Eros and Magic in the Renaissance... Bruno
The great manipulator part 4
(i) Identity of Substance, Identity of Process
Ficino is father of the equation Eros = magic, whose terms can doubtless
be reversed.
1
It is he who points out, for the first time, the substantial
identity of the two techniques for manipulation of phantasms as well as
their operational procedures.
Love is, to be sure, a magician-the creation of this formula is also
Ficino's (Amore, VI, 10, p. 106). That is because
the whole power of Magic is founded on Eros. The way Magic
works is to bring things together through their inherent similarity. The parts of this world, like the limbs [that is to say,
the organs-Trans] of the same animal, all depend on Eros,
which is one; they relate to each other because of their common nature . Similarly, in our body the brain, the lungs, the
heart, liver, and other organs interact, favor each other, intercommunicate and feel reciprocal pain. From this relationship
is born Eros, which is common to them all; from this Eros is
born their mutual rapprochement, wherein resides true Magic. (Ibid.)
This is tantamount to saying that, since the substance in which the
processes of Eros and of magic occur is unique-the universal pneuma
(see chap. 5 below)-those two techniques are closely related, indeed
identical. Moreover, Eros, presiding over all spiritual activities, is what
ensures the collaboration of the sectors of the universe, from the stars to
the humblest blade of grass. Love is the name given to the power that
ensures the continuity of the uninterrupted chain of beings; pneuma is
the name given to the common and unique substance that places these
beings in mutual relationship. Because of Eros, and through it, all of
nature is turned into a great sorceress (ibid., p. 107).
If magic is love, the opposite is no less true. Mathematical equations
are always reciprocal and transitive. Philosophic equations do not follow
the same rule. But, in this case, the substantial identity that makes it
possible to equate these two terms is also accompanied by an operational identity that permits their reversal: love is, in turn, magic, since its processes are identical to magic processes. Indeed, what does the lover
do by means of his deeds, words, services, and gifts other than create a
magic web around the object of his love (ibid.)? All his means of persuasion are also magic means, whose goal is to bind the other to him. Ficino
himself, to define this process, uses the word rete, meaning "net" or
"web." To put it simply: the lover and the magician both do the same
thing: they cast their "nets" to capture certain objects, to attract and
draw them to them.
Later (chap. 6) we shall have the opportunity to analyze the vocabulary of magic: Ficino's word rete only repeats other accredited vocables
such as illex, illecebra, or esca, which mean "bait," "decoy." Like a
hunter, the lover and the magician-who is in love with nature, with
Diana, Giordano Bruno would say-cast their nets and put out their
phantasmic bait and traps in order to take possession of their precious
game. It goes without saying that the quality and dimensions of the
game vary. The lover uses his talents to gain control of the pneumatic
mechanism of the beloved. 2 As for the magician, he can either directly
influence objects, individuals, and human society or invoke the presence of powerful invisible beings, demons, and heroes3 from whom he
hopes to profit. In order to do so he must gather knowledge of the nets
and bait that he must put out in order to gain the desired result. This
procedure is called by Bruno to "bind" (vincire) and its processes bear
the generic name of - 'chains" (vincula). The doctrine of the identity of
love and magic, already outlined by Ficino, is only carried to its logical
conclusions by Giordano Bruno.
Since the first part of this work has been devoted to the phantasms of
Eros and, to a certain extent, to artificial memory, the subject of erotic
magic seems to me the most appropriate to ensure the continuity of my
account. I take it up here with the reservation that it can only be explored in more depth after the mechanism and origins of pneumatic
magic have been explored (chap. 5). The principle underlying the way it
works has been mentioned in passing in the foregoing pages. In order to
enhance comprehension that is still peripheral to what will follow, the
reader is requested always to keep in mind that magic is a phantasmic
process that makes use of the continuity of the individual pneuma and of the
universal pneuma. We shall see in due course how this continuity is ensured and by what means magicians hope to attract the collaboration of
supernatural presences. Beyond this presupposition common to all
magic, erotic magic reveals other aspects, disconcertingly modern, requiring separate treatment. Bruno is the first to exploit the concept of
magic to its ultimate conclusions, envisaging this "science" as an infalli-ble psychological instrument for manipulating the masses as well as the
individual human being. Awareness of the appropriate "chains" (vincula) enables the magician to realize his dream of universal Master: to
control nature and human society. This undertaking, however, encounters almost insuperable difficulties.
(ii) Manipulation of Masses and of Individuals
De vinculis in genere ("Of bonds in general") by Giordano Bruno is one of
those little-known works whose importance in the history of ideas far
outstrips that of more famous ones. In its frankness, indeed the cynicism of the analysis of its contents, it might be compared to Machiavelli's
The Prince, especially as the subject matter of the two works is connected: Bruno deals with psychological manipulation in general, Machiavelli with political manipulation. But how colorless and ridiculous
the Machiavellian prince-adventurer now seems, compared to Bruno's
magician-psychologist! The popularity of The Prince gained for it the respect of succeeding centuries and has recently even led to the theory of
the modern "Prince" -the Communist party-advanced by Antonio
Gramsci. Unpublished until late, little read and always misunderstood,
De vinculis in genere is nevertheless the written work that deserves to
have the real and unique place of honor among theories of manipulation
of the masses. Without being aware of it, the brain trusts that dominate
the world have been inspired by it, have put Bruno's own ideas to practical use. A continuity surely might exist, for Bruno seems to have exerted a certain influence on the ideological movement at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, the Rosicrucian movement, which had great
repercussions. 4 But to our knowledge there has never been, either before or after Bruno, any writer who has treated this subject empirically,
free from any ethical, religious, or social considerations. For no one
would have dreamed of attacking such a subject from the point of view of
the manipulator himself without first positing, as the fundamental principle of his research, some intangible human or divine right in whose
name the manipulation would be condemned.
In the nineteenth century, of course, we find ideologues like Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels who believe that religion is the "opium of the
people." Therein they only repeat Bruno's statement in De vinculis,
where religion is seen merely as a powerful tool for manipulating the
masses. But, while Marx and Engels have humanitarian and utopian
ideals, Bruno shows little concern for safeguarding human dignity; the
only right he envisages belongs neither to God nor to man but to the
manipulator himself. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Gustave Le Bon laid the foundations of the discipline called "mass psychology" (The Crowd, published in 1895) later developed by Sigmund Freud, whose Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) excited much interest. But the
purpose of Le Bon and of Freud is to determine the psychological mechanisms operating within a crowd that influence its makeup, not to teach
how to control a crowd. Science, because of moral scruples, refuses to
adopt a point of view it prefers to allocate to the political man, Adolf
Hitler, author of Mein Kampf. The Prince is allowed to keep what is his,
even if it entails protesting-as in the case of Freud-against the abuses
of a Stalin and the "new order" set up in the Soviet Union.
All mankind has heard of Machiavelli's The Prince, and many politicians have hastened to emulate his example. But only today can we appreciate how much De vinculis outstrips The Prince in depth, in timeliness, and in importance-today, when no head of state of the Western
world would any longer dream of acting like the Prince but would use,
on the other hand, methods of persuasion and manipulation as subtle as
those the brain trusts are able to place at his or her disposal. In order to
understand and show to advantage the timeliness of De vinculis, we
ought to know about the activities of those trusts, those ministries of
propaganda; we should be able to glance at the manuals of schools of
espionage, from which we may glean something of what happens outside the corridors of those organizations whose ideal goal is to guarantee
order and the common welfare, where it exists.
Machiavelli's Prince is the forebear of the political adventurer, a type
that is disappearing. On the other hand, the magician of De vinculis is
the prototype of the impersonal systems of mass media, indirect censorship, global manipulation, and the brain trusts that exercise their occult control over the Western masses. He is not, doubtless, the type
followed by Soviet propaganda, for he by no means lacks subtlety. On
the contrary, Bruno's magician is altogether aware that, to gain the following of the masses, like the loyalty of an individual, it is necessary to take account of all the complexity of the subjects' expectations, to create fulfill. The greater the manipulator's knowledge of those he must "enchain," the greater is his chance of success, since he will know how to
choose the right means of creating the vinculum.
We see that the goal of Bruno's erotic magic is to enable a manipulator
to control both individuals and crowds. Its fundamental presupposition
is that a big tool for manipulation exists-Eros in the most general sense
of the word: that which we love, from physical pleasure to things probably
unsuspected, in passing, by wealth, power, etc. Everything is defined in
relation to Eros, since aversion and hatred merely represent the negative
side of the same universal attraction:
All affections and bonds of the will are reduced to two, namely aversion and desire, or hatred and love. Yet hatred itself is
reduced to love, whence it follows that the will's only bond is
Eros. It has been proved that all other mental states are absolutely, fundamentally, and originally nothing other than love
itself. For instance, envy is love of someone for oneself, tolerating neither superiority nor equality in the other person; the
same thing applies to emulation. Indignation is love of virtue ... ; modesty and fear [verecundia, timor] are none other
than love of decency and of that which one fears. We can say
the same of the other mental states. Hatred, therefore, is
none other than love of the opposite kind, of the bad; likewise, anger is only a kind of love. As regards all those who
are dedicated to philosophy or magic, it is fully apparent that
the highest bond, the most important and the most general [vinculum summum, praecipium et generalissimum], belongs to Eros:
and that is why the Platonists called love the Great Demon,
daemon magnus.
Magic action occurs through indirect contact (virtualem seu potentialem),
through sounds and images which exert their power over the senses of
sight and hearing (Theses de Magia, XV, vol. III, p. 466). Passing through
the openings of the senses, they impress on the imagination certain
mental states of attraction or aversion, of joy or revulsion (ibid.).
Sounds and images are not chosen at random; they stem from the
occult language of the universal spirit (ibid., p. 411). With regard to
sounds, the manipulator should know that tragic harmonies give rise to
more passions than comic ones (ibid., p. 433), being able to act on souls
in doubt (ibid., p. 411). There, too, it is necessary to take account of the
subject's personality for, though there are some people easily influenced
there are others who react in an unexpected way to the magic of sound, like that barbaric emperor who, on listening to a very sophisticated musical instrument, thought that it was the neighing of horses (ibid., p.
433).
In tum, images are capable of giving rise to friendship or to hatred, to
loss (pernicies) or dissoluteness (ibid., p. 411). This artificial phenomenon
can, moreover, be verified daily by virtue of the fact that individuals and
things seen inspire in us spontaneously sympathy or antipathy, aversion or attraction (ibid., p. 447).
Sight and hearing are only secondary gateways through which the
"hunter of souls" (animarum venator), the magician, can introduce
"chains" and lures (De vinculis in genere, III, p. 669). The main entrance
(porta et praecipuus aditus) for all magic processes is phantasy (De Magia,
III, p. 452), the only gateway (sola porta) for internal mental states and
the "chain of chains" (vinculum vinculorum) (ibid, p. 453). The power of
the imaginary is increased by intervention of the cogitative faculty: that
is the thing that is capable of subjugating the soul (ibid.). Therefore the
"chain" has to pass through phantasy, for "there is nothing in the intellect that was not previously perceived by the senses [quod prius non fuerit
in sensu], and there is nothing which, coming from the senses, can reach
the intellect without the intermediary of phantasy" (De Magia , XLIII,
vol. III, p . 481).
According to the abstraction drawn by the manipulator himself, who
is supposed to exert total control over his own imagination (theoretically, at least), the majority of mortals are subject to uncontrolled phantasies. There are only particular professions that demand the voluntary
application of imagination (the poet, the artist); as for the rest of them,
the realm of imagination is settled by external causes. In this case, we
must distinguish between phantasies caused by voluntary action (but of
another kind) of the subject himself, and the phantasies whose origin
lies elsewhere. The latter, in tum, can be caused by demons or induced
by human will (De Magia, III, p. 449).
Implicated here is the will of the manipulator, which must be of an
altogether special kind. Indeed, Bruno warns every manipulator of
phantasms-in the event, the artist of memory-to regulate and control
his emotions and his phantasies lest, believing himself to be their master, he nevertheless becomes dominated by them. "Be careful not to
change yourself from manipulator into the tool of phantasms": that is
the most serious danger confronting the disciple (Sigillus sigillorum, II, 2,p. 193). The real magic manipulator must be able "to arrange, to correct,
and to provide phantasy, to create the different kinds at will" (De Magia,
XLVIII, vol. III, p. 485). .
It seems that man is endowed with a hypercomplex brain that has no
special capacity to analyze stimuli according to their provenance: in
short, he is not capable of differentiating directly between dreamlike
data and those transmitted by the senses, between the imaginary and
the tangible. 6 Bruno demands of the manipulator a superhuman task:
first he must accurately and immediately classify data according to their
provenance, and then he must render himself completely immune to
any emotion prompted by external causes. In short, he is supposed no
longer to react to any stimulus from without. He must not allow himself
to be moved either by compassion, or by love of the good and the true,
or by anything at all, in order to avoid being "enchained" himself. In
order to exercise control over others, it is first essential to be safe from
control by others (De Magia, XLVIII).
With incomparable lucidity, Bruno draws a clear distinction between
theology (with fundamentals of morality, which, let us remember, was
an exclusively theological discipline) and "the mental view of the laity"
(civilis speculatio), whose representative he considers himself to be. For
theology, there is a true religion and false beliefs, there is good and evil
which are largely ideological in nature. There can be no question of the
manipulation of individuals and masses, but simply of a mission with the
goal of converting to the one and only truth. On the contrary, for Bruno,
there is only one sacrosanct principle, only one truth, and that is: everything is manipulable, there is absolutely no one who can escape intersubjective
relationships, whether these involve a manipulator, a manipulated person, or a tool (De vinculis, III, p. 654). Theology itself, the Christian faith,
and all other faiths are only beliefs of the masses set up by magic
processes.
For a magic process to succeed-as Bruno never tires of repeating-it
is essential that the performer and the subjects be equally convinced of
its efficacity. Faith is the prior condition for magic: "There is no operator-magician, doctor, or prophet-who can accomplish anything
without the subject's having faith beforehand" (De Magia, III, p. 452),
whence Hippocrates' remark: "The most effective doctor is the one in
whom many people have faith" (ibid., p. 453). "It is generally agreed
... that not only must we be credulous, we who act upon them, but the
patients must be also. That is the essential condition, without which
nothing can be achieved" (De Magia mathematica, VI, vol. III, p. 495).
"Faith is the strongest bond, the chain of chains [vinculum vinculorum] of
which all others are, so to speak, the progeny: hope, love, religion,
piety, fear, patience, pleasure .. . , indignation, hatred, anger, contempt, and so on ... " (De Magia, LIII, vol. III, p. 490). "It is essential that the performer (of magic) have an active faith and the subject a passive faith. Especially is the latter important because without it no operator, either rational or divine, can accomplish anything" (ibid.).
It is obvious that the ignorant are more readily won over by the phantasms of theology and medicine:
It is all the easier to enchain (vincire) people who have less
knowledge . In them, the soul opens in such a way that it
makes room for the passage of impressions aroused by the
performer's techniques, opening wide windows which, in
others, are always closed. The performer has means at his
disposal to forge all the chains he wants: hope, compassion,
fear, love, hate, indignation, anger, joy, patience, disdain for
life and death, for fortune. (De Magia, III, pp. 453-54)
It is not by chance that the prophet is mentioned alongside the magician
and the doctor. The most obvious result of Bruno's thought is that all
religion is a form of mass manipulation. By using effective techniques,
the founders of religions were able, in a lasting way, to influence the
imagination of the ignorant masses, to channel their emotions and make
use of them to arouse feelings of abnegation and self-sacrifice they
would not have experienced naturally.
Statements of this kind can be easily misunderstood, giving credence
to the belief that here Bruno is making a sociological criticism of religion.
This is far from the case, for he does not try "to show it up" but only to
look at it from a wider angle from the point of view of the manipulator.
Bruno does not condemn religion in the name of humanitarian principles which are completely foreign to him. Moreover, he is not interested
in religion per se but rather in the way in which any religion can be
established if it finds the masses predisposed to accept it and a message
suitable for their conversion. As regards the manipulator himself, he
will be persuasive and unshakable in his faith and power to convince the
more he has succeeded in smothering in himself and others philautia,
self-love, egotism (De vinculis, III, p. 652, 675). Everything is manipulable, Bruno teaches us; but the manipulator has no right to use his power over the masses for selfish ends. On the other hand, it seems that selflove in the subject facilitates in some way the creation of "bonds."
In general, it is easier to exert a lasting influence over the masses than
over a single individual. Concerning the masses, the vincula used are of
a more general kind. In the case of an individual, it is first necessary to
be very familiar with his pleasures and his phobias, with what arouses
his interest and what leaves him indifferent: "It is, indeed, easier to manipulate (vincire) several persons than one only" (ibid., p. 688). "That
which is difficult, I believe, is not to bind or to liberate [vincire et solvere),
but to find the right bond among all the bonds, the choice being arbitrary rather than controlled by nature or manipulative technique" (ibid.,
p.686).
There are, no doubt, categories of age, physiognomy, etc., into which
each individual can be placed, but, in general, the variety of individual
differences, as well as the variety of "bonds" (vincula) applicable to
them, must be accounted for. Two individuals never correspond to one
another completely (ibid., p. 646).
Different individuals are manipulable according to different criteria:
the beauty that subjugates Socrates does not subjugate Plato, the multitude has other preferences than do the elite, males have different tastes
than females, some men have a predilection for virgins, others for promiscuous women (ibid., p. 639). In all of the above, the constant is the
quality of the "chain of chains," the vinculum vinculorum, which is Eros
(or sensual pleasure and, sometimes, phantasy, which amounts to the
same thing).
(iii) Vinculum Vinculorum
The phrase, vinculum vinculorum, "chain of chains," as we have seen, is
applied by Bruno to three separate things: Eros, phantasy, and faith. We
already know, of course, that Eros is a phantasmic process which reduces the number of terms to two. Then we learn that the ground on
which faith can be formed and can prosper is the imagination, which
amounts to saying that, fundamentally, the vinculum vinculorum is the
synthesizer, receiver, and producer of phantasms.
However, Bruno uses this expression most often to describe the extraordinary power of Eros, daemon magnus, which presides over all magic
activities. These are only a deft exploitation of individual propensities
and attitudes in order to create lasting bonds with the purpose of subjugating the individual or the group to the will of the manipulator.
The assumption is that no one can escape the magic circle: everyone is
either manipulated or a manipulator. Having attained extraordinary
domination over his own phantasy, and having also got rid of the ballast
of vanity that made him vulnerable to the praise or blame of others, the
manipulator, in order to use his techniques, applies himself to knowing
and fathoming through intuition the characteristics, reactions, and emotions of the subject to be bound to him. Like a spy wanting to procure
material for future erotic blackmail, the magician must collect all the indices that permit him to file his subject under some classification or other. A difficult task which, once accomplished, sets off to motions of
the vinculum, four in number: the first is fastening the bond or chain
(iniectio seu invectio), the second is the actual bond itself (ligatio seu vinculum), the third is the attraction resulting from it (attractio), and the fourth is the enjoyment of the object that gave rise to the whole process (copulatio quae fruitio dicitur). At issue, of course, is an erotic bond, which wastes away "through all the senses by means of which the attachment was created ... . This is why the lover wishes to transform himself entirely into the beloved: through tongue, mouth, eyes, etc." (De vinculis,p. 642). The chain reaches the subject "through knowledge, binds
through affection, and acts through enjoyment, generally speaking"
(ibid., p. 641).
What is the purpose of this description of the vinculum cupidinis, the
libidinal bond? This question is more difficult than it seems, for Bruno's
treatise is far from explicit on many points. Since I have already answered it, I must justify my response.
A first possibility might be that Bruno, treating of love as a natural
bond, aims his phenomenology not at goals of manipulation but simply
to establish a paradigm of every other artificial and magic bond. Indeed,
he never says express is verbis that the purpose of the manipulator is to
exploit "human weaknesses," the natural inclinations of the libido.
This hypothesis is countered by several factors, some of which we
have mentioned but the most important are yet to be clarified. Indeed,
the verb vincire, "to enchain," is used in contexts where its active, operational meaning leaves no shadow of a doubt: "He who is in possession
of the universal cause, or at least the nature, the tendency, the attitude,
the use, and the finality of this particular thing he must enchain, that
person will know how to enchain [vincire ergo novitj" (ibid, p. 659; d.
also p . 638). Furthermore, this passage seems to give us the key to
Bruno's treatise-for what is it if not an analysis of the nature and tendencies of the "things to be enchained," of the particulares res vinciendae?
A second hypothesis, even more tenuous, would be that Bruno is simply describing the phenomenology of Eros, like Ficino and Pi co della
Mirandola. In contrast to this is the fundamental idea of the treatise
already evident in its title: we are not dealing with abstract mechanisms
of Eros but with vincula, the production of attachments, which is considerably simplified by virtue of the fact that all the "chains" are reduced to the erotic vinculum. It is therefore true that the phenomenology of Eros is a paradigm of the vincula in genere; but these are magic chains used by the manipulator to manipulate individuals or associations of individuals.
A third hypothesis, which does not implicate the idea of manipulation, is that knowledge of the erotic phenomenology is useful to the
manipulator not only for exerting his influence on the external world but
also for obtaining a perfect immunity to "bonds" of all kinds. That is
altogether probable and amounts to saying that Bruno's manipulator is
the man who knows all about love, in order to learn not to love. For it is the person who loves who is enchained. "The love of the lover is passive, it
is a chain, a vinculum. Active love is something else, it is power active in
things and it is this that enchains [est ille qui vincit]" (ibid., p. 649).
A fourth and final hypothesis, which also does not involve the capability of the manipulator either to forge the chains of love or to ward
them off, is that Bruno might be concerned, among other things, with
supplying his disciple-reader with medical knowledge enabling him to
consider erotic questions without prejudice, to "unbind" and break the
imaginary vincula that attach his patients to him. In some cases that is
very probable and is confirmed by the use of the verb exsolvere, antonym
of vincire, which appears next to it (ibid., p. 675). The passage is interesting for it shows that the subject's state of receptivity is very important ad quomodolibet vinciendum et exsolvendum, "to enchain and release from bonds in every way." It is therefore clear that the manipulator'S activity consists not only in the exercise of a magic influence but also in the opposite, namely the breaking of the vincula from which a patient
suffers.In conclusion, the treatise De vinculis in genere should be interpreted as a practical manual for the magician, teaching him to manipulate individuals according to their emotional natures and to keep himself at a distance from the dangerous influence of Eros, to cure patients in the grip of a powerful erotic spell.
The fundamental idea of the treatise is that "love rules the world,"
that "the strongest chain is that of Venus" (ibid., p. 696): Eros "is lord of the world: he pushes, directs, controls and appeases everyone. All other
bonds are reduced to that one, as we see in the animal kingdom where
no female and no male tolerates rivals, even forgetting to eat and drink,
even at the risk of life itself" (ibid.). In conclusion, vinculum quippe vinculorum amor est, "indeed the chain of chains is love." And again, "All
bonds relate to the bond of love, either because they depend on it or
because they are reduced to it." "Love is the foundation of all emotions.
He who loves nothing has nothing to fear, to hope, to boast of, to dare,
to scorn, to accuse, to excuse himself for, to humiliate himself for, to
rival, to lose his temper over. In short, he cannot be affected in any way"
(ibid., p. 684). This individual is, of course, the manipulator himself,
who, exercising absolute control over the sphere of Eros, knows how to keep himself away from all vincula, from all the traps that love has set for
him.
What is this vinculum?
It is, of course, beauty in its widest sense. But this beauty-that-enchains does not consist in a prescribed proportion of the limbs. 7 It has an
"incorporeal reason for being," which differs according to the nature of
each individual. It can happen that a perfectly beautiful young girl is less
attractive than another, who is theoretically less beautiful. That can be
explained by a secret communication (ibid., p. 641) between the lover and
the object of his love.
How does the vinculum function?
It is caused by phantasy, of course, which has its own autonomy and
reality: "Phantasy is true, it operates in actuality, it can really influence the object" (ibid., p. 683). It also invades the subject through the "door of the imagination." It reaches the cogitative faculty, it determines emotions and incites the subject to pleasure (ibid., p. 641). Sight plays an essential role in this, and often the lover perishes for want of seeing the object of his love (ibid., p. 648).
The most interesting part of Bruno's thesis is dedicated to the kinds of
vincula. They are very numerous for the emotion that each person demonstrates is differentiated according to the recipient: "It is with a different bond that we embrace sons, father, sister, wife, a woman, the
libertine, and a friend" (ibid., p. 646). "Semen is of many kinds, Venus
is of many kinds, love is of many kinds, bonds are of many kinds" (Multiplex semen, multiplex Venus, multiplex amor, multiplex vinculum; ibid., p.
651). "The female becomes attached to a female, the child to a child, the
male to a male, the male to a female, the man to his superiors, to his
equals, to his inferiors, to natural things, to artificial things. Things become attached to other things" (ibid.). In principle, man is freer than
beast in the choice of "chains": a mare has no difficulty in giving herself
to any horse; on the other hand, a woman does not give herself to every
man (ibid., p. 648).
Though it is almost impossible to determine precisely the nature of the
"bonds" capable of enchaining one person or another, there are nevertheless some general rules according to which the subjects can be classified in groups of age, temperament, physiognomy and social position.
Those classifications facilitate the chnice of the genus of "bonds" but do
not suffice to establish the particular species.
For instance, the child is less subject to erotic attractions. Only after
his fourteenth year is he capable of responding to erotic stimuli. The
most vulnerable are mature people since their genital powers are more developed-and among them adolescents especially, for to them Eros
represents a new and long awaited experience and because, the genital
passage being smaller, the erotic pleasure is more intense (ibid., pp.
676-77).
Of the four temperaments, melancholics are most inclined to experience the seductiveness of sensual pleasure since they are endowed with
intense phantasy life capable of imagining all sorts of erotic delights. But
this propensity for speculation and contemplation makes them more unstable emotionally. Furthermore, melancholics pursue sensual pleasure
for its own sake; they do not consider the propagation of the species
(ibid., p. 677).
Physiognomy also helps the manipulator to place the subject in an
erotic classification. For instance, people with weak and sinewy shinbones, a prominant curved nose, altogether resembling a billy goat, are
like satyrs, tending toward venereal pleasures. Their emotions are not
lasting and their passion is quickly assuaged (ibid. , p. 678).
People of a higher social class like to be honored and flattered. Their
sycophants have an easy time of it, provided they do not exaggerate. It
is enough for them "to enlarge mediocre virtues, to diminish vices, to
excuse the inexcusable, and to change faults into qualities" in order to
"enchain" their benefactor (ibid., pp. 646, 666).
Finally, there are psychic pleasures or physical pleasures, or both simultaneously (ibid., p. 645); there is natural love and abstract love practiced by the herem ita masturbans (ibid., p. 644). Along with those generalizations, Bruno also states some very cryptic rules for controlling sexuality, rules we shall now try to interpret.
(iv) Ejaculation and Retention of Semen
Some passages of De vinculis are especially interesting because they
seem to show that the practice of coitus reservatus was not foreign to
Bruno's magic. We know that this was practiced by Taoists in ChinaS
and the tantric yogis in India and Tibet.
Bruno's remarks are so concise, however, that great care is needed to
define their meaning without misrepresentation. Since only a few sentences are involved, we can make an exception to the general rule observed in this book so that readers can consult the Latin text as well as
the translation: Iactu seminis vincula relaxantur, retentione vero intenduntur; taliter debet affectus qui vincire vult, qualiter qui vincire debet. Propterea in conviviis et post convivia inspirare introducitur in ossibus ignem Cupido. Vide. Continentia est principium vinculi, abstinen-tia praecurrit famem, haec melius cibum attrahit. (De vine., p. 645:
Ejaculation of semen releases the bonds, whereas its retention strengthens them. He who wishes to enchain is obliged to develop the same emotions as he who must be bound.
That is why, when we are overheated at banquets or after
banquets, Cupid invades us. Look: continence is the beginning of the bondage, abstinence precedes hunger, and hunger leads to victuals.)
Vinculum fit ex prolifico semine quod ad actum suum rapitur,
nititur atque rapit; ideo hos emissum secundum partem, perit secundum partem vinculi vis. (Ibid ., p. 663: There is a bond by means
of prolific semen, which is attracted, strives, and approaches
its act. That is why, if it has been partially emitted, the
strength of the bond is also partially dissipated.)
Cupidinis vincula, quae ante coitum intensa erant, modico seminis
iactu sunt remissa et ignes temperati, obiecto pulchro nihilominus
eodem permanente. (Ibid .: Cupid's bonds, which were strong
before the mating, were dissipated after the moderate ejaculation of semen, and the ardor was diminished even though the attractive object did not cease to be.)
Let us agree that Bruno's notes, concise to the point of unintelligibility, can give rise to several interpretations. We have already stated a first
hypothesis: that he deals with the practice of retention of sperm, of
coitus reservatus. We know that by means of such a practice, along with
exercises of "embryonic breathing," the Taoists sought vitality and longevity, whereas the Tantrics, within the framework of a subtle and
much more sophisticated physiology, were supposed, through the maithuna, to reawaken dormant cosmic energies and to channel them to the
"Lotus of a thousand leaves" at the top of the head, entering a state of
ecstasy. In both cases, coitus reservatus represents one of the indispensable methods to reach the goal.
Since, in a treatise on erotic magic, Bruno speaks of the retention of
sperm, we may ask whether he does not have in mind a practice of the
same kind.
We soon discover he is not thinking of that. What interests him, as we
know, is the way we can seduce, create bonds and attachments. Now,
he observes that once pleasure has been had, the bonds dissolve. That is
why, to maintain the strength of a bond, it must not be enjoyed.
But to whom does this refer: to the manipulator or to the subject to be
bewitched by Eros? If he were speaking of the manipulator, we already know that he must be free of any attachment, and therefore it would be
more fitting for him to emit semen in order to dissolve the bond. On the
other hand, it is to his interest that the subject not assuage his desire, for enjoyment leads to the destruction of the "bond."
So far we have not got to the heart of Bruno's message. Among the
cryptic passages we have translated there is one that could lead us in the
right direction: "There is a bond by means of prolific semen, which is
attracted, strives, and approaches its act." That probably means that the
person who ardently desires has the power to attract into his orbit the
object of his desire. On the other hand, if he emits the semen, the
strength of his desire diminishes, and consequently, the strength of the
"bond" is also reduced. That is why the manipulator is supposed to
strengthen the bond, retain the sperm, for "he who wishes to bind is
obliged to develop the same emotions as he who must be bound." That
is the transitive result of magic: to arouse an emotion the manipulator
must develop it in himself, whence it will not fail to be transmitted to the
phantasmic mechanism of his victim.
What Bruno wishes to say has no connection with the practices of
coitus reservatus: he simply recommends that the manipulator be continent and, at the same time, ardently desire the subject. Does he not assert,
moreover, that the "more saintly one is, the greater one's ability to bind
[others]" (ibid., p. 651)? He must, indeed, cultivate assiduously the
same passion he wishes to arouse in his victim, taking care, however,
not to be possessed by his own phantasms and never to aspire to the
assuagement of desire, else the strength of the bonds disappears.
The tenet of a connection between the continence of the manipulator
and his magic or visionary abilities is a very old, prestigious one, taking
many forms. We have seen that a close connection had been established,
through the medicine of antiquity, between the five senses, the production of the voice, and the secretion of sperm. The last two are closely
allied in Renaissance medicine, since they represent the only two
modalities through which the spirit leaves the body in an observable
way. It goes without saying that too abundant a loss of sperm will
affect not only the voice but also the other spiritual activities of the subject and that, reciprocally, speaking too much will produce the same
result. 11 The opposite of pneumatorrhea is the accumulation of the
pneuma, which is gained, for one thing, through sexual continence.
All those ideas are concentrated in a treatise that appeared in 1657,
Alphabeti vere naturalis Hebraici brevissima Delineatio, by Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614-98), son of the famous Paracelsian iatro-chemist Ioannes Baptista van Helmont (1577-1644):12 "If semen is not
emitted, it is changed into a spiritual force that preserves its capacities to reproduce sperm and invigorates breath emitted in speech."
In his De vinculis, Giordano Bruno probably refers to a similar tenet
exalting continence for its ability to create vincula, magic bonds. It is
remarkable that only physical continence is at issue, since, on the psychic
level, Bruno recommends producing voluptuous phantasms whose purpose is to influence the subject's internal consciousness.
To sum up: Bruno's manipulator has to perform two contrary actions:
on the one hand, he must carefully avoid letting himself be seduced and
so must eradicate in himself any remnants of love, including self-love;
on the other hand, he is not immune to passions. On the contrary, he is
even supposed to kindle in his phantasmic mechanism formidable passions, provided they be sterile and that he be detached from them. For
there is no way to bewitch other than by experimenting in himself with
what he wishes to produce in his victim.
It is a strange and almost unbelievable method, which, however, well
explains the concise passages translated above and is also confirmed by
the advice Bruno gives to the artists of memory in his Sigillus sigillorum:
He tells them almost literally: "Be excited; those people who are most
inclined toward erotic pleasures and hatred are the most active" (Sig.
sig., 22, vol. II, 2, p . 166). There is no artificial memory without very
strong affectivity, emotionally charged images. And there can be no superior intelligence and contemplation without passing through the gateway of emotional images (ibid., 22-23, pp. 166-67).
It is easy to guess how much discernment on the part of the manipulator was required by Bruno's method. He was simultaneously required
to be "hot" and "cold," intoxicated with love and totally indifferent to all
passion, continent as well as debauche. That explains the abundant oxymoron in his poetry, the contiguity of contradictory images and symbols.
Most of the time he describes his state of soul as a mixture of fire and
ice, which we can understand all too well, having studied his magic
practices.
(v) Of Magic as General Psychosociology
Bruno's erotic magic, though unorthodox, has allowed us a close view of
the extreme conclusions to which identity of substance and manipulation between Eros and magic could lead.
We must reverse our tracks and ask ourselves again about the relationship between Eros and magic, namely: Where does Eros end, where
does magic begin? The answer seems very simple: at the very moment Eros is made manifest, so is magic also. That is why erotic magic, at
bottom, represents the starting point of all magic.
We still have to go deeper into the definition of magic as a spiritual
manipulation. In any case it is a question of a transitive assumption making it possible to say that every other spiritual manipulation is at the
same time a magical one. Now, the simplest natural pneumatic activity
involved in any intersubjective process is Eros, which implies that all
erotic phenomena are simultaneously magic phenomena in which the
individual plays the role either of manipulator or of the manipulated or
of the instrument of manipulation.
For a subject to take part in magic practices it is not necessary that the
idea of magic itself cross the threshold of his consciousness. In fact,
since there is no act which does not involve the pneuma in one way or
another, we can even say that the whole existence of an individual lies in
the sphere of natural magic. And since the relations between individuals
are controlled by "erotic" criteria in the widest sense of that adjective,
human society at all levels is itself only magic at work. Without even
being conscious of it, all beings who, by reason of the way the world is
constructed, find themselves in an intersubjective intermediate place,
participate in a magic process. The manipulator is the only one who,
having understood the ensemble of that mechanism, is first an observer
of intersubjective relations while simultaneously gaining knowledge
from which he means subsequently to profit.
All of the foregoing bears a strange resemblance to the concept of the
"transference process" according to Jacques Lacan, for whom the world
itself is but a huge apparatus of intersubjective exchanges in which each
individual takes in turn the role of patient or of analyst.
The magician has greater possibilities: those of the doctor are relatively limited. Take two individuals A and B and the relationship between them, which we shall call Y. Let us then suppose that A loves B and that B does not respond: Y, their relationship, is defined in those terms. It is the magician's task to modify Y: placing himself at the service of A, he will obtain for him the favors of B. But let us suppose that A's family has a stake in having A give up his mad passion for B: placing himself at his service, the manipulator changes Yand "cures" A. That is the task of the doctor. Let us suppose that A is a manipulator of magic and that he wants to obtain favors from B. He is a magician, not a doctor. Third case, involving two of actual magic and one of medicine.
What, exactly, is the borderline between those two disciplines? It is easy
to realize that the powers of the doctor are legally limited to the cases in
which A's disease conflicts with the interests of society, which amounts to saying it is out of the range of normality. On the other hand, the
practitioner of erotic magic in general can utilize his talents against society itself and against the will of an individual.
Let us suppose that A is a multiple individual, a crowd with uniform
reactions. B is a prophet, the founder of a religion, or a political leader,
who, using magic techniques of persuasion, subjugates A. His techniques, like those of the physician, are equally admissible since, by gaining the social consensus, our manipulator himself dictates the rules of
society.
Three hypostases: magician, physician, prophet. They are indissolubly bound together and have no precise line of demarcation. The "psychoanalyst" is also a member of the group, his sphere of action being
confined to the illicit and the superhuman.
Along with specialization and delimitation of skills, we would tend to
say that the two other practitioners of Bruno's magic, the actual magician and the prophet, have now vanishe_d. More probably, however,
they have simply been camouflaged in sober and legal guises, the analyst being one of them and, after all, not the most important. Nowadays
the magician busies himself with public relations, propaganda, market
research, sociological surveys, publicity, information, counterinformation and misinformation, censorship, espionage, and even cryptography-a science which in the sixteenth century was a branch of magic.
This key figure of our society is simply an extension of Bruno's manipulator, continuing to follow his principles and taking care to give them a technical and impersonal turn of phrase. Historians have been wrong in concluding that magic disappeared with the advent of "quantitative science." The latter has simply substituted itself for a part of magic while
extending its dreams and its goals by means of technology. Electricity,
rapid transport, radio and television, the airplane, and the computer
have merely carried into effect the promises first formulated by magic,
resulting from the supernatural processes of the magician: to produce
light, to move instantaneously from one point in space to another, to
communicate with faraway regions of space, to fly through the air, and
to have an infallible memory at one's disposal. Technology, it can be
said, is a democratic magic that allows everyone to enjoy the extraordinary capabilities of which the magician used to boast.
On the other hand, nothing has replaced magic on its own terrain,
that of intersubjective relationships. To the extent they have an operational aspect, sociology, psychology, and applied psychosociology represent, in our time, indirect continuations of magic revived. What could be hoped for through knowledge of intersubjective
relationships?
A homogeneous society, ideologically healthy and governable.
Bruno's total manipulator takes upon himself the task of dispensing to
subjects a suitable education and religion: "Above all it is necessary to
exercise extreme care concerning the place and the way in which someone is educated, has pursued his studies, under which pedagogies,
which religion, which cult, with which books and writers. For all of that
generates, by itself, and not by accident, all the subject's qualities" (De
Magia, LII). Supervision and selection are the pillars of order. It is not
necessary to be endowed with imagination to understand that the function of Bruno's manipulator has been taken into account by the State and
that this new "integral magician" has been instructed to produce the
necessary ideological instruments with the view of obtaining a uniform
society.
Is the Western State, in our time, a true magician, or is it a sorcerer's
apprentice who sets in motion dark and uncontrollable forces?
That is very hard to say. In any case, the magician State-unless it
involves vulgar conjurers-is vastly preferable to the police State, to
the State which, in order to defend its own out-of-date "culture," does
not hesitate to repress all liberties and the illusion of liberties, changing itself into a prison where all hope is lost. Too much subtlety and too much flexibility are the main faults of the magician State, which can
degenerate and change into a sorcerer-State; a total lack of subtlety and
of flexibility are the main defects of the police State, which has abased
itself to the status of jailer State. But the essential difference between
the two, the one which works altogether in favor of the first, is that
magic is a science of metamorphoses with the capacity to change, to
adapt to all circumstances, to improve, whereas the police always remains just what it is: in this case, the defender to the death of out-ofdate values, of a political oligarchy useless and pernicious to the life of
nations. The system of restraints is bound to perish, for what it defends is merely an accumulation of slogans without any vitality. The
magician State, on the other hand, only expects to develop new possibilities and new tactics, and it is precisely excess of vitality which impedes its good running order. Certainly, it too can only take advantage
of an infinitesimal part of its magic resources. But we surmise that
these are so extraordinarily rich, that, in principle, they should have no
difficulty in uprooting the decayed tree of police ideology. Why does
that not happen? Because the subtlety of those internal forces at play exhausts the attention of the magician State, which reveals itself ill prepared to attack the question of a fundamental and effective magic in its
external relationships. This monster of intelligence finds itself without
weapons when long-term operations are involved or when it ought to
create a "charming" image in international relations. Its pragmatism,
lacking in ceremony and in circumspection, results in an image which,
however false, is nevertheless repugnant in its partners' eyes, and this
absence of promises and of Byzantine speeches, when all is said and
done, proves as counterproductive as its obvious excesses of intelligence and its well-known incapacity to propose radical solutions.
If we can be surprised by the fact that the police-State can still function, we can just as well ask why the magician State, with boundless
resources, functions so badly that it seems daily to lose ground vis-a-vis
the ideological and territorial strides made by the other one.
The conclusion is ineluctable: it is that the magician State exhausts its
intelligence in creating internal changes, showing itself incapable of
working out a long-term magic to neutralize the hypnosis induced by
the advancing cohorts of police. Yet the future seems to belong to it
anyway, and even the provisional victory of the police State would leave
no doubt concerning this point: coercion by the use of force will have to
yield to the subtle processes of magic, science of the past, of the present
and of the future.
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