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Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter XXXII — What Things Are Under the Signs, the Fixed Stars, and Their Images

Occult Philosophy, Book I: Natural Magic (Agrippa) · part 32 of 74 · 2 passages · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
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Agrippa opens by positing a three-fold World—Elementary, Celestial, Intellectual—ascended toward the First cause (I), then defines Magic as the chief Science comprehending Natural, Mathematical, and Theological Philosophy (II). He treats the four Elements, their qualities, orders, and the properties of Fire and Earth, Water and Air, their compounded bodies, and their presence in all things up to God (III–VIII). He distinguishes elementary, secondary, and occult virtues, tracing the latter to Ideas, the Soul of the World, and celestial situation (IX–XIV), then how virtues move to their like, infuse likeness, form friendships and enmities, and reside in species, individuals, whole substances, parts, and life or death (XV–XXI). He assigns things to Sun, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, planetary governments, kingdoms, Signs, stars, and Characters (XXII–XXXIII), then shows how virtues are drawn down through conformable things, mixtions, prepared matter, correspondence of Worlds, and animated Images (XXXIV–XXXVIII). Turning operative, he treats raising spirits (XXXIX), bindings, sorceries, catamenia, suffumigations and their recipes, collyries and unguents, alligations, rings, and virtues of places (XL–XLVIII). He describes light, fascination, wonder-working acts, and gestures and bodily figures (XLIX–LII), then divinations—Auguria and Auspicia, birds and beasts, lightnings and prodigies, and the four elemental divinations (LIII–LVII)—and reviving of bodies (LVIII). He treats dreams and prophetic madness (LIX–LX), then man's body, senses, mind, and passions, how the phantasy alters one's own and another's body, and how passions gain power through Heaven, faith, and the stars' minds (LXI–LXVIII). He closes with the power of words, proper names, sentences, enchantments, writing, and the Hebrew letters ordered to Signs, Planets, and Elements, ending the first book (LXIX–LXXIV).

Chapters
Chapter XXXII

The text assigns terrestrial creatures to celestial Signs and figures: the ram to Aries, bull to Taurus, and so on, with Ursa over bears, Hydra over serpents, Dog Star over dogs. Apuleius distributes herbs to the Signs and Planets; Hermes, whom Albertus follows, assigns different herbs to the Planets. The author notes by experience asparagus under Aries and garden basil under Scorpio. Following Hermes and Thebit, the text lists fifteen eminent stars, from the Head of Algol to the Tail of Capricorn, with their governed stones, plants, and animals. It states that things receive influence from many conjoined stars, giving examples among stones, vegetables, and animals, then concludes.

Chapter XXXII, Section 1aChapter XXXII, Section 1b