‘Okkulte Strömungen im 17. Jahrhundert,’ translated into German by Andreas Beriger, Friedrich Ueberwegs Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, Reihe 5, 17. Jahrhundert, Band 1, ed. J.-P. Schobinger (Basel: Schwabe, 1998), 196–224.

The seventeenth century was a period of transition in which the broadly superstitious world-view of the Renaissance was being replaced by the rationalism characteristic of the eighteenth century. However, this transition was not a smooth progression, and for most of the century occultist and enlightened modes of thought existed side by side, even in one and the same individual. Indeed, most aspects of occultism reached their peak only around the middle of the century, when the New Philosophy was already rapidly in the ascendant. This was possible because the two tendencies were not generally perceived as diametrically opposed, but rather as allies against a common enemy, namely the established Christian Aristotelianism of the universities and the Church. It was only towards the end of the century, after the latter world-view had been generally replaced by a new orthodoxy of rational and experimental science, that there was any room for occultism as a distinct and consciously anti-scientific movement.

The relevant source material is so vast in quantity and so wide-ranging in scope, that any selection is bound to be somewhat arbitrary. Although the present chapter is principally concerned with current scholarship in English, it retains a wider, European perspective. It concentrates on the extent to which the intellectual background from which the New Philosophy emerged was permeated by superstitious tendencies. It is divided into five sections, dealing with the following main aspects of seventeenth-century occultism: (1) Magic (natural, spiritual and demonic), (2) astrology, (3) Hermeticism (including alchemy), (4) veneration of ancient and oriental wisdom and (5) the formation of secret societies.

The following classification of types of magic will be adopted: (a) Natural Magic: powers existing in physical objects which the magician can tap through his knowledge of them. (b) Spiritual Magic: powers possessed by individual humans in virtue of their own spirit. (c) Demonic Magic: powers depending on the intervention of non-human spirits, good or evil. However, it was always an important and controversial question how any particular form of magic was to be categorised, since magicians did not want to be taken as believing in something which would be either damnable or impossible (Walker 1958 [223]).

During the seventeenth century, one of the most widely read and influential works on natural magic was the Magiae naturalis libri XX [12] of Giovanni Battista della Porta (1535–1615). Most of Book I is devoted to explaining the possibility of natural magic in terms of Neoplatonic metaphysics: the magician can control nature through his rational knowledge of celestial Forms, which are the archetypes of the forms of earthly things, in which their virtues and efficacies reside. But the grandiose claims of the first book find little echo in the remaining nineteen, which contain a strange mixture of on the one hand original experiments in catoptrics, statics, magnetism and practical chemistry; and on the other a much larger mass of superstitious lore about farming, hunting, home economics, cosmetics, medicine and alchemy (despite repeated exhortations that deference for authority be replaced by empirical experiment). Yet contemporaries such as Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) or Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who have traditionally been regarded as fathers of modern science, belonged to the same intellectual milieu: Galileo co-operated with della Porta in the Accademia dei Lincei; and Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum [1] was hardly less credulous, and certainly less experimental than della Porta’s Magia naturalis.

During the first half of the seventeenth century an enormous number of books in the same genre as della Porta’s continued to be published, of which some typical examples are: Tommaso Campanella’s De sensu rerum et magia rerum [2], Rudolph Goclenius’s Mirabilium naturae liber [6], Wolfgang Hildebrand’s Magia naturalis [7], Valerio Martini’s Magia physica foecunda [10], and Antonio Zara’s Anatomia ingeniorum et scientiarum [15]. Indeed, they constitute a distinct literary genre to such an extent that it is sometimes unclear how far their authors seriously intended their contents to be understood as strictly true, and how far merely as rhetorical exercises. Similar works were still written during the latter part of the century, e.g. Christian Friedrich Garmann’s De miraculis mortuorum [5], Johannes N. Martius’s Dissertatio de magia naturali [11], and Sylvester Rattray’s Aditus novus ad occultas sympathiae et antipathiae causas inveniendas [13]. However, the majority of people interested in this area now tended to gravitate to more popular rival movements such as Hermeticism, Cartesianism, or the experimentalism of the new scientific societies. On the other hand, some writers still tried to keep natural magic up to date by reformulating its traditional tenets in terms of effluences of very subtle matter, much in the style of the hypotheses of René Descartes (1596–1650) about the functioning of the nervous system in his Traité de l’Homme (Oeuvres, ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, 2nd ed., Paris, 1964–1974, vol. 11, pp. 119–202); for instance the Cartesian Antoine le Grand (Historia naturae [8], and Curiosus rerum abditarum naturaeque arcanorum perscrutator [9]), and G.B. de Saint-Romain (Science naturelle [14]).

In particular, many writers tried to give corpuscularian explanations of two widely accepted magical remedies: the sympathetic powder and the weapon-salve — their most famous advocate being Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–1665). In his Discours . . . touchant la guérison des playes par la poudre de sympathie [4], he insists that he has first-hand evidence that it is not magical (it does not depend on the intervention of demons or spirits — p.23); and that it can be explained in terms of corpuscular philosophy. Most of the work consists in an exposition of seven basic principles of corpuscular philosophy: 1. The sphere of the air is filled with light, which is a material substance emanating from the sun and bouncing off physical objects. 2. Light striking physical objects makes their surfaces evaporate infinitesimally, and creates wind. 3. Air consists of atoms; but there are no pure elements — everything is mixed in everything — and living organisms and chemical substances can grow by taking up similar particles from the air. 4. Everything is infinitely divisible, and detectable particles can be carried a great distance. 5. Corpuscles in the air can be attracted to bodies by a variety of forces. 6. Hot bodies have a special attraction for corpuscles in the air which have the same nature. 7. When corpuscles in the air are attracted they bring along with them whatever is attached to them. On p.73, he begins his explanation of the sympathetic powder. A bandage stained with the injured person’s blood is put into a bowl of water at blood temperature, in which vitriol has been dissolved. The volatile part of the vitriol, which has healing properties, becomes attached to the blood particles. They are dispersed into the atmosphere, and the blood particles, together with the vitriol, are attracted by the victim’s body because of their similar nature, and the vitriol has its healing effect. Digby does not mention the weapon salve by name here, but on pp.191–3, he says that the remedy will also work using the weapon which injured the victim, since the weapon absorbs blood particles. However, the blood particles are driven off if the weapon is heated, and it is then of no use. In the Two treatises [3], of which the first is a detailed exposition of Digby’s scientific theories (as summarised above), on pp.164–165 he gives the same explanation of the sympathetic powder and weapon salve, in order to show that well-attested but apparently magical phenomena have a perfectly natural explanation. He makes it clear that the weapon salve is the same thing as the sympathetic powder, only applied to the weapon rather than to the bloody bandage. In the Treatise, he does not reveal the secret that the powder is vitriol.

Parallel with attempts to adapt magic to the mechanical world-view, there also survived respects in which the modernising thinkers themselves were still influenced by magical modes of thought. The magical principle that like is known by like, which was basic to Plato’s epistemology, is still discernible in Descartes’ assumption that material objects are perceived by material animal spirits in the brain, but abstract truths only by the immaterial soul (Meditations II in Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, Oeuvres, 2nd edn., Paris, 1964–1974, vol. 9, pp. 18–26); and similarly John Locke (1632–1704) conceptualised logical connection in terms of the ‘agreement’ and ‘disagreement’ or ‘repugnancy’ of ideas (Essay IV.i.2 etc.), these terms being equivalent to the magical sympathia and antipathia, as for example in the English translation of della Porta’s Magia naturalis ([12] (1658): Bk.I chh. 2, 7. pp.2, 8]). But even if there was not yet an absolute distinction between magic and science, there was a growing consciousness of the need for such a distinction. By the last decade of the century, the orthodox opinion was that all forms of magical thought must be strictly avoided, even though there might be disagreement as to what should count as magical. Thus Isaac Newton (1642–1727) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) agreed that occult forces had to be excluded from any rational account of nature, and disagreed only as to whether Newton’s gravitational force was itself occult (Hall 1980 [239]). Anyone who was willing to make deliberate appeal to magical principles would now, for the first time, be isolating himself from the mainstream of scientific and philosophical development, and identifying himself as an occultist.

In contrast with the relatively coherent but short-lived genre of books on natural magic, belief in various forms of spiritual magic has a long history, but is much more disparate. This section will include just a few examples which were taken seriously in the educated world.

First, it has always been a popular folk belief that some individuals have the power to charm away certain diseases, perhaps the commonest example being the charming away of warts. A more elevated form of this superstition was the French and English rite of the Royal Touch for curing scrofula (hence known as le mal du roi or ‘the King’s evil’). In England at the beginning of the seventeenth century, King James I (= VI of Scotland) (1566–1625) tried to put an end to the ceremony on the grounds that it was superstitious, but was persuaded to continue it. From 1634 until the middle of the eighteenth century, a form of service for the rite was appended to various editions of the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church [18]. The ritual reached its peak of popularity during the reign of Charles II (1660–1685), who is recorded as having ministered to an average of nearly 5,000 people a year. It was abolished by the Protestant King William III (1689–1702), but restored by Queen Anne (1702–1714), who used a special magnet to amplify her powers, and who numbered the infant Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) among her patients. In France the ritual survived till the revolution, and was briefly revived even in the nineteenth century. For contemporary descriptions, see John Evelyn (1620–1706) (Diary, 6.vii.1660 [24: vol. 3 pp. 250–251]) and John Browne (1642–1700?) Charisma basilicon [21]; for the forms of service, see Simpson 1871 [241]; for secondary literature see Farquhar 1916–1919 [242], Bloch 1924 [213] and Thomas 1973, ch. 7 [202]. Some contemporary theorists accepted that kings did have special healing powers, but rationalised them as being granted by God (thus making them miraculous rather than magical, insofar as that was a viable distinction); e.g. Candido Brognolo (b.1607) (Alexicacon [20: vol, 2 p. 74]). Others rejected as heretical and superstitious the idea that any human could have such powers, and attributed any success merely to the sovereign’s intercession with God; e.g. Reginald Scot (1538?–1599) (Discoverie, XIII.ix [33]), Juan Lazaro Gutiérrez (De fascino [29: pp. 153–6]) and Johann Christian Frommann (b.1640?) (De fascinatione [26: pp. 296–7]); and some, especially Protestant thinkers, rejected it altogether.

Belief in a healing touch was not, however, confined to that of kings. The most famous seventeenth-century ‘stroker’ was Valentine Greatrakes (1629–1683), who was championed by John Flamsteed (1646–1719), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wilkins (1614–1672), Lady Anne Conway (1631–1679), and other leading intellectuals. He himself thought he had a miraculous power bestowed directly by God; others believed he was a trickster, or that he had diabolical assistance, or that his cures depended on material effluvia. See Greatrakes’ Brief account [28], Henry Stubbe’s (1632–1676) Miraculous conformist [35], Joseph Glanvill’s (1636–1680) Saducismus triumphatus [27: Pt. I pp. 90ff., Pt.II p.247], Robert Boyle’s Works [19: vol. I, Life etc. pp.45–53], and Anne Conway’s Letters [23: pp. 244–275].

Secondly, it was a common belief, both among the people and among philosophers, that individuals could work effects by looking. The primitive notion of the evil eye had long been incorporated into a metaphysical theory according to which the visual stream, as already propounded e.g. by Plato in Theaetetus 156A–E and Timaeus 45B–46C, could affect the objects it touched. The deliberate binding of another creature to one’s will by means of the visual stream was known as ‘fascination’ (fascinatio); and a closely related vehicle of magic power was the imagination (imaginatio), since it was believed that images of the imagination were not merely internal to the consciousness, but could be projected along with, or in a way analogous to, the visual stream, and thus work effects and even be received by others. It is clear that the magical notions of fascination and imagination were parasitic on the visual-stream theory of perception; but it is important to remember that this theory was still dominant at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Quite apart from writers firmly within the occult tradition, such as della Porta (Magia naturalis [12 (1658): VIII.14]), we find scholastics such as Francesco Suàrez (1548–1617) defending a version of the visual-stream theory against the new philosophy’s location of images wholly within the mind (De anima, III.ii. xvii, in Opera, Paris 1856–1861, vol. 3 pp.616–525, 670–673); and in propounding the new philosophy itself, its champions such as Galileo (Il saggiatore, Ed. Nazionale, Florence 1890–1909, vol. 6, pp. 347–351), Descartes (Traité de la lumière, in Oeuvres, ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, 2nd edn., Paris 1964–1974, vol. 11, pp. 3–6) and Locke (Essay II.viii.7–8, Oxford 1975, p. 134) expected their readers to be unfamiliar with the idea that images are internal to the mind. But even after the conscious abandonment of the visual-stream theory, it was still possible to retain a belief in the reality of fascination: thus, Bacon (Sylva sylvarum [1: cent. 10, §950]) attributed any true cases to the agency of demons, whereas others tried to account for it as a natural process depending on other, material effluvia; e.g. Daniel Sennert (1572–1637): Medicina practica, [34 (III): Lib. 6 Pars 9, pp.1126–1157], Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680): Mundus subterraneus [30 (II): p.112], and the otherwise markedly anti-occultist Étienne Chauvin (1640–1725): Lexicon rationale [22: s.v. fascinatio, folios Ff recto to Ff2 verso].

One idea which was peculiarly resistant to scepticism was the belief, derived from Avicenna and Algazel (Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 7 p.476]), that a mother’s powerful imaginations could become imprinted on the mind of her unborn child. It was retained by many seventeenth-century writers, such as Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) (Opera, Frankfurt, Erlangen 1858–1871, vol. 2, p.726; vol. 5, p. 263), Sylvester Rattray (Aditus novus ad occultas sympathiae et antipathiae causas inveniendas [13: p.113]), Caspar Schott (1608–1666) (Physica curiosa [37: p. 1304]) and Daniel Sennert (Medicina practica [34: vol. 3, pp.118–119, 786–790]), including some as sceptical of the occult as Descartes (de l’Homme, in Oeuvres, ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, 2nd edn., Paris 1964–1974, vol. 11, p. 176) and Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) (De phantasia, in Opera, Lyons 1658, vol. 2, p.424).

These divergent accounts of fascination exemplify a serious problem about the distinction between superstition and rationality. If it is said that the magical effects of imagination are superstitious because they imply influence of mind over matter, then it should also be said that the Cartesian belief that mind can influence matter within the brain is equally irrational. This very criticism was indeed fundamental to the positions of the occasionalist school, and of Leibniz (e.g. Théodicée I. 60–61, in Philosophischen Schriften, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. 6, pp. 135–6). If, on the other hand, it is said that fascination is magical on the grounds that it involves action at a distance, then it is on a par with phenomena such as magnetism and gravitation. It is true that different theories were given to account for the mediation of the two types of force: the physicist appealed to a universal material ether, the magician to an all-pervasive spirit (spiritus) (Putscher 1973 [233]). But whereas the rational soul or mind (mens, anima) was generally considered to be wholly immaterial, the spirit (or ‘animal spirits’) was conceived as an extremely rarefied form of matter, e.g. by Descartes (de l’Homme, in Oeuvres, ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, 2nd edn., Paris 1964–1974, vol. 11). Consequently it is unclear how any objective distinction can here be drawn between the magical and the scientific theory (though the theoretical contexts of ‘ether’ and ‘spirit’ were still very different). On the other hand, some modern magicians would insist upon the contrast between magic and materialism, and see seventeenth-century accounts of imagination as preparing the way for a radical alternative to the mind/matter dichotomy itself: first Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) gave imagination a central role in the genesis of the world of common experience, and then Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) elevated it into a principle rivalling scientific knowledge (Knight 1978, ch. 1 [236]).

Various other beliefs about spiritual powers were taken very seriously during the seventeenth century, with broadly comparable positions being taken up by different writers. Perhaps the most popular example was divining for water or metals (Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 7, pp.495–498]); but interest was also shown in other forms of divination. At the practical end of the spectrum we find professional occultists such as William Lilly (1602–1681), who had considerable influence on English society and politics, making use of a crystal ball for divination, presumably to avoid dependence on demonic intermediaries (History of his life [32]); and at the theoretical end, we find enthusiasts such as Robert Fludd (1574–1637) trying to revive the science of geomancy, whereby a geomancer could, in a state of ecstasy, emit mental rays which penetrated the macrocosm and returned with warnings of the future (Tractatus de geomantia [25]). Apart from those involving spirits, which will be considered in the next section, the methods of divination commonest in the twentieth century do not seem to have been practised in the seventeenth: fortune-telling by tarot cards was an eighteenth-century fiction (Dummett 1980 [237: pp.102–163]); and telepathy or extra-sensory perception in the modern sense was largely parasitic on the discovery of radio waves. Even though writers like John Wilkins (1614–1672) maintained that communication was possible over a relatively short distance by means of ‘magnetic powers’, he generally attributed extra-sensory perception to the mediation of angels (Mercury [36: chaps 15 and 19]). Seventeenth-century divinatory beliefs were essentially Renaissance in character, depending on an enthusiastic acceptance and amalgamation of anything to be found in classical or Judaeo-Christian sources. There is a marked discontinuity between these and subsequent beliefs, which have owed far more to pseudo-science, and Oriental and Gothic romanticism.

Most magical beliefs involved non-human spirits, which virtually everyone continued to believe in until well after the seventeenth century. Although there was a growing preference for experience over authority, the existence of normally invisible beings was assumed to have been proved by an overwhelming weight of testimony, especially that of the Bible, and of the most respected classical philosophers, such as Socrates. To deny spirits was tantamount to atheism; and outright atheism was still an unthinkable position (Allen 1964, [227: preface and ch. 1]). Consequently, the difference between sceptics and those who believed in demonic magic was not cosmological, but one about what was possible in practice, or theologically permissible. Here it is important to distinguish Catholic and Protestant attitudes. Most Catholics thought it was both feasible and legitimate to summon the aid of saints and angels; and among the other spirits acknowledged by the Church to exist, although it was a sin to invoke evil ones, the only serious objection to invoking good spirits was the danger that prayers might be answered by evil ones in disguise. It was in order to avoid suspicions of this predicament that most magicians confined themselves to natural magic. But for Protestants, e.g. Jean-Baptiste Thiers (1636–1703), many Catholic practices, such as the invocation of saints, were themselves blasphemous or superstitious (Traité des superstitions [75]), and any claims to magical powers involving the mediation of spirits were much more questionable (Thomas 1973 [202: ch. 2]).

At the theoretical level, there were many books devoted wholly to questions about the nature of angels, devils and other spirits. Typical was the De angelis of Agostino Oregio (1577–1635) [67]; for other examples see Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 8, p.547, n.30]). Innumerable other authors devoted substantial sections of their writings to these questions, in particular the survivors of the scholastic tradition, e.g. Théophile Reynaud (1587–1663) (Opera [70: vol. 9, p.771; vol. 12, p.249]), and the Cambridge Platonists and their entourage, e.g. Samuel Hartlib (1600?–1662) (Worthington’s Diary [81: vol.. 1, pp.356–375]); but also more modern thinkers such as Robert Burton (1577–1640) (Anatomy of melancholy [50: Pt. 1, sec. 2, mem. 1, subs. 2), Locke (Essay II.xxiii.13, 36; III.vi.11–12, Oxford 1975: pp.303–304, 316, 445–447) and Leibniz (Philosophischen Schriften, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. 4, p.556; vol. 6, pp.539–555). Descartes’ supposition that he might be deceived by a mauvais genie (Principiae I.v–vi, xxxix; Meditations I: in Oeuvres, ed. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, 2nd edn., Paris 1964–1974, vol. 8, pp. 6, 19–20; vol. 9, p.17) would have seemed perfectly natural to his readers, many of whom accepted the ancient belief that each person had his own attendant good and evil spirit. Most discussions were firmly within the continuing demonological tradition derived from Biblical and classical sources. But an interesting exception was The Secret Commonwealth [62] of the Scottish minister Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle (1644?–1692), which was a detailed account of the world of fairies, insofar as he could piece it together from alleged first-hand accounts and the traditional folk-lore of the Scottish Highlands. His purpose was to give empirical support to Christianity by confirming the Biblical doctrine of the existence of non-human spirits; and in this he enjoyed the encouragement of like-minded establishment figures such as Robert Boyle (Works, London 1744, vol. 1, pp.119–130). Since spiritualist beliefs were universal, the seventeenth century did not need to make any sharp discrimination between sophisticated and primitive forms of them.

At the practical level, belief in spirits had significant repercussions mainly in two particular areas: (i) conjuring, and (ii) sorcery.

The term conjuring is here used to mean contacting spirits in order to obtain information, usually about the future, but sometimes about the present (e.g. missing objects), or the past (e.g. unsolved crimes). The most venerable precedents for spiritual divination were the oracles of Ancient Greece and Rome. They were often discussed at length during the seventeenth century (Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 8, pp.476–477]), sometimes with approval, e.g. by Méric Casaubon (1599–1671) in Credulity and incredulity [52: pp.141–142]; sometimes not, e.g. by Bernard Le Bouvier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) in Histoire des oracles [57]. But they were too closely associated with overt paganism ever to be seriously revived or imitated as living institutions, even though there were periodic manifestations of prophesying in the ancient style, in particular the prophets championed by Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670) in his Lux in tenebris, hoc est prophetiae donum [53] and other writings.

Another controversial form of conjuring was necromancy, which also had well-known ancient precedents, both in the classical legend of Odysseus consulting the ghost of Teiresias (Odyssey XI) and in the Biblical story of Saul requiring the pythoness of Endor to summon up the ghost of Samuel (I Samuel xxviii). British discussions of the latter were complicated by the fact that ‘pythoness’ was translated as ‘witch’ in the Authorised Version of the Bible [61], perhaps because King James had described her as such in his Daemonologie [59: p. 29]. Although necromancy was also avoided during the seventeenth century, this was not because it was prohibited in the Bible, since Mosaic law condemned consultation with any spirit (Leviticus xix.31, xx.27; Deuteronomy xviii.10–11), and other forms of spiritualism were widespread; but because it was generally believed to be impossible. Many Protestant writers, such as Reginald Scot (1538?–1599) in Discoverie of Witchcraft [33: Bk. 7, Ch. 9; Bk. 8, chh. 1–3; Bk. 9, ch. 7] and John Webster (1610–1682) in Displaying of supposed Witchcraft ch. 4 [79: p.58] blamed Catholicism for perpetuating superstitious belief in ghosts, on the grounds that the doctrine of Purgatory, combined with a failure to realise that the age of miracles had ceased, encouraged the supposition that the souls of the newly dead could miraculously return to earth just as Christ himself had done. But among the most credulous believers in ghosts were Protestants such as Joseph Glanvill (Saducismus triumphatus [27: Pt. 2]) and Richard Burthogge (1638?–1700?) (Upon Reason [49: pp. 225–231]); whereas the typical Catholic position was that of Marin Mersenne (1588–1648), who explicitly denied that souls could return either of their own volition or summoned by any necromancer (Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim [63: cols. 583–586]). The normal explanation of ghosts was that they were evil demons which had made themselves visible by condensing the air into a human form: e.g. King James (Daemonologie [59: pp. 61–65]), Francisco Torreblanca Villalpando (d.1645) (Daemonologia, [77: ch. 28]) and Johann Heinrich Decker (1665–1707) (Spectrologia [54: pp. 145ff.]). Some Neoplatonists, such as John Webster (Displaying of supposed Witchcraft [79: pp.311–320]), maintained that ghosts were the fading traces of the ‘astral body’ (i.e. the ‘animal spirits’ as contrasted with the rational soul); but few followed Reginald Scot in explaining ghosts away as nothing but the product of melancholic imaginations on the grounds that spirits could not influence matter (Treatise upon the nature and substances of spirits and devils, [33: ch. 32]). This wide range of beliefs was reflected in the ambiguous portrayal of ghosts in contemporary literature, e.g. in Hamlet (1604) by William Shakespeare and Dr. Faustus (1589) by Christopher Marlowe (Wilson 1935, ch. 3 [243: pp.52–86]). As for actual attempts to communicate with the spirit world, there was as much resort as at any time to séances, mediums, crystal balls etc., but because necromancy was taboo, the spirits contacted were invariably identified as angels, not as the spirits of the dead: e.g. Méric Casaubon: A true and faithful relation of Dr. John Dee [51], and William Lilly: History of his life [32: pp. 22, 47, 83, 95, 97].

The term sorcery is here used to mean the employment of spirits to work effects in the world. Belief in various forms of sorcery survived into the seventeenth century, one example being the persistent Faust theme. Quite apart from references in literature, there were cases of people who believed they had actually made Faustian pacts with the Devil (Thomas 1973 [202: p.564]). But by now all types of sorcery were generally subsumed under the peculiarly Christian form of witchcraft.

The witch craze reached its height during the first half of the seventeenth century, and although witches were hunted with roughly equal vigour by Protestants and Catholics alike, there were virtually no outbreaks in areas untouched by the Reformation, such as Spain and Southern Italy (Lea 1957 [217: pp. 1069–1074], Davies 1948 [244]). However, the precise timing of its rise and fall, and the details of its characteristics depended on local factors. England differed from the rest of Europe in that the crime was not the making of a pact with the Devil as such, but whatever harm was done by means of the pact — although King James, shortly after his accession to the English throne, did try to bring English law into line with Scottish and Continental practice with his Act against Conjuration of 1604 [60]. Again, since confessions could not be exacted by torture under English law, there was much less cruelty, and a far higher proportion of acquittals than elsewhere. The main reason why prosecutions rapidly petered out after about 1660 was the increasing reluctance of judges to convict on the sort of evidence available. In Germany the persecution of witches was far more thorough than in the rest of Europe, especially during the Thirty Years War (1618–1648); but much depended on the attitudes of individual rulers. Maximilian I of Bavaria (1573–1651) was responsible for repressive anti-witchcraft laws; whereas in Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn (1605–1673) was one of the first to stop witch trials; and Frederick I of Prussia (1657–1713) did not put an end to them till the very end of the century. In Austria, witch hunts began only under the fanatical occultist Rudolph II (1552–1612), and did not die out till after about 1690. In France there was little persecution in central regions since it was discouraged by the Parlement of Paris; but there were major outbreaks of witch-hunting in the provinces, fostered largely by trial judges such as Henri Boguet (1550?–1619) in Burgundy (Discours des sorciers [47]) and Pierre de l’Ancre (1553–1631) in the Basque area (L’incrédulité et mescréance du sortilège [42]). In 1682, Louis XIV (1643–1715) passed an edict which changed the crime to that of pretending to perform acts of magic and witchcraft. For the general history of the witch craze, see Soldan 1912 [212], Lehmann 1925 [214], Lea 1939 [217], Wagner 1939 [218], Zwetsloot 1954 [219], Robbins 1959 [224], Caro Baroja 1961 [225], Baschwitz 1963 [226], Ginzburg 1966 [229], Mandrou 1968 [230], Midelfort 1972 [232], Monter 1976 [234], Anglo 1977 [235], Larner 1981 [240].

Scepticism about witchcraft took three main forms. Historically the most significant form was that which conceded the reality of witchcraft, but doubted the adequacy of the methods used in interrogating and trying alleged witches. King James, despite his earlier belief that he himself had been subject to maleficium, and despite his enthusiasm for rooting out witchcraft at the beginning of his reign, towards the end of his life discouraged witch trials because of doubts as to their fairness. Similarly, the Jesuit Friedrich Spee (1591–1635), while still believing in the existence of witches, risked the anger of his superiors by publishing his sceptical Cautio criminalis [73], and influenced Schönborn to stop witch trials in Mainz (Leibniz: Théodicée, I. 96–97, in Philosophischen Schriften, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. 6, pp. 156–157; Zwetsloot 1954 [219]). Other sceptics of this type were Gabriel Naudé (1600–1653), in Apologie pour tous les grands personnages qui ont étés faussement soupçonnés de magie [66], Nicolas de Malebranche (1638–1715), in Recherche de la vérité, Bk. 2, Pt. 3, Ch. 6, §1, in Oeuvres, Paris 1962, vol. 1, pp.370–376, and Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) in Réponse aux questions d’un Provincial [45: Pt. 1, Chh. 33–39].

The second kind of sceptic still accepted a cosmology which included demons and spirits, but had broadly theological reasons for denying that they could aid witches. Some dismissed all cases of alleged witchcraft as melancholic delusions; others were prepared to concede that witches had some of the powers attributed to them, but held that these could be explained naturalistically in terms of spiritual effluences. The classical exponents of this approach belonged to the previous century: Johann Wier (1515–1588): De praestigiis daemonum [80], and Reginald Scot (1538?–1599): Discoverie of witchcraft [33]. They were imitated in the seventeenth century by Tobias Tandler (1571–1617): Dissertationes de spectris, de fascino et incantatione [74], Thomas Ady: A candle in the dark [41], John Wagstaffe (1633–1677): Question of witchcraft [78], and John Webster (1610–1682): Displaying of supposed witchcraft [79].

The third and most extreme form of scepticism was to rule out witchcraft as inconceivable on philosophical grounds. One approach was to deny the intelligibility of supposing that spirits, as utterly immaterial substances, could have any interaction with the material world. There are already hints of this in Reginald Scot, in the Treatise upon the nature and substances of spirits and devils [33: ch. 32]; and Henry More (1614–1687), in Enchiridion metaphysicum [65: Bk. I, ch. 27], attributes this position (which he refers to as ‘nullibism’) to Descartes — probably correctly, although Descartes is silent about the whole question in his extant writings. However, this particular philosophical position had little influence because the problem of interaction between the spiritual and the physical was one of the most vulnerable points of Cartesian dualism itself. A more radical approach was to deny the dualism of good and evil spirits by abolishing the Devil and his agents altogether, leaving only a deistically conceived God, and human souls. This was broadly the position of Balthasar Bekker (1634–1698): De betoverde weereld [46], and Christian Thomasius (1655–1728): De crimine magiae [76]; but it did not become at all widespread till after the witch-craze had died out.

It might be expected that the emerging materialism and scientism of the seventeenth century would have encouraged at least some thinkers to reject all spiritualist beliefs, including witchcraft, as superstitious. But although Bacon, for example, conceived a remarkably sharp contrast between superstition and scientific progress (Sylva sylvarum [1]), in practice his world-view was broadly Neoplatonic, and his attitude to witchcraft similar to that of Scot and Webster: he accepted the existence of a hierarchy of spirits (The advancement of learning, London 1605, I.vi.3), but maintained that we should have no dealings with them, still less worship them (II.vi.2). Hobbes, on the other hand, explicitly denied the existence of spiritual substance as such; and although Biblical testimony forced him (like the Epicureans of antiquity) to allow the existence of demons and angels as corporeal substances, he denied that they ever appeared to men, or performed any magical or divinatory functions (Leviathan, London 1651, chh. 2, 34, 45). Spinoza’s position was almost identical: although the existence of angels was known by divine revelation (Cogitata metaphysica II, in Opera, Heidelberg 1924–1926, vol. 1, p.275]), any reports of earthly manifestations of spirits were to be treated as superstitious delusions (Letter to Boxel, in ibid., vol. 4, pp. 241–262).

Although their contemporaries were wrong to call Hobbes and Spinoza atheists, they were justified in seeing their philosophies as preparing the way for those philosophers of the eighteenth century who were to reject every form of supernatural belief, and thereby make enthusiastic spiritualists seem all the more superstitious by contrast. But while the existence of the soul, God, angels etc. was taken for granted throughout the seventeenth century, there was already a marked change in their significance for the more advanced philosophical systems. In contrast to scholastic Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism, the spiritualist content of the new philosophies was retained more out of habit or deference to religion than as being philosophically necessitated. For example, when Locke (Essay II.23.13 and 36; III.6.11–12, Oxford 1975, pp. 303f., 316, 445–447) or Leibniz (Philosophischen Schriften, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. 4, p.556; vol. 6, pp. 539–555) talked about angels, it was not out of any particular interest in angelology as such, but in order to illustrate general philosophical points about the nature of the soul, of perception, or of abstract knowledge.

Belief in astrology, which had been steadily increasing during the sixteenth century, reached its peak during the first half of the seventeenth. In England in particular, there was a final upsurge during the period of the Commonwealth (1648–1660). Unlike belief in magic and spirits, which constituted essential ingredients of a whole Zeitgeist, there had never been any consensus about astrology among the educated classes. However, although this makes it difficult to give any overall picture of astrological belief for any period, it is possible to discern three distinct phases in the evolution of the controversy during the seventeenth century.

In the earliest phase, arguments about astrology were dominated by its relation to the Christian religion, though not to the complete exclusion of empirical and philosophical issues. The Church was officially opposed to astrology; but there was always a certain amount of hypocrisy and disobedience even within the hierarchy, and repeated pronouncements against it were necessary. In 1631, Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644) felt constrained to publish the bull inscrutabilis against astrology; yet he himself had employed Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) to draw up his horoscope (Shumaker 1972 [203: p. 54]). Although one might expect Protestants to have been less hostile to astrology on account of their shared belief in a form of predestination, if anything the reverse was the case, presumably because of their special need to distance themselves from any non-Christian variety of fatalism. The principal theological objections to astrology were that it offered a system for explaining and predicting events in competition with that of Christianity; and that it precluded the freedom of the will. The standard defences were that God worked through the astrological causal system just like any other; and that the stars ‘inclined without necessitating’ (see William Lily: History of his life [32], Tommaso Campanella: Astrologorum libri VI [97], George Carleton: Astrologomania [98], John Chambers: Treatise against judicial astrologie [99], Ambrosio Florido: Tractatus de annis climactericis [101], Rudolph Goclenius: Apologeticus pro astromantia discursus [106], Barthellemy Heurtevyn: L’incertitude et tromperie des astrologues judiciaires [108], Christoph Heydon: A defence of judicial astrology [109], Hugh Semple: De mathematicis disciplinis [113]. However, many other considerations were raised: to give just one example, there was the claim of Claude Pithoys (1587–1676), in his Traité curieux de l’astrologie judiciaire [112] that when astrologers made correct predictions, this was only because they had unwittingly been aided by evil spirits.

During the second phase, the New Philosophy had to be taken into account, but without there yet being any agreement as to how it affected astrology. The growing acceptance of the heliocentric hypothesis had a relatively minor impact, since astrological theory depended mainly on the apparent positions of the heavenly bodies at particular points on the surface of the earth. Kepler was unusual in that, although he was sympathetic to astrology, he argued that the doctrine of conjunctions could have no basis in reality since the planets were still very distant from each other (Tertius interveniens, theses 34–35, in Opera, Frankfurt, Erlangen 1858–1871, vol. 1, pp.574–575). Nor was the increasing popularity of materialism and corpuscularianism of much significance, since astrological influences could easily be, and indeed were, held to be mediated by microscopic particles, just like gravitational or magnetic forces. What did matter was the new dedication to reason and experiment at the expense of authority. This meant that astrology now had to stand or fall by the criteria of the new scientific methodology. Some of its opponents rejected it precisely because they saw it as ‘scientific’, and consequently as anti-religious; and there were still traces of the popular identification of astrologers with mathematicians (Thomas 1973 [202: pp.426–7, 430–1]). For their part, the astrologers themselves were mostly keen on the new advances in science, and their almanacs played an important role in disseminating the new scientific ideas (Capp 1979 [257: ch. 6]). Many of the new scientists and their supporters were sympathetic to astrology: e.g. Kepler (Hammer 1971 [254]); Galileo (Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 7, pp.35–36]); Bacon (De augmentis, London 1623, Bk. 3. ch. 4); Cartesians such as Claude Gadrois (Discours sur les influences des astres [103]; Robert Burton (Anatomy of melancholy [50: Pt. 1, sec. 2, mem. 1, subs. 4]); Thomas Browne (Pseudodoxia Epidemica [96: Bk. 4, ch. 13]; Henry Oldenburg (Correspondence, Madison 1965, vol. 1, pp. 281, 308); Kenelm Digby (Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 7, p.498]); and even Locke recommended picking medicinal herbs at the astrologically propitious moment (Cranston 1957 [252: p.91]).

But the ways in which astrology was defended as part of the new science depended on the wider attitudes of the individual. On the whole, those of a rationalist and Platonic disposition saw astrology as embodying only general truths expressive of the analogies between macrocosm and microcosm, and they defended it as such. An extreme example of this approach was Kepler’s attempt to relate the planetary orbits to the series of Platonic solids (Mysterium cosmographicum, chh. 2–9, in Opera, Frankfurt, Erlangen 1858–1871, vol. 1, pp. 122–133); more conventional was the attitude of Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654) (Pharmacopoeia [100: Epistle to Reader]), who was primarily concerned with analogies between herbs and the planets (the doctrine of ‘signatures’). But most people were interested in astrology as a system for predicting particular events, whether of individual or national significance; and as such it could be established, if at all, only by empirical methods. Works such as the Brief Lives of John Aubrey (1626–1697), ed. A. Clark, Oxford 1898, were intended as a mass of biographical facts from which astrological generalisations might be extrapolated. See also Antonio Francisco de Bonattis: Universa astrosophia naturalis [95], John Gadbury: Collectio geniturarum [102], John Goad: Astro-Meteorologica [105], Jean-Baptiste Morin: Astrologia gallica [111], Placido Titi: Physiomathematica [114], Abdias Trew: Nucleus astrologiae correctae [115]. There even existed in London a formally constituted Astrologers’ Club (1649–1658), which in a number of ways foreshadowed the future Royal Society (Elias Ashmole [92: index, s.v. ‘Astrologers’ Club’]). In direct opposition, many books were written claiming that astrology was bad science, going against both reason and experience, e.g. Pierre Gassendi: Physica, II. vi, (in Opera, Lyons 1658, vol. 1, pp.713–752), Jacques de Billy: Le tombeau de l’astrologie judiciaire [94], John Gaule: Pus-mantia [104], Tobias Wagner & Johannes Brand: Astrologia genethliaca destructa [117].

By the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the question of astrology had entered into its final phase, in which it was generally recognised that it had failed to establish its claim to be scientific, and its practitioners were becoming isolated from the scientific establishment as conscious occultists. As early as 1665 there was a conference on comets at the Jesuit Collège de Clermont in Paris without any mention of their significance as omens (Thorndike 1958 [201: vol. 8, pp.324–325]); although the issue of the Journal des Sçavans of 13.i.1681, which was devoted to the 1680 comet, still felt constrained to argue that neither comets nor eclipses were evil omens [110: pp.12–14]. Likewise, Girolamo Vitali (1624–1698) included much material on the experimental verification of astrology in the 1668 edition of his Lexicon mathematicum astronomicum geometricum [116], but this was omitted in the 1690 edition. In general, although some of the more outspoken modernists were prepared to explain why they considered astrology to be an outmoded superstition, e.g. Hobbes (De homine, ch. 14, in Opera latina, London 1839, vol. 2, pp.118–129) and Pierre Bayle (Lettre à M.L.A.D.C. [93]), the majority simply ignored it. By now any refutations were mere coups de grace, since astrology was already doomed: not so much as a result of scientific disproof, but because its practice was rapidly becoming divorced from the mainstream of institutionalised astronomy, and any remaining supporters, such as Johann Ludwig Hannemann (1640–1724) [107], classable as cranks.

The term hermeticism denotes not merely the doctrines derived from the writings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, but an indefinite range of beliefs and attitudes clustered around alchemy. In order to follow its development through the century in which it gave birth to modern chemistry and itself withered away, it is helpful to separate out five aspects, even though these were not always kept distinct at the time.

Firstly, there was the archetypally alchemical search for the philosophers’ stone which would transmute base metals into gold, the alcahest (universal solvent), the elixir of life, the panacea (universal medicine), and other such substances. Despite religious disapproval and even legal sanctions, alchemy flourished more than ever before during the seventeenth century, and was taken very seriously by governments, princes (especially in Germany) and many adherents of the new philosophy.

Intimately connected with this activity was a second aspect, namely the discovery of the facts, techniques and substances which constituted the beginnings of modern chemistry. Sometimes such discoveries were no more than by-products of the search for the stone (e.g. the discovery of phosphorus by Heinrich Brand); at other times they arose from independent practical concerns, such as the improvement of metallurgical techniques. But at the time these contexts were barely discernible, since they involved the same personnel, theories, equipment and even the same places of work (e.g. a mint or a laboratory such as that of the Dukes of Hanover at their mines in the Harz Mountains). Relevant examples of these first two aspects of alchemical literature are Elias Ashmole: Theatrum chemicum Britannicum [131], Basilius Valentinus: Triumph-Wagen antimonii [132], Martin Birrius: De metallorum transmutatione [134], Giuseppe Francesco Borri: La chiave del gabinetto [135], Johann Kunckel: Nützliche Observationes [145], Nicolas Le Fèvre: Traicté de la chimie [146], Nicolas Lémery: Cours de chimie [147], Musaeum Hermeticum reformatum et amplificatum [148], Martin Ruland: Lexicon alchymiae [149], Michael Sendivogius: Novum lumen chymicum [150], and Theatrum chemicum [153].

A third aspect was a tendency to interpret the alchemical process as merely a physical allegory for the deeper reality of the purification and perfection of the soul, analogous to the spiritual exercises of the religious ascetic. There was a continuum of cases between two extremes. At one extreme the spiritual symbolism was paramount, actual laboratory work being either irrelevant, as it was for Michael Maier (1568?–1622) (de Jong 1969 [289]), or even expressly forbidden, as it was in the Rosicrucian Manifestoes (see section 5, below). At the other extreme the spiritual aspect was limited to the ritual of uttering a prayer before embarking on the Work. On the other hand, it has been suggested that at the unconscious level the symbolic meaning of alchemy was always essential to it (Jung 1944 [277], who refers explicitly to the older alchemy up to 1800, and Eliade 1956 [279]).

Closely related to this is the fourth aspect of alchemy, namely the development of a purely practical symbolism. It is impossible even to record experiments without some form of conceptualisation of what is happening; and alchemical symbolism, however fanciful and poetic, did provide a technical language out of which modern terminology has gradually evolved, some terms surviving intact: e.g. the names and symbols of common substances, and more abstract conceptions such as salt, spirit, earth, alkali, sublimate, volatile, etc. (Crosland 1962 [284]).

The fifth major aspect of Hermeticism was its elevation into a complete philosophy based on the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus [142], and championed on the same basis as rival systems such as the Platonic or Stoic. When it first appeared on the modern European scene with the translations by Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century, Hermeticism was not differentiated from Neoplatonism; but by the end of the sixteenth century it had acquired a more distinct identity, particularly through its association with the writings of Paracelsus. During the seventeenth century, although there were close similarities and sympathies between Neoplatonists and Hermeticists, they formed ideologically distinct loyalties. In particular the latter tended to have a marked bias towards interest in medicine. Examples of Hermetic writings of the period are: Oswald Croll: Basilica chymica [137], Nicholas Culpeper: Treatise of aurum potabile [138], Joseph Duschene: Liber de priscorum philosophorum verae medicinae materia [139], Ad veritatem hermeticae medicinae [140], Eirenaeus Philalethes: The marrow of alchemy [141], Robert Fludd: Philosophia Moysaica [143], Jan Baptist van Helmont: Ortus medicinae [144], Daniel Sennert: De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu [151], George Starkey: Nature’s explication and Helmont’s vindication [152], Thomas Vaughan: Anthroposophia theomagica [154], Lumen de lumine [155], John Webster: Academiarum examen [156].

Towards the end of the century there occurred a remarkably rapid metamorphosis of alchemy into what can properly be called chemistry. The contrast between extremes is obvious: the alchemist gave much greater weight to past authority than to experimental evidence; he related his researches to a background of metaphysics, mysticism and myth rather than to other sciences such as physics; his reasoning was analogical and symbolic rather than logical or mathematical; he worked in secret and cloaked his discoveries in obscure language, in preference to co-operative research and public discussion. But there was a transitional period in which the characteristics typical of alchemy became rarer and less extreme, and those of modern chemistry emerged into greater prominence. During the period it makes little sense to ask whether the more advanced thinkers were alchemists or chemists. In the case of Newton, the traditionalism of his alchemical research might make him seem wholly an alchemist; yet, apart from the relative scarcity of mathematical calculation, his style of reasoning is not markedly different from that used in other areas of science (for the abundant literature on Newton as a transitional figure, see McGuire and Rattansi 1966 [285], Dobbs 1975 [291], Figala 1977 [293], Westfall 1976 [299], 1981 [298]). More typical of the transition was Boyle (The sceptical chymist [136]): although he seems very modern in his condemnation of obscure language, his advocacy of experimentation, and his rejection of Paracelsianism; yet he believed in occult qualities, sympathetic and diabolical magic and spiritualism, and he hoped for evidence of transmutation and the panacea. But most instructive of all is the case of Leibniz, the evolution of whose own attitudes mirrored the changing orthodoxy of the chemical world around him. During the 1660s and 1670s he was actively involved in the search for the philosophers’ stone, and his Hermetic interests left their mark on the early development of his metaphysical system. But by the end of the century he came to reject the possibility of transmutation, and in his old age he was so embarrassed by his youthful enthusiasm that he was prepared to tell lies about it (MacDonald Ross l978 [295]). The point had come when alchemy was no longer even controversial: it was now identified as an activity distinct from and hostile to the mainstream of progress in scientific chemistry, and its practitioners were simply being excluded from the scientific community. For accounts of the transition in general, see Golz 1968 [288], Debus 1972 [300], Bonelli & Shea 1975 [301].

Although occultists often tried to establish their theories in accordance with the criteria of contemporary science, they depended principally on the widespread belief that the wisest people were those remotest in space and time. In its geographical aspect, the prejudice took the form of an exaggerated respect for the exotic East, as exemplified by the slogan ex oriente lux (cf. Glanvill’s Lux orientalis [164]). In its temporal form, it consisted in the belief that man had been created with perfect wisdom; and that although he had lost it at the Fall, traces of it had survived in an esoteric tradition running through such figures as Moses, Homer, Pythagoras, and Hermes. A particularly clear and succinct exposition of this view is the Mythomystes [172] of Henry Reynolds. Three examples will be considered in this section: (a) Oriental wisdom, (b) Greek wisdom, and (c) Jewish wisdom.

In contrast with occultist fashions of later centuries, the seventeenth century showed relatively little interest in India or China as reservoirs of wisdom. The Jesuits in China were motivated to teach rather than to learn, and Leibniz, while crediting the Chinese with the discovery of binary arithmetic and mature theological opinions, did not regard them as possessed of any special authority (Novissima Sinica [169]). Attention was focussed mainly on Babylon, especially for astrology, and Egypt for Hermeticism (Hermes being equivalent to the Egyptian God Thoth). These movements have already been dealt with (sections 2 and 3, above). In the case of Hermeticism, a significant factor in its decline during the latter half of the seventeenth century was the gradual acceptance of the view that the Hermetic writings were neither as ancient nor as Egyptian as had been believed, thus invalidating the myth of an unbroken, ancient esoteric tradition. One of the first scholars to establish this was Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) in De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis [161]; but his arguments were largely ignored, and the myth was still being defended in 1652 by Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) in Oedipus Aegyptiacus [167], who was attacked in his turn by Johann Heinrich Ursin (1608–1667) in De Zoroastre Bactriano[173].

Although all the main schools of Greek philosophy were revived during the Renaissance, the only one in which the idea of an esoteric ancient tradition played an important role was the Platonic school. Esotericism had been encouraged by Plato himself, with his opinion that true understanding could be conveyed only by word of mouth (Phaedrus 274–8). By late antiquity it was generally assumed that the Neoplatonists and the Neopythagoreans had merely made explicit the esoteric content of Plato’ own philosophy. This assumption remained unquestioned well into the eighteenth century, with the sole exception of Leibniz (Philosophischen Schriften, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. 7, pp.147–149). The veneration accorded to Plato in the seventeenth century was of immense importance as providing an alternative authority for those who were in revolt against the established Aristotelianism of the universities. Apart from a belief in experimentation, all the principal characteristics distinguishing the new philosophy from the old consisted in a shift from a broadly Aristotelian to a Platonic outlook. In particular, the move from a qualitative to a quantitative and mathematical approach to science; the attempt to credit human reason with ampliative powers derived from innate ideas, in addition to its purely analytic capacity as formalised by Aristotelian logic (already foreshadowed by Ficino in the Argument to the Pimander [142]); and the replacement of the Aristotelian division within nature between the sublunary and heavenly spheres, by a renewed Platonic dualism of the physical and intellectual realms, which made it possible for the scientist to give a unified account of nature which would not necessarily come into conflict with religious dogma (Lovejoy 1936 [311]).

Western Europe was especially open to veneration of Jewish wisdom because of the Hebrew element within Christianity. This tendency was reinforced during the seventeenth century by Protestant emphasis on the Old Testament, and the attendant growth of Hebrew scholarship. The Bible itself already provided ample material for esoteric speculations about the nature of the universe — for example, calculations of the time-scale of the world based on Biblical chronology (Labrousse 1974 [255: pp.15–17]), or relevant interpretations of Daniel or Revelations (e.g. Francis Potter’s Interpretation of the number 666 [171]). Even Newton devoted many years of his life to trying to prove that his discoveries could be extracted from the Bible (McGuire and Rattansi 1966 [285]). But the most striking manifestation of ancient Jewish wisdom was the Cabala. Its central idea was that God had created the world by uttering words; and that since Hebrew was derived from the language he used, one could gain insights into the structure of reality through a close study of Hebrew word-formation, script, etymology and numerology. This was so close to the Neoplatonic doctrine of the creative logos, that it is hardly surprising that many seventeenth-century Neoplatonists became enthralled by Cabalism, for example, Giuseppe Francesco Borri: La chiave del gabinetto [135], Robert Fludd: Philosophia Moysaica [143], Anne Conway: The principles of the most ancient and modern philosophy [162], Christian Knorr von Rosenroth: Kabbala denudata [168], Henry More: Conjectura cabbalistica [170]. Apart from its contribution to speculative metaphysics, the Cabalistic component of the contemporary intellectual background probably encouraged the belief of Leibniz, Wilkins and others that the clue to an adequate logic of discovery lay in the articulation of a perfect universal language (Couzin 1970 [318], Knowlson 1975 [316], Coudert 1978 [317]); though other factors, such as Lullism, may also have played a role (Yates 1966 [314]).

The question of the existence and nature of secret societies in the seventeenth century has been made unnecessarily complicated by the historical fictions of modern occultists, especially the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians, who have exaggerated the antiquity of their own origins. The truth about Freemasonry is relatively easy to disentangle. Since the Middle Ages, masonic lodges existed and functioned just like any other craft guilds. It was only in Britain at the beginning of the eighteenth century that Freemasonry developed into an occult movement with a decisive mystical and quasi-religious component, and then rapidly spread into France and the rest of Europe (Knoop and Jones 1957 [335]). Significantly, this happened just when the new science had become sufficiently well defined to force alternative world-views underground.

The early history of Rosicrucianism is less straightforward. It started in the second decade of the seventeenth century with the so-called Rosicrucian Manifestoes: Allgemeine und General Reformation [181], Johann Valentin Andreae: Chymische Hochzeit [182], Secretioris philosophiae consideratio [192]. These proclaimed the existence of a secret society, with high, mystical ideals, couched largely in terms of the imagery of spiritualised alchemy. The public were invited to make contact with the society, and many tried (in vain), including the young Descartes (Arnold 1955 [333: pp.273–299], Yates 1972 [340: pp.111–117]). Some, despite not having met any Rosicrucians in person, wrote books supporting and developing the principles outlined in the manifestoes (Robert Fludd: Tractatus apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rosea Cruce defendens [186], Michael Maier: Themis aurea [190], Thomas Vaughan: The fame and confession of the Fraternity of R.C. [193]). Other writers were either sceptical (for example, Gabriel Naudé: Instruction à la France sur la vérité de l’histoire des frères de la Rose-Croix [191]), or overtly hostile (for example, François Garasse: La doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps [187], Andreas Libavius: Wohlmeinendes Bedencken, von der Fama uund Confession der Brüderschafft des Rosen Creutzes [189]). It is hard to judge how far the original manifestoes were intended seriously, or whether those who did take them seriously ever formed actual societies before the recrudescence of occultism in the eighteenth century. On balance it seems most likely that Rosicrucianism never had any more than an ideal existence during the seventeenth century, but that it did give expression to a set of aspirations which were highly characteristic of the age. In this it differed only in detail from a whole range of other generalised movements and specific projects. At one extreme there were religious fanatics such as the Ranters in England, who saw themselves as preparing the way for the Millennium, which was widely believed to be imminent (Cohn 1957 [334], Hill 1971 [338]); there were pure utopians such as Campanella (Civitas solis [185]) and Francis Bacon (New Atlantis [184]); and there were others who described and actually tried to found smaller-scale communities devoted to the religious life and the furthering of scientific knowledge, e g. Johann Valentin Andreae (Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio [183]), who had been involved in the production of the original Rosicrucian Manifestoes, Samuel Hartlib (A description of the famous kingdom of Macaria [188]), John Evelyn (in a letter to Boyle of 3.9.1659, in Works, Oxford 1955, vol. 5, pp.397–399), and Leibniz (Keller 1903 [346]). At the other extreme there were actual societies devoted to the practical acquisition of knowledge. During the first half of the century their aims and methods were such that there is little point in trying to classify them either as ‘occult’ or as ‘scientific’: e.g. the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, the London Astrologers’ Club, or more informal groups such as the Nuremberg Alchemical Society (MacDonald Ross 1974 [344]). It was only after organisations such as the Royal Society of London and the Paris Académie royale des Sciences had not only become well established, but had also developed a rigidly empiricist ideology, as they did during the last quarter of the century, that it could make any sense for secret societies to be formed with the aim of preserving the now threatened occultist world-view. But this was a development which did not get under way until early in the eighteenth century.

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