with Dr. Dee, and not having any understanding of the laws of
subconscious mental action he soon came to the conclusion that the
shadowy figures he saw in the crystal were veritable spirits. From this
it was an easy step to imagine that they really talked to him and sought
to convey to him a knowledge of the great secrets of this world and the
next.

The only difficulty was that he could not understand what they said--or,
rather, what he fancied they said. The obvious thing to do was to find a
crystal-gazer with the gift of the spirit language, and induce him to
interpret for Dr. Dee's benefit the revelations of the images in the
glass. Such a crystal-gazer was ready at hand in the person of a young
man named Edward Kelley. Among the common people, as Dee well knew,
Kelley had the reputation of being a bold and wicked wizard. He had been
born in Worcester, and trained in the apothecary's business, but,
tempted by the prospect of securing great wealth at a minimum of
trouble, he had turned alchemist and magician. It was rumored that on at
least one occasion he had disinterred a freshly buried corpse, and by
his incantations had compelled the spirit of the dead man to speak to
him. There was more truth in the report that the reason he always wore a
close-fitting skull-cap was to conceal the loss of his ears, which had
been forfeited to the Government of England on his conviction for
forgery. Of this last unpleasant incident Dr. Dee seems to have known
nothing. At any rate, with child-like confidence, he sent for Kelley,
told him of the properties of his magic crystal--which the now
thoroughly infatuated doctor represented as having been bestowed on him
by the angel Uriel--and asked Kelley if he would interpret for him the
wonderful words of the spirits.

Kelley, as shrewd and unscrupulous a man as any in the annals of
imposture, readily consented, but on pretty hard terms. He was to be
taken in as a member of Dr. Dee's family, retained on a contract, and
paid an annual stipend of fifty pounds, quite a large sum in those
times. On this understanding he went to work, and day after day, for
years, regaled the credulous Dee with monologues purporting to be
delivered by the spirits in the crystal. Everything Kelley told him, Dr.
Dee faithfully noted down, and many years later, long after both Dee and
Kelley had been carried to their graves, these manuscript notes of the
seances were published. The volume containing them--a