The Great War of Magic

The Great War of Magic
Renaissance, Reformation and the Book of the Law
Tahuti standeth in His splendor at the prow,

and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.1
In the Palm Sunday of 1484, the city of Rome witnessed the strangest
happenings, events that, however, did transpire with an enthusiastic familiarity. Dressed
with a bloodstained linen mantle, a crown of thorns and a silver crescent engraved with
Hermetic words, the prophet Giovanni da Correggio, self-proclaimed as the Angel of
Wisdom, entered the Immortal City to sermonize to the people.
This is my servant Pimander, whom I have chosen. This Pimander is my

supreme and waxing child, in whom I am well pleased, to cast out demons,
and proclaim my judgment and truth to the heathen. Do not hinder him,
1
Liber Resh. In Magick Book Four, Aleister Crowley. Weiser (2002). Tahuti is a variation of the name of
the Egyptian god Toth.
but hear and obey him with all fear and veneration; thus speaks the Lord
your God and Father or every talisman of all world, Jesus of Nazareth.2
All the details of the bizarre procession were carefully planned and executed,
according to Biblical and Hermetic symbolism. Giovanni had a reed-staff in his hand
and an inkwell hung from his reins. Hiding a white ass in a clear reference to Jesus
entrance in Jerusalem, and a basket containing a human skull (probably in memory of
John the Baptist), he was heralded by two servants mounted on horses – one carrying a
book, the other a sheathed sword. Leaves of paper were distributed to the people on the
streets, helping them to identify the prophet:
I, Giovanni Mercurio of Corregio, the Angel of Wisdom Pimander, in the

highest and greatest ecstasy of the Spirit of Jesus Christ evangelize loudly
unto all this water of the kingdom for the few.3
Giovanni was following the ancient tradition of the Biblical prophets who
engaged in symbolic actions as a mean to better transmit their messages, as did Oseias
who married a prostitute to symbolize the idolatry in which the Chosen People felt. But,
as a Hermetic magician, his actions were probably not intended as a mere representation
of his message, but as an efficient means to bring the desired changes to happen. When
Aleister Crowley in 1937 reunited five representatives of the different races and cultures
of Humanity, and delivered to each of them one copy of The Book of the Law at the
Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment of London, he was acting after the same
principle4. Both men believed that magic was a way to prophecy, and that prophecy and
magic could be used to change the world.
Giovanni’s choice of Mercury and Pimander as a new prophetic identity was not
accidental or fortuitous, but can be seen as the apotheosis of a process begun two
decades earlier.
The Return of Hermes
In 1463, one anonymous Macedonian monk rediscovered an important

collection of texts, devoted to metaphysics, cosmology, and magic. The writings were
long lost to Europe, and belonged to ancient traditions attributed to a complex and
polemic figure: Hermes Trismegistus. Now, Hermes Trismegistus is a legendary figure,
the heir of a litte bit confuse genealogy which began with the fusion between the
Egyptian god Toth and the Greek god Hermes. He was later humanized as have being a
2
Lodovico Lazzarelli, The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents, Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn.
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2005). These were the words engraved in the
silver crescent.
3
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2005).
4
Perdurabo: the Life of Aleister Crowley, Richard Kaczynski. North Atlantic Books (2010).
prophet who, beside other merits, enjoyed the very special dignity of has received a
glimpse of the future Christian revelation. However, after some time he proved to be
much more than a dubious reference to the origins and the forerunners of Christianity,
as his credentials as a Heathen prophet became important as an apology to whoever
would be interested at other areas of knowledge associated with his figure, and amidst
these areas magic figured proeminently. The traditions and the authority connected to
him were preserved in the Muslim world, and leaked back into Europe through Spain
during the XII and the XIII centuries, preparing the fertile ground in which the
recovered texts of the Corpus Hermeticum would be received in the XV century.
Early Arabic accounts tell of an ancient Egyptian sage named Hermes

Triplicate-in-Wisdom, the founder of the pagan religion before the great
Flood, a lawgiver who ascended to the heavenly spheres of the planets and
returned to teach astrology, a true prophet like Jesus and Muhammad. The
teachings of this wise Hermes circulated in Arabic translation, having been
handed down, as the accounts said, over long ages by the great
philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle and Apollonius of Tyana, or
after being rediscovered inscribed on tablets in subterranean chambers of
Egyptian ruins. The Arabic books of Hermes claim to explain the hidden
workings of the universe, the secrets of creation, and the mysteries of
nature. They offer means to predict the future from astral omens,
instructions for the manufacture of potent talismans, and encrypted
directions for manufacturing the elixir of the alchemists.5
It is not that Hermes Trismegistus was completely forgotten in Europe: the

Hermetic treatise known as Asclepius was preserved in the monastic libraries and the
Church Fathers were kind enough to mention his name several times. But Hermetic
knowledge remained dormant during the first millennium, just to burst into the XV
century when the rescued collection of texts found his way to Renaissance Italy. The
official discourse of the Christian theology, of course, repudiated any tentative of using
the figure of Hermes Trismegistus as a justification for the study and practice of magic,
and there was a dissention on the subject which went back to the beginnings of
Christian literature. Although Lactantius in the III century defended the veracity and
legitimacy of the legend, it was Saint Augustine one century after who determined the
Ecclesiastical line to be followed, condemning the idolatry of Hermes Trismegistus in
De Civitate Dei. That condemnation, however, did not stop the new adepts of the
rediscovered Hermetic wisdom to use Lactantius definitions to justify their interests.
Now let us pass to divine testimonies; but I will previously bring forward
one which resembles a divine testimony, both on account of its very great
antiquity, and because he whom I shall name was taken from men and
placed among the gods. According to Cicero, Caius Cotta the pontiff,
while disputing against the Stoics concerning superstitions, and the variety
of opinions which prevail respecting the gods, in order that he might, after
5
The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science, Kevin van Blade. Oxford University
Press (2009).
the custom of the Academics, make everything uncertain, says that there
were five Mercuries; and having enumerated four in order, says that the
fifth was he by whom Argus was slain, and that on this account he fled
into Egypt, and gave laws and letters to the Egyptians. The Egyptians call
him Thoth; and from him the first month of their year, that is, September,
received its name among them. He also built a town, which is even now
called in Greek Hermopolis (the town of Mercury), and the inhabitants of
Phenae honour him with religious worship. And although he was a man,
yet he was of great antiquity, and most fully imbued with every kind of
learning, so that the knowledge of many subjects and arts acquired for him
the name of Trismegistus. He wrote books, and those in great numbers,
relating to the knowledge of divine things, in which be asserts the majesty
of the supreme and only God, and makes mention of Him by the same
names which we use-God and Father. And that no one might inquire His
name, he said that He was without name, and that on account of His very
unity He does not require the peculiarity of a name. These are his own
words: "God is one, but He who is one only does not need a name; for He
who is self-existent is without a name." God, therefore, has no name,
because He is alone; nor is there any need of a proper name, except in
cases where a multitude of persons requires a distinguishing mark, so that
you may designate each person by his own mark and appellation. But God,
because He is always one, has no peculiar name.6
The recovered collection of hermetic texts was handed to Marsilio Ficino, the
first name in the new lineage of Hermetic magicians that would wage the war of magic
to fight and resist tyranny, superstition and oppression for six centuries, a lineage from
which Aleister Crowley would inherit and to which he would belong wholeheartedly, a
lineage made of magicians and books. Ficino translated the entire Corpus Hermeticum,
a series of eighteen tractates from which the first is called Pimander. Such is the power
of these writings, that in just 21 years a hermetic inspired prophet was taking the names
of Mercurius and Pimander and leaded a magical procession through the streets of the
city which was the very heart of Christendom.
The image of Hermes Trismegistus proved to be a very powerful source of
inspiration, an image whose origins can be found at the core of the human mind where
reason and imagination are born and married. He is god and man, patron of Writing and
Magic, forerunner of Science and, at the same time, he is the religious representative of
a pantheon which until today haunts and perseveres. Magic and Revelation are essential
features of the teachings of this god of double nationality, reinterpreted as Pagan
prophet and revered by Muslim and Christians alike, and even capable of making
himself to be represented in the Renaissance churches when leading the magical and
philosophical revival of the XV century. Inspired by the writings attributed to Hermes,
the magi of Renaissance did not hesitate in associating once again Magic to Revelation,
what in practical terms put the magical experience at the origin of the religions:
6
The Divine Institutes, Book I, Chap. VI, Lactantius. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07011.htm
Magic, and the astrological premises that accompanied it, made
operational a fully evolved nexus of forms which guaranteed the existence
of a sphere in which man´s cosmological position took on a new
dimension. For if the soul vivified the corporeal world through spiritus,
and if a spiritus of celestial origin was diffused throughout nature, then not
only was the soul´s process of ascent and descent clarified, but the highest
part of the soul was clearly not attached to the corporeal realm. Proof of
this was man´s ability, under certain conditions, to attain supracosmic
levels, to command the elements and to prophesy.7
Magic and Prophecy
The association between Magic and Prophecy was already present in Antiquity
and was preserved by the Classical authors Cornelius Agrippa consulted. In his Three
Books of Occult Philosophy, for instance, he clearly mentioned this connection between
the magical practices and prophecy:
Now the second phrensy proceeds from Dionysus: this doth by expiations
exterior, and interior, and by conjurations, by mysteries, by solemnities,
rites, temples, and observations divert the soul into the mind, the supreme
part of itself, the supreme part of itself, and makes it a fit and pure temple
of the gods, in which the divine spirits may dwell, which the soul then
possessing as the associate of life, is filled by them with felicity, wisdom,
and oracles, not in signs, and marks, or conjectures, but in a certain
concitation of the mind, and free motion: so Bacchus did soothsay to the
Boeotians, and Epimenides to the people of Cous, and the Sybil Erithea to
the Trojans. Sometimes this phrensy happens through a clear vision,
sometimes by an express voice: so Socrates was governed by his demon,
whose counsel he did diligently obey, whose voice he did often hear of his
ears, to whom also the shape of a demon did often appear. Many
prophesying spirits also were wont to show themselves, and be associates
with the souls of them that were purified; examples of which therein are
many in sacred writ, as in Abraham, and his bondmaid Hagar, in Jacob,
Gideon, Elias, Tobias, Daniel, and many more.8
Some of the main processes of Ceremonial Magical are mentioned in this

passage from Agrippa: expiations, conjurations, mysteries, solemnities, rites, temples,
observations… All this leading to the “diversion of the soul into the supreme part of the
7
The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Smith and Quentin Skinner.
Cambridge University Press (1992).
8
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XLVII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated
by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).
mind” and preparing the magus to become “a fit and pure temple of the gods in which
the divine spirits can dwell.” The benefits of the process are great: the soul is filled with
felicity and attain prophecy (wisdom and oracles). The list of characters who shared this
blessed state is impressive and includes two key persons: Socrates and Abraham. If the
foundations of our culture are to be found in the Greek philosophy and in the Jewish
religion, we can say then that the daemonic knowledge received through prophecy (by
Socrates and Abraham) is ever present in the Western civilization.
Today, having access to the surviving texts from the Greek-Roman magic, we
can verify that the association between magic and prophecy was already well
established at the beginning of Christianity, the bastard child of Greek and Jewish
cultures. It was used to reinterpret key religious figures as, for instance, the Moses of
the Jew, who was largely believed to have being a magus. His successor Jesus,
considered today by many researchers to have been a magician and itinerant miracle-
worker who was deified after death by his followers9, is an excellent example of how
magic can be the origin of a new religious foundation, what should not surprise us so
much, if we pay attention to the common Shamanic sources of both religion and magic.
Shamanism is at the same time the original religion and a complete magical practice,
where we already find described all the varieties of religious experiences repeated so
many times in the Gospels as in the Grimoires.
What magic and religion initially share, through revelation, is the premise of a
contact with one spiritual being, from whom the magus would derive a new knowledge.
Although to religion this contact usually belongs only to the founder and remains
registered since its origins and are inalterable, to the magician the prophetic experience
can become part of his daily reality:
By the efficacy of religion the presence of spirits doth dispose the effect,
neither can any work of wonderful efficacy in religion be done, unless
some good spirit the ruler and the finisher of the work be there present.
[…] Also the divining of suitable things works so with man´s mind, that
good spirits do assist us willingly, and communicate their power and virtue
to us, daily helping us with illuminations, inspirations, oracles,
prophesying, dreams, miracles, prodigies, divinations, and auguries, and
working upon and acting upon our spirits, as images like to them, by
framing them by their influences, and making them most like to
themselves even so far, as that oftentimes our spirit doth as surely work
wonderful things as the celestial spirits are wont to do.10
We can see the perfect demonstration of the confrontation between the prophetic
magus of the Renaissance and the established doctrine in the audience John Dee had
with the Polish king Stefan Batory. Dee was moved by his prophetic zeal, after the
9
Jesus The Magician, Morton Smith. Barnes & Noble (1993).
10
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XXXII.), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated
angelic communications he received during his magical ceremonies, to appear before
the king with his spiritual messages. The king, however, started the meeting with a
statement that the prophetic revelations came to an end after the coming of Jesus Christ,
and that the audience could only proceed in accordance to the well-established doctrines
of the Church11.
The association between magic and religion, through prophecy and revelation,
attacked a fundamental theological premise of Medieval Christianity, by which the
initiative of revelation rested exclusively in the hands of God. During a long period the
theological censure covered much of the knowledge about prophecy which, far from
being a happening typical of Judaism and its derivative religions, was a characteristic
phenomenon of many of the Mediterranean cultures. The universal character of
prophecy is testified by the Bible itself, as in the Book of Kings there is mention to the
prophets of the Canaanite god Baal. Prophecy was associated to the ecstatic states
during which visions and messages were received. In fact, the survival of ecstatic
prophets in Israel until the exile to Babylon which was associated, on one side, with the
official cults and its temples, and on the other, with the nomadic groups in extinction,
has its roots in the most primitive religious forms associated to the Shamanism. The
existence of professional prophets exercising their craft inside the norms of the cult and
at the temples of Yahweh is mentioned several times in the Old Testament and always
connected to techniques to ecstasy induction, like the use of incenses, chanting, musical
instruments and dance. Of course, these techniques have their origins in the prehistory
and were discontinued inside Judaism due to the military catastrophes suffered by the
kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The destruction of both kingdoms and the exile to
Babylon favored the codification of the texts and the valorization of the literary
prophets, whose experiences of revelation were not associated (at least in the surviving
texts) with the techniques of ecstasy induction, what was in accordance with a more
radical monotheistic view developed during the exile.
However, the theological censorship was not able to completely erase the
existent registers about the universality of prophecy and the techniques to induce
prophetic ecstasy, and it is again in Agrippa’s masterpiece that we find them
abundantly, frequently mentioned together with elements of ceremonial magic, which
for Agrippa became the universal discipline which gathers inside its corpus all the
specific techniques. I will make a point here of quoting these passages abundantly,
because Agrippa´s book was the fundamental source and influence for the next
generation of magicians of the Renaissance, the ones who would play a far more active
role in the war of magic. In the following excerpts, we find the apologies for magic, its
connection to prophesy, and several mentions about manifold means and techniques to
achieve prophecy through magic, inherited from the ancients:
I do not doubt but the Title of our book of Occult Philosophy, or of Magic,
may by the rarity of it allure many to read it, amongst which, some of a
crazy judgment, and some that are perverse will come to hear what I can
11
say, who, by their rash ignorance may take the name of magic in the worse
sense, and though scarce having seen the title, cry out that I teach
forbidden arts, sow the seed of heresies, offend pious ears, and scandalize
excellent wits; that I am a sorcerer, and superstitious and devilish, who
indeed am a magician. To whom I answer, that a magician doth not
amongst learned men signify a sorcerer, or one that is superstitious or
devilish; but a wise man, a priest, a prophet; and that the sibyls were
magicianesses, and therefore prophesied most clearly of Christ; and that
magicians, as wise men, by the wonderful secrets of the world, knew
Christ the author of the world to be born, and came first of all to worship
him; and that the name of magic was received by philosophers,
commended by divines, and not unacceptable to the Gospel.12
Also it is well known that Pythagoras, and Plato went to the prophets of
Memphis to learn it, and travelled through almost all Syria, Egypt, Judea,
and the schools of the Caldeans, that they might not be ignorant of the
most sacred memorials, and records of magic, as also that they might be
furnished with divine things.13
So also peony, sallendine, balm, ginger, gentian, dittany, and vervain,

which is of use in prophesying, and expiations, as also driving away evil
spirits.14
So we read that the ancients were wont often to receive some divine, and
wonderful thing by certain natural things: so the stone that is bred in the
apple of the eye of a civet cat, held under the tongue of a man, is said to
make him to divine, or prophesy.15
Also there is a herb called rheangelida, which magicians drinking of, can
prophesy.16
Wherefore suffumigations are wont to be used by them that are about to

soothsay, for to affect their fancy, which indeed being appropriated to any
certain deities, do fit us to receive divine inspiration: so they say that
fumes made with linseed, and fleabane seed, and roots of violets, and
12
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Preface to the Reader), Agrippa of Nettesheim.
Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).
13
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter II), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by
James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).
14
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XXIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by
15
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XXXVIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated
16
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XXXVIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated
parsley, doth make one to foresee things to come, and doth conduce to
prophesying.17
I being bound to you by the band of these your great virtues am so far a
debtor as to communicate without envy by the true account of all opinions,
those mysteries of divine and ceremonial magic which I have truly learned,
and not to hide the knowledge of those things, whatsoever concerning
these matters the those old priests of the Egyptians, and Chaldeans, the
ancient prophets of the Babylonians, the Cabalists, the divine magicians of
the Hebrews, also the Orpheans, Pythagoreans and Platonists the
profoundest Philosophers of Greece, further what the Bragmanni of the
Indians, the Gymnosophists of Ethiopia, and the uncorrupted theologians
of our religion have delivered, and by what force of words, power of seals,
by what charms of benedictions and imprecations, and by what virtue of
observations they in old times wrought so stupendous and wonderful
prodigies, intimating to you in this third book of Occult Philosophy and
exposing to the light those things which have been buried in the dust of
antiquity and involved in the obscurity of oblivion,
18
as in Cymmerian darkness even to this day.
Also the divining of suitable things works so with man’s mind, that good
spirits do assist us willingly, and communicate their power and virtue to
us, daily helping us with illuminations, inspirations, oracles, prophesyings,
dreams, miracles, prodigies, divinations, and auguries, and working upon
and acting upon our spirits, as images like to them, by framing them by
their influences, and making them most like to themselves even so far, as
that oftentimes our spirit doth as surely work wonderful things as the
celestial spirits are wont to do.19
So we read in the books of the Senates in the chapter

of Eleazar, that Rabbi Israel made certain cakes, writ upon with certain
divine and angelical names, and so consecrated, which they that did eat
with faith, hope, and charity, did presently break forth with a spirit of
prophecy.20
The ideas listed in the work of Agrippa would exert a very powerful influence
and receive a revolutionary practical treatment by the Renaissance magi who would
come after him, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella and John Dee – all of them
readers of Agrippa. Even Paracelsus, who rejected the theories of Agrippa, in close
17
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XLIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by
18
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Dedication to Hermannus of Wyda), Agrippa of
Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).
19
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XXXII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated
20
The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XLVIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated
analyses seem to debt a lot to him. We can say that beginning with the work of Marsilio
Ficino and achieving its apex with the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Renaissance
magic defined itself in its aims and methods, but these aims and methods were until
then viewed as an initiatory path of relevance only for the individual magician. After
this initial period, the magi would not be concerned only in justifying their path against
the condemnations of the Church, but they would escalate the war of magic by using
their knowledge in search for a power capable of changing the world.
The Magi of the Renaissance
Giordano Bruno had travelled through Europe divulging the bases of a new
religious movement, based on “Egyptian” ideas derived from the Hermetism. This
movement depended on the access, that only a magus could achieve, to the intermediary
sphere between the natural-human world and the divine one, which allegorical-symbolic
nature demanded an exegesis available but to a few. The prophet, according to Bruno
though, would reach the intermediary sphere through a transcendent use of the Art of
Memory, of which Bruno considered himself to be a master. The result should be the
reception of a revelation that would permit to reverse the crisis and decadence of
Europe, which Bruno believed to have its origins in the degeneration of the original
Hermetic religion that happened inside Christianity:
The political and religious crisis troubling Europe is thus no casual event,
according to Bruno, but has deep theological roots and was born from none other
than the reversal of values produced by Christianity, which put civil virtues in
second place and exalted as supreme values humility, ignorance, and the passive
obedience to the divine law. According to Bruno’s interpretation, the seeds of
decay introduced by Christian preaching culminated in Luther’s Reformation,
which represents the “evil angel” foreseen in the ancient Hermetic prophecy. 21
The result of the prophetic contact achieved by the magus would be the
determination of a legislation which, instead of aiming at the greater glory of the divine,
instead had its goal in the increase of the well-being and of the civic splendor of man.22
In the writings of Bruno, Hermes Trismegistus reappears as the representative of a
magical revelation with clearly reformist aims:
And the dialogue in the De umbris idearum makes it quite clear that the instructor
of Philothimus—and therefore of Filoteo or Teofilo, of the Nolan, of Giordano
Bruno - is Hermes Trismegistus. It is Hermes who hands the book with the new
philosophy and the new art in it to Philothimus; and this is the book on the
Shadows of Ideas by Giordano Bruno, which is, in fact, written by Hermes - that
21
Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).
22
is to say it is a book about magic, about a very strong solar magic. The allusion to
the Lament in the Asclepius, describing how the magical religion of the Egyptians
came in late, bad times, to be forbidden by legal statutes, relates this new
Hermetic revelation vouchsafed to Giordano Bruno to the Egyptian religion, the
religion of the intellect, or of the mind, reached beyond the worship of the visible
sun. Those who forbade that religion by law, were, in the Augustinian
interpretation of the Lament, the Christians, whose purer religion superseded that
of the Egyptians. But, according to Bruno, the false Christian "Mercuries" have
suppressed the better Egyptian religion - an anti-Christian interpretation of
Hermetism of which much more evidence will be adduced from Bruno's works
later on.23
It is important to note the strong similarities between the program of Aleister

Crowley, developed three hundred years later, and Bruno’s. Both were magi bearers of a
revelation, obtained through magical practices, of a Hermetic-solar character and
destined to reform and regenerate the society of men.
The great problem the view by which prophecy is the result of the most elevated
form of magic presented to the official representatives of the European religion, both
Catholic and Protestant, was exactly the fact that it put the initiative of obtaining a
revelation in the hands of the magi. That carried three great threats:
a. It attacked the official theological premises, to which prophecy and

revelation depended exclusively on the divine initiative.
b. It made impossible to the ecclesiastical authority to censor a message
supposedly of divine origin.
c. The prophetic messages of some of the great magi of the Renaissance, like
Paracelsus, Bruno, Campanella and Dee, had a clearly heterodox and
reformist character.
I pretend to quote large excerpts from the excellent work by Robin Bruce
24
Barnes about the apocalyptic influences of the Reformation, because they are directly
related to the magical efforts we are analyzing here; so I begin with an excerpt that goes
right to heart of the matter:
Not all Magic rested on explicit neo-Platonic foundations, but virtually all
was associated with some form of mysticism. In other words, magic
assumed that knowledge could be gained by direct insight into divine
reality. Hence the focus of freedom and transforming power tended to shift
away from God to the human mind. This shift of focus above all made
23
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1964).
24
Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes.
Stanford University Press (1988).
magical practitioners like Paracelsus, as well as contemplatives like
Valentin Weigel and Jacob Boehme, heretical in the eyes of the orthodoxy.
But we should neither overestimate how far sixteenth-century magic
rejected Christian doctrines, nor underestimate how far genuine Lutheran
piety could bend in the direction of mystical speculation.25
The Protestant inclination toward mystical speculation and prophecy, according

to Barnes’ supposition, can partially explain the happy sojourn Giordano Bruno enjoyed
in the cities of Wittenberg and Helmstedt between 1588 and 1590. Before anything else,
Bruno’s longings for a Hermetic reform of religion certainly were to some degree in
agreement with the reformist yearnings initially manifested by Luther. The longing for
changes was one of the leitmotivs of the period, and it resurfaces again in the XX
century in the radical reform proposed by Aleister Crowley, which does not only
reiterated the ideals of the Renaissance magic, but owe much to the Lutheran ideas,
ideas like the universality of the priesthood between all Christians and the need of a
direct contact both to the Bible as to God. We see the repetition of these ideas, for
instance, when Crowley insists that “all questions of the Law are to be decided only by
appeal to my writings, each for himself.”26 In the midst of the great dispute of ideas and
principles which reigned in Europe between the theologians, a dispute which was taken
to the streets and which moved armies, the appeal both to a wisdom validated by time as
to a direct access to the divine source of that wisdom fulgurated as a transcendent
solution, and who but the magus could revendicate the access to both?
Like most of the German universities at this time, Wittenberg subscribed

quite fully to the revival of antiquity. Belief in the superiority of ancient
wisdom was well-nigh universal. In one sense, the Renaissance notion of
an ancient wisdom was at odds with the confessional understanding of
truth held by devoted Lutherans. The ancient wisdom was so highly valued
by Renaissance seekers partly because it was obscure, and it was obscure
because it seemed a core of divine knowledge that lay behind and united
all religious and philosophical doctrines. The underlying implication that
all creeds should be tolerated could not have been more foreign to
Lutheran confessionalism. Yet the notion of ancient wisdom could also be
interpreted in a properly Lutheran sense. All that was necessary was to
insist that a certain doctrinal insight was not merely another outer
wrapping of the deeper truth, but an essential, or even the essential, piece
of that truth. Precisely this view allowed partisans of Luther´s Reformation
to be, at the same time, avid pursuers of ancient or hidden knowledge.27
25
26
The Book of the Law, Aleister Crowley. Red Wheel (2011).
27
In the search for further learning at the fount of ancient wisdom, the
Renaissance magus, who claimed to be reviving and carrying on this very
tradition, could become a highly admired figure. Among those Lutherans
for whom the search for prophetic insight was central, a magus like Bruno
could represent the hope of prophetic clarity despite the profound
unorthodoxy of his thought.28
We can see in these excerpts the subterranean fight of the Hermetic wisdom and
magic, in its tentative of creating an ambience of tolerance and respect where they could
manifest in plenitude. It was, and it still is, a conflict that happens principally inside the
human minds, a confrontation between the magical creativity inherent to every human
being and the superstitious impositions forced by tyranny through ideological oppression.
The magi are essentially adherents of a free society where individuality is respected
because it is only in this kind of society where they can prosper in their longings, and so
they amongst the ones who feel more acutely the oppression. The appeal to the figure of
Hermes Trismegistus, and its defense, made part of an intellectual strategy which aimed to
make magic socially acceptable and, because of that, the Renaissance magi elaborated
apologies based upon a division of their theoretical field: definitions of a natural and a
spiritual magic were defended in opposition to the forms considered more dangerous or
religiously unacceptable.
The transition from the medieval period to the Renaissance in Christian

Europe was accompanied by a reevaluation of the status of Magic in some
intellectual circles. The appearance of ancient bodies of literature,
Neoplatonic and Hermetic, in Latin and Italian translations, together with
the rendering of significant corpus of Kabbalistic literature into Latin and
Italian, precipitated the emergence of a new attitude toward magic, first in
the circles of the Florentine literati, and afterward, under their influence, in
a long series of European Renaissance and post-Renaissance figures all
over Europe. This positive reevaluation of magic was not a simple change
from medieval times. Renaissance figures remained reticent, if not
manifestly negative, to the popular medieval types of magic. For them,
magic was the lore taught by ancient masters like Hermes Trismegistus or
Jamblicus, which did not envisage a pragmatic way to solve material
problems by appeal to supernal or infernal powers. Rather, it was lore
based on a vast knowledge of the universal order, a knowledge that
culminated in actualizing the potentiality inherent in human nature.
Instead of being the practice of obscure and peripheral persons, the
Renaissance magician came to designate the apex of human achievement,
to be cultivated by the elite in order to exercise the human qualities that
28
testify to the fullness of human perfection. It was not so much the
subjugation of the material world to which the learned magicians of the
Renaissance aspired, as to the fulfillment of their spirit.29
The Way of the Magus
The magus is someone who foresees the possibilities of illumination and

transcendence, it is as if a glimpse or pre-enjoyment of the magical possibilities were
intuited by him or her, and he (or she) perceive in the symbols and ceremonies of magic
the keys to that experience. I know it, because it is what happened to me. I always had
in my younger years the feeling that, somewhere, certain knowledge and certain
techniques should exist. And they did. I found them in the Trumps of the Tarot, in the
Tree of Life and in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, and when I found them I was
sure that they were what I was expecting for. Now, readers used to that kind of
stereotype must be quickly waiting for me to insinuate some past life, and will be
maybe disappointed to know that I do not give too much credit to this kind of
explanation. And I do not even think it is necessary, the explanation can be much
simpler: I have a brain. What do I mean with this? Independently of any objective
reality which takes (or not) part in the magical phenomenon, the magical phenomenon
must be necessarily processed in our brains – or else we would not even be able to
remember it. That means that “to foresee the possibilities of illumination and
transcendence as an intuited glimpse or pre-enjoyment” is simply to feel that certain
areas of our brain where these experiences can happen exist and can be stimulated, and
when we come in touch with magical symbols and we imagine ourselves enacting
ceremonies, these areas of our brains begin to be affected, and we have the sensation of
recognition. That does not look so extraordinary if we remember the presentiment and
the pre-enjoyment we felt in our teen years about love and sex – we could feel and thrill
foreseeing the future actual enjoyment of these experiences.
So, returning to our magical war, we have the Renaissance magus striving to
achieve his metaphysical goals, but at the same time he lacks the security and the peace
of mind that exists only in a free and stable society. If he wants to persist, and if he
wants that others after him carry on the knowledge - and the Hermetic magician, being a
learned man values the preservation of the books he so eagerly looked for as much as
the transmission of the knowledge they contain – he must act in the world he lives, and
the action of the magi at that time fell on one of the following lines:
 To make apology for Magic as useful Natural Magic, or as Ceremonial

Magic devoted exclusively to pious contacts and results.
 To use Magic as a prophetic tool to have influence in the present
situation.
29
Jewish Magic from the Renaissance Period to the Early Hasidism, Moshe Idel. In Religion, Science,
and Magic, in Concert and in Conflict, edited by Jacob Neusner. Oxford University Press (1989).
 To use Magic to bring the transformations he desires to see in the world.
In the first line, we have magi like Ficino and Agrippa. Ficino endeavored to
remain in good terms with the Church, and being under the protection of the Medici
certainly helped him to achieve this. Ficino practiced a benign kind of astrological
magic aimed at therapeutic results, but his translations and writings, both on philosophy
as in magic, became the foundation of everything that came after. His famous apology
for magic circulated through all Europe, and set the tone for all similar endeavors.
After this, you too rise, O mighty Guicciardini, and reply to intellectual
busy-bodies that Marsilio is not approving magic and images but
recounting them in the course of an interpretation of Plotinus. And my
writings make this quite clear, if they are read impartially. Nor do I affirm
here a single word about profane magic which depends upon the worship
of daemons, but I mention natural magic, which, by natural things, seeks to
obtain the services of the celestials for the prosperous health of our bodies.
This power, it seems, must be granted to minds which use it legitimately,
as medicine and agriculture are justly granted, and all the more so as that
activity which joins heavenly things to earthly is more perfect. From this
workshop, the Magi, the first of all, adored the new-born Christ. Why then
are you so dreadfully afraid of the name of Magus, a name pleasing to the
Gospel, which signifies not an enchanter and a sorcerer, but a wise priest?
For what does that Magus, the first adorer of Christ, profess? If you wish
to hear: on the analogy of a farmer, he is a cultivator of the world. Nor
does he on that account worship the world, just as a farmer does not
worship the earth; but just as a farmer for the sake of human sustenance
tempers his field to the air, so that wise man, that priest, for the sake of
human welfare tempers the lower parts of the world to the upper parts; and
just like hen's eggs, so he fittingly subjects earthly things to heaven that
they may be fostered. God himself always brings this about and by doing,
teaches and urges us to do it in order that the lowest things may be
produced, moved, and ruled by the higher. Lastly, there are two kinds of
magic. The first is practiced by those who unite themselves to daemons by
a specific religious rite, and, relying on their help, often contrive portents.
This, however, was thoroughly rejected when the Prince of this World was
cast out. But the other kind of magic is practiced by those who seasonably
subject natural materials to natural causes to be formed in a wondrous
way. Of this profession there are also two types: the first is inquisitive, the
second, necessary. The former does indeed feign useless portents for
ostentation: as when the Magi of Persia produced a bird similar to a
blackbird with a serpent's tail out of sage which had putrefied under
manure, while the Sun and Moon occupied the same degree in the second
face of Leo; they reduced the bird to ashes and poured it into a lamp,
whereupon the house seemed as a result to be full of serpents. This type,
however, must be avoided as vain and harmful to health. Nevertheless the
necessary type which joins medicine with astrology must be kept. If
anyone obstinately insists further, however, gratify him, Guicciardini, to
the extent that the man (if one wholly undeserving of such a benefit is a
man) may never read these things of ours, nor understand, remember, or
make use of them. There are many points besides which your own genius
will be able to bring forward to oppose ungrateful ignorance.30
The strategy of trying to whitewash magic did not started in the Renaissance,
however. As we can see from an excerpt from Saint Augustine, the practice goes back at
least to the IV century. As Augustine works were widely known in the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance, the magi were conscious about how easily their argument could be
contradicted.
These miracles, and many others of the same nature, which it were tedious
to mention, were wrought for the purpose of commending the worship of
the one true God, and prohibiting the worship of a multitude of false
gods. Moreover, they were wrought by simple faith and godly
confidence, not by the incantations and charms composed under the
influence of a criminal tampering with the unseen world, of an art which
they call either magic, or by the more abominable title goetia, or the more
honorable designation theurgy; for they wish to discriminate between those
whom the people call magicians, who practise goetia, and are addicted to
illicit arts and condemned, and those others who seem to them to be worthy
of praise for their practice of theurgy, - the truth, however, being that both
classes are the slaves of the deceitful rites of the demons whom they invoke
under the names of angels.31
Agrippa displayed a contradictory allegiance to magic, denying being a

practitioner of the art and denouncing magic as a folly of his younger years when he
finally published the definitive version of his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, but the
fact is that he went to great lengths to publish it, and through all his life cultivated a net
of adherents all over Europe. That was another effective tactic in the war of magic, as it
allowed books and people to circulate in more safe conditions.
He [Agrippa] studied in Cologne from 1499 to 1502, when he received the

degree of magister artium, and later in Paris. During his studies in the latter
city, Agrippa seems to have taken part in a secret circle or self-help society,
the members of which were interested in studying res arcanae, and with
whom he tried to remain in contact in later years.32
The apologetic approaches are well summarized in another two passages of

Robin Bruce Barns excellent book:
30
Three Books on Life, Marsilio Ficino. A Critical Edition and Translation with Introduction and Notes
by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies (1998).
31
The City of God, Saint Augustine. Edited by Philip Schaff (1819-1893). Christian Classics Ethereal
Library.
32
On the other hand, the magical seeker knew that he could never simply
take flight from the repugnant world of appearances. His role was
primarily to alter the sensibilities through the communication of superior
understanding. He was, indeed, a kind of preacher of prophetic truth.33
The common denominator of the apocalyptic and magical world-views

was the assumption of underlying universal purpose. For the magical
outlook as well as for apocalyptic faith, this purpose was God´s. As in the
study of history and astrology, the ultimate justification for inquiry into
nature was that it helped to show this purpose, and therefore to glorify the
works of God. For this reason the magician was generally at great pains to
show that he was concerned with spiritual, not demonic magic. The
distinction was extremely important, because it confirmed that the
magician was on the side of faith.34
In the second and third lines of action, we have as the best example John Dee
and his apocalyptic conversations with the Enochian angels, a long enterprise of five
years full of revelations and prophecies, which Dee dared to deliver to the Holy Roman
Emperor himself. Dee´s ceremonies represent the apex of the Renaissance Magic and
were also supposed to be the the mean for a dramatic change in the world to happen,
and its results survived in a strange way to usher a new chapter in the war of magic,
three centuries later.
Of course, magic could be used in a smaller scale to affect kings and princes, or
to raise storms to sink armadas (as Dee is believed to have done). But the best of the
magi were concerned to use it in a larger scale, to change the entire world, as the truth
behind the legends about the Rabbi Joseph della Reina may indicate. Again, magic and
revelation seemed to walk hand in hand:
Rabbi Joseph della Reina and the anonymous author of the voluminous
Sepher ha-Meshi [Book of the Responding Entity], were committing to
writing a long array of magical practices, some of them being put into
practice by the same authors. I want to emphasize the fact that these
magical practices were performed by at least one of these authors, and it is
reasonable to assume that this also was the case for Rabbi Joseph della
Reina, who presented them as divine, and sometimes angelic, revelations,
and therefore as a manifestly positive form of activity. Indeed these
magical practices include rites to compel the divine and the angelic world
to answer the request of the Kabbalists regarding theoretical and practical
33
34
issues. There are several incantations intended to summon the leaders of
the demonic world to descend and reveal secrets concerning practical
issues, such as the secret of the preparation of gold and silver.35
According to the legend, the Rabbi Joseph della Reina tried to put his magical
knowledge to practical use attempting what nowadays goes by the expression
“immanentize the eschaton”.
According to the earliest version of a legend, in the 1470s the notorious

Rabbi Joseph della Reina performed his famous messianic and magical
attempt to invoke the leaders of the demonic world in order to overcome
them and allow thereby the advent of the messianic era. I should like to
describe briefly this legendary event, a highly influential one, which
served, as I shall try to demonstrate in the following discussion, as a
blueprint for a series of similar attempts of a messianic-magical nature.36
Della Reina together with his ten disciples tried to invoke and constrain the
demons Samael and Ammon of No, the chiefs of the forces of the Sitra Ahara, the
demonic side of Creation. They failed. But they set the example for similar practices to
be done in the future.
Now, it seems to me that the use of magic to achieve broader aims, like the
coming of the Messiah or the ushering of a New Age, is a new step on the History of
Magic, and it came to happen on the very specific cultural environment of the
Reformation. Giordano Bruno was moved by the ideal of a magical reform of religion,
and Dee was committed to the angels’ agenda for the coming New Age. Crowley, in the
sequence, not just inherits the ideals and goals of the Renaissance magi; he definitively
embarks in a reformist program guided by the New Aeon ideals.
Insofar as the magician was attempting to understand and control the

forces of the natural world, he clearly sought a kind of power. This feature
of his enterprise is easily misunderstood by the modern observer. The
larger magical striving was essentially contemplative and speculative; the
power it envisioned came from deep faith and the gift of insight, and
carried with it a profound spiritual responsibility. In Lutheran Germany,
where eschatological hope emphasized faith, intuitive insight, and careful
observation, magic tended to have particularly strong spiritual overtones. It
also took on the tension and the future-directed hope characteristic of
Lutheranism. The power to which it looked was above all the power for an
inner transformation that would be reflected in the phenomenal world. The
intuitive approach to knowledge that supported the Lutheran interpretation
35
36
of prophecy was thus twisted to encourage more radical strivings after
prophetic truth.37
Propaganda proved with time to be the best weapon for the magi –as the
efficiency of real magical tactics has very elusive means of confirmation until today.
That is why the figure of Hermes Trismegistus was so important. But Hermes was not
the only icon the magi could use. In the excerpt of Ficino quoted above, and also in one
of the quotes from Agrippa, we see the Three Magi mentioned in the Bible being
appropriated for the cause. The Three Magi represented in a way an even better
marketing image, as it came from the Bible itself and should, in a way or other, be
accounted for in some positive view. Paracelsus, for instance, another great magus with
prophetic ambitions, used the Three Magi abundantly in his writings.
Paracelsus followed Albertus Magnus in identifying the three kings or magi

from the Orient, who had found the Christ child with the aid of the stars, as
ideal references for the vindication of magic. Paracelsus repeatedly
commented on this passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew. The model of
the three kings gave him the opportunity to define a magus as someone who
interprets the prophets and performs miracles in front of the people, and
foretells events by the help of spirits or the stars. Only a prophet (in later
years Paracelsus would prefer to speak of a “divine magician”) can
accomplish more: he speaks and acts by direct divine assistance and
inspiration, as seen in the case of Moses, who opposed the Egyptian
sorcerers. Paracelsus thought that the three magi were also proficient in
medicine, commenting that their gifts were of direct medicinal use.
Frankincense helped to protect mother and child from “flying ghosts”, and
myrrh, by way of the mother’s milk, freed the baby from threatening worms.
This kind of interrelation of medicine, philosophy, astronomy and magic
was quite commonplace in the Middle Ages, as can be seen in Peter of
Abano. In his later years, Paracelsus interpreted magic as the art of drawing
down the powers of the stars, which he considered proxies of celestial ideas,
and to make them work for man. Unsurprisingly, he used the term
“astronomy” as a synonym for, or even saw it as superior to magic.38
Paracelsus did not regard characters as the spells of medieval magic. In his
view, magical words and phrases embodied the very language of angels and
spirits, who in turn had received their powers from God. This subjection to
heavenly forces signified a strong vindication of magic to Paracelsus. The
magician was allowed to perform his art as long as he was strictly adhering
to the good. Consequently, characters were the only way to retrieve the
heavenly powers. Like the physician administering herbs to heal a patient,
the magician attained his goal with the aid of characters. Regarding theories
of magic, this represents an important shift from the medieval idea of a
demoniac influence to that of an impersonal and quasi-natural agent, and
37
38
thus can be considered as an attempt to establish natural magic on a
scientific basis.39
Paracelsus fall in the first cathegory (apology for magic as useful natural magic
or as ceremonial magic devoted exclusively to pious contacts and results) when it
comes to his apologies for magic, but he also included himself in the list of the magi
who sought after revealed knowledge:
At the end of his life, Paracelsus attempted to summarize his teachings and
describe its key points as clearly as possible. Thus in his Labyrinthus
medicorum errantium (Labyrinth of Erring Physicians, 1537/38) he once
again set forth the foundations of his medicine. As in the earlier
Paragranum, he emphasized the importance of understanding nature, the
firmament and alchemy, but this time he also philosophized about the
process of attaining knowledge. He spoke about experience, science, and
the role of magic. The medical art should not be grounded in mere
speculation, but in a certain revelation; then it would be a “magica
inventrix” that revealed to the physician all he needed to know. Thus
Paracelsus advocated a scientific method that included intuition as a
legitimate way of attaining knowledge.40
Even more, Paracelsus believed his status as magus put him in a special place
concerning the end of times and the prophecies of the New Age:
On account of the relevance of the fig tree passage, Paracelsus located for
himself a modest but distinctive part in the apocalyptic drama. First, his
new system of medicine was purpose-made for the massive challenges that
would arise amid the ruins of the apocalyptic age. Through his efforts, first
aid would be available to believers awaiting the return of the Messiah.
Secondly, as astronomer and magus, he was among the small elite of
experts in a position to monitor and interpret the portentous signs and
messages from angelic beings that God provided in such special situations.
The interpretation of these signs, about which Christ himself had spoken,
was intended to bring relief to believers, because they conveyed assurance
that the damned were about to receive their just reckoning. The only
persons who would be privileged to understand these portents, or `celestial
meteorology´, were drawn from the thin ranks of the redeemed and, among
this group, were those only with special knowledge granted by God. 41
Aleister Crowley would also find a place for him in the apocalyptic drama,
although much less modest that Paracelsus, as he identified himself with the very Beast
of the Book of Revelations. Paracelsus, as part of his prophetic and preaching endeavors,
39
40
41
Paracelsus, Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time, Charles Webster. Yale University Press
(2008).
introduced to the cause another wonderful iconic figure, which enjoyed great acceptance
amongst his followers: Elias Artista.
In Judaism, Elijah precedes the Messiah; by analogy John the Baptist

became associated with Elijah in the Christian tradition. The figure of
Elijah or Elias thus carried clear messianic overtones, and Paracelsus
embroidered on his reputation, describing ‘Elias Artista’ as the harbinger
of an imminent ‘golden world’, ushering in a social utopia. […] Some
expected the arrival of a person; others regarded Elias Artista as the
symbol of a golden age in which science would reach its summit.42
Paracelsus exerted a very strong influence after his death, partially confirming
his belief in the importance of his own mission. Not only in Medicine, but also in
Theology his writings attracted many devoted followers. And his name was greatly
honored being the only thinker explicitly cited in the most efficacious piece of
propaganda ever created in the war of magic, the Rosicrucian Manifestos.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Fama Fraternitatis mentions the name
of Paracelsus with respect and admiration, nor that it depicts works relating
to this author as being present in the vault where the body of Christian
Rosenkreuz rests. The founder of the Rosicrucians, as explained in the
Fama, is supposed to have died in 1484, and his mausoleum not discovered
until 1604, whereas Paracelsus was born in 1493 and died in 1541. The
implausible chronology only goes to underline paradoxically the
relationship of ideas between the Rosicrucians and Paracelsus. The latter’s
ideas about the Astrum, the world-soul which manifests through the
macrocosm; on the Liber Mundi (Book of the World) whose hieroglyphs are
there to be deciphered; on the invisible half of the cosmos whose secrets
man is able to discover because he is the microcosm and the temple of God;
on the notion of cosmic time in which the alchemist may intervene as
midwife to nature and co-operator with God; on the capacity of the human
soul to command the stars, to control events, and even to produce new
beings that the Anima Mundi “imagines”; and finally his belief in
“elementary” beings, i.e., those that live in the elements, the ‘nymphs,
sylphs, pygmies, salamanders, and other spirits’: all these ideas of
Paracelsus recur in the Fama Fraternitatis. His rich and powerful writings,
which were not really accessible until Huser’s edition appeared in Basel in
1591, have every appearance of proclaiming him a prophet of the new era.43
42
Championing Basilius Valentinus and expecting Elias Artista: Theodor Kerckring’s commentary on Currus
triumphalis antimonii. Publicação on-line da bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica J. R. Ritman.
43
Magic achieves an important victory by being despised
What happened after the end of the seventeenth century is generally described as
the victory of science over magic; magic slumbered in the corners of our culture until
the ends of the nineteenth century, betrayed by his younger sister Science:
Natural magic: demonic magic. The two branches of magia had parallel
intellectual histories – they were jointly allowed for in the scholastic
scheme of knowledge, rose together to a position of prominence in the
sixteenth – and seventeenth – century natural philosophical debates, and
ceased to be taken seriously (or were resolved into other disciplines) when
the changes in scientific and theological taste made them both seem
equally implausible.44
This is however a partial description, because the period is marked by a growing

popularization of magic, attested by the printing of grimoires by the thousands. Magic
in fact is not anymore the interest of the great minds of the time like during the
Renaissance but, again, the period shows the great importance of the books in the
overall strategy in the great war of magic. And this new and more popular wave of
magical literature profited from the fact that science discredit magic, what lead to the
discredit of the religious accusations against it. Also the separation between religious
and temporal powers in Europe broke the yoke religion so far had over the freedom of
the individuals, and magic begin to thrive again freed of the need of apologize for itself.
We saw how the Hermetic books were important to restart the magical war.
Magic had being persecuted for a long time before the Middle Ages, and the roots of the
persecution are to be found in the two pillars of the European culture, as both in Rome
as in Israel we find legislations and injunctions against the practice. One important
measure carefully attended by the enemies of magic was obviously the hunt and
destruction of the books.
We know from literary sources that a large number of magical books in

which spells were collected existed in antiquity. Most of them, however,
have disappeared as the result of systematic suppression and destruction.
The episode about the burning of the magical books in Ephesus in the Acts
of the Apostles (Acts 19:19) is well known and typical of many such
instances. According to Suetonius, Augustus ordered 2,000 magical scrolls
to be burned in the year 13 B.C.45 Indeed, the first centuries of the
Christian era saw many burnings of books, often magical books, and not a
few burnings that included the magicians themselves. As a result of these
acts of suppression, the magicians and their literature went underground.
44
Thinking with demons, the idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe, Stuart Clark. Oxford University
Press (2005)
45
It is important to notice that this destruction happened before the Christian era.
The papyri themselves testify to this by the constantly recurring
admonition to keep the books secret. Yet the the systematic destruction of
the magical literature over a long period of time resulted in the
disappearance of most of the original texts by the end of the antiquity.46
I almost cry every time I read this passage above. The war against magic
concentrate fiercely on its books because they are a very efficient weapon, being of
immediate use as well as turning into sleeping bombs that can detonate again and again
with intervals of centuries sometimes. Theologians and witch hunters of the
Reformation were always afraid of tomes like the Picatrix, this subversive encyclopedia
of magical lore who breached the European confinement to contaminate the best minds
with Arabic wizardry.
But none grimoire exemplify better the war of magic as the Liber Juratus, or the
Sworn Book of Honorius. Already mentioned in the XIII century, this grimoire has the
notable characteristic of denouncing in a clear and straightforward way the conflict
between magic and the Church, reverting in an ingenious and ironic form the
ecclesiastical discourse. The writer or writers of this work appropriated the great figure
of the Catholic marketing, the Devil, and used him against the Vatican hierarchy itself.
They pointed that the persecution against magic is the result of diabolical influence, and
at the same time highlighted the holiness inherent to the practice of their art. The
insinuation is that the “bishops and prelates, the pope himself and his cardinals” fell
under the diabolical influence because they were not “cleansed or clean” as the
magicians who “work truely in this art.” The narrative of Liber Juratus also exemplify
clearly that, at least since the XIII century, the magi had already a clear awareness of
their war and they knew the importance of books to win it:
When wicked spirits were gathered together, intending to send devils into
the hearts of men, to the intent they would destroy all things profitable for
mankind, and to corrupt all the whole world, even to the uttermost of their
power, sowing hypocrise and envy, and rooting bishops and prelates in
pride, even the pope himself and his cardinals, which gathering
themselves together said one to another as here follows:
The health which the Lord has given his people is now through magic and
negromancy turned into the damnation of all people. For even the
magians themselves, being intoxicated and blinded by the devil, and
contrary to the order of Christ's Church, and transgressing the
commandment of God, which says, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God, but him only shalt thou serve."But these negromancers or magians,
denying the sacrifice due to God, and in tempting him have done sacrifice
to devils, and abused His Name in calling of them, contrary to the
profession made at there baptism, for there it is said, "Forsake the devil
46
The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, edited by Hans Dieter Berz. The University of Chicago
Press (1992).
and all his pomps." But these magians and negromancers do not follow
only the pomps and works of Satan, but have also brought all people
through their marvellous illusions into the errors, drawing the ignorant
and such like into the damnation both of soul and body, and they thinking
this for no other purpose but that by this they should destroy all other
sciences.
It is thought meet therefore to pluck up and utterly to destroy this deadly

root, and all the followers of this art, but they through the instigation of
the devil, and being moved with envy and covetousness under the
similitude of truth, they did publish and spread abroad the falsehood,
speaking false and unlikely things. For it is not possible that a wicked and
unclean man should work truely in this art, for men are not bound to
spirits, but the spirits are constrained against their wills to answer men that
are cleansed or clean, and to fulfill their requests. Yet against all those
wills we have gone about to set forth the principles of this art, and the
cause of truth, and for that cause thay had condemned this art and judged
us to death.
We therefore, through God's sufferance, having a foreknowledge of that
judgement, knowing also that by it should follow much mischief, and that
it was impossible to us to escape the hands of the people by our own
strength without the help of spirits, fearing that a greater danger would
follow upon it, for the wicked power of the spirits at our command could
have destroyed them who condemned us all utterly in an hour.
Wherefore, we called a general council of all the masters. And out of the
which council of 811 masters which came out of Naples, Athens, and
Toledo, we did choose one whose name was Honorius, the son of Euclid,
master of the Thebians, in the which city this art was read, that he should
work for us in this said art. And he through the council of a certain angel
whose name was Hocroel, did write seven volumes of art magic, giving to
us the kernel, and to others the shells. Out of the which books he drew out
93 chapters, in the which is briefly contained the effect of this art, of the
which chapters he made a book which we do call The Sacred or Sworn
Book for this cause, for in it is contained the 100 sacred names of God,
and therefore it is called sacred, as you would say "made of holy things,"
or else because by this book he came to the knowledge of sacred or holy
things, or else because it was consecrated by angels, or else because the
angel Hocroel did declare and show him that it was consecrated of God.47
Two things then happened in the transition from the XVII and XIX centuries
which affected the war of magic or, as Owen Davies put it, the war against it.48 First, the
course of the now contested “scientific revolution” discarded natural magic, as its
principal premises were found to be false, and it also simply ignored ceremonial magic
as it never was able to provide verifiable proof of the validity of its claims. On the other
hand, the period saw the rise of the print and the discovery of the market for magic, and
47
http://www.esotericarchives.com/juratus/juratus.htm
48
Grimoires, A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies. Oxford University Press (2009).
its emergence was directly connected to the Reformation, which also depended heavily
on the print.
The first wave of print grimoires emanated from Protestant German and
Swiss publishing centers such as Frankfurt and Basel. The long arms and
beady eyes of the papal censors did not reach these Protestant areas. The
notoriety of the Germanic mages, Trithemius, Faust, Agrippa, and
Paracelsus, would have also generated a keen regional audience. But such
occult works were not only of interest to practical magicians and the
simply curious. A strong mystical, spiritual tradition emerged in
Protestantism during the sixteenth century, most notably expressed in the
influential writings of the Lutheran visionary Jacob Boehme, but also
evident in numerous other small Protestant sects, such as those that made
their way to America during the late seventeenth century. The Neoplatonic
discourses on the angelic and spiritual hierarchies contained in the
Arbatel, Heptameron, Book Three and Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy,
and the Steganographia, and the keys they provided to direct celestial
communication, appealed to the prophetic and revelatory aspects of
Protestant theology.49
The books of magic assume a very important role in Western culture because of
the lack of a chain of direct knowledge transmission, a lack due to the violent campaign
of censure instigated by the Church. (I am a personal witness to this, as my learning and
practice came from the books.) The persecution moved by the Church, of course, was
inherited from Antiquity and had its roots in the Roman legislation and in the
persecution against pagans recorded in the Old Testament.
Although religious reasons played an important role in the war against magic,
we must realize that the fear of the magician is as ancient and archetypical as magic
itself. Hence here in Angola (where I spend most of the year working since 1999) for
instance, from time to time I hear from people who stoned or lynched some
“quimbanda” or cunning-man believing them guilt of some magical misdeed. In other
parts of Africa we still find the belief in the witch-children which is responsible for the
torture, killing and expulsion from home of children believed to have magical powers.
In Brazil, my country of birth, the Pentecostal churches profit greatly from the fear of
magic, presenting themselves as a defense against the African traditions where magical
practices are very strong.
The Law of the Magus
After all we saw thus far, it does not come as a surprise that the legend of the
promulgation of the Law of Thelema begins with an invocation of Toth.
49
Grimoires, A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies. Oxford University Press (2009).
On the 17 of March of 1904, after a failed attempt at invoking the sylphs made
at the previous day, it is recorded that Aleister Crowley invoked Toth “with great
success.”50 It was the beginning of an amazing magical adventure which would
conclude with the reception of the Book of the Law during the 8, 9 and 10 of April.
The central message of the magical-philosophical (some would say religious)
system known as Thelema, which comes in part from the Book of the Law, and in part
from the magical training Crowley received in the Golden Dawn, is clearly of a
reformist character, a radical reformism in which all the former religions are expected to
be abolished. It also proposes a religious method in the same lines proposed by Luther
and other reformists, by which each individual should approach the central standards of
Thelema at the core of the Book of the Law by its own efforts, resorting to its own
intellect. Even more, it expected from the true follower a directed effort towards the
discovery and realization of his personal will, a task that would seem to require some
level of inner experience going beyond the mere intellectual awareness.
The main message, as it issued during the Reformation from the mouth of
Zwingli and Calvin, was that men should not put their faith in any external
institution, the Church, or in any religious system as embodying the
divine. Instead religio designated something personal, inner and
transcendentally oriented.51
We are here treading very familiar Hermetic grounds. Aiwass, the entity
dictating the secrets of the new aeon to his scribe Crowley, seems to be reenacting the
role of Pimander in this revelation. Crowley’s magical training and studies, of course,
were immersed in Hermetic lore and his system of attainment, itself a reformation of the
system of initiations of the Golden Dawn, was based in key concepts inherited from the
Kabbalistic-Hermetic mages of the Renaissance. This inheritance came to him through
both the content of the initiatory magic of the Golden Dawn as through his personal
studies. The long magical path towards deification of man and the consequent bestowal
of powers to change the world were defined during the Renaissance not by appeal to
Hermetic doctrines only, but also by the adoption of the ideas received from the
Kabbalah. Lurianic kabbalah in XVI century developed the doctrine that the elevated
sage could help bring the Messianic age by the realization of religious acts, a point of
view which married perfectly with the Hermetic ideas, to a point it is in fact very
difficult to ascertain if the Renaissance and Reformation ideas about the power and
function of magic own more to the Hermetism or to the Kabbalah. By the time Agrippa
finished the final version of his work, both doctrines were already completely mingled.
Giordano Bruno, a reader of Agrippa as we mentioned before52, drew extensively on the
50
The Equinox of the Gods, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon Publications (1991).
51
Magic, science, religion, and the scope of rationality, Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah. Cambridge University
Press (1990).
52
White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance, Paola Zambelli. Brill (2007).
Kabbalistic system of the sefirot in his descriptions of the path to illumination,53 and the
entire system used later by Crowley depended on the degrees of initiation based in the
sefirot developed by the Golden Dawn. Christopher Lehrich, in his seminal study on the
De occulta philophia,54 highlighted the importance of the adoption of the Kabbalah in
the magical theory advanced by Agrippa:
For our purposes, then, we can say that Kabbalah has a speculative
cosmological (theosophical) component, focused on the nature of the
divine, commonly expressed in terms of the sefirot or emanations. Next,
there is an ecstatic, mystical component, whose focus is on unity with the
Godhead and the means of its achievement. Under these two general
headings are sometimes found exteriorizing, “magical” practices. In some
cases, these magical techniques are intended to draw down power from the
sefirot, and may be understood as a kind of practical application of
theosophical doctrines. In other cases, the magical techniques are more
closely related to ecstatic techniques, and are intended to elevate the
practitioner toward the Godhead, the main distinction between the magical
and the ecstatic here being the magician’s intent to deploy divine forces in
the world subsequent to his elevation above it.55
Let us recall Moshe Idel’s description of two explanatory models for

Kabbalistic magic: on the one hand, the magician may work more or less
ecstatically, the practical effect of his techniques being elevation of the
soul towards the divine nature; on the other, magical techniques may be
employed to draw down power from the sefirot. Given our analysis of De
Occulta Philosophy in general, it seems clear that both forms are present
here: the use of magical techniques to achieve mystical ends is formulated
quite explicitly, but the discussion of angelic hierarchies implies that the
same techniques may draw down power.56
In sum, De Occulta Philosophy’s ceremonial magic has two linked

functions. First, the techniques assist the soul’s cleaving to God, purifying
and elevating the magician toward the divine. Second, through such
elevation, the magician gains power over the angels and ministering
forces, and can manipulate them to produce worldly effects. The higher
the magician rises through the spheres and the divine world, the more
powerful the angels which can be thus manipulated; furthermore (as we
shall see) such manipulation binds the magician to the superior nature of
53
Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis, Karen Silvia de Leon-Jones.
Bison Books (2004).
54
The Language of Demons and Angels, Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, Christopher Lehrich.
Brill (2003).
55
Brill (2003).
56
Brill (2003).
the angels, aiding further ascent. By linking these two functions, De
Occulta Philosophy consecrates magic: no magician can control spirits
whose status is higher than his own, therefore the manipulation of angels
is both proof of purity and an instrument for achieving divine union. The
radical promise of ceremonial magic is fulfilled: demonic magic leads the
soul to God.57
We can see that the whole rationale is in perfect agreement with the apology we
found in the preface of the Sworn Book of Honorius: magic own intrinsic characteristics
and methods, requiring purification and spiritual elevation, are its main witness against
the attacks of its enemies.
Crowley followed the same rationale in his essay The Revival of Magic, so
making clear his adoption of the Renaissance view of magic; this excerpt is very
illustrative, as he also seems to endorse the Renaissance opposition to a “lower” type of
magic, and repeat the claim we found in the Sworn Book of Honorius about the radical
antagonism between magic and evil:
I must again call attention to the necessity of this formula of identification

in order to show the impossibility of evil in magick. Evil is synonymous
with failure. With the low class sorcerer who sells himself as a slave to
some “devil” we have nothing here to do. That is the antithesis of magick.
The aim is to command the spirits. Very well; suppose we begin in a
gross, selfish, avaricious way, and try to get spirits to bring us gold. We
call Hismael, the spirit of Jupiter. Nothing happens. We learn that Hismael
will not be commandedbut by his proper Intelligence, Iophiel, who is only
amenable to the orders of Sachiel, his Angel. Same story with Sachiel. We
go to Tzadquiel the Archangel. Still no good; for Tzadquiel obeys none
but El. Good, we invoke El, the God. We must then become El; and
having done so, having entered into that vast divine essence, we cannot
bother any more as to whether we have any money. We have left all that
behind. So then we see that to perform any miracle, we must show a
divine reason for it. 58
Crowley also followed in the steps of the Renaissance magi when he developed
his key concept of the magus and his work. He took the title given by the Golden Dawn
to the initiatory grade corresponding to Hokmah, which was originally an administrative
title in the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, and refashioned it completely. Crowley
redefined the magus as being someone who, achieving that evolutionary degree after
‘crossing the abyss’ (which is to be found below Hokmah), returns to the world with a
new message or a new law, founding a new religion. This is clearly again the
Renaissance and Reformation ideal of prophecy achieved through magic and ushering a
57
Brill (2003).
58
The Revival of Magick and other Essays, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon (1998).
new age. Crowley also presented a lineage of the previous magi to which he added his
own name after the reception of the Book of the Law: Lao-tze, Gautama, Krishna,
Dionysius, Tahuti (Toth), Mosheh and Mohammed.
Now, o my son, the Incarnation of a Poet is particular and not Universal;

he sayeth indeed true Things, but not the Things of All-Truth. And that
these may be said it is necessary that One take human Flesh, and become a
Magus in Our Holy Order. He then is called the Logos, or Logos Aionos,
that is to say, the Word of the Æon or Age, because He is verily That
Word.59
And this is also a Renaissance strategy to achieve legitimation; both Ficino and
Bruno used lineages of magi to reinforce the status of magic. Ficino prisca theology
followed from Mercury (“who was called Theut by the Egyptians and Trismegistus by
the Greeks”60) to Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras, Philolaus and Plato61. Bruno`s
genealogy of prisca magia used more generic names as the Egyptians, the Chaldeans,
the Magi, the Gymnosophists and the Orphics, but sometimes honored more modern
names like Albertus Magnus, Nicholas de Cusa and Copernicus.62
The Magical Utopia
In the year of 1920 Aleister Crowley retired to the island of Sicily with a small
group of followers. There they create the Abbey of Thelema, inspired in the writings of
the Renaissance humanist François Rabelais. The debt of Thelema to Rabelais’ work is
much known, and it was celebrated by Crowley himself:
Far more important is the Word of Rabelais, Fais ce que veulx. The
sublime Doctor does indeed intend, so far as he goes, to set forth in
essence the Law of Thelema, very much as it is understood by the Master
Therion himself. The implications of the context are significant. Our
Master makes the foundations of the Abbey of Thelema the quite
definitive climax of his story of Gargantua; he describes his ideal of
society. Thus he was certainly occupied with the idea of a new Aeon, and
he saw, albeit perhaps dimly, that Fais ce que veulx was the required
Magical Formula. The Cardinal Jean du Bellay, indeed, reported to
Francis I that Gargantua was a “new Gospel.” It was in fact, the Book that
59
Liber Aleph vel CXI, The Book of Wisdom and Folly, Aleister Crowley. Weiser (1992).
60
The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetism from Ancient to Modern Times, Florian
Ebeling. Cornell University Press (2005).
61
Ficino wrote variants of the list, sometimes adding Zoroaster before Hermes. See Giordano Bruno and
the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1964).
62
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1964).
the Renaissance lacked; and had it been taken as it should have been, the
world might have been spared the ignominy of Protestantism.63
Rabelais in his original creation of the Abbaye de Thélème was developing over
a concept very dear to the philosophers of the Renaissance, the possibility of creating a
utopia. Utopic literature is a genre with its roots in the Republic of Plato and which
became very popular during the Renaissance and Reformation years. The most known
utopias were the one described by Thomas More, the New Atlantis by Francis Bacon
and the City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella. With Campanella we are again on the
familiar ground treaded by the Renaissance magus:
Tommaso Campanella, an early modern thinker possessed by a vision of

the total restoration of society and morals, of the return of mankind to a
state of innocence before Adam’s fall and of Astrology, himself as the
prophet destined to usher in this coming transformation.64
And, as it would be to be expected, Campanella’s view on prophecy was also

related do magic:
Beneath its profession of extreme naturalism, his philosophy presents

certain ambiguities. For example, the natural foundation of his
epistemology had to legitimize a higher level from which, in turn, he had
to draw the conditions of its intelligibility. Thus, in his Città del Sole
(1602) he declared that Christianity had only added the sacraments to the
natural law, where it was destined by its higher rationality to impose itself.
So the superiority of the senses to the intellect was valid both at an inferior
level – that of the perception of perceptible reality – and also at the higher
level of the perception of future events by superior inspiration, a
perception which was called upon to constitute the level of revelation.
Prophecy, thus promoted to the rank of scientia experimentalis, could
therefore be considered as the highest form of gratia gratis data, by which
the divinity guided and provided for man, and also as the highest form of
magic, namely divine magic.65
Afterword: The Fate of the Magicians
It is instructive to see how ended the personal ambitions and the lofty ideals for
which the magi from the Renaissance until Crowley’s years fought and die.
63
The Antecedents of Thelema. In The Revival of Magick, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon (1998).
64
Astrology, Ritual and Revolution in the Works of Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), Peter J. Forshaw.
Available at the Academia.edu site.
65
Giovanni ‘Mercurio’ da Corregio had an eventful life. He was imprisoned a
number of times, as it would be expected. He escaped from prison in Rome with the aid
of friends and followers, although it is not certain if that happened in 1484; he tried to
prophesize other times there. He was arrested on the suspicion of heresy in Bologna,
where he had wife and children. He was set free, probably due for the influence of his
family, but again fell in the hands of the Inquisition when passing through Florence.
This time things got ugly when he was delivered in the hands of the Franciscan
Inquisitor:
And it seems that this Inquisitor used great rigor against the said Messer
Giovanni, making all people come and see him in shackles, sneering at
him as if he were an animal, threatening all the time to have him burned.
Thence the said Messer Giovanni fell into despair and threw his head
against the stock, tearing all the flesh off his head with his hands,
wherefore it is doubted he will die. And when he did not die, it is feared
that things would take a bad ending for him anyway (Letter from
Aldovrandino Guidoni to the Duke Ercole d’Este).66
Things did not have a bad end, as the influence of his disciple Lazarelli in the
court of Naples was good enough to have the King Ferrante asking for his release. The
following years saw Giovanni still peregrinating through the Italians cities, now
followed by his miserable family, whom he had wearing sackcloth and chains around
the neck. Not that they were really pauper: Giovanni always kept servants, published his
books and was found of giving expensive symbolic gifts to important people. He ended
in the court of the French King Louis XII, were apparently was kept as a curiosity. He
maintained his messianic claims, but became also known for his impressive knowledge
of medicine, alchemy and natural magic. It is not known how he died and the fate of his
family, but this lack of information suppose a peaceful end.
Marsilio Ficino, from the list of magi we are mentioned, is the one who lived
most pacifically. He enjoyed the protection and patronage of the powerful Cosimo de
Medici, who made Ficino the head of his new founded Platonic Academy. Ficino was
very influential during his lifetime, being in contact and being highly respected by most
of the European intellectuals of the age. His translations of Plato, Plotinus and of the
Hermetic writings remained influential during the entire Renaissance. He practiced a
therapeutic kind of magic, much influenced by concepts of Astrology. He became a
priest at 40 years old, and lived peacefully until the age of 66.
Agrippa travelled extensively through Europe, and attended several positions in
the courts, governments and study institutions. His career was marked by small
skirmishes with orthodox minded representatives of Church and State, but none with
perilous results. He was also successful in the defense of a peasant woman accused of
witchcraft by Dominican inquisitors. During all his life he maintained a net of
66
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2005).
correspondents who shared similar interests in the occult. After a short imprisonment in
the end of his life, he died peacefully. His work on the occult philosophy would become
extremely influent in the coming years and is to the day a cornerstone of Western
magic.
John Dee’s opus is the greatest achievement of Renaissance magic, an ensemble
of angelic revelations, prophetic utterances and magical teachings direct connect with
the ushering of a new age. Dee was acclaimed and respect in Europe as a scholar,
enjoyed the protection of Queen Elizabeth I and was received by the Emperor Rudolph
II in the court of Prague several times. Faithful to the prophetic responsibilities he
believed to have received through his magic, he tried in vain to convince the Emperor of
the importance of his angelic communications. At the age of 62 he returned to England,
to find his famous library in ruins with many books missing. Elizabeth I still protected
him until her death in 1603, but the rise of James I could not be advantageous for him,
as the new monarch was suspicious of anything related to magic. He died at the age of
82, but the reports that he died in poverty are doubtful. A magician to the end, the last
record of his angelic invocations dates from 1607, two years before his death.
Tommaso Campanella first arrest and confinement under the suspicious of
heresy happened in 1594 when he was 26 years old, and lasted for three years. He was
again incarcerated in 1599 for being the spiritual inspiration in a conspiracy to free the
kingdom of Naples from the Spanish influence. He was tried for rebellion and also for
heresy, as his participation in the plot was founded in astrological previsions and
prophecies. He was tortured on the rack seven times, and had to put fire in his cell
feigning madness to escape the death sentence. The tortures he suffered however were
extremely severe:
In a passage of the Medicina, he would later recall the prison doctor (vir
bonus – ‘a good man’) with sober gratitude, for being able, against all
hope, to make him well. Presented with a case of bruising ‘deep … and
measureless,’ he found a way to separate the healthy from the damaged
flesh, rendering the damaged parts completely rotten so as to be able to
remove them, all to the end of avoiding an infection and permitting the
reconstitution of the flesh, and also so as to restore the two pounds
Campanella had lost.67
During the next twenty-seven years he spent in prison, he wrote many important
works, between them the description of the utopic City of the Sun. He was released in
1626 by the pope Urban VIII, whom he served as an astrologer advisor for five years.
He had to flee to France however, due to a new conspiracy led by one of his former
followers. He was received and honored at the court of Louis XIII and protected by
Cardinal Richelieu, and spent his final day in a convent in Paris, provided for by a king
pension.
67
Tommaso CaMPanella: The Book and the Body of Nature, Germana ernst. Università di Roma Tre
(2010).
Paracelsus died at the age of 47, after have made several important contributions
in the history of medicine. His name was mentioned in the Rosicrucian manifesto Fama
Fraternitatis and his work also achieved a lasting influence in the European magic. He
was especially apt in the creation of astrological talismans in medicine and created the
Alphabet of the Magi for engraving angelical names. He also travelled extensively in
Europe, but he had a difficult personality and entered in conflict too often. He had to
flee from Basel where he held a chair at the university and wandered for years as a
tramp. His book were forbidden of going into print and only in 1536, with 43 years old,
he managed to publish a work on surgery which regained him some good fame. He
would die four years later. We can have an idea of the origins of his troubles from the
following excerpt:
I am Theophrastus, and greater than those to whom you liken me; I am

Theophrastus, and in addition I am monarcha medicorum and I can prove
to you what you cannot prove. I need not don a coat of mail or a buckler
against you, for you are not learned or experienced enough to refute even a
word of mine. As for you, you can defend your kingdom with belly-
crawling and flattery. How long do you think this will last? Let me tell
you this: every little hair on my neck knows more than you and all your
scribes, and my shoe buckles are more learned than your Galen and
Avicenna, and my beard has more experience than all your high
colleges.68
The fiery demise of Giordano Bruno is universally known. Bruno also had a
difficult personality and found himself in constant trouble and conflict, being also
accused of being arrogant. From the introduction of his philosophical dialogue The Ash
Wednesday Supper69 we have this self-description which enables us to better judge on
that:
In medicine expert, in contemplation judicious, in divination without

equal, in magic miraculous, in superstitions provident, in laws observant,
in morals irreproachable, in theology divine, in all effects, heroic.
Bruno’s later biographer Dorothea Waley Singer70 concluded that this was one
of many tries Bruno did aiming at generating authority, that largely failed due to him
being ‘‘unsuccessful in human relations, devoid of social tact or worldly wisdom,
unpractical to an almost insane degree.’’ Bruno’s declaration and Singer’s evaluation
when put together makes a very close parallel to the description Aleister Crowley gave
about himself, in part written in the third person:
68
Paracelsus, Selected Writings, edited by Jolande Jacobi. Pantheon ( 1951).
69
The Ash Wednesday Supper, Giordano Bruno. University of Toronto Press (1995).
70
Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought, Dorothea Waley Singer. Schuman (1950).
I, of all men on this Earth reputed mightiest in Magick, by mine enemies
more than by my friends.71
This account has been deemed necessary to explain how it is that a man of
such unimaginably commanding qualities as to have made him world-
famous in so many diverse spheres of action, should have been so
grotesquely unable to make use of his faculties, or even of his
achievements, in any of the ordinary channels of human activity; to
consolidate his personal pre-eminence, or even to secure his position from
a social or economic standpoint.72
Crowley in many aspects represents a new apex for the aspirations of the
Renaissance and Reformation views of magic. Although his utopic try at Cefalu came to
a tragic end, he nevertheless succeeded in creating a religious-philosophical system
based on a prophetic experience provided by a series of magical practices. He followed
on the steps of the Golden Dawn’s main creator, MacGregor Mathers, who managed to
bring together the two magical perspectives inherited from the Renaissance times: the
Hermetic-Kabbalistic view of magic as being an initiatory path, proposed by the
Renaissance magi, and the daemonological invocations of the grimoires they despised.
Mathers helped to formulate the degrees and initiations of the Golden Dawn based upon
the system of the sefirot, and designed to each degree instructions and practices in
accordance with Hermetic principles; and at the same time he dedicated himself to
translate and publish grimoires like the Ars Goetia section of the Lemegeton, the Key of
Solomon, the Arbatel and the Book of Abramelin. Crowley’s prophetic achievement
combined both currents, as his performance of the magical operation found in the book
of Abramelin, which aims at contacting the Guardian Angel and submitting the demons
of the world, became the key to receive the revelation of the Book of the Law through
the spirit Aiwass.
We may frown at the personal shortcomings of many of the magicians listed in
these lines, but we should not lose sight of the reason each of them achieved greatness
in history: they all went beyond their individualistic interests of achieving illumination
and welfare through magic just for themselves, and made their best efforts to use it to
change the world for better for everyone.
I believe the great war of magic to be an ongoing business. Currents of Christian
and Islamic fundamentalisms still threaten the liberty of the individual, and Christian
politicians have being trying for the past decades to use the democratic system to
achieve power and regulate the lives of everyone according to their prejudices. Of
course magic cannot prosper in such environments. I believe magicians of our age
should focus their ceremonies to have influence at key situations, like oppressive
governments, fraudulent and abusive religious institutions and anti-ecological
71
72
corporations. On the other hand, there are lots of individuals and groups which strive to
make the world a better place that should be supported by magical means.
Although at the moment we find ourselves in a good moment for magic, with
widespread publications, a worldwide net of students and practitioners, and the
recognition of the academy on the importance of the history of magic, we must be aware
that it needs just an unhappy sequence of bad elections to turn a democracy into a
retrograde religious rule where the impostor and the hypocrite will ascend. On a
possible situation like this, the magicians of the age will find themselves once again, not
merely fighting for a better world, but fighting for their lives.

The Great War of Magic

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Great War of Magic

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Great War of Magic

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Great War of Magic

Renaissance, Reformation and the Book of the Law

Tahuti standeth in His splendor at the prow,

This is my servant Pimander, whom I have chosen. This Pimander is my

I, Giovanni Mercurio of Corregio, the Angel of Wisdom Pimander, in the

The Return of Hermes

In 1463, one anonymous Macedonian monk rediscovered an important

Early Arabic accounts tell of an ancient Egyptian sage named Hermes

It is not that Hermes Trismegistus was completely forgotten in Europe: the

Magic and Prophecy

Some of the main processes of Ceremonial Magical are mentioned in this

So also peony, sallendine, balm, ginger, gentian, dittany, and vervain,

Wherefore suffumigations are wont to be used by them that are about to

So we read in the books of the Senates in the chapter

The Magi of the Renaissance

It is important to note the strong similarities between the program of Aleister

a. It attacked the official theological premises, to which prophecy and

The Protestant inclination toward mystical speculation and prophecy, according

Like most of the German universities at this time, Wittenberg subscribed

The transition from the medieval period to the Renaissance in Christian

The Way of the Magus

The magus is someone who foresees the possibilities of illumination and

 To make apology for Magic as useful Natural Magic, or as Ceremonial

Agrippa displayed a contradictory allegiance to magic, denying being a

He [Agrippa] studied in Cologne from 1499 to 1502, when he received the

The apologetic approaches are well summarized in another two passages of

The common denominator of the apocalyptic and magical world-views

According to the earliest version of a legend, in the 1470s the notorious

Insofar as the magician was attempting to understand and control the

Paracelsus followed Albertus Magnus in identifying the three kings or magi

In Judaism, Elijah precedes the Messiah; by analogy John the Baptist

This is however a partial description, because the period is marked by a growing

We know from literary sources that a large number of magical books in

It is thought meet therefore to pluck up and utterly to destroy this deadly

The Law of the Magus

Let us recall Moshe Idel’s description of two explanatory models for

In sum, De Occulta Philosophy’s ceremonial magic has two linked

I must again call attention to the necessity of this formula of identification

Now, o my son, the Incarnation of a Poet is particular and not Universal;

The Magical Utopia

Tommaso Campanella, an early modern thinker possessed by a vision of

And, as it would be to be expected, Campanella’s view on prophecy was also

Beneath its profession of extreme naturalism, his philosophy presents

Afterword: The Fate of the Magicians

I am Theophrastus, and greater than those to whom you liken me; I am

In medicine expert, in contemplation judicious, in divination without

You might also like