Arbatel de magia veterum: the book printed in Basel in 1575

In 1575 a small Latin book entitled Arbatel de magia veterum, «Arbatel, on the magic of the ancients», appeared in Basel. It bore no author's name and presented itself as the first of nine volumes, the only one whose text is known. Brief, aphoristic and steeped in Christian piety, the Arbatel is far removed from demonic catalogues and fairground booklets: it speaks of magic as wisdom granted by God and as service to one's neighbour.

Structure and content

The book announces a plan in nine parts, but only the first, entitled Isagoge, that is «introduction», was printed. It contains forty-nine aphorisms grouped into seven septenaries, a numerical structure reflecting the symbolism of seven so dear to the whole esoteric tradition. The aphorisms deal with the duties of the magician, the relationship with God, the distinction between true and false wisdom and the nature of spirits.

The most famous section is devoted to the Olympic spirits, seven intelligences associated with the planets of the ancient tradition and named Aratron, Bethor, Phaleg, Och, Hagith, Ophiel and Phul. The text assigns them the government of the provinces of the universe and a cyclical rule over human history, in periods of four hundred and ninety years each, according to a conception that unites astrology and the theology of history.

The milieu of origin

The author remains unknown. The style, vocabulary and some doctrines point to the Paracelsian milieu and to the nonconformist religious circles active in Basel in the second half of the sixteenth century. The Swiss city, thanks to its printing houses and a relative tolerance, was a crossroads of humanists, physicians and dissenters, and the printing of the volume is generally attributed to the presses of Pietro Perna of Lucca, publisher of many works by Paracelsus.

The Arbatel explicitly rejects demonic magic and insists on prayer, humility and charity. It stands on the border between magic and spirituality, and for this reason it appealed to readers of different persuasions, from Lutheran mystics to the circles that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, would give rise to the Rosicrucian manifestos, published in Germany between 1614 and 1616.

Fortune and editions

The book had a rapid and lasting echo. It was included in the collections of magical works associated with Cornelius Agrippa published around the turn of the seventeenth century, and in 1655 Robert Turner issued an English translation in London, together with the pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book and the Heptameron. It was read and annotated by German theosophists, and the names of the Olympic spirits passed into many later manuscripts.

Not everyone welcomed it: for the stricter theologians, its devout tone was not enough to make lawful a book that spoke of spirits and hidden powers. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Arbatel was rediscovered by occultists, who appreciated its sobriety compared with the more lurid grimoires and took up the Olympic spirits in their systems of correspondences.

The Arbatel holds a singular place in the history of grimoires. It is one of the few texts of ritual magic born directly for print, in a city of printers and humanists, and one of the few that presents magic as a moral path before a technical one. Its brevity and its enigmatic unfinished plan continue to arouse the curiosity of historians.