The age of magicians: periodization in the history of European magic.(Report)

Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, June, 2008 by Bailey, Michael D.

John Maynard Keynes once described Sir Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest figure of the scientific revolution, as being "not the first of the age of reason" but "the last of the magicians." (1) Keynes was commenting, among other things, on Newton's fascination with alchemy and the influence it may have had on his mathematical studies of gravitation and optics. (2) This quip, no doubt originally deployed for its pithiness, raises broad questions of historical periodization. Was there an age of magicians, sharply distinct from the modern era of scientific reason, and if so when did one age pass into the other? Did the premodern world comprise, as Keynes's remark might be taken to imply, an unbroken epoch uniformly benighted by its magical beliefs and superstitions, or...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.