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Magic and occultism in the Late Medieval and Renaissance period (15th and 16th century).
Renaissance humanism saw a resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of scientism, in such forms as the substitution of chemistry for alchemy, the dethronement of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe assumed by astrology, the development of the germ theory of disease, that restricted the scope of applied magic and threatened the belief systems it relied on.
The seven ''artes magicae'' or ''artes prohibitae'', arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were:
#nigromancy ("black magic", demonology, by popular etymology, from ''necromancy'')
#geomancy
#hydromancy
#aeromancy
#pyromancy
#chiromancy
#spatulamancy
The division between the four "elemental" disciplines (viz., geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy) is somewhat contrived. Chiromancy is the divination from a subject's palms as practiced by the gypsies (at the time recently arrived in Europe), and spatulamancy is the divination from animal bones, in particular shoulder blades as practiced in peasant superstition. Nigromancy contrasts with this as scholarly "high magic" derived from High Medieval grimoires such as the ''Picatrix'' or the ''Liber Rasielis''.
Both bourgeoisie and nobility in the 15th and 16th century showed great fascination with
these arts, which exerted an exotic charm by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Gypsy and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of vain superstition, blasphemous occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The intellectual and spiritual tensions erupted in the Early Modern witch craze, further re-inforced by the turmoils of the Protestant Reformation, especially in Germany, England, and Scotland.

★ C. S. Lewis, ''English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama'' (OUP, 1954)
:
Study of the occult arts was intellectually respectable in the Renaissance, and remained so far into 17th century (c.f. Isaac Newton's occult studies, Baroque philosophy). At the peak of the witch trials, there was a certain danger to be associated with witchcraft or sorcery, and most learned authors take pains to clearly renounce the practice of forbidden arts. Thus, Agrippa while admitting that natural magic is the highest form of natural philosophy unambiguously rejects all forms of ceremonial magic (goetia or necromancy). Indeed, the keen interest taken by intellectual circles in occult topics provided one driving force that enabled the witchhunts to endure beyond the Renaissance and into the 18th century. As the intellectual mainstream in the early 18th century ceased to believe in witchcraft, the witch trials subsided almost instantaneously.
Renaissance authors writing on occult topics include:

★ Johannes Hartlieb (ca. 1400–1468)

★ Marsilio Ficino (1433-99)

★ Johann Georg Faust (ca. 1480-1540)

★ Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

★ Pico della Mirandola (1463-94)

★ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535)

★ Paracelsus (1493-1541)

★ Georg Pictorius (c. 1500-1569)

★ Nostradamus (1503–1566)

★ Johann Weyer (1516–1588)

★ Thomas Charnock (1524-1581)

★ Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609)

★ John Dee (1527-1608)

★ Edward Kelley (1555-1597)

★ Michael Sendivogius (1566 - 1636)

★ Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)
;Baroque

★ Sir Kenelm Digby (July 11, 1603 – June 11, 1665)

Contents

See also

Literature

See also

★ Alchemy

★ Kabbalistic astrology

★ ''Hieroglyphica'' (discovered 1422)

★ ''Natural Magic'' (1558)

★ ''The Book of Abramelin''

★ ''Key of Solomon''

★ Character (word)

★ Baroque philosophy

Literature

★ Kurt Benesch, ''Magie der Renaissance'' (1985), ISBN 3921695910.

★ Norman Cohn, ''Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom'', University Of Chicago Press (2001), ISBN 978-0226113074.

★ Nauert, Charles G. ''Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought.'' Urbana: University of Illinois Press (1965).

★ Gyorgy E. Szonyi, ''John Dee's Occultism: Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs'', S U N Y Series in Western Esoteric Traditions, State University of New York Press (2005), ISBN 978-0791462232.