Renaissance Magic

Great post on the seriousness of astrology in the Renaissance

2013-04-03T00:11:00.002-07:00

"With the advent of Humanist Renaissance in the fifteenth century astrology enjoyed a major revival centred around astro-medicine, or as it was also known iatro-mathematics, a discipline that like astrology had its roots in fourth century BCE Greece. This form of medicine believed that the causes and cures of diseases were controlled by celestial influences and that a medicus must study the horoscopes of both the patient and the disease to determine the correct course of treatment. Chairs of astrology were established at the Northern Italian humanist universities and also in Cracow in Poland, later in other parts of Europe. By the end of the century astrology was the central discipline studied and practiced by the Renaissance mathematicus. This revival in the fortunes of astrology was also made possible because the new astrologers interpreted horoscopes as being indicative and no longer deterministic. That is a horoscope indicated a possible course for the future but one that could be altered by the subject of the horoscope if he took the right actions. Actions defined by the astrologer, of course, for a further fee."
http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/what-was-when-modern/

McGinnis on Avicenna's Cosmology

2013-03-19T14:53:00.001-07:00

Avicenna's modal ontology yet again provides him with a neat solution to this problem of medieval cosmology. From the necessary Existent there emanantes fro Avicenna the Intellect associated witht eh outermost celestial sphere. This Intellect must itself already be composite, for it is something possible in tiself but necessary through another. Now, continues Avicenna, when this Intellect contemplates the Necessary Existent, there emanates from that first Intellect another Intellect-let this second Intellect be the one associated with the fixed stars. In addition to contemplating the Necessary Existent, the first Intellect also contemplate itself, but, as has already been seen, it si something composite consisting of its won possible existence and the necessary existence it has from another. Thus, according to Avicenna's own unique emanative scheme, when the first Intellect contemplates itself as something merely possible in itself, there emanates from it a certain celestial body, whereas when it contemplates itself as necessary through another, it emanates that celestial body's soul. This process continues at the level of the second Intellect. Now, however, the second Intellect contemplates its relation the first Intellect and the Necessary Existent. This emanative process continues cascading downward with new Intellects, souls, and clestial bodies being produced until reaches the Active Intellect or Giver of Forms, which is the Intellect that produces the Moon and lunar soul.

(thanks to Michael Chase for posting this on the Neoplatonism list)

notes for a review of Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy

2013-03-02T10:24:00.002-08:00

Hanegraaf does an archaeology of theory of esotericism, looking at
constructions of "magic" and other forms of rejected knowledge in
the early modern philosophical discourse that prefigures and often
haunts modern scholarly understandings of what is now discussed
under the umbrella of "Western Esotericism." Looking at theoretical
approaches from an historical lens with penetrating insight and a
welcome rigor, he explains where his discipline came from and with
great clarity elucidates many problems that still plague the field.
The result is a great success that will be invaluable to both the
theorist and the historian.

Platonic orientalism -- role of Renaissance magical theories
how occult sciences eventually became understood from unifying perspective

tainted terminologies

critiques Brian Vickers' understanding of the occult sciences

navigates the complexities of the historiography of alchemy

examines Faivre's position in relation to the religionism of Esalen

what Segal has done for Myth and Fanger for Theurgy

Adam Gopnik on John Dee

2013-02-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

“The Arch-Conjuror of England” (Yale), Glynn Parry’s entertaining new biography of Galileo’s contemporary the English magician and astrologer John Dee, shows that Dee was, in his own odd way, an honest man and a true intellectual. He races from Prague to Paris, holding conferences with other astrologers and publishing papers, consulting with allies and insulting rivals. He wasn’t a fraud. His life has all the look and sound of a fully respectable intellectual activity, rather like, one feels uneasily, the life of a string theorist today. The look and the sound of science . . . but it does have a funny smell. Dee doesn’t once ask himself, “Is any of this real or is it all just bullshit?” If it works, sort of, and you draw up a chart that looks cool, it counts. Galileo never stopped asking himself that question, even when it wasn’t bullshit but sounded as though it might well be. That’s why he went wrong on the tides; the-moon-does-it-at-a-distance explanation sounds too much like the assertion of magic. The temperament is not all-seeing and curious; it is, instead, irritable and impatient with the usual stories. The new stories might be ugly, but they’re not crap. “It is true that the Copernican system creates disturbances in the Aristotelian universe,” Salviati admits in the “Dialogue,” “but we are dealing with our own real and actual universe.”

from What Galileo Saw

Failures of Neoplatonic Memory Magic

2013-01-14T13:37:00.001-08:00

I explore the failures of Prospero’s magic in the context of the public conflict over memory systems that pitted Giordano Bruno’s image-rich magical system (propagated by Alexander Dicson) against the iconoclastic methods favored by the Cambridge Ramists (spearheaded in print by Rev. William Perkins) in late Elizabethan England. The strongly visual and theatrical strategies employed by Prospero (most notably in the play’s two masques), coupled with the dependence of his magic on memory and the forced rewriting or imposition of memory, suggest that his magic is both neo-Platonic in form and specifically linked to the magical memory system described by Bruno. As a magician, Prospero tries to assert his power by controlling memory, revising history to reflect his desired narrative. However, his attempts to superimpose his own narrative are repeatedly resisted, interrupted, and rejected. Given these failures to control either his own plans or his subjects, I’d like to suggest that Prospero’s magic, most particularly in its image-rich masques and focus on memory, stages a parodic interrogation of this debate over memory and memory systems. And while resistance does not itself invalidate his magical theories, Prospero’s attempts at memory manipulation notably succeed only in altering his own interpretation of events; his inability to recognize his failure thus points to the inherently self-deceiving nature of his art. This frame enables us to consider Prospero not simply a positive or negative figure, but as one who calls into question not simply his own skill, but the basic validity of the magical system he employs.

Calder on Dee and the search for a "real character"

2013-01-06T00:44:00.003-08:00

It is of interest to note the intellectual and historical relation between Dee's approach in the Monas and the search for a real character (Francis Bacon in the Advancement of Learning, called for one which would represent "neither letters nor words but things and notions," and would "serve for an antidote against the curse of the confusion of tongues") and the universal language which occupied so many in the succeeding century - Kircher, Dolgarno Hartleb and through him Boyle, Wilkins (who declared "As men do generally agree in the same Principles of Reason, so do they likewise agree in the same internal Notions or Apprehensions of things") and others, and received in England the attentions and encouragement of the Royal Society (94); Dee's manner of regardig his hieroglyph and its constituent parts approaches in some respects Leibniz' conception of the universal character which underlay, though it has been inevitably overshadowed by his more fruitful vision of a general logical calculus, for this latter implied the possibility of the reduction of all scientific concepts, by analysis, into a small number originally constitutive of them, to be expressed in ideographic symbols, revealing their nature and the operations they allowed of and from which all scientific knowledge might be then deduced
http://www.johndee.org/calder/html/Calder6.html

Calder on John Dee's answer to Socrates in the Cratylus

2013-01-06T00:42:00.002-08:00

Such a position provides an answer to Socrates' objection to such procedures at the end of the Cratylus (89) that the far better and surer way to knowledge is to avoid such an attempt to learn from the image (word or sign), however exact an imitation it may be, and to examine the things themselves, that are supposedly represented. For to Dee, the figures he examines would appear to stand for intelligible concepts, employed by God in creation, principles not directly manifest to sense through particular objects, complex symbolic syntheses of the universal law. This also applies in part to his more conventional "Cabalism," using words and letters, in the Monas, while the way in which other standard objections - as those raised in theCratylus - were thought to be adequately answered has already been discussed (90). It is interesting however that Roger Bacon relies on the same text as Dee cites in the prefatory letter, to justify such practises; writing "For the Lord says, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the alw till all be fulfilled. And therefore there is an admirable exposition in the book on the meanings of the scriptures stating how the individual letters of the Hebrew Alphabet had significance respecting the ancient people, and how they show the number of centuries through which the state of that race passed as regards its different periods and ages, in accordance with the special powers and potencies ofthe letters....I cannot sufficiently admire the manner in which the examination was derived, although it may seem to the uninitiated to have a weak basis in the letters of the alphabet which are the first rudiments of children. But according to the teaching of the Apostles lesser things are more necessary and are to be accorded greater honour...."(91) Bacon, as Dee here also, gives equal status to the Greek and Latin alphabets. Agrippa does the same, declaring that it is God who has given man discourse in different languages, of which the written characters have a fixed order, and particular shapes which are not the result of chance, or human invention, but divinely formed in accordance with the celestial bodies and angelic powers and the virtue of these. In a manner very close to the method of Dee's Monas, he attempts the reduction of letters to zodiacal and planetary signs (92). Tymme sums up the case in his preface to his proposed translation of Dee's book. Adam he says gave names to creatures "agreeing with their nature," he inscribed in two tablets of stone with prophecies and philosophy in hieroglyphical characters, one of which Noah discovered after the flood in Armenia, and from this the signs of the planets derive. A universal science was then possible by their means, but the knowledge it embodied has since then not only diminished but has been divided up in such sort that its surviving fragments "make one an Astronomer, another a Magitian, a third a Cabalist, and a fourth an Alchemist"; but this lost unity of science Dee's work aims at reestablishing by means of the primitive planetary figures and the Cabalah, which last says Tymme "out of hidden and misticall sciences serveth to make away for men to come unto God."(93)
http://www.johndee.org/calder/html/Calder6.html

Calder on the influence of Proclus on John Dee

2013-01-06T00:39:00.002-08:00

Now, although many early neo-Platonists such as Plotinus (who praises for instance the way the Egyptian sages have expressed the true natures of each thing in the hieroglyphs standing for them (86)) or Iamblichus, dealt with the virtues of figures from this point of view, it is Proclus who offers some of the fullest, most explicit discussions, and the most obviously relevant to Dee's present work. He recurs frequently to the theme, seeming to regard the best method in all instruction to be that which he attributes to the Pythagoreans, which falls into three stages (perhaps corresponding to the familiar levels of Sensible Intuition, Abstract Reason, and Spritual Reality) the first and third of which employ this approach. For prior to scientific doctrine the Pythagoreans render manifest the proposed objects of enquiry by approximate similitudes and images, and finally once more have recourse to symbols of a different kind to reveal the arcane virtues of these objects (87). In the preface to his commentary on Euclid, a work in which Dee seems to have been thoroughly steeped, Proclus declares that in Numbers, Figures and Musical Accords are to be found the three ways in which the constitutive reasons of all intellectual, moral and theological truths are presented to the human mind, and later has a lengthy discussion on the virtues of figures reflecting directly on the position taken up in Dee's Monas
http://www.johndee.org/calder/html/Calder6.html

abstract from a paper on the Kabbalah of Rosenroth

2012-12-17T13:38:00.001-08:00

"Dans le cadre de l’étude de la circulation des modèles et des savoirs en Europe, nous proposons de nous attacher ici à la figure de l’adam kadmon, littéralement « homme primordial », telle qu’elle apparaît dans la Kabbala denudata de Knorr de Rosenroth, à ses caractéristiques et au rôle qu’elle joue au sein du système mis en place par l’auteur. Œuvre composée dans le dernier quart du 17e siècle par le mystique et hébraïste allemand Christian Knorr de Rosenroth, la Kabbala denudata constitue, selon nous, une véritable charnière au sein du mouvement de la kabbale chrétienne et, plus largement, dans l’histoire de la spiritualité européenne. Publiée en 1677, l’œuvre est postérieure à la kabbale chrétienne classique et ouvre la voie à la reformulation de ses principes par l’ésotérisme moderne naissant.

http://ulb.academia.edu/AnnaMariaVileno/Papers

Call For Papers - Celestial Magic

2012-12-15T15:50:00.001-08:00

University of Wales Trinity Saint David
The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture,
School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology
http://www.trinitysaintdavid.ac.uk/en/sophia/

Eleventh Annual Sophia Centre Conference
Second Call for Papers

'CELESTIAL MAGIC'

22-23 June 2013
Venue: Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath, England

Keynote speakers

Prof. Peter Forshaw, Universitair Docent (Senior Lecturer/Assistant
Professor) for the History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period
at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents,
University of Amsterdam.

Prof. Elliot R. Wolfson, Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic
Studies, New York University.

Conference Chairs
Dr Nicholas Campion, University of Wales Trinity Saint David,
n.campion@tsd.ac.uk
Dr Liz Greene, University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the University of
Bristol. l.greene@tsd.ac.uk

Conference Theme
Magic, loosely defined, is the attempt to engage with the world through the
imagination or psyche, in order to obtain some form of knowledge, benefit or
advantage. Celestial magic engages with the cosmos through stellar,
planetary or celestial symbolism, influences or intelligences. This academic
conference will explore the history, philosophy and practice of celestial
magic in past or present societies.
Topics may include:
Astronomy and magic in literature
Astral magic in the ancient world
Anthropological theory and astral magic
The use of astrology by magical societies
Astral divination and magic
Magical theory as a rational for astrology

The conference organisers invite proposals for papers of 30 minutes which
may deal with text, imagery, practice or theory. We welcome proposals on any
time period or culture. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2012.

Please include an abstract of c. 150 words and a biography of c 100 words,
in the same document.

Alberti and Ficino

2012-12-01T21:06:00.002-08:00

Leon Battista Alberti and Marsilio Ficino, though separated by twenty-nine years in age, had a close relationship as mentor and pupil. Concepts which can be found in Alberti's De Pictura (1435) and De Re Aedificatoria (1450) are infused in Ficino's De Amore (1469). The concepts include Alberti's theories of armonia, lineamenti, concinnitas, ornamento, and the pyramid of light in the theory of vision. In both Alberti and Ficino, harmonies shared by the body and music are manifestations of the harmonies of the soul. Beauty in body and matter is determined by beauty in mind (mens), that part of mind directed toward intellectus divinus, and beauty is made manifest in mind by the lineamenti, the lines in the mind which are distinguished from matter. Beauty is the internal perfection of the intellectus divinus, which is the good, which is a perfect harmony called concinnitas. Ornament is not beauty, but rather a physical complement to beauty. http://www.academia.edu/2223434/Alberti_and_Ficino

Call For Papers: Grimoires at UT Austin

2012-12-01T20:19:00.002-08:00

"Text, Context, and Non-Text: Grimoires and Ritual Magic in culture, literature, and art."

Location:	Texas, United States
Call for Papers Date:	2013-01-15
Date Submitted:	2012-11-29
Announcement ID:	199149

Text, Context, and Non-Text: Grimoires in Central Europe
April 5th and 6th 2013
The University of Texas at Austin
Conference sponsored by
the Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies,
the Texas Chair for Czech Studies,
and the Departments of History,
Germanic Studies, and Religious Studies
This conference is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of a large corpus of magic texts that figure prominently in the cultural and intellectual history of Europe. Its focus will be grimoires, real or imagined, whose legacy has reverberated throughout European culture in the form of folktales, literature (Faust, for example), and graphic art down to the present, at times being among the few treasured possessions brought to the New World.
Abstracts are requested that address any facet of this cultural legacy, in any country and in any era:
· TEXT refers to the content of the grimoire, its images and words, and issues arising from these directly--analysis of meaning, new manuscript finds, translations, etc.
· CONTEXT refers to the total situation in which the grimoire exists, with a view to politics, arts and letters, religion, folklore, etc.
· NON-TEXT refers to any situation in which the grimoire as object or as idea is more central than its content--the evocative indecipherability of existing grimoires, the grimoire as an emblem, key, or symbol, etc.
Abstracts for twenty-minute conference presentations from any discipline will be considered. Please send the abstract as part of an email to: textcontextnontext@gmail.com. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words long and accompanied by a brief (250 word) biography suitable for an introduction at the conference. The conference language is English. All abstracts should be submitted by December 15th (Jan 15th extended deadline.)
We look forward to welcoming a variety of exciting keynote speakers from Central Europe:
Prof. em. Leander Petzoldt of the University of Innsbruck, author of numerous books and collections of folklore, including Magie: Weltbild, Praktiken, Rituale (Magic: World View, Practices, Rituals)
Dr. Susanne Hose of the Sorbian Institute in Bautzen, Germany, author of numerous works on the motifs of magic and magicians (such as Krabat) in the folklore of Lusatia.

Jason Roberts
Email: textcontextnontext@gmail.com

Visionary Architecture

2012-11-23T23:34:00.003-08:00

Champoux’s dissertation, “Visionary Architecture: Monastic Magic and Cognition in John of Morigny’s ‘Liber florum,’” is concerned with the 14th-century Benedictine monk who participated in ritual magic and had visionary experiences. Besides being fascinating reading, John’s text, says Champoux, has altered the study and classification of medieval religions.

“Through a detailed examination of John’s visions and the historical context in which they were written, I argue that magic unsettled medieval theological boundaries and imbued John with a degree of creative license that forced theological interventions from his more orthodox peers,” says Champoux.

Patricia Miller, Champoux’s adviser, says this kind of research is rooted in the latter-day work of Hélène Cixous—specifically, her concept of “productive exile”—and of Michel Foucault, whose study of utopias and heterotopias has changed our understanding of space and time. Miller also points out that Champoux’s research rocks the fractious scholarly field of magic at its “conceptual and definitional core.”

“She is intellectually bold to enter into these discussions,” says Miller, who serves as the Bishop W. Earl Ledden Professor of Religion. “I think her approach—which emphasizes the idea of what magic does, intellectually, rather than what it is—will make a real contribution toward de-essentializing this topic and enabling its study as a legitimate expression of religion.”

http://www.syr.edu/news/articles/2011/dissertation-fellows-08-11.html

Giordano Bruno's Key of Transmutation

2012-11-13T20:46:00.001-08:00

Renaissance Scholars and Their Demons - Ficino lecture

2012-11-12T20:40:00.001-08:00

Society for Neo-Latin Studies: Annual Lecture
November 16th, 5 p.m., University College London
Dr Maude Vanhaelen (University of Warwick)
Renaissance scholars and their demons:
on Ficino and Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis

In 1486, Ficino suddenly interrupts his commentary on Plotinus’ Enneads and devotes three years to the translation of other Neoplatonic texts related to some of the most delicate doctrines of the time: pagan demonology, divination through dreams and theurgy. This paper examines the circumstances surrounding the production of these texts, and explores the ways in which they modify ancient and medieval doctrines of prophecy and divination. It also offers an overview of the immediate reception of Ficino’s translations: it shows that a network of humanists nourished a special interest in the doctrines revived by Ficino, prompting Savonarola to mount virulent attacks against his contemporaries’ revival of the pagan cult to malevolent ‘spirits’.

The lecture will take place in the Chadwick Building (G08), University College London, on Gower Street WC1E 6BT (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/find-us/

).

[cid:part3.04020002.00050903@sussex.ac.uk]
]

Bruno's "Renaissance Dream of Knowledge" in England

2012-11-02T02:38:00.006-07:00

The Renaissance Drama of Knowledge

Giordano Bruno in England

By Hilary Gatti

Giordano Bruno’s visit to Elizabethan England in the 1580s left its imprint on many fields of contemporary culture, ranging from the newly-developing science, the philosophy of knowledge and language, to the extraordinary flowering of Elizabethan poetry and drama.
This book explores Bruno's influence on English figures as different as the ninth Earl of Northumberland, Thomas Harriot, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Originally published in 1989, it is of interest to students and teachers of history of ideas, cultural history, European drama and renaissance England.

Bruno's work had particular power and emphasis in the modern world due to his response to the cultural crisis which had developed - his impulse towards a new ‘faculty of knowing’ had a disruptive effect on existing orthodoxies – religious, scientific, philosophical, and political.

abstract from the publisher's website

Call for Papers: The Substance of Sacred Place

2012-11-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

From: Urban, Tim <Urban@khi.fi.it>
Date: October 29, 2012

Call for Papers

The Substance of Sacred Place:
An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Locative Materiality

organised by Laura Veneskey and Annette Hoffmann

20th/21st June 2013
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut

The study of holy places has long been a central concern of not only the humanities, but also the social sciences. Much of this body of scholarship has focused on pilgrimage and sacred centers, either as theoretical constructions or as concrete places, such as Jerusalem, Mecca or Benares. These subjects have been explored, on the one hand, through the study of ritual and liturgy, and on the other, through various modes of representation, be they architectural, cartographic, iconic, or textual. Complementary to these lines of inquiry, we invite papers that explore the material and tactile dimensions of locative sacrality across religious traditions. How is a sense of place communicable through physical means? What can a consideration of matter tell us about the often fraught relationship between the tangible world and its representation?

We seek analyses of all materials evocative of a particular sacred milieu, not only earth, dust, stone, but also wood, metal, pigments, oil, or water. Presentations exploring either the substances and places themselves or textual and iconic depictions thereof are equally welcome. We invite papers from all disciplines on any locale conceived of as sacred, whether scriptural, pilgrim, monastic, ascetic, or cultic, between antiquity and the early modern period. The workshop is aimed at young researchers, and is intended to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and those in the early stages of their teaching or professional careers.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Sacred landscapes (deserts, mountains, caves, etc.)
- The material dimensions of topographic representation (iconic or textual)
- Earthen, geographic, and locative relics
- Transportable versus site-specific sanctity
- The physicality of built environments and places of worship

Interested applicants should send a current c.v. and an abstract of no more than 250 words (for presentations of twenty minutes) to hoffmann@khi.fi.it andlv2308@columbia.edu). Proposals must be received by date 30th November 2012.

For questions and further information please contact:
Laura Veneskey (lv2308@columbia.edu)
or Annette Hoffmann (hoffmann@khi.fi.it)

abstract of Blum's Introduction to Giordano Bruno

2012-10-20T00:48:00.001-07:00

"Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was a philosopher in his own right. However, he was famous through the centuries due to his execution as a heretic. His pronouncements against teachings of the Catholic Church, his defence of the cosmology of Nicholas Copernicus, and his provocative personality, all this made him a paradigmatic figure of modernity. Bruno’s way of philosophizing is not looking for outright solutions but rather for the depth of the problems; he knows his predecessors and their strategies as well as their weaknesses, which he exposes satirically. This introduction helps to identify the original thought of Bruno who proudly said about himself: “Philosophy is my profession!” His major achievements concern the creativity of the human mind studied through the theory of memory, the infinity of the world, and the discovery of atomism for modernity. He never held a permanent office within or without the academic world. Therefore, the way of thinking of this “Knight Errant of Philosophy” will be presented along the stations of his journey through Western Europe.

Chapters
Pleasant Campania: Education Before and In the Convent
Fleeing into Exile—Northern Italy, Geneva, Toulouse: Astronomy as a Means of Earning a Living
Paris: The Power of Memory
Off to London: Satire, Metaphysics, and Ethics in Italian
God Is Not Idle: Infinite Possibilities and Infinite Reality
Religion and Ethics for the People and the Hero
Return to Paris: Challenging Mathematics and Aristotelianism
“Houses of Wisdom” in Germany: History, Magic, and Atomism
Off to Venice: The Trial of the Heretic
Afterlife: From Heretic to Hermeticist

abstract for a talk on textual sources of magic, epistemological problems

2012-10-14T10:04:00.002-07:00

Giving a talk tomorrow for an interdisciplinary seminar series on pre-modern era research (before 1800) in Tartu, Estonia.

TEXTUAL SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN MAGIC
Jason Cronbach Van Boom

This talk discusses the use of textual sources in the study of medieval and early modern magic (1100-1650). Like other historical disciplines, the history of magic relies heavily on texts. When studying medieval and early modern magic, however, the historian uses two kinds of texts: texts about magic, and texts that were intended as tools for magical practices. The former category is extremely diverse with respect to content and ideological perspective. This category includes academic, legal, polemical, and popular texts. Academic and polemical texts themselves fall into different categories, mostly juridical, theological, and philosophical. Their authors come form a spectrum of learned opinion about magic, ranging from complete opposition to ardent defense. Grimoires and other magical texts comprise a distinct category. They address a limited audience (practitioners of magic) and are intended to be experimental handbooks rather than speculative treatises. Consequently, they pose some special epistemological problems. The talk will discuss four texts as primary examples: the De Mineralibus of Albertus Magnus, the Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, the De Occulta Philosophia of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, and a 15th century German necromantic manual (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 849) published by Prof. Richard Kieckhefer.

Call for Papers: Celestial Magic

2012-10-02T16:09:00.001-07:00

University of Wales Trinity Saint David
The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture,
School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology
http://www.trinitysaintdavid.ac.uk/en/sophia/

Eleventh Annual Sophia Centre Conference
Call for Papers

'CELESTIAL MAGIC'

22-23 June 2013
Venue: Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath, England

Keynote speakers

Prof. Peter Forshaw, Universitair Docent (Senior Lecturer/Assistant
Professor) for History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period at
the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents,
University of Amsterdam.

Prof. Elliot R. Wolfson, Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic
Studies, New York University.

Conference Chairs
Dr Nicholas Campion, University of Wales Trinity Saint David,
n.campion@tsd.ac.uk
Dr Liz Greene, University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the University of
Bristol. l.greene@tsd.ac.uk

Conference Theme
Magic, loosely defined, is the attempt to engage with the world through the
imagination or psyche, in order to obtain some form of knowledge, benefit or
advantage. Celestial magic engages with the cosmos through stellar,
planetary or celestial symbolism, influences or intelligences. This academic
conference will explore the history, philosophy and practice of celestial
magic in past or present societies.

The conference organisers invite proposals for papers of 30 minutes which
may deal with text, imagery, practice or theory. We welcome proposals on any
time period or culture. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2012.

Please include an abstract of c. 150 words and a biography of c 100 words,
in the same document.

Abstracts and biographies should be e mailed to Dr Liz Greene,
l.greene@tsd.ac.uk

The conference is held in collaboration with the Sophia Centre Press.
Publication: selected proceedings will be published through the Sophia
Centre Press.

Hebrew translation of Lull

2012-09-01T18:45:00.002-07:00

Raimundus Lullus, Ha-Melacha ha-Ketzara. A Hebrew Translation of Ramon Llull's Ars Brevis, Turnhout, 2012.

Éditeur : Brepols
Collection : Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis
ISBN : 978-2-503-54198-3 140 €

Ramon Llull completed the Ars breuis in 1308. This short but very popular work extant in over seventy manuscripts was a concise and much more easily digestible version of the much longer Ars generalis ultima, the final redaction of Llull's Art. In Senigallia in the March of Ancona in July or August 1474, the Ars breuis was translated into Hebrew and then copied twice over the next couple of years. The colophon of the extant copy shows that these Jewish students of the Ars breuis used the work to attain unio mystica. This seems to be a unique example of a Christian work, described as being ”short in quantity but great in quality”, knowingly being used by Jews for mystical purposes.

The translator and copyists seem to have read and understood Llull's work through the prism of Abulafian Kabbalah. Abraham Abulafia (d. ca. 1291), a contemporary of Llull's, wrote numerous works dealing with the divine names and the combination of letters. He believed that the whole Torah was the names of God, and by manipulating the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, one could have knowledge of the divine and created world. This Jewish circle seemed to have understood the letters of the Lullian alphabet and the various combinations and compartments of the Ars breuis as leading to true mystical cognition.

This volume presents the Hebrew edition together with the original Latin (based on a slightly revised edition of ROL 12 / CC CM 38) along with an English translation and detailed notes which show how the Jewish translator and copyists understood and used this work.

This edition was prepared under the auspices of the ERC project “Latin Philosophy into Hebrew: Intercultural Networks in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Europe”.

Harvey J. Hames is Professor of Medieval History at Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Israel).

from http://www.compitum.fr/publications/4102-raimundus-lullus-ha-melacha-ha-ketzara-a-hebrew-translation-of-ramon-llulls-ars-brevis

Embryology+Astrology After Pico

2012-08-09T09:46:00.001-07:00

3. “Renaissance Embryology and Astrology after Pico”
Hiro Hirai (Radboud University Nijmegen)
The traditional relationship between medicine and astrology was transformed during the Renaissance.A major factor of this change was the criticism formulated by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494). In his posthumous work Disputations against Judicial Astrology (Bologna, 1496), he rejected the divinatory aspects of astrology while accepting its physical dimensions, which can be qualified as “natural astrology.” According to him, celestial bodies produce their effects only by physical means such as motion, light and heat. The field of embryology received a direct impact from Pico’s new theory. This paper will take up the case of a lesser-known philosophical embryology published in Italy during the 1560s by Sebastiano Paparella who taught theoretical medicine at Pisa and Perugia. Under the strong influence of Pico, he tried to restore cosmic bonds, which could bridge the gap between heaven and seeds in animal and human generation.

Giordano Bruno's Definition of Magic

2012-07-25T00:06:00.004-07:00

On Magic

First, the term ‘magician’ means a wise man; for example, the Trismegistes
among the Egyptians, the druids among the Gauls, the gymnosophists
among the Indians, the cabalists among the Hebrews, the magi among the
Persians (who were followers of Zoroaster), the sophists among the Greeks
and the wise men among the Latins.

Second, ‘magician’ refers to someone who does wondrous things merely
by manipulating active and passive powers, as occurs in chemistry, medicine
and such fields; this is commonly called ‘natural magic’.

Third, magic involves circumstances such that the actions of nature or
of a higher intelligence occur in such a way as to excite wonderment by
their appearances; this type of magic is called ‘prestidigitation’.

Fourth, magic refers to what happens as a result of the powers of attraction
and repulsion between things, for example, the pushes, motions and
attractions due to magnets and such things, when all these actions are due
not to active and passive qualities but rather to the spirit or soul existing in
things. This is called ‘natural magic’ in the proper sense.

The fifth meaning includes, in addition to these powers, the use of
words, chants, calculations of numbers and times, images, figures, symbols,
characters, or letters. This is a form of magic which is intermediate between
the natural and the preternatural or the supernatural, and is properly called
‘mathematical magic’, or even more accurately ‘occult philosophy’.

The sixth sense adds to this the exhortation or invocation of the intelligences
and external or higher forces by means of prayers, dedications,
incensings, sacrifices, resolutions and ceremonies directed to the gods,
demons and heroes. Sometimes, this is done for the purpose of contacting
a spirit itself to become its vessel and instrument in order to appear wise,
although this wisdom can be easily removed, together with the spirit, by
means of a drug. This is the magic of the hopeless, who become the vessels
of evil demons, which they seek through their notorious art. On the other
hand, this is sometimes done to command and control lower demons with
the authority of higher demonic spirits, by honouring and entreating the
latter while restricting the former with oaths and petitions. This is
transnatural or metaphysical magic and is properly called ‘theurgy’.

Seventh, magic is the petition or invocation, not of the demons and
heroes themselves, but through them, to call upon the souls of dead
humans, in order to predict and know absent and future events, by taking
their cadavers or parts thereof to some oracle. This type of magic, both in
its subject matter and in its purpose, is called ‘necromancy’. If the body is
not present, but the oracle is beseeched by invoking the spirit residing in
its viscera with very active incantations, then this type of magic is properly
called ‘Pythian’, for, if I may say so, this was the usual meaning of ‘inspired’
at the temple of the Pythian Apollo.

Eighth, sometimes incantations are associated with a person’s physical
parts in any sense; garments, excrement, remnants, footprints and anything
which is believed to have made some contact with the person. In that case,
and if they are used to untie, fasten, or weaken, then this constitutes the
type of magic called ‘wicked’, if it leads to evil. If it leads to good, it is to be
counted among the medicines belonging to a certain method and type of
medical practice. If it leads to final destruction and death, then it is called
‘poisonous magic’.

Ninth, all those who are able, for any reason, to predict distant and
future events are said to be magicians. These are generally called ‘diviners’
because of their purpose. The primary groups of such magicians use either
the four material principles, fire, air, water and earth, and they are thus
called ‘pyromancers’, ‘hydromancers’, and ‘geomancers’, or they use the
three objects of knowledge, the natural, mathematical and divine. There
are also various other types of prophecy. For augerers, soothsayers and
other such people make predictions from an inspection of natural or physical
things. Geomancers make predictions in their own way by inspecting
mathematical objects like numbers, letters and certain lines and figures,
and also from the appearance, light and location of the planets and similar
objects. Still others make predictions by using divine things, like sacred
names, coincidental locations, brief calculations and persevering circumstances.
In our day, these latter people are not called magicians, since, for
us, the word ‘magic’ sounds bad and has an unworthy connotation. So this
is not called magic but ‘prophecy’.

Finally, ‘magic’ and ‘magician’ have a pejorative connotation which has
not been included or examined in the above meanings. In this sense, a
magician is any foolish evil-doer who is endowed with the power of helping
or harming someone by means of a communication with, or even a pact
with, a foul devil. This meaning does not apply to wise men, or indeed to
authors, although some of them have adopted the name ‘hooded magicians’,
for example, the authors of the book De malleo maleficarum (The
Witches’ Hammer). As a result, the name is used today by all writers of this
type, as can be seen in the comments and beliefs of ignorant and foolish
priests.

Therefore, when the word ‘magic’ is used, it should either be taken in
one of the senses distinguished above, or, if it is used without qualifications,
it should be taken in its strongest and most worthy sense as dictated by the
logicians, and especially by Aristotle in Book v of the Topics. So as it is used
by and among philosophers, ‘magician’ then means a wise man who has the
power to act. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the word, when unqualified,
means whatever is signified by common usage. Another common
meaning is found among various groups of priests who frequently speculate
about that foul demon called the devil. Still other meanings are to be
found in the common usages of different peoples and believers.
Given these distinctions, we will deal generally with three types of
magic: the divine, the physical and the mathematical. The first two of these
types of magic necessarily relate to what is good and best. But the third type
includes both good and evil, since the magician may direct it towards either.
Although all three types agree on many principles and actions, in the third
type, wickedness, idolatry, lawlessness and charges of idolatry are found
when error and deception are used to turn things which are intrinsically
good into evil. Here, the mathematical type of magic is not defined by the
usually mentioned fields of mathematics, i. e., geometry, arithmetic, astronomy,
optics, music, etc., but rather by its likeness and relationship to these
disciplines. It is similar to geometry in that it uses figures and symbols, to
music in its chants, to arithmetic in its numbers and manipulations, to
astronomy in its concerns for times and motions, and to optics in making
observations. In general, it is similar to mathematics as a whole, either
because it mediates between divine and natural actions, or because it shares
or lacks something of both. For some things are intermediates because they
participate in both extremes, others because they are excluded from both
extremes, in which case they should not be called intermediates but a third
species which is not between the other two but outside of them. From what
has been said, it is clear how divine and physical magic differ from the third
type.

To turn now to the particulars, magicians take it as axiomatic that, in all
the panorama before our eyes, God acts on the gods; the gods act on the
celestial or astral bodies, which are divine bodies; these act on the spirits
who reside in and control the stars, one of which is the earth; the spirits act
on the elements, the elements on the compounds, the compounds on the
senses; the senses on the soul, and the soul on the whole animal. This is the
descending scale.

By contrast, the ascending scale is from the animal through the soul to
the senses, through the senses to compounds, through compounds to the
elements, through these to spirits, through the spirits in the elements to
those in the stars, through these to the incorporeal gods who have an ethereal
substance or body, through them to the soul of the world or the spirit of the
universe; and through that to the contemplation of the one, most simple,
best, greatest, incorporeal, absolute and self-sufficient being.
Thus, there is a descent from God through the world to animals, and an
ascent from animals through the world to God. He is the highest point of
the scale, pure act and active power, the purest light. At the bottom of the
scale is matter, darkness and pure passive potency, which can become all
things from the bottom, just as He can make all things from the top.
Between the highest and lowest levels, there are intermediaries, the higher
of which have a greater share of light and action and active power, while the
lower levels have a greater share of darkness, potency and passive power.
As a result, all light in lower things, which comes to them from above, is
more powerful in higher things. And also, all darkness in higher things is
stronger in lower things. But the nature and power of light and darkness
are not equal. For light diffuses and penetrates through the lowest and
deepest darkness, but darkness does not touch the purest sphere of light.
Thus, light penetrates and conquers darkness and overflows to infinity,
while darkness does not penetrate or overwhelm or equal the light, but
rather is very weak compared to light.

text lifted from this excellent Philosophy of Magic Course Website

Lactantius on Demons, Hermes Trismegistus

2012-05-27T02:18:00.001-07:00

Chapter xv.-Of the Corruption of Angels, and the Two Kinds of Demons.
When, therefore, the number of men had begun to increase, God in His forethought, lest the devil, to whom from the beginning He had given power over the earth, should by his subtilty either corrupt or destroy men, as he had done at first, sent angels for the protection and improvement²⁰⁶ of the human race; and inasmuch as He had given these a free will, He enjoined them above all things not to defile themselves with contamination from the earth, and thus lose the dignity of their heavenly nature.²⁰⁷ He plainly prohibited them from doing that which He knew that they would do, that they might entertain no hope of pardon. Therefore, while they abode among men, that most deceitful ruler²⁰⁸ of the earth, by his very association, gradually enticed them to vices, and polluted them by intercourse with women. Then, not being admitted into heaven on account of the sins into which they had plunged themselves, they fell to the earth. Thus from angels the devil makes them to become his satellites and attendants. But they who were born from these, because they were neither angels nor men, but bearing a kind of mixed²⁰⁹ nature, were not admitted into hell, as their fathers were not into heaven. Thus there came to be two kinds of demons; one of heaven, the other of the earth. The latter are the wicked²¹⁰ spirits, the authors of all the evils which are done, and the same devil is their prince.Whence Trismegistus calls him the ruler of the demons. But grammarians say that they are called demons, as though doemones,²¹¹ that is, skilled and acquainted with matters: for they think that these are gods. They are acquainted, indeed, with many future events, but not all, since it is not permitted them entirely to know the counsel of God; and therefore they are accustomed to accommodate²¹² their answers to ambiguous results. The poets both know them to be demons, and so describe them.
Hesiod thus speaks:-
"These are the demons according to the will of Zeus, Good, living on the earth, the guardians of mortal men."
And this is said for this purpose, because God had sent them as guardians to the human race; but they themselves also, though they are the destroyers of men, yet wish themselves to appear as their guardians, that they themselves may be worshipped, and God may not be worshipped. The philosophers also discuss the subject of these beings. For Plato attempted even to explain their natures in his "Banquet; "and Socrates said that there was a demon continually about him, who had become attached to him when a boy, by whose will and direction his life was guided. The art also and power of the Magi altogether consists in the influences²¹³ of these; invoked by whom they deceive the sight of men with deceptive illusions,²¹⁴ so that they do not see those things which exist, and think that they see those things which do not exist. These contaminated and abandoned spirits, as I say, wander over the whole earth, and contrive a solace for their own perdition by the destruction of men. Therefore they fill every place with snares, deceits, frauds, and errors; for they cling to individuals, and occupy whole houses from door to door, and assume to themselves the name of genii; for by this word they translate demons in the Latin language. They consecrate these in their houses, to these they daily pour out²¹⁵ libations of wine, and worship the wise demons as gods of the earth, and as averters of those evils which they themselves cause and impose. And these, since spirits are without substance²¹⁶ and not to be grasped, insinuate themselves into the bodies of men; and secretly working in their inward parts, they corrupt the health, hasten diseases, terrify their souls with dreams, harass their minds with phrenzies, that by these evils they may compel men to have recourse to their aid.

Chapter xvi.-That Demons Have No Power Over Those Who are Established in the Faith.
And the nature of all these deceits²¹⁷ is obscure to those who are without the truth. For they think that those demons profit them when they cease to injure, whereas they have no power except to injure.²¹⁸ Some one may perchance say that they are therefore to be worshipped, that they may not injure, since they have the power to injure. They do indeed injure, but those only by whom they are feared, whom the powerful and lofty hand of God does not protect, who are uninitiated in the mystery²¹⁹ of truth. But they fear the righteous,²²⁰ that is, the worshippers of God, adjured by whose name they depart²²¹ from the bodies of the possessed: for, being lashed by their words as though by scourges, they not only confess themselves to be demons, but even utter their own names-those which are adored in the temples-which they generally do in the presence of their own worshippers; not, it is plain, to the disgrace of religion, but²²² to the disgrace of their own honour, because they cannot speak falsely to God, by whom they are adjured, nor to the righteous, by whose voice they are tortured. Therefore ofttimes having uttered thegreatest howlings, they cry out that they are beaten, and are on fire, and that they are just on the point of coming forth: so much power has the knowledge of God, and righteousness! Whom, therefore, can they injure, except those whom they have in their own power? In short, Hermes affirms that those who have known God are not only safe from the attacks of demons, but that they are not even bound by fate. "The only protection," he says, "is piety, for over a pious man neither evil demon nor fate has any power: for God rescues the pious man from all evil; for the one and only good thing among men is piety." And what piety is, he testifies in another place, in these words: "For piety is the knowledge of God." Asclepius also, his disciple, more fully expressed the same sentiment in that finished discourse which he wrote to the king. Each of them, in truth, affirms that the demons are the enemies and harassers of men, and on this account Trismegistus calls them wicked angels; so far was he from being ignorant that from heavenly beings they were corrupted, and began to be earthly.

Book IV. Of True Wisdom and Religion. Chapter vi.-Almighty God Begat His Son; And the Testimonies of the Sibyls and of Trismegistus Concerning Him.
God, therefore, the contriver and founder of all things, as we have said in the second hook, before He commenced this excellent work of the world, begat a pure and incorruptible Spirit, whom He called His Son. And although He had afterwards created by Himself innumerable other beings, whom we call angels, this first-begotten, however, was the only one whom He considered worthy of being called by the divine name, as being powerful in His Father's excellence and majesty. But that there is a Son of the Most High God, who is possessed of the greatest power, is shown not only by the unanimous utterances of the prophets, but also by the declaration of Trismegistus and the predictions of the Sibyls. Hermes, in the book which is entitled The Perfect Word, made use of these words: "The Lord and Creator of all things, whom we have thought right to call God, since He made the second God visible and sensible. But I use the term sensible, not because He Himself perceives (for the question is not whether He Himself perceives), but because He leads²⁵ to perception and to intelligence. Since, therefore, He made Him first, and alone, and one only, He appeared to Him beautiful, and most full of all good things; and He hallowed Him, and altogether loved Him as His own Son." The Erythraean Sibyl, in the beginning of her poem, which she commenced with the Supreme God, proclaims the Son of God as the leader and commander of all, in these verses:
"The nourisher and creator of all things, who placed the sweet breath in all, and made God the leader of all."
And again, at the end of the same poem:-
"But whom God gave for faithful men to honour."
And another Sibyl enjoins that He ought to be known:-
"Know Him as your God, who is the Son of God."
Assuredly He is the very Son of God, who by that most wise King Solomon, full of divine inspiration, spake these things which we have added:²⁶ "God founded²⁷ me in the beginning of His ways, in His work before the ages. He set me up in the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He established the depths, before the fountains of waters came forth: the Lord begat me before all the hills; He made the regions, and the uninhabitable²⁸ boundaries under the heaven. When He prepared the heaven, I was by Him: and when He separated His own seat, when He made the strong clouds above the winds, and when He strengthened the mountains, and placed them under heaven; when He laid the strong foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging all things. I was He in whom He delighted: I was daily delighted, when He rejoiced, the world being completed." But on this account Trismegistus spoke of Him as "the artificer of God," and the Sibyl calls Him "Counsellor," because He is endowed by God the Father with such wisdom and strength, that God employed both His wisdom and hands in the creation of the world.

------- Chapter ix.-Of the Word of God.
But the Greeks speak of Him as the Logos,⁶⁰ more befittingly than we do as the word, or speech: for Logos signifies both speech and reason, inasmuch as He is both the voice and the wisdom of God. And of this divine speech not even the philosophers were ignorant, since Zeno represents the Logos as the arranger of the established order of things, and the framer of the universe: whom also He calls Fate, and the necessity of things, and God, and the soul of Jupiter, in accordance with the custom, indeed, by which they are wont to regard Jupiter as God. But the words are no obstacle, since the sentiment is in agreement with the truth. For it is the spirit of God which he named the soul of Jupiter. For Trismegistus, who by some means or other searched into almost all truth, often described the excellence and majesty of the word, as the instance before mentioned declares, in which he acknowledges that there is an ineffable and sacred speech, the relation of which exceeds the measure of man's ability. I have spoken briefly, as I have been able, concerning the first nativity. Now I must more fully discuss the second, since this is the subject most controverted, that we may hold forth the light of understanding to those who desire to know the truth.

<a href="http://ls.poly.edu/~jbain/mms/texts/mmslanctantius.htm">from The Divine Institutes</a>

CFP - Conference on Contemporary Esotericism

2012-02-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

***Call for Papers***
1st International Conference on Contemporary Esotericism

Deadline for abstracts: March 30, 2012
Submit abstracts to: ContEso2012@gmail.com
Conference website: http://www.erg.su.se/contemporary-esotericism

Department of History of Religions, Stockholm University, Sweden. August 27-29, 2012

Keynote speakers:
- Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam)
- Christopher Partridge (Religious Studies, Lancaster University)
- Kocku von Stuckrad (Study of Religion, Groningen University)
- Jay Johntson (Study of Religion, University of Sydney)

Conference organizers:
- Egil Asprem (Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam)
- Kennet Granholm (History of Religions, Stockholm University)

The academic study of Western esotericism has blossomed in recent years, but there is still a major gap in scholarship on esotericism: very little research exists on contemporary phenomena. While some present-day phenomena related to esotericism, such as ‘New Age spiritualities’ and (neo)paganism, have been the focus of scholars in other fields, such developments have been largely neglected in the field of Western esotericism. While most scholarship in the field has had a focus on early modern phenomena and has been predominantly historiographical in its approach, serious attempts to develop sociological approaches to the study of the esoteric/occult have been made in recent years. The fundamental challenge is that the study of contemporary esotericism requires new definitions and methodologies, apart from those developed for the study of Renaissance and early modern esotericism. Studying contemporary phenomena poses intriguing possibilities, such as the opportunity to study esotericism in lived contexts, which unavoidably also introduce new problems.

*Suggested Topics*
The conference has two primary goals: to place contemporary phenomena on the map of esotericism-research, and to explore new theory and methodology required for the study of specifically contemporary phenomena. We thus welcome papers dealing with contemporary and recent developments in “classic” esoteric currents – e.g. within Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, esoteric secret societies, and ritual magic – as well as new esoteric developments of particular relevance today – e.g. Chaos Magick, Satanism, ‘New Age’ religion, (neo)paganism, and broader ‘occultural’ developments. We also strongly encourage papers dealing with theoretical and methodological issues that are particularly pertinent to the study of contemporary esotericism, as well as papers dealing with the societal, cultural, political, religious etc. contexts of esotericism today. The conference should function as an interdisciplinary meeting place where scholars from a multitude of disciplines and with different approaches and perspectives can come together to learn from each other.

* Suggested Thematic Areas *
- Esotericism and Gender
- Hands-on Research: Anthropological and E-Anthropological (online research) Approaches to the Study of Esotericism
- Esotericism, Media, and Popular Culture
- Esotericism and Sociology; including Sociological Approaches to the Study of Esotericism, - Esotericism and Social Change, The Social Grounding of Esotericism

*Additional information*
The conference will function as the launching party for Contemporary Esotericism (Equinox Publishing, http://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showbook.asp?bkid=531), the first volume specifically dedicated to the study of esotericism in the present day. In addition, The conference is arranged in conjunction with the 2012 EASR conference, also arranged in Stockholm, Sweden (at Södertörn University, August 23-26). Panels on esotericism are planned for the EASR as well, thus providing the opportunity to engage in extended discussion on these subjects, and of course lessening travel expenses.