In this Hieros Institute podcast, Dr. Christopher McIntosh and Dr. Arthur Versluis continue the series of Hieros podcasts on higher education. In this podcast, their guest is Dr. Teresa Burns, a professor of English literature at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. Dr. Burns specializes in Renaissance Hermeticism, alchemy, and the works of John Dee and Edward Kelley. In this conversation, the group discusses the peculiar double standards common in contemporary scholarship, and the importance of scholarship informed by direct knowledge of the tradition, as is expected in, for instance, scholarship on Buddhism.
Translation and Scholarship: She co-translated John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica with Dr. Nancy Turner for Ouroboros Press, providing a complete scholarly edition with extensive footnotes and introduction. She also co-translated The Consecrated Little Book of Black Venus, a grimoire attributed to Dee.
Research Focus: Dr. Burns’s academic work explores the connections between the magical systems of Dee, Kelley, and Giordano Bruno, as well as the relationship between alchemical literature and Shakespearean theater.
Publications and Lectures: She has published articles in the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition and teaches courses
on Dee’s angelic communications (Enochian), sacred geometry, and the esoteric history of Shakespeare.
English