NOTES ON MEDIEVAL MAGIC

TAKING SHAPE, NEARLY THERE

SCHOLASTIC ANALYSIS OF MAGIC

Scholasticism and the Church

• Magic has almost universally been banned by the church
• Yet magic thrives in the medieval world
• Thats the Clerical Necromantic Underground Babey
• “Rodger Bacon: “Christianity had two major competitors: Magic and Philosophy”
• How did magic work? What did it mean to them?
• Well, a lot of stuff. Many that disregard magic as a whole, but, upon closer inspection, appear to plumb its depths

Scholasticism - A medieval method of learning marked by:

• Commitment to Catholicism
• Dialectical reasoning
• Rigorous Conceptual Analysis
• Careful Drawing of Distinctions
• The use of formal debate or Disputation

St Augustine

• Vacillated a lot, but eventually became the architect of christian theology for the latin west
• [Da mihi castitatem et continentiam sed noli modo]
• Primary analysis of magic comes from [De civitate Dei contra paganos] (On the City of God)
• [De Divinatione Daemonorum] (on the divination of demons)
• Redraws much of the classical ideas of magic set down by Porphyry and Iamblicus
• Goetia (bad magic) vs Theurgia (good magic)
• Augustine argues that they differ in name only, both are “Entangled in the rites of demons who masquerade as good angels”
• Lesser demons can be controlled via being threatened with more powerful demons, he was first on that idea
• Actually argues that necromancers are doing way more wonders than christians praying, but christianity will trumph in the end
• How does magic work: Demons
• Demons are old and have keen senses, allowing them the apparent ability to predict the future, and manipulate unseen forces. Their bodies are made of a fine ethereal matter, which allows them to travel with incredible speed, apparently allowing them to manipulate things at a distance.
• Demons lead the magician to believe that they are accusing the marvels
• Magic is a trap, set to delude humans
• “Lord make me chaste, but not yet.”

Isidore of Seville - (560 - 636)

• [Etymologiae] sort of the central text for a ton of knowledge in the middle ages
• MAgic was invented by zoroaster and expanded by democritus
• Promulgated to the rest of the world by “evil angels”
• Divides practicioners into Auguries, Divinations, Oracles, Necromancers, etc
• Also mentions Maleficus, translated as witchcraft, as those who disturb the elements, the minds of people, and slay without poisons, using the power of spells alone
• Accomplished by Elemental divination, Astrology, The casting of Lots, etc
• Notably, draws a distinction between Superstitious Astrology, and Non-superstitious astrology, but never really elaborates on what the difference is.
• Its possible he was referring to Casting Nativities, what is now known as Natal Astrology
• The point of mentioning this ambiguity, is that astrologyers of the future can always claim that they’re doing the correct version
• Also mentions Illusioners, but this could refer to jugglers
• Magic was accomplished by “Pestilential alliance between humans and evil angels”
• Many of the early scholastics would repeat this. Abilard, st hugh of victor.

John of Salisbury (1110 - 1180)

• First real account of magic following Isidore
• Most can be found in [Policraticus II]
• Demons can effect dreams
• Actually most dreams are demons
• References Episcope, where women are said to travel to witches sabbaths at night to do,, something
• John, and the cannon, take this to be dreams, not actual travel.
• Johns childhood latin teacher was probably a Necromancer who taught them how to scry
• A type of divination to Onychomancy
• John says he saw nothing, but his friend saw “certain misty figures”
• Says that those who practiced it became blind later in line
• All of this implies that there was a common understanding of what magic was
• Its also eyewitness testimony that magic was being practiced by priests at the time, and apparently pretty widespread

Michael Scot - 1175 - 1232

• [Liber introductorius]
• [Oxford. Bodleian Library, Ms. Bodl. 266]
• Implies that the stars simply indicate the state of the world, but do not cause it, drawing a subtle difference between magic and astrology.
• Astrology is Natural Philosophy
• Magic is demonic deception
• Thing is, he keeps talking about all these lore and stories from Necromantic sources
• Talks about demons, where they live, what their names are, and how they MIGHT be studied.
• This is inaugurating a sort of study that talks about how necromancy is forbidden, but hey, if you were to do it, here's how it works.
• Eventually became associated with demons because he wasnt subtle
• Dantes Places him in hell

By the early 13th century, many oft he great translation projects were complete. Alchemy, Astrology, and other hermetic sciences were all over europe. [Ars Notoria] let you gain rapid knowledge of liberal knowledge, the [Picatrix] redefines the game on astrology.

University of Paris becomes the dominant source of Theology by 1250. Also the Goliard poets show up.

William of Avuergne 1180 - 1249

• [On Faith and Laws]
• BIshop of Paris
• Had the most encyclopedic knowledge of magic for his time, probably had access to pretty much every text available
• Embraces Natural Philosophy
• Magic is the art of producing marvels, can be accomplished through trickery, demons or through the manipulation of occult forces in nature, what he calls “Natural Magic”
• He also says that this is how demons do shit
• Seems like many people decided to simply cut out the middleman, and manipulate the natural forces themselves
• The production of marvels is fine, its just the demons thats the problem.
• William also rejects a ton of common magical practices
• He rejects the idea that wax images can cause harm, That statues can speak as if they were gods, most of this is based on Asclepius text from the corpus hermetica
• Rejects the power of magical symbols
• “There is no magic in the angles of solomons pentagon” < Implying this is thriving
• Urges study of the occult properties of the natural world
• Quotes plato, Aristotle, Hermes Trismegistus
• He says that divination is demonic
• He says that only 1/7 boys has the ability to scry (how did he test that)
• Oh yeah btw hes the archbishop of paris
• Necromancy: Illegal
• Marvels that are indistinguishable from magic: Kinda ok
• Its ok that you can CONSULT necromantic tomes, just don’t DO it. Research Purposes.
• This mfer built the research program around natural magic

Hildegard of Bingen

• Already said all that shit about stones like a century prior

Albertus Magnus (sometime prior to 1200 - Nov 15, 1280)

• If William of Avuergne was the teacher, Albertus Magnus was the first great student
• Albert Condemns necromancy
• Albert researches necromancers to see just how they’re doing shit
• Hes the first time we see “Good magic” in a christian context
• Specifically uses the example of the Magi, who attended to baby jesus [De Animalibus]
• Within that definition of magic is the capturing of astrological forces into “Gems”
• Gems engraved with symbology
• These gems have a wide range of powers
• Urges readers to study necromancy, so that they might understand it, implying that he thinks the necromancers don’t really understand the forces they’re working with
• It will be through research like his that will figure shit out

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274)

• [Summa Aquinas]
• [Summa contra Gentiles] (though most comments are passism through his works)
• Logically deduces that Demons, and Demons Alone, are responsible for magic
• Speech can only work from one intelligence to another
• Basically argues “okay, so what are necromancers talking to? How do they affect inert matter?”
• Logically, must be demons
• “Demons are the efficient cause of necromancy”
• Extends this logic to amulets
• Though, he agrees with Mymonades, in saying that if dvine names are placed on amulets, they can’t be all bad. Does discourage it though.
• Also theres a ton of weird shit we dont really understand that’s worth study
• Maybe astral rays
• MAGNETS, every talks about them

Rodger Bacon (1219 - 1292)

• [Opus Tertium] actively and openly discusses magic
• [Epistola de Secretus Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae] though it might not be written by him
• Clearly had access to a wide range of text
• Dismisses a ton of magic as delusional
• The most skeptical writer on magic
• Generation and corruption are from astral forces, which can explain sudden outbreaks of violence and war
• He sees theory as largely speculative
• Boy is all about experimentation
• Remember, the typical name for a spell in this period is called an “Experimentum”
• Bacon wants to import the experimental method of magic to support Natural Philosophy
• He never really details what an experiment is
• He was very very interested in researching magic, though he was dismissive of it

Guido Bonatti (dc. 1300)

• [Liber Astronomiae]
• Dante hell

Arnaldus de Villa Nova (1240 - 1311)

• Something about witchcraft-induced erectile dysfunction
• Devloped Astrological medicine

Ramon Llull (d. 1315)

• [Ars Magna]
• Actually wrote very little about magic
• Supposedly created a device for increasing memory and education, which has weird necromantic undertones?
• Magic itself never really interested him
• Probably wasn’t an alchemist, but boy were his disciples magicians

Peter D’Abano - (d. 1213)

• [De Venenis eorumque remediis]
• Wrote little on magic
• But by 15th century his name was heavily associated with magic
• No he didn’t write the Heptameron
• Maybe it was just because he wrote a lot about poisons and generally had weird theological beliefs

Cecco d’Ascoli - (1275 - 1327)

• [Commentary on De Sphaera Mundi]
• One of the most common magical texts
• Cant help but constantly detour onto necromancy
• Rehearses the classic condemnation
• Blatantly introduces necromantic texts
• Lots of demonic names
• Floron and his magic mirror, also mentioned in the [Munich Manual]
• Paimon, appears a ton especially in the Lesser Key of Solomon
• Arrested by the inquisition and burned as a heretic sept 26 1327
• (also possibly a personal beef)
• Dame Alice Kittler, also burned
• Possibly a reaction to the lax days of the 13 century on magic

Real shift happens in the 12 century

• Aristotle
• Importation of Alchemy
• Improvement of Astrology and the other hermetic sciences
• Importation of improved natural philosophy from the Islamicate world
• You’ve got all the ingredients for a genuine Occult Science, or Natural Magic
• The first real Necromantic Manuals appear

MEDIEVAL MYSTICS AND WOMEN

The Myth of Medieval stagnation

• Nah people were hella busy
• Massive Translation Projects
• HOrse Harnesses and Stirrups
• New Linnen Tech
• Firearms
• Papermaking and Arabic Numerals
• Three-Field planting system
• Full Rigged Ships
• New wind and water power
• End of Serfdom
• Radical Architectural innovations

The Mystical Women of Europe: The Beguines

• 13th century was a period of INTENSE spiritual reform
• Fibbonacci, Aquinas, Snorri Sturlesson, Roger Bacon, Moshe De Leon, Cathars
• The word Beguine is of indeterminate origin. Thought to have come fro the latin word “to beg” or “to pray” but none of those are probably accurate
• In spain they were “Beatas” “punzichere” in italy, and “fins amans” in france.
• Belgium and the netherlands
• Women inspired by the Vitae Apostolica, a philosophy of living much like the followers of jesus in the book of acts.
• Formed communities of mutual aid, devotion, service to community, and economic independence
• NOT nuns, vows were self-imposed. Ruled themselves by their own law. Could marry and leave whenever they wanted. Self-imposed Piety. Did not beg.
• Tended to work in urban centers as moneychangers, scribes, and medical experts and other skilled trades
• Tended to the sick, defended sex workers, educated the masses as they could, especially for children.
• Often called the Grey Sisters, known for being Effusive and charismatic preachers
• Communal lifestyle was pretty popular among women, and Beguineages appeared more and more common during the rise of the 13th century
• Their existence was polarizing to say the least
• Some loved them, others didn’t.
• Produced MYSTICS

Beatrice of Nazareth (1200 - 1268)

• [On the Seven Ways of Holy Love]
• Bernard Mcginn, a preeminent scholar on christian mysticism, argues the core concepts include
• Courtly Symbolism
• Love (Minne)
• Insanity (Orewoede)
• Longing/Loss/Sinking
• Depths/Abyss (diepheit/afgront)
• Light/Color
• Movement/Dynamism/Flowing
• Seduction (Minne Splielen)
• Mystical Annihilation
• 
  

Hadewijch of Antwerp (1200? - 1250?)

• We know basically nothing about her life
• Author of Visions, Letters, poems, generally thought to be the most skilled litereary Beguine
• Spoke latin and french
• Acquainted with the courtly love poetry of her day
• Critical focus on Love and the dialectic of desire
• Hailed by lacan as the only person, beside him, to have actually understood the psychology of desire and pleasure (jouissance)
• Apparently eventually fell out of favor with the other Beguines, we don’t know why
• If god is love and god is the Ground of Being, then therefore, love is the lowest metaphysical register.
• Writes on the idea of the impossible or unattainable lover, with the roles reversed
• Hadewijch takes on the role of the noble or the knight, with god or jesus taking on the role of the beloved. A sort of radical feminization of the divine.
• Unfaith = Ontrouwe. “We must forsake love wholly for love”

Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207- 1282)

• Had visions at 12
• [The Flowing Light of the Godhead], composed in 1250-1280
• The original has been lost
• Rich, complex text.
• Emerges directly from god as a sort of New Gospel
• A dialogue, between soul, reason, and love
• Many are written in a popular lyrical style of the day, giving them a working-class drinking-song vibe.
• Her images are frank, homoerotic, speaking of the flowing light of the trinity seducing the soul.
• Divine Eroticism par excellence
• The mystic sinks deeper into erotic longing and despair, one so deep that she describes it as being beneath the tail of lucifer itself. One has entered the thing beyond all thingness: God.
• Salvation is the nothing of the soul meeting the nothing of the divine.

Marguerite Porete (? - 1310)

• Executed by burning, marking the end of the golden age of teh beguines
• Born in northern france
• Arrested for publishing mystical texts
• [The Mirror of the Simple Souls Who Are Annihilated and Remain Only in Will and Desire of Love]
• A dialogue between reason and love, in which love prevails and desires erotic mystical annihilation
• Being / Nothing
• Sin / Salvation
• Ascent / descent
• Emptying / filling
• God is the Far Near
• The soul must shave off its Somethingness. To live Without A Why.
• Executed for heresy, marking the end of the Beguines

A year later, a council was convened that the Beguines themselves were spreading anticlerical doctrine, and were closely related with the Free spirit movement.

The Free Spirit Movement

• Autotheism - The unity of the soul with god
• Quietism - The idea that salvation can be accomplished without the church
• Erotic Poetry and Imagery
• Antinomianism - That common morality does not bind the spiritually perfect, or that only through sin is salvation truly possible, a very anticlerical sentiment

The last traditional Beguine died 2013 in belgium.

THE HEPTAMERON

• Look at the night sky. We see stars, furnaces of atomic fire, floating in a sea of vacuum and quantum fluctuations.
• A medieval person saw innumerable spiritual beings and intelligence, who propelled and motivated forces whose influence could be felt on the world below.
• A human could control and command those beings the same way we control the ephemeral electrons of a computer
• One of the most influential texts was the Heptameron.
• A system in which teams of magicians ritually purify themselves and make use of an interlocking system of rituals and dynamic symbols to control the myriad beings of the celestial world.

JOHN DEE

Monas Heiroglyphica

• 1527-1608
• Heavy neoplatonist influence
• “Nycthemeron” meaning “a period of 24 hours”
• The monas heiroglyphica is divided into four parts, the sun, moon, elements, and Aries representing the heavens.
• The sun is our monad/dyad
• The moon is a triad
• The elements are a ternary, bringing the total to seven
• The three prongs of the ares represent the final three points, for a decad.
• Heavy influence by solar ray theory
• Dee is spending a lot of time analyzing symbols, from astrology to the greek alphabet
• This book serves as a unity between christian metaphysics, graphical analysis, and neoplatonism

Sir Edward Kelley (1555, 4pm

• Two images of the alchemist: The Mystic, and the Fraud.
• The fraud is way older
• Certain princes had gold plated gibbets for hanging alchemists
• Canto 29 of Inferno features alchemists, their skin trasnmuted into leprosy
• “The Pious Alchemist” seeking self improvement through chemical spirituality is largely the result of romantic historical revisionism, and basically disconnected from history
• If anyone was ever both, Mystic and Fraud, it was Edward Kelley
• Probably ground zero for the stereotype of the Necromancer Alchemist
• Trained as an Apothecary and a Notary
• Pilloried at some point, both of his ears were probably cut for coin-clipping
• John admonishes Edward for not taking off his hat in the presence of the angels
• Theres an image in the 1806 Siblee astrology text that features Kelley conversing with a spirit
• Its unclear if Edward ever skulked around in cemetaries, but he was associated with necromancy
• Its said that a man opened up a grave in Glastonbury, to find a manuscript in an unknown language, along with two powders, one red, and one white.
• Kelley recognized them as alchemically important in some way, perhaps linked with St. Dunstin, and purchased them
• These powders are the result of NUMEROUS alchemical tales that impressed people
• Ed met dee in 1582, Ed was already known as an alchemist
• The angelic conversations are incredibly provocative
• The pair left for the continent in 1583, starting one of the great chapters in Esoteric History
• Simple terms like Fraud don’t really capture Dee
• They did totally swap wives though, after which the pair parted ways
• Kelley would SKYROCKET in popularity in Bohemia, given stories of his red powder
• Kelley had become Landed and Knighted
• But was also plunging into debt
• 1591, Kelley is arrested for Deuling, Fraud, Debts, or all of the above
• Also mightve been detained for political reasons
• Dee was literally a spy remember
• 1595, he writes himself out of prison, promising to make more gold
• Imprisioned again after that, after which he writes about the Philosophers stone, and breaks his legs
• Asked for some water, drank it, and died
• Kelley’s only public writings are on Alchemy, the rest of his manuscript is held is Leibzig, and hasn’t been digitized.
• I have no idea how he published anything that he’s published
• Kelley;s published works have three tractates:
• The Stone of the Philosophers
• The human path
• The Theater of Terestrial Astronomy
• Plus some pamphlets of alchemical procedures
• Book on alchemy reveals that Kelley had SIGNIFICANT laboratory eperience
• Book is a general outline of alchemical theory
• Three Major Alchemical Theories of the day (what are they?)
  • Mercury Alone (unorthodox)
  • Mercury-Sulphur (most alchemists subscribed to this)
  • Mercury-Sulphur-Salt (“Paracelcean” model)
• Axiomatic style, pulling from a BROAD range of sources
• Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, each composed of four elements, of active or passive nature
• Notes that Chaos is the only quality common to all things
• “Every animal is the product of sexual union; every plant, of its proper seed; every mineral of the mixture of its generic earth (sulphur) and water (mercury).”
• Adopts the “Mercury Alone” theory, rather than the more standard Mercury-Sulphur theory
• Bc, how does one “fix” mercury without some sort of adjunct solid?
• Mercury Alone considers sulfur a sort of impurity
• Kelley proposes that mercury is sort of the earth in which the seeds of metals are grown, but there is a seed.
• Kelley proposes a sort of slow distillation of mercury, with additions of the seed metal he wants to “project”
• Little in the way of innovation, but this text is more of a demonstration to the king that he should be let out of prison
• 
  
• Via Humida
• Significantly more Paracelcean
• Introduces Salt, with Sulphur and Mercury as quasi-metallic essences, becoming the Form and Matter of the eventual substance
• “Sulphur” becomes the sort of process that fixes mercury rather than a substance
• Additionally, the stars become a thing, with Stellar Rays “cooking” the sulphur-salt-mercury compound into the ore
• Additionally, theres an astrological metallic chemical substance called the Greater Menstrum, a universal solvent / alkahest, that can reduce sulphur to its pure form before being transmuted
• Typical alchemy, starts simple, gets ridiculously complicated
• Though, the experiments at the end are fairly straightforward
• Apparently Kelley was doing alchemical experiments in prison?
• Maybe he was being supervised, with the reports being sent back to prague?
• 
  
• [Theater of Terrestrial Astronomy]
• Unsure if this one is Kelley, but its likely that it is
• Has explicit references to the Monas Heiroglyphica
• “Quaternary in the Ternary” and “Horizon of Eternity”
• “A wonderful little romp through alchemical theory”
• A good place to start with alchemical symbolism
• Mentions a ton of classics like “Peacocks Tail” “Black Head of the Raven” “Green Lion Devouring the Sun”
• 30 pages
• Kelley was shady, but he was also a talented Alchemist

The Monas Hieroglyphica 1564

• There is no more difficult alchemical text than the Monas Hieroglyphica
• The hieroglyphic monad has become a bit of an emblem for hermetica in general
• Important for semiotics and ontology
• Lets put it in context:
• Denkraumverlust - The human minds ability to confuse the Sign with the Signifier
• It was thought that Hebrew, in some form of reformation, was the language that god used to create the universe, thanks kabbalah
• To learn the True Name of a thing would give one divine control over that object
• Plotinus: “It must not be thought that in the intelligible World, the gods and the blessed see propositions; everything expressed there is a beautiful image.”
• Speech + Writing + Being
• Ficino “When the Egyptian Priests wished to signify divine mysteries, they did not use the small characters of script, but the whole images of plants, trees, or animals for God has knowledge of things not by way of multiple thought but just as the pure and firm shape of the thing itself (sed tanquam simplicem firmamque rei formam).”
• God does not see propositional content, he sees Divine Form
• “Urspracht”
• Nominalism - the scholastic position that universals only subsist in language, but have no objective reality e.g. while cats are real, ‘cat-ness’ only exists in language as a concept not as a metaphysical reality contra, Plato, for instance (There are not atoms of cat-ness, cat-ness is not a force like heat or gravity)
• Opposed with Realism
• “There exists a semiotic system for which there was no difference, formal or otherwise, between the being of language, and the language of being”
• Turns out Hebrew is made by humans unfortunately
• Though, people still wanted to find this Divine Language
• Like John Dee!
• Internationally recognized as one of the most important english scholars of his day
• Dee would eventually reject that hebrew was the bridge between semiotics and ontology
• Text draws from enormous ranges of ideas, from physics to alchemy to mathematics to philosophy
• Written over 12 days in 1564, printed later in march
• Says he was “Pregnant” with the work for over 12 years
• 24 extremely densely written theorems
• Crisp yet effusive latin, with some greek and incomprehensible hebrew
• Literally, Gershom Scholem couldn’t find heads or tails of it
• Monas takes the form of the Moray Geometrica, or Geometrical Method, like euclid's elements
• Hermetica, mysticism, mathematics (like proclus)
• “The fact that we don’t see a connection between mysticism and mathematical logic says more about us than it does logicians and mystics”
• Morae Geometrico is used by Spinoza and Wittgenstien
• Monas is called the “Most obscure text ever written by an englishman”
• Dee feels that all knowledge itself is encoded in the Monas Hieroglyphica, able to be produced from the symbol.
• Dee switches between disciplines all the time, sometimes in the middle of sentences, even contemporary alchemists were kinda baffled.
• Monas = (Alchemy/astrology + Kabbalah) united by the bridge of neopythagorean geometry
• To understand the text, we gotta unpack Dee’s alchemical theory + Dees Cabalistic theory

Day ii

• To summarize, what is the relationship of representation to being?
• Nominalists: Beauty, Goodness, Power, were simply mental objects, which exist in name only. The sign and signified are unrelated.
• Realists: Universal Language exists, which unifies being and representation. Most people thought it was a sort of reformed hebrew.
• Dee rejects hebrew being the universal language, makes a glyph he says can be used to create it
• Monas Hieroglyphica is basically an alchemical text, but not a practical alchemical manual
• Theres no evidence that 1564 Dee had any laboratory experience until the 1580s
• Its important to remember that there is no single unified theory of alchemy at this time, but there is a feld of alchemical theory.
• P
• Traditional Alchemy: Turba Philosophorum, Kitam Al-Kimiya, Book of Composition of Alchemy, Summa Perfectionis, Radix Mundi is a good primer.
• Traditional Alchemy is roughly aristotelian.
• Four Simple Bodies: Earth, Air, Water, Fire
• Four Causes: Material, Efficient, Formal, Final
• Islamicate world compounds on this, expanding on metal theory.
• The theory is that metals are formed of two substances: Sulphur and Mercury, which when placed deep within the earth, undergo a complex series of processes to produce metals.
• “Ex sulphure et argento vivo, ut natura, sic ars producit metalla”
• Basically, because metals came from this simplex, you should be able to reverse the process
• They want to decompose metals into their “metallic seeds”
• The sulphur-mercury theory was dominant
• Paracelceus was a bit of a maverick, added a new theory in 1530
• Basically thought that sulphur, salt, and mercury represent Forces rather than simply objects alone
• Paracelceus rejected tradition as a source of wisdom, even burning Ibn-Sina’s Canon of medicine in public
• 1533, Opus Pyromenium?
• The human being is a microcosm of the universal macrocosm, agrippa was a paracelsian
• Paracelceans led the charge on radical knowledge reform
• There was also a third opinion: as in the summa perfectionis.
• Mercury Alone - Metals are all simply different purities of quicksilver
• “His [dee] whole purpose and drift is, to give unto mercury the mastery in alchemy, and the alpha and omega in the woke, and for this cause his Monas heiroglyphicall hath the first in the top and the last in the foote, the cross going between, which signifies the dejecting and humiliation of mercury before his exaltacton.” -Tymme c. 1600
• Dee accepts aristotles four elements and four causes, and accepts them as operating on a physical and metaphysical plane
• Dee likes Fire, specifically under the power of Ares.
• Monas = Mercury Alone + Avante Garde Paracelcean Ideas + not totally relinquished mercury-sulfur theory
• Ares Fire is the core internal dynamism of the system
• Sun = Gold
• Moon = Silver AND quicksilver (polysemic)
• Mercury is rendered Sophic (as in Mercury of the Philosopher) through the fire of Ares
• Sophic Mercury is seeded with gold through a process of “Revolution”
• Sophic Mercury + Gold = Son of the Philosophers, perfectly pure gold projected from mercury. This is normally where alchemy ends.
• The entire process is weirdly doubled for some reason through the inversion of the Monas Heiroglyph. Its unclear why he does this.
• Refers to the glyph as a gamaaea, probably a corruption of the hebrew word for amulet or talisman
• Dee seems to use the term to refer to “something that can trap astral forces like a battery”
• A key precursor to Dee is Pantheus’ 1530 text [Voarchadumia Contra Alchimiamis.]
• Panteus refers to a combination of alchemy and cabala as “a cabala of metals”
• Kabbalah was already reaching a wide audience at this point. Even pico calls it “miraculously appropriated” lol
• Dee wasnt terribly well versed in cabala
• Is not entirely clear what he really means by “cabala”
• Dee was working just before Luria got going, and Cordovero wasnt really published until 1592
• Dee’s knowledge of kabbalah was probably second or even thirdhand
• He uses the term “cabala” in several ways:
• 1 - The manipulation of hebrew words/letters to reveal hidden meaning in the text
• Just as hebrew characters can be manipulated to reveal hidden meaning in the text, dee applies this logic to the monad. The symbol itself can be manipulated to produce geometrical truths
• The monas becomes a cipher for reality itself
• A very Neopythagorean idea
• Neopythagoreanism: The world is chiefly formed of mathematical relations, therefore,the best way to explore the world is through mathematics
• Dee expands on this in a 1570 preface to euclids elements
• Dee seems to see signs as a sort of compressed form of things, like a divine zip file
• Therefore, you can actually forgo real world experimentation in favor of manipulating the monad.
• The monad is capable of understanding, manipulating , and transforming reality.

Day iii

• Dee is standing between two radical theories in alchemy
• The elemental theory and the mercury-sulphur theory
• Combines several hermeneutical theories
• When dee says cabala, he means like four different things:
• Traditional hebrew kabbalah
• Cabala of metals, an alchemical theory
• Cabala of what is said, a linguistic/semiotic theory
• Cabala of being, a unity of semiotics, ontology, and metaphsics
• We know that humans exist, but does the category of Human Being exist?
• If it does, what is it made of? Is there an atom of human-ness? How is it defined?
• If it doesn’t? How can we be human beings?
• Nominalism was a significant threat to christianity
• The king of france directly intervened, banning nominalism in favor of realism.
• Dee argues that manipulatinig the monad can affect reality