John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature

by Deborah Harkness

Overview

John Dee's angel conversations have been an enigmatic facet of Elizabethan England's most famous natural philosopher's life and work. Professor Harkness contextualizes Dee's angel conversations within the natural philosophical, religious and social contexts of his time. She argues that they represent a continuing development of John Dee's earlier concerns and interests. These conversations include discussions of the natural world, the practice of natural philosophy, and the apocalypse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107263871
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/13/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Deborah Harkness is Associate Professor of History at the University of Southern California. She is the prize-winning author of articles on John Dee's angel conversations and his household.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and conventions; Introduction; Part I. Genesis: 1. The colloquium of angels: Prague, 1586; 2. Building Jacob's ladder: the genesis of the angel conversations; 3. Climbing Jacob's ladder: angelology as natural philosophy; Part II. Revelations: 4. 'Then commeth the ende': apocalypse, natural philosophy, and the angel conversations; 5. 'The true cabala': reading the book of nature; 6. Adam's alchemy: the medicine of God and the restitution of nature; Epilogue; Select bibliography; Index.