What Is Magic?

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Doctor Faustus
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
What Is Magic?
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This episode is part three of our deep dive into Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. If you feel lost and would like to catch up with the first two episodes, you can find them on the page for this series.

In this episode, we will explore Agrippa’s definition of magic, both through his words and by examining it through a modern lens. Beginning with this episode, I will make a point to let you know precise chapters we will be discussing. This should give you the opportunity to read specific chapters in Occult Philosophy so you can be more informed of the topics we discuss in this episode.

Agrippa’s definition of magic can be found in book 1, chapter 2. In the 2021 Inner Traditions edition of Occult Philosophy, translated by Eric Purdue, this chapter begins on page 18. I would like to point out that we will almost never spend an entire episode discussing just one chapter, but since magic is at the core of our exploration of this book, we need to spend some time understanding exactly what we are talking about!

This series of episodes about Occult Philosophy will most likely last until Summer. My Patreon supporters will be receiving each episode a week before the rest of the world, along with bonus materials such as full interviews, a glimpse at works in progress, and the opportunity to suggest further topics for this Agrippa deep dive.

If you enjoy these episodes and want to help support their development, you can help out by sharing this podcast with a friend! Let your weird wizard buddies and witch pals know that we have embarked on this journey. And if you want to contribute monetarily, you can go to the Support page on this website and find a number of options.

Credits

  • Eric Purdue has studied metaphysics and the occult and has practiced magic and astrology for more than thirty years, with a particular focus on practical folk and astrological magic.
  • Andrew B. Watt is known to long-time listeners of the Arnemancy show. He’s an astrologer and textile artist living in western Massachusetts, and an enthusiast of geometry and number theory.
  • Doctor Faustus was played by Tres Henry.
  • “Tavern rainy night sleeping” by ilTerrible on Ambient-Mixer.com used under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 license.
  • “Footsteps, Stones, A.wav” by InspectorJ of Freesound.org

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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The Sources of Occult Philosophy

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Pliny the Elder
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
The Sources of Occult Philosophy
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Welcome to the second part of our deep-dive into Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s hugely influential giant book, Three Books of Occult Philosophy. In this episode, we will be searching for the answer to a pressing question: how did Agrippa manage to write such an enormous book before he even turned 25?

Thanks to Eric Purdue’s long work on his translation of this book, we have a pretty good answer: plagiarism! Agrippa used material from over 200 sources to compile and assemble Occult Philosophy. In many cases, he simply lifted complete passages from some of these sources. However, in spite of the rampant plagiarism in the text, Agrippa was able to assemble quotes and passages from these sources—some of them quite mundane—to put forth an argument for his own definition of an occult philosophy that proved to be both remarkable and influential.

We will look at three of Agrippa’s sources:

  1. Johannes Trithemius
  2. Pliny the Elder
  3. Johann Reuchlin

This series of episodes about Occult Philosophy will most likely last until Summer. My Patreon supporters will be receiving each episode a week before the rest of the world, along with bonus materials such as full interviews, a glimpse at works in progress, and the opportunity to suggest further topics for this Agrippa deep dive.

If you enjoy these episodes and want to help support their development, you can help out by sharing this podcast with a friend! Let your weird wizard buddies and witch pals know that we have embarked on this journey. And if you want to contribute monetarily, you can go to the Support page on this website and find a number of options.

Credits

Pliny the Elder was played by Andrew B. Watt. The lyre music was performed by me, Reverend Erik! Pretty good stuff, huh? I used an Aklot 7-stringed lyre that I attempted to tune to something representing a Pythagorean scheme.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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Introduction to Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy

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Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Introduction to Agrippa's Occult Philosophy
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Welcome to the first episode in a series that will be exploring the content, message, and ongoing influence of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s magnum opus, De occulta philosophia libri tres, better known in the modern world as Three Books of Occult Philosophy. In this series of episodes, I will talk to experts, translators, historians, and magicians to unravel the secret of this book of secrets, as we figure out not only where this important book came from, but why it has had such a lasting impact on the world.

If we want to understand Occult Philosophy, we first need to take a look at the world in which Agrippa lived. This episode will begin by looking at the Holy Roman Empire, where Agrippa was born and spent most of his life, and then examine a few key historical topics that are relevant to Agrippa and Occult Philosophy, including:

  • The Renaissance
  • The Reformation
  • Science and Philosophy

Finally, this episode will give a general overview of Three Books of Occult Philosophy and outline a general plan for this series of podcast episodes.

This series of episodes about Occult Philosophy will most likely last until Summer. My Patreon supporters will be receiving each episode a week before the rest of the world, along with bonus materials such as full interviews, a glimpse at works in progress, and the opportunity to suggest further topics for this Agrippa deep dive.

If you enjoy these episodes and want to help support their development, you can help out by sharing this podcast with a friend! Let your weird wizard buddies and witch pals know that we have embarked on this journey. And if you want to contribute monetarily, you can go to the Support page on this website and find a number of options.

Credits

This episode includes quotes from Douglas Batchelor, host of the What Magic Is This? Podcast, and Eric Purdue, whose translation of De occulta philosophia libri tres was published by Inner Traditions in 2021.

This episode included music by JuliusH from Pixabay, along with Celebration by Alexander Nakarada. All music was licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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Learn to Create Your Own Tarot Spreads

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This announcement has been a long time coming! I am teaming up with my friend Coleman Stevenson of the Dark Exact to teach a new class on Tarot spreads!

When reading tarot and oracle cards, context is everything. A well-designed spread can guide and focus a reading, leading to greater understanding and personal discovery. In this 3-week workshop led by Coleman Stevenson of The Dark Exact and Erik L. Arneson of Arnemancy, we’ll explore what makes a great spread, examine how card meanings shift based on position in different spreads, and practice various methods for constructing our own card layouts. Each participant will have an original spread tested by the class and will be invited to submit completed spreads from the workshop for publication in Volume Three of A Small Collection of Specialized Spreads.

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Using Tarot Webs to Understand Cards

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You’ve probably had the same experience I’ve had: no matter how well you begin to understand most of the cards in your Tarot deck, there are still one or two stubborn holdouts, mysteries that make your brain blank when you get them in a spread or as your daily card. In 2018 I got the Queen of Wands once every two days for over a week and I had no idea what was going on. I’m still not sure what was going on! This post demonstrates an exercise you can use on stubborn cards, though of course you can eventually do it to every single card if you wish. The exercise comes out of pre-writing practice and it’s called “webbing” or “mind mapping.” It’s an excellent way to explore the visual and esoteric symbols of any card.
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2022 Forecast with T. Susan Chang and Andrew B. Watt (Part 2)

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2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast with T. Susan Chang and Andrew B. Watt (Part 2)
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On the very eve of the New Year, I am joined by my two amazing friends, astrologer Andrew B. Watt and cartomancer T. Susan Chang, for part two of our 2022 Forecast! Join us as we put our divinatory skills to the test. As Andrew interprets astrological charts for each month, Susie draws Tarot cards, and I am there to moderate!

Part two of the 2022 Forecast covers the months of July through December.

Two special notes for this episode:

  • All of us are offering 20% off divination services through January 5th. To take advantage of this, use code BIGASTRO22 on our respective websites, which you can find in the list of links below.
  • There is a PDF that goes along with this episode! You can get a copy by signing up for the Arnemancy Newsletter!

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!!!!

T. Susan Chang

T. Susan Chang bought her first tarot deck at a Barnes & Noble in New York, where she moonlighted as a reader while working in academic publishing. After leaving the city, she took her practice underground for many years, re-surfacing in 2015 and taking up the systematic study of esoteric correspondences in tarot.

Her interest in tarot is wide-ranging and passionate, and has included:

  • Setting up 78 Spotify playlists for those interested in card-appropriate music
  • memorizing astrological correspondences for the minor arcana while swimming laps
  • writing tarot haiku and spells
  • maintaining a sprawling Card-of-the-Day-tracking database (complete with elemental, astrological, and kabbalistical frequency and percentage pie charts).

When not engaged in tarot-adjacent activity, she teaches writing at Smith College, and writes occasionally about food and cookbooks. She lives in western New England with her husband, two children, and a variable number of chickens.

Andrew B. Watt

Andrew Watt is an astrologer, poet and artist living in western Massachusetts. He works in textiles, wood and words to produce objects for practical magic and mysterious practicality, and seeks the honest wisdom found in the life of an artisan.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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2022 Forecast with Andrew B. Watt and T. Susan Chang (Part 1)

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2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast with Andrew B. Watt and T. Susan Chang (Part 1)
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The new year is nigh! Once again, I am joined by my two amazing friends, astrologer Andrew B. Watt and cartomancer T. Susan Chang, to attempt to forecast the future. Together, we put our divinatory skills to the test. As Andrew interprets astrological charts for each month, Susie draws Tarot cards, and I am there to moderate!

Part one of the 2022 Forecast covers the months of January through June.

Two special notes for this episode:

  • All of us are offering 20% off divination services through January 5th. To take advantage of this, use code BIGASTRO22 on our respective websites, which you can find in the list of links below.
  • There is a PDF that goes along with this episode! You can get a copy by signing up for the Arnemancy Newsletter!

Andrew B. Watt

Andrew Watt is an astrologer, poet and artist living in western Massachusetts. He works in textiles, wood and words to produce objects for practical magic and mysterious practicality, and seeks the honest wisdom found in the life of an artisan.

T. Susan Chang

T. Susan Chang bought her first tarot deck at a Barnes & Noble in New York, where she moonlighted as a reader while working in academic publishing. After leaving the city, she took her practice underground for many years, re-surfacing in 2015 and taking up the systematic study of esoteric correspondences in tarot.

Her interest in tarot is wide-ranging and passionate, and has included:

  • Setting up 78 Spotify playlists for those interested in card-appropriate music
  • memorizing astrological correspondences for the minor arcana while swimming laps
  • writing tarot haiku and spells
  • maintaining a sprawling Card-of-the-Day-tracking database (complete with elemental, astrological, and kabbalistical frequency and percentage pie charts).

When not engaged in tarot-adjacent activity, she teaches writing at Smith College, and writes occasionally about food and cookbooks. She lives in western New England with her husband, two children, and a variable number of chickens.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
Listen on Podcrypt

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A Very Enochian Christmas with Cliff

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A Very Enochian Christmas
Arnemancy
A Very Enochian Christmas with Cliff
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Happy holidays, everybody! What is more packed with holiday cheer than Enochian magic? In this episode, I am joined by Cliff from Enochian Today to discuss his extensive and in-depth exploration of Enochian magic. Our conversation briefly covers the history of Enochian magic and the partnership between John Dee and Edward Kelley, and then we dive deep into the evolution of the system and Cliff’s work with gebofal.

Gebofal is a 49-day ritual that works with complex tables found in the Liber Logaeth. Cliff explains how he worked with these tables, the mathematic structure of these tables, and the hierarchy of spirits that seem to be laid out in the Enochian heptarchy. This is complicated magic, and if this episode interests you at all, please be sure to check out Cliff’s blog for an in-depth look at his process.

Cliff has practiced ceremonial magic for about twenty years, and has been deeply involved in Enochian magic for about two years or so.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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A Grip of Agrippas

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Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is arguably the most influential writer in all of Western esotericism. De occulta philosophia libri III or Three Books of Occult Philosophy is his largest and most well-known work. Written, revised, and expanded over the course of two decades, it was finally published in full in Cologne in 1533. The first full English translation was completed by the mysterious J.F. and was published about a century later in London in 1651. For over 350 years, this was the only English translation available.

Then, suddenly, over the last two years, two new English translations have been published. In 2020, a translation by Paul Summers Young was published by Black Letter Press. Close on its heels, Eric Purdue’s translation was published by Inner Traditions in 2021. The modern occult world is now awash in fresh new translations of Agrippa’s seminal work.

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