Astrology and Magic
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Abstract
Concerning astrology, Albert the Great made two major contributions, one undoubtedly authentic, the other questionably so. First, he articulated astrology’s natural-philosophical foundations in his authentic Aristotle commentaries and related works. When I say “foundations”, I do not mean just a passage here or there; rather, for Albert, celestial influences (and thus astrology) are woven into the very heart of Aristotelian natural knowledge, appearing in central processes of nature in several fundamental works, including his paraphrase commentaries on Aristotle’s De caelo and De generatione et corruptione. “His” second contribution appears in the deliberately anonymous Speculum astronomiae, which circulated under Albert’s name for centuries.1 In it, the four canonical types of astrological practice were described and supplied with extensive bibliographies, and legitimate practices were authoritatively distinguished from illegitimate ones. Regardless of the Speculum’s authenticity, however, from the middle of the 14th century both contributions were increasingly connected with Albert’s name.2