Michael Scot
Wizard of Balwearie
(1175-1232)
Left his native Scotland and studies at Oxford & Paris in quest of Hebrew & Arabic learning. A brilliant polymath, he worked with Jews & Moslems in Toledo, reading Aristotle in Arabic & Maimonides' "Guide to the Perplexed" in Hebrew. He collected Jewish magical treatises and incorporated number symbolism of the Sepher Yetzirah into his theories. In 1217 he translated Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji "On the Sphere" which revolutionised astronomy. He then went to Sicily, working for Honorious III and Gregory IX. In 1220 he entered the service of Frederick II. Often at odds with the Papacy, Frederick was a free thinker who welcomed Jews & Saracens to his Palermo court. Here Scot worked with Jewish savant Jacob ben Anatoli, on Latin translations of Aristotle, Maimonides, and other non-Christians. Anatoli ranked Scot as "his second master by the side of Samuel Ibn Tibbon." The friendship has been referred to as "one of the most significant in the history of medieval thought." Frederick was seeking a "detailed description of the universe" which Michael attempted to answer, often with a bit of a smoke screen.
Fascinated by Solomonic traditions, Scot gained access to Jewish and Arabic mystical works on mathematics, physiognomy, alchemy, and magic. Inspired by Frederick's tolerant court, Scot espoused a proto-Renaissance confidence in man's intellectual abilities. Although he warned about the arrogance and dishonesty of many magi, he also wrote extensively on the techniques and powers of various magical arts. His theories on exoteric and esoteric mathematics would influence later Freemasons, for he distinguished "between mathesis, or knowledge, and matesis, or divination, and mathematica, which may be taught freely and publicly, and matematica, which is forbidden to Christians." Scot’s emphasis on the role of "living memory" in attaining enlightenment also provides an early foreshadowing of the emergence of the "Art of Memory" in Scottish masonry in 1599.
In 1223 Frederick met with the Pope, king of Jerusalem, and Grand Masters of the Templars & Hospitallers, who urged him to lead an army to the Holy Land. Having aborted the military expedition, Frederick was excommunicated and then independently set out for Acre, carrying out friendly negotiations with the Moslems in 1229 with the assistance of the brilliant Arabist Scot. Frederick won the peaceful surrender of Jerusalem. When Scot returned to Oxford and Scotland circa 1230, he brought with him a unique knowledge of Jewish-Arabic-crusader developments that would later find their expression in Scottish Freemasonry. Faivre, in his study of "The Ancient and Medieval Sources of Modern Esoteric Movements," stresses the seminal role of Scot in bringing Arabic theosophical methods to the West. Scot's Latin translation of Averroes showed how the Moslem philosopher "made a clear distinction between esotericism and exotericism, the complementary nature of which can be understood thanks to a spiritual exegesis, the ta’wil." Averroes preferred the exoteric, while Scot followed the esoteric. For him, the ta'wil unveiled spiritual truths and was consistent with his own theories of magical "analogies and correspondences of every kind."
According to Scottish tradition, Scot was buried in Melrose Abbey, and his books of magic were either buried with him or hidden in the convent. Scot also developed a posthumous reputation as an arch-magus, who crossed the boundaries of permitted magic. Dante placed him in Hell, because of his knowledge of "the illusive grace" of "magical deceits." Boccaccio claimed that Scot left disciples in Florence, who organized an egalitarian club of occultists to carry on his alchemical work. In 1805, Walter Scott (an active Freemason) described "Auld Michael" as a Scottish patriot, Cabalistic magician, and "infernal architect" who built a great stone bridge across the Tweed.
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