THB HrsroRY oF ScIBNCE ANo RpucIoN

rN THB \ØBSTERN TneoITIoN:

AN ENcvcLoPEDIA

GARy B. FUnNGREN
GeneralEditor
Professor of History
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon

EdwardJ. Larson
Co-editor
Richard B. Russell Professor
of History and Law
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

Darrel \í. Amundsen

Co-editor .
Professor of Classics
\üestern \íashington University
Bellingham, \Tashington

Anne-Marie E. Nakhla
AssistantEditor
Independent Scholar
Seatde, \íashington

Ganr¡.No PusrrsHING, INc.

A ÀreÀasnR oF rHB T¡,vron & Fn¡.Ncrs Gnoup
NBw Yonr & LoNooN
2 000
r
98" MAGrc AND THE Occurr
lMilliam Eamon
agicmaybe defined as the use of preternatural
forces to control and manipulate nature.
Although such powers may or may not be
supernatural, being outside the normal course of nature,
they are held to be responsible for the magic's extraordi-
nary productions. Magical events are, thus, distinct from
miracles in the sense that magic manipulates natural,
though hidden, forces, while miracles are caused solely
by supernatural powers. \X/hether assisted by angels or
demons or done by purely natural means, magic seeks to
place control of nature in human hands,
There are commonalities as well as sharp differences
among magic, religion, and science. Magic has been so
intertwined with religion as to be virtually indistinguish-
able from it; yet, from the standpoint of ofûcial religion,
it is a forbidden art. Like religion, magic invokes extraor-
dinary realities and beings, but it adopts a manipulative
attitude tov¡ard them, while religion venerates and sup-
plicates the gods. Historically, magic has occupied an
equally ambiguous status with respect to science, Like
science, magic uses empirical techniques, but its secre-
tiveness and its supposed "superstitious" character are
anathema to science, \,t7hile magical and quasimagical
ideas have profoundly influenced natural philosophy,
modern science categorically rejects magic.
Early Christianity and Magic
The emergence of Christianity coincided with a revival of
magic and occult science in the Roman Empire. By the
time the Romans made their fust major contacts with the
Greek world, the philosophical tradition of the Periclean
age had given way to a preòccupation with the occult
"mysteries of nature." Equally significant v¡as the revival
of P¡hagoreanism, not merely as a formal philosophy but
cult and way of life. Neo-Pythagoreanism
as a religious
became the principal stimulus to the codification of
Greek magic, which developed in the eastern provinces of
the Roman Empire and spreadwestward.
The most important works associated with the
revival of magic were the so-called Hermetic treatises,
supposedly consisting of the revelations of the Egyptian
god Thoth, called Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice-Great
Hermes") by the Greeks. Composed between the first
and third centuries ,l.,1., the Hermetic texts promised
access to "secrets of nature" that would enable one to
master nature's occult forces. To an age terrorized by
angry divinities and the omnipotence of fate, the Her-
metic teachings were popular and influential. The Cor-
pus Hermeticumbecamethe most famous magicaltext in
the \Øest. According to the teachings of Hermes, the
secrets of nature were absoluteþ opaque; they could be
known only by revelation. Science was practically indis-
tinct from religion. It was no longer rational understand-
ing, but gnosis (revealed knowledge), an outcome of
piety. Because of its quasi-religious character, the eady
Christians were ambivalent about Hermeticism . Lactan-
tius (c. 240-c. 320) dressed Hermes in the garb of a
Christian prophet, while Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
pat diaboli-
attacked him as an idolater. Part dívine and
cal, Hermetic doctrines were both food for heretical
thought and grist for polemical mills.
Kyranides, a second-century treatise, illustrates the
character of Hermetic magic. Supposedly a compilation
of the writings of a certain Harpocration of Alexandria
(first or second century e.n.) and King Kyranos of Persia,
the v¡ork consists of four books divided into chapters
arcanged according to the letters of the Greek alphabet.
Each chapter describes the magical properties of the ani-
mals, plants, or stones beginning with that letter. Under
533
534 THE OCCULI SCIENCES
the letter alpha, for example, are entered ampelos (grape
vine), aquila (eagle), aetitis (eagle-stone), and aquila
(eagle-ray). All have marvelous virtues that are cunningly
related to one another. From the grape, wine is made; the
root of the grapevine cures epilepsy and drunkenness.
The stone found in the head of the eagle-ray prevents
someone from getting drunk. If you sketch the forrrr of
an eagle on an eagle-stone and place it by your door with
an eagle's feather, it will act as a charm to ward off evil.
According to Kyrønides, every natural object possesses
magical virtues. Hence, the realm of natural philosophy
was scarcely distinguishable from the realm of mysticism
and the occult.
The marix of early Christianity was a Palestinian
Judaism that had been permeated by Hellenistic influ-
ences. Duríng the earþ centuries of Christianity, magic
(despite its deviant religious status) constituted a strong
undercurrent in Judaism. Jewish magic became part of
the Christian heritage. The Gospels record numerous
instances of miracles performed by Jesus that resemble
magical practíces, including exorcisms, healing, wonder-
working, and nature miracles. The pagan writer Celsus
(second century e.n.) claimed thatJesus, like other magi,
learned the magical arts in Egypt.
The early Christians were also accused of practicing
magic. Such charges seemed plausible in light of the
numerous quasi-magical acts attributed to the apostles.
Petert shadow was said to have the power to cure (Acts
5:12-16), as had aprons and handkerchiefs Paul touched
(Acts 19:11). On several occasions, the apostles over-
came the pov/er of competing magicians. Celsus charged
that Christians got their powers by demonolo gy and
incantations. Although the Christians responded that
their power came from God acting within them, from
the pagan viewpoint they seemed merely to be claiming a
superior form of magic.
Pagan and Chr¡stian Magic
Both pagans and Christians condemned magic, but for
different reasons. For pagans, magic was reprehensible
because it was secretive, antisocial, and a threat to the
social order. Christians, on the other hand, condemned
magic because it was the work of demons. Augustine, in
his influential City of God, tnsisted that all magic is
demonic. Augustine maintained that demons taught
people how to perform magical rituals and how to make
use of the occult power of stones, plants, and animals.
He acknowledged certain marvelous natural pov/ers,
such as magnetic pov/er or the power of goat's blood to
shatter a diamond. But magíc, he concluded, attacking
Hermes, was diabolical.
From the early fourth century, when Chrístianity
became the official Roman religion, magic became a cap-
ital offense. In eadier centuries, Roman law had pun-
ished magic only when it was used to inflict harm
(maleficium). In general, the Romans tolerated sorcery
and divination except when such practices were seen to
be politically dangerous. Thus, in A.D. 11, the Emperor
Augustus (b.61 e.c., r.31 B.c.-a.D. 14) issued an edict
that forbade pubìishing the emperor's own horoscope or
prophesying anyone's death date. Nor were the legal mea-
sures introduced by Christianity effective against magic.
Indeed, some authorities of the early Christian church
acknowledged magic's strength by accommodating Chris-
tian practices to pagan magic. Such accommodation to
pagan culture was a common and effective missionary
strategy in the eady Middle Ages. Pagan temples were
reconsecrated as Christian shrines. Missionary monks
tolerated magical charms and amulets, requiring only
that the names of Christian saints, instead of pagan
deities, be invoked. Competition among healers, divin-
ers, and priests offering access to spiritual powers caused
some early Christian missionaries to assimilate rival
paganpractices, thus encouraging the growth of magic.
Despite magic's illicit status, the practice of magic was
quite common in the early Middle Ages. The parish priests
who practiced medicíne as part of their duties did not
think of themselves as magicians; yet, without scruples,
they used charms and magical plants to combat illnesses.
Secular healers also used magic. The eleventh-century
Anglo-Saxon medical manual Lacnunga explained how to
cure "elf-shot," or diseases caused by mischievous elves or
spirits. The names of apostles and saints were also invoked
for their healing powers. Amulets made of plants and ani-
mal parts were used to ward off illness and to protect the
bearer from witchcraft. An eleventh-century lapidary t>y
Marbode of Rennes described the magical properties of
stones. The agate is an antidote to poison and can be used
to strengthen eyesight. Chrysolite, worn as an amulet,
drives away demons, while selenite reconciles quarreling
lovers. Divination and fortune-telling, including astrology,
the interpretation of dreams, casting dice, and reading
thunder claps, were also common. Although the magical
T
I
Magic and the Occult
books provide but a glimpse into the magical wodd of
the early Middle Ages, they suggest that the practice of
magic was widespread throughout Europe.
The distinction between "white" (helpful) magic
and "black" (harmful) magic was not always easy to
make, since techniques for sorcery were essentially the
same as those for medical or protective magic. However,
sorcery (magic used with evil i¡tent) vras strictly forbid-
den. \íomen, who often performed roles as midwives,
healers, matchmakers, and finders of lost objects, were
particularly r,'ulnerable to charges of sorcery. Earþ Chris-
tian writers believed that women were especially prone
to magical practices because of their supposed credulity
and moral debility. Tertullian (c. 160-c. 220) wrote that
demons took advantage of women's inherent character
flaws and taught them knowledge of magical herbs.
Learned Magic
During the twelfth century, European intellectual life
underwent a transformation as a result of the introduc-
tion of Arabic learning i¡to the \üest, which acquainted
Europeans with the rich philosophical and scientific tra-
dition of Greco-Roman antiquity. Ho,øever, because
ancient philosophy came inro the \íest through Arabic
sources, it came as a potpourri of genuine philosophical
treatises and pseudepigraphical tracts on the occult sci-
ences, which the medieval scholastics had difficulty dis-
tinguishing from the original ancient works. The
Hermetic writings had exerted powerful appeal among
a tus
radical Muslim sects. The Ismaili, a Shiite sect, added
their own works on alchemy, astrology, and magic to the
aheady sizable Corpus Hernueticum. One of the most
influential magical textbooks in the medieval \7est, the
notorious Pícatrix, was a translation of a ,u/ork produced
by the Brethren of Purity, a rudicaTlsmaili sect.
The appeal of the Arabic magical books to medieval
intellectuals is revealed by Roger Bacon's (I2I3-9I)
enthusiastic assessment of the Secreturn secretorum
(Secret of Secrets), a nínth-century Arabic work attrib-
uted to Aristotle (384322 e.c.). Couched in the form of
a letter from Aristotle to his pupil Alexander the Great
(356-323 n.c.), the work described the rules of starecrafr,
including the use of astrology and magic to defeat one's
enemies. Bacon thought that the Secretum contained
"the greatest natutal secrets which man or human inven-
tion can attaininthis life."
535
The Secretum seøetoruøwas a key text in the forma-
tion of the image of the magus, which found an especially
favorable reception in the medieval courts. \X4rether in
the form of casting horoscopes for princes or using sor-
cery to gain a prince's favor, magic and fear of magic
were pervasive in courtly society. In ll59,John of Salis-
bury (1115-80) warned that magicians were particulady
active in the courts, v¡here ambitious servants used what-
ever devious means were available to them to curry favor
with princes. The engineer Konrad Kyeser of Eichstatt
(fl. fourteenth century), in dedicating his ffearise on mili
tary technology to the emperor Rupert, portrayed him-
self as a magus in possession of powerful secrets.
The tendency to overlap magic and technology
caused Bacon to distinguish carefully between them in
his letter On tbe Seuet Works of Art and Nature (c. 1260).
Bacon contrasted magic, which he considered to be
demonic, with legitimate experimental science, or ,,art
using nature as an instrument." Similarly, Albertus Mag-
nus(ll9)-1280) explained that the Three Magi ,,were
not sorcerers. . . . For a magus is different from the
astrologer, enchanter, or necromancer; properþ a magus
is only a greaÍ man who, with the requisite knowledge,
produces marvels" (Commentary on the Book
Mattheu). Bacon's concept of "art using nature as an"f
instrument" was the core idea underlying what would
later be called "natur d. magic."
Despite the nearly ubiquítous presence of magical
books after the twelfth century, magic had amargtnalsta-
in relation to
conventional scholastic philosophy.
According to Aristotle, the domínant medieval authority
on scientific methodology, science (scientia) meant
knowledge of universal, necessary causes of quotidian
phenomena. Magic, however, had to do with the manip-
ulation of the occult properties of matter, which could
not be apprehended by the senses, although their effects
could be known empirically. (The attractive virtue of the
mâgnet, for example, is an occult quality, although its
effect upon iron is manifest.) Some medieval thinkers,
such as Thomas Aquínas (c. 1225-74), traced the origin
of occult properties to the heavens, while others attrib-
uted them to the "subst antial form" of matter itself.
Perhaps no work better illustrates the assimilation of
the occult sciences into scholastic philosophy than the
Liber aggregationis (Booþ of Collections) attributed to
Albertus Magnus but, in fact, composed by an unknown
thirteenth-century scholastíc. By far the most famous
v6 THE OCCULI SCIENCES
medieval book of "experimental" magic, the work was a
compilation of "secrets" and "experiments" drawn from
a vanety of classical and medieval sources. The Liber
aggregationís was essentially a treatise on employing the
"secret" or marvelous virtues of plants, stones, and ani-
mals. The work is obviously indebted to the occult tradi-
tion leading back to the Hellenistic era. Ho'¡¡eveq what
makes it so different from the Hermetic books is pseudo-
Albertus's unwillingness to accept that marvels arc merely
marvelous. Instead, he attempted to explain them accord-
ing to the principles of scholastic science. In his tract, De
mirabilibus mundi (The Maruels of the World), appended
to the Liber aggregationis, pseudo-Albertus argued that
marvels are,Lnfact, natural events caused by the "ratio-
nal virtues" in things, even though these causes may be
hidden from the intellect.
In making this argument, pseudo-Albertus adopted
a conventional scholastic strategy to explain occult quali-
ties. Although certain qualities in nature may be insensible
or idiosyncratic, he argued, it is, nevertheless, possible to
Énd rational, physical explanations for them-unless, of
course, they are caused by demons, In the fourteenth cen-
tury Nicole Oresme (c. L320-82) devoted an entire
scholastic treatise, De causis mirabilium (The Causes of
Manelous Tbings) to arguing that "marvelous" phenom-
ena do not require supernatural causes to explain them.
Oresme contended that allof the events that people gen-
erally regard as marvelous proceed instead from natural
causes that are ovedooked, or they result
from pefcep-
tual errors. Once their causes are known, they are no
longer marvelous.
To the growing number of scholars whose curiosity
was aroused by magic, the religious and academic estab-
lishment issued a stem waming. Hugh of St. Vctor
(c. 1096-1141), writing in the 1120s, categorically de-
nonnced magic, charging that"it seduces [people] from
divine religion, prompts them to the cult of demons, fos-
ters corruption of morals, and impels the minds of its
devotees to every wicked and criminal indulgence"
(Didascalicon 7.15). Hugh's denunciation of magic, like
virtually all "ofitcial" medieval pronouncements on the
subject, was essentially a restatement of the Augustinian
position. However, underþing the medieval hostility
toward magic was a deep and pervasive suspicion of
intellectual curiosity in general, In conrrast to legitimate
intellectual inquiry, magic was considered to be form of
a Corpus Hernteticum, magic became a respectable, even
aimless erudition (curiositas), the "passion for knowing
unnecessary things."
Although curiositas referred ro any form of intellec-
tual inquiry carried to excess, magic was the medieval
wodd's paradigmatic example of forbidden knowledge.
For the boundary between "n^tvral" and demonic magic
was ambiguous. Hence, magic of any kind might tempt
practitioners into making pacts with demons in order to
learn the secrets of creation. So, in the Renaissance,
Faust would sell his soul to Satan in order to know the
secrets of nature. Not only did the magus pry into
nature's hidden recesses and steal its secrets, he used his
illicitly won knowledge to glorify himself and to impress
the wodd with his "marvels." According to medieval
accounts, pride and curiosity about secret things caused
Gerbert of Aurillac (c. 945-1003), who later became
Pope Sylvester II
(999-1003), to leave his monastery and
journey to Spain in order to study astrology and magic
under Saracen teachers-at the price of his soul Ger-
bert, whose insatiable thirst for knowledge was leg-
endary, was but the most famous medieval example of
the overþ curious cleric who crossed the boundary of
legitimate intellectual inquiry to dabble in the forbidden
art. Similar stories implicated Roger Bacon, Albertus
Magnus, Robert Grosseteste (c, 1168-1253), and
Michael Scott (c. II75-c.1230). Indeed, any medieval
scholar who had a reputation for his knowledge of nat-
ural science was a potential antihero in this rich leg-
endary tradition.
Renaissance Mag¡c
Magic's reputation and intellectual standing underwent a
dramatic reversal beginning in the fifteenth century, In
146), the humanist Marsfi o Ficino (I43 3 -99) rranslated
the Corpus Herrneticum into Latin at the request of his
patron, Cosimo d'Medici (ß89-I464).In developing a
theory of magic, Ficino maintained that the key to magi
cal power'¡¡as the spiritus mundi, a subtle material sub-
stance that is diffused throughout the universe and acts
as a medium for influences between celestial bodies and
the sublunar wodd. Using magic, Ficino argued, one can
attract the "spiritual" influence of any planet by employ-
ing talismans, music, scents, and foods appropriate to
that planet, Such influences, channeled through the cos-
mic spirits into humans, act as powerful medicines.
\üøithin a few decades of Ficino's translation of the
pioneering, humanistic subject. Dozens of treatises reflect-
ing this new "leamed magic" appeared in the Renaissance,
 Magic and the Occult
while Hermetic influences turn up in art, literature, philos-
ophy, theology, and politics. Ficino's famous Oratíon on
tbe Digníty of Man (1489) is replete with magical influ-
ences and references. Another proponent of magic, Hein-
rich Cornelius Agrippa von Netteshetrn (I486-1fi5),
brought magic to a broad academic audience in his influ-
enÍid, De occuha philosopbiø (On the Occub Philosophy
ll5tl),which proclaimed magíc to be the most perfect
knowledge of all.
To some extent, Renaissance magic was an attempt
to unify nature and religion. Thus, Paracelsus (1493-
1541) condemned Aristotle on both scientific and reli-
gious grounds. The Paracelsians maintained that Aris-
totle was a heathen author whose natural philosophy was
inconsistent with Christianity. Therefore, it had to be
replaced by a Christian Hermeticism that attempted to
account for all natural phenomena in a manner that was
consistent with Scripture.
Magic found particular favor in the Renaissance
courts. The Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (b, 1552,
r. I576-1612) was passionately devoted to magic, and his
court at Prague became a center of magical studies. Not
coincidentally, Rudolf's court was also a thriving center
of scientific research. Both Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
and Johannes Kepler (157I-1630) lived at Rudolf's
court. In many instances, magic served as an impetus to
science, promoting experimentalism and mathematics
and creating a positive image of the scientist as a magus.
Another center of Renaissance magical activity was
Naples, where the philosophical naturalism of Bernar-
dino Telesio (1509-88) took root. Telesio's vitalistic nat-
uralism provided the philosophical foundation for what
Renaissance philosophers called "natural magic," an
experimental approach to nature that attempted to use
occult forces for practical ends. Telesio's followers estab-
lished experimental academies with the goal of discover-
ing natural "secrets." They wrote learned treatises on
astrology, physiognomy, and the occult secrets ofnature.
The most famous Neapolitan magus was Giambat-
tista Della Pora (1535-1615). His Natural Magic (1558)
was not only the Renaissance's most famous book of
magic, it was also, for a time, a highly respected scientific
work. Della Porta argued that natutd. magic was not
demonic; it manipulated solely natural forces. Della
Porta's ideas made a deep impression on the Dominican
friar Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), who used nat-
ural magic as part of his scheme to establish a utopian
community in southern ltaly. The abortive revolt of Cala-
537
bria, which Campanella led in 1599 to eject the Spanish
from the Kingdom of Naples, was framed by an ideology
pervaded with magical ideas.
Hermeticism was immensely popular among Renais-
Its adherents num-
sance humanists and intellectuals.
bered some of the leading intellectuals of the day,
including Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94),
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), and John Dee (1527-
1608), Renaissance magic invoked both natural and
supernatural powers and, to that extent, became linked
to both science and religion, arousíng debate and contro-
versy from both sides.
Despite attempts to create an occult theory based
solely on nondemonic principles, magic continued to be
the focus of religious controversy. Although natural
magic looked innocent to some, it claimed to produce
the same effects as religion without any supernatural
agencies. Hence, critícs charged, it bordered danger-
ously on atheism. Thus, on two separate occasions, Della
Porta was brought before the Inquisition and questioned
about his magicd, activities. In the 1580s, he was impli-
cated in a famous dispute over witchcraft between the
French jurist Jean Bodin (1529-96) and the German
physicianJohann ìlier (1515-88). Arguing, nhisDe pres-
tigiis daemonum (On the Sorceries of Dentons 11564l,
against the persecution of witches, lX/ier cited Della
Portab experiment demonstrating that the "wítch's salve,"
supposedly used to transport'øitches into flight, could be
understood according to naturalistic princíples. Della
Porfa maintained that the witch's salve was, tn rcahty, a
hallucinogenic drug that caused the supposed v¡itches to
fantasize their nocturnal flights. Attacking \X/ier in his
Démonornanie des sorciers (Demon Mania of the Sorcerers
[1580]), Bodin brought Della Porta into the dispute,
damning him as "the great Neapolitan sorcerer."
The sixteenth-century debate over magic is best
understood within the context of Counter-Reformation
politics. The Roman Catholic Church, determi¡ed to
consolidate its monopoly over supernatural forces, saw
any attempt to utilize occult powers as a threat to its
jurisdiction over the miraculous. The history of Inquisi-
torial processes ín the sixteenth century confirms the
Church's growing concern about magic. After about
1580, illicit magic replaced doctrinal heresy as the most
common charge brought before the local tribunals of the
Holy Office. In most of these cases, the accused were
charged with using charms, incantatíons, and magical
devices to heal physical complaints, to detect thieves, to
538 THE OCCULI SCIENCES
find stolen objects and buried treasure, or to incite
ual passion. Formerly, such popular practices were con-
sidered harmless. But, in its attempt to protect
faithful from the demonic magic, the Church con-
demned all magic as heretical. In the heat of the Refor-
mation conflict, natural magic 'uras caught in the net
along with popular superstitions, witchcruft, and sorcery.
The sixteenth century also witnessed the pubJication
of countless "books of secrets" that professed to reveal
the occult secrets of nature to general readers. The most
famous of these tracts was Alessio Piemontese's famous
best-seller, the Seueti (1555). This work was, in fact, a
book of experiments and recipes compiled by the human-
ist Girolamo Ruscelli (c. 1500-66) in his Academy of
Secrets at Naples. Alessio's.lecrels was widely reprinted in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and became the
prototype of a huge popular genre. Meanwhile, the fic-
tional Alessio became the ideal of a new kind of scíentific
magus: the wandering empiric who travels throughout the
wodd in search of the secrets of nature, which he pub-
lishes "for the benefit of the wodd." Other writers on
secrets included the Flemish physician Levinus Lemnius
(1505-68), whose Occulta naturae miracula (Secret Mira-
cles ofNature 11559)) assembled occult phenomena, nat-
ural prodigies, herbal lore, and folk beliefs, all deployed
to prove that "in the smallest 'øorks of nature the Deity
shines forth"; and Girolamo Cardano (1501-76), who
compiled a massive encyclopedia of secrets entitled De
subtilitate (Of Subtlety 115501 ).
The New Philosophy
Many historians believe that magic had a profound
impact on the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. They argue that Renaissance
magic contributed to the emergence of a new conception
of the scientific enterprise: the idea of science as a hunt
for nature's secrets. Not satisfied with understanding
nature on the basis of external appeafances, the "new
philosophers" insisted upon penetrating nature's hidden
recesses and uncovering the occult causes of phenom-
ena. According to the epistemology of the hunt, nature's
secrets were hidden from ordinary sense perception;
hence, they had to be sought by extraordinary means.
Instruments had to be made to enable researchers to
penetrate nature's interior. Experiments were devised
that would enable researchers to force out nature's
secrets. New methods of reasoning had to be found to
sex- take the place of scholastic logic, which, according to the
new philosophers, was incapable of reaching nature's
the inner recesses and laying bare its secrets.
The advent of the hunt metaphor in the scientific
discourseof the eady-modern period testifies to the
emergence of a new philosophy of science. Instead of
viewing nature through the texts of the ancient authori-
ties, the new phílosophers tended to think of science as a
search for new and unkno'¡¡n facts and of causes con-
cealed beneath nature's outer appearances. This concep-
tion of science rested, in turn, upon a new definition of
scientific knowledge. \Whereas in medieval natural phi-
losophy unexplained facts had no place in science, in the
new philosophies facts (in the sense of novel, unex-
plained data) began to take on powerful significance. In
the tradition of natural magic, such novel, previously
unnoticed facts were signs ("signatures") that guided
investigators to nature's arcala. Della Porta wrote: "True
things be they ever so small will give occasions to dis-
cover greater things by them."
The hunt metaphor also underscores a reevaluation
of the status of occult qualities in natural philosophy. For
the epistemology of science as a hunt rested upon a dis-
tinction between knowledge of nature gained by common
sense, which revealed only nature's outer appearances,
and knowledge of the inner causes of phenomen a. Early-
modern natural philosophers understood this difference
in terms of the distinction between manifest and occult
qualíties, a problem that was at the focus of heated con-
troversy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Instead of banishing occult qualities, the new philoso-
phers embraced them and sought explanations for what
the scholastics conceded was, in principle, unknowable.
All qualities (in the sense of physical causes) are occult,
they argued, but are nevertheless knowable. In the new
philosophies, the concept of occult qualities was not an
ending point but a beginning of inquiry.
But if occult qualities were, in principle, knowable,
by what means could they be knorvn? The new philoso-
phers were in general agreement that access to nature's
secrets could be gained only by adopting a two-fold
strategy that consisted of right method combined with
instruments to aid the senses. In the 1680s, Robert
Hooke (I635-L103) formulated such a strategy for the
Royal Society of London inhis General Scheme; or, Idea
of tbe Present State of Natural Philosophrr, which embod-
ied many of the ideals of the new experimental philoso-
phy. According to Hooke's formula, the natural defects
 Magic and the Occult
of the would be overcome by scientific instru-
senses
ments, while proper experimental methodology would
overcome defects in human reasonirg.
The repeated references to the occult "secrets of
nature" in the scientific literature of the seventeenth cen-
tury should not be dismissed as mere rhetoric. Far from
being a mere hackneyed metaphor, the appearance of that
well-worn phrase indicates a Ê.mdamental shift in the
direction of natural philosophy. The concept of nature's
((sçç¡s¡5"-1þe
idea that the mechanisms of nature were
hidden beneath the exterior appearânces of things-uras
the foundation of the new philosophy's skeptical outlook
and of its insistence upon getting to the bottom of things
through active experimentation and disciplined observa-
tion. The scholastics had been too trusting of their senses'
the new philosophers asserted. Their naive empiricism
was responsible for the erroneous belief thât nature
exhibits its true character on the outside, In reality,
nature's causes are hidden. The unaided senses do not
reveal reliable information about what makes nature tick
any more than observing the hands of a clock reveals
hov¡ the clock works. A1l of the dogmatic pronounce-
ments of scholastic philosophy were but chimeras based
upon unreliable foundations.
The Decline of Magic
The rise of the mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth
century dealt a nearþ fatal blow to magic, as far as its rele-
vance to science was concerned. As formulated by its lead-
ing proponent, the French philosopher René Descartes
(1596-1650),the mechanical philosophy rested upon two
assumptions: First, all phenomena could be explained in
terms of particles of passive matter in motion, and, sec-
ond, the only way the motion of any particle could be
changed was by direct contact with some other particle. In
theory, the mechanical philosophy banished occult quali-
ties from naruralphilosophy by reducing explanations of
phenomena to mechanical causes.
Nevertheless, because of the inadequacy of the
mechanical philosophy to offer a plausible and compre-
hensive view of the physical world, the status of occult
qualities continued to be debated. The focus of the con-
troversy was Sir Isaac Newton's (1642-1127) theory of
universal gravitation. In the Principia rnathematica
(1687), Newton postulated the existence of a force that
existed among all bodies in the universe. To many nat-
ural philosophers, Newton's gravitation resembled the
539
discredited occult forces of Renaissance magic. Some-
what unconvincingly, Newon responded that he
"feigned no hypotheses" about the causes of gravity. But
the physical interpretation of gravity continued to vex
scientists throughout the eighteenth century.
The occult sciences came under sustained attack
during the Enlightenment. In the seventeenth century,
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)hadcondemned magic for
its secretiveness and its exclusivity. The Enlightenment
philosophes, who believed that nature was completely
rational, agreed. Such a position left little room for belief
in the occult. In the popular tradition, however, belief in
magic and the occult continued, giving rise to such move-
ments as mesmerism and spiritualism. Mesmerism, the
brainchild of Frunz Anton Mesmer (1134-1815),was a
form ofhealing supposedly based upon the channeling of
"animal magnetism" through the human body. His system
descended directly from the vitalistic natural magical the-
ories of the Renaissance. Although mesmerism was
extremely popular in France during the 1780s, the sys-
tem was roundly condemned by the academicians.
A number of prominent nineteenth-century scien-
tísts were adherents of spiritualism, the belief that spiri-
tual forces operate in the natural wodd. Alfred Russel
ìüallace (1823-1913), the codiscoverer of the theory of
evolution by natural selection, was convinced that natural
selection was unable to account for intellectual and moral
evolution and, hence, invoked an occult spiritual force to
account for human development. An avowed spiritualist,
\Øallace attended seances and investigated seance phe-
nomena, Other prominent spiritualists included the phys-
iologist and Nobel Prize-winner Charles Richet (1850-
1935), who carried out extensive research on psychic
phenomena, and the physicist Oliver Lodge (1851-1940).
Psychic phenomena continued to be the subjects of
scientific inquiry in the eariy twentieth century, notably
by Joseph Banks Rhine (1895-1980), who founded the
Society for Psychical Research. However, because its
results proved too difficult to replicate, parapsychology
was not accepted by the scientific community. Nowa-
days, scientists adamantly resist attempts to include para-
normal phenomena in research programs. Efforts to
obtain funding for such research are generally met with
silence or scorn. From the standpoint of modern science,
the separation of physical from spiritual and occult phe-
nomena is, in principle, virtually complete.
See also Alchemy; Hermeticism; Spiritualism
 540 THE OCCUL| SCIENCES
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