The Hermetic Physician – Daffi / Pantano (2022)
The story of this book is actually more interesting than the book itself. Pantano I knew from his Numen book The Magic Door, an introduction into the Italian occult scene. I now know that he borrowed the title from a book of Giuliano Kremmerz (1861–1930 born Ciro Formisano). Pantano announced a new book which is going to include Kremmerz and that is what led me to this title from 2022.
Kremmerz had some followers in his day and he founded several “Fraternity of Myriam” groups. Marco Daffi (1900-1969 born Ricciardo Ricciardelli) knew Kremmerz, but was not a Myriam member. In 1981 he published a critical history of Kremmerz’ groups and the different Myriam groups that came or continued after Kremmerz’ death (Giuliano Kremmerz e la Fr+Tm+ di Miriam 1981). Many Kremmerz followers were not pleased with that publication.
Pantano has translated the book of Daffi and added some more material. In the book you will mostly learn about the Myrian groups, not too much about Kremmerz and his ideas. Also, as the title suggests, there is more focus on Kremmerz as an esoteric physician, than as an esotericist proper. The book gives an idea of the Italian occult scene around the year 1900 and Daffi tries to show that even when ‘the master’ is of high calibre, his followers not necessarily are as well.
As appendices you will get some texts of Kremmerz. Some purely organisational for the Myriam groups, but also his introduction to magic. For more about that side of Kremmerz, I refer the recently reviewed The Hermetic Science of Transformation.
