OCCULTURE 125: Dan Attrell // The Picatrix, Astral Magic & Platonic Orientalism
Channel: Liber Ohio
Date: 20/03/2019

The Modern Hermeticist himself in the house. Dan Attrell is here to talk all about translating one of the preeminent texts, maybe the preeminent text, in the history of Western esotericism: the Picatrix.

The Picatrix is perhaps the premiere text written on the subject of astrological magic - a manual for constructing talismans, mixing magical compounds, summoning planetary spirits, and determining astrological conditions. Originally composed in Arabic around the 11th century, it was then translated into Latin in the 13th century, and it is that Latin translation that Dan and his co-translator David Porecca have worked to produce this new English version, which offers important insights not only into occult practices and beliefs but also into the transmission of magical ideas from antiquity to the present.

Dan is an historian, classicist, philosopher, and musician. He has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Classical Studies, a Masters in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures from the University of Waterloo with a thesis on shamanic motifs in the ecstatic mystery rites of Attis and Cybele. He’s also completed a Post-Baccalaureate in Classics at UCLA, focusing on the translation of ancient Greek and Latin texts. And he is currently at the University of Waterloo doing his PhD in History on Renaissance Hermeticism/Platonic Orientalism, Medieval religion, and science.

Some of you also know him from his Modern Hermeticist YouTube channel, where he has more than 30,000 subscribers and has produced some of the most in-depth material on the subject of Hermeticism in his series of lectures called Encyclopedia Hermetica.

PATREON EXTENSION
Listen at patreon.com/occulture

The morality and ethics of the Picatrix
Nigromancy vs necromancy
The hierarchy of beings in the Picatrix
The concept of Perfect Nature
Trying to figure out what the hell the quadrivium actually is
The original author of the Arabic text
The concept of God in the Picatrix and in magic
The type of rituals in the Picatrix
The role of psychoactive substances in Picatrix rituals
The intentions of the original author

RESOURCES

The Picatrix on IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780271082127 
The Picatrix on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ufstHy 
Dan’s website: https://themodernhermeticist.com/ 
Dan’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcluftdk1tuDU71ZdGNpHTA 

DONATE

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MERCH

Tees, tanks, hoodies, crops, hats. Check ‘em out: https://www.occulturepodcast.com/merch/ 

MUSIC

Vestron Vulture - “I Want to Be a Robot (Tribute to Giorgio Moroder)”: https://soundcloud.com/thevulturex/2-i-want-to-be-a-robot-tribute 

PRODUCTION & LICENSING

This podcast is produced in the Kingdom of Ohio and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode 

Executive Producers: Mike K., Carter Y., Mauricio G., Alyssa S., Daniel R., Kelly C., Bruce H., David G., Jeremy V., Marcelo T., Christopher B., Timothy W., Nick F., Michael Q., Jamaica J., Mute Ryan, John W., Paul S., Andy E., Colleen F., Catalina M., Saliyah S., Michael W., Raymond G., Kevin C., Michael S., Blake S., Kyle A.

REMINDER

Love yourself. Think for yourself. Question authority.