This book features the greatest minds of magic assembled in one place! Compiled by two of the leading figures in the magick community, this new hardcover title in Llewellyn's Complete Book series includes more than 650 pages of fascinating insights into the history and contemporary practice of ritual magick. With contributions from dozens of top authors, this book brings the practices, theories, and historical understanding of magick into the 21stcentury, including in-depth chapters on: Foundations of Western Magick • Qabalah • Demonology & Spirit Evocation • Alchemy • Planetary Magick • Enochian Magick & Mysticism • The Magick of Abra-Melin • The Golden Dawn • Thelema & Aleister Crowley • Polytheistic Ceremonial Magic • Magician's Tables • The Future of Ceremonial Magick

This collection of sixteen essays deals with the role of magic, religion and witchcraft in European culture, 1450-1650, and the critical role of the visual in that culture. It covers the relationship of humanism and magic; the intersection of religious ritual, orthodoxy and power; the discursive links between the visual language of witchcraft and contemporary anxieties about sexuality and savagery. The introductory chapter urges us to exorcise our tendency to reduce historical experiences of the demonic to forms of unreason created in a distant past. Only then can we understand the role of the demonic in our historical definition of the self and the other. Richly illustrated with 112 images, the book will interest historians and art historians.

This study, based on a fresh reading of the entire correspondence, the surviving orations, declamations and other relevant treatises, contains an innovative interpretation of the philosophical and theological thought of Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1486-1535). The first chapters contain a close study of his controversy with the scholastic theologians, which Agrippa carried on throughout his life, particularly with the theologians of Louvain University. Detailed analyses of Agrippa's declamations are included in the second part of the book. The chapter on the humanist declamation offers a new approach to the interpretation of rhetorical texts in the heyday of learned humanism in Northern Europe; in this context, special attention is paid to Agrippa's indebtedness to Erasmus. Throughout the book, Agrippa emerges as an important intermediary between scholasticism and humanism, and a strong opponent of the professional theologians of his time.

New essays revealing the enduring significance of the story made famous in the 1587 Faustbuch and providing insights into the forces that gave the sixteenth century its distinct character. The Reformation and Renaissance, though segregated into distinct disciplines today, interacted and clashed intimately in Faust, the great figure that attained European prominence in the anonymous 1587 Historia von D. Johann Fausten. The original Faust behind Goethe's great drama embodies a remote culture. In his century, Faust evolved from an obscure cipher to a universal symbol. The age explored here as "the Faustian century" invested the Faustbuch and its theme with a symbolic significance still of exceptional relevance today. The new essays in this volume complement one another, providing insights into the tensions and forces that gave the century its distinctcharacter. Several essays seek Faust's prototypes. Others elaborate the symbolic function of his figure and discern the resonance of his tale in conflicting allegiances. This volume focuses on the intersection of historical accounts and literary imaginings, on shared aspects of the work and its times, on concerns with obedience and transgression, obsessions with the devil and curiosity about magic, and quandaries created by shifting religious and worldlyauthorities. Contributors: Marguerite de Huszar Allen, Kresten Thue Andersen, Frank Baron, Günther Bonheim, Albrecht Classen, Urs Leo Gantenbein, Karl S. Guthke, Michael Keefer, Paul Ernst Meyer, J. M. van der Laan, Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, Andrew Weeks. J. M. van der Laan is Professor of German and Andrew Weeks is Professor of German and Comparative Literature, both at Illinois State University.