Unfortunately, the religion that promised to reconcile all the people of the earth, the alchemical art that would have resolved debates between ancient and modern practitioners, and the medicina dei based on the reformed sciences of cabala and alchemy were not enough to heal the rift between John Dee and Edward Kelly. A few scattered angel conversations survive from the period after the angels revealed their reformed alchemy in 1585, and they indicate Kelly's growing absorption with his independent laboratory work and his efforts to fulfill the alchemical requests of noble patrons in Trebona and Prague. In 1589, Dee and Kelly parted company. The events of the interim period have been largely lost to us, so our questions about the alchemy described so briefly in 1585 remain unanswered, as do those about Dee's state of mind in 1588, when the marvelous year mentioned in the prophecies failed to usher in a complete restitution of the cosmos.

Dee's ongoing commitment to the angels after the dissolution of his partnership with Kelly is the most striking testament to his faith in their wisdom. Almost two decades later, he was still talking to the angel Raphael with the assistance of his last known scryer, Bartholomew Hickman (Figure 2). Perhaps Dee decided that his initial interpretation of the angels' prophecies about the year 1588 were faulty, and that the restitution of nature would actually occur in 1688 rather than 1588.