The magic that concerns us here is theoretically a science of the imaginary, which it explores through its own methods and seeks to manipulate at will. At its greatest degree of development, reached in the work of Giordano Bruno, magic is a means of control over the individual and the masses based on deep knowledge of personal and collective erotic impulses. We can observe in it not only the distant ancestor of psychoanalysis but also, first and foremost, that of applied psychosociology and mass psychology.
Insofar as science and the manipulation of phantasms are concerned, magic is primarily directed at the human imagination, in which it attempts to create lasting impressions. The magician of the Renaissance is both psychoanalyst and prophet as well as the precursor of modern professions such as director of public relations, propagandist, spy, politician, censor, director of mass communication media and publicity agent.
The workings of phantasy in the Renaissance are more or less complex: eroticism is the most important, already apparent in the natural world without human intervention. Magic is merely eroticism applied, directed and aroused by its performer. But there are other aspects of the manipulation of phantasms, one of them being the miraculous Art of Memory. The bond between eroticism, mnemonics and magic is indissoluble to such an extent that it is impossible to understand the third without first having studied the principles and mechanisms of the first two...
p. xviii
Couliano, Ioan P., Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, Univ. Chicago,1987.