Three Books of Occult Philosophy

who Completing the sentence from the previous page: "those [men] who...", hoping to win credit for their detestable trifles with this sacrosanct title of magic Agrippa uses "magic" here in its highest sense—the study of the secrets of nature—contrasted with the "nugis" (trifles/nonsense) of frauds., have brought it about that the name of magic, once most praised, is today most hateful to all good and honest men, and is held as a capital crime if anyone dares to profess themselves a mage original: "magum"; a practitioner of high natural philosophy. by their learning or works. This is true unless perhaps some demented old woman living in the countryside wants to be believed as quite skilled and divinely powerful, so that (as Apuleius says) she can:

or as Virgil sings:

She who promises by her charms to release the minds
Of those she wishes, but to cast hard cares upon others;
To stop the water in rivers, and turn the stars backward;
She calls forth the spirits of the night; you will see the earth
Bellowing beneath her feet, and ash trees descending from the mountains.
original Latin: "Quæ se carminibus promittat soluere mentes..." from Virgil's Aeneid, Book IV, describing the powers of a Massylian priestess.

Then there are the things Lucan reports of that Thessalian witch Referring to Erictho, a gruesome necromancer from Lucan's Pharsalia., and Homer regarding the omnipotence of Circe, many of which I confess exist as products of such false opinion, such superstitious diligence, and ruinous labors, that although they cannot fall under a non-wicked art, they nevertheless presume to clothe themselves in the venerable title of magic.

Since things were thus, I marveled greatly, and was no less indignant, that until now no one has existed who would vindicate such a sublime and sacred discipline from the crime of impiety, or deliver it to us purely and sincerely. For as many as I have seen among the more recent writers—Roger Bacon 13th-century English philosopher and scientist., Robert the Englishman, Peter of Abano An Italian physician and astrologer who faced the Inquisition., Albert the German Albertus Magnus, the teacher of Thomas Aquinas., Arnald of Villanova, Anselm of Parma, the Spanish Picatrix A famous medieval grimoire of astrological magic, here treated as an author., Cecco d’Ascoli the Florentine An astrologer burned at the stake in 1327., and many others, but writers of obscure name—when they promise to hand down magic, they have provided nothing but either certain delusions supported by no reason, or superstitions unworthy of all honest men.

Hence my spirit was stirred within me, and on account of that very admiration as well as indignation, I too wished to philosophize, thinking I would perform a not unpraiseworthy work—I who from my early youth have always stood as a curious and intrepid explorer of wonderful effects and operations full of mysteries—if I could [restore] Magic itself, that ancient discipline of all wise men, from...