Oh dear I have a favorite book , it is one that fascinates me , its a long read its the Three books of occult Philosophy by Henry cornelius Agrippa, whilst it is the most interesting book i have read , I'm finding it rather hard to summarize . Agrippa was born in september 1486 and i believe he wrote this book at the age of 23 , it is truly a wonderfull work , it is a compendium of all things magical and gives a good account of the beliefs of that time , it covers every imaginable type of occult that one would care to read about and is full of life and mystery , Agrippa himself was a fascinating man who moved through life in remarkable ways he did so many things its impossible to list them here , suffice to say he studied medicine, magic had political endevours and worked frequently for the nobility of the time whilst still manageing to be imprisoned for debt and finally tortured.
In some ways his work has an aspie like quality , each area is very in depth and well researched and yet there are many areas , but all falling within the field of the occult . I think I would safely say the man was obsessed with everything he studied and the book reflects a true passion for learning. I'm actually finding that I dont want to give a detailed review of the book itself because I belive that I can't posibly reflect its variety or do it any justice at all and yet listing all the componants would somehow destroy the magic of the book itself . I strongly reccomend it for anyone who is interested in the occult and who likes the language of older books . Im not sure occult studies would be a popular subject among aspies although It is very scientifically explained with things like geomancy and alchemy and neumerology magical alphabets etc , it is full of patterns so it aught to appeal and fascinate on that level even if you do not consider it a subject that your interested in , i cant imagine anyone reading this book and not finding something of interest in it in regard to history , magic or the era . Its a heavy book and i feel that puts all but the most avid readers off , but i think there may be people here who could be sufficiently interested in the subject to take up the challenge and read it . Hopefully someone else here has read it and can maybe write a more technical review of the book , writing is not my thing and if i start explaining the book in detail I likely will never stop because i wouldnt know what areas to cover and what to leave out because it truly is a compendium of most every magical subject.
I found this page on the authour for those who are interested
http://www.sacred-texts.com/grim/magus/ma262.htm
This is a link to the amazon page where people who can review books have left reviews and also where you can read pages from the book itself .
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Occult-Phil ... 0875428320
15 May 2007, 11:04 am
