Two literary materials (both fairly short and quick edits) will soon be available and will be posted here, presumably on different days; Paracelsus' extremely good "Aurora of the Philosophers" and Psellus' "Operation of Demons."
The first text, by Paracelsus, is partially philosophy, partly how-to, and partly warning to the reader to avoid alchemical charlatans- counterfeiters especially, using various chemical means to make fake currency. The philosophical content includes a deep and rather insightful analysis of the origins of magick itself- not merely alchemy.
Psellus' work ruminates through a Socratit dialogue on the topic of categorizing demons: What are they? What do they appear as? How many categories of them exist? It also provides an amusingly modern explanation (without meaning to) of the force of possession, attributing one such case noted in the text as the result of some sort of hallucinogenic drug. This work was already translated into English in the 1840s and needed precious little actual editing beyond a foreword to explain the work, new formatting, and some de-antiquation of a few lingering archaic references.
No comments:
Post a Comment