Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella

D. P. Walker's Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella is a classic scholarly study tracing how Renaissance philosophers, working from rediscovered Hermetic and Neoplatonic texts, developed theories distinguishing what they considered legitimate spiritual or natural magic from illicit demonic magic, a distinction with real stakes given the era's witchcraft prosecutions. Walker's authority rests on close reading of the primary philosophical texts of Ficino, Pico, Campanella and their contemporaries. As a mid-twentieth century study it remains foundational to Renaissance magic scholarship, though later historians working from expanded manuscript access have refined and in places qualified specific details of Walker's account of how individual figures drew that spiritual and demonic line.