This paper given at Reinventing the Renaissance Occult, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, 14 November 2009, explored the development of the Faustian Pact, looking at how the Renaissance magician Faustus came to be condemned as having made a pact with the Devil, and how this condemnation itself came to be a pattern for magical practice.
Pacts with the Devil have been a mainstay of Christian legend, used to reveal the saintliness of some and revile the Satanism of others – a two-edged weapon in the war of words fought between sanctioned ‘truth’ and outlawed knowledge. And it is a sword that has landed firmly on the neck of one sixteenth century magician in particular.
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Published by Leo Ruickbie
Dr Leo Ruickbie, FRHistS, FRAI, Associate of King’s College, is a Visiting Fellow in Psychology at the University of Northampton and the author of six books, most recently Angels in the Trenches: Spiritualism, Superstition and the Supernatural During the First World War. Actively involved in the parapsychological research community, he is a Council Member of the Society for Psychical Research and a Professional Member of the Parapsychological Association. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In 2021, he won third prize in the essay contest organised by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies.
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