| Description |
xxv, 453 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Hermes, the thrice greatest -- Hermetic magic, alchenmy and Islam -- Dark Age magic -- Three routes to Europe -- Medieval magi -- The Renaissance -- The spread of hemertic wisdom -- Faustus -- Hermetic thought and the arts : the talisman -- The rise of secret societies -- The fragmentation of reality -- The return to unity -- The rediscovery of hermetic thought -- The magic circle -- Mind control -- Political manipulation -- Commercial manipulation of the mind -- The manipulation of information -- Music and magic -- Rediscovery of meaning |
| Summary |
Many remarkable characters feature in the narrative, including the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon and the Elizabethan magus John Dee; prototype of Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest, but he central figure that emerges is that of Faust himself - one of the defining myths of Western civilisation |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography : pages 427-442 |
| Subject |
Alchemy -- History.
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Hermetism -- History.
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Hermetism.
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Magic -- History.
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Occultism.
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Alchemy -- history
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Magic -- history.
|
| Author |
Leigh, Richard, 1943-2007.
|
| ISBN |
0670862185 |
|
0670881783 (paperback) |
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