An alchemical cipher in a shared notebook of John and Arthur Dee (Sloane MS 1902) [Work In Progress]

Abstract

Alchemy, while being known for its secrecy, cryptographical and stylistic devices, isn’t known for its ciphers in particular. However, ciphers can sometimes be found in alchemists’ and chymists’ (laboratory) notebooks. This paper discusses a ciphertext and cipher table found in a shared notebook by John and Arthur Dee (Sloane MS 1902). It presents a bibliographical description as well as context for interpretation. However, thus far it has not been possible to solve the cipher.