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Pagan Pioneers: Founders, Elders, Leaders and Others
Agrippa
(1486-1535)
Written and compiled by George Knowles Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, commonly referred to as Agrippa, was an early 16th century mystic whose writings influenced many future generations of occultists, and became part of the heritage of folk magic still practiced by Pagans and Witches of today. Like many famous men before and after him, Agrippa was a man before his time, which made him unpopular amongst his contemporaries and frequently brought him into conflict with the church and state authorities. Agrippa was born on the 14th September 1486 in
Cologne (now Kőln), in west central Germany.
Cologne was originally a town of the Ubii, a Germanic tribe, and called
Oppidum Ubiorum. Later in the 1st
century BC, the Romans established a garrison on the site, and in AD 50, the
Roman Emperor Claudius I founded a colony on the same site, which he renamed
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis, after his wife Agrippina. By the time Agrippa was born, Cologne was an important academic and publishing center where in his youth, he became famous for refusing to speak anything but Latin. Agrippa’s real name was Heinrich Cornelis, which he Latinised into Cornelius and then awarded himself the bogus title of Agrippa Von Nettesheim, taken from the founder and the town where she lived. In 1499, Agrippa enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at Cologne University were he excelled in his studies and even became proficient in eight languages. He received his License of Arts in 1502. While at the University he also became fascinated by Alchemy and natural magic, and studied much of the available Kabalistic and Hermetic literature, as was extent in those times. In 1506, he was appointed court secretary to Maximillian I, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany. Sent to Paris (allegedly as a spy), he studied at the University of Paris where it is said he organised a “secret society” of like-minded students, scholars and noblemen interested in alchemy and magic. As part of a pact, they vowed to uphold envisioned a reformed world, in which they pledged to come to one another's assistance whenever needed. Throughout 1508, Agrippa travelled around Europe visiting Spain, the Balearic Islands and Italy. In 1509, he resided for a time in France and studied at the University of Dole, where he earned a Doctorate in Divinity and was made Professor of Theology. With the support of the University's chancellor, the Archbishop of Besançon, Antoine de Vergy, he lectured on Johannes Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico (On the word that makes miracles). While his courses were offered free of charge, Agrippa dedicated his lectures to Princess Margaret, daughter of Maximilian I, and governess of Netherlands. Seeking to gain her favour, he wrote De Nobilitate et præcellentia
(The Nobility of Women), but
his efforts met with fierce opposition from the Franciscan order of Burgundy,
and it would not be publish until 1532. His
lectures and teachings in the meantime had also caused
disquiet among church officials, and Jean Catilinet, the head of the
Franciscan order delivered a sermon before Princess Margaret at Ghent, accusing
Agrippa of Judaicising heresy.
Moving back to the Netherlands, Agrippa again took up service with
Maximilian I. In 1510 the king
sent him on a diplomatic mission to England, where as a guest of Colet, dean of
St Paul's, he wrote his Expostulatio
in reply to the accusations brought against him by Catilinet.
Aged just 24, Agrippa had already collated a vast store of occult
knowledge, which he began to set down in a three volume work called “De
occulta philosophia” (The Occult Philosophy), a compilation of all the
magical and occult knowledge available at that time. He sent a copy of the manuscript to his friend and teacher Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim near Würzburg. In his answer to Agrippa, Trithemius wrote: “I wonder... that you, being so young, should penetrate into such secrets as have been hid from most learned men, and not only clearly and truly, but also properly and elegantly set them forth”. However, once again due to opposition, it would not be published until 1531. Agrippa returned to Cologne in 1511 and resumed lecturing at
Cologne University. Later that year
he entered the Army and soon became Captain - a position that reflected his
influence and position among the middle classes of Nobility.
In late 1511 he took part in the Council of Pisa, as a Theologist, but
was excommunicated together with other "deviants".
Agrippa spent the next few
years travelling around Europe, partly in the service of William VI, the Marquis
of Monferrato, and partly for Charles III, the Duke of Savoy. In 1512, he was in Italy lecturing at the University of Pavia on Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translations of Plato's Commentarium in Convivium Platonis de amore, and Corpus Hermeticum. By the end of 1515 he had gained Doctorates in both Law and Medicine, and dedicated his De triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum to his patron William VI. However, when Francis I, the king of France invaded Pavia, Agrippa lost his fortune and had to leave the town. For a time
thereafter Agrippa gave lectures in theology at the University of Turin,
and in 1518 due to the efforts of
his patrons, he secured a position as town advocate and orator at Metz.
By this time he had written De originali peccato, On
Geomancy and a treatise on the plague.
However in Metz, as had
happened at Dole, his teachings soon brought him into conflict with
church officials, particularly when
he undertook the defence of a woman accused of witchcraft.
The main evidence being used against the woman was that her mother had
been burned as a witch before her. Agrippa destroyed the case against her using
the theological argument that a man could be separated from Christ only by his
own sin, and not the sin of another. Reginald Scott in
his “Discoverie of Witchcraft” (1584) describes how Agrippa
triumphantly “delivered her from the claws of the bloodie moonke, who with her
accusers, were condemned in a great summe of monie to the charter of the church
of Metz, (sic) and remained infamous after that time almost to all men”.
The inquisitor Nicholas Savin afterwards threatened to prosecute Agrippa
as a supporter of heretics and witches. As
a consequence Agrippa was forced to resign from his position in Metz and
returned to Cologne. For a time thereafter Agrippa practiced as a physician at Geneva and Freiburg, then in 1524 he went to Lyons on being appointed court physician to Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I, the King of France. While in Lyons he wrote his Commentary on Ars brevis. Louise was slow to pay him however, and kept him confined to Lyons in near poverty. By mid 1526, Agrippa had still not been paid for his court duties, and when the Queen mother asked him to make a horoscope for her son Francis, he refused. Later in a letter to a friend, he made some bitter comments about Louise, which would cause Agrippa no end of trouble. The events that occurred during his stay in Lyons forms the
perfect background for Agrippa’s next and most controversial work De
incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium (The
Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and Arts), his attack on the
astrologers and magicians of the day.
Written in 1526 when his
fortunes were at low ebb,
and disillusioned with the
academic establishment, it was published some four years later.
Vanity was an attack on all the sciences and occult arts known to him at
that time, in which he takes the view that knowledge only makes a man aware of
how little he really knows. After problems leaving France, Agrippa went to Antwerp where he regained the favour of Margaret, duchess of Savoy and Regent of the Netherlands. In January 1529 she appointed him Archives Councillor and Historiographer to Emperor Charles V. That same year a plague raged through Antwerp and all the city’s physicians left, all except Agrippa who stayed to treat the sick. After it was over and the physicians returned, they accused him of practicing without a proper diploma, most likely in efforts to keep him away from their rich patients and gaining their favour. In 1530 Agrippa published his De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum. By the end of the year however, his patron Margaret died and Agrippa was again unpaid for his duties at the court and struggling with poverty. His position was further weakened by the publication of his writings, which aroused new hatred from his enemies, not only church officials but the academic establishment as well. By mid 1531 Agrippa left Antwerp for Brussels and settled in a little house in Mechlin, but suffered a term of imprisonment for his inability to pay his debts. He was aided by Hermann of Wied, the Archbishop of Cologne, who invited him to Poppelsdorf, before moving on to Bonn. After the
publication of De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum in 1530 his
works brought him again to the attention of the Inquisition, who sought to stop
the printing of De occulta philosophia in 1531, and only the first book
was published, but with the aid of the Archbishop of Cologne, to whom it was
dedicated, the full three volume work was published complete in 1533. The Inquisition
continued their persecution of Agrippa and even urged Charles V to sentence him
to death for heresy. Fearing for
his life, Agrippa fled back to France despite his strained relations with
Francis I, who immediately put him in prison for the old offence with the
horoscope and his disparaging
comments about the Queen mother. Charles
V then changed his sentence to exile and friends soon released him.
He was last seen at the house of the Ferrand family, owned the governor
of Grenoble in the Rue des Clercs, where he died on
the 18th of February 1535. (The Occult Philosophy) Agrippa's best-known
work, De Occulta Philosophia (The Occult Philosophy) is based on ideas
current at the time: in that man is
a miniature copy of God, ‘made in the image of God’ as the Bible says; that
the whole universe, taken together, is God; and man is therefore a miniature
copy of the universe. The universe
(the macrocosm or ‘great world’) is built on the model of man (the microcosm
or ‘small world’) and so, like man, it has a soul. Agrippa says that
everything that exists has a ‘soul’ or spiritual component, part of the
total world soul, which shows itself in the magical properties of herbs, metals,
stones, animals and other phenomena of Nature. Agrippa considered the relationship between matter and spirit in the light of various arts and sciences, including music, geometry and, especially important, astrology. Then he turns to the human soul and its relationship to the body, as revealed by necromancy - the summoning up of the spirits of the dead - and in the religions of all ages. Agrippa builds up a
system of the universe in which everything is part of a great spiritual whole,
which is God. Magic is the way of
investigating this system but magic is only for the initiated few, for men like
Agrippa himself, members – as most of them were, in fact - of secret
societies. He does not press the
point fully home but his conclusion that man ‘containeth in himself all things
which are in God’ is well in line with the magical theory that the magician
can make himself God and wield the supreme power of God in the universe. The Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences
and Arts Agrippa's other main work forms a complete contrast to his first one. Written in 1526, at a time when his fortunes were at low ebb, and published three years later. De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium, (The Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and Arts) maintains that on balance the arts and sciences are harmful to man. Through an encyclopedic review of all the science's and arts known to him, which provides a mine of information and holds up a fascinating mirror to the culture of the times, Agrippa contrasts the disillusion which all this knowledge brings with the spiritual strength gained through the only sure and beneficial thing on which man can rely - the divinely revealed word of God. Agrippa was rarely an
original thinker and his philosophy is a compilation of ideas from many sources.
He ransacked the works of writers ancient and modern for ideas, which he
adapted in a tremendous display of erudition to his own magical system.
But second-hand though much of his occult lore is, it is shot through
with moments of genuine poetic utterance: Man and God Agrippa argues
that man contains the whole world and God in himself: “Therefore
man… hath in himself All that is contained in the greater world, so that there
remaineth nothing which is not even truly and really in man himself, and all
these things do perform the same duties in him as in the great world:
there are in him the four Elements with the most true properties of their
nature, and in him an ethereal body, the Chariot of the Soul, in proportion
corresponding to the Heaven: There
are in him the vegetative life of Plants, the senses of animals, of celestial
spirits, the Angelical reason and the Divine understanding… man, being made
another world, doth comprehend all the parts thereof in himself but also doth
receive and contain even God himself… Therefore man is the most express Image
of God, seeing man containeth in himself all things which are in God…
Whosoever therefore shall know himself, shall know all things in himself;
especially, he shall know God, according to whose Image he was made. Excerpted from the Occult Philosophy (a 17th century translation). End.
Sources: Man,
Myth & Magic - Richard
Cavendish. The Encyclopedia of Witches &Witchcraft - by Rosemary Ellen Guiley. The Penguin Hutchinson Reference Library (CD cassette). Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (CD cassette). http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7850/ http://www.parascience.org/agrippa.htm http://www.occultopedia.com/a/agrippa.htm
First published on the 04th March 2007, 18:22:02 © George Knowles
Best wishes and Blessed Be
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Site Contents - Links to all Pages
A Universal Message:
Let there be peace in the world - Where have all the flowers gone?
About me: My Personal Page / My Place in England / My Family Tree (Ancestry)
Wicca & Witchcraft
Wicca/Witchcraft / What is Wicca / What is Magick
Traditional Writings:
The Wiccan Rede / Charge of the Goddess / Charge of the God / The Three-Fold Law (includes The Law of Power and The Four Powers of the Magus) / The Witches Chant / The Witches Creed / Descent of the Goddess / Drawing Down the Moon / The Great Rite Invocation / Invocation of the Horned God / The 13 Principles of Wiccan Belief / The Witches Rede of Chivalry / A Pledge to Pagan Spirituality
Correspondence Tables:
Incense / Candles / Colours / Magickal Days / Stones and Gems / Elements and Elementals
Traditions:
Traditions Part 1 - Alexandrian Wicca / Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC) / Ár Ndraíocht Féin (ADF) / Blue Star Wicca / British Traditional (Druidic Witchcraft) / Celtic Wicca / Ceremonial Magic / Chaos Magic / Church and School of Wicca / Circle Sanctuary / Covenant of the Goddess (COG) / Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS) / Cyber Wicca / Dianic Wicca / Eclectic Wicca / Feri Wicca /
Traditions Part 2 - Gardnerian Wicca / Georgian Tradition / Henge of Keltria / Hereditary Witchcraft / Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (H.O.G.D.) / Kitchen Witch (Hedge Witch) / Minoan Brotherhood and Minoan Sisterhood Tradition / Nordic Paganism / Pagan Federation / Pectic-Wita / Seax-Wica / Shamanism / Solitary / Strega / Sylvan Tradition / Vodoun or Voodoo / Witches League of Public Awareness (WLPA) /
Other things of interest:
Gods and Goddesses (Greek
Mythology) / Esbats &
Full Moons / Links
to Personal Friends & Resources / Wicca/Witchcraft
Resources / What's a spell? /
Circle Casting and
Sacred Space / Pentagram
- Pentacle / Marks
of a Witch / The Witches
Power / The Witches Hat
/ An
esoteric guide to visiting London / Satanism
/ Pow-wow
/ The
Unitarian Universalist Association / Numerology: Part 1
/ Part 2 / Part
3 / A
history of the Malleus Maleficarum: includes: Pope
Innocent VIII /
The
papal Bull /
The
Malleus Maleficarum /
An extract from the Malleus Maleficarum
/ The letter of approbation
/ Johann
Nider’s Formicarius /
Jacob
Sprenger /
Heinrich Kramer /
Stefano Infessura
/ Montague Summers /
The Waldenses
/ The Albigenses
/
The Hussites / The
Native American Sun Dance
/ Shielding (Occult
and Psychic Protection) /
Sabbats and Festivals:
The Sabbats in History and Mythology / Samhain (October 31st) / Yule (December 21st) / Imbolc (February 2nd) / Ostara (March 21st) / Beltane (April 30th) / Litha (June 21st) / Lammas/Lughnasadh (August 1st) / Mabon (September 21st)
Rituals contributed by Crone:
Samhain / Yule / Imbolc / Ostara / Beltane / Litha / Lammas / Mabon
Tools:
Tools of a Witch / The Besom (Broom) / Poppets and Dolls / Pendulums / Cauldron Magick / Mirror Gazing
Animals:
Animals in Witchcraft (The Witches Familiar and Totem Animals) / Antelope / Bats / Crow / Fox / Frog and Toads / Goat / Honeybee / Kangaroo / Lion / Owl / Phoenix / Rabbits and Hares / Raven / Robin Redbreast / Sheep / Spider / Squirrel / Swans / Unicorn / Wild Boar / Wolf / Serpent / Pig / Stag / Horse / Mouse / Cat / Rats / Unicorn
Trees:
In Worship of Trees - Myths, Lore and the Celtic Tree Calendar. For descriptions and correspondences of the thirteen sacred trees of Wicca/Witchcraft see the following: Birch / Rowan / Ash / Alder / Willow / Hawthorn / Oak / Holly / Hazel / Vine / Ivy / Reed / Elder
Sacred Sites:
Mystical Sacred Sites - Stonehenge / Glastonbury Tor / Malta - The Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni / Avebury / Cerne Abbas - The Chalk Giant / Ireland - Newgrange /
Rocks and Stones:
Stones - History, Myths and Lore
Articles contributed by Patricia Jean Martin:
Apophyllite / Amber / Amethyst / Aquamarine / Aragonite / Aventurine / Black Tourmaline / Bloodstone / Calcite / Carnelian / Celestite / Citrine / Chrysanthemum Stone / Diamond / Emerald / Fluorite / Garnet / Hematite / Herkimer Diamond / Labradorite / Lapis Lazuli / Malachite / Moonstone / Obsidian / Opal / Pyrite / Quartz (Rock Crystal) / Rose Quartz / Ruby / Selenite / Seraphinite / Silver and Gold / Smoky Quartz / Sodalite / Sunstone / Thunderegg / Tree Agate / Zebra Marble
Wisdom and Inspiration:
Knowledge vs Wisdom by Ardriana Cahill / I Talk to the Trees / Awakening / The Witch in You / A Tale of the Woods / I have a Dream by Martin Luther King /
Articles and Stories about Witchcraft:
Murdered by Witchcraft / The Fairy Witch of Clonmel / A Battleship, U-boat, and a Witch / The Troll-Tear (A story for Children) / Goody Hawkins - The Wise Goodwife / The Story of Jack-O-Lantern / The Murder of the Hammersmith Ghost / Josephine Gray (The Infamous Black Widow) / The Two Brothers - Light and Dark
Old Masters of Academia: (Our Ancestors)
Pliny the Elder / Hesiod / Pythagoras / Paracelsus / Abramelin the Mage / Archimedes / Agrippa / Socrates / Aristotle
Biographies
A "Who's Who" of Witches, Pagans and other associated People (Ancient, Past and Present)
(Departed Pagan Pioneers, Founders, Elders and Others)
Pagan
Pioneers: Founders, Elders, Leaders and Others
Aidan A Kelly / Albertus Magnus - “Albert the Great” / Aleister Crowley - “The Great Beast” / Alex Sanders - “King of the Witches” / Alison Harlow / Allan Bennett - the Ven. Ananda Metteyya / Allan Kardec (Spiritism) / Alphonsus de Spina / Amber K / Ann Moura / Anna Franklin / Anodea Judith / Anton Szandor LaVey / Arnold Crowther / Arthur Edward Waite / Austin Osman Spare / Balthasar Bekker / Biddy Early / Barbara Vickers / Bridget Cleary - The Fairy Witch of Clonmel / Carl " Llewellyn" Weschcke / Cecil Hugh Williamson / Charles Godfrey Leland / Charles Walton / Christopher Penczak / Christina Oakley Harrington / Cornelius Loos / Damh the Bard - "Dave Smith" / Dion Fortune / Dolores Aschroft-Nowicki / Donald Michael Kraig / Doreen Valiente / Dorothy Morrison / Dr. John Dee & Edward Kelly / Dr. Leo Louis Martello / Edain McCoy / Edward Fitch / Eleanor Ray Bone - “Matriarch of British Witchcraft” / Eliphas Levi / Ernest Thompson Seton / Ernest Westlake / Fiona Horne / Frederick McLaren Adams - Feraferia / Friedrich von Spee / Francis Barrett / Gavin and Yvonne Frost and the School and Church of Wicca / Gerald B. Gardner - The father of contemporary Witchcraft / Gwydion Pendderwen / Hans Holzer / Helen Duncan / Herman Slater - Horrible Herman / Heinrich Kramer / Isaac Bonewits / Israel Regardie / Ivo Domínguez Jr. / Jack Whiteside Parsons - Rocket Science and Magick / James "Cunning" Murrell - The Master of Witches / Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone / Jean Bodin / Jessie Wicker Bell - “Lady Sheba” / Johann Weyer / Johannes Junius - "The Burgomaster of Bamberg" / Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim - the “Hexenbrenner” (witch burner) / John Belham-Payne / John George Hohman - "Pow-wow" / John Gerard / John Gordon Hargrave and the Kibbo Kith Kindred / John Michael Greer / John Score / Joseph “Bearwalker” Wilson / Joseph John Campbell / Karl von Eckartshausen / Lady Gwen Thompson - and "The Rede of the Wiccae" / Laurie Cabot - "the Official Witch of Salem" / Lewis Spence / Lodovico Maria Sinistrari / Ludwig Lavater / Madeline Montalban and the Order of the Morning Star / Margaret Alice Murray / Margot Adler / Michael Howard and the UK "Cauldron Magazine" / Margaret St. Clair - the “Sign of the Labrys” / Marie Laveau - " the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans" / Marion Weinstein / Martin Antoine Del Rio / Matthew Hopkins - “The Witch-Finder General” / Michael A. Aquino - and The Temple of Set / Monique Wilson / Montague Summers / Nicholas Culpeper / Nicholas Remy / M. R. Sellars / Mrs. Maud Grieve - "A Modern Herbal" / Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and Morning Glory / Old Dorothy Clutterbuck / Old George Pickingill / Olivia Durdin-Robertson - co-founder of the Fellowship of Isis / Paddy Slade / Pamela Colman-Smith / Patricia Crowther / Patricia Monaghan / Patricia “Trish” Telesco / Paul Foster Case and the “Builders of the Adytum” mystery school / Peter Binsfeld / Philip Heselton / Raven Grimassi / Raymond Buckland / Reginald Scot / Richard Baxter / Robert Cochrane / Robert ‘von Ranke’ Graves and the "The White Goddess" / Rosaleen Norton - “The Witch of Kings Cross” / Rossell Hope Robbins / Ross Nichols and the " Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids" (OBOD) / Rudolf Steiner / Sabrina Underwood - "The Ink Witch" / Scott Cunningham / Selena Fox - founder of "Circle Sanctuary" / Silver Ravenwolf / Sir Francis Dashwood / Sir James George Frazer and the " The Golden Bough" / S.L. MacGregor Mathers and the “Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn” / Starhawk / Stewart Farrar / Sybil Leek / Ted Andrews / The Mather Family - (includes: Richard Mather, Increase Mather and Cotton Mather ) / Thomas Ady / T. Thorn Coyle / Vera Chapman / Victor & Cora Anderson and the " Feri Tradition" / Vivianne Crowley / Walter Brown Gibson / Walter Ernest Butler / William Butler Yeats / Zsuzsanna Budapest /
Many of the above biographies are briefs and far from complete. If you know about any of these individuals and can help with additional information, please contact me privately at my email address below. Many thanks for reading :-)
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