Glimpses of the Left..

putting a ring and a pentacle, and the ceremony itself. in some i
was not
Trithemius certain with demons whom he :
and could not control. We then suspect that his magic '
"angelic" .42
There were also many rumours about Trithemius' skills. It was '
believed that he used the art of necromancy at the the Emperor I
I to summon the spirit of his deceased wife of Burgundy.
He had a reputation of an alchemist and never denied it. It was even said
that the resources for the restoration of the monastery were the ;
result of the successful transmutation of the Philosopher's Stone43. No "
.
wonder that his person largely to the Faust myth in
Renaissance Among his works there was also Antipalus
Maleficiorum Comprehensus, a book classified according to :
their The book also listed 44 methods of divination and !
contained an interesting bibliography.
Agrippa Nettesheim
(1486-1535) was an
vy n; y);< • .:y expert on and the most
writer of the Renaissance esoteric literature. His key work De Occulta ;
Philosophia contributed to the of the Renaissance :
of magic and linked his name with the Faust
It was an encyclopedia of in which made an attempt to I
OCI''1'',I".O
the most aspects of the occult of the age,
especially the Hermetic He claimed that behind the superficial
description occult arts in his there is also a secret
interpretation which cannot be written down but must be passed from the
master to the student. His definition of given in the first chapter
the work was:
"Magic is a faculty of wonderful virtue, full of most high the
most contemplation of most secret together with the nature,
power, substance, and virtues thereof, as the knowledge of whole
nature, and it doth instruct us the differing and agreement of
42 Michael Baigent, Richard
43 Michael Baigent, Richard
The Elixir and the Slane
The Elixir and the Slane
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