A True and Faithful Relation

A True and Faithful Relation is the large folio volume in which the Anglican scholar Meric Casaubon published, in 1659, John Dee’s records of his angelic sessions from May 1583 onwards. Casaubon worked from manuscripts that had passed to the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton, and his long preface argued that the diaries proved the reality of spirits, but that Dee, however sincere, had been deceived by demons. The volume therefore served both as an edition and as an argument against religious enthusiasm in the troubled years before the Restoration. Its contents cover the most dramatic period of Dee’s partnership with Edward Kelley: their departure from England with the Polish nobleman Albrecht Łaski, their travels in Poland and Bohemia, audiences with Emperor Rudolf II and King Stephen Báthory, the reception of the forty-eight angelic ‘Calls’ or ‘Keys’ and the Great Table in 1584, and the notorious instruction of 1587 that the two men share their wives. It ends with fragments from the years after Dee’s return to England. Because the earlier diaries remained in manuscript until the twentieth century, Casaubon’s book was for centuries the main public source on Dee’s angel magic, and it supplied the material from which the Golden Dawn and later Enochian traditions were built. The online page offers the title, contents, Casaubon’s preface and Peterson’s introduction, with links to sections of the diaries.

What it contains

• Casaubon’s preface on spirits, enthusiasm and Dee’s deception
• Dee’s Discourse Apologeticall prefixed to the volume
• Records of the journey to Poland and Bohemia with Kelley and Łaski
• Reception of the angelic Calls (Keys) and the Great Table, 1584
• Audiences with Rudolf II and Stephen Báthory; the ‘cross-matching’ of 1587
• Fragments of later sessions in England up to 1607