Upcoming Events and the Tale of a Real Life Wizard Friends, fans and followers of all things wizardy; later I am going to remind you about the up-coming online events that Merlin and I are involved in but first I want to tell you about a man who was about as close to being a real world wizard as it is possible to get – Dr John Dee. If Dr Dee’s name doesn’t ring a bell, don’t feel bad; history is very large and Dee – like most men who dabble in the occult – knew that his life would be safest if he remained in the shadows. Born in 1527, Dee was one of the greatest minds of Queen Elizabeth I’s England. He was, by turns, a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, map maker, occultist, alchemist and practitioner of ‘magik’ and divination. In short, Dee was just the kind of man to inspire fear in the minds of 16th century people and there were a lot of powerful men who would have been happy to see Dr Dee sent to the burning stake for witchcraft. Fortunately for the good doctor, he had several immensely powerful protectors including Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, Sir William Cecil; Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s spy master; and also the queen herself. Dee served as Queen Elizabeth’s personal astrologer and advisor throughout much of her reign and his prognostications based on the stars figured heavily in many of her adroit political decisions. In his role as map maker he made nautical charts for England’s two greatest navigators of the age, Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. As an alchemist and dabbler in magical arts Dee not only used that most essential of wizard’s tools, the scrying glass, but he spent much of the later part of his life attempting to communicate with angels in an effort to learn the language of creation and thereby bring about the unity of mankind. Interestingly, in spite of his great number of largely philosophical and academic pursuits, Dee also served as one of his buddy Sir Francis Walsingham’s spies on more than one occasion. While most of Elizabeth’s spies limited their activities to England - where they ferretted out Jesuits and turned them over to Francis Walsingham for enhanced interrogation and a stomach churning array of creative executions - Dr Dee traveled to the continent where he sought to uncover any developing plots against his queen. Among his many talents was that of mathematician, and using number based conversion charts he devised an array of codes by which Francis Walsingham’s spies could send letters to their boss that were impossible to read without the mathematical key. When Dee traveled to Europe he used one of his own codes to send secret letters back to Walsingham and the queen, but rather than using a standard pseudonym to protect his identity he was the first spy to use a numerical code to identify himself If you haven’t guessed it yet, the number he used was 007. Dr John Dee was the real-life James Bond. Now how cool is that? To find out more about the amazing Dr John Dee, visit < johndee.org/DEE.html> or to see a few of his writings visit < esotericarchives/dee/> or for all things Dee related visit the John Dee Society at < johndee.org/ > I have to go now, but remember that in just ten days, on Friday the 26th of September, Merlin and I will be taking control of Orchard Book Club’s Facebook page at from 3:00pm until 5:00pm Eastern Time US (that is Noon – 2:00pm Pacific and 8:00pm – 10:00pm UK). For two full hours we will be posting fun blogs, giving away books of all kinds in both electronic and print versions, so mark it down so you don’t miss it. Between now and then you can check in to Orchard’s Facebook page every Wednesday and Friday all day long to see what other authors are doing when they take-over the Orchard site. And don’t forget that on October 4 and 5 Australian author Carol March will be hosting ‘A Celebration of Authors’ on Facebook at: < https://facebook/events/576070452504882/>. For two days there will be authors from all over the world touting their latest and best works so anyone who really loves books will have to be crazy to miss it. Merlin and I will have the 6:00 – 6:30pm Eastern Time (US) slot on Saturday, September 4th but please note that we only have a half an hour to do our thing and give away some books. Described by the hostesses as having “blogs, links, swags and giveaways”, nearly 300 authors of international note have already signed up to attend so this should be a literary blast of galactic proportions. In both cases I will be featuring a lot more than The Merlin Trilogy books, so this is your chance to discover new, exciting and sometimes slightly creepy writings by yours truly. That’s about all for this week but I will be back next week. Until then please remember to take a few minutes to jot down a reader’s review of either Merlin book on Amazon or Amazon.co.uk – both Merlin and I sincerely appreciate it - and don’t forget to like Merlin-Chronicles on Facebook at: https://facebook/pages/Merlin-Chronicles/479750768731838
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:40:45 +0000