SOURCE: "Natural Magic," in Adventures of the Mind, translated by V. Gianturco, 1946. Reprint by Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., 1946, pp. 257-66.

Below, Castiglioni comments on Agrippa's ideas about "natural magic," commending his attempt, "with a magnificent intuition of the truth, to lead magic into the highroad of the observation of nature."

Throughout Europe, and particularly in Italy of the fifteenth century, with the revival of learning a first attempt is made by some great scholars to inquire into the problems of the universe, by trying to explain its mysteries rationally. The Humanist, home doctus, becomes the type of the new epoch, taking the place of the homo sanctus….

The idea of the magic action of the word, of the perfection of alphabetical characters, of the value of symbol, which … was fundamental to the magic of the ancients, springs up again in a new form, higher, vaster, and more...