Thursday, May 28, 2015

The last great synthesis of magic

I ran across something very interesting in my studies as of late,the Geosophia vol 1 by Jake Stratton-Kent states that the last great synthesis of magic occurred in the Hellenistic world; formulated in the great schools of Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, and incorporating astrology and the Graco -Egyptian roots of alchemy. Major factors in these fusions were the older traditions of Chaldean star-lore and Greek goetia.(we can also add African and Persian roots to this melting pot) Although modern occultists often imagine the roots of their tradition lie in the Kabbalah, this is in fact a medieval system that did not enter Western magic until the Renaissance: with Mirandola and Agrippa in the 1490s.(as well as John Dee and influence from The Enchiridion) Even then, Kabbalah,at lest those parts of Kabbalah incorporated in modern magic, involve a good deal of earlier Hellenistic origin and thought. The Spheres of the Primum Mobile, fixed srars, the seven planets and the Earth were integral parts of the Neoplatonism asrronomical model.Neoplatonism can be traced back to the era of Hellenistic syncretism which spawned such movements and schools of thought as Gnosticism and the Hermetic tradition. Thus, the order of the planets corresponding to the sefirot of the Tree of Life essentially originates in Neoplatonism and Ptolemaic astrology.The encounter between the creation narrative of Genesis and the cosmology of Plato's Timaeus set in motion a long tradition of cosmological theorizing that finally culminated in the grand schema of Plotinus' Enneads. The connection of these categories with letters, names and numbers by modern ritual magicians, whether they follow Agrippa or the Golden Dawn, also derives directly from Neoplatonist pagan magicians. Nor is this a superficial resemblance; Neoplatonism is - after all - the origin of the Logos doctrine fundamental to Christian theology, and the deity without attributes central to that of the Kabbalists.This is a game changer for Pagan magicians and Luciferains everywhere,our early Hellenistic origins need to be brought up more and studied with greater depth so that we can move from the prevalent Judeo-Christian modes of Western magic and Occultism.  Copyright 2015 Vincent Piazza

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