MODERN WITCHCRAFT, PT. 2.
by Randall S. Frederick.
As indicated in the last entry, the origins of modern witchcraft can really be centralized to the Renaissance when ideas began to converge and synthesize. While different ideas of “witchcraft” existed before this time, more or less those instances can be considered folk religion, superstition, and pre-medical practices. We tend to aggregate a lot of “failed” ancient ideas in science, psychology, and religion as witchcraft from a Modern, post-Enlightenment standpoint with the advantage of being able to look over our shoulder at history, but each of these movements – archaic and laughable as they may seem now – were the foundation for advanced thought. Were it not for the “witchcraft” of the apothecary, the astrologer, or the ancient cult, the world would look decidedly different. But instead of delineating each of these sources now lost to us through the extermination of zealous Christians (especially Roman Catholics and Calvinists), again, we must consolidate them in some fashion through the Renaissance where I will begin again with the roles of astrology, alchemy, and magic.
Astrology and Alchemy.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in Italy, changes were taking place. In 1524, an alignment of planets brought widespread fear to many Europeans expecting disaster. Anti-astrological literature of the time sought to dispel these fears to no effect. Astrology had become a popular field of interest for the educated and average citizen alike, even legitimized as a real science. The astrologer, with his robe covered in stars, constellations, and pointed hat, became a fixture of the papacy and in royal courts. Astrology put forward the fundamental idea that there was a relationship between the celestial (the macrocosm) and terrestrial (the individual, the microcosm). This relationship could be located and controlled by use of amulets, stones, and other products related to birth signs. If this seems strange or an amusing superstition relegated to the dustbin of history, then we must keep in mind the popularity of Nostradamus through publication today and that Grigori Rasputin convinced the royal court of Russia, his majesty Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, that such a relationship still existed through at the turn of the 19th Century. Many Russians, even devoted adherents to religions that ban such behavior, still subscribe to some form of astrology. Newspapers across the world publish daily horoscopes, phone and internet psychics remain a constant industry, and teenagers are inaugurated into these ideas by rings and jewelry, even high school rings. What is more, the foundational ideas of Western economics put forward that a relationship exists between world events (macroeconomics) and local industry (microeconomics). The language of Christianity, especially after the Great Awakenings of the 19th Century, speak of lessening the gap between God and the individual believer, even divining God’s will through prayer – a type of incantation. Roman Catholics wear medals and medallions inscribed with prayers as a ward of protection, light candles to invoke the blessing of a saint and so on. Astrology, involving a close study of star and planetary movement, helped facilitate the work of Johann Kepler and other scientists who owed a debt to the careful plotting of movements of the planetary bodies and had developed records reaching back to help astronomers understand what they were seeing through their telescopes. In all of this, one cannot diminish the practices of religion or pseudo-science. Rather, a great debt is owed to the work of those who would soon be pushed the margins by the strident findings of science. The entire world at this time was adopting forms of superstition and “magical” thought during the Renaissance, anachronistically reading these practices into their history and passing them off as tradition reaching back to an ancient time. As discussed previously, recovery of the ancient was a cardinal idea of the classical tradition recovered during the Renaissance.
The two other strands of thought relevant to witchcraft at the turn of the 15th century, alchemy and magic, were also getting more favorable attention after a long period of dormancy. Alchemy sought far more than transmutation, the turning of baser metals into gold. Alchemy was a search for the fabled Philosopher’s Stone, the central item to unlocking the secrets of the world and finding not just knowledge but also understanding. In the melange of so many new discoveries, the Philosopher’s Stone would allegedly cut through the din and reveal only what was true. Because of this, alchemy was a secretive activity. Practitioners ran the gamut from charlatans to scholars engaged in experimentation and research. Here too, we may be tempted to laugh at the primitive findings of alchemy except that because of it, we find a great many records of history, chemistry, metallurgy, even to some extent philosophy, and the preservation of documents to facilitate education across borders. The language of alchemy still presented a challenge to the advance of science in that it used language and wording elevated to religious mysticism, but as Carl Jung would later point out, the nature of alchemy involved the meeting of opposites: science and religion, the common and the valuable, the sacred and profane. The hermaphrodite was emblematic of alchemical pursuits, and complemented the advances being made during the Renaissance.
Magic, however, was another development entirely. If astrology and astronomy were following a similar track, and alchemy and chemistry another, magic was altogether a resistance to science. Put directly, with a world that now had a language for “either/or” dualism, magic was an unknown other outside the construct. It was neither religious or science, but something else entirely. Connections and contributions to science were limited, brief, fluid, and highly debatable. Unlike astrology and alchemy, it would take another 100 years or so before magic began to have a strong definition but it is hinted at here because astrologers and alchemists were, in a very true sense, “magicians” by their ability to extrapolate meaning and substance from the mysteries of the world.
by Randall S. Frederick.
As indicated in the last entry, the origins of modern witchcraft can really be centralized to the Renaissance when ideas began to converge and synthesize. While different ideas of “witchcraft” existed before this time, more or less those instances can be considered folk religion, superstition, and pre-medical practices. We tend to aggregate a lot of “failed” ancient ideas in science, psychology, and religion as witchcraft from a Modern, post-Enlightenment standpoint with the advantage of being able to look over our shoulder at history, but each of these movements – archaic and laughable as they may seem now – were the foundation for advanced thought. Were it not for the “witchcraft” of the apothecary, the astrologer, or the ancient cult, the world would look decidedly different. But instead of delineating each of these sources now lost to us through the extermination of zealous Christians (especially Roman Catholics and Calvinists), again, we must consolidate them in some fashion through the Renaissance where I will begin again with the roles of astrology, alchemy, and magic.
Astrology and Alchemy.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in Italy, changes were taking place. In 1524, an alignment of planets brought widespread fear to many Europeans expecting disaster. Anti-astrological literature of the time sought to dispel these fears to no effect. Astrology had become a popular field of interest for the educated and average citizen alike, even legitimized as a real science. The astrologer, with his robe covered in stars, constellations, and pointed hat, became a fixture of the papacy and in royal courts. Astrology put forward the fundamental idea that there was a relationship between the celestial (the macrocosm) and terrestrial (the individual, the microcosm). This relationship could be located and controlled by use of amulets, stones, and other products related to birth signs. If this seems strange or an amusing superstition relegated to the dustbin of history, then we must keep in mind the popularity of Nostradamus through publication today and that Grigori Rasputin convinced the royal court of Russia, his majesty Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, that such a relationship still existed through at the turn of the 19th Century. Many Russians, even devoted adherents to religions that ban such behavior, still subscribe to some form of astrology. Newspapers across the world publish daily horoscopes, phone and internet psychics remain a constant industry, and teenagers are inaugurated into these ideas by rings and jewelry, even high school rings. What is more, the foundational ideas of Western economics put forward that a relationship exists between world events (macroeconomics) and local industry (microeconomics). The language of Christianity, especially after the Great Awakenings of the 19th Century, speak of lessening the gap between God and the individual believer, even divining God’s will through prayer – a type of incantation. Roman Catholics wear medals and medallions inscribed with prayers as a ward of protection, light candles to invoke the blessing of a saint and so on. Astrology, involving a close study of star and planetary movement, helped facilitate the work of Johann Kepler and other scientists who owed a debt to the careful plotting of movements of the planetary bodies and had developed records reaching back to help astronomers understand what they were seeing through their telescopes. In all of this, one cannot diminish the practices of religion or pseudo-science. Rather, a great debt is owed to the work of those who would soon be pushed the margins by the strident findings of science. The entire world at this time was adopting forms of superstition and “magical” thought during the Renaissance, anachronistically reading these practices into their history and passing them off as tradition reaching back to an ancient time. As discussed previously, recovery of the ancient was a cardinal idea of the classical tradition recovered during the Renaissance.
The two other strands of thought relevant to witchcraft at the turn of the 15th century, alchemy and magic, were also getting more favorable attention after a long period of dormancy. Alchemy sought far more than transmutation, the turning of baser metals into gold. Alchemy was a search for the fabled Philosopher’s Stone, the central item to unlocking the secrets of the world and finding not just knowledge but also understanding. In the melange of so many new discoveries, the Philosopher’s Stone would allegedly cut through the din and reveal only what was true. Because of this, alchemy was a secretive activity. Practitioners ran the gamut from charlatans to scholars engaged in experimentation and research. Here too, we may be tempted to laugh at the primitive findings of alchemy except that because of it, we find a great many records of history, chemistry, metallurgy, even to some extent philosophy, and the preservation of documents to facilitate education across borders. The language of alchemy still presented a challenge to the advance of science in that it used language and wording elevated to religious mysticism, but as Carl Jung would later point out, the nature of alchemy involved the meeting of opposites: science and religion, the common and the valuable, the sacred and profane. The hermaphrodite was emblematic of alchemical pursuits, and complemented the advances being made during the Renaissance.
Magic, however, was another development entirely. If astrology and astronomy were following a similar track, and alchemy and chemistry another, magic was altogether a resistance to science. Put directly, with a world that now had a language for “either/or” dualism, magic was an unknown other outside the construct. It was neither religious or science, but something else entirely. Connections and contributions to science were limited, brief, fluid, and highly debatable. Unlike astrology and alchemy, it would take another 100 years or so before magic began to have a strong definition but it is hinted at here because astrologers and alchemists were, in a very true sense, “magicians” by their ability to extrapolate meaning and substance from the mysteries of the world.