My life's introduction to Cornelius Agrippa was not through reading his books, but through the article about him in Man, Myth and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural.
It includes the following little rumor about Mr. Agrippa:
...He went out one day, leaving the key of a secret room with his wife. She foolishly lent it to the lodger, a student, who went into the room and found a huge book of spells, which he began to read. After a while he looked up and found a demon standing in front of him, asking why it had been summoned. He gaped at it in horror and the demon strangled him.Agrippa returned and, fearing a charge of murder, made the demon restore the student to life for a few hours. The young man was seen walking in the street but when the demon's magic wore off, he collapsed.
Now, the first time I ever laid hands on Struwwelpeter, many years afterwards, it was through the Mark Twain translation (as Slovenly Peter) -- and I was surprised that in that version, there was no mention of Agrippa.
The character is instead St. Nicholas.
In the original German, the verses read:
Der Niklas wurde bös und wild, du siehst es hier auf diesem Bild! Er packte gleich die Buben fest, beim Arm, beim Kopf, beim Rock und West den Wilhelm und den Ludewig, den Kaspar auch, der wehrte sich. Er tunkt sie in die Tinte tief, wie auch der Kaspar »Feuer« rief. Bis übern Kopf ins Tintenfaß tunkt sie der große Nikolas.
The character "Agrippa" in the 1848 Shock-Headed Peter translation is the "Nikolas" in the German. In other words, he is replacing Santa Claus.
Why was Agrippa used, instead of Santa, for the earlier English version? It's likely that in the 1840s, Santa Claus/St. Nicholas wasn't perceived as well known in the English speaking world, and especially not if the translation was meant for a British rather than American audience.
What made Agrippa seem like a good substitute? It appears that in the late 18th and early 19th century he had a semi-legendary status as a magician (you will find apocryphal stories about him meeting the devil and such, in texts from the era) comparable maybe to someone like Marie Laveau. Also whatever figure it was had to match the illustration of Saint Nicholas, and Agrippa might be supposed to dress like a wizard in a similar habit with pointy hat and robe. Add in his German connection, and perhaps he was deemed the most logical boogieman to mete out justice for the story of Die Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben.
You can read the text with Agrippa's full appearance at Project Gutenberg.
From Wikipedia:
Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486. In 1512, he taught at the University of Dole in the Free County of Burgundy, lecturing on Johann Reuchlin's De verbo mirifico; as a result, Agrippa was denounced, behind his back, as a "Judaizing heretic." Agrippa's vitriolic response many months later did not endear him to the University.
In 1510, he studied briefly with Johannes Trithemius, and Agrippa sent him an early draft of his masterpiece, De occulta philosophia libri tres, a kind of summa of early modern occult thought. Trithemius was guardedly approving, but suggested that Agrippa keep the work more or less secret; Agrippa chose not to publish, perhaps for this reason, but continued to revise and rethink the book for twenty years.
During his wandering life in Germany, France and Italy he worked as a theologian, physician, legal expert and soldier.
He was for some time in the service of Maximilian I, probably as a soldier in Italy, but devoted his time mainly to the study of the occult sciences and to problematic theological legal questions, which exposed him to various persecutions through life, usually in the mode described above: He would be privately denounced for one sort of heresy or another. He would only reply with venom considerably later. (Nauert demonstrates this pattern effectively.)
There is no evidence that Agrippa was seriously accused, much less persecuted, for his interest in or practice of magical or occult arts during his lifetime, apart from losing several positions. It is impossible of course to cite negatively, but Nauert, the best bio-bibliographical study to date, shows no indication of such persecution, and van der Poel's careful examination of the various attacks suggest that they were founded on quite other theological grounds.
It is important to mention that, according to some scholarship, "As early as 1525 and again as late as 1533 (two years before his death) Agrippa clearly and unequivocally rejected magic in its totality, from its sources in imagined antiquity to contemporary practice." Some aspects remain unclear, but there are those who believe it was sincere (not out of fear, as a parody, or otherwise).[1] Recent scholarship (see Further Reading below, in Lehrich, Nauert, and van der Poel) generally agrees that this rejection or repudiation of magic is not what it seems: Agrippa never rejected magic in its totality, but he did retract his early manuscript of the Occult Philosophy - to be replaced by the later form.
According to his student Johann Weyer, in the book De praestigiis daemonum, Agrippa died in Grenoble, in 1535.
Man, Myth and Magic adds the following:
Much of his career is shrouded in mystery and even before his death he became the centre of stories in which he figured as a master black magician. Goethe drew on some of these stories for the title character of his play Faust.
...
Agrippa says that everything which exists has a 'soul' or spiritual component, pat of the total world soul, which shows itself in magical properties of herbs, metals, stones, animals and other phenomena of Nature.
...
Agrippa builds up a system of the universe in which everything is part of a great spiritual whole, which is God. Magic is the way of investigating this system but magic is only for the initiated few, for men like Agrippa himself -- as most of them were, in fact -- of secret societies. He does not press the point fully home but his conclusion that man 'containeth in himself all things which are in God' is well in line with the magical theory that the magician can make himself God and wield the supreme power of God in the universe.
Agrippa's planetary incense recipes have made the rounds, and turns up all over the place, from Scott Cunningham's Incense Oils and Brews to Lauron William De Laurence's Obeah Bible. He basically gives two recipes for each type, one that usually was specific and which involved something unpleasant and hard to find like a weasel's brain, and another that came down to a single type of substance (woods, leaves, etc.) that could be formed into a planetary incense.
Here are some suggested formulas for each of the basic planets as based on the recommendations of Agrippa, for his simple planetary magical incenses:
MARS (made from woods)
Oak, Hickory and Mesquite.
VENUS (made from flowers)
Rose, Balm of Gilead Buds and Clove Buds.
MOON (made from leaves)
Patchouli and Clary Sage.
MERCURY (made from barks and peels)
Orange Peel, Cinnamon and Mace.
JUPITER (made from fruits)
Vanilla or Tonka Bean, Nutmeg and Allspice Berries.
SATURN (made from roots)
Calamus, Vetiver and Mandrake.
SUN (made from resins)
Dragon's Blood, Frankincense and Gum Arabic.