Customer Reviews

Grand
This is an amazing work of scholarship, and a mighty and substantial read. Prior to this undertaking, the only available copies of the three books were hard to read, difficult and expensive to obtain facsimiles which cost almost 5x the amount of this more easily accessible work. Almost 1,000 pages in length, and heavy reading despite cleaning up much of the archaic form of the language, this is not a book one will digest overnight, nor a book you will read just the one time.

But what treasures lie within! So much of what we take for granted, and so much of what has been elaborated upon (sometimes by those with something to say, most often not) by more modern authors, and so much of that which lies at the heart of almost every occult tradition today originates from these remarkable pages. Geomancy, Cabbala, Goetic operations, sigils and enchantments - all of this is thoroughly detailed within. All of this is within the intellectual and spiritual context of a highly devout Catholic, but nonetheless a liberal, free thinking Renaissance man. Book 1 deals with Natural Magic - more "pagan", and illuminating the powers of plants, beasts and stones. Book 2 deals with Mathematical magic - sigils of the planets, the powers and influences of the planets themselves, and various forms of divination, the most important of which is Agrippa's work on geomancy. Book 3 deals with Intelligences - and incorporates much of the previously unknown and arcane Cabbala in practice. Agrippa's "Three Books..." is the first attempt at merging these three seemingly distinct approaches to magic to form a cohesive whole, and is the first attempt to not only share information on the Cabbala tradition, but to incorporate it into Western magical practice. As such, organizations and traditions to follow owe "Three Books..." a tremendous debt.

But, as I said, all of this has been available before, if in somewhat illegible facsimile form.

Where this volume truly shines, and where it shows the editor commensurate with the work on which he comments and appends, is Tyson's extensive notes, appendices and commentary. His is the first time in print that much of the work behind Agrippa's techniques is shown that I am aware of. For example, Tyson expands in one appendix on the reasons behind Agrippa's planetary squares, and shows alternatives to several of them that are equally valid using the same technique. Above and beyond the indices, glossary and dictionary which assist the reader with the context in which Agrippa wrote, Tyson's notes within the body of Agrippa's work assist in a (more) lucid interpretation and understanding of the contents. His comparison of Agrippa's "Three Books..." to Barrett's "Magus" shows the latter the poorer, uglier step sister, if not an outright plagiarism, despite Tyson's naming of his own first work as the "New Magus" when published some 20 years ago and now out of print.

Tyson's summary biography of Agrippa is interesting and, at times, even humorous, and a vital and vibrant introduction. Agrippa, while devout and Catholic, also demonstrated a high degree of liberal and free thinking, earning the ire of the Church on numerous occasions. A trained lawyer, he defended several accused witches, earning acquittals which, while not as rare as we are led to believe, were still remarkable and controversial events at the time. Humorously, he himself was prosecuted by the Church due to letters he wrote indicating he needed to "make some money" - this was literally interpreted by his prosecutors as summoning it from thin air, or alchemy.

While certainly possible there may be translation errors and mistakes, my sense of Latin is not up to the task of locating or proving them. As the original Latin document was translated by Freake into English in the near-middle 1600's, even were I to speak fluent Latin I'd not have access to this original to make the comparison. In this, those reviewers who criticize Tyson (who did not translate, but merely edit), or even true translator Freake (who lived in the 17th Century for those reviewers seemingly under the misimpression that he is one of Tyson's contemporaries), for translation errors and mistakes only show their own ignorance and pretension... or perhaps simply and delusionally credit themselves with an extremely advanced age (of more than 400 years). Cagliostro's infamous and pretentious joke about the Jew in Jerusalem comes to mind...

All told, this is an extremely valuable work - not only the original by Agrippa, but that supplemental by Tyson. Tyson genuinely shows himself worthy of the work.

A classic work of philosophy, unnecessarily modernised and badly edited
It is a pity that this philosophical classic has received a modern makeover in this edition. The modernised spelling does not work for me, plus the New Age vibe emanating from the commentary does not go well with the source text at all. As much as I admire Agrippa's original milestone work, I do not recommend this edition.

Invaluable
This is the fount of Western Occultism. This book is wroth more than it's weight in gold. Besides the complete 3 books written by Agrippa, there are various letters he written, not to mention his complete biography. The notes and indexing makes this excellent reference not only Medieval magical thought, but also the ancients traditions: Egypt, Greece, Persia, Indian, Nordic. Donald Tyson has out done himself, and made this a work that any serious student of the Occult arts/sciences must own. And finally many of the tables relating to correspondences, seals have been corrected, and redrawn for clearer understanding. I can't praise this excellent work enough!