THE
ARCANE
ARCHIVE

a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.


TOP | OCCULTISM

A quick question.

To: alt.magick
From: glass@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin)
Subject: Re: A quick question.
Date: 2 Dec 2001 22:36:33 -0500

In article <20011202214352.14722.00000372@mb-fw.aol.com>,
Tsettock  wrote:

>In Robert Tyson's version of Agrippa's "Three Books of Occult Philosophy", he
>says that Frances Barrett's "The Magus" is just a plagerism  of the third
>book of the former and part of the fourth book of Occult Philosphy, credited to
>Agrippa.  Can anyone verify or discredit this, I was going to get a copy of
>"The Magus" but if that is true then I won't waste my time or money.

Hello, Tsettock --

There's almost nothing original or unique in the Barrett book -- Joscelyn
Godwin calls it "nothing but a plagiarism in disguise" -- but it does
include a bit more than Agrippa.

Godwin sums up the book's table of contents nicely in THE THEOSOPHICAL
ENLIGHTENMENT:

"Three quarters of THE MAGUS consists of selected chapters ... from Henry 
Cornelius Agrippa's THREE BOOKS ON NATURAL MAGIC ... and of the spurious  
FOURTH BOOK of Agripa ... which included Peter of Abano's HEPTAMERON.... 
The section on Magnetism comes from the English edition of J.B. van 
Helmont's works ... that on Natural Magic, from Agrippa and from 
Giambattista Porta (MAGIA NATURALIS)"

The van Helmont and Porta are fairly hard to come by and, each in their 
way, fairly influential in their era. I suppose someone trying to collect 
them piecemeal might get some value out of Barrett's excerpts, as a 
stopgap if nothing else.

The book's crown jewel is probably its ten engravings of important demons 
by Henry Fuseli (http://www.artmagick.com/artist.asp?artist=fuseli), 
although if you're really interested in that you'll probably be better 
served combing the various books about Fuseli for them.

The Arcane Archive is copyright by the authors cited.
Send comments to the Arcane Archivist: tyaginator@arcane-archive.org.

Did you like what you read here? Find it useful?
Then please click on the Paypal Secure Server logo and make a small
donation to the site maintainer for the creation and upkeep of this site.

The ARCANE ARCHIVE is a large domain,
organized into a number of sub-directories,
each dealing with a different branch of
religion, mysticism, occultism, or esoteric knowledge.
Here are the major ARCANE ARCHIVE directories you can visit:
interdisciplinary: geometry, natural proportion, ratio, archaeoastronomy
mysticism: enlightenment, self-realization, trance, meditation, consciousness
occultism: divination, hermeticism, amulets, sigils, magick, witchcraft, spells
religion: buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, taoism, wicca, voodoo
societies and fraternal orders: freemasonry, golden dawn, rosicrucians, etc.

SEARCH THE ARCANE ARCHIVE

There are thousands of web pages at the ARCANE ARCHIVE. You can use ATOMZ.COM
to search for a single word (like witchcraft, hoodoo, pagan, or magic) or an
exact phrase (like Kwan Yin, golden ratio, or book of shadows):

Search For:
Match:  Any word All words Exact phrase

OTHER ESOTERIC AND OCCULT SITES OF INTEREST

Southern Spirits: 19th and 20th century accounts of hoodoo, including slave narratives & interviews
Hoodoo in Theory and Practice by cat yronwode: an introduction to African-American rootwork
Lucky W Amulet Archive by cat yronwode: an online museum of worldwide talismans and charms
Sacred Sex: essays and articles on tantra yoga, neo-tantra, karezza, sex magic, and sex worship
Sacred Landscape: essays and articles on archaeoastronomy, sacred architecture, and sacred geometry
Lucky Mojo Forum: practitioners answer queries on conjure; sponsored by the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.
Herb Magic: illustrated descriptions of magic herbs with free spells, recipes, and an ordering option
Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers: ethical diviners and hoodoo spell-casters
Freemasonry for Women by cat yronwode: a history of mixed-gender Freemasonic lodges
Missionary Independent Spiritual Church: spirit-led, inter-faith, the Smallest Church in the World
Satan Service Org: an archive presenting the theory, practice, and history of Satanism and Satanists
Gospel of Satan: the story of Jesus and the angels, from the perspective of the God of this World
Lucky Mojo Usenet FAQ Archive: FAQs and REFs for occult and magical usenet newsgroups
Candles and Curios: essays and articles on traditional African American conjure and folk magic
Aleister Crowley Text Archive: a multitude of texts by an early 20th century ceremonial occultist
Spiritual Spells: lessons in folk magic and spell casting from an eclectic Wiccan perspective
The Mystic Tea Room: divination by reading tea-leaves, with a museum of antique fortune telling cups
Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
Yronwode Home: personal pages of catherine yronwode and nagasiva yronwode, magical archivists
Lucky Mojo Magic Spells Archives: love spells, money spells, luck spells, protection spells, etc.
      Free Love Spell Archive: love spells, attraction spells, sex magick, romance spells, and lust spells
      Free Money Spell Archive: money spells, prosperity spells, and wealth spells for job and business
      Free Protection Spell Archive: protection spells against witchcraft, jinxes, hexes, and the evil eye
      Free Gambling Luck Spell Archive: lucky gambling spells for the lottery, casinos, and races