Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LXXI — Of Many Words Joined Together, as in Sentences and Verses; and of the Virtues and Astrictions of Charms · 2 of 2 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter LXXI, Section 1b
By the quality, therefore, of this spirit, and by the celestial similitude, thereof (besides those things which have already been spoken of) verses, also, from the opportunity of time, receive from above most excellent virtues; and, indeed, are more sublime and efficacious than spirits, and.
vapors exhaling out of the vegetable life, such as herbs, roots, gums, aromatical things, and fumes and such like.
And, therefore, magicians enchanting things, are wont to blow and breathe upon them the words of the verse, or to breathe in the virtue with the spirit, that so the whole virtue of the soul be directed to the thing enchanted, being disposed for the receiving of said virtue.
And here it is to be noted that every oration, writing and words, as they induce accustomed motions by their accustomed numbers, proportions, and form, so (besides their usual order) being pronounced, or wrote backwards, move unto unusual effects.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Word Power Incantationpraxis
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The text centrally discusses the efficacy of verses and words in directing soul-virtue to enchanted things.
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