Modes of Contact and the Natural World in the “Liber de nymphis” and “A Treatise on Angel Magic”
Tjalling D. Janssen
Abstract
The objective of this article is to map the modes of contact between elemental beings and humans in Paracelsus’s Liber de nymphis and Rudd’s A Treatise on Angel Magic, and assess the environmental significance of their differences. In the Liber de nymphis we find the mode of the encounter, the direction of which is elemental being to human. This analysis will be prefaced by an intertextual analysis of Paracelsus’s earlier texts that mention such entities. In the Treatise, an eclectic magical text that includes a summary of the Liber de nymphis, we find an underlying intention that qualifies it for the mode of evocation, its direction being human to elemental spirit. These modes of contact and their directions bear implications for the relationship between humans and their environment. In the Liber de nymphis elemental beings inhabit locations like rivers, forests, caves and volcanoes, whereas such indwelling qualities are absent in the practice of the Treatise, according to which elemental spirits should be actively summoned. By analysing these texts and their cosmologies, motives and contexts, we tease out dissimilar attitudes towards the natural environment and intermediaries associated with it.
Keywords
Elemental beings; environment; humanity; modes of contact; Paracelsus; Rudd