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Chronological perspective
Instead of imposing modern criteria of rationality on the cases of
this study of early modern occult thought, medieval continuities are
emphasized. As a result, this book does not adopt a rigid periodiza-
tion of Western history.
20
Frank L. Borchardt argues that ‘what makes
Renaissance magic a Renaissance phenomenon is, at least in part, its
share in the humanists’ compulsion to return to the sources, the claim
to have rediscovered, restored, and drunk at the lost and forgotten
spring of ancient wisdom’.
21
The early modern revival of Platonism and
Neoplatonism and the discovery of the Hermetic Corpus have been con-
sidered by a generation of scholars as heralding an occult awakening
with no medieval precursors.
22
Eugenio Garin writes:
The distance between the Middle Ages and the new age is the distance
between the closed universe, an unchanging, static world which has
no history and an infinite universe which is open to all possibilities.
In the system of the medieval universe, magic was no more than a
demonic temptation, bent upon making a crack in a peaceful and per-
fect world. As such, magic was opposed, persecuted and burnt. It was
something that could not be included among the sciences worthy of
man.
23
Frances Yates echoes these sentiments:
The ban of the medieval Church on magic had forced it into dark
holes and corners, where the magician plied his abominated art in
secrecy. Respectable people might sometimes employ him surrepti-
tiously and he was much feared. But he was certainly not publicly
admired as a religious philosopher. Renaissance magic, which was a
reformed and learned magic and always disclaimed any connection
with the old ignorant, evil, or black magic, was often an adjunct of
an esteemed philosopher.
24
Continuing this line of thinking, Nicholas Weill-Parot claims that early
modern occult thought was ‘freer’.
25
However, the intelligibility of the
universe, and therefore its ‘openness’, was a central theme in the nat-
ural philosophy of the twelfth century which came to support the
natural and learned magic esteemed by Albertus Magnus (1193–1280),
Roger Bacon (1214–92) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), which in turn
influenced Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), Pico della Mirandola and John
Introduction
7
Dee (1527–1609). Medieval continuities in Renaissance philosophy as
a whole are affirmed, for example, by Luca Bianchi.
26
Similar asser-
tions are made by Paul O. Kristeller in his analysis of Ficino, H. Darrel
Rutkin in his studies on Pico, and Nicholas Clulee in his works on John
Dee.
27
After all Ficino, Pico and Dee all had a scholastic training and
education.
28
As Michael Bailey explains, the differences between the Renaissance
and medieval periods ‘amount more to shifting points of emphasis
within broadly continuous magical traditions than truly fundamental
changes in magical outlook’, leading to intensifications of magic which
were caused by the intellectual tendencies of a specific age and author.
29
Therefore, after discussing the Arabic theories of astral influences in the
contexts of astrology and magic (Chapters 1 and 2), each chapter of
this present work investigates the impact of these Arabic theories on a
prominent intellectual aspect or a group of ideas that contributed to the
emergence of early modern occult thought. The third chapter consid-
ers the impact of the Arabic theories on the intellectual framework set
by the twelfth-century schools in Chartres and Paris. They fostered the
sense of the universe’s knowability which includes considerations of the
connection between the celestial and terrestrial worlds. In this period,
the impressive translation activity and reception of Arabic materials that
covered all topics of natural philosophy from medicine and astrology
to natural magic provided the textual support needed for construct-
ing and imagining a knowable universe. This is evident in the works of
William of Conches (c.1090–c.1154), Bernard Silvestris (1085–1178) and
Hermann of Carinthia (c.1100–c.1160). The fourth chapter moves to the
thirteenth century which witnessed the re-assimilation of Aristotle and
the introduction of Avicenna’s metaphysics. This chapter argues that
this resulted in the enunciation of volitional causality and its effects on
the physical world, including its links to astrological and magical theo-
ries. It led to the emergence of an independent genre of learned magic
as represented by the influential works of Albertus Magnus and Roger
Bacon.
30
In the fifth chapter we enter the world of the fifteenth cen-
tury which was reanimated by the revival of Neoplatonism achieved by
Ficino who also made available the complete works of Plato. Through
Ficino’s works, revelation, metaphysics, astrology and magic intermin-
gled to produce a world of possibilities that celebrated man’s dignity
and power. For Ficino, magic was power because it was a part of wisdom
that demonstrated how nature works. Arabic texts and those inherited
from the Latin medieval tradition provided Ficino with a natural expla-
nation to the efficacy of magic by introducing astral causality and the
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