I have seriously considered Kelley as capable of making a fake. He was ambitious and obviously lacked conscience about deceiving Dee into believing that he, as a scryer, was channeling messages from angels. He made more of an effort to get close to Rudolf II and the various higher-ups than Dee. He went back to Prague to make his fortune in alchemy after the wife-swapping incident and managed to dissociate himself from Dee and the Trebon residence. He was apparently tired of scrying and wasn't making any money at it (or not much, if Dee was paying him). Dee continued the scrying using his son Arthur.
Kelley wanted everything he could get out of life (and also got into altercations with people from time-to-time during his various "deals", both in England and in Prague).
The most important thing that stood out to me when I researched their histories is that Kelley apparently presented Rudolf II with something he had written or acquired or pretended to have written (there are basically no details about it so it's hard to know what it was) that was probably about alchemy. The emperor was not satisfied (he was an intelligent man, an intellectual). Rudolf tossed Kelley in prison (after one of his not-uncommon altercations with the various people in and around Rudolf's court) and told him to create something better.
What Kelley produced during his incarceration (which I have read, so this is my direct opinion of the contents) is basically a synopsis of various writings about alchemy at the time. It's the usual male-female/mercury/distillation themes. There is nothing in it that is of true practical value (no clear instructions on how to turn materials into valuable items like gold) and it bears no particular relationship to the VMS.
But... what was that first manuscript that Rudolf II rejected? I haven't seen it mentioned by VMS researchers, possibly because there's so little information about it or possibly because I don't go hunting around for other people's theories (if someone knows if this "alchemy" book presented from Kelley to Rudolf II has been discussed on the old mailing list or elsewhere, a link would be helpful). I'm not referring to general speculations about the book SOLD to the Emperor possibly by Dee and/or Kelley, but about the one that apparently was passed from Kelley to Rudolf (which was probably after Dee and Kelley parted company) that is said to have been about alchemy.
Could it have been the VMS? Could it have been in Kelley's possession for some time? Could it have been created by him or partly created by him (for example, if the drawings existed, might he have added the text)? We know that Kelley had an occult book when he met Dee, so perhaps he had other books as well, or picked up more along the way in Poland or in the Praque area. he was a literate man and, like Dee's calligraphic hand, had pretty good handwriting.
The text in the VMS does not resemble Enochian, but Kelley was unusually imaginative and might have thought up another system of quickly generating text that looked like cipher text. I wouldn't put it past him.
Unfortunately, due to lack of time, I have not been able to follow up this idea as much as I wanted, and true research into this particular topic would require direct access to some of the historical records in Prague, and a knowledge of the Czech language would very much help. The language of Rudolf's court was German, but many of the records of Kelly and Dee's travels are in Czech and Silesian (which apparently were more similar to each other in the 16th and 17th centuries than they are now).
I don't know if a Kelley fake is the most likely explanation for the VMS, but I think it's a plausible one.
Kelley wanted everything he could get out of life (and also got into altercations with people from time-to-time during his various "deals", both in England and in Prague).
The most important thing that stood out to me when I researched their histories is that Kelley apparently presented Rudolf II with something he had written or acquired or pretended to have written (there are basically no details about it so it's hard to know what it was) that was probably about alchemy. The emperor was not satisfied (he was an intelligent man, an intellectual). Rudolf tossed Kelley in prison (after one of his not-uncommon altercations with the various people in and around Rudolf's court) and told him to create something better.
What Kelley produced during his incarceration (which I have read, so this is my direct opinion of the contents) is basically a synopsis of various writings about alchemy at the time. It's the usual male-female/mercury/distillation themes. There is nothing in it that is of true practical value (no clear instructions on how to turn materials into valuable items like gold) and it bears no particular relationship to the VMS.
But... what was that first manuscript that Rudolf II rejected? I haven't seen it mentioned by VMS researchers, possibly because there's so little information about it or possibly because I don't go hunting around for other people's theories (if someone knows if this "alchemy" book presented from Kelley to Rudolf II has been discussed on the old mailing list or elsewhere, a link would be helpful). I'm not referring to general speculations about the book SOLD to the Emperor possibly by Dee and/or Kelley, but about the one that apparently was passed from Kelley to Rudolf (which was probably after Dee and Kelley parted company) that is said to have been about alchemy.
Could it have been the VMS? Could it have been in Kelley's possession for some time? Could it have been created by him or partly created by him (for example, if the drawings existed, might he have added the text)? We know that Kelley had an occult book when he met Dee, so perhaps he had other books as well, or picked up more along the way in Poland or in the Praque area. he was a literate man and, like Dee's calligraphic hand, had pretty good handwriting.
The text in the VMS does not resemble Enochian, but Kelley was unusually imaginative and might have thought up another system of quickly generating text that looked like cipher text. I wouldn't put it past him.
Unfortunately, due to lack of time, I have not been able to follow up this idea as much as I wanted, and true research into this particular topic would require direct access to some of the historical records in Prague, and a knowledge of the Czech language would very much help. The language of Rudolf's court was German, but many of the records of Kelly and Dee's travels are in Czech and Silesian (which apparently were more similar to each other in the 16th and 17th centuries than they are now).
I don't know if a Kelley fake is the most likely explanation for the VMS, but I think it's a plausible one.