Faust, Dee and Cagliostro joined many others in the search for buried treasure

[Faust, Dee and Cagliostro joined many others in the search for buried treasure using various means including magical ones. Today we use metal detectors, aerial imagery and lidar. Buried treasure was more than a vain hope – in a time before banks, burying one’s wealth was a way to protect it while one was away – perhaps at war or in flight. Astrologers and cunning folk were employed by treasure hunters to find the hordes – but also to find (say by dowsing) natural sources of metal. Dee was sincere, Cagliostro was probably a fraud. Treasure hordes are still being discovered. From Charlotte Fell Smith:]

‘He has spent twenty years in considering the subject; people from all parts have consulted him about dreams, visions, attractions and demonstrations of “sympathia et antipathia rerum;” but it is not likely he would counsel them to proceed without permission from the State. Yet what a loss is here!

“Obscure persons, as hosiers or tanners, can, under color of seeking assays of metalls for the Saymaster, enojoy libertie to dig after dreamish demonstrations of places. May not I then, in respect of my payns, cost, and credit in matters philosophical and mathematicall, if no better or easier turn will fall to my Lot from her Majestie’s hands, may I not then be thought to mean and intend good service toward the Queen and this realm, if I will do the best I can at my own cost and charge to discover and deliver true proofe of a myne, vayn, or ore of gold or silver, in some place of her Grace’s kingdom, for her Grace’s only use?”

The Society of Royal Mines had been incorporated May 28, 1565, and the Queen had granted patents to Germans and others to dig for mines and ores. It was well known that the country abounded in hidden treasure. The valuables of the monasteries had been, in many cases, hastily buried before the last abbot was ejected at the dissolution. The subject had a special fascination for Dee, who was conscious of a “divining rod” power to discover the hiding places. He made a curious diagram of ten localities, in various counties, marked by crosses, near which he believed treasure to lie concealed. ‘

Pasted from <http://www.johndee.org/charlotte/pdf/charlotte.pdf>



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