prolegomena tidbits learned while waiting----for Kai and Ian

[Ian Livingston]

Well, it could concevablly be possible that CGJ was descended
biologically from Georg Faust (d.~ 1539), but he seems intellectually,
or, dare I say, spiritually, more akin to Henry Cornelius Agrippa
(1487-1535), whose letter addressed to Johannes Trithemius and
accompanying a ms. of his work De occulta philosophia includes this
very Jung-like passage: "I wondered much, and indeed felt indignant,
that up to this time no one had arisen to vindicate so sublime and
sacred a study from the accusation of impiety. Thus my spirit was
aroused, and...I too conceived the desire to philosophize, thinking
that I should produce a work not unworthy of praise...if I could
vindicate...that ancient Magic, studied by all the wise, purged and
freed from the errors of impiety, and endowed with its own reasonable
system" (Durant, The Reformation, 852-3). Trithemius, in a letter
dated 1507, calls Faust a "mountebank" (852). Interestingly, Durant
says of the growing legend of Faust in the 16th C that, "In one phase
the legend was supposed to be Catholic caricature of Luther; in a
deeper view it expressed the religious repudiation of 'profane'
knowledge as opposed to a humble acceptance of the Bible as in itself
sufficient erudition and truth."

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 12:08 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Re: Faust..........based on a real guy (unlike most myth-sized legends)
>
> And Jung thought he was descended from the real Faust?...
> Could this be true?
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant