Henry Cornelius Agrippa's Biography(Books)(Photos)

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German
magician and occult writer, astrologer, and alchemist. He

political agent. He worked now for the Pope and now for his
rival the Emperor, switching sides as opportunity offered.

may also be considered an early feminist.

He founded secret societies whose members he was not above
exploiting. He mixed with royalty at one moment, only to

His career was diverse: secret agent, soldier, physician,
orator, and law professor, in Cologne, Paris, Dole, London,

find himself in prison for debt the next.

Italy, Pavia, and Metz. In 1509, he set up a laboratory in
Dole in the hopes of synthesizing gold, and for the next

Educated at the University of Cologne, while still a youth
Agrippa served under Maximilian I, of Germany. In 1509, when

decade or so traveled Europe, making a living as an
alchemist, and conversing with such important early humanist

lecturing at the University of Dole, a charge of heresy was
brought against him by a monk, John Catilinet, and to avoid

scholars as Colet and Reuchlin. In 1520, he set up a medical
practice in Geneva, and in 1524 became personal physician to

any prosecution and probable harsh punishment, Agrippa left
Dole and resumed his former occupation of soldier. The

the queen mother at the court of King Francis I in Lyons.
When the queen mother abandoned him, he began practicing

following year Agrippa was sent to England, on a diplomatic
mission, and on his return followed Maximilian to Italy,

medicine in Antwerp, but was later banned for practicing
without a license, and became historiographer at the court

where he spent 7 years serving various noble patrons. After
practicing medicine at Geneva, he was appointed physician to

of Charles V. After several stays in prison, variously for
debt and criminal offenses, he died in 1535.

Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. After that he took a
position under Margaret, Duchess of Savoy, Regent of the

Agrippa's wrote on a great many topics, including marriage

Netherlands, but not before falling out of favor with his
former patroness. His capacity to assemble bitter foes was a

and military engineering, but his most important work is the
three-volume De occulta philosophiae (written c. 1510,

published 1531), a defense of "hidden philosophy" or magic,
which draws on diverse mystical traditions - alchemy,

Agrippa moved restlessly about Europe until his enemies
caught up with him at Grenoble. Prison and torture left him

astrology, Kabbalah. A later work, De incertitudine et
vanitate scientiarum (Of the Uncertainty and Vanity of the

Sciences), attacks contemporary scientific theory and
practice.

before his death he had become the center of stories in
which he figured as a master black magician. Goethe drew on

Many of his opinions were controversial. His early lectures

some of these stories for the title character of his play
Faust.

on theology angered the Church, and his defense of a woman
accused of witchcraft in 1520 led to his being hounded out

Agrippa's best-known work, De Occulta Philosophia (Occult

Philosophy) was published in three volumes in 1531 but had
been written much earlier, in 1510, possibly during a visit

about him were plentiful. Some believed him to be not only
an alchemist but a demonic magician, even a vampire. In one

to England. It is based on ideas current at the time: that
man is a miniature copy of God, made ‘in the image of God'

account, he traveled to the New World.

as the Bible says; that the whole universe, taken together,
is God; and that man is therefore a miniature copy of the

His real name was Heinrich Cornelis. After the fashion of
the time, he latinized Cornelis into Cornelius and awarded

universe. The universe (the macrocosm or 'great world') is
built on the model of man (the microcosm or 'small world')

himself the bogus noble title of Agrippa Von Nettesheim,
from the Roman founder of Cologne and the name of a place

and so, like man, it has a soul. Agrippa said that
everything which exists has a 'soul' or spiritual component,

near Cologne. Undisciplined, unstable and erratically
brilliant, Agrippa was often forced to live by his wits and

part of the total world soul, which shows itself in the
magical properties of herbs, metals, stones, animals and

played at different times the roles of occult scholar and
alchemist, faith healer and demonologist, court astrologer,

other phenomena of Nature. For instance, the magnet attracts
iron, whoever wears the stone called heliotrope becomes

theologian, lawyer and doctor (he studied both medicine and
law at Cologne, apparently without taking a degree),

invisible, and a sure contraceptive for a woman is to drink
mule's urine every month because mules are sterile.