Solomon's Secret Arts (25 page)

Its doors finally opened, the palace of Kabbalistic secrets became a home to heterodoxy and the scene of furious controversy.
Kabbala Denudata
did not initiate a new age for the Christian Kabbala; rather, it ended a fruitful period of speculation, which now gave way to criticism and disillusionment. The magical aura of the Kabbala among its Christian admirers began to dissipate once its principles were known. While it continued to intrigue philosophers like Leibniz, it lost much of its conjuring power in popular literature—at least until the late eighteenth century, when its theological principles had again been largely forgotten. In an embarrassing demonstration of its newly contested status, the Kabbala was even satirized. The original French version of this satire by the Abbé de Villars had appeared in 1670, but it was translated and reprinted at London ten years later, evidently in response to
Kabbala Denudata
.
The Count of Gabalis: or The Extravagant Mysteries of the Cabalists Exposed
was a subtle parody of occult philosophy. A sceptical young man is visited by a German Kabbalist count who advises him to renounce sexual relations with women and confine his lusts to sylphs, nymphs and “Gnomides.” He eventually reveals the secret that Plato and other philosophers were the offspring of unions between men and spirits. Although very funny, the book has deceived gullible readers up to the present into thinking that it is intended as a serious work of occult thought—the Internet is littered with their comments. Of course, the subtitle gives the game away.
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The anonymous printer of
The Count of Gabalis
exposed another secret on the title page, by designating himself as “Printer to the Cabalistical Society of the Sages, at the Signe of the
Rosy-Crusian
.” No such organization had sponsored the appearance of
Kabbala Denudata
, and none arose from its publication. Nevertheless, to understand the nature of secrets in the late seventeenth century, we have to consider the lure of secret societies. Men of learning continued to hope that secrets could be passed down from teacher to pupil, like the arts and mysteries of a skilled craft. A secret society based on initiation into such mysteries might preserve them forever. This atavistic vision of occult philosophy as a kind of underground activity, passed down over generations, was in part a reaction to the “vulgarization” of learning through print culture. It was a socially exclusive and gendered vision: only educated men of acceptable character and learning were allowed to participate in the transmission of wisdom.

The willingness to believe in the existence of such groups had sparked the Rosicrucian episode of the early seventeenth century, the effects of which lingered for generations. It also led Robert Boyle into one of the strangest
experiences of his career. In 1677, Boyle met a French alchemist, Georges Pierre des Clozets, who introduced him to an international society known as “the Asterism.”
⁹⁷
Boyle was named to a vacant seat in the organization by the “Patriarch of Antioch,” a man whom Pierre called his “great master” and who bore the office of chancellor in this “most powerful and most magnanimous Cabalistic Society of the Sons of Wisdom.”
⁹⁸
Through Pierre, the patriarch asked Boyle to send him various items, including cannons, telescopes, microscopes and chemical apparatus. For his part, Georges Pierre sent Boyle alchemical recipes and reports about the activities of members of the society, including the creation by one of them of a homunculus or miniature human being. Pierre also periodically requested sums of money to cover his expenses. Alas, it was all too good to be true. In September 1678, Boyle learned from a friend of Pierre that he had not been using the money to travel, and instead had been living at Caen with his pregnant girlfriend.
⁹⁹
“The Asterism” turned out to be an ingenious hoax, so elaborate that Pierre had even gone to the trouble of placing advertisements in Dutch and French newspapers announcing the election of the “Patriarch of Antioch.” Boyle was probably not his only victim. Interestingly, only a month after Pierre's fabrications were revealed to him, Boyle received a copy of
Kabbala Denudata
.
¹⁰⁰
From “the Asterism,” he turned to a book whose secrets were less exclusive but equally mysterious.

Georges Pierre's secret society resembled the Rosicrucians, but its elaborate titles and Near Eastern orbit gave it the aura of a Crusading order of the Middle Ages. In a sense, “the Asterism” was what many learned men in the late seventeenth century would have liked the Brotherhood of Freemasons to be: an organization that spread occult secrets, not by publicity, but through initiation. The early history of the Masons is notoriously difficult to untangle, but they were descended from active lodges or professional meeting places of medieval stonemasons, who possessed elaborate constitutions and “charges” that spun fantastic myths out of biblical stories, for instance, about the building of the Temple of Jerusalem. In 1598–9, the master of works for King James VI of Scotland, William Schaw, issued new statutes for the Scottish lodges that included tests in the art of memory, a method of symbolically reconstructing knowledge that was associated with occult philosophy.
¹⁰¹
From that point on, the humble lodges of stonemasons began to gain a reputation among the learned as privileged and closed spaces where secrets were imparted through strange rituals. The first known non-operative or “speculative” Freemason was none other than Robert Moray, the Scottish alchemist. He was admitted at Edinburgh in 1641, along with Alexander Hamilton, commander of artillery for the Covenanting army then fighting against King Charles I. Moray later enjoyed affixing his “mason mark” to letters, either as a seal or a drawing—it
consisted of a pentacle, the five-sided star associated with ritual magic and familiar to readers of the
Clavicula Salomonis
.
¹⁰²
Elias Ashmole, who joined a lodge at Warrington, Lancashire, in 1646, was the first English Mason to record his initiation.
¹⁰³
Given the known interests of Moray and Ashmole, there would seem to be little doubt that their attraction to Freemasonry was related to the promise of learning secrets about occult philosophy or science.

The actual secrets of the Freemasons were rooted in their myths and rituals, not in any hidden knowledge of nature that they were able to impart. Nonetheless, the press connected them with occult philosophy from the start. A satirical advertisement or “Divertisement” published in the newspaper
Poor Robin's Intelligencer
for 10 October 1676 makes the point uproariously, adding a political twist to it:

The Green-Ribbon Club, which met at the King's Head tavern in Chancery Lane, was composed of opposition Members of Parliament, most of whom later became Whigs. The duke of Buckingham, whose interest in alchemy and astrology has already been noted, was a leading member.
¹⁰⁵

By lumping an opposition club together with the Rosicrucians, Hermeticists and Freemasons, the newspaper writer was suggesting not just that they were all secret cabals, but that they shared the same sort of fantastical notions, such as about eating imaginary dishes or becoming invisible. The mention of coffee-house idlers is also worth noting. Sites for business, political discussion and cultural exchanges as well as leisure, coffee-houses were springing up throughout the fashionable parts of London in the 1670s.
¹⁰⁶
They often provided newspapers for their clients, so
Poor Robin's Intelligencer
was actually making fun of some of its own readers.

The presence among their Fraternity of Elias Ashmole demonstrates that not all Freemasons were crypto-republicans. In fact, as the English lodges had little or no central organization before 1717, it would be unwise to make
any
broad generalizations about their religious or political dispositions at this time. Most likely, each lodge adopted a political tenor according to the views of its members. In London, the lodges may well have had a general affiliation with the emerging Whig Party. Whether occult philosophy was actually discussed in them is another matter, to which no satisfactory answer can be given, as evidence is entirely lacking. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the 1676 “Divertisement” is that the author expected readers to recognize all of these groups, including the Freemasons. Like coffee-houses, they were already a part of literate culture in London and the provinces, and they were there to stay.

The hidden wisdom of
Kabbala Denudata
lost its appeal within a few years. The mysteries of Freemasonry, on the other hand, continued to fascinate both initiates and “cowans,” or non-Masons, for generations to come. Because they remained private associations, the lodges were not in danger of losing their secrets to the public, so long as members kept their mouths shut. Paradoxically, however, Freemasonry would soon develop a dependence on publicity. While they did not want their rites and practices to be revealed to the world, the attention given to them by the press (and in coffee-house conversations) helped Masons to maintain their profile within English and Scottish society. Freemasonry became a strange mixture of secrecy and publicity, of ritualism and tolerance, of the traditional and the innovative.

To return to our original question: how integrated were occult philosophy and science in the intellectual life of the late seventeenth century? The short answer is that their integration was uneven and their position insecure. On the one hand, we might point to the interest taken in them by so many major scientific and philosophical figure of the late 1600s: Hartlib, Beale, Boyle, Newton, Aubrey, More, Glanvill, Locke. On the other hand, the results of that interest were limited. The dangers of transgressing the limits of “disinterest” or religious orthodoxy kept opinions private and experiments hidden from public scrutiny. In the atmosphere of fear and suspicion after 1660, occult thinking provided the defenders of religious authority with an easy target, which could be attacked even if it could not be suppressed.

The occult made definite contributions to the knowledge of the late seventeenth century, but its influence was usually disguised. Alchemy, astrology and ritual magic never enjoyed the respectability that so many of their practitioners craved. This could be seen as early as the 1680s in the field of medicine. In spite of the widespread use of pills and nostrums that had their origins in Paracelsian theories and alchemical experiments, most doctors continued to rely on older Galenic theories of the humours, and on techniques derived from them, like bleeding.
¹⁰⁷
The practical results of alchemy were praised, but its “higher” aims aroused the suspicions of many observers, and it
was never established as a formal course of study at any of the universities in the British Isles. The enormous popularity of astrology served to associate it with vulgar forms of learning and, apart from John Goad, no leading intellectual of the period devoted much attention to it. Ritual magic was too close to diabolism to be openly espoused. As for philosophical trends like Neoplatonism, Hermeticism or Kabbalism, they were the subjects of heated debate among scholars, and were likely to be condemned in strong terms whenever they verged on heterodoxy, which they frequently did. Prophets who drew upon occult philosophy were denounced as sectarians, and their messages reached only small audiences.

In spite of its widespread appeal, therefore, the occult was continually relegated to the sidelines of late seventeenth-century thought. Its nemesis remained religious orthodoxy, but it had gained a further adversary in the Hobbesian materialism that denied the possibility of disembodied spirits, and it was increasingly seen as incompatible with natural science. The new dawn that had excited so many occult enthusiasts in the 1650s had soon been overshadowed by opposition and doubt. Even before the Glorious Revolution, therefore, occult thinking was entering a period of eclipse, a retreat from publicity back into the private realm. Only after the pillars of orthodoxy began to shift in the mid-eighteenth century would this period of relative darkness end, and an occult revival begin.

PART TWO

ECLIPSE, 1688–1760

CHAPTER FOUR

A Fading Flame

I
N
1688, the Catholic King James II fled from his kingdoms, losing his throne to his Protestant son-in-law William of Orange and his daughter Mary in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Nothing in this political change would have signalled imminent catastrophe to those who were interested in occult philosophy and science. On the contrary, many adherents of the occult were sectarians or heterodox Anglicans. They might be seen as beneficiaries of the revolution, which ushered in a Parliamentary Act of Toleration that encompassed mainstream Protestant groups. Within a decade of 1688, however, occult thinking was suffering from a severe loss of intellectual energy and by 1715, it appears to have been in a state of decline. Why did this happen?