The Angel of the West Window

some cabbalistic significance. It does not appear to be a meaningful secret code, but, on the other hand, nor does it look like haphazard doodling. I suspect that these cyphers are connected with the conjurations my ancestor performed to compel Elizabeth to appear. These pages exude a sense of horror, like a subtle odour, so that it is impossible to concentrate upon them for more than a few minutes at a time. I feel distinctly the presence of madness on these pages of John Dee’s notebook, pressed flat like the crumbling petals of flowers between the leaves of an ancient diary, and the madness rises like some unmentionable aura and threatens to engulf my own brain. Madness has scrawled its unmistakable mark on these pages, and the next legible lines, scribbled down in haste, seem to confirm it. They rise, if I may put it like this, like the head of a drowning man spluttering up from the waves.

Before I continue copying out the book there are a few things I want to note down, for my own justification and to confirm my own memory:

First of all: I have always felt the need to be consciously aware of what is going on within me. Thanks to this characteristic I know that something is happening to me: the more I continue to work my way through John Dee’s inheritance – the less I feel sure of myself. At times I lose my grip on myself; I suddenly find myself reading with another’s eyes, my thoughts seem to come from an alien mind: it is not my brain which is thinking, the thoughts are produced somewhere physically outside the body sitting here. At such times I need the guiding hand of consciousness to jolt myself out of this state of uncontrolled vertigo – a “spiritual” vertigo.

Secondly: I note that John Dee did indeed flee to Scotland after his imprisonment in the Tower and did indeed find somewhere to stay in the area of the Sidlaw Hills. I note further that John Dee had the same experience with the chrysalis as I did, right down to the similarity of formulation. – Is it only the blood that one inherits? Can one inherit experiences? Of course, it could easily be explained if one assumes “coincidence”. Of course, of course; but to me it feels different. To me it feels the opposite of coincidence; what I am experiencing is... I don’t know what. And that is why I need my consciousness in control.

Continuation of the Notebooks of John Dee

Elizabeth returned another time, but after so many years do I really know that it was truly Elizabeth herself? Was it not rather a ghost? She sucked at me like a vampire. Was it not Elizabeth after all? Dreadful thought. Was it Black Isaïs? A succubus? No, Black Isaïs has nothing to do with my Elizabeth! But do I? – – – And yet Elizabeth partook of the experience; yes, Elizabeth herself! Whatever I did with the demon, if such it was, Elizabeth also experienced through some inexplicable manner of metamorphosis. And yet the Elizabeth who came to me through the park by the light of the waning moon was none other than my Elizabeth, and not Black Isaïs!!!

And in that night of dark temptation I lost my most valued heirloom: my talisman, the dagger – the spearhead of my ancestor Hywel Dda. I lost it on the lawn in the park where I performed the conjuration, and it seems to me that I was holding it in my hand, according to the instruction of Bartlett Greene, when the ghost approached me and I held out my hand. Then it was gone. – Did I pay to Black Isaïs what I later was to receive from Black Isaïs?

Today I seem to understand it thus: Isaïs is the woman within all women, and one word may transform all womankind into Isaïs!

After that it became impossible for me to see into Elizabeth’s mind. She had become completely foreign to me and yet I felt her as close as never before. Very close: that is the worst thought that the lonely soul can torture itself with. Very close, without union: that is almost like death. Queen Elizabeth was very gracious to me. Her cold gaze scorched my heart. Her Majesty was as far above me as Sirius. She exuded a great and ghostly coldness when I was in her presence. And she often commanded me to Windsor. But when I came she only had empty words for me. It was enough for her to kill me again with one glance. The silence between our souls was terrible.

Once she rode by Mortlake. With her riding crop she smote the linden tree by the gate where I stood to greet her. The tree sickened and the branches withered. – – –

Later I met the Queen in the marshes close by Windsor Castle where she was flying her hawks at a heron. At my side was my trusty bulldog. Elizabeth signalled me to approach. She received my greeting graciously and stroked my dog. It died the following night. – – –

The linden tree withered from the base upward. The splendid tree had become a pitiful sight and I ordered it to be felled. — -

I did not see my Queen again for the rest of the autumn and the whole of the winter. No invitation, no attention at all paid to me. Leicester kept his distance, too.

I was alone with Ellinor, who had hated me from the beginning.

I buried myself in the study of Euclid. But there is one thing that the Father of Geometry failed to understand: our world is not limited to his three dimensions, length, breadth and height. For many years I have been close to working out a theory of the fourth dimension. The world is not bounded by our five senses, not even our own nature is ....

The clear winter nights allowed me to make wonderful observations of