Agrippa's Occult Philosophy Natural Magic

by Agrippa, Cornelius

• ISBN13: 9780486447179
• ISBN10: 0486447170
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-23
• Publisher: Dover Publications

Summary

Written by a legendary scholar of Renaissance esoterica, this is the single most important text in the history of Western occultism. Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) combined classical Neoplatonic and Hermetic philosophy with elements of the Jewish Kabbalah and Christianity to form a systematic exposition of occult knowledge. Agrippa's view of divine order was subsequently eclipsed by the materialism and atheism of the Enlightenment, but 500 years later, his influential work endures as a cornerstone of mystic literature.

Table of Contents

Introductory
Editor's Preface	p. 13
Early Life of Agrippa	p. 15
Cornelius Agrippa to the Reader	p. 25
Agrippa to Trithemius	p. 28
Trithemius to Agrippa	p. 31
Natural Magic
How Magicians Collect Virtues from the Three-fold World, is Declared in these Three Books	p. 33
What Magic Is, What are the Parts thereof, and How the Professors thereof must be Qualified	p. 34
Of the Four Elements, their Qualities, and Mutual Mixtions	p. 38
Of a Three-fold Consideration of the Elements	p. 40
Of the Wonderful Natures of Fire and Earth	p. 42
Of the Wonderful Natures of Water, Air and Winds	p. 44
Of the Kinds of Compounds, what Relation they stand in to the Elements, and what Relation there is betwixt the Elements themselves and the Soul, Senses and Dispositions of Men	p. 53
How the Elements are in the Heavens, in Stars, in Devils, in Angels, and, lastly, in God himself	p. 55
Of the Virtues of things Natural, depending immediately upon Elements	p. 58
Of the Occult Virtues of Things	p. 59
How Occult Virtues are Infused into the several kinds of Things by Ideas, through the Help of the Soul of the World, and Rays of the Stars; and what Things abound most with this Virtue	p. 62
How it is that Particular Virtues are Infused into Particular Individuals, even of the same Species	p. 64
Whence the Occult Virtues of Things Proceed	p. 65
Of the Spirit of the World, What It Is, and how by way of medium It Unites occult Virtues to their Subjects	p. 69
How we must Find Out and Examine the Virtues of Things by way of Similitude	p. 71
How the Operations of several Virtues Pass from one thing into another, and are Communicated one to the other	p. 74
How by Enmity and Friendship the Virtues of things are to be Tried and Found Out	p. 75
Of the Inclinations of Enmities	p. 78
How the Virtues of Things are to be Tried and Found Out, which are in them Specifically, or in any one Individual by way of Special Gift	p. 82
The Natural Virtues are in some Things throughout their Whole Substance, and in other Things in Certain Parts and Members	p. 83
Of the Virtues of Things which are in them only in their Life Time, and Such as Remain in them even After their Death	p. 85
How Inferior Things are Subjected to Superior Bodies, and how the Bodies, Actions, and Dispositions of Men are Ascribed to Stars and Signs	p. 87
How we shall Know what Stars Natural Things are Under, and what Things are Under the Sun, which are called Solary	p. 91
What Things are Lunary, or Under the Power of the Moon	p. 95
What Things are Saturnine, or Under the Power of Saturn	p. 97
What Things are Under the Power of Jupiter, and are called Jovial	p. 100
What Things are Under the Power of Mars, and are called Martial	p. 101
What Things are Under the Power of Venus, and are called Venereal	p. 102
What Things are Under the Power of Mercury, and are called Mercurial	p. 103
That the Whole Sublunary World, and those Things which are in It, are Distributed to Planets	p. 104
How Provinces and Kingdoms are Distributed to Planets	p. 105
What Things are Under the Signs, the Fixed Stars, and their Images	p. 107
The Seals and Characters of Natural Things	p. 110
How, by Natural Things and their Virtues, we may Draw Forth and Attract the Influences and Virtues of Celestial Bodies	p. 114
Of the Mixtions of Natural Things, one with another, and their Benefit	p. 115
Of the Union of Mixed Things, and the Introduction of a More Noble Form, and the Senses of Life	p. 117
How, by some certain Natural and Artificial Preparations, We May Attract certain Celestial and Vital Gifts	p. 118
How We May Draw not only Celestial and Vital but also certain Intellectual and Divine Gifts from Above	p. 121
That We May, by some certain Matters of the World, Stir Up the Gods of the World and their Ministering Spirits	p. 123
Of Bindings; what Sort they are of, and in what Ways they are wont to be Done	p. 124
Of Sorceries, and their Power	p. 125
Of the Wonderful Virtues of some Kinds of Sorceries	p. 127
Of Perfumes or Suffumigations; their Manner and Power	p. 132
The Composition of some Fumes appropriated to the Planets	p. 135
Of Collyries, Unctions, Love-Medicines, and their Virtues	p. 137
Of Natural Alligations and Suspensions	p. 139
Of Magical Rings and their Compositions	p. 141
Of the Virtue of Places, and what Places are Suitable to every Star	p. 143
Of Light, Colors, Candles and Lamps, and to what Stars, Houses and Elements several Colors are Ascribed	p. 146
Of Fascination, and the Art thereof	p. 150
Of certain Observations, Producing wonderful Virtues	p. 152
Of the Countenance and Gesture, the Habit and the Figure of the Body, and to what Stars any of these do Answer; whence Physiognomy, and Metoposcopy, and Chiromancy, Arts of Divination, have their Grounds	p. 155
Of Divination, and the Kinds thereof	p. 158
Of divers certain Animals, and other things, which have a Signification in Auguries	p. 161
How Auspicias are Verified by the Light of Natural Instinct, and of some Rules of Finding of It Out	p. 169
Of the Soothsayings of Flashes and Lightnings, and how Monstrous and Prodigious Things are to be Interpreted	p. 175
Of Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, and Pyromancy, Four Divinations of Elements	p. 177
Of the Reviving of the Dead, and of Sleeping or Hibernating (wanting victuals) Many Years together	p. 180
Of Divination by Dreams	p. 184
Of Madness, and Divinations which are made when men are awake, and of the Power of a Melancholy Humor, by which Spirits are sometimes induced into Men's Bodies	p. 186
Of the Forming of Man, of the External Senses, also those Inward, and the Mind; and of the Three-fold Appetite of the Soul, and Passions of the Will	p. 190
Of the Passions of the Mind, their Original Source, Differences, and Kinds	p. 194
How the Passions of the Mind change the proper Body by changing its Accidents and moving the Spirit	p. 195
How the Passions of the Mind change the Body by way of Imitation from some Resemblance; of the Transforming and Translating of Men, and what Force the Imaginative Power hath, not only over the Body but the Soul	p. 197
How the Passions of the Mind can Work of themselves upon Another's Body	p. 200
That the Passions of the Mind are Helped by a Celestial Season, and how Necessary the Constancy of the Mind is in every Work	p. 203
How the Mind of Man may be Joined with the Mind of the Stars, and Intelligences of the Celestials, and, together with them, Impress certain wonderful Virtues upon inferior Things	p. 204
How our Mind can Change and Bind inferior Things to the Ends which we Desire	p. 206
Of Speech, and the Occult Virtue of Words	p. 207
Of the Virtue of Proper Names	p. 208
Of many Words joined together, as in Sentences and Verses; and of the Virtues and Astrictions of Charms	p. 210
Of the wonderful Power of Enchantments	p. 213
Of the Virtue of Writing, and of Making Imprecations, and Inscriptions	p. 215
Of the Proportion, Correspondency, and Reduction of Letters to the Celestial Signs and Planets, According to various Tongues, and a Table thereof	p. 216
By Henry Morley
Criticism on Agrippa's Natural Magic	p. 221
Agrippa and the Rosicrucians	p. 223
Exposition of the Cabala	p. 231
New Table of the Cabala and Tarot (specially compiled)	p. 240
The Mirific Word	p. 242
Reuchlin the Mystic	p. 244
Agrippa Expounds Reuchlin	p. 252
The Nobility of Woman	p. 255
Original and Selected
Order of the Empyrean Heaven	p. 269
Symbols of the Alchemists	p. 275
The Magic Mirror, a Message to Mystics	p. 279
Illustrations and Etchings
Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Title-page of 1651 Edition, facing	p. 32
Grand Solar Man, facing	p. 90
Calamus	p. 94
Characters of Nature	p. 112
Divine Letters	p. 113
Cabalistical Table of Co-ordinate Characters	p. 220
Tree of the Cabala, three full-page etchings, facing	p. 238
The Empyrean Heaven, facing	p. 268
Rosicrucian Symbol of the Spirit of Nature, facing	p. 270
Symbols of the Alchemists	p. 276
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.