7

The skryer seated himself in "the green chair" at the table, Dee at his desk to write down the conversations. These were noted by him then and there at the time, and he is careful to particularise any remark or addition told him by the Ckryer afterwards. Once a spirit tells him: "There is time enough, and we may take leisure." Whereupon Dee conversed directly with the visitant; sometimes apparently only Talbot hears and repeats to him what is said. A golden curtain was usually first seen in the stone, and occasionally there was a long pause before it was withdrawn. Once Dee writes: "He taketh the darkness and wrappeth it up, and casteth it into the middle of the earthen globe." The spirits generally appeared in the stone, but sometimes they stept down into a dazzling beam of light from it, and moved about the room. On some occasions a voice only is heard. At the close of the action, the "black cloth of silence is drawn," and they leave off for the present.

There are very few comments or general impressions of the actions left by Dee, but on one occasion he does use expressions that show his analytical powers to have been actively at work to account for the phenomena. He brought his reason to bear upon the means of communication with the unseen world in a remarkable manner. In speaking to the angels one day he said: "I do think you have no organs or Instruments apt for voyce, but are meere spirituall and nothing corporall, but have the power and property from God to insinuate your message or meaning to ear or eye [so that] man's imagination shall be that they hear and see you sensibly."

As Plotinus says, "Not everything whichis in the soul is now sensible, but it arrives to us when it proceeds as far as sense."

The minute descriptions of the figures seen are of course characteristic of clairvoyant or mediumistic visions. In the case of Bobogel, the account of his "sage and grave" attire - the common dress of a serious gentleman of the time - may be quoted.

"They that now come in are jolly fellows, all trymmed after the manner of Nobilities now-a-dayes, with gylt rapiers and curled haire, and they bragged up and downe. Bobogel standeth in a black velvet coat, and his hose, close round hose of velvet upperstocks, over layd with gold lace. He hath a velvet hat cap with a black feather in it, with a cape on one of his shoulders; his purse hanging at his neck, and so put under his girdell. His beard long. He had pantoffolls and pynsons. Sevenm others are apparelled like Bobogel, sagely and gravely."