The Alchemist's Door

Scientist mathematician and court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I John Dee is also one of the sixteenth-centurys most renowned alchemists driven by a passion to fathom the elemental secrets of the cosmos. But when his reckless assistant Edward Kelley succeeds in using a crystal sphere to summon angels Dee is catapulted into an awesome struggle that may extinguish the light of reason forever. . One of the spirits invoked is a cunning demon who takes possession of Dees young daughter Katherine and shows Dee a frightening vision of his own future. Terrified by what has been foretold Dee abruptly decides to close his house in London and flee to Europe with his long-suffering wife Jane and their two young children.. Their desperate flight brings them at last to the city of Prague--a center of culture knowledge and learning both sacred and profane a gateway between the Eastern and Western worlds and also it is whispered a door between our world and the world of the spirits. . There in the citys ancient streets Dee encounters the mystic Rabbi Judah Loew who enlists his aid in the creation of a Golem--a man fashioned from the clay--to defend the citys Jewish Quarter from persecution. And he asks Dees help to avert a impending crisis that threatens to engulf the world. For ancient legends say that the fate of the world rests on shoulders of thirty-six righteous men. And if one of those righteous men dies before his time the world will end and dark spirits will remake it in their own image.