To understand the symbol’s meaning better, we need to understand who its author is. John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, teacher, astrologer, occultist, and alchemist.[2] He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. As an antiquarian, he had one of the largest libraries in England at the time. As a political advisor, he advocated the foundation of English colonies in the New World to form a “British Empire”, a term he is credited with coining.[3]

Dee eventually left Elizabeth’s service and went on a quest for additional knowledge in the deeper realms of the occult and supernatural. He aligned himself with several individuals who may have been charlatans, travelled through Europe, and was accused of spying for the English crown.[4] Upon his return to England, he found his home and library vandalised. He eventually returned to the Queen’s service, but was turned away when she was succeeded by James I. He died in poverty in London, and his gravesite is unknown.

In 1555 Dee was arrested and charged with the crime of “calculating”, because he had cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth. The charges were raised to treason against Mary.[5][6] Dee appeared in the Star Chamber and exonerated himself, but was turned over to the Catholic bishop Edmund Bonner for religious examination. His strong, lifelong penchant for secrecy may have worsened matters. The episode was the most dramatic in a series of attacks and slanders that dogged Dee throughout his life. Clearing his name yet again, he soon became a close associate of Bonner.[7]

Dee presented Queen Mary in 1556 with a visionary plan for preserving old books, manuscripts and records and founding a national library, but it was not taken up.[8] Instead, he expanded his personal library in Mortlake, acquiring books and manuscripts in England and on the Continent. Dee’s library, a centre of learning outside the universities, became the greatest in England and attracted many scholars.[9]

When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1558, Dee became her astrological and scientific advisor. He chose her coronation date and even became a Protestant.[10][11][12] From the 1550s to the 1570s, he served as an advisor to England’s voyages of discovery, providing technical aid in navigation and political support to create a “British Empire”, a term he was the first to use.[3]

In 1564, Dee wrote the Hermetic work Monas Hieroglyphica (“The Hieroglyphic Monad”), an exhaustive Cabalistic interpretation of a glyph of his own design, meant to express the mystical unity of all creation.

Having dedicated it to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor in an effort to gain patronage, Dee attempted to present it to him at the time of his ascension to the throne of Hungary. The work was esteemed by many of Dee’s contemporaries, but cannot be interpreted today in the absence of the secret oral tradition of that era.[13]