Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (Chicago Original Paperback) by Ioan P. Culianu (PDF)

Description

It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that “magic” is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today. Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent. In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing. Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano’s remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Ioan P. Couliano (1950-91) was a fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (Wassenaar) and Professor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago at the time of his death. His many books and articles include Experiences de l’extase, Gnosticismo, and Psychanodia.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Eros and Magic is much more than a study of Eros as applied by the Renaissance occult philosophies. It’s a study of human interrelationships on both global and individual scales, coming only too close to the very contemporary form of magic — a psycho-sociological science of societal indoctrination and manipulative social conditioning, magnificently employed by our highly cynical and enlightened era, which falsely and mistakenly, according to Culianu, identifies itself and its admired figure of Giordano Bruno as democratic. Our times owe a lot to Bruno, this Renaissance’s persecuted magician and philosopher–however, not exactly as we are brought up and conditioned to believe by history books. Culianu’s study analyzes interconnections, parallels, and intertwined development of Magic Arts as drawing upon one’s imaginative subconscious, and, as such, explored by several Renaissance magic philosophers who courageously and creatively worked with the Imagination and considered it the most cherished divine gift that allows one to transcend earthly limitations and master the craft of magic.The author’s insightful input examines the Reformation’s vicious attack on creativity, fantasy and imagination as presenting danger to the religious and governmental power of the social institutions determined to exorcize human imagination and burn at the stake, together with Bruno, our ability to freely indulge in fantasies, from now on declared as demonic arts, heresy, and godforsaken witchcraft. Our modern times are no different–for as then, during the most bloodthirsty years of the triumphant Reformation (including its influence on Catholicism), our allegedly very democratic, open-minded, feminist, and technological times are unleashing another murderous attack on literature and humanities (imagination and fantasy residing in the subconscious), minimizing and closing literature/humanities departments in universities, as if determined to finally fulfill the Reformation’s agenda–demonization and extermination of fantasy and imagination; in other words, depriving the future intelligentsia of human imagination, together with the magic legacy of Pico della Mirandola, Ficino and the best of Bruno. The resulting product is our social realism/scientific progress, with “its triumph of the [puritan, Nature-hating] reality principle over the pleasure principle [which adores feminine joys of Nature]” (221), for after the Renaissance’s funeral, we are left only with “the strong contrast between the imagination (the pleasure principle) and free will (reality principle) and the idea that magic autism has no ‘real’ power” (221). By declaring the imagination’s phantasms and phantasmagorical visions as unreal, utopian, and having no practical/profitable material value, descendants of the Reformation eagerly killed magic and locked up its devoted adherents in mental asylums, associating fantasies with psychiatric hallucinations. As the author concludes, “Modern Western civilization is altogether a product of the Reformation….On the theoretical level, the pervasive censorship of the imaginary results in the advent of modern exact science and technology” (222). The reader can only sadly sigh, hoping that maybe, just maybe, not everything is completely lost.Regarding Culianu’s criticism of Bruno’a naiveté and lack of political caution, while remembering that it is much easier to see others’ mistakes than one’s own, one could only wish that Culianu too recognized dangers and did not provoke his enemies (some of whom masqueraded as friends), thus staying alive, instead of, like Bruno, paying with his life for his beliefs. But then don’t Bruno’s and Culianu’s fearless devotion to individual freedom and their readiness to sacrifice themselves in its name reflect their true greatness of spirit?

⭐One thing I could say for starters – a lot of what’s said about Eros here would be helpful for those hoping to tackle some of Agrippa, Trithemeus, or Giordano Bruno’s works, especially Hermetic revivalists and practitioners.The other piece – I’ve often been curious about how our culture is so filled with symbols hearkening back to Greco-Egyptian antiquity, how the Renaissance was filled with a resurgence of the types of syncretic ideas that were around in late antiquity, and yet somehow these ideas were squeezed out so thoroughly that the culture I’ve known from birth (late 1979) was defined by both atheist reductionism and a Christianity that seemed to similarly externalize all things, and the two seemed to be in a strange tug-of-war in the same domain. The last part of the book attempts to answer this and in brief – the Reformation and CounterReformation forced the Platonist/Pantheist model out of the site of the public and into what would bee Freemasonic, Rosicrucian, and Martinist currents. In reality it wasn’t science that defeated the Platonist/Pantheist model, per Couliano, but a conservative purification of Christianity – both by the reforming parties and then, in competitive reaction by the Catholic church.

⭐According to Couliano, “the crowning wish of the historian of ideas is…to glimpse” a historical period’s unique “hermeneutic filter.” The ‘hermeneutic filter’ is the set of biases and prejudices with which a generation interprets and distorts the ideas it has inherited. Judged by this standard, the book is a huge success. The diligent reader will unearth many uncanny insights into the renaissance mind and its understanding of magic.However, the writing is just TERRIBLE. This seems to be the author’s fault and not the translator’s. Expect to wrestle with vague pronouns, run-on sentences, undefined terms, and a general lack of both chronological order and topical focus. ‘Eros’ itself is never defined or explicitly distingished from ‘Platonic love,’ ‘Socratic love,’ ‘courtly love,’ or ‘lust.’ When Couliano mentions “the Philosopher of Stagira’ the reader is expected to know he is refering to Aristotle. Similarly ‘the Florentine Plato’ is (presumably) Marsilio Ficino (but that’s just my guess). Despite the brevity of this text, the level of academic detail is mindnumbing, and the reader must endure many sterile pages between each ‘money shot.’The problem seems to be Couliano’s own ‘hermeneutic filter.’ Since he was writing for other historians of the Renaissance he presumes a high level of specialized knowledge. Since he was addressing the french academy of the early 1980’s, the book is steeped in continental philosophy and written in obnoxiously florid prose. If you are not this sort of specialist, you will still find a lot of valuable stuff – just be be prepared to do some intellectual history of your own.

⭐An invaluable resource on Renaissance ideas in context that illustrates how and why Eros and magic are crucial to understanding ourselves and our times today. The author’s breadth, candor and purchase on the topic seems quite good, excellent actually, and the book is very well written and edited. This is a great tool for visual artists (as well as those who work through theater, dance, advertising, liturgy and music) who care to understand philosophically what they are doing, in that it helps the reader go deeper into understanding the amazing power of the visual image and how image engages us both willingly and unwillingly perhaps. Our world is increasingly visual and previous scholarship doesn’t go this far towards offering a sound and deeply historical (tradition based) explanation of SEEING. This goes beyond the rather unsatisfying, psychological explanations that dominate most discussion these days yet which cannot really offer any progress towards making sense of historical ideas.

⭐the best series on the subject.and therefor worth the priceVery good books, when you have oneyou want them all

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