Diana’s commands and on certain nights are called
into her service.”
Despite the Church’s bans on magick, alchemy
flourished in Europe from the 7th to the 17th centu-
ries. Based on the Hermetica, alchemy traced its ori-
gins to ancient Egypt. When Arabs conquered Egypt
in the 7th century, they adopted
Egyptian alchemy and carried it
into Morocco and Spain. Less
than 200 years later, Spain was
the center of alchemical studies.
Soon this science was spread
throughout Europe. From about
the 8th to 16th centuries, various
forms of Medieval magick
emerged from a renewal of Neo-
Platonism, Qabalistic, and Orien-
tal doctrines brought back to
Europe by the Crusaders. Medi-
eval magick coalesced as a sys-
tem in the 12th century. The
Knights Templar, formed in 1118,
developed a magickal system
learned from the Johannites sect in Jerusalem.
Magicians of Europe were learned men, scholars,
physicians, and alchemists. Their magick consisted of
intricate procedures involving dress, consecrated
tools, magical symbols, and sacred names of power to
summon and banish various spirits. The unspeakable
name of the Hebrew God, Yahweh, known as the
Tetragrammaton (“four letters:” YHVH), became the
most potent name.
Magicians and Wizards were not troubled much
by the Church until the 13th century, with the estab-
lishment of the Inquisition. In the 13th and 14th centu-
ries, Aristotelian philosophy gained favor over Pla-
tonic philosophy. Under Aristotelian thought, no natu-
ral magick exists in the world; therefore magick must
be either divine or demonic. By the 15th century, magi-
cians—seen as competitors to the Church—were ha-
rassed and hounded, though never to the same de-
gree as sorcerers and Witches, who were brutally tor-
tured and executed by the thousands for heresy. The
centuries of persecution—from 1227 to 1736—are re-
membered by magickal folk as “The Burning Times.”The Renaissance (1400-1605 CE)
The term “Wizard” first came into use in 1440 and
was at that time applied to both wise women and wise
men. Virtually every village or town in Britain and Eu-
rope had at least one Wizard, who was usually both
respected and feared by the local folk. The village
Wizard specialized in Low Magick,
offering a variety of mag-ickal ser-
vices, such as fortune-telling, find-
ing missing persons and objects,
finding hidden treasure, curing ill-
nesses in people and animals, in-
terpreting dreams, detecting theft,
exorcising ghosts and Faeries, cast-
ing spells, breaking the spells of
Faeries and malevolent Witches,
and making lucky charms and love
potions. As the diviner of the
guilty in crimes, the word of the
Wizard often carried great weight
in a village or town.
Medieval magick reached a
peak in the Renaissance in the 16th
century under Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim and
Paracelsus in Europe, and John Dee and Robert Fludd
in England. Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia (“On
the Occult Philosophy”) dealt with divine names, natu-
ral magick, and cosmology. Paracelsus stressed the
Hermetic doctrine of “As above, so below,” which
holds that the microcosm of the Earth reflects the mac-
rocosm of the Universe. Fludd, a Qabalist, attempted
to reconcile Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian philoso-
phies and relate them to the Qabalah.
During the Renaissance, the Wizard as High Ma-
gician was an intellectual who pursued alchemy and
the Hermetic wisdom. They studied and followed the
teachings of Agrippa, Paracelsus, Dee, the Neoplatonic
philosophers, and others. Wizards read the Grimoires,
invoked spirits in ceremonial rituals, and scryed in
crystals. Often such High Magick Wizards served as
special counselors and advisors (viziers) to noted roy-
alty. Queen Elizabeth I was served by John Dee as
“Court Wizard” and advisor. With his partner, Edward
Kelly, Dee developed the system of Enochian magick,
a language comprised of calls for summoning spirits
and traveling in the astral planes.The Age of Reason (1605-1900 CE)
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the word “Wizard”
applied to high magicians and also to various popular
magicians, who were known by other names as well:
cunning men and women, charmers, blessers, sorcer-
ers, conjurers, and Witches. But in the mid-17th cen-
tury, Wizardry of both folk and High Magick began to
decline in prestige, retreating from urban centers to
the countryside. In 1662, the Royal Academy of Sci-
ence was founded in England. This was the beginningCourse One: Wizardry 29
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