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The first new and complete English translation of Agrippa's classic masterwork in more than 350 years * Three hardcover volumes in slipcase * Corrects the many mistranslations, copyist mistakes, and errors introduced from other editions, drawing on new research and access to Agrippa's source texts * Restores all of Agrippa's original illustrations * Presents a nearly complete bibliography of Agrippa's primary sources One of the most important texts in the Western magical tradition for nearly 500 years, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's 1533 work Three Books of Occult Philosophy collates a multitude of sources from the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance periods and organizes them into a coherent explanation of the magical world. Divided into three parts--the natural world, the celestial world, and the divine world--the book systematically explains the philosophy, logic, and methods of magic and astrology and how they work, offering numerous examples, diagrams, techniques, and analogies. Agrippa's seminal masterpiece provided the basis for 19th-century magical orders such as the Golden Dawn and has been a primary source for countless books on magical uses of stones, herbs, incense, and astrology. Additionally, Agrippa's many lists and diagrams, especially the planetary seals and magic squares, have proven invaluable to magicians since the 16th century. Yet, up until now, all English editions of Agrippa's Three Books were based on the same flawed 1651 translation from the mysterious "J.F." In this new translation from the original 1533 Latin edition, Eric Purdue corrects the many mistranslations, copyist mistakes, and errors introduced from other editions, as well as restores all of Agrippa's original illustrations. He notates every correction from earlier editions and offers commentary to rectify the original translator's mistranslations. Drawing on major developments in the research of older magical and astrological texts since the 1990s, Purdue also presents a nearly complete bibliography of Agrippa's primary sources, revealing how Agrippa was not writing from missing or secret texts but was a mainstream scholar of his day. Presenting the first new English translation of Three Books of Occult Philosophy in more than 350 years, this three-volume hardcover boxed set repairs the gaps in knowledge pervasive in the original translation as well as restores the magical spirit of Agrippa's masterpiece, allowing us to hear Agrippa speak again.… (more)
User reviews
Wading through this stuff is interesting. Cornelius Agrippa (the name he usually used) had to tread carefully to avoid the attentions of the Inquisition (at one point he was excommunicated). The Church was pretty dubious about magic, always ready to believe it involved dealing with demons; Agrippa worked around this by presenting demon facilitated magic as something to be avoided; by maintaining that some magical operations were assisted by angels or by “spirits” who were not evil; and by describing “natural” magic that worked with inherent properties of stones, herbs, astrology, numerology and so on, rather than by invoking a supernatural entity. He also does a great deal of circumlocution, citing various ancient authorities for magic operations rather than suggesting that he has tried them himself.
The amount of woowoo here is mind numbing. You can cure a fever by strapping live pigeons to your feet. The heart of a screech owl placed on the left breast of a sleeping woman will make her tell all her secrets. The gall of lizards attracts weasels. A needle coated in dung and packed with graveyard earth will protect a woman from unwanted sexual advances (you know, I bet that would actually work). Peony roots covered with beaver oil and menstrual blood will cure epilepsy. If a woman has enchanted you to fall in love with her, urinate in her right sleeve (but only out of doors) and the enchantment will be lifted (I bet that would work, too.). If you boil and eat the heart of the first bird you see on the Calends of November, you will understand the language of birds. And so on for a thousand pages or so.
It’s instructive to remember that everybody believed this stuff. The efficacy of magic was endorsed by the Church, and you could not only be burned alive for practicing it, you could also be burned for denying it. I suppose I shouldn’t be so smug; my Facebook feed is full of people informing me of the magical properties of turmeric or cucumbers or coconut oil or Bernie Sanders economics.
Agrippa was interested in magic squares. If you’ve ever looked at demonological works, they often present “sigils” of demons (and sometimes angels) that are complicated symbols made up of seemingly random connected lines and curves. Some of these are apparently completely invented; some are elaborations of Greek or Hebrew letters, but Agrippa generates some by tracing numerologically significant paths through magic squares. You use Hebrew numerals for your square, which are also Hebrew letters, and trace the name of the angel/demon/spirit in question to get his/her/its sigil. Agrippa generates the sigils of the Intelligences and Spirits of all the planets this way; for example, you can get the sigil of the Spirit of Mercury, Taphthartharath, by setting up an 8x8 magic square with Hebrew letters/numbers and tracing out Th (400) Ph (80) Th (400) R (200) Th (400) R (200) Th (400) without lifting your pencil. (This also reveals that Taphthartharath’s number is 2080; I imagine with a little more effort you could get the URL for his website).
Well, it was an interesting read. Agrippa seems to have been a decent fellow; he got in considerable trouble in France once defending an accused witch (he got her off, too. Or at least she wasn’t burned; she was in pretty bad shape after questioning and we don’t learn her subsequent history). As mentioned, it’s interesting to note that there is plenty of woowoo still with us.