Most know Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Few have seen the Fourth.
Although you can get the text from Amazon quite easily now, there’s just something charming about this scanned edition from 1655.
This text is a phantom. Published decades after Agrippa’s death, it compiles:
- Geomancy (divination by earth points)
- Magical Elements of Peter de Abano (planetary spirits)
- Astronomical Geomancy (star-based readings)
- The Nature of Spirits (angelic and daimonic hierarchies)
- The Arbatel of Magick (the ethical theurgic manual)
Scholars debate its authorship. Some say it is a later compilation, stitched together from Agrippa’s notes and Renaissance grimoires. Others whisper it contains fragments of a lost tradition, secrets the Church suppressed.
What is certain: the Fourth Book influenced countless practitioners, from John Dee to modern geomancers. Its system of sixteen figures, planetary correspondences, and spirit classifications is a bridge between medieval magic and Renaissance occultism.
Personally, I think it was written by Jacques Gohory, who is also believed to be the writer of the Arbatel and many other (now lost) magical texts.
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