Conclusions

The Latin medieval manuals of natural magic, image magic and Hermetic magic contain miscellaneous demonological views. One apparent stream seems to derive from ancient Greek and Roman beliefs and myths: We encounter demons that roam in the dark as shadowy ghosts or animals, demons that fraternize with the dead or are even the souls of the dead, demons that enter and exit human beings through orifices, and demons that are perilous, possess men and cause illnesses from which one must be protected.

Other sources offer more wide-ranging explanations for calling upon demons. For example, in the Latin Picatrix, the anonymous De imaginibus and De imaginibus sive annulis septem planetarum, the demons are summoned for consultation and for answering questions. This tradition, which used demons as sources of knowledge and revealers of secrets, has links to several ancient and medieval beliefs, the most direct reference being the Egyptian collection Papyri Graecae Magicae. Neither the three sources mentioned nor the ritual practices, however, form any coherent unity: Picatrix is an encyclopaedic col­lection of texts of Hermetic magic, image magic, natural magic and folklore; De imaginibus sive annulis septem planetarum is a treatise of Hermetic image magic, which strangely applies instruments of ritual magic in its process of summoning; and the anonymous De imaginibus, whose origin and family tree are uncertain, uses astrological images for calling upon the spirits.

In the other texts of image magic (both Hermetic and those non-Hermetic) demons and spirits are treated somewhat differently: They are compelled, usually by magic images, to act according to the will of the image-maker. The sources (Pseudo-Ptolemy's Opus imaginum, some paragraphs in Picatrix and the treatises of Hermetic image magic) are all translations from Arabic and have strong astrological backgrounds. In curse formulas (apparent in Opus imagi­num, Picatrix) the spirits are commanded or guided to enter the victim by using images and conjuration or means of natural magic. The treatises of Hermetic image magic, in turn, form an independent and rather uniform group that is dedicated to offering instruments for gaining power and wealth. These instru­ments were based on the Hellenistic natural sciences (astronomy and astrol­ogy, medicine, botany and mineralogy), but also on Neoplatonic gnosis, which acknowledges the hierarchies of the universe (including secret symbols and names of spirits), and perhaps also on the Hermetic belief by which man has a right to rule the earthly world.^[850] A medieval reader who believed in these texts probably did not perceive himself as an omnipotent ruler of his environment as did the cliched Hermetic magus in the utopias of Eugenio Garin and Frances Yates; nevertheless, these instruments afforded him a certain power to act in his immediate surroundings and gain personal advantage.

In general, demons and illnesses appear as a minor issue in manuals of nat­ural magic and image magic, and the connection between demons and illness in the material is rather arbitrary. In the treatises close to natural magic (e.g. Kyranides) spirits are sometimes related to demonic possession and illness, but only sporadically. Other treatises also contain formulas with instructions for protecting oneself from malign spirit influences (including most probably diseases), and occasionally the rings described in the Hermetic image magic have the power to expel demons that cause illness.

The illnesses to which demons are connected vary. In Pseudo-Ptolemy the demons are related once to fever, and once to ‘fever and sickness,' and in Liber planetarum they are said to cause tumours and undefined ‘vexation'. In Picatrix, the demons are connected twice to dementia (or ‘losing one's mind') and once to ‘other infirmities' in general. Connecting demons to mental disorders prob­ably refers to the ancient idea that the human mind was closely related to the spiritual world and therefore was easily affected by spiritual beings. Otherwise, diagnoses are rather broad and conventional and do not particularly differ from the general medical record of the European Middle Ages.

By comparison with mainstream medieval accounts, the magical mate­rial is exceptional. The dominant religious institution of the time and most of medieval society was tuned to fear demons and concentrated on exorciz­ing and expelling all unwanted spiritual visitors. The magical manuals I have examined do not contain a single real exorcism, nor do they contain any real healing formula that includes repelling noxious spirits. On the contrary, they often deliberately summon demons and harness them for the sorcerer’s own purposes. This might also be one of the reasons why Magister Speculi so harshly condemned Hermetic manuals in particular as being abominable and the ‘worst idolatry’—although their spirits are apparently something other than stereotypical enemies of human race and causes of calamities, they how­ever represented a non-Christian and alternative system that was, at the time, too suspicious to be tolerated or accepted publicly.

One intriguing question to which the sources do not give a unanimous answer is how the readers of these texts perceived the terms ‘demon’ and ‘spirit’ and what these words referred to in different situations—to Judeo-Christian angelology and demonology? To the varying demonologies of Solomonic magic? To Hermetic magic, in which the system of Neoplatonic celestial spir­its, encouraged perhaps by works like the Latin Asclepius and De deo Socratis, was connected with astrological, medical, botanical and mineralogical enti­ties? Or to a combination of them all? Many medieval authors seem to have faltered when confronted with these questions, and many Renaissance authors were still in difficulty over this varied spiritual mixture. Hermetic talismanic magic offers a good example of a spiritual system that crossed the boundar­ies of Christian orthodoxy, yet managed to resonate with European readers to an extent that made way for the fifteenth-century revivals of Hermetism and Hellenistic demonology within the Neoplatonistic movement of the Italian Renaissance.