Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica
June 11th, 2008
John Dee‘s Monas Hieroglyphica, which I have redrawn, from his 1564 book of the same title, translated from the Latin by C. H. Josten (in Ambix vol. XII, nos. 2 & 3, 1964).
“The Sun and the Moon of this monad desire their elements, in which the denarian proportion will be strong, to be separated, and that this be done with the aid of Fire” (p161).
Constructed with the geometric proportions detailed in Theorem XXIII (p201-205).
“Our hieroglyphic monad possesses, hidden away in its innermost centre, a terrestrial body. It [sc. the monad] teaches without words, by what divine force that [terrestrial body] should be actuated. When it has been actuated, it [sc. the terrestrial centre of the monad] is to be united (in a perpetual marriage) to a generative influence which is lunar and solar, even if previously, in heaven or elsewhere, they [sc. the lunar and solar influences] were widely separated from that [terrestrial] body [at the centre of the monad]. When this Gamaaea has (by God’s will) been concluded… the monad can no longer be fed or watered on its native soil, until the fourth, great, and truly metaphysical, revolution be completed. When that advance has been made, he who fed [the monad] will first himself go away into a metamorphosis and will afterwards very rarely be held by mortal eye” (p135-137).
June 18th, 2008 at 5:20 am
The Monas is dear to me: it looks like a little man with horns…
If one forgets the bottom “legs”, it is precisely the sign of the hermetic mercury: the moon (aka silver), the sun (gold) and the cross or quaternary of elements.
Why the legs? Because, as Dr. Dee himself explains in Theorem X, it is the seal of Aries, i.e. Fire, and it shows that nothing can be done without it.It is not by chance that one of the names used by the adept of the Art has always been Philosophers by Fire.
Best
A.M.