Editing Christian views on magic (section)

==Renaissance views==
[[Image:Kircher Tree of Life.png|upright|thumb|right|The "Kircher Tree": [[Athanasius Kircher]]'s 1652 depiction of the [[Tree of Life (Kabbalah)|Tree of Life]], based on a 1625 version by [[Philippe d'Aquin]]]]
{{see also|Renaissance magic|Christian Cabala}}
In the era of the [[Inquisition]] and anti-witchcraft sentiment, there was a more acceptable form of "purely natural" occult and pagan study, the study of "natural" phenomena in general with no evil or irreligious intent whatsoever.<ref name=zambelli>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Tp6PhNsz43EC& ''White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance''] by Paola Zambelli ([[Brill Publishers|BRILL]], 2007)</ref>

[[Renaissance humanism]] (15th and 16th century) saw a resurgence in [[hermeticism]] and [[Neo-Platonism|Neo-Platonic]] varieties of ceremonial magic. Both bourgeoisie and nobility of that era showed great fascination with these arts, which exerted an [[exoticism|exotic charm]] by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Romani, and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of vain superstition, blasphemous occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The people during this time found that the existence of magic was something that could answer the questions that they could not explain through science. To them it was suggesting that while science may explain reason, magic could explain "unreason".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dawes|first=Gregory|title=The Rationality of Renaissance Magic|journal=Paregon|volume=30}}</ref>

[[Marsilio Ficino]] advocated the existence of spiritual beings and spirits in general, though many such theories ran counter to the ideas of the later [[Age of Enlightenment]], and were treated with hostility by the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. Ficino however theorised a "purely natural" magic that did not require the invocation of spirits, malevolent or malicious.<ref name=zambelli/> [[Benedictine]] [[abbot]] [[Johannes Trithemius]] reportedly created [[incantations]] of his own related to beneficial communication with spirits. His works, including the ''[[Steganographia]]'', were immediately placed on the ''[[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]]''.<ref name=zambelli/> However these works were later revealed to be concerned with [[cryptography]] and steganography, and the "magical" formulae were [[stegotext|cover text]]s for cryptographic content.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Reeds|first1=Jim|title=Solved: The ciphers in book III of Trithemius's Steganographia|journal=Cryptologia|date=1998|volume=22|issue=4|pages=191–317|doi=10.1080/0161-119891886948}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ernst|first1=Thomas|title=Schwarzweiße Magie: Der Schlüssel zum dritten Buch der Stenographia des Trithemius|journal=Daphnis: Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur|date=1996|volume=25|issue=1|pages=1–205}}</ref> Behind their methods however, is an underlying theological motive for their contrivance. The preface to the ''[[Polygraphia (book)|Polygraphia]]'' establishes the everyday practicability of Trithemian cryptography as a "secular consequent of the ability of a soul specially empowered by God to reach, by magical means, from earth to Heaven".<ref>Brann, Noel L., "Trithemius, Johannes", in ''Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism'', ed. Wouter J. Hanegraff (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 1135-1139.</ref>

[[Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa]] (1486–1535), a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist, wrote the influential ''[[Three Books of Occult Philosophy]]'', incorporating [[Kabbalah]] in its theory and practice of Western magic. It contributed strongly to the [[Renaissance]] view of ritual magic's relationship with Christianity.<ref name="Farmer, S.A 1486">Farmer, S.A; "Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486)", Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1999, {{ISBN|978-0-86698-209-2}}</ref> [[Giambattista della Porta]] expanded on many of these ideas in his ''[[Magia Naturalis]]''.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qZxtq29LYSQC& ''The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance: A Study in Intellectual Patterns''] by Wayne Shumaker ([[University of California Press]], 1972)</ref> [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola]] promoted a [[syncretism|syncretic]] worldview combining [[Platonism]], Neoplatonism, [[Aristotelianism]], Hermeticism, and Kabbalah.<ref name="Farmer, S.A 1486"/>

Pico's Hermetic syncretism was further developed by [[Athanasius Kircher]], a [[Jesuits|Jesuit]] priest, hermeticist, and polymath, who wrote extensively on the subject in 1652, bringing further elements such as [[Orphism (religion)|Orphism]] and [[Egyptian mythology]] to the mix.<ref>Schmidt, Edward W. "The Last Renaissance Man: Athanasius Kircher", SJ. Company: The World of Jesuits and Their Friends. 19(2), Winter 2001–2002.</ref>
Lutheran Bishop [[James Heiser]] recently evaluated the writings of Marsilio Ficino and [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola]] as an attempted "Hermetic Reformation".<ref>Heiser, James D., ''Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century'', Repristination Press: Texas, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-4610-9382-4}}</ref>

===John Dee===
{{see also|Enochian magic}}
[[John Dee]] was an intense Christian, but his religiosity was influenced by Hermetic and [[Renaissance Neo-Platonism]] and pervasive [[Pythagoras|Pythagorean]] doctrines.<ref name="WIT">{{Cite journal |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |jstor=2708083 |title=God and Expansion in Elizabethan England: John Dee, 1527–1583 |author=Walter I. Trattner|volume=25 |issue=1 |date=January 1964 |pages=17–34 |doi=10.2307/2708083}}</ref> From [[Hermeticism]] he drew a belief that man had the potential for divine power that could be exercised through mathematics.<ref name="SJ">{{Cite web |title=The identity of the mathematical practitioner in 16th-century England |url=http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj/texts/mathematicus.htm|author=Stephen Johnston |publisher=Museum of the History of Science, Oxford |date=1995 |access-date=27 October 2006}}</ref> He immersed himself in [[Magic (supernatural)|magic]], astrology, and Hermetic philosophy. Much effort in his last 30 years went into trying to commune with [[angels]], so as to learn the [[universal language]] of creation and achieve a pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind.<ref name="StClair">{{Cite book |title=The Secret Lives of Colour |last=St. Clair |first=Kassia |publisher=John Murray |year=2016 |isbn=9781473630819 |location=London |pages=268–269 |oclc=936144129}}</ref> His goal was to help bring forth a unified world religion through the healing of the breach of the [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and [[Protestantism|Protestant]] churches and the [[restorationism|recapture]] of the pure [[theology]] of the ancients.<ref name="IHR">{{Cite web |url=http://www.history.ac.uk/eseminars/sem2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930073802/http://www.history.ac.uk/eseminars/sem2.html |archive-date=2007-09-30 |title=John Dee and the English Calendar: Science, Religion and Empire |author=Dr. Robert Poole |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |date=6 September 2005 |access-date=26 October 2006}}</ref>