Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book argues that perennial philosophy, theatre and magic impacted the early modern turn of mind not only as separate domains but also in their interrelatedness. It examines the structural commonalities of theatre and magic and finds correspondences with the main contentions of perennial philosophy. The book clarifies the rise of magic into high culture as applied knowledge, the instrument embraced by the philosophers in a mission they understood religiously as redemption of humanity and nature from the post-lapsarian decay. It attempts to elucidate the controversies concerning his intellectual profile and the tension a modern eye perceives between his faith and his scientific mind, his powerful fantasy and his need for order and rigor. An examination of the Enochian language reveals it as an artificial idiom created by applying the patterns of the ars combinatoria to language via the text hermeneutics used in the Cabala.