Isaac Newton's Occult Studies
Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), the noted English scientist and mathematician, wrote many works that would now be classified as occult studies. These occult works explored chronology, alchemy, and Biblical interpretation (especially of the Apocalypse). Newton's scientific work may have been of lesser personal importance to him, as he placed emphasis on rediscovering the occult wisdom of the ancients. In this sense, some have commented that the common reference a "Newtonian Worldview" as being purely mechanistic is somewhat inaccurate.
After purchasing and studying Newton's alchemical works in 1942, economist John Maynard Keynes, for example, opined that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians". In the pre-Modern Era of Newton's lifetime, the educated embraced a world view different from that of later centuries. Distinctions between science, superstition, and pseudoscience were still being formulated, and a devoutly Christian Biblical perspective permeated Western culture.
Read more about Isaac Newton's Occult Studies: Alchemical Research, Writings, Biblical Studies, Newton's Chronology, Newton and Secret Societies
Famous quotes containing the words isaac newton, isaac, newton, occult and/or studies:
“No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being, because when any being is postulated, space is postulated.”
—Isaac Newton (16421727)
“Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.”
—Bible: Hebrew Jacob, in Genesis, 27:11.
To his mother Rebekah, explaining how the blind Isaac might discover the ploy of his pretending to be Esau. Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. (25:27)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Pauls, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (17171797)
“There is no more foul or relentless enemy of man in the occult world than this dead-alive creature spewed up from the grave.”
—Guy Endore, and Tod Browning. Prof. Zelenn (Lionel Barrymore)
“What happiness did poor Mothers studies bring her? It is the melancholy tendency of such studies to separate people from their friends and neighbors and fellow creatures in whom alone lies ones happiness.”
—Mary Potter Playne (c. 1850?)