Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was a Renaissance occultist who wrote massive, deeply influential textbooks on magic but spent his final years desperately claiming that all magic was actually completely useless.

A closer look

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was a Renaissance occultist who wrote massive, deeply influential textbooks on magic but spent his final years desperately claiming that all magic was actually completely useless. After spending decades compiling the definitive guide to summoning angels, understanding astrology, and harnessing the hidden mystical energies of the universe, he suddenly published a book calling it all nonsense. He strongly argued that humans were far too stupid to understand the divine, and that chasing occult secrets was just an elaborate waste of time that mostly leads to severe poverty and social exile. His followers were so heavily invested in his earlier work that they simply decided his terrifying demonic familiars forced him to write the retraction to throw the church off his magical scent. You really have to feel bad for a guy who tries to honestly apologize for being a massive grifter, only to have his fans insist it is just another incredibly deep layer of his mystical genius