The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History (review)

Reviews 259 proceed to move the structure any further forward from its idiosyncratic anchorage in the medieval past'. Thereafter the English church never dared to define itself as Protestant orCatholic, but instead has made a virtue out ofnecessity. This second edition of The Later Reformation in England 1547-1603 brings new refinements and nuances, mostly from his o w n research, but still a supplemented and polished version of thefirstversion. O n those grounds alone this edition is a considerable contribution to ongoing research. Barry Collett Department ofHistory University of Melbourne Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., ed., The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History, N e w York, St. Martin's Press, 1999; cloth; pp. xvi, 241; R R P unknown; ISBN 0312217528 (cloth), 0312217536 (paper) This is an excellent collection of sources which documents the extraordinary interest in what w e now call occult studies or occult sciences in the Early M o d e m period. As Maxwell-Stuart comments in his brief introduction, in this period such studies were 'an intensely serious endeavour to uncover the secrets of nature {occultas res naturae) in order the better to understand the mind of God, and so prepare oneself in some measure for the fullness of knowledge (scientia) which would come with the soul's achieving the Beatific Vision'. The wide-ranging sources reproduced in the book exemplify the intellectual curiosity and religious fervour which characterised this endeavour. Though the authors included are a necessarily small sample ofthose who wrote on subjects such as portents, dreams, divination, spirits and ghosts, possession, exorcism, superstition, astrology, Kabbalah, witchcraft, alchemy and the broadfieldof magic, they are nevertheless representative and provide the reader with a sense of the lively contemporary discourse concerning such topic. The most well-known authors w h o m one would expect tofindin such a collection are certainly there: Ficino, Paracelsus, Agrippa, Giovanni Pico, Reuchlin, Bodin, Weyer, Cardano, Daneau, Lavater, Menghi, Del Rio, Bossuet, to name a few. But there are also those not so well known: Johannes Indagine with a fascinating extract on physiognomy; Carolus de Baucius on types of superstition; Benito Pereira on natural and unnatural magic; A d a m of Bodenstein's graphic letter concerning his conversion from scepticism to appreciation of the true value of 260 Reviews alchemy; Denis Zacaire's detailed account of alchemical practice; Manuel do Valle de Moura's description of three magicians w h o dealt directly with demons; and Francesco Torreblanca Villalpando's commentaries on a wide range of magical subjects. The collection is organised under four main chapters: a world of signs and spirits, astrology, magic and alchemy. The chapters on astrology and alchemy are most circumscribed, but also very revealing. The opinions on astrology range from Girolamo Cardano's description of it as 'beautiful in itself, an understanding of how lower things are linked with higher' (p. 68), the most noble of arts, the most lofty of the branches of knowledge (p. 83), to thefiercecondemnation ofjudicial astrology by authors such as Calvin, Pico, Pithoys and Bossuet. However I find thefirstand third chapters most fascinating. Thefirstexemplifies how the world was considered full of extraordinary signs and forces in this period, and how their source or appearance was identified with the stars, occult virtues, all kinds ofspirits, with angels, demons or the divine. Indeed, in an gripping story which Cardano ! tells ofhis father (p. 34f), the spirit-world takes on a terrifying and very palpable ' presence. The third chapter documents the range ofmagical techniques which were developed to tap into and exploit these forces, or alternatively, to protect individuals and communities from their evil effects. It points up the many forms magic takes, its close association with medicine, the support it drew from ancient magic as well as from esoteric traditions such as Jewish Kabbalah, and its increasingly frequent condemnation as a form ofwitchcraft. The book is well produced and the translations remarkably lucid, especially given the difficulty of some of the material. I think that students would benefit more, however, if the brief introductions to extracts contained a little : information on the work from which they were taken as well as on their authors, And given that several...