Dæmonomania

by John Crowley

In an introductory chapter (chronologically taking place mid-way through the novel's plot), Pierce Moffett takes a bus ride from the Blackberry Jambs to New York City, reflecting on his relationship with Rose Ryder. While Pierce left his Catholic faith in adolescence, Rose is ardently pursuing her faith in the Powerhouse Christian sect.

In the Renaissance, John Dee and Edward Kelley again contact the angel, Madimi, who in previous volumes, first commanded their wandering. The treatments he prepared to grant the Emperor fertility have also failed, and the court grown paranoid, hiring spies who may be watching Dee. Dee arranges for the man accused of being a werewolf, Jan, to seek passage to the New World with Dee as he leaves Prague. He leaves Kelley behind, who on telling the Emperor of his supposed Irish nobility, is Knighted. Dee is further shocked when Kelley tells him and the court that all their alchemical practices were all derived from Kelley's own intuition, and not occult means. In an effort to lighten the load of their ship off the Continent, Dee spills the gold on the ground, much of which has somehow decayed and stinks. He finally returns to England (narrowly missing the premiere of Marlowe's Faustus), and remains destitute for some time, until finally finding a wardenship at Manchester College. In the face of growing persecution, he refuses to harm Catholics, and treats those accused of demonic possession with caution, but kindness. He eventually hears word that Kelley has died, and in fear at his own growing reputation as a wizard, retires from public life, gaining money only by selling his books.

On a visit to New York, Beau Brachman is given a tract from a quasi-Gnostic sect, advocating the worship of the exiled "Sophia" as primordial to all religious practice, and the only escape from mankind's "imprisonment." He takes the tract, remembering another copy early in his life, reflecting on how he has followed the broad demands of Ancient Gnosticism to seek spiritual pleasure, but not to procreate. Beau makes contact with a gnostic-like cult in the wilderness beyond the Blackberry Jambs led by an aging patriarch, Plato Goodenough.

In the confusion of the crowd, an Ass tied near the area escapes, and wanders out of the city. The chest Mary Philomel unlocked in the previous volume is revealed to not have opened, but responded with sounds resembling internal clockwork continuing for several years and coming to a stop at the novel's end.