Museum of Alchemists and Magicians of Old Prague, Czech Republic 🇨🇿 (Dec 2023)

Fascinating Museum with an authentic and well-preserved presentation of antiquity. An excellent overall experience.

Museum of Alchemists and Magicians of Old Prague

Museum Website

“On Dee’s return to England, his friends raised money for him and interceded on his behalf with Queen Elizabeth. Though she appointed him warden of Manchester College in 1596, Dee’s final years were marked by poverty and isolation. He was long said to have died at Mortlake in December 1608 and to have been buried in the Anglican church there, but there is evidence that his death occurred the following March at the London home of his acquaintance (and possible executor) John Pontois.

It is almost certain that William Shakespeare (1564–1616) modeled the character of Prospero in The Tempest (1611) on the career of John Dee, the Elizabethan magus. (Ref: Britannica.com, link below):

John Dee

(Ref: Britannica.com): “Perhaps frustrated by his failure to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of natural knowledge, Dee sought divine assistance by attempting to converse with angels. He and his medium, the convicted counterfeiter Edward Kelley, held numerous séances both in England and on the Continent, where the two traveled together—mainly to Poland and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic)—between 1583 and 1589. By all accounts Dee was sincere, which is more than can be said for Kelley, who may have duped him.”

(Ref: Britannica.com): John Dee

“Dee’s scientific interests were far broader than his involvement in English exploration might suggest. In 1558 he published Propaedeumata Aphoristica (“An Aphoristic Introduction”), which presented his views on natural philosophy and astrology. Dee continued to discuss his occult views in 1564 with the Monas hieroglyphica (The Hieroglyphic Monad [2000], Monas hieroglyphica), wherein he offered a single mathematical-magical symbol as the key to unlocking the unity of nature. In addition to editing the first English translation of Euclid’s Elements (1570), Dee added an influential preface that offered a powerful manifesto on the dignity and usefulness of the mathematical sciences. Furthermore, as passionately as he believed in the utility of mathematics for mundane matters, Dee expressed conviction in the occult power of mathematics to reveal divine mysteries”

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The possibility of chemical gold making was not conclusively disproved by scientific evidence until the 19th century. As rational a scientist as Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) had thought it worthwhile to experiment with it. The official attitude toward alchemy in the 16th to 18th century was ambivalent. On the one hand, The Art posed a threat to the control of precious metal and was often outlawed; on the other hand, there were obvious advantages to any sovereign who could control gold making. In “the metropolis of alchemy,” Prague, the Holy Roman emperors Maximilian II (reigned 1564–76) and Rudolf II (reigned 1576–1612) proved ever-hopeful sponsors and entertained most of the leading alchemists of Europe” (Ref: Britannica.com, link below):

Edward Kelley

This was not altogether to the alchemist’s advantage. In 1595 Edward Kelley, an English alchemist and companion of the famous astrologer, alchemist, and mathematician John Dee, lost his life in an attempt to escape after imprisonment by Rudolf II, and in 1603 the elector of Saxony, Christian II, imprisoned and tortured the Scotsman Alexander Seton, who had been traveling about Europe performing well-publicized transmutations. The situation was complicated by the fact that some alchemists were turning from gold making not to medicine but to a quasi-religious alchemy reminiscent of the Greek Synesius. Rudolf II made the German alchemist Michael Maier a count and his private secretary, although Maier’s mystical and allegorical writings were, in the words of a modern authority, “distinguished for the extraordinary obscurity of his style” and made no claim to gold making. Neither did the German alchemist Heinrich Khunrath (c. 1560–1601), whose works have long been esteemed for their illustrations, make such a claim.” (Ref: Britannica.com, link below):

Edward Kelley