Glimpses of the Left..

contact and control angels and other astral beings, and also to perform
'h",'net" ';: on the material
Pico became more and more fascinated by the systems developed by Abu'I­
I Afiya. He probably saw the of the Spanish qabalist as a
pragmatic way to dive into the divine, beyond the heavy religious and
philosophical structures. The "Path of the Names " was a real and effective
"V"'1rpm able to bring from the other the
sphere of action of Earth and "good magic" - the one that from Marsilio
Ficino and on the Italian and school of Hermeticism would have
taught and imposed.
Pico made a first "break-through " defining the ars combinandi (Latin: the art
of combining) of the Qabalah a very high art dealing with superior
beyond the of the moon: "the supreme part of natural
. This was very the thin line between hardly-
accepted natural magic and demonic magic was exactly traced between
what was with the sub-Iunaris (earthly) and the ,�U11er-,IUr!an
(celestial, stellar and infernal) realms.54 Pico gave a new dignity to
lIe still it , even if "supreme " , but a line had been
.1"'." Tl1.",,,,,,,I,, crossed: the interest is now to "channel the powers of the
supernal spheres " , beyond the stars.55 He will later admit even that
Qabalistic is an form of to the Natural one;
and it is not surprising the Church will all the 900 assertions
of his important work Conclusiones,
In his exploration of Pico arrives to the identical
nature of the good and evil forms of Jewish The evil qabbalists -
affirms Pico della Mirandola - the ones that invoke and command
demons, calling forth their power from Solomon and drew their
power from the same source as the "good "
only the ends were
different. The evil were invoking evil demons, while the good
ones had the discernment to work only with angels - but as a a matter of
Pico the common source of both attitudes, even if
anyone to work with the dark side of Qabalism,
" P. Zambelli, natura della Magia
'i4 F. Yates: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
" G. Pico della Mirandola. De hominis Heptaplus. De ente et uno
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