Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00306)

Bri.:Already Renaisance "theosophists" like John Dee and others 
>practiced what they called "natural" magic, to influence the 
>spiritual "forces" that "operate" this "universe," that wasn't any 
>worser or better then Theosophy today, that uses about the same 
>terms as these Renaisance magicians and hermetists did. 

LeonMaurer: "I never knew that theosophy and its metaphysics, as 
studied today, had anything to do with the "practice" of magic". 

Bri.: The renaisance hermetists where the ones that in fact
originated the idea of "science" as referred to in the SD, that of course in
turn was strongly influenced by Mesmerism.

For example in the case of Dee (I only gave him as an example), for
all the differences between his two major works, the Monas 
Hieroglyphica and the angelic conversations, their underlying motivation 
was to a large extent identical. 
In Blavatskyan Theosophy "scientists" are merely rediscovering
ancient knowledge, expressed through cryptic symbolism in Indian 
scriptures and also transmitted by a lineage of Western occultists 
including Paracelsus and assorted kabbalists and alchemists. 

And in the case of John Dee for example both the Monas symbol and the 
Adamic language were viewed as a means by which the "wisdom of the 
ancients", including the practical utility of all "technical arts",
could be "restored to its original perfection". 

Equally important, however, were the redemptive properties that both
of these languages were believed to possess. By enabling the human 
mind to fathom the divine Word, they were both envisaged as a means 
by which man could attain a beatific vision.

In Monas hieroglyphica Dee relied on a wide range of philosophical 
traditions which treated symbolic expressions as contemplative
devices by which the human mind could transcend ordinary, discursive
reasoning and attain an intuitive, noetic state of focusing the mind on
symbolic expressions of divine principles or Ideas, one could mentally 
grasp their reflection in the human intellect and experience a mystic 
ascent of the soul, ultimately leading to a vision of and perhaps even 
union with God.
The notion of language as a means to attain redemption of the soul 
remained central to Dee's continuing efforts in the 1580s, but in the 
angelic conversations the theme also took on a much grander role Once 
granted the one language which truly incarnated the Word, Dee and 
Kelley were not only to be healed from the consequences of the Fall, 
finally attaining that reformation of the soul promised the faithful,
portraying the Adamic language as actually possessing the properties 
and powers of the verbum Dei. As such, this language would also enable 
Dee and Kelley to institute a complete restoration of religion, ultimately 
healing the chasm between different faiths.

Dee's belief in the redemptive properties of the Adamic language was
to a large extent legitimized by the fact that the revelations were
couched in the narrative of Adam's prelapsarian wisdom, his Fall and 
the subsequent confusion of tongues. This narrative had a much more 
pronounced role in the angelic conversations than in the earlier
Monas hieroglyphica, in a sense compensating for the lack of 
philosophical argumentation in the revelations. But the belief in the 
power of the Adarnic tongue also had support in contemporary 
philosophical concepts. Although early modern views of the magical 
properties of language were not grounded in a generally 
accepted "theory of language", such notions were often corroborated by 
exploiting the metaphorical associations between human language and 
the creative Word.

The view of man as an imago Dei who expresses reason (logos) in the 
form of speech and words (also logos) made it possible to
conceptualize human language metaphorically in relation to the Word, 
and by extension conceive of it as a vehicle of divine powers. In such
accounts, the narrative of Adam's prelapsarian tongue and its 
subsequent deterioration often had an important function in that it 
provided a concrete, historical link between the Word and the 
languages of man. By invoking this historiography it was possible to

comprehension. By anchor their metaphorical relationship in a
tangible point Of Origin, lending credence to the belief that ancient 
tongueswere more powerful than more recent idioms due to their closer 
affinity to the Word.
Such ancient and magically powerful names and words also had an 
important role in ritual forms of magic, and medieval traditions of 
ceremonial magic.

A large number of these medieval tracts were also attributed to
biblical prophets, such as Solomon and Enoch, suggesting that ritual 
magic was part of an ancient wisdom originally granted to these 
prophets. 
This belief was an important factor behind the early modern attempts
to accommodate medieval traditions of ritual magic to the newly 
discovered sources on kabbalah and Neoplatonic theurgy. 

Though Dee's angelic conversations were motivated by a growing 
frustration at his failed efforts at attaining true wisdom by the 
techniques of symbolic exegesis, it is plausible that he viewed these 
ritual practices as being in agreement with the pagan and Neoplatonic 
sources he relied on in his earlier works. Rather than indicating a
shift in his philosophical orientation, his turn to angelic magic in the 
1580swas yet another step towards a complete restitution of the ancient 
wisdom a step that would make the "mysteries of the word of God, 
sealed from the beginning", known to mankind and bring human history 
to its destined closure.

Bri.