[TBOPB1C00] Agrippa Book One Introduction

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Just bumping this thread to say thanks to Donald again

 

The more of the background material I get through ... and then come back and re-read these posts ... the more I appreciate their view and content.

 

Thank you Nungali, for expressing you appreciation. I hope that other people have benefited from these posts as well, though they hardly scratch the surface of the matter.

 

I have been very busy since writing the above, almost to the point of not having time to post on anything, so this discussion has languished in my absence. From what I can see, 'BaquaKicksAss', who started it apparently had found herself too busy to follow through as she hoped. For myself I had not planned of writing at length about Agrippa, but only thought to provide some necessary Religious background. I have had some ideas about how I might continue, but following up on them would take more time than I have at the moment to devote to this. In the short term that does not seem likely. For those who are interested in Agrippa and might want to have free copies of his work I did find this:

 

Cornelius Agrippa

 

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German magician and occult writer, astrologer, and alchemist. He may also be considered an early feminist.

His career was diverse: secret agent, soldier, physician, orator, and law professor, in Cologne, Paris, Dole, London, Italy, Pavia, and Metz. In 1509, he set up a laboratory in Dole in the hopes of synthesizing gold, and for the next decade or so traveled Europe, making a living as an alchemist, and conversing with such important early humanist scholars as Colet and Reuchlin. In 1520, he set up a medical practice in Geneva, and in 1524 became personal physician to the queen mother at the court of King Francis I in Lyons. When the queen mother abandoned him, he began practicing medicine in Antwerp, but was later banned for practicing without a license, and became historiographer at the court of Charles V. After several stays in prison, variously for debt and criminal offenses, he died in 1535.

Agrippa's wrote on a great many topics, including marriage and military engineering, but his most important work is the three-volume De occulta philosophiae (written c. 1510, published 1531), a defense of "hidden philosophy" or magic, which draws on diverse mystical traditions - alchemy, astrology, Kabbalah. A later work, De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum (Of the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences), attacks contemporary scientific theory and practice.

Many of his opinions were controversial. His early lectures on theology angered the Church, and his defense of a woman accused of witchcraft in 1520 led to his being hounded out of Cologne by the Inquisition. In his own day, Agrippa was widely attacked as a charlatan. After his death, legends about him were plentiful. Some believed him to be not only an alchemist but a demonic magician, even a vampire. In one account, he traveled to the New World.

 

Free Ebooks by Cornelius Agrippa

 

Occult Philosophy Book I

 

 

Occult Philosophy Book II

 

 

Occult Philosophy Book III

 

 

Occult Philosophy Book IV

 

Of Geomancy

 

From: Occult Underground

 

The site above has a lot of interesting material, also Joseph Peterson's site, Twilit Grotto, from which I have liberally quoted, has a lot of useful information online and a very useful reference CD for sale, on which Agrippa and much more can be found.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I came across this book while doing some searching:



Becoming a god in the Christian Tradition on Barnes & Noble

Here is the publishers overview:

Deification in the Greek patristic tradition was the fulfillment of the destiny for which humanity was created - not merely salvation from sin but entry into the fullness of the divine life of the Trinity. This book, the first on the subject for over sixty years, traces the history of deification from its birth as a second-century metaphor with biblical roots to its maturity as a doctrine central to the spiritual life of the Byzantine Church. Drawing attention to the richness and diversity of the patristic approaches from Irenaeus to Maximus the Confessor, Norman Russell offers a full discussion of the background and context of the doctrine, at the same time highlighting its distinctively Christian character.

Here is the Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Deification in the Graeco-Roman World
3. The Jewish Paradigm: From Ezekiel to the yored merkavah
4. The Earliest Christian Model: Participatory Union with Christ
5. The Alexandrian Tradition I: Christian Schools and Study-Circles
6. The Alexandrian Tradition II: The Imposition of Episcopal Control
7. The Cappadocian Approach: Divine Transcendence and the Ascent of the Soul
8. The Monastic Synthesis: The Achievement of Maximus the Confessor
9. Epilogue

I haven't read the book, but nothing about it is surprising to me, except perhaps how important it was to Greek orthodoxy, because of course in order to understand Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and also the historical development of Western thought, I did a lot of study of the history and development of Christianity and had come across these ideas already, if not summarized in such a net and handy form.

I am putting this here as a final exclamation point to my consideration of the Christian background to Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy. It is addressed to those who imagine that they know what Christianity is all about and make blanket statements about Christianity and "the Christians", as if they all slept under the same blanket, far from being true, many don't even sleep in same bed, much less the same bedroom.

For those interested in a closer look it can be read online here:

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition on Librarum

 

I will emphasize again that all I have posted about Christianity in this thread is for historical context, which is important, since context determines meaning, I have no interest in the practice of Christianity or even Christian magic, except historical, nor would I recommend it, but as I said at the beginning, if you really want to understand Agrippa you have to understand Christianity as Agrippa perceived it circa 1500, not the popular versions, whether positive or negative, bandied about today.

[Symph]

I'm only like halfway through the first half of this discussion but I'm just over here jaw dropped with amazement.  I mean I've only been truly free from my Christian roots for like 2 years now, it was like a rope that had held on to it's last thread for years before it snapped.  That fear of hell yo, it's hard to let go of!  But I have been reading the Kybalion and hermetic teachings and writings of Thoth and it's like these things are already in me.  Like I said I read Tarot so I'm really drawn to the mystical which makes it difficult to shake that fear of being you know... evil and stuff lol  

I've already understood better the gnostics and the essenes and come to realize that there were probably magic practicing christians of old who thought themselves to be prophets or light workers and that's EXACTLY how I feel too.  But I'm still working it all out, fleshing out what I think happened and releasing my fear of being wrong.  Reading this was such a confirmation of things I had a hunch about.  When he tried to show that the Magi who predicted the coming of Christ were themselves magicians I got chills cause it's so true!  Christians overlook this stuff!  

 

Anyway, I didn't mean to start out on such a non taoist note I just did not expect this to be such a helpful discourse for me right off the bat!  Can I order this full book?  What is the name of the actual book you are quoting?  Thank you for posting this.  

[Zhongyongdaoist]

13 hours ago, Symph said:

I'm only like halfway through the first half of this discussion but I'm just over here jaw dropped with amazement.  I mean I've only been truly free from my Christian roots for like 2 years now, it was like a rope that had held on to it's last thread for years before it snapped.  That fear of hell yo, it's hard to let go of!  But I have been reading the Kybalion and hermetic teachings and writings of Thoth and it's like these things are already in me.  Like I said I read Tarot so I'm really drawn to the mystical which makes it difficult to shake that fear of being you know... evil and stuff lol  

I've already understood better the gnostics and the essenes and come to realize that there were probably magic practicing christians of old who thought themselves to be prophets or light workers and that's EXACTLY how I feel too.  But I'm still working it all out, fleshing out what I think happened and releasing my fear of being wrong.  Reading this was such a confirmation of things I had a hunch about.  When he tried to show that the Magi who predicted the coming of Christ were themselves magicians I got chills cause it's so true!  Christians overlook this stuff!  

 

Anyway, I didn't mean to start out on such a non taoist note I just did not expect this to be such a helpful discourse for me right off the bat!  Can I order this full book?  What is the name of the actual book you are quoting?  Thank you for posting this.  (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

Hello Symph, welcome to the Dao Bums.  You certainly picked an unusual, but interesting place for your third post.  I hope I can give you some useful information.

 

The book, or more exactly Three Books that are the subject of all this Jaw dropping amazing discussion is Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa who wrote it in the early Sixteenth Century.  It is available from several sources, but you might find reading it online at Joseph Peterson's Twilight Grotto Esoteric Archive a better way to start reading it, just click right here since you can read it for free, and then you can decide if you want to invest in a printed book.

 

Aside from that, given your Christian background and your efforts to free yourself from early conditioning related to it, you might find this Blog:

 

Was Jesus a Magician?

 

Both informative and inspiring.  It is the Blog of Dr. Helen Ingram and is based on and an exposition of her PhD thesis, Dragging Down Heaven: Jesus as Magician and Manipulator of Spirits in the Gospels. I read the book that inspired it, Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician in the late Seventies and found it informative and very suggestive, but not completely convincing, it became one among many possible accounts of a possible historical Jesus, but Dr. Ingram's thesis is a much more convincing discussion and based on it I would say that the notion that Jesus, if there was a historical Jesus, was very likely a "magician" is far more likely than any of the other alternatives that I have read.

 

I hope that the above is helpful to you.

 

ZYD

[Symph]

2 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

Hello Symph, welcome to the Dao Bums.  You certainly picked an unusual, but interesting place for your third post.  I hope I can give you some useful information.

 

The book, or more exactly Three Books that are the subject of all this Jaw dropping amazing discussion is Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa who wrote it in the early Sixteenth Century.  It is available from several sources, but you might find reading it online at Joseph Peterson's Twilight Grotto Esoteric Archive a better way to start reading it, just click right here since you can read it for free, and then you can decide if you want to invest in a printed book.

 

Aside from that, given your Christian background and your efforts to free yourself from early conditioning related to it, you might find this Blog:

 

Was Jesus a Magician?

 

Both informative and inspiring.  It is the Blog of Dr. Helen Ingram and is based on and an exposition of her PhD thesis, Dragging Down Heaven: Jesus as Magician and Manipulator of Spirits in the Gospels. I read the book that inspired it, Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician in the late Seventies and found it informative and very suggestive, but not completely convincing, it became one among many possible accounts of a possible historical Jesus, but Dr. Ingram's thesis is a much more convincing discussion and based on it I would say that the notion that Jesus, if there was a historical Jesus, was very likely a "magician" is far more likely than any of the other alternatives that I have read.

 

I hope that the above is helpful to you.

 

ZYD

Very helpful, I will definitely be getting that book!  And yeah I've been feeling that he had to have been a faith healer and very knowledgable of the eastern practices going on at that time.  There is even evidence that he travelled the east and was known as "St. Issa" during the lost years the bible doesn't mention him.  This will all be incredibly helpful to my journey thank you.  

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

Hello Symph, welcome to the Dao Bums.  You certainly picked an unusual, but interesting place for your third post.  I hope I can give you some useful information.

 

The book, or more exactly Three Books that are the subject of all this Jaw dropping amazing discussion is Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa who wrote it in the early Sixteenth Century.  It is available from several sources, but you might find reading it online at Joseph Peterson's Twilight Grotto Esoteric Archive a better way to start reading it, just click right here since you can read it for free, and then you can decide if you want to invest in a printed book.

 

Aside from that, given your Christian background and your efforts to free yourself from early conditioning related to it, you might find this Blog:

 

Was Jesus a Magician?

 

Both informative and inspiring.  It is the Blog of Dr. Helen Ingram and is based on and an exposition of her PhD thesis, Dragging Down Heaven: Jesus as Magician and Manipulator of Spirits in the Gospels. I read the book that inspired it, Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician in the late Seventies and found it informative and very suggestive, but not completely convincing, it became one among many possible accounts of a possible historical Jesus, but Dr. Ingram's thesis is a much more convincing discussion and based on it I would say that the notion that Jesus, if there was a historical Jesus, was very likely a "magician" is far more likely than any of the other alternatives that I have read.

 

I hope that the above is helpful to you.

 

ZYD

 

 

Interesting .  Made me immediately think of   Acts 8:9–24.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus

[Daniel]

On 5/4/2014 at 1:09 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 ... as profitable, so necessary ...

 

^^ imho this is concerning

[JadeTurtle]

On 5/8/2014 at 4:26 AM, rex said:

Apparently Ficino attempted to engage and influence the Roman Catholic Church of the time with the Prisca Theologia.

 

This public access thesis may also be worth a look:

 

Prisca Theologia and Human Nature: A Study of Marsilo Ficino's Ontology of the Soul

 

This might be a bit silly, seeing as how it has been a few years it looks like, but that link doesn't seem to work. Maybe another route could be offered?