Magic Science and Religion

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

In this colloquium we will explore the relationship of official religion to magic, approaches to the study of the natural world, and healing practices in Western Europe from late antiquity to the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century. Although the course will concentrate on ideas and events in Western Europe, important points of interaction between Christian and Islamic worlds will be taken up (the practice of alchemy, after all, received its name in the Arab world). Relying on historical documents and other evidence, we will place varieties of magic and superstition in historical context. Throughout the course we will examine underlying assumptions about God, the supernatural, the preternatural, and the natural. Because the role of superstition and magic receded -- but did not completely disappear -- by the seventeenth century, the course will address the reasons why much of what was normal and normative from antiquity to the Middle Ages became marginalized by the seventeenth century. At the same time, neither Christianity nor early modern science was intrinsically hostile to forms of magic; instead, both incorporated it in positive ways during their formative years. It is precisely this paradoxical combination of faith and reason on the one hand, and unreason on the other, that we will seek to understand in the course.