Beyond the simple enjoyment of stories, there is something irresistible about the fantastically rich world of books itself—its aura, its aesthetic, its history, its mysteries. History and literature are inextricable, pages of the past revealing secrets of the centuries.
Unless, of course, the pages of the past don’t reveal secrets and instead create the mysteries of the past that intrigue us so.
While the literary world is teeming with intriguing tales of lost manuscripts and other such mysteries, the story of one book in particular piques my interest: the Book of Soyga. The history of this manuscript is intriguing not just for the contents of the book itself, nor just for its supposed disappearance, but for the eccentricity of its most famous owner and his impressive, if questionable, methods of understanding just what secrets lay within the Book of Soyga’s pages.
A 16th century treatise on magic, the better part of the Book of Soyga’s approximately 200 pages is written in Latin and details instructions for magical rituals and incantations along with instructions and guides for astrology and demonology. With its lists of conjunctions (when two or more planets line up exactly), lunar mansions (the positions of the moon), and names and genealogies of angels, the Book of Soyga was a rather typical book of magical beliefs and studies of the time. While no one knows who its author or authors were, we know that one edition came to be in the possession of John Dee in the late 16th century, marking the beginning of its known story.
John Dee was a mathematician, teacher, astronomer, astrologer, alchemist, and occultist. A man of incredible knowledge and education, Dee’s lifework walked the line between scientific and magical, a distinction that would’ve been unremarked upon during the age of Renaissance magic which saw a rise of interest in various forms of ceremonial magic and the belief that magic could explain what science had yet to. Dee’s efforts and investigations were often within the realms of alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy—crossing lines at times and earning him a lifetime of attacks and slander. Perhaps the most notable of such accusations was in 1555 when Dee was arrested and charged for casting the horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth, the official crime being “calculating” before the charge was raised to treason against Queen Mary. Dee exonerated himself against the charges and even went on to present the queen with a proposal intended to preserve old books, manuscripts, and records by founding a national library. Unfortunately, Queen Mary declined. As a dedicated antiquarian, Dee began amassing his own private collection that eventually became one of the largest libraries of its time in England. With over 3,000 printed volumes and numerous manuscripts, his library attracted scholars and became a center of education outside of universities.
Though he had a less than ideal relationship with Queen Mary, Dee immediately became an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I upon her ascension to the throne in 1558, providing her with scientific and astrological guidance. He even chose her coronation date. Immersed in the study of astrology and sorcery as he was, Dee’s acquisition of the Book of Soyga in the 1580s led him to study the book for the rest of his life, trying to make sense of its secrets. He aspired to learn the universal language of creation and attempted to commune with angels, all in an effort to understand the world beyond what was visible. Despite the trove of magic found in the Book of Soyga, there was one mystery within its pages that persisted, leading Dee to request help from realms beyond.
Further Reading: The Book of Soyga
While the Book of Soyga occasionally utilized the method of writing specific words backwards (the word “soyga” is very likely the Greek word “agios” backwards, meaning “holy”), its sections on spells, angel and demon hierarchies, etc. are all quite understandable—at least as far as the simple ability to read them goes. The final 36 pages, however, were comprised of squares of 36 columns by 36 rows of seemingly random Latin letters that were far from easily decoded. Convinced the squares, that totaled 46,656 letters, held a hidden message, Dee worked to understand and unlock their meaning. His own methods failing him, he turned to friend and scryer Edward Kelley. Kelley, being an occultist himself as well as a self-professed medium, claimed to be able to summon spirits and angels in mirrors and “shew-stones” as well as the ability to turn base metals into gold (the goal of alchemy). He also claimed to own the Philosopher’s Stone. Trusting Kelley’s dubious claims, Dee enlisted his help in order to call upon the archangel Uriel to inquire about the Book of Soyga’s mysterious tables. According to Dee’s Spiritual Diaries, where he wrote a transcription of his conversation with the angel, Dee asked if the Book of Soyga was of any “excellency,” to which the angel answered that the book had been revealed to Adam in the Garden of Eden, but that only the archangel Michael knew the secrets of the 36 tables. Uriel also warned Dee that any who learned the secrets of the tables would die within two and a half years of the discovery. Perhaps surprisingly to Dee, Uriel had very little information that was of any actual use to him—though perhaps he should’ve guessed as much since the mouthpiece of Uriel was none other than Edward Kelley himself.
Further Reading: John Dee’s Spiritual Diaries
In the end, Dee never uncovered the secrets of the 36 tables within the Book of Soyga. In fact, he misplaced the book for over twelve years from 1583 to 1595. After Dee’s death in 1608, perhaps due to the ransacking of his library, the Book of Soyga was lost. Except for brief mention by Elias Ashmole years later that claimed the book had belonged to the Duke of Lauderdale for a time, the whereabouts of the Book of Soyga were lost to the mists of time, lending it a new sheen of mystery and intrigue. Despite never being able to reveal the message of the 36 tables, Dee unknowingly ensured the secrets of the Book of Soyga might not be lost forever when he made a simple note within his diary the very month he misplaced the book: “E[dward] K[elley] and I wer talking of my boke Soyga, or Aldaraia and I at length sayd that, (as far as I did remember) Zadzaczadlin, was Adam by the Alphabet therof.”
Aldaraia—an alternative title for the Book of Soyga. This bit of knowledge was the key to the 1994 rediscovery of the Book of Soyga in the British Library and a second edition in the Bodleian Library filed under Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor. Fascinatingly, the person who made this incredible discovery was Deborah Harkness—bestselling author of A Discovery of Witches. In addition to being a novelist, Harkness is also a scholar, professor, and historian of science and medicine. She studied alchemy, magic, and the occult and, at the time of her Soyga discovery, was writing a dissertation on Dee.
Further Reading: John Dee’s Conversations with Angels by Deborah Harkness
In 2006, the seemingly unbreakable code of the 36 tables of the Book of Soyga was broken. Jim Reeds, a mathematician and cryptologist, transcribed every letter of the 36 tables onto the computer and studied them for any sense of pattern or order within the 46,656 letters that could unlock its meaning. In the process, he proved that the two editions found in the British Library and the Bodleian Library were actually copies of another, possibly older, edition of the Book of Soyga. As for the code, Reeds discovered that each table’s seemingly random collection of letters were based on a “magic word” or “seed” (different for each table) that set the pattern off. The first 24 tables are named after zodiac constellations, the next 7 are named after planets, and the remaining 5 are named for the natural elements and the figure of “Magister.”
Despite the code itself being cracked, the criteria that went into building the code, the meaning of the “seed” words and the overall message of the tables remain a mystery. While theories are in no short supply, one interesting theory drew on the idea of a universal language of Creation that John Dee had been so intent on learning. This theory points out Bible verses that refer to the creation of the universe as beginning with a “Word” as well as a Galileo’s opinion that math was the language with which God wrote the universe. With this in mind, its theorized that the tables are meant to represent the universe—or several different universes. According to this article, these structure of the tables “perfectly mimics the creation of the World from a Word and a mathematical rule.” Fascinating.
The mystery of the Book of Soyga still persists. Who wrote it? What do the 36 tables and their “magic words” mean? How does their meaning relate to the rest of the book’s focus—alchemy, magic spells, angels, and demons? While the code behind the structure of the tables has been solved, the true meaning of the tables remains shrouded in mystery. If the answers to the questions around the tables is anything near as intriguing as the rest of the Book of Soyga’s history, it will surely fascinate. I, for one, can’t wait for its eventual reveal.