Aaron Leitch wrote:
You may well be right - think i first read that in:
Richard Deacon's "John Dee: Scientist, Geographer, Astrologer and Secret
Agent to Elizabeth I "
so not a "net legend" - can't find my copy now so not sure if he backs
it up?
Mogg
> Greetings!
> I am currently co-authoring an essay about John Dee, in which we will
> explore the legend of Dee as England's "first spy." As such, we are
> looking for some information about Dee's oft-cited by never referenced
> "007" signature. See below for Terri's request for info on this topic:
> ----------
> Greetings. For various reasons, Aaron and I are combing through Dee
> manuscripts… or does one even need a reason to do this?
>
> Anyway, Aaron brought up an interesting point when we were talking off
> list,
> which is: exactly WHERE does Dee sign his name as 007? You can find
> this as a
> persistent net legend, with alleged scanned in copies of the
> signature, as well
> as assertions and debunkings that this was how he signed his name in
> dispatches
> from Europe to William Cecil (something I suspect may never have really
> happened.) The signature also looks like a pair of eyeglasses, so that
> data
> point becomes also attached to the legend he was the "eyes" for
> Elizabeth. But
> where does the signature actually occur?
>
> [For instance, the Sir Francis Bacon site, which continues to suggest
> Bacon was
> Shakespeare despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, offers such a
> graphic –
> see http://www.sirbacon.org/links/dblohseven.html -- and says "Dee
> signed his
> letters with two circles symbolising his own two eyes and indicating
> that he was
> the secret eyes of the Queen. The two circles are guarded by what may be
> considered a square root sign or an elongated seven. For Dee, seven
> was a sacred
> cabbalistic and lucky number.(Richard Deacon)." But if you try to find
> where
> Deacon gets his information—well, I hope you have better luck than I did.
>
> Of course, throughout the angelic workings, he writes his name with
> the sign of
> Delta, then as now also a fire triangle. These are personal, not
> correspondence, so there's no reason he would sign them "007."
>
> Julian Roberts and Andrew Watson, in their excellent study of Dee's
> library
> catalog and other places where Dee's non-catalogued books appear,
> point out that
> Dee used particular "flower signs" to identify his books (rather than,
> say, a
> signature); these same flower signs, Jan Backlund points out, appear in
> manuscripts in Copenhagen associated with an alchemical circle around
> Kelley and
> Dee. Neither writer as far as I am aware mentions anything about a 007
> signature. (Some of you on this list have Watson and Roberts book, so
> please
> correct me if I'm wrong. I just check it out of the library when I
> need it, and
> I'm being lazy and not doing so for this post. )
>
> Dee's private diary has no 007 signature, but again it is not
> correspondence.
> The nativities there have no 007 signature, but they are for his
> private use.
>
> I was hoping I would find this signature at the end of his Compendious
> Rehearsal. That at least would seem a logical place, given the
> contents and
> given that its written to Queen Elizabeth. No such luck.
>
> So, does anyone here know of a specific identifiable archived bit of
> writing by
> John Dee, most likely some sort of correspondence, where he signs his
> name in a
> way that "Dee" if rotated 90 degrees looks like 007, as it appears
> over and over
> on the net, but without reference to where it comes from?
>
> LVX,
>
> Terri
> ----------
> We have already received some information on this (apparently the
> signature is a hoax) - but if nothing else I would like to know where
> the "007" image actually comes from, if it is not Dee's signature...?
> LVX
> Aaron
>
>
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