Later Magic
With the death of Agrippa in 1535, the old school of magicians ended. But the traditions of magic were handed down to others who were equally capable of preserving them, or were later revived by persons interested in the art. There was a great distinction between those practitioners of magic whose minds were illuminated by a high mystical ideal and those persons of doubtful occult position, like the Comte de Saint Germain and others.
With the death of Agrippa in 1535, the old school of magicians ended. But the traditions of magic were handed down to others who were equally capable of preserving them, or were later revived by persons interested in the art. There was a great distinction between those practitioners of magic whose minds were illuminated by a high mystical ideal and those persons of doubtful occult position, like the Comte de Saint Germain and others.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century there were many great alchemists in practice who were also devoted to research on transcendental magic, which they carefully and successfully concealed under the veil of hermetic investigation.
These included Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Cosmopolite, Jean D’Espagnet, Samuel Norton (see Thomas Norton), Baron de Beausoleil, J. Van Helmont, and Eirenaeus Philalethes (see also alchemy). The eighteenth century was rich in occult personalities, for example, the alchemists Lascaris Martines de Pasqually and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, who founded the Martinist school, which was continued by ‘‘Papus’’ (Gérard
Encausse).
By the end of the eighteenth century, magic practice had reached its lowest ebb as emphasis on the exploration of causative agents centered on the physical world and supernatural explanations were pushed aside. It was not until the nineteenth century that a spreading mesmerist philosophy offered philosophical underpinnings for a scientific worldview. Magic merged for the moment with mesmerism, and many of the secret magic societies that abounded in Europe about this period practiced animal magnetism experiments as well as astrology, Kabbalism, and ceremonial magic.
Mesmerism powerfully influenced mystic life in the time of its chief advocates, and the mesmerists of the first era were in direct line with the Martinists and the mystical magicians of the late eighteenth century. Indeed mysticism and magnetism were one and the same thing to some of these occultists (see Secret Tradition), the most celebrated of which were Cazotte, Ganneau, Comte, Wronski, Baron Du Potet de Sennevoy, Hennequin, Comte d’Ourches, Baron de Guldenstubbé, and Éliphas Lévi.
These included Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Cosmopolite, Jean D’Espagnet, Samuel Norton (see Thomas Norton), Baron de Beausoleil, J. Van Helmont, and Eirenaeus Philalethes (see also alchemy). The eighteenth century was rich in occult personalities, for example, the alchemists Lascaris Martines de Pasqually and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, who founded the Martinist school, which was continued by ‘‘Papus’’ (Gérard
Encausse).
By the end of the eighteenth century, magic practice had reached its lowest ebb as emphasis on the exploration of causative agents centered on the physical world and supernatural explanations were pushed aside. It was not until the nineteenth century that a spreading mesmerist philosophy offered philosophical underpinnings for a scientific worldview. Magic merged for the moment with mesmerism, and many of the secret magic societies that abounded in Europe about this period practiced animal magnetism experiments as well as astrology, Kabbalism, and ceremonial magic.
Mesmerism powerfully influenced mystic life in the time of its chief advocates, and the mesmerists of the first era were in direct line with the Martinists and the mystical magicians of the late eighteenth century. Indeed mysticism and magnetism were one and the same thing to some of these occultists (see Secret Tradition), the most celebrated of which were Cazotte, Ganneau, Comte, Wronski, Baron Du Potet de Sennevoy, Hennequin, Comte d’Ourches, Baron de Guldenstubbé, and Éliphas Lévi.
