged. Allow me to describe with great brevity their working method. While Dee offered initial prayers, Kelly would kneel before the Holy Table (the principal surface upon which were displayed their magical artifacts and tablets) awaiting the initial presence of the Angel. Dee apparently wore (under angelic instruction) a lamen over his heart during the practice and possibly a ring of magical significance. Once the spirit appeared in the shew-stone (a small quartz crystal also described as having been delivered by angelic messenger), Kelly would hear a voice commanding them to “move not, the place is holy.” The crystal visions and telepathic communications would then commence and run their course until the shew-stone darkened. The sessions would end with formal prayers.

Their magical experiments and Angelic communications continued for many years even during their extensive travels throughout Europe. After their mutual separation and Edward Kelly's subsequent death in 1595, Dee enlisted the help of other mediums for short periods but nothing as substantial seems to have emerged when compared to the volume and profundity of the seances with Kelly. Since Dee left behind extensive but cryptic notes about these Angelic Operations, we have a fairly complicated picture of how the magical experiments evolved throughout the years.

The Tabula Angelorum Bonorum 49 is based upon the culminating diagram of Dee's De Heptarchia Mystica. It displays the magical names of the forty-nine good Angels as communicated by the spirits through Edward Kelly. This communication took place as a vision of seven spirits each holding a large square divided into forty-nine lesser squares of numbered letters. Kelly related the contents of each square to Dee who recorded them in the appropriate cross shaped matrix. They were then instructed to extract the Angelic names through a process of deriving letters from each of the seven major squares in numeric sequences. Dee later organized these names into the circular diagram he named Tabula Angelorum Bonorum 49.

As has been the case with almost all of Dee's occult writings, scholars have been confused as to how to properly regard these "Enochian" names. Various historical theories and occult traditions have argued over their significance or dismissed them as paranoid embroidery. My desire in translating them into sound has been to further confound the issue rather than to cast light on an enigma. By following an almost obsessive formal procedure in realizing the names as sonic data, I have hoped to articulate a deep structure embedded in the names themselves through an internally coherent but interesting compositional process. The procedure itself was fairly simple: a rigorous phonetic analysis of the names as a total body of structurally interrelated sounds revealed significant symmetries and relationships which were used as the sole basis for the composition.

The individual phonemes that comprise the magical names were articulated by seven different voices (each of which constitute the material for one of the seven groups of seven names overall). I subsequently employed a computer using time expansion algorithms to expand the time domain for certain phonemes commensurate with the original structural analysis. No other processing of the vocal sounds was used. The result is a fairly precise articulation of the forty-nine names through a cracking open of their sonic resonance over time.

I thank the individuals who lent me their voices for the purpose of invoking such slightly dubious aural spirits. The voices used in their order of appearance are as follows: Lizbeth Rymland, David Dunn, Marcia Mikulak, Melvin Ferris (age 9), Woody Vasulka, Steina Vasulka, and Gene Youngblood.

It seems appropriate to conclude with a word from one of Dr. Dee’s literary incarnations:

Prospero: Our revels now are ended.
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into the air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

Shakespeare—The Tempest