Glimpses of the Left..

!t'llst two first books of the work. They were conventionally written and
"xplained how to encode texts, with providing suitable examples.
The third book, however, was different. It contained numbers and names of
different entities. It was about conjuring 28 planetary four for
Pilch of the seven planets. There were also detailed descriptions of how to
Pll'nd such a rose ink, drawing a picture the particular
Plpirit, fashioning another picture of the who was to receive the
message, folding them together, wrapping in a whitewashed linen, and
finally all in a container was to be hidden. Because of these
descriptions, it was widely believed that the book contained secrets of
and scholars considered it a of
I hI:' grimoire black magic. Trithemius himself claimed
that the book contained of the art of magic,
I,mguage�leaming and a method of sending without any
Nymbols or the help of a The reaction to the book was very
- it was a qabalistic and necromantic work with
forbidden formulas for conjuring demons. Actually, it has been lately
discovered that the third book of the work was also a secret code hidden
behind the names of spirits and signs. At this time it
rio,,,, ,,, ... i,., incantations and occult arts.
destroyed some of the the book, but the
manuscript circulated widely around Europe and his theories became very
influential. Trithemius, however, did not refute these rumours. It was
generally known that he had a great interest in the Qabalah and
and indeed wrote some other works on
lie tried to some of the methods used to
powers and with their help influence the external world.
What was then the nature of his Trithemius the relations
between the micro� and the macrocosm and tried to apply this knowledge
in He mostly the names of in his which is also
the reason why his studies were called "angelic magic". His methods,
however, did not differ much from those used other who
dealt with demonic The only difference is that in Trithemius'
invocations the names of demons were replaced with the names of angels.
The for conjuring those entities still remained the same. In The
Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals he uses the same procedures of calling
the as in the contemporary of black of
the a magical