Translations of Pico's Conclusions that appear in Chapter 5 of Yates.
M = Magical Conclusion; C = Cabalistic Conclusion; O = Orphic Conclusion; H = Hermetic Conclusion
pp. 87-88
M1. All magic that is in use among the moderns, and which the
church justly exterminates, has no firmness, no foundation, no truth,
because
it depends on the enemies of the first truth, those powers of darkness,
which pour the darkness of falsehood over poorly disposed intellects.
M2. Natural magic is permitted and not prohibited, and concerning the universal theoretical foundations of this science I propose the following conclusions according to my own opinion.
M3. Magic is the practical part of natural science.
M5. No power exists in heaven or earth seminally and separated that the magician cannot actuate and unite.
M13. To operate magic is nothing other than to marry the world.
M24. Out of the principles of the more secret philosophy it is necessary to acknowledge that characters and figures are more powerful in a magical work than any material quality.
pg. 91
M15. No magical operation can be of any efficacy unless it has
annexed to it a work of Cabala, explicit or implicit.
M22. No names that mean something, insofar as those names are singular and taken per se, can have power in a magical work, unless they are Hebrew names, or closely derived from Hebrew.
O21. The work of the preceding hymns is nothing without a work of Cabala, whose property it is to practice every formal quantity, continuous and discrete.
pg. 95
C1. Whatever other Cabalists say, in a first division I
distinguish
the science of Cabala into the science of sefirot and shemot [names],
as
it were into practical and speculative science.
C2. Whatever other Cabalists say, I divide the speculative part of the Cabala [the science of names] four ways, corresponding to the four divisions of philosophy that I generally make. The first is what I call the science of the revolution of the alphabet, corresponding to the part of philosophy that I call universal philosophy. The second, third, and fourth is the threefold merkabah [chariot], corresponding to the three parts of particular philosophy, concerning divine, middle, and sensible natures.
C3. The science that is the practical part of the Cabala practices all formal metaphysics and inferior theology.
pg. 98
M6. Whatever miraculous work is performed, whether it is magical
or Cabalistic or of any other kind, should be attributed principally to
God the glorious and blessed, whose grace daily pours supercelestial
waters
of miraculous power liberally over contemplative men of good will.
M25. Just as characters are proper to a magical work, so numbers are proper to a work of Cabala, with a medium existing between the two, appropriable by declination between the extremes through the use of letters.
M26. Just as through the influence of the first agent, if that influence is individual and immediate, something is achieved that is not attained through the mediation of causes, so through a work of Cabala, if it is the pure and immediate Cabala, something is achieved to which no magic attains.
pp. 99-102
C11. The way in which rational souls are sacrificed by the
archangel
to God, which is not explained by the Cabalists, only occurs through
the
separation of the soul from the body, not of the body from the soul
except
accidentally, as happens in the death of the kiss, of which it is
written:
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
C48. Whatever other Cabalists say, I say that the ten spheres correspond to the ten numerations like this: so that, starting from the edifice, Jupiter corresponds to the fourth, Mars to the fifth, the sun to the sixth, Saturn to the seventh, Venus to the eight, Mercury to the ninth, the moon the tenth. Then, above the edifice, the firmament to the third, the primum mobile to the second, the empyrean heaven to the tenth.
C66. I adapt our soul to the ten sefirot thus: so through its unity it is with the first, through intellect with the second, through reason with the third, through superior sensual passion with the fourth, through superior irascible passion with the fifth, through free choice with the sixth, through all these as it converts to superior things with the seventh, through all these as it converts to inferior things with the eight, through a mixture of both of these - more through indifferent or alternate adhesion than simultaneous inclusion - with the ninth, and through the power by which it inhabits the first habitation with the tenth.
C56. Anyone who knows how to unfold the quaternarius into the denarius will have the method, if he is skilled in the Cabala, of deducing the name of seventy-two letters from the ineffable name.
pg. 104-105
O4. Just as the hymns of David miraculously serve a work of the
Cabala, so the hymns of Orpheus serve a work of the true, permitted,
and
natural magic.
M9. There is no science that assures us more of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Cabala. [Yates mistakenly refers to this as the 7th Magical Conclusion.]
C7. No Hebrew Cabalist can deny that the name Jesus, if we interpret it following the method and principles of the Cabala, signifies precisely all this and nothing else, that is: God the Son of God and the Wisdom of the Father, united to human nature in the unity of assumption through the third Person of God, who is the most ardent fire of love.
C15. By the name Yod he vav he, which is the ineffable name that the Cabalists say will be the name of the Messiah, it is clearly known that he will be God the Son of God made man through the Holy Spirit, and that after him the Paraclete [Holy Spirit] will descend over men for the perfection of mankind.
pg. 106
M7. The works of Christ could not have been performed through
either the way of magic or the way of Cabala.
pg. 109
H9. With each thing there exist ten punishers: ignorance,
sorrow, inconstancy, greed, injustice, lustfulness, envy, fraud, anger,
malice.
H10. A profound contemplator will see that the ten punishers,
of which the preceding conclusion spoke according to Mercury,
correspond
to the evil order of ten in the Cabala and its leaders, of whom I have
proposed nothing in my Cabalistic conclusions, because it is secret.