Re: VMs: Re: VMs, RuggWatch

[Clay Holden <cholden@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/22/04 5:52 PM, "Chris Gross" <cgross@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> [...] And as far as secret alphabets go, I think he
> would have had his hands full with Enochian! :-)

There is no surviving manuscript material written by Dee or Kelley using the
"Enochian" alphabet extensively. They noted the characters in Sloane MS 3188
(Quinti Libri Mysteriorum) and again in Sloane MS 3189 (Liber Mysteriorum
Sextus et Sanctus), but other than noting the alphabet, the manuscripts are
almost entirely in roman characters.

There are actually two forms of the alphabet noted in each of these
manuscripts. The earlier form is first given in Mysteriorum Liber Quintus in
Sloane 3188, and the later "perfect" version at the end of Quinti Libri
Mysteriorum Appendix (also in Sloane 3188). There also exist in that book
two samples of a small table or seal, one given in roman characters, the
other transcribing the same seal in the later "perfect" Enochian alphabet.

In Sloane 3189, the 49 X 49 tables are all noted in roman characters, but
with the titles of each table noted at the top of the page both in roman
characters and in the earlier Enochian script (complete with what appear to
be vowel-pointing marks like those used in Hebrew), and another sample of
the "perfect" Enochian alphabet given at the end of the manuscript.

Dee and Kelley were instructed to do the tables in Sloane 3189 into the
Enochian characters, but apparently never did so, or if they did, the
manuscript is lost.

The only other cipher manuscript with which Kelley was directly involved
according to the contemporary manuscript evidence is the brief document
Kelley claimed to have found at Huters Cross, which was such a simple cipher
that Dee decrypted and translated it into Latin in one evening's work. There
is nothing in Dee's diaries to suggest that he believed Kelley to be the
author of that document.

The point here being that nowhere else in the surviving manuscript material
with which Kelley was involved does a cipher alphabet play more than a
tangential part.

Also, as I have previously noted, there is no convincing similarity between
Kelley's hand as evidenced in Sloane MS 3189 nor in the few notes he wrote
that appear in Cotton Appendix XLVI and that of the author of the VMS.

Therefore I once again conclude that assuming Kelley to be the author of the
VMS is entirely unsupported by the surviving evidence, and is at best a red
herring, however entertaining and romantic its appeal.

Clay

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