Museum thief spirits away old crystal ball (timesonline.co.uk, December 11)

A RARE 16th-century crystal ball that belonged to a maverick consultant to Elizabeth I has been stolen from the Science Museum in London.

A man dressed in a long leather coat smashed a display case on the fifth floor and ran down flights of stairs and out of the museum before he could be caught by security guards.

The crystal ball, thought to be worth £50,000, was used by mediums and for curing disease. It belonged to John Dee, philosopher, mathematician and astrologer, who lived between 1527 and the turn of the 17th century. Dee became an authority on “angel magic” and beliefs that man had the potential for divine power.

The thief also took a statement about the ball’s use by the pharmacist Nicholas Culpeper, written on the reverse of ancient deed manuscripts in the mid-1600s. The theft happened on Thursday afternoon. Detectives are investigating whether the items were stolen to order.

Interestingly, this little tidbit was passed on to me by a reliable informant of things otherworldly who is known in these parts as Alice Dee. Co-inki-doink? I don’t think so.

Please note that the tsunami followed this theft shortly thereafter, as did the snowstorm of the century.

Here is a book by Dr. Culpeper, The English Physitian.

Lucky for England, it looks as though it’s easy to buy replicas of Dee’s crystal, although I personally suspect the good doctor favored a slightly less gothick mode of presentation. For some background on Dee, the John Dee Society would appear to be a good place to start. The John Dee Publication Project looks interesting, too, as it’s devoted to publishing electronic facsimiles of Dee’s primary source materials.

(Did you know that Armin Shimerman, the actor who played Quark on DS9, has published a series of novels featuring Dee as a character?)