Kuabris Defrabax etc
(page 132, the text found by the colonel and referred to
as a parody of the Semitic language. All these words are
woven into a Dr Who TV story, The
Menagerie (1995, second Doctor).
Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516): The Seven Secondary Intelligences
(De septem secundeis) Master
cryptographer and magician, mentor of Henrich Cornelius Agrippa.
Steganographia (Secret Writing) Book 1 Book 2 Book 3. This is
Trithemius' most notorious work. On the surface it is a system
of angel magic, but within is a highly sophisticated system of
cryptography. It claims to contain a synthesis of the science
of knowledge, the art of memory, magic, an accelerated language
learning system, and a method of sending messages without symbols
or messenger. In private circulation, the Steganographia brought
such a reaction of fear that he decided it should never be published.
He reportedly destroyed the more extreme portions (presumably
instructions for prophecy/divination) but it continued to circulate
in manuscript form and was eventually published posthumously
in 1606. (Latin)
Dr.
John Dee (more
Dee stuff) (1527-1608):
Influential Renaissance figure, Queen Elizabeth's scientific
advisor. In later life, he became disillusioned with pure science
and started experimenting with occult techniques of the day.
Many of his esoteric writing were kept secret and only discovered
by accident long after his death. Summery: 1. Visionary of the
British Empire; coined the word Brittannia and developed a plan
for the British Navy.
2. The first to apply Euclidean geometry to navigation; built the instruments
to apply Euclid; trained the first great navigators; developed the maps;
charted the Northeast and Northwest Passages. 3.
An angel conjuror with his sidekick Kelley; the angels told him what
Britain would have in their eventual empire; used an obsidian show
stone which came from the Aztecs/Mayans and rests in the British Museum
along with his conjuring table which contains the Enochian Alphabet he
used as angel language.
4. Philosopher to Queen Elizabeth; did her horoscope; determined her
coronation date astrologically; she came to visit him on her horse.
5. Founder of the Rosicrucian Order, the protestant response to the Jesuits.
6. An alchemist; hermeticist, cabalist, adept in esoteric and occcult
lore.
7. Translator of Euclid and wrote the famous Mathematical Preface, mapping
mathematical studies for the future, a kind of system of the sciences
based on math.
8. Put a hex on the Spanish Armada which is why there was bad weather
and England won.
9. Commissioned by Elizabeth to establish the legal foundation for colonizing
North America; went back to Madoc, a Welsh Prince who took a group over
to New England in the middle ages and established the first colony, and
intermarried with the Indians, but with little or no historical trace
but for the legend.
10. Instrumental in theatre arts and architecture.
11. Shakespeare depicted him as Prospero, and King Lear.
12. Sold the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious, a cipher as yet
to be deciphered--"the Everest of cipher studies"--to the Holy Roman
Emperor--Rudolph II--for a lot of gold. Resides at Yale in the Beineke
Library. Probably an herbal and an almanac by Anthony Askham.
13. Had the greatest library in England over 4,000 books. 14.
Biography by Peter French and everything by Francis Yates, his greatest
advocate: cf. especially THE ROSICRUCIAN ENLIGHTENMENT.
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600): original and colorful thinkers of
the Renaissance. The Inquisition considered him a dangerous heretic,
and had him burned at the stake in 1600. Born in Italy in 1548. Joined
the Dominican order. Because of own original ideas was accused of heresy
and left order and Italy. he suggested that the stars are in fact other
suns, that the universe is infinite and composed of the same matter.
Believed in the Copernican heliocentric view. On his return to Italy
he was imprisoned for six years but did not recant.
Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, 1486-1535, German mystic and
alchemist.Born of a once-noble family near Cologne, studied medicine
and law. In 1503, he assumed the name Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim,
adopting the von to suggest
a noble background; three years later, he established a secret society
in Paris devoted to astrology, magic, and Kabbalah. Activities: secret
agent, soldier, physician, orator, and law professor. In 1509, he set
up a laboratory in Dôle in the hopes of synthesizing gold, and for the
next decade or so traveled Europe, making a living as an alchemist, and
conversing with such important early humanist scholars as Colet and Reuchlin.
In 1520, he set up a medical practice in Geneva, and in 1524 became personal
physician to the queen mother at the court of King Francis I in Lyons.
When the queen mother abandoned him, he began practicing medicine in
Antwerp, but was later banned for practicing without a license, and became
historiographer at the court of Charles V. After several stays in prison,
variously for debt and criminal offences, he died in 1535.
Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus , 1493?–1541, Swiss physician
and alchemist. His original name was Theophrastus Bombastus von
Hohenheim. He traveled widely, acquiring knowledge of alchemy,
chemistry, and metallurgy, and although his egotism and his contempt
for traditional theories earned him the enmity of his learned
contemporaries, he gained wide popularity among the people (he
lectured and wrote in German rather than Latin) and had great
influence in his own and succeeding centuries. In Salzburg, where
he died, a statue was erected to him in 1752. His thought was
colored by the fantastic philosophies of his time, but he firmly
opposed the humoral theory of disease championed by Galen; advocated
the use of specific remedies for specific diseases, introducing
many chemicals (e.g., laudanum, mercury, sulphur, iron, and arsenic)
into use as medicines; and noted relationships such as the hereditary
pattern in syphilis and the association of cretinism with endemic
goitre and of paralysis with head injuries. He wrote numerous
medical and occult works containing a curious mixture of sound
observation and mystical jargon. His work On Diseases of Miners
was the first study devoted to an occupational disease.
Master
cryptographer and magician, mentor of Henrich Cornelius Agrippa.
Steganographia (Secret Writing) Book 1 Book 2 Book 3. This is
Trithemius' most notorious work. On the surface it is a system
of angel magic, but within is a highly sophisticated system of
cryptography. It claims to contain a synthesis of the science
of knowledge, the art of memory, magic, an accelerated language
learning system, and a method of sending messages without symbols
or messenger. In private circulation, the Steganographia brought
such a reaction of fear that he decided it should never be published.
He reportedly destroyed the more extreme portions (presumably
instructions for prophecy/divination) but it continued to circulate
in manuscript form and was eventually published posthumously
in 1606. (Latin)
Dr.
John Dee 
3.
An angel conjuror with his sidekick Kelley; the angels told him what
Britain would have in their eventual empire; used an obsidian show
stone which came from the Aztecs/Mayans and rests in the British Museum
along with his conjuring table which contains the Enochian Alphabet he
used as angel language.
14.
Biography by Peter French and everything by Francis Yates, his greatest
advocate: cf. especially THE ROSICRUCIAN ENLIGHTENMENT.
suggest
a noble background; three years later, he established a secret society
in Paris devoted to astrology, magic, and Kabbalah. Activities: secret
agent, soldier, physician, orator, and law professor. In 1509, he set
up a laboratory in Dôle in the hopes of synthesizing gold, and for the
next decade or so traveled Europe, making a living as an alchemist, and
conversing with such important early humanist scholars as Colet and Reuchlin.
In 1520, he set up a medical practice in Geneva, and in 1524 became personal
physician to the queen mother at the court of King Francis I in Lyons.
When the queen mother abandoned him, he began practicing medicine in
Antwerp, but was later banned for practicing without a license, and became
historiographer at the court of Charles V. After several stays in prison,
variously for debt and criminal offences, he died in 1535.
von
Hohenheim. He traveled widely, acquiring knowledge of alchemy,
chemistry, and metallurgy, and although his egotism and his contempt
for traditional theories earned him the enmity of his learned
contemporaries, he gained wide popularity among the people (he
lectured and wrote in German rather than Latin) and had great
influence in his own and succeeding centuries. In Salzburg, where
he died, a statue was erected to him in 1752. His thought was
colored by the fantastic philosophies of his time, but he firmly
opposed the humoral theory of disease championed by Galen; advocated
the use of specific remedies for specific diseases, introducing
many chemicals (e.g., laudanum, mercury, sulphur, iron, and arsenic)
into use as medicines; and noted relationships such as the hereditary
pattern in syphilis and the association of cretinism with endemic
goitre and of paralysis with head injuries. He wrote numerous
medical and occult works containing a curious mixture of sound
observation and mystical jargon. His work On Diseases of Miners
was the first study devoted to an occupational disease.