It was a fateful when Harry Potter shared a train cabin with Ron Weasley on the way to Hogwarts for the first time. Harry generously shares his food-treats with Ron, and Ron acclimates Harry to the Wizarding World that eleven-year olds care about. Ron collects cards of famous wizards, found in treats called Chocolate Frogs. It’s an opportunity for Harry to know a little more about Dumbledore, Hogwarts Headmaster. Ron however, wanting to complete his set, is missing Agrippa. Who is this shadowy Agrippa?
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) is famous for writing On Occult Philosophy. What does he have to do with magic? He’s a Magus, the singular for Magi. Today we might associate ‘magi’ and ‘occult’ with some cult-group that believes in demons and casting magic spells. But in ancient times, magi were wise and learned men. The most famous instance of magi comes in the Bible where ‘wise men from the east’ following a ‘bright star’ journey to see the baby Jesus while bringing gifts fit for a king. The Babylonian magi were also astronomers, studying the heavenly bodies of the night sky. What signs might the stars portend? In those times, there wasn’t a clear distinction between astronomy and astrology. Today, one is a legitimate science, the other is ‘occult’ pseudoscience that retains surprising popularity.
In a book focused on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the historian Anthony Grafton details the writings and doings of characters who melded magic, religion and science – when these were still nascent categories with plenty of overlap. The book is appropriately titled Magus, and Agrippa gets a whole large chapter to himself. In his time, Agrippa was a polymath – someone knowledgeable across many areas of learning. He was a mercenary and fought in wars but more well-known as a theologian, physician, lawyer, scholar, and a writer of the occult. His occult tastes were influenced by Johannes Trimethius, who also gets a hefty chapter to himself in Magus. Both these magi drew on the Kaballah and the neo-Platonist writers in their work.
My interest in the history of magical thought was initiated by reading the Harry Potter books as a scientist. Could magic and spell-casting work physically, and how so? (I speculate that it makes use of photons.) As a chemist, I pondered why a wizard would need to rely on potions. Is spell-casting not enough? (I speculate that intricate biochemistry is difficult to control with conventional spell-casting.) That led me to reading books about alchemy and how it influenced the birth of chemistry as a science. (I recommend anything by Lawrence Principe.) But I didn’t know much about magi who did not focus on alchemy.
Agrippa was much more interested in the relationship of magic to art and engineering rather than chemistry. Like Trimethius and others before him, the power of magic could be divided into two broad categories. On one hand, there was a ‘black’ magic (to be shunned) that involved the summoning of demons to do one’s bidding. (The Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud uses this as a basis for magic.) On the other hand, there was ‘natural’ magic: the magus, in harmony with nature, learned its secrets and how to harness its power. Scientists and engineers were the true magicians! And since a feature of magic is to amaze its audience, the magus also needed to be a true artist.
In the days before TV or radio, so if you wanted entertainment, it had to be live! The magi knew how to put on a good show. Smoke, fire, elaborate costumes, mechanical beasts – this is what brought wows and gasps to the audience. The magus was an artist-engineer and a favorite of kings and rich patrons were automata, “medieval robots” who seemed alive so to speak. Grafton writes: “Agrippa’s emphasis on automata was not accidental. Nothing bothered orthodox readers more than the description of the statues the Egyptians had directed daemons into in order to make their idols speak.” In contrast, the magus was “a master mechanic and a creator of dazzling effects” by knowledge of the natural world and therefore able to design seemingly life-like creations – flying birds, fire-breathing creatures, and talking heads.
Making magical devices or artifacts was the distinction of the true magus. This required a true understanding of the underlying rules of the natural world. Our machines and labor-saving devices would awe a medieval time-traveler. A more advanced science does seem indistinguishable from an occult magic. Our harnessing of wired electricity and unwired electromagnetic waves would seem miraculous to Agrippa, but he wouldn’t ascribe it to demons. He’d want to learn from today’s scientists how they accomplished such feats through the study of nature. Agrippa, the magus, would be both surprised and delighted by the advances we have made. He’d also be happy that the demonologists have for the most part been relegated to a fringe group. But he would be concerned that in the present century, science is losing its prestige as a trusted source.
Agrippa was an interesting character in an interesting time for science, philosophy, religion and magic. I’d like to think that his writings elevated the craftsman, who in medieval times was more of a second-class citizen. While Grafton’s book is rather academic and at times I found myself skimming over details I was less interested in, I’m happy to learn more about Agrippa and company. Now his name isn’t just a factoid for Harry Potter Trivia Night; and I actually know much more about his life and times as a magus.
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