“Astrology, magic and alchemy are the three occult (in the original sense of hidden) Hermetic sciences. All three are interconnected in practice and share the underpinning of Hermetic philosophy. Magic, says the Renaissance mage Cornelius Agrippa, "is the most perfect, and chief science, that sacred, and sublimer kind of philosophy and lastly the most absolute perfection of all most excellent philosophy." Three Books of Occult Philosophy Bk.I, Chap. 2.
The Harrian Sabian mage and scientist Thabit Ibn Qurra says, "...one who studies philosophy and geometry and every other science, but remains ignorant of astrology, will labor in vain, because the more worthwhile geometry and the higher philosophy is the science of astrological magic literally images. De Imaginibus chapter 1. For the Renaissance occult philosopher magic was a spiritual science which, like the Cosmos itself, was arranged in a triple hierarchy: material, celestial and divine.”
“Celestial or astrological magic thus concerns itself with the middle world, that of the Zodiacal powers, which are a universal archetype of Reality and control the generation and corruption of all things in the material realm. The celestial corresponds to the middle world of the Alam al-Mithal the imaginal world, where the divine ideas take on form and physical things lose their materiality. It is, therefore, a central and ideal interface with the spiritual. Thus astrological magic combines astrological timing of ritual with ceremonial magic and invocation of celestial spirits, like the angels of planets, the planetary hours, the fixed stars, Mansions of the Moon, and other celestial factors. The height of astrological magic is the use of full chart elections and the creation of house based talismans.”