Article ID: CBB001212673

The Decline of Magic: Challenge and Response in Early Enlightenment England (2012)

unapi

This article argues that, in order properly to understand the process by which the attitude of the educated towards magical beliefs became prevalently sceptical between the mid- seventeenth and the mid-eighteenth centuries, we need to re-examine the affiliations of `sadducism' and its role in relation to orthodox thought. In late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England, articulate scepticism about witchcraft and related phenomena seems to have become widespread in free-thinking circles, especially in London and predominantly in oral form. Because of the taint of irreligion with which such attitudes were associated, orthodox thinkers were inhibited from adopting them for a generation, while a vociferous minority mounted a counter-attack. In the early decades of the eighteenth century, however, it gradually became apparent that scepticism about such phenomena was less dangerous than it had initially appeared, and the orthodox began more cautiously to advocate such views themselves.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001212673/

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Authors & Contributors
Achermann, Silke
Armstrong, Sean
Bever, Edward
Buckle, Stephen
Coudert, Allison P.
Devoy, Louise
Journals
Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation
History Workshop Journal
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Social History
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Publishers
Ashgate
Oxford University Press
Yale University Press
University of Washington
MIT Press
Pickering & Chatto
Concepts
Magic
Witchcraft; demonology
Occult sciences
Science and religion
Science and culture
Science and gender
People
Locke, John
Newton, Isaac
Bacon, Francis, 1st Baron Verulam
Boyle, Robert
Dee, John
Hume, David
Time Periods
17th century
16th century
Enlightenment
18th century
Early modern
19th century
Places
England
Great Britain
Europe
Germany
North America
United States
Institutions
British Museum. Natural History
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