Solomon's Secret Arts (70 page)

The Walton Theosophic Library.

   Mss. I.1.4, 11, 23–4, 31–4, 39, 49, 54, 68, 70, 79: D.A. Freher papers.

   Ms. I.1.43: Henry Brooke letter book.

Swedenborg House, London.

Manuscripts A/26–9: papers of Benedict Chastanier.

Manuscript A/187: commonplace book of J.W. Salmon.

Library of Freemasonry, Grand Lodge of England (GLE), London.

Ms. 1130 STU, vols 1–3: tracts by William Stukeley.

Kew Botanical Gardens (KBG), Kew, London.

Banks Papers 1–2: letters to Sigismund Bacstrom.

East Sussex Record Office (ESRO), Lewes, East Sussex.

Frewen Mss. 5421–5634: letters of the Reverend John Allin to Phillip Firth and Samuel Jeake the younger of Rye.

Rye Museum, Rye, East Sussex.

Jeake Ms. 4/1: library catalogue of Samuel Jeake the elder.

Selmes Mss. 32, 34: astrological papers of Samuel Jeake the younger.

Chetham's Library, Manchester.

Mss. A.2.82, A.7.64, A.4.33: records of French Prophets.

Ms. A.3.51–2: autobiography of John Clowes.

Ms. A.4.98:
Tractatus de Nigromatia
.

Ms. A.6.61–4: copies of Paracelsus.

Alnwick Castle Archives, Alnwick, Northumberland.

Mss. 573A–B, 581, 588, 595, 599, 603, 626, 629, 624: Charles Rainsford papers.

United States

Beinecke Rare Book Library (Beinecke Lib.), Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Mellon Alchemical Manuscripts.

   Mss. 62–3, 69, 89, 93, 124, 128, 140: alchemical works.

   Mss. 70, 78, 80: Isaac Newton papers.

   Mss. 134, 141: Sigismund Bacstrom notebooks.

Getty Research Institute (GRI), Los Angeles, Cal.

Manly Palmer Hall Collection (MHC).

   Box 18, vols 1–19: Bacstrom Alechemical Collections.

   Box 43: collection of drawings by J.D. Leuchter.

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Clark Library), Los Angeles, Cal.

Ms. J43M3/A859: Samuel Jeake, junior, “Astrological Experiments Exemplified.”

2. Microfilm, Digital and Online Resources

Records of the Stationers’ Company (RSC),
1554–1920, Ann Arbor, Mich., ProQuest, 1990.

Stationers’ Company Archives.

State Library of New South Wales (SL, NSW)
, Australia,
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/
.

Papers of Sir Joseph Banks.

Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh,
http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/library/read/collection/ripley/ripley.php
.

Ms. BE.D.: The Ripley Scroll, ed. R.I. McCallum.

Royal Society Archives
, London,
http://ttp.royalsociety.org
.

Ms. LXIX.a.2, William Stukeley, “Memoirs of Sr. Isaac Newton's Life 1752.”

EC/1766/ 20; EC/1781/08; EC/1789/02: election certificates of Peter Woulfe, James Price and Robert Morse.

The Hartlib Papers Project (Hartlib Papers)
, Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms, 1996.

CD-ROM collection of Samuel Hartlib's Papers.

The Manuscripts and Papers of Sir Isaac Newton (
M&P
),
Cambridge, Chadwyck-Healey, 1991.

Microfilm collection of Newton's papers.

The Newton Project
,
http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk
.

Papers of Sir Isaac Newton.

NOTES

Introduction: What Was the Occult?

1.
This has been recognized in the works of Ronald Hutton, the pre-eminent historian of British pagan beliefs and their modern, occult versions. See his
The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy
(Oxford, 1991);
Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain
(Oxford, 1996);
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
(Oxford, 2001);
The Druids
(Ronceverte, 2007);
Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain
(New Haven, Conn., 2009).

2.
Carl Jung,
Psychology and Alchemy
, trans. R.F.C. Hull (2nd ed., Princeton, 1968), and
Alchemical Studies
, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, 1967), in
Collected Works of C.G. Jung
, vols 12 and 13.

3.
The differences between ancient and modern concepts of the occult are discussed in Erik Hornung,
The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West
, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca, N.Y., 2001).

4.
Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds,
The Invention of Tradition
(Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1–14.

5.
Samuel Johnson,
A Dictionary of the English Language
(2 vols, London, 1755: 1-volume reprint, London, [1965]).

6.
A full-text search for the word “occult” at Early English Books Online, which contains 100,000 works printed in the seventeenth century, yielded 1,898 matches in 584 documents. A similar search at Eighteenth-Century Online, which includes about 150,000 works printed in the eighteenth century, resulted in 5,997 results (many of them different editions of the same work). Less than half of the uses of “occult” in the seventeenth century referred to occult philosophy or science. The percentage was lower among a sampling of works that used the word “occult” in the eighteenth century.

7.
Henry Home, Lord Kames,
Sketches of the History of Man
(2 vols, Edinburgh, 1774), vol. 1, p. 355.

8.
Walter Charleton,
Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana: or, A Fabrick of Science Natural, upon the Hypothesis of Atoms
(London, 1654), book 3, ch. 15, p. 343. See also Keith Hutchison, “What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?”
Isis
, 73, 2 (1982), pp. 233–53.

9.
John Baptist Porta [Giambattista della Porta],
Natural Magick
(London, 1658), book 1, ch. 2, pp. 1–2.

10.
Thomas Browne,
Miracles, Works above and Contrary to Nature
(London, 1683), p. 42 (
sic
: should be 61). The author is not the celebrated Sir Thomas Browne.

11.
See Stuart Clark,
Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
(Oxford, 1997), chs 11, 14.

12.
John Henry, “The Fragmentation of Renaissance Occultism and the Decline of Magic,”
History of Science
, 46 (2008), pp. 1–48.

13.
This division between practice and theory has not been imitated by historians who work on other parts of Europe: for example, Pamela H. Smith,
The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire
(Princeton, 1994); Anthony Grafton,
Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Work of a Renaissance Astrologer
(Cambridge, Mass., 2001); Tara Nummedal,
Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire
(Chicago, 2007).

14.
Keith Thomas,
Religion and the Decline of Magic
(New York, 1971).

15.
This was forcefully expressed in the debate between Thomas and Hildred Geertz: “An Anthropology of Religion and Magic: Two Views,”
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
, 6 (1975), pp. 71–109.

16.
Learned magic is directly discussed on pp. 222–31, 273, 437–8 and 643–4 of
Religion and the Decline of Magic
, a total of twelve out of 688 pages.

17.
Annabel Gregory, “Witchcraft, Politics and ‘Good Neighbourhood’ in Early 17th-Century Rye,”
Past and Present
, 133 (1991), pp. 31–66; James Sharpe,
Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550–1750
(Philadelphia, 1995); Deborah Willis,
Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1995); Jonathan Barry, M. Hester and G. Roberts, eds,
Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief
(Cambridge, 1996).

18.
Ian Bostridge,
Witchcraft and its Transformations, c. 1650–c. 1750
(Oxford, 1997); Owen Davies,
Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951
(Manchester, 1999). Davies's other publications include
Popular Magic: Cunning-Folk in English History
(Hambledon, 2007) and
Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
(Oxford, 2009). With Willem de Blécourt, Davies has edited
Witchcraft Continued
(Manchester, 2004). For witch beliefs and magic outside Britain, see Steven Wilson,
The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe
(Hambledon and London, 2000); Owen Davies and Willem de Blecourt, eds,
Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe
(Manchester and New York, 2004); Marijke Gijswit-Hofstra, Brian P. Levack and Roy Porter, eds,
Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
(London, 1999).

19.
Bernard Capp,
Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500–1800
(London, 1979); Patrick Curry,
Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England
(Princeton, 1989); Louise Hill Curth,
English Almanacs: Astrology and Popular Medicine, 1500–1700
(Manchester, 2008).

20.
Alan Macfarlane, “Civility and the Decline of Magic,” in Peter Burke, Brian Harrison and Paul Slack, eds,
Civil Histories: Essays in Honour of Sir Keith Thomas
(Oxford, 2000), pp. 145–60.

21.
The classic work on the subject is Christina Larner,
Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland
(Baltimore, 1981). More recent assessments are found in P.G. Maxwell-Stuart,
Satan's Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland
(East Linton, 2001); Julian Goodare, ed.,
The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context
(Manchester, 2001), which contains an article by James Sharpe, “Witch-Hunting and Witch Historiography: Some Anglo-Scottish Comparisons,” on pp. 182–97; Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller, eds,
Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland
(Basingstoke, 2008).

22.
Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan,
Scottish Fairy Belief: A History
(East Linton, 2001); Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan, “The Last of the Witches: The Survival of Scottish Witch Belief,” in Goodare, ed.,
The Scottish Witch-Hunt
, pp. 198–217.

23.
Recently, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe have argued that alchemy should be considered primarily as an experimental rather than as an occult pursuit. While it serves as an important corrective, this view does not fully explain the motivations of the majority of alchemists. See William R. Newman,
Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution
(Cambridge, Mass., 1994); Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, “Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,” in William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, eds,
Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, Mass., 2001),
pp. 385–431; William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe,
Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry
(Chicago, 2002); William R. Newman,
Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature
(Chicago, 2005); William R. Newman,
Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution
(Chicago, 2006).

24.
William Fleetwood,
An Essay upon Miracles
(London, 1701), p. 10. Apart from Keith Thomas, few historians of magic have considered “church magic”: prophecies and prayer. The boundary between magic and religion, however, has been a central concern for cultural anthropologists: Stanley Tambiah,
Magic, Religion and the Scope of Rationality
(Cambridge, 1990).

25.
Richard Kieckhefer,
Magic in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1, 9, 14. For more on the definition of magic, see the essays collected in Brian P. Levack, ed.,
Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology
(12 vols, New York and London, 1992), vol. 1.

26.
A good introduction is Antoine Faivre,
Access to Western Esotericism
(New York, 1994). See also the immense bibliography in Richard Caron, Joscelyn Godwin, Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Jean-Louis Vieillard Baron, eds,
Ésotérisme, Gnoses et Imaginaires Symboliques: Mélanges Offertes à Antoine Faivre
(Leuven, 2001), pp. 875–918. The subject can be further explored through Arthur Versluis,
Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism
(Lanham, 2007) and Nicholas Goodrick-Clark,
The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction
(Oxford, 2008). For a definition of the field, see Wouter Hanegraaff, “Some Remarks on the Study of Western Esotericism,”
Esoterica
, 1 (1999), pp. 3–19.

27.
General works on the development of occult philosophy include Lynn Thorndike,
A History of Magic and Experimental Science
(8 vols, New York, 1923–58); D.P. Walker,
Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella
(London, 1958); Désirée Hirst,
Hidden Riches: Traditional Symbolism from the Renaissance to Blake
(London, 1964), chs 1–4; Wayne Shumaker,
The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance: A Study in Intellectual Patterns
(Berkeley, Cal., 1972); D.P. Walker,
The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries
(London, 1972); Brian Vickers, ed.,
Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance
(Cambridge, 1984, 2005); Brian P. Copenhaver, “Astrology and Magic,” in Charles B. Schmitt, ed.,
The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
(Cambridge, 1988), pp.; P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, ed.,
The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History
(New York, 1999); Mark Morrisson,
Modern Alchemy: Occultism and the Emergence of Atomic Theory
(Oxford, 2007). For Hermes Trismegistus, see Garth Fowden,
The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind
(Cambridge, 1986); Brian Copenhaver, ed. and trans.,
Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation with Notes and Introduction
(Cambridge, 1992); Florian Ebeling,
The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermeticism from Ancient to Modern Times
, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca, N.Y., 2007).