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Natural Magic: A Literary Shamanic Art-Form

Kathryn LaFevers Evans Draft notes Introduction on Natural Magic: A Literary Shamanic Art-Form http://pacifica.academia.edu/KathrynLaFeversEvans Founder of archetypal psychology, James Hillman, pinpointed the writings of Renaissance Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino as a direct precursor of archetypal psychology. Just as I consider James Hillman my recent spiritual father in the Academy, Lefvre considered Ficino his spiritual father, and participated in his Florentine Platonic Academy. Alongside Pico della Mirandola's works, Lefvre's Literary works came directly through Ficino. My writingsintegrating theory-&-practice in a transdisciplinary paradigmengage the imaginal, mythopoetic cosmologies of Renaissance Neoplatonism & Natural Magic with depth & archetypal psychology, claiming 'The Red Book: Liber Novus' as Jungian Natural Magic: a Literary Shamanic art-form. The 'De Magia' demonstrates that the Florentine Natural Magicians 'prisca theologia' is this transdisciplinary Literary practice, which integrates philosophical, mathematical, psychological, and spiritual theory in an imaginal mythopoesis. It embodies this Literary art-form through: mythological beings such as Pan and Venus; imaginal cosmologies such as the Astrological Zodiac and the Dionysian Celestial Hierarchy; and archetypal constructs such as Plato's the One, the Pythagorean Binary, and the Christian Trinity. C.G. Jungs 'Red Book' encapsulates this archetypal tradition in a Shamanic imaginal mythopoesis. Beginning in the deep interior of the anima mundi, with archetypal images or ideas, Jung follows the images as they become fully-fleshed in archetypal personifications or characters, then travels with these figures as they interact with each other on all levels of nature, bringing him with them in return to a greater spiritual wholeness. Jungs technique of active imagination employed in creating 'The Red Book' parallels Lefvres Natural Magic technique of numerical ascension through number mysticism. Moshe Idel ascribes a term to Kabbalistic writings such as 'The Bahir' that applies to both Lefvres and Jung's texts--whole divine pleroma. Albeit in English translation, this term from 'The Bahir' is clearly correlative with Jung's terms 'whole pleroma' and 'system of the whole world.' Through their mythopoetic dream-vision texts, Jung and Lefvre both arrive at this greater spiritual wholeness. The essential element in both the 'De Magia' and 'The Red Book' that grounds them in Natural Magic, is their engagement with spirit or soul, the anima mundi, in every aspect of humankind's life on earth. Jung's Literary, mythopoetic journey through 'The Red Book' brings him into a spiritual wholeness described as "the whole pleroma" just as Lefvres Literary, mythopoetic journey through the 'De Magia' brings him into a spiritual unity that is manifest on all levels of nature. The anima mundi, soul in-and-of the world, is nature as it manifests in each living moment. Ours is the mythopoetic path

2 of reading the book of nature, of active imagination whereby the anima mundi presents itself as nature, a unity which we participate in co-creating. Like the Florentine dialogue of 'De Magia Naturali,' 'The Red Book' transmits humankinds 'prisca theologia' via this transdisciplinary, Literary theory-&-practice itself, designed to guide the student on a journey of reintegration with psyche or soul. Not a religion, then or now, ours is a lived secular spirituality grounded on earth. Renaissance Neoplatonism & Natural Magic, and depth psychology unify opposites--esoteric & exoteric, ineffable & effable, transcendent & manifest--through a wholly interpenetrating exegesis whereby the literal and spiritual realms are unified within life on earth: in the anima mundi, nature. Jung's 'Red Book' is an embodiment of this Literary Shamanic artform. In the Engaged Humanities & the Creative Life program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I teach HMC200, a course centered around Jung's 'Red Book' entitled, "Active Imagination, Dreams, and Psychic Creativity."

Paragraph Excerpts from K. L. Evans published 2006 Masters thesis-De Magia naturali, On Natural Magic, by Jacques Lefvre dtaples: Coincidence of Opposites, the Trinity, and prisca theologia It is the humanists exegesis of religion along with the de-cloaking of these disciplines into a metaphorical language of Images that leads me to insist that their prisca theologia be studied under the broad discipline of Literature as the mythology of sacred texts. Mythology embodies archetypal human Ideas through Images just as prisca theologia does. More importantly, prisca theologia is a language of Images that can inform our study of mythology in a way intended by the Renaissance humanists. Lefvre in Book II, for instance, interprets both Ovid and Vergil in terms of his Pythagorean philosophy or number mysticism (Evans Ch. 2 II:53, f. 200v; Ch. 3 II:57, f. 202v; Ch. 4 II:60, f. 203). Lefvre divides natural philosophy into two divisions: philosophy, the theoretical science; and natural magic, the practical science. This magic works through attractions and repulsions that knit together heavenly and earthly things (Rice, The De Magia Naturali of Jacques Lefvre dtaples 21-2). D.P. Walker explains, in Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella, that natural magic was the term used for describing numerical correspondence between positions of heavenly bodies and musical intervals, belonging to a cosmological theory that the whole universe is constructed on musical proportions (81). I assert that a fundamental purpose of Lefvres Book II would have been to discern the process of genesis through number mysticism, natural magic, which would lead in return up ultimately to the Trinity within unity. Miller reminds us that, This Renaissance humanism was not a philosophy at all, but a cultural and educational program (xiii). Lefvre would have

3 intended On Natural Magic Book II, at least in part, as a number mysticism or numerical ascension exercise manual for students. The reason humanists placed such an emphasis on the practical half of philosophy is that they believed in Gods continual accessibility to humans through our very body. Theirs was an anthropomorphic religion that conceived of divine union as a reality literally within each human. Miller explains thus: The natural world, in this sort of interpretation, is a physical embodiment or model of philosophic and religious truth, not a mere symbol or metaphor of a supernatural order: nature actually embodies Gods goodness and wisdom. The parallel between one part of nature and another, between man and nature, or between man and God, is not a poetic fiction but a real isomorphism or identity of structure. (xii) The terms Coincidence of Opposites, the Trinity, and prisca theologia named in sequence, correspond with the numbers 2, 3, and One. After the condition of duality exists, it is evident that there is a third element joining them in the holistic perception of the Three in One. These three terms in the thesis title express a unified transcendent Idea: a continuum where there is no separation between God, Spirit, and man; a continuum where there are no religious boundaries. Communication is a speculative venture. I feel however, that the one point that transports these written communications out of the field of speculative politico-religious contentions is the fact that they were, and are, based on humanly universal Intuitive experiences. I point out that the Return specifically is under the purview of mythology. These speculative attempts at communication then even within the Biblical communications of God with Moses, and back further before the Bible to sacred texts of other cultures all might be studied as the mythology of religions within sacred texts, in order to know of humanitys deepest commonalities. The anthropomorphic Image of the Return of the Messiah whether one calls it Jesus Christ, the Pillar, the Pentagrammaton, or the number 326 embodies the Coincidence of Opposites, the Trinity, and prisca theologia, and expresses an intuitive experience of transcendent Being or unity. K. L. Evans Benz elaborates that the feeling of piety for God as a sacred and sublime transcendence, an intuitive experience, was practiced in the knowledge that God and the earthly world were intimately linked. Gods Being was experienced in the longing for self-manifestation, and then in mans return to God: a theogonic process with no separations (65-7). In this description of Christian Kabbalah then, we recognize the Pillar, the One Image that includes all Three. Lefvre also delineates the Pillar whose parts are inseparable from the whole in Book II, when he speaks of the knots, nexus, and chain in both Jove and Venus as celestial Concords: in the singular, the magician that draws every thing and every effect together (Evans Ch. 4 II:57-58, f. 202). In describing the ternary Venus as passionate longing, Lefvre later ascribes that love-nexus to Jesus Christ in the number 300, and celebrates this reforming love, concluding that Venus is namely that by which is being chained and drawn tight the body, sometimes as if by Venus laughter (Evans Ch. 5 II:62-3, f. 204-205v; Ch. 17 II:95, f. 220). This description supports Lefvres claim that the numbers to the mystery of the magi and the numbers to the mystery of the prophets are the same, that this ancient veil of theology is in concordance with Christian theology, and that Judaic Kabbalah is not unworthy (Evans Ch.

4 10 II:80, f. 213; Ch. 14 II:89, f. 217). Idel explains further that this ascent in the supernal world is part of the mystical-magical model. Most importantly, is that it is not a rare experience, but is practiced daily by the Kabbalist. The ascendent Kabbalist triggers the descent of the influx and serves as pipeline for its transmission into the world (48). In relation to Lefvres attribution of the number 3 to techniques of the magi, Idel mentions Tzevis description of the Messiahs ascent to the mother as referring to the 3rd sefirah, meaning that Tzevi experienced the secret of the Divinity through ascension to the 3rd sefirah. Idel suggests that the 3rd sefirah itself, the nest of the bird, the mystical place of the Messiah is itself the secret of divinity (49). Thus Lefvres interpretation of Christ the Messiah as the mystical Holy Spirit, 3rd in the Trinity, is a prisca theologia that embraces both Christianity and Judaism. Citing Dantes Divine Comedy, Idel makes the distinction between literary and experiential treatments of ascension, the latter of which he categorizes as mystical literature (567). This distinction may be contradictory to his mystical-magical model, in that it denies Imagination the ontological creativity he has ascribed to it. I contend that through the Words and Images themselves, literature elicits experience. One value in bringing De Magia naturali out of obscurity is that it clearly shows the Medieval Neoplatonic metaphorical approach to Kabbalistic theosophy through architectural, sexual and geometrical Imagery. Common Images are the circle and center; emergence from point through line, plane and space; and the chain of being (Idel 167). The resurfacing of Lefvres treatise points to the cause for the scarcity of this type of Imagery as oppression by the Church. Such literary works synthesizing religions had to be shared in secret. Throughout Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism, Idel grapples with the problem of whether ascensions are of the physical body, in corpore, or of some spiritual form. He recalls the ascent of Moses as interpreted by the Besht, when Moses remained in ascendence for 40 days yet his body remained below thrown down like a stone (152). Idel likens the function of the tzaddiq in Hasidism to that of the primal shaman, in that the shaman plays a dual role of sacred and social, and through ritual mediation with the sacred heals society as a collective patient. Presenting examples throughout the book of the paradox that is duality, Idel also directly challenges Academia to recognize the connection between the realms of sacred and social (Spirit and body) in future studies of the shamans and magicians (154). These definitions and descriptions illustrate the highly Neoplatonic framework of Lefvres De Magia naturali Book II, as exemplified in Chapter 4 where the knots, nexus and chains are let down from heaven to the lowest with guardian angels positioned to assist in the ascent (Evans II:57, f. 202v). Idels mystical-magical model is thus embodied in Book II as an elliptical continuum with a heavenly center and an earthly center, but an ellipsoid that perpetually weaves itself along the knots, nexus and chains, or Idels the ladder of the ascensions, out of the spherically centered love-nexus (Evans Ch. 4 II:57, f. 202v; Idel 170). Hence magic, Kabbalah, number mysticism, is a prisca theologia useful to understanding Christian theology. Christ is both quintessence and the magic ternary uniting the binary Coincidence of Opposites God and man in the Trinity. In pagan terms within Book II, through love Jupiter and Venus compute this ternary from the monade, which is itself an allembracing unity comprised of the four elemental celestial numbers sounding in unison. (Evans Ch. 7 II:72, f. 209) Thus, God, celestial realms, and man are envisioned as a continuum.

5 Idels book provides the exact link as to where in the Kabbalist tradition of masters Lefvre should be placed, albeit within the offshoot of Christian Kabbalah. Idel identifies the Renaissance author especially fond of the Book of the Imaginary Circles as Rabbi Yohanan ben Isaac Alemanno who was active for many years in Florence, and whose famous student was Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. From Pico, then, Lefvre received this tributary of Jewish Kabbalah. To illustrate the importance of this cross-fertilization between religions, consider Pico and Lefvres enthusiasm in correlating also the Judaic sefirot with the Christian sphaera, Imaginations planetary spheres. Idel points out though that while the author al-Batalyawsi considers the ladder connecting the circle earth to that of agent Intellect to be the universal soul, Pico sees it as nature (Ascensions on High 181-4). Here again is my point about Lefvres group of Christian Kabbalists conceiving of nature, or body, as intimately connected to soul at every level, a unified vision of God and creation, where all is sacred and nothing is profane. My point that Academia might more thoroughly and meaningfully address sacred texts through a phenomenological exegesis is corroborated by Idel, who also highlights my argument that the experiential dimension should be illuminated. Maintaining perspectives of duality seems to be a constant in Judaism and Christianity, where, as Pagels points out, a devotees relationship with God is described as I and Thou. A Hindu or a Gnostic, on the other hand, could say I am Thou, would claim that the divine being is hidden deep within human nature, as well as outside it (65). This unified continuum of being was the vision of Jewish and Christian mystics alike, including Pico and Lefvre. What is overlooked of the mystics and their mystical techniques is their practical impact on nature and society. Lefvre understood the riddle of Adam and Eve, of duality, in Gnostic terms, and expressed that exegesis in the most abstract terms possible that of number mysticism: numerical ascension was fueled by the Coincidence of Opposites personified in ritual theological couples such as Jupiter and Venus, the key element being the love-nexus between them, the ascension to unity in marriage. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent brings controversial religious issues down to earth. Pagan religion in the Roman Empire held that the elemental forces of nature were divine forces. During the same era as Justin, Tertullian and Valentinus, pagan philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius stood for the belief that gods embodied elemental forces at work in the universe, identifying himself with those powers which he called providence, necessity, and nature (40). The suns energy was personified in Apollo, thunder and lightening in Jupiter, and internal passion in Venus. Pagels explains, though, that no intelligent pagan worshipped the actual Image of gods or rulers, but rather used Image as an accessible focus for revering the cosmic forces they represented (41). Thus, pagan religion as an exercise, a practice, is reflected in Lefvres use of the gods Images to transcend their own duality to a vision of the One, of God. The Images were, and are, metaphors that serve as vehicles for ascension to experience of divine wisdom. While focusing on Kabbalah as Jewish tradition, Epstein demonstrates that the 10 sefirot or spheres the cosmic tree of life is anthropomorphic: a schematic of the human nervous system. Collapsing all of the techniques she has described, the Kabbalists tree of spheres, utilized since the Middle Ages, is a breathing and concentration chart that mirrors the Taoist diagram of the ultimateless (69-72). Epstein thus breaks the spell of religious ownership,

6 freeing this wisdom tradition to any human in much the same way that Lefvre does in Book II through the prisca theologia of number mysticism. As noted throughout Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic, the metaphorical Imagery is interchangeable, so that there is no separation between divine attributes, their hidden Names, words, their colors and so on, indeed there is no separation between nature and the divine, between man and God (57). This then supports my argument that literature, through its attention to Words as symbols, as metaphors for Ideas, already embodies the practical exercise necessary to unify studies in wisdom. In much the same way that Epstein suggests taking the Kabbalists tree of spheres out of its mysterious wrappings and stripped of its religious overtones, my suggestion is only to broaden Literatures domain in public education to include the study of religion as the mythology of sacred texts (71). Epstein describes the Kabbalists journey of lover to Beloved in ways that resonate with Lefvres unification of duality through ascending chains via the technique of prisca theologia: Even at this exhalted level, the lover approaches his goal in stages; the interdependence of the entire chain of worlds along the cosmic tree allows him to work with Love as he had with Awe, in the knowledge that God, His idea, and His word are One. Therefore, in the corresponding microcosm of his own mind, the mystics thoughts, speech, and action may also be united as one. Emptied of his ego, he too is free to create new worlds with each breath and to destroy them with each expiration. (34) The mystical technique of numerical ascension as Lefvre describes it, wherein the worthy practitioner by the Jovial chains ascends to the Jovian mind, is rightly called a prisca theologia (Evans Ch. 4 II:58, f. 202). As Pagels has noted, Jupiter is a personified force of nature, the pagan god of thunder and lightening. In Epsteins comparison between Kabbalah and Tao, she cites Professor Chang: When the practitioner constantly sends the genuine idea to the nervous system, it moves on unceasingly; a tremendous change in the electrical charges is effected and the current flow is greatly increased. As the operation in the serious practitioner goes on month after month, and year after year, the emergence of lightning and thunder within his nervous system will be the natural outcome. . . . . Here symbolic language is used to describe a physical phenomenon. (71) Of particular interest is that this phenomenon, which Lefvres practitioners of Pythagorean philosophy or Kabbalah experience as a unification into One of the 2 or duality, a unity between the Coincidence of Opposites, neurologists now characterize as depolarization of the electric charges in the network of the nervous system (71). For this reason, natural magic is called the practical half of philosophy, because it creates results in the natural world through an active practice. Without further scrutiny of the mechanics of natural magic, it would be categorized as Positive theology since it is active. Its magic happens, however, always through a Negative theology, a sacrifice of individual ego on the Ground of Silence. Walkers chapter on the General Theory of Natural Magic is a succinct and essential overview. Magia Naturalis embodies a real overlapping of art, science, practical psychology and religion. The vis imaginativa is the fundamental force; the medium of transmission is the cosmic

7 and human Spirit, vehicle of the Imagination; the effects are on either animate or inanimate beings. In Ficinian, Neoplatonic magic, The main magical importance of occult qualities is in the resultant planetary groupings of objects, which can then be used by the other forces, i.e., one can make a picture Solarian by representing Solarian Images, in turn causing the Imagination to become more Solarian. Words as a force of the Imagination are often used in creating the objects to reinforce their astrological power; this rests on the theory of language that there is a real connection between Words and what they denote: a poem could therefore be both art and incantation (75-84). Walker discusses the possibility of heresy in each of the magical combinations he describes. Ficinian subjective magic can overlap with psychology, which at that time was part of religion, therefore is that which makes natural magic an obvious threat to religion. Walker summarizes this chapter in a manner that reveals the scholarly open mindedness with which he studied magic: The overlap of magic and religion produced then this dilemma: either a miraculous but plainly magical religion, or a purely psychological religion without a god. [. . .] The historical importance of these connexions between magic and religion is, I think, that they led people to ask questions about religious practices and experiences which would not otherwise have occurred to them; and, by approaching religious problems through magic, which was at least partially identical with, or exactly analogous to religion [. . .] they were able sometimes to suggest answers which, whether true or not, were new and fruitful. (84) The confluence of the seemingly disparate traditions of theoretical Negative theologies and practical Positive theologies is where I suggest much fruit could be harvested in Academia: through engaging not only the historical literal modes, but also the metaphorical-Spiritual, experiential modes of critical analysis and teaching: the anagogical and phenomenological. Alternatively, translator Michael J. B. Allen and editor James Hankins of Platonic Theology present Ficinos Platonism as key to understanding European art, thought, culture and spirituality of the following 250 years. Through mystical mathematics and an ancient pagan mythological philosophy God gifted the gentile poets and sages with a Trinitarian gift of wisdom (viii). In De Magia naturali Book II Chapter 1, Lefvre describes the subject of Pythagorean philosophy as: unitatem, unity, which is in the magis thought the generatrix of every number, and the first and absolute principle from which all other principles form (Evans Ch. 1 II:50, f. 198). Lefvre saw our human mind as a reflection of the divine mind. His words from Introductorium astronomicum show us that perception, which can be summarized in my words: as above, so below or object and subject are unified in the Coincidence of Opposites, the stance from which he wrote De Magia naturali. Copernicus, sharing Lefvres lifespan, had begun to overturn this Imagery with a heliocentric, physical model of the solar system. Since the anthropocentric, geocentric, view of the universe had already been challenged by the developing science of astronomy, Lefvre apparently felt the need to make clear that these earlier Images of the universe are an interior vision within the mind. He asserts in the prefatory epistle to Introductorium astronomicum that this:

8 is the wisest, optimum working of the true heavens, and of the true movement of the divine mind: our minds always emulate that of the parent (with which the ignorant lips of many disagree). Our mind is a simulation, a vestige, through which we can comprehend the workings of the divine mind, and how the heavens are created. This is therefore mental astronomy through which one touches the heavens. Its the minds eye in which the ethereal orbs and orbits are represented without confusion (K. L. Evans, Trans.). http://www.scribd.com/doc/73805440/De-Magia-naturali-On-Natural-Magic-by-JacquesLefevre-d-Etaples-Coincidence-of-Opposites-the-Trinity-and-prisca-theologia