The Book of Soyga

The Book of Soyga, whose opening line declares ‘I am called Aldaraia or Soyga’, is an anonymous Latin magical treatise that John Dee prized and that he believed contained profound secrets. In 1583 he asked the angels, through Edward Kelley, whether its tables could be interpreted, and was told that only the archangel Michael could reveal their meaning. Dee’s own copy was long thought lost, but in 1994 the historian Deborah Harkness identified two surviving manuscripts, British Library Sloane MS 8 and Bodleian Library MS Bodley 908. The work is an eclectic compendium. After a preface on honouring God, it contains a narrative in which masters and kings dispute before Prester John, followed by material on the humours, elements, planets and signs of the zodiac, lists of spirits of fire, air and earth, divine names, exorcisms and conjurations, and a long section called the ‘Book of Rays’. Its most famous feature is a series of thirty-six large letter tables of 36 by 36 cells, generated from keywords. The cryptographer Jim Reeds showed in 2006 that these tables were produced by a simple, deterministic rule applied to each keyword, solving the mystery of how they were built, though not of what they were for. Because of its connection with Dee and with the tables of Liber Loagaeth, the Book of Soyga has become a much-discussed text in the history of Elizabethan magic.

What it contains

• Preface on honouring God and the value of knowledge
• Narrative of masters and kings disputing before Prester John
• Humours, elements, planets and zodiacal signs
• Spirits of fire, air and earth; divine names and exorcisms
• The ‘Book of Rays’ (Liber radiorum)
• Thirty-six letter tables generated from keywords