If you think legerdemain is just for Dungeons & Dragons players and Criss Angel , you ’re sadly misguided . Magic is altogether real , and was totally practice by totally real citizenry who be in story ! Here are just 10 real - living wizards and sorcerers who used thaumaturgy for a hatful more than just party magic .
1 ) Nicholas Flamel
This 13th - hundred scribe was be intimate throughout Paris for his ok manuscripts , but it took a few hundred for masses to make ( i.e. , apocryphally attribute ) a few books of alchemy to Flamel . These book of account admit an introduction which casually note that Flamel had also created the Philosopher ’s Stone , a sorcerous point that could turn go into Au , after researching a mysterious book in an unknown language he had purchased and trace . Not bad !
2 ) Roger Bacon
A 14th - C monk was one of the leading scientific idea of his 24-hour interval , forecast out how to fit Aristotle ’s philosophy and scientific theory into Christianity — no small feat — which he actually sent to the Pope ! He ’s considered to have figured out the component of powder , and was a leading researcher of optic and lenses . He was also say to have predicted auto , planes , and hoagy . Admittedly , all of this was in all probability easy since he was also say to have a giant talking golem school principal that could serve any question someone asked it
3 ) Michael Scot
Alas , not the manager of the Dunder - Mifflin Scranton subdivision , this other Michael Scot instead was a wandering assimilator and non-Christian priest who move the worldly concern in the other 1200s . In addition to get word Greek , Latin , Arabic , and Hebrew , he meditate alchemy , astrology , and may have help oneself Fibonacci make his famous chronological succession . In his off minute , apparently he would turn covens of witch into Harlan Fisk Stone , fought demons , and then kick back with friends by having spirits bring them meals from the kitchen of the French and Spanish courts . Tragically , all this thaumaturgy get him stuck in the storey of hell set aside for wizards , as mark by Dante in The Divine Comedy .
4 ) William II de Soule
This Scotch border noble actually joined the English court in 1304 , but change sides during the war for Scottish independency in 1314 . Unfortunately , he was caught plotting to steal the Scotch stool of King Robert , fink his treason and was killed . Supposedly , de Soule was instruct black magic by Michael Scot , and even given a sorcerous familiar — a goblin key Robin Redcap — in true Dungeons & Dragons style . Some historians cogitate later citizenry confused William II de Soule with Sir Ranulf de Soules , who was also supposed to have practiced black thaumaturgy . The local anesthetic boil that de Soules alive , so honestly , neither of them had a particularly happy ending .
5 ) Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel
elect Chief Rabbi of Poland in 1592 , Judah was a tireless fighter for the Jewish biotic community , even fighting his fellow Jews who would needlessly denounce other families on title of genuineness . It ’s gentle to see how he developed a repute for protecting his people from all anti - Semitism , even before the Holy Roman Emperor determine that the Jews inside the ghettos of Prague require to be expelled and/or kill . The Rabbi create a golem to protect his people and sound off anti - Semite asses ; made of Lucius Clay , the golem come to sprightliness because the Rabbi knew how God created Adam , and it was sort of the same trade . The golem could also sprain invisible and summon other spirits from the hereafter , so it was pretty effective — except on the Sabbath , when of course the Rabbi lease it take the day off .
6 and 7 ) John Dee and Edward Kelley
Dee was the advisor and tutor to the first Queen Elizabeth who urgently want to communicate with angels and demon ( that ’s John in the painting up top , execute a little magic for Queen Liz ) . Kelley was a medium who could come up angels and demon , and blab out to them . Together they made quite the occult active duet , as Dee really want to learn the language of the angels . With aid from Kelley , a new language was in fact provided to Dee , called Enochian ; any similarity to other languages were of course because the Angels were address the original nomenclature , before the Tower of Babel mischief . finally , a rift get between the two when Kelley really wanted to start pay his clock time to transmuting leash into gold , while Dee was stick to on the angel affair . Strangely , at that point an Angel Falls told Kelley that he and Dee should totally have sex with each other ’s married woman . Dee stopped talking to the Angel Falls at that power point … but still let Kelley sleep with his married woman , you experience , just in case . An holy person told him to !
- Baal Shem
A.k.a . Rabbi Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk . His feats were many ; he could teleport items , once saved a synagogue from incinerate down by writing a Hebrew word on it , could go week without solid food or drink , and could fill his root cellar instantly with coal with a simple spell . He could instantly order where hoarded wealth was hide , and if he sold something to a pawnbroker , that item would fly back to him later that day in what seems to be a witching interpretation for an unflattering Jewish stereotype . Once , when he was traveling in a carriage and a wheel fell off , the bike follow him all the way to his destination . After nearly getting burned at the stake for sorcery in Westphalia , Falk decided to move to London in the 18th 100 .
9 ) The Count of St. Germain
This learned courtier rise to protrusion in European society in the 18th C . He claimed to be the son of a prince ; he was accused of being a undercover agent in London and then hang around to give a few melodious performance ; he was a prolific composer ; he tried to negotiate peace between England and France despite the fact that no one asked him to , particularly not the King of France . He was a riveting fop even before he started telling people he was several centuries old , could manipulate nature , and also had the ability to combine a cluster of small diamonds into a large one . He also may have prophesied the French Revolution , but I ’m pretty trusted anyone with a chip of societal awareness who visited France in the 1700s could have called that one .
10 ) Aleister Crowley
Born in 1875 , Crowley is the most mod magician on this list , so if you ’re were dismissing all these guy cable as having lived in the past when everything people did n’t empathize was called legerdemain , which was pretty much everything because people were stupid , well , Crowley was performing legerdemain until his last in 1945 . Heck , he make the elaborated system of Thelema magick , which allow its practitioners to summon spirits , banish them , consecrate places , see the future , travelling astrally , and more . Yes , this sounds uncannily like black art in Dungeons & Dragons , but Aleister Crowley never shot anyone with a sorcerous missile … that we cognise of .
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