Scripting · “You Assign the Meaning”
The Spiritual Diary
Record what is received during scrying faithfully and in order — capturing imagery, words, and dialogue as a verbatim working record.
The spiritual diary: Record ready and dated before you start.
(1) Separate receiving from recording.
(2) Write faithfully, not interpretively — what was actually seen and said.
(3) Keep it in order and dated.
(4) Capture the strange parts too; don’t filter for coherence.
(5) Review across sessions to let patterns surface. Faithful, immediate, ordered capture is the practice.
What it is
The reason we know Dee’s angelic work in such detail is that he wrote everything down, meticulously, as it happened. While Edward Kelley gazed into the shewstone and reported what he saw “in sight,” Dee — who perceived only “in faith” — sat beside him and recorded the sessions verbatim: the imagery, the spoken words, the letter-tables, the dialogue, dated and in sequence.
These records became the Mysteriorum Libri and, eventually, the printed A True & Faithful Relation. Dee treated the diary as a rigorous scientific and devotional log, not a casual notebook. Stripped of the angelic premise, the transmissible practice is disciplined, immediate, faithful recording of inner experience — capturing what arises during contemplative or visionary work exactly and in order, so it can be reflected on later.
The Method
Reconstructed from Dee’s practice:
- Have the Atlas ready before you begin. Pen and paper (or device) to hand, dated, so capture is immediate rather than reconstructed afterward.
- Separate seeing from recording. Dee’s model splits the roles: one person (or one mode of attention) receives the imagery; the other records it. Working solo, alternate — observe, then write — or speak aloud and capture.
- Record faithfully, not interpretively. Write what was actually seen and said — figures, colours, letters, words, sequence — without smoothing, censoring, or explaining it in the moment. Faithfulness is the whole point.
- Keep it in order and dated. Note the date, conditions, and sequence. Dee’s value lies in the orderly, sequential log that let material be cross-referenced.
- Capture the strange parts too. Dee recorded even the parts he didn’t understand or found unflattering (the angels’ rebukes of his sins). Don’t filter for coherence.
- Review across sessions. Over time, read back: patterns, recurring symbols, and developments emerge from the accumulated record that no single session shows.
Source & Lineage
The diaries themselves are the source: Dee’s spiritual diaries — the manuscript Mysteriorum Libri and the posthumously printed A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits (Casaubon, 1659).
The entire Enochian corpus — alphabet, Liber Loagaeth, the Calls — survives only because Dee logged it in order as it was received. His diary-keeping models the magician-as-scientist: rigorous, dated, verbatim documentation of esoteric experience.; related.
Common refinements
Recording from memory afterward. Detail and order decay fast; capture during or immediately after, not hours later.
- Editing for coherence. Smoothing, censoring, or interpreting as you write destroys the faithful record that makes the diary worth keeping.
- Filtering out the uncomfortable or the nonsensical. Dee recorded rebukes and material he didn’t understand — those are often the most revealing on review.
- Never reviewing. The payoff is cumulative; an un-reread diary is half a practice. Schedule periodic read-backs.
- No dates or sequence. Undated fragments can’t be cross-referenced; always log when and in what order.