Man of science and magus extraordinary, and for two decades England's leading mathematician, it is only in recent years that John Dee's reputation
has begun to properly recover from the obloquy attached by an age of militant rationalism to those notorious angel raising episodes in which he
engaged in the 1580s. Meric Casaubon's poisonous 1659 edition of Dee's angelic diaries, which did not include all extant volumes, leaves us with
little more than an impression of a rather pathetic Dee seeking to communicate with angelic spirits with frustratingly meagre results. What I am
seeking to identify is the political and religious significance of these episodes and the clues they give to the secret society culture of the late
Elizabethans.
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