The essays in this volume present a collective study of one of the major
problems in the recent history of science: To what extent did the occult
'sciences' (alchemy, astrology, numerology, and natural magic)
contribute to the scientific revolution of the late Renaissance? These
studies of major scientists (Kepler, Bacon, Mersenne, and Newton) and of
occultists (Dee, Fludd, and Cardano), complemented by analyses of
contemporary official and unofficial studies at Cambridge and Oxford and
discussions of the language of science, combine to suggest that hitherto
the relationship has been too crudely stated as a movement 'from magic
to science'. In fact, two separate mentalities can be traced, the occult
and the scientific, each having different assumptions, goals, and
methodologies. The contributors call into question many of the received
ideas on this topic, showing that the issue has been wrongly defined and
based on inadequate historical evidence. They outline new ways of
approaching and understanding a situation in which two radically
different and, to modern eyes, incompatible ways of describing reality
persisted side-by-side until the demise of the occult in the late
seventeenth century. Their work, accordingly, sets the whole issue in a
new light.
