Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy

The so-called Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy appeared in print more than twenty years after Agrippa’s death and was presented as the practical key to his Three Books. Its authenticity was rejected almost immediately by Johann Weyer, Agrippa’s former pupil, who declared it a forgery, and modern scholars agree that it is pseudepigraphic; Thomas Willard and Joseph Peterson have suggested the French occultist Jacques Gohory as a possible author or editor. Whoever wrote it, the book is a concise manual of ceremonial magic. It explains how to derive the names and characters of good and evil spirits from astrological tables, describes the forms in which planetary spirits appear, and gives instructions for making pentacles and sigils, consecrating instruments, places and books, and calling spirits into a circle or a crystal. It also touches on necromancy and on the composition of a ‘book of spirits’. From the late sixteenth century the Fourth Book was regularly bound with other short texts, including the Heptameron of pseudo-Peter of Abano, the Arbatel, a geomancy attributed to Agrippa and the Isagoge on spirits, and it was in this composite form that Robert Turner translated it into English in 1655. That collection became one of the standard sources of English ritual magic, feeding into the Lemegeton manuscripts, Barrett’s The Magus and later occult revivals.

What it contains

• Rules for extracting spirit names and characters from astrological tables
• Descriptions of the shapes and appearances of planetary spirits
• Construction of pentacles, sigils and the ‘book of spirits’
• Consecration of water, fire, oil, incense, places and instruments
• Procedures for invoking good and evil spirits, including in a circle or crystal
• Brief treatment of necromancy and calling the souls of the dead