H. C. Agrippa - New Age Prophet of the Renaissance

Henry Cornelius Agrippa was one of the most influential hermetic magicians who has ever lived. His legacy is felt over five hundred years later. He was the archetypal hermetic mage, a complete Renaissance man and the proto-type of Faust. This article will examine his life and assess his importance to the hermetic community.

Life of Agrippa

Agrippa was born in Cologne on 14th September, 1486. His family were minor nobility in the employ of the royal house of Austria. He was a precocious child, linguistically talented and interested in occultism from an early age. In 1499 he entered the University of Cologne, receiving his licentiate in Arts in 1502. After a brief period in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, Agrippa moved to Paris to continue his studies. Here he befriended fellow occultists and embarked on a hare-brained (and unsuccessful) scheme to return one of his friends to power in Tarragon.

This incident put Agrippa off politics for life and in 1508 he set out to travel Europe. In 1509 Agrippa gave some lectures at Dole University, receiving a professorship of theology and a stipend in return. He also wrote the first draft of "De Occulta Philosophia" ("On Occult Philosophy"), the book for which he is still remembered, and sent it to Johannes Trithemius for his approval.

In 1510 Agrippa was sent to England by Maximilian to serve as his ambassador in the court of Henry VIII. Here his interest in Christianity was rekindled, and the tension between his Christian and pagan beliefs would persist throughout the rest of his life. In 1511 Agrippa returned to Cologne and entered military service, fighting in the Italian wars and receiving a knighthood in the field. In 1512 he was captured by the Swiss, and entered the service of the Marquis de Montferrat. In 1515 he lectured on Hermes Trismegistus at the University of Pavia and was awarded doctorates in divinity, law and medicine. He also married.

In 1517 Agrippa joined the court of the Duke of Savoy as court physician, and after a year or so moved to Metz to become an orator and an advocate. In 1518 his father died, and in 1519 he began to take an interest in the teachings of Martin Luther. This, combined with his thirst for "forbidden" knowledge, brought Agrippa to the attention of the prior of the local Dominican monastery. If that wasn't enough, Agrippa also successfully defended a local woman against charges of witchcraft. His days in Metz were now numbered; he had made an enemy of the Inquisitor of Metz, Nicolas Savin. In 1520 he returned to Cologne.

In 1521 Agrippa's wife died. He then moved to Geneva and worked there as a physician, marrying for a second time. In 1522 he accepted the post of physician in the town of Friburg. In 1524 he moved again, this time to Lyons, to the court of Louise of Savoy, the Queen Mother of France. Here he stayed for three years waiting for the pension he had been promised, only moving on when he realised that it was not forthcoming. In 1528 he finally reached Antwerp.

In 1529 Agrippa's second wife died and in 1530 he began to publish the books he had written. In 1531 he was imprisoned for debt, and on his release retired to Mechlin, where he took a third wife. In 1532 he moved to Poppelsdoft, then again to Bonn. The Dominican order unsuccessfully tried to prevent the publication of "De Occulta Philosophia". In 1535 Agrippa divorced his third wife and died while attempting to reach Lyons.

De Occulta Philosophia

This was probably Agrippa's most famous work, and the one for which he is remembered today. It is a treatise on Hermetic Magick, divided into three parts: Natural, Celestial and Ceremonial Magick. Agrippa goes back to the pagan classical sources, which had recently been rediscovered by the European intelligentsia, and combines his classical learning with Qabalah and Christian ideas. Agrippa's classical sources are many and varied; quotes from Porphry, Iamblichus, Plotinus, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato and Virgil litter the text. Agrippa was fascinated by pagan philosophy, and occasionally has to reiterate his belief in Christianity to try to avoid charges of heresy. In this he failed, and eventually he wrote a retraction of the book.

Agrippa was very much a product of his time, trying to reconcile his Christian principles with the pagan ideas that were becoming fashionable. He was a key figure in the evolution of Renaissance thought and has influenced generations of magicians. S. L. MacGregor Mathers took a lot of material from Agrippa's work when he designed the Golden Dawn system, and so Agrippa's influence has come down to the modern age.