Hunter, Michael Cyril William (Author)
A new history that overturns the received wisdom that science displaced magic in Enlightenment Britain—named a Best Book of 2020 by the Financial Times In early modern Britain, belief in prophecies, omens, ghosts, apparitions and fairies was commonplace. Among both educated and ordinary people the absolute existence of a spiritual world was taken for granted. Yet in the eighteenth century such certainties were swept away. Credit for this great change is usually given to science – and in particular to the scientists of the Royal Society. But is this justified? Michael Hunter argues that those pioneering the change in attitude were not scientists but freethinkers. While some scientists defended the reality of supernatural phenomena, these sceptical humanists drew on ancient authors to mount a critique both of orthodox religion and, by extension, of magic and other forms of superstition. Even if the religious heterodoxy of such men tarnished their reputation and postponed the general acceptance of anti-magical views, slowly change did come about. When it did, this owed less to the testing of magic than to the growth of confidence in a stable world in which magic no longer had a place.
...More
Book
Thomas Waters;
(2020)
Cursed Britain: A History of Witchcraft and Black Magic in Modern Times
(/isis/citation/CBB595613170/)
Book
Bailey, Michael David;
(2013)
Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB001201732/)
Book
Lis, Catharina;
Soly, Hugo;
(2012)
Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-industrial Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB001550360/)
Book
Richard Noakes;
(2020)
Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB321801843/)
Book
Hanegraaff, Wouter J.;
(2012)
Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB001201630/)
Article
Josephson, Jason Ãnanda;
(2013)
God's Shadow: Occluded Possibilities in the Genealogy of “Religion”
(/isis/citation/CBB001320650/)
Book
Monod, Paul Kléber;
(2013)
Solomon's Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB001213599/)
Book
Miller, Ted H.;
(2011)
Mortal Gods: Science, Politics, and the Humanist Ambitions of Thomas Hobbes
(/isis/citation/CBB001214739/)
Book
Young, Francis;
(2013)
English Catholics and the Supernatural, 1553--1829
(/isis/citation/CBB001201678/)
Book
Butler, Alison;
(2011)
Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic: Invoking Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB001033496/)
Book
Cunningham, Jack;
(2012)
Robert Grosseteste: His Thought and Its Impact
(/isis/citation/CBB001260630/)
Book
Michael R. Lynn;
(2022)
Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB592135235/)
Article
Alter, Stephen G.;
(2008)
Mandeville's Ship: Theistic Design and Philosophical History in Charles Darwin's Vision of Natural Selection
(/isis/citation/CBB001030603/)
Book
Gascoigne, John;
(2010)
Science, Philosophy and Religion in the Age of the Enlightenment: British and Global Contexts
(/isis/citation/CBB001033258/)
Book
Kripal, Jeffrey J.;
(2010)
Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred
(/isis/citation/CBB001031300/)
Book
Stark, Ryan J.;
(2009)
Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB001021262/)
Book
Nuovo, Victor;
(2011)
Christianity, Antiquity, and Enlightenment: Interpretations of Locke
(/isis/citation/CBB001201326/)
Article
Carolina Armenteros;
(2015)
Spirituality, Politics, and the Maistrian Moment: Reflections on Themes from The French Idea of History
(/isis/citation/CBB726812573/)
Book
Brisson, Luc;
Seamus O'Neill;
Andrei Timotin;
(2018)
Neoplatonic Demons and Angels
(/isis/citation/CBB460237423/)
Article
Fabiana Lopes da Silveira;
(2022)
In the Melting Pot: Cultural Mixture and the Presentation of Alchemical Knowledge in the Letter from Isis to Horus
(/isis/citation/CBB755994545/)
Be the first to comment!