Eric Purdue

Take everything we have and put it together. Listen to the working astrologers: Valens, Abu Mashar, Bonatti, Lilly, etc. They all have important information.

So now there is a narrative that Latin texts are corrupted, but the reality is that we have several breaks in the tradition in several languages. Including the Hellenistic period.

5. In the transmission to the Latin West, even more changes happened, and not all Arabic text made it. Some texts that were less influential in Arabic, like Picatrix and Abu Ali Khayyat became popular in the West. Ptolemy once again became a standard.

4. Arabic writers had to fill in blanks like transit theory, which was not as present in the books they translated into a new doctrine.

3. Due to accidents in history, some books, like Ptolemy who wasn't like the other Greek texts, became huge. Others like Valens who were more mainstream weren't as popular.

2. They went East & translated into Persian & Arabic. Not everything made it. Sources were manuscripts & not like critical editions we have today. Errors inevitably happen. Some errors were likely in Greek manuscripts due to copyist errors. Standardized dictionaries didn't exist for over a millinea.

1. The earliest instructional texts on Western astrology are mostly in Greek. They claim to quote books we no longer have. This is probably true in many cases. We have several texts. Maybe 10-15 of these are of a notable size. The rest are fragments.

Why appeals to antiquity - or even thinking one historical period is the key to understanding magic and astrology is flawed - using astrology as an example:

Actual picture of Agrippa’s Hell Hound:

If you ever wonder how narratives can shape people's understanding, remember that the term "dark ages" was coined by someone in the Renaissance. Labels are great at othering.

Thanks to @trollcunningforge.bsky.social

🥹

I’m ok! I think we’re collectively stressed and I think doing things to help us feel good about life if much needed

I went through a bit of political posting recently elsewhere but I had to stop. It's too stressful. I like to create a "cool people who do cool things" vibe in my algorithm. I am more concerned about cultivating a community.

I’m a serious magician

James Joyce:

God I love gas

Seriously. I'm a soft sell there

He heard that little people would kidnap you and take you away. I asked him "what happens then?" He said "they teach you about the medicinal uses of plants for a few years". "I said, "Then what?" He replied, "Then they release you."

That sounds fine to me.

I was reminded today of a story a babalawo told me years ago about a well-known babalawo who was scared to go into the woods in Nigeria. 1/2

Pliny the elder said that Marcus Agrippa was born feet first, and this kind of birth was henceforth called an Agrippan birth.

I was born the same way. The Agrippan connection was with me since I was born.

This is one of my favorite quotes in Agrippa’s “Three Books of Occult Philosophy” (in turn quoted from Ficino). It compares how magicians using many things for a magical working, unite into a whole greater than its parts - not unlike bees making honey from many flowers.

My friends are moving and I saw this. I spent 10 years on this thing! The insult!!!

Morin mocks a critic of astrology and says: "it seems enough to teach nothing to his ignorant readers with shriveled little questions".

A book that Morin wrote in the 17th century has such a kickass name:

"Revealing the Cabala of the Astrological Houses"

A 17th-century critique of astrology says that aspects are stupid because the critic thinks that good aspects work because our human eyes look kindly upon them when we look up at the planets in the sky, and badly with evil aspects.

Thank you babe!

I’ll tell him myself