Natural magic

Natural magic in the context of Renaissance magic is that part of the occult which deals with natural forces directly, as opposed to ceremonial magic, in particular goety and theurgy, which deals with the summoning of spirits. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa so uses the term in his 1526 de vanitate. Natural magic so defined thus includes astrology, alchemy, and disciplines that we would today consider fields of natural science, such as astronomy and chemistry (which developed and diverged from astrology and alchemy, respectively, into the modern sciences they are today) or botany (herbology). In a modern context, white magic may be referred to as "high magic" (not to be confused with the alternate meaning of "high magic", which denotes ceremonial or ritual magic).

See also

• Protoscience
• White magic
• Magia Naturalis
• Giambattista della Porta
• Thomas Vaughan

References

• Charles G. Nauert, Magic and Skepticism in Agrippa's Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas (1957), p. 176.
• Ryan J. Stark, Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 88-114.