Cunning Magic and Celestial Art by R.A. Priddle

Fine unread copy limited to 200 hand numbered copies. This important new study focuses on the origins of modern occultism in the ‘Cunning Traditions’ during the transitional period of English magic, and the formation of a global view of western esotericism. Origins and influence of Barrett’s ‘Magus’ on the contemporary manuscript tradition of the Cunning Men There is one book that has had an enormous impact upon occultism and esoteric philosophy in the modern period, it is ‘The Magus’, first printed in 1801 by the English magician Francis Barrett. The continued popularity of ‘The Magus’ as a textbook grimoire for both the aspiring occultist and learned magician is well known, its place in the transmission of occult knowledge and practise from the ancient world to the present day is beyond question, but how many of us really understand the circumstances behind its actual creation and the private influences and secretive individuals to whom Barrett went for guidance? England in the late 1700s and early 1800s had a remarkably fertile and closely connected constellation of wizards, herbalists and cunning men whose personal guidance was sought in the context of the magical arts, many produced manuscripts and talismans of their own and a few were operating so publicly that their reputations were a household name: Ebenezer Sibley, Dr. John Parkins, and a host of lesser known regional characters who operated by private consultation. Whilst copies of the ‘Keys of Solomon’ were known to have circulated very early on in the transition of magic from the middle ages up to the modern period, the actual passage of the broader curriculum of occult studies from the late 1700s and on (such as was largely codified in the creation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the Outer in 1888) is less clear. What is remarkable is that one book, and the single individual whose brilliance created it, are responsible. ‘The Magus’ of 1801 is a seemingly vast grimoire of medieval magics, divinatory tools, spirit magic techniques and arcane ciphers, it draws upon Agrippa, Pietro d’Abano, the alchemical literature of Georgius von Welling, traditional astrology, geomancy etc etc and seems to be a stand-alone repository of the initiatic tradition. But from what sources did the young Francis Barrett draw? R.A.Priddle places Barrett not only in the transmission of magical manuscripts in London, through such well known personages as Ebenezer Sibley and John Denley, but also within the context of such lesser known figures as the Lincolnshire astrologer and cunning man Dr. John Parkins, the person of one ‘Griffith’ who actually engraved the plates for what was to become the first textbook of magic in English. Deeply examining the intellectual, economic and social context in which Barrett worked, and showing conclusively that Barrett used the circumstances surrounding him to the greatest possible advantage in the projection of his new vision of occultism onto the world stage, the author of this study R. A. Priddle brilliantly exposes how Barrett redefined the context of magic in the modern world and thus changed the relationship between man and the cosmos for the next two hundred years.