A Most Magickal Encounter
About this episode
Tim Dee embarks on a quest to connect with his namesake, Dr John Dee, exploring the intersections of science, magic, and literature.
Writer Tim Dee is trying to make a most extraordinary Zoom Call that will transport him across the centuries to have a most magical encounter with a scholarly looking guy with a white beard who is his namesake. Dr John Dee was astronomer and astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I. He was a wizardly necromancer with a Europe wide reputation who ended up desperately trying to converse with angels to unlock the secrets of the universe. As attempts at making a connection go ahead, Tim also goes on a quest in search of Dr Dee. He talks with biblical scholar, former Archbishop of Canterbury and poet Rowan Williams to understand more about the importance of Angels in Dee’s time. On the site of Dr Dee’s house by the Thames at Mortlake, he meets Ann Dingsdale, a real flesh and blood relative of the Renaissance genius. Ann is his ten times great granddaughter. At the British Library, Tim looks over Dee’s legible and miraculously preserved Angel Diaries with the poet Camille Ralphs. Such is her fascination, Camille has written a sequence of poems in Dee’s voice and reads extracts from them. The Royal College of Physicians has several unique volumes from Dr Dee’s library, which was the largest of…
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