Of Magical Words and How They Help Natural Operations
Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (1:60): W, 3:31 (except for a passage, transferred to K, 3: 46) + W, 3: 32 + a short addition at the beginning and a very substantial one at the end
This chapter, De furore et divinationibus, quae in vigilia fiunt, de melancholici humoris potentia, quo etiam daemones nonnunquam in humana corpora illiciuntur (“Of Magical Words and How They Help Natural Operations”), occupies a significant place in Agrippa's systematic exposition of occult philosophy. In the 1533 Cologne printed edition (De occulta philosophia libri tres, sigla K in Perrone Compagni's critical apparatus), the text represents Agrippa's mature formulation of the ideas it addresses, the product of over two decades of reading, travel, and revision since the composition of the Würzburg draft.
Based on W 3:31, W 3:32 of the Würzburg draft, this chapter was significantly augmented. Perrone Compagni identifies one or more substantial additions, indicating that Agrippa supplemented the original argument with new material, possibly drawn from sources encountered after the 1510 composition.
The extent of revision in this chapter illustrates the dynamic character of Agrippa's rewriting process. Rather than simply updating facts, he appears to have substantially reconfigured the argument. Comparison with the partial edition A — which represents an intermediate stage — may reveal whether the additions were introduced gradually or in a single later revision.
Scholarly Perspectives
Miles (2008) gives close attention to Agrippa's theory that words are 'the fittest medium betwixt the speaker and the hearer, carrying with them not only the conception of the mind, but also the vertue of the speaker.' The key move is that magical force is located not in the word itself but in the speaker's virtue — a point that Miles connects to the explicit theoretical statement of III:11. Lehrich (2003) places this within the broader project of making the magician's operations continuous with the divine Word through which God created the world.