SOURCE: "Literary and Philosophical Background," in Heavenly Necromancers: The Magician in English Renaissance Drama, University of Missouri Press, 1984, pp. 1-31.

[In the following essay, Traister examines religious, philosophical, and popular attitudes toward magic in the Renaissance that resulted in the literary and dramatic representation of the magician in the works of Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare.]

Doctor Faustus, The Tempest, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay— these very different plays have in common a major character who is, or claims to be, a magician. Scores of less well known plays from the Tudor and early Stuart period also have in their casts of characters a magician. Indeed, for some thirty years, the magician was a familiar stage figure; then, quite suddenly, he vanished from the stage, reappearing only in a few court masques or as a parody of himself, as a pseudo-magus. Exploration of this abrupt rise and fall of the stage magician forms part of the subject of this study.

The magician filled a symbolic role in many plays. He functioned as a man whose horizons were both limitless and limited, a self-contained paradox. The convergence of two views of the magician—one, popular and literary, perhaps most clearly expressed in the medieval romances, the other, elitist and philosophical, best studied in the writings of the Italian neoplatonists—led to an ambivalence that made the magician a potentially fascinating stage character. Brief exploration of these traditions of magic leads to an understanding of how the magician functions in individual plays and provides some background for examining his association with magical competitions, sensual delights of all sorts, and a master-of-ceremonies image.

Interest in magic ran high during the Tudor and early Stuart period. It is important to understand both the pre-conceptions the audience was likely to have had about magicians and what the playwrights themselves might have known and felt about magic and the men who practiced it. The subject was seriously discussed in the court circles of Elizabeth and James, in the English law courts, in church, and in philosophical works imported from the Continent. Thanks largely to pioneering studies of neo-platonic and hermetic magic emanating from the Warburg Institute, since the 1950s literary scholars have become increasingly aware of the influence of magic on Renaissance thought. A somewhat different line of inquiry, not yet as well explored, concerns how—if at all—that influence was translated into literary, fictive creations.

In this spirit of inquiry, then, I examine both the historical and literary climate of Renaissance magic in preparation for close analysis of several important stage magicians. It is impossible to claim direct influence, except in a few unusual cases, of the literary and historical materials on specific plays or specific dramatists. However, the conflux of magical traditions in the early Renaissance helps explain how, for a few playwrights, the magician figure focuses issues of human potential and limitation and raises the question of how much man is permitted to know.

I.

Religious and philosophical attitudes toward magic were varied and complex. Until the thirteenth century—and, officially, much later than that—the medieval church's position was simple and straightforward: magic was to be avoided by God-fearing men. God permitted magic partly to demonstrate, by its overthrow, his own miraculous powers, and partly as one of the pitfalls that appeared in the world as a result of original sin.

But difficulties arose from such a sweeping condemnation of magic, and uneasy perceptions of problems produced by the complete rejection of magic appear in the writings of men such as Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon. Of primary concern was the impossibility of drawing any clear line between magic and science. To experiment, to inquire into the secrets of the universe, was to come very close to involvement with magic. Medicine and astronomy, for example, were frequently associated with magic. Was the doctor practicing magic when he prescribed herbs to be taken at the full moon? Was the man who predicted the stars' influence on one's life or one's harvest a magician? Already uncomfortable questions in the thirteenth century, they grew increasingly vexing in ensuing centuries as the demand for scientific experiment increased.

Physician, alchemist, professor all then wore the same long robe, which might mark either the scholar or the magician. And when so much of what was new in science was concerned with the very frontiers of knowledge, and dealt with almost unimaginable problems of the organisation, complexity and harmony of Nature, scientists themselves were puzzled to know certainly where natural philosophy stopped and mystic science began.

Some philosophers attempted to clarify the issues by distinguishing demonic magic from what became increasingly well known as natural magic (magia naturalis). Writers as early as Roger Bacon distinguished between demonic ("not human") magic and natural wonders, though most did not yet call the natural wonders "magic":

Nam licet naturae potens sit et mirabilis, tamen ars utens natura pro instrumento potentior est virtute naturali, sicut videmus in multis. Quicquid autem est praeter operationem naturae vel artis, aut non est humanum, aut est fictum et fraudibus occupatum.

Granted that nature is powerful and wondrous, nevertheless, by using nature as its instrument, art is stronger than natural power, as we see in many things. Moreover, whatever is beyond the operation of nature or of art is either not human, or is invented and usurped by fraud.

Gradually the linguistic distinction between natural and demonic magic became familiar (though the church never officially accepted it), and when, in the mid-sixteenth century, Giambattista della Porta used the phrase magia naturalis to title his collection of remedies and superstitions, it was a well-known phrase.

But the verbal distinction between natural and demonic magic created new difficulties: how was the natural magician to be regarded? A familiar example of the problem arises from the biblical account of the three magi visiting the Christ child. The magi foretell the birth and then confirm its occurrence by reading the heavens; yet they are clearly positive figures. Writers against magic were always rather embarrassed about this passage and developed numerous ingenious ways of getting around the problem. Albertus Magnus turned to etymology to solve the difficulty and at the same time worked in his distinction between good and evil magicians:

Magi enim grammatice magni sunt.… Nec sunt Magi malefici sicut quidam male opinantur. Magus enim et Mathematicus et Incantator et Maleficus sive Necromanticus et Ariolus et Aruspex et Divinator differunt. Quia Magus proprie nisi magnus est, qui scientiam habens de omnibus necessariis et effectibus naturarum coniecturans aliquando mirabilia naturae praeostendit et educit.

For Magi are, grammatically speaking, great men.… Nor are Magi evildoers, although they are often thought ill of in this way. For a Magus and a Mathematician and a Charmer and an Evil-doer, or a Necromancer and Seer and Haruspex and Diviner all differ. Since a Magus is surely nothing unless a great man, knowledgeable and making guesses about nature from all its requirements and effects, he often demonstrates and teaches nature's wonders.

But such distinctions had to be repeated by each writer who dealt with magic. Interestingly, no one seems to have doubted that there was demonic magic. Rather, all efforts were directed at proving that "good" or natural magic did, or did not, exist.

As late as the mid-seventeenth century some writers were still trying to define magic and magus and distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable types. But many Renaissance commentators seemed confident in the treatment of natural magic:

Magick is taken amongst all men for Wisdom, and the perfect knowledge of natural things: and those are called Magicians, whom the Latines call Wise-men, the Greeks call Philosophers.… There are two sorts of Magick: the one is infamous, and unhappie, because it hath to do with foul spirits, and consists of Inchantments and wicked Curiosity; and this is called Sorcery … [which] stands meerly upon fancies and imaginations, such as vanish presently away, and leave nothing behinde them.… The other Magick is natural; which all excellent wise men do admit and embrace, and worship with great applause; neither is there any thing more highly esteemed, or better thought of, by men of learning.

Words like worship as Porta's anonymous translator used it in the statement above (Porta himself used the phrase excipit, colit, & veneratur) had the potential to get their author into a good deal of trouble with the church, but such effusions demonstrate to what heights admiration for natural magic rose in some circles.

In theory, demonic and natural magic were distinguished by a single incontrovertible difference—demonic magic was performed with the aid of spirits; natural magic was not. But in time, natural magic became a more general term, covering more territory than had originally been permitted it. The people most responsible for the alterations in the meaning of natural magic were a group of Italian philosophers who revived neoplatonism during the latter half of the fifteenth century. The magical theories of this group had some influence on the way magic is portrayed in English Renaissance literature.

The revival of neoplatonism provided its adherents with a belief in a general animating spirit (spiritus or anima mundi) operative in the universe. This spirit in turn in-fused souls or spirits into other parts of the creation, usually the planets and other heavenly bodies. This belief probably originated from Plato's Timaeus:

[And when he framed the universe he distributed] souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which their first birth would be one and the same for all.

As this doctrine of world soul emerged, having been filtered through Plotinus and influenced by hermetic writings, it was seen as a source of tremendous cosmic energy and wisdom that man, under very special conditions, might be permitted to tap. Neoplatonists had individual theories about how one might tap into this suprarational wisdom and power, but most subscribed to the general idea that, by purifying himself of earthly ties and steadily pursuing wisdom and knowledge, man could lift himself above the concerns of the sublunar world and participate in knowledge of cosmic affairs. One of the most famous expressions of belief in man's ability to ascend to a semidivine state is Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man: "It will be within your power to rise, through your own choice, to the superior orders of divine life." An d Giordano Bruno, often far less restrained than Pico, sang in the poem that introduces On the Infinite Universe and Worlds:

Henceforth I spread confident wings to space;
I feel no barrier of crystal or of glass;
I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite
And while I rise from my own globe to others
And penetrate ever further through the eternal
  field
That which others saw from afar I leave far
  behind me.

Not only is this an expression of Bruno's cosmography; it also suggests the potential that Bruno believed man had to transcend his own globe and mentally explore "far other worlds and other seas."

But, of course, it was not granted to every man to gain such wisdom. Like other writers on magic, the neoplatonists jealously guarded their magical secrets, carefully limiting those who could be expected to attain communication with the heavens to a select group of initiates. Certainly not all neoplatonists subscribed to Pico's ideas about magic or even to Marsilio Ficino's milder views. But those who did concern themselves with magic usually believed that only the magus, the rare wise man, could accomplish contact with the infinite: "As the farmer weds his elms to the vines, so the magus weds earth to heaven—the lower orders, that is, to the endowments and powers of the higher," stated Pico in the Oration.

Neoplatonists called magic that performs the synthesis of the earthly with the heavenly natural magic but gave the term a significance at odds with its original meaning. If man's ascent to divine wisdom was purely the result of his goodness and intense study, then the meaning of the term remained essentially unchanged. But most neoplatonists, not content to have man do all the work, felt the need for means to attract (or even to compel) the planetary spirits to visit the magician. Ficino, for example, developed theories of how to attract planetary daemons (to be carefully distinguished from "demons," evil spirits) by the use of music, particular words similar to incantations, special colors, and perfumes. These sensual lures were designed to draw spirits that a recent commentator on Ficino's magic, D. P. Walker, described [in Spiritual and Demonic Magic, 1958] as "like men without earthly bodies who live in the heavenly spheres; they perform the function of transmitting celestial influences; they can, being both soul and spirit, act both on man's spirit and his soul." The major difference between such "spiritual magic" and truly demonic or devilish magic seems to be that Ficino intended to attract benign angelic spirits to influence his own disposition rather than evil spirits who would perform malevolent feats or interfere with the lives of other people.

Of the writers who shared Ficino's belief in planetary daemons or held more extreme beliefs, a few admitted to something more in their art than natural magic. Agrippa distinguished between natural and "ceremonial" magic, the latter involving rituals and special ceremonies for getting in touch with spirits. All ceremonial magic is dangerous, he warned, but he went on to distinguish two kinds—"goetic" and "theurgic." Goetic magic, the calling up of evil spirits, is, he admitted, truly commerce with the devil and is as reprehensible as the opponents of magic claim. Theurgy, on the other hand, is the calling of angelic or planetary spirits and, though dangerous, is very attractive. Tommaso Campanella, writing in the seventeenth century and thus possessed of a latecomer's perspective on the changes in theories about magic, distinguished [in "On the Sense and Feeling in All Things and on Magic"] three kinds: diabolic, natural, and "divine," the last a kind of heavenly gift to those who have practiced natural magic in a spirit of reverence and piety.

Now I affirm that there is divine magic: magic that man can neither understand nor employ without the grace of God.… There is natural magic, as that of the stars, and that of medicine and physics, with religion added to give faith to those who hope for favors from these sciences; and there is diabolical magic for those who, by the art of the devil, seem, to those who do not understand, to do marvelous things.… Natural magic, then, stands between: and those who exercise it with piety and reverence for the Creator, frequently come to be elevated to the supernatural kind of magic, thus participating in magic of a higher form.

As must be evident, the study of Renaissance magical theory is enormously complicated by the imprecision of terminology and by variations in kinds of magic, many of which seem to overlap or duplicate one another. Discussions of magic are further obfuscated by a deliberate vagueness on the part of philosophers about their specific beliefs. Contemporary examples of the church's power over heretics warned writers against being too outspoken about their magical ideas. So magicians denied or apologized for their magical theories, shrouding their ideas in seemingly innocuous contexts. D. P. Walker has commented on the difficulty of deciphering what Ficino actually believed about magic from the extremely cautious and often ambiguous way in which he wrote of it; Agrippa apologized for and virtually retracted his most outspoken book on magic, De occulta philosophia, even before he published it. The book was completed in 1510, the year Agrippa visited England, but circulated in manuscript until published in 1533. In 1526, evidently as a precaution against charges that might be made against the positive comments about magic in De occulta, Agrippa published De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum declamatio inuectiua, which repudiated many of the views on magic contained in the yet-to-be-published De occulta. Bruno's allegorical obscurity is undoubtedly also due in part to his fear of being too outspoken. To some degree, of course, magical theorists used deliberate obscurity as a tactic to keep from the uninitiated wisdom that they neither deserved nor could handle. These philosophers were not disposed to cast their magical pearls before swine.

Adding to the confusion surrounding magic is the adoption by leading neoplatonists of much theory that was not neoplatonic in origin. Ficino, one of the earliest and perhaps the most influential of the philosophers who espoused neoplatonism, was deeply influenced by hermetic material that he translated and published at the behest of Cosimo de Medici. Thought to be ancient Egyptian writings antedating Moses, the assorted occult treatises ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus influenced theories abut magic, medicine, and astronomy for nearly two centuries until Casaubon revealed their spurious nature in the mid-seventeenth century. Thus, even in Ficino's best-known work, De triplici vita (1489), his neoplatonism was adulterated by occult material from other sources. Similarly, Pico della Mirandola added to the neoplatonic elements of his magical theory a good deal of cabalistic belief in the importance of words and language for contacting spirits. This cabalistic element was passed to later writers mixed with Pico's neoplatonic beliefs. Clearly, to talk of neoplatonic magic is to talk of a general magical theory—philosophically based, seeking wisdom and knowledge, recognizing the existence of extraterrestrial spirits whose influences may be felt and, to an extent, controlled by man—not of a rigid set of beliefs conforming strictly to the tenets of neoplatonism.

With his discussions of how to attract planetary spirits, Ficino was at first the most important theorist of neoplatonic magic. But he did not go far enough with his magic to qualify even as a theurgic magician. Ficino's theory involved no compulsion. He merely wanted, through various ceremonies, to prepare the operator to be receptive to planetary spirits and perhaps to attract—never to compel—the spirits to visit the anxiously waiting operator. It was the revision of Ficino's ideas by such men as Agrippa and Paracelsus, who added cabalistic and expanded already present hermetic elements, that gave the magician not only attraction for but also power over both good and evil spirits and produced the strong and notorious kinds of magic. Ficino's reputation in his own time does not seem to have been that of a magician, and he was not persecuted by the church for heretical practices. Agrippa and Paracelsus, on the other hand, were known primarily as magicians and only secondarily as philosophers. What is so attractive and so dangerous about the strong magic of someone like Agrippa is the power it grants to man, who is able, if he is a properly initiated magus, to compel spirits to obey him. Agrippa would have quickly emended the preceding sentence to read: "the good, angelic spirits to obey him," but clearly the emendation was often forgotten by Agrippa's contemporaries. The line between goetic and theurgic magic was often blurred or omitted. Campanella, commenting on Agrippa, said that he reject ed magic that subjects man to the devil but kept the magic by which man subjects the devil and constrains him to do his will. And Pico, making the distinction between magicians who are controlled (having made a pact with or a promise to evil spirits) and those who control, made a similar claim for the magician's power over evil spirits: "For just as that first form of magic makes man a slave and a pawn of evil powers, so the second form makes him their ruler and lord." This promise of rule over spirits, whether angelic or demonic, tantalized philosophers and dramatists alike, and much of the magic discussed in the Renaissance involved the compulsion of spirits, a far cry from Ficino's original, mild theories of daemonic attraction.

What is important in all this is to recognize the very real philosophical concern with magic in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Philosophers who were, at least to some degree, known and respected were writing seriously about magic and, under the label natural magic, were talking positively about a magic that involved communication with spirits. The magus, in some circles, was regarded as a man of great wisdom, to be respected as a superior man among men. Indeed, the magus became in some writers' minds a symbol for the infinite possibilities that then seemed open to man. Through magic, some felt, man could climb to God (granted divine grace, of course) rather than simply mark time waiting out a weary life on earth. Eugenio Garin [Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance, 1969] summarized this view of the magician as possessor of tremendous potential:

True magic was defended because it was work which made use of the given forms in order to construct an ascending chain of Being. Ceremonial magic, on the other hand, was attacked because it was work which led into the abyss of sin and chaos. In both cases, however, the ambiguous reality of man consisted in the fact that he was a possibility, an opening through which one could rejoice in the inexhaustible richness of Being. He was not a being, defined once and for all, immobile and secure, but was always precariously balanced upon the margin of an absolute risk.

The magician could damn himself, as Faustus does, but there was also a possibility that he could lift himself into the sphere of immortal spirits or at least call some of those spirits down to him. A character with such potential might well prove attractive to a dramatist.

Nonetheless, little evidence has been offered that this philosophical view of magic, based primarily in Italy, had any effect on the writers of sixteenth-century England. Though England was not in the mainstream of the neoplatonic revival, the movement clearly had some influence on English letters. Many of the seminal magical texts had been translated into English by the end of the sixteenth century, and others were available to English readers in their original languages. In addition to the written word England had other contacts with philosophic magicians. As evidence of this, I would like to look briefly at three men—Agrippa, Giordano Bruno, and John Dee—all three magicians or magical theorists, all deeply influenced by neoplatonism, and all well known or active for a while in England.

The earliest of the three is Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), a German physician, a correspondent of Erasmus, and contemporary with the Englishmen Thomas More and John Colet (who was for a short time Agrippa's teacher). The question of Agrippa's contribution to the history of magic and science is much debated—Thorndike, for example, labeled him a "wayward genius" and "intellectual vagabond," whereas Charles Nauert [in Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought, 1965] maintained that he was a vital and influential figure in the history of magic. What seems agreed upon, however, is the breadth of his reputation and the popularity of his works, attested to in part by numerous editions of his De occulta philosophia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

While Agrippa was not wholly a neoplatonist and, indeed, leaned rather more toward Aristotelianism in his later years, he did base much of his magical theory upon the neoplatonic magic set forth by Ficino (passages from De Triplici Vita are sometimes quoted verbatim by Agrippa, though with no acknowledgment given to Ficino) and also borrowed much, including some cabalistic elements, from Pico. He believed that the magus was able to gain contact with angelic spirits through the construction of images, but he added that such images were useless "unless they be so brought to life that either a natural, or celestial, or heroic, or animistic, or demonic, or angelic power is present in them or with them." Nauert explained, "The soul of the magician who employs these images draws its ability to use them not from reason but from a mystical ascent aided by ceremonial preparation and dependent for its consummation on divine illumination."

Despite numerous denials that he advocated theurgic magic, Agrippa could not hide his interest in it. In the middle of a stern warning about the dangers of ceremonial magic, Agrippa gives himself away by breaking into the first person as he speaks of the power of theurgy:

Many thinke that Theurgie is not prohibited, as who saithe it were gouerned by good Angels, and by the diuine power, whereas yet oftentimes vnder the name of God, & the Angels it is bounde with wicked deceites of the Diuels, for not onely with naturali forces, but with certaine solemnities & ceremonies also, we winne and drawe vnto vs heauenly thinges, and thorowe them the diuine verrues.

Perhaps it is not surprising that, despite his attempts to disapprove of all ceremonial magic, Agrippa's reputation as a black magician grew.

Agrippa's influence was perhaps felt more in the worlds of art and literature than in the work of his fellow philosophers (which may in part account for Thorndike's scorn). For example, Erwin Panofsky [in The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer] has suggested that Agrippa's brand of neoplatonism in De occulta is the primary literary source for Albrecht Durer's famous Melancholia I. In England, Agrippa's name was well known to men of letters. In 1510, the year in which he completed the manuscript of De occulta, Agrippa visited England, and this trip may have helped to spread his reputation in that country. By 1569 his De vanitate had found an English translator who attests to Agrippa's magical reputation in his preface: "For it is saide, and his workes testifie the same, that he exercised the Arte Magicke, and therein farre excelled all other of his time." John Dee, whose seven-thousand-volume library was perhaps England's best, owned two editions of the De occulta: the 1533 first edition and the 1550 edition, which had appended a spurious fourth book that made Agrippa seem a much more radical and goetic magician than the original three books suggest. Dee was evidently not only an owner but also a reader of Agrippa's book, since he cited it on at least one occasion. Among many English literary references to Agrippa is Thomas Nashe's portrayal of him as a trickster [in "The Unfortunate Traveller"]: bringing back Tully for Erasmus to see, showing the Earl of Surrey his love in a magic glass, and displaying perfect memorization of a two-thousand-book library. The most famous reference to Agrippa occurs, of course, in Marlowe's picture of the goetic magician:

'Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish'd me.
Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt,
And I, that have with concise syllogisms
Gravell'd the pastors of the German church,
And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems as the infernal spirits
On sweet Musaeus when he came to hell,
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
Whose shadows made all Europe honour him.

Agrippa's reputation seems to have been twofold: he was known as a goetic magician and a learned philosopher. Sidney, who used Agrippa's De vanitate in his Defense of Poesie, seems to regard him as a philosopher and makes no mention of him as a magician. The duality of Agrippa's reputation appears in Sanford's preface, in which he first remarks how much Agrippa knew and how wise he was and then goes on to recount the story of Agrippa's black dog, a demon disguised, which Agrippa on his deathbed accused of having damned him and which then promptly ran and drowned itself in the river. A similar ambivalence between philosophical and practicing magician marks many of the magicians who appeared on the Elizabethan stage.

Thus, while there is little evidence that English writers were familiar with the magical theories of Ficino and Pico, a goodly number of them had probably heard of Agrippa. If neoplatonic magic had not already found students in England, Agrippa's works and the later visit of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) may have aroused interest in philosophical magic.

Bruno's visit to England in 1583 seems to have been more of an event than Agrippa's earlier sojourn. While there, he published two books, one dedicated to the French ambassador and the other to Philip Sidney, and participated in a philosophical debate at Oxford, where—one spectator scornfully noted—he quoted great chunks from Ficino without giving him any credit. The debate left Bruno contemptuous of the Oxford "pedants" and apparently did not give the faculty there a much higher opinion of him. More positive, however, was his acquaintance with Sidney (who seems involved in one way or another with several magicians, for he was a friend of John Dee and a participant in his study circle, the subject of which was probably neoplatonism). There is no evidence that Dee and Bruno ever met, but Sidney must have provided a mutual contact, so that they were at least aware of one another's interests. Though Sidney undoubtedly knew some of Bruno's works, there is no certainty that he knew much or anything about his magic, since Bruno's treatises specifically on magic, De magia and De vinculis in genere, were probably not composed until after Sidney's death and were not published until the nineteenth century.

Perhaps partly for this reason, Bruno did not have the same magical reputation as Agrippa, and only in fairly recent scholarship have his magical interests received emphasis. Much of Bruno's magic derived from Agrippa's De occulta, though he omitted the angels that Agrippa insisted can be summoned by theurgic magic. Instead Bruno envisioned an ascending scale for the magician to mount: "From sense to elements, demons, stars, gods, thence to the soul of the world or the spirit of the universe, and from thence to the contemplation of the one simple Optimus Maximus, incorporeal, absolute, sufficient in itself." Since reaching the demons is one of the early steps in the ascent, Bruno seems to believe unabashedly in demonic magic.

How much of Bruno's magical belief was in evidence to his English friends cannot be determined. Some scholars believe that Bruno's English contacts were limited to a small circle and that his works were little known in En gland until years after his visit. Others seem almost over-anxious to find evidence of his influence in literary works of the period. Yates has speculated that the character Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost is modeled on Bruno, and A. W. Ward in his 1887 edition of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay suggested that the magical contest in that play may reflect Bruno's Oxford debate. Such conjectures are interesting but speculative. What can be ascertained is that Bruno, an outspoken believer in neoplatonic magic, was present and publishing in England and evidently acquainted with English literary figures. He provides another means by which knowledge of neoplatonic magic may have entered England.

Even more familiar to English writers might have been their countryman John Dee (1527-1608). Philosopher, scientist, book collector, consultant to the royal navy, adviser to Queen Elizabeth, and acquaintance of Philip Sidney, Dee was also a practicing magician and alchemist. In fact, he left written transcriptions of conversations with angelic spirits whom he had summoned with the help of the medium Edward Kelley.

Dee was a neoplatonist, though his theories contained elements from other philosophical schools as well. Certainly his ideas on the intellectual quest for wisdom sound familiar.

Thus, can the Mathematicall minde, deale Speculatiuely in his own Arte: and by good meanes, Mount aboue the cloudes and sterres; And thirdly, he can, by order, Descend, to frame Naturali thinges to wonderfull vses: and when he list, retire home into his owne Centre: and there; prepare more Meanes, to Ascend or Descend by: and all, to the glory of God, and our honest delectation in earth.

Dee's library contained works by both Pico and Ficino, and his writings show evidence of their influence, yet his magic most resembles that of Agrippa. Like Agrippa, Dee believed that to practice the highest form of magic, "Thaumaturge or divine magic," one must seek "communion with goode angels by purifyinge of the soul." What is unusual about Dee is his interest in doing what he theorized about. Notice in the excerpt quoted above that there is a descent mentioned as well as an ascent, and all is for our "delectation in earth." Dee evidently intended that the wisdom gathered from the mystical ascent would be put to use in the natural world. Eugene Rice in The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom speaks of a debate over two conflicting views of wisdom: sapientia or contemplative wisdom and scientia or practical, utilitarian wisdom. Dee seems to combine these two views of wisdom in ways the Italian theorists did not. (Ficino is something of an exception, perhaps, for he hoped to use the wisdom he gained from spiritual communications in his medical practice.) Dee's journals and diary indicate that he tried and believed he had succeeded in communicating with the spirits, something other magicians had theorized about but left no record of actually trying. In addition, Dee committed himself and his family to several years in Europe, primarily at the court of Rudolph II , by whom he was hired for the express purpose of producing the philosopher's stone. Though the visit was ultimately a fiasco, Dee's initial commitment to it suggests his confidence in his ability to produce material good from his magical activities.

Until recently, Dee's reputation rested largely on tales of his communication with angels, and often the other sides of his varied career were ignored. He was first suspected of being a conjuror after he staged Aristophanes's Peace, in which an elaborate mechanical beetle appeared to fly. The stagecraft was so ingenious that his audience was convinced he had used magic, and from then on his reputation spread. His relationship with Elizabeth dates from the time she was a princess and out of favor during her sister Mary's reign. Dee apparently cast favorable horoscopes for her, predicting that she would one day rule. However, Dee's prognostications caught up with him. He was suspected of conspiring with Elizabeth to do away with the queen by sorcery and formally accused of sorcery against Mary, though acquitted by the Star Chamber in 1555. During Elizabeth's reign, Dee seems to have been called in for occasional consultations by the queen, and his diary records visits by her to him at his house at Mortlake. Other entries in the diary suggest that he was kept busy casting horoscopes, teaching and advising friends, and at various times performing jobs for the queen or traveling at her request. In addition, Dee wrote treatises on a number of different subjects, though none specifically on magic. Dee conducted a number of scientific experiments, invented useful navigational devices, and was reputed to be an excellent mathematician. He was, all told, one of England's best examples of the "Renaissance Man " and deserves F. A. Yates's succinct observation [in Theatre of the World, 1969] that "no more complete mirror of the Elizabethan age could be found than John Dee." True to Pico's symbol, this Renaissance man was, in addition to all his other attributes, a magician.

Yet many of his fellow Englishmen feared Dee as a conjuror, a spirit-summoner, and this reputation greatly distressed Dee, partly because it was dangerous to be suspected of conjury in England at that time, and partly because Dee was apparently horrified to be suspected of commerce with the devil. Several of his later writings contain long complaints about the pillage of his library (which seems to have been a deliberate act of destruction against the "conjuror" carried out while Dee was abroad) and about the rumors that he was a "Caller of Deuils" and "Arche Coniurer, of this whole kingdom." Dee wanted to make the distinction between a philosopher who experimented (which he considered himself to be) and a conjuror (which he was reputed to be). In the following warning, however, Dee, like many writers on magic, struck a note of condescension toward the vulgar and unlearned who presume to judge his activities:

Let all such, therefore, who, in Iudgement and Skill of Philosophie, are farre inferior to Plinie (who called Moses a magician) take good heede, leaste they ourshoote them selues rashly, in Iudging of Philosophers straunge Actes, and the Meanes, how they are done. But, much more, ought they to beware of forging, deuising, and imagining monstrous feates, and wonderfull workes, when and where no such were done: no, not any sparke or likelihoode, of such, as they without all shame, do report.

But Dee's protestations had little effect, and as an old man in 1604 he was still petitioning King James to clear his name of the label of conjuror. Despite all Dee's un-happiness with his image, he is remembered primarily as a magician, thanks in good part to Casaubon's publication in 1659 of parts of Dee's journals. His magical paraphernalia—his table, crystal globes, and the black obsidian mirror cherished by Horace Walpole as the "Black Stone into which Dr. Dee, used to call his Spirits"—are housed in the British Museum for all to see, evidence that Dee was an operator as well as a theorizer about magic. To his contemporaries he must have been an obvious example of a magician, perhaps more useful as a model than Ficino or Pico because he actually practiced what he wrote about.

Turning theory into practice, however, changed philosophical magic. What had been for Pico a symbol of man's potential, and for Ficino a theory of how to obtain infinite wisdom, became for Agrippa and Dee an increasingly concrete and practical way of operating in the world. The uninitiated and uninformed misperceived this magic and, through rumor, transformed it into cheap tricks. Writing of the medieval church, J. Huizinga commented [in The Waning of the Middle Ages]:

But was she able to stand against this strong need of giving a concrete form to all the emotions accompanying religious thought? It was an irresistible tendency to reduce the infinite to the finite, to disintegrate all mystery.… Even the profound faith in the eucharist expands into childish beliefs—for instance, that one cannot go blind or have a stroke of apoplexy on a day on which one has heard mass.… While herself offering so much food to the popular imagination, the Church could not claim to keep that imagination within the limits of a healthy and vigorous piety.

Such making tangible of the intangible Christian mysteries is similar to what happened to spiritual magic as it filtered down to broader public awareness. The vulgarization of spiritual magic merely added to the continuum of varieties of magic from which the writer of Elizabethan and Jacobean England could draw.

What contemporary philosophical magic made available to the dramatist was a climate of interest in the magician. Despite the strictures of the church, the dramatist had the possibility of presenting "white" or "natural" or "spiritual" magic as a positive force. In addition, he could develop the magician as a fully fleshed character: wise, intellectually oriented, using verbal rituals, music, perfumes, and special clothing to accomplish his ends. The magician could be as human as, though a good deal more exotic than, the village shoemaker; that is, he could be treated realistically within the drama.

II

What contemporary magic could not have provided, however, was much for the magician to do. Philosophic magicians did not, after all, perform tricks, heal the sick, or assist those in trouble. They read, they meditated, often they advocated severing all ties to the world around them. Even John Dee's angelic conversations—perhaps the most sensational action reported by a philosophical magician—are hardly the sort of material a dramatist could use for plot.

But there were other traditions of magic, literary ones, to which dramatists could have turned for help in motivating their magicians and involving them in plot action. The most fruitful of these traditions to examine for examples of "literary" magic seems to me to be the medieval narrative romances (their possible link with the drama is clear when we remember that English stage magicians appeared first in dramatic romances, which were often clumsy adaptations of longer narrative romance materials). Filled with magic and with stereotyped, unrealistic characters, romance had no need to correspond closely to the real world. Thus, the medieval romances took a relaxed, un-concerned attitude toward magic. It exists everywhere in the romance world and is good or bad according to the motives of the magician or the effect it has on plot.

The magician as a character in romance is quite different from the character suggested by the writings of the neo-platonic philosophers. The romance magician, who can be either male or female, is usually set apart from the other characters by some physical or spiritual peculiarity: Merlin is unnaturally hairy and has a devil rather than a human for his father; Clinschor (in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival) has been castrated; Morgan le Fay (Gawain and the Green Knight) and Cundrie (Parzival) are incredibly ugly. Rarely does a magician have a family, close friends, or a lover. Merlin, in his several romances, is something of an exception, but even so—since his relationship with his mother receives little emphasis after he grows up, and his mistress shuts him up forever in a rock—he can hardly be seen as part of a warm familial group. In a genre much interested in reconciliations between long-lost families or lovers, the magician generally remains apart and aloof.

In the narrative romances, magicians generate their own magic; they have no need to employ spirits or to perform elaborate ceremonies. Occasionally a magician—such as Malory's Morgan le Fay, Cundrie in Parzival, or the Clerk in Chaucer's "The Franklin's Tale"—is learned or uses books, but such references are always casual. There is none of the association between magic and learning mandatory in theories of philosophic magic. Most magicians seem born to their trade, whether—like Merlin—because of a nonhuman or magical relative, or because of a prediction that they will have magical skill. The romances spend little or no time explaining the motivation for or methods of magic; what is important is the effect the magician has on the plot. On the stage, such undeveloped, unexplained magic occasionally occurs in plays, like The Birth of Merlin, that seem directly derived from narrative romance.

Much of the magic in the romances has no particular source. Magical rings, enchanted springs, deadly beds, and magical potions abound, and often the writer makes no effort to explain how they came to be enchanted. Examples of romances containing such magical effects include Floris and Blancheflour (with its magic ring and a stream to detect adulterous maidens); Chretien de Troves's Yvain (protective rings and an enchanted spring); Sir Launfal (magic purse, horse, and dwarf); and Sir Tristrem (magic potion). Whole faerie or magical worlds may exist (as in Sir Orfeo and Sir Launfal) without explanation of their origin. No magician need be involved in creating them. But sometimes a specific magician is responsible for providing characters with invulnerable magical props (as Clinschor creates the enchanted bed in Parzival). In such cases, however, emphasis is invariably on what magic accomplishes rather than how it is performed.

The magical equipment associated with romance magicians is varied. Sorceresses seem to favor magic potions, rings, and swords, while male sorcerers often prefer larger projects—enchanted castles, magical beds, or invulnerable battle dress. The variety itself is informative, however, because it suggests there is no required or mandatory equipment for performing magic. The magician is usually self-sufficient and needs little help from spirits or objects to produce his effects.

What magicians in narrative romance do is facilitate plot action and provide spectacular effects. A miraculous transformation is their most usual way of producing results. Merlin, for example, is fond of changing the weather, raising fogs or mists to bewilder the enemy. The Green Knight is a shape changer, changing from the host to the Green Knight with apparent ease. Merlin, too, has vast shape-changing powers. His most famous change, of course, is the transformation of Uther Pendragon into the likeness of the Duke of Tintagel so that Uther may sleep with Tintagel's wife and beget King Arthur. Not all Merlin's shape changes are so utilitarian. He frequently appears to his acquaintances in disguise for no reason other than his apparent joy in bewildering others and in variety. This delight is frequently carried beyond all reasonable bounds, as when, to attract Julius Caesar's attention, he transforms himself into a stag and goes running through the palace of the emperor. Although Merlin is by far the most ubiquitous romance magician, his powers are fairly typical of those possessed by less well known magi.

The production of surprising effects and spectacle, as well as of disguises, has implications that are carried further in dramatic literature. The disguises, of course, are associated with role-playing; in many ways the magician is an actor. Even more, however, he is a director, a presenter of spectacular shows for the discomfort, edification, or entertainment of spectators. Although these qualities of the magician are only suggested, and never carefully developed, in the romances, they do exhibit the potential available to a writer to portray the magician as director or as creative artist. Merlin and his counterparts "create" illusion; their magic produces temporary changes that affect man's senses but eventually dissolve back to reality. In medieval romance, then, more than in contemporary magic, the Tudor-Stuart dramatist could have found the association between the magician and the artist, the magician and the director of spectacle.

A traditional function of magicians that receives emphasis and development in romance is prophecy. E. K. Chambers has gone so far as to suggest that Geoffrey of Mon-mouth invented Merlin solely as a mouthpiece for prophecy. Whether or not Chambers is right, romance authors repeatedly fall back on the device of the enigmatic prediction to hold the reader's attention. In the Merlin romances, for example, Merlin is apparently tricked into predicting three different deaths for the same man (who keeps disguising himself as part of an effort to discredit Merlin); all of the death predictions are, of course, fulfilled. Nearly all romance magicians, villains or heroes, have similar prophetic powers, though evil magicians are necessarily blind to their own downfall.

Evil magicians are fairly generously scattered through the medieval romances. Good magicians appear more rarely, and when they do they are usually paired with an evil magician. This scarcity of good magicians apparently results more from problems of plotting and suspense than from any feeling about the impossibility of good magic. A villainous magician provides a worthy opponent to a hero; victory over the magician's special powers enlarges the hero's triumph. Thus, Clinschor's magical traps in Parzival make Gawan's adventures exciting as he manages to defeat the evil magic. But the entrance into a romance of a powerful good magician requires some magical competition just to keep the plot alive. In the Merlin romances, Fortager's wise men compete with Merlin for the king's patronage. Once they are defeated, Merlin interests us because he is on the side of the underdog, working against overwhelming odds. After Arthur is crowned king, these romances lose much of their interest and become little more than a series of battles, ingeniously led and won by Merlin. Merlin's role throws Arthur into deep shadow; although he is a king, Arthur is apparently incapable of making an intelligent decision without Merlin. Probably Thomas Malory foresaw this difficulty when he constructed his tales, for he shut Merlin up in a rock very early in the narrative. An active Merlin would prevent Arthur's emergence as a hero. And for the short time that Merlin is active, Malory provided him with a rival: Morgan le Fay, constantly plotting against Arthur, gives magical assistance to his enemies. Merlin is finally defeated by the magic of Nyneve, the beautiful woman to whom he has taught his own art. Good magicians threaten to diminish plot interest unless they are provided with worthy challengers, and thus they appear more rarely than villainous magicians, both in the romances and, later, in drama. Like the romancers, dramatists who do create good magicians almost always give them magical competition (as in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, John a Kent and John a Cumber, and The Tempest, where Prospero's magic is stronger than that of Sycorax).

Finally, romance magicians are generally amoral. Though they are heroes (and therefore good) or villains (and therefore bad), ordinary moral or religious standards are usually not applied to them. Despite the malice of Clinschor, for example, nothing indicates that he is the agent of any diabolic power. Merlin, though fathered by the devil, is clearly on the side of good. Yet in all versions of his story he does some fairly immoral things. In arranging for the begetting of Arthur, for example, Merlin acts as the manager of an adultery; he frequently serves as a pander in the romances. Malory, as is frequently the case, followed his source and made Merlin seem even less attractive: Merlin orders Arthur to destroy all children born to lords and ladies on Ma y Day in an effort to kill Mordred, Arthur's bastard, who will one day be his murderer. This action is reminiscent, of course, of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, and just as futile—a good reminder that magical counsel is not always infallible. Although Merlin is generally on the right side, moral and religious issues run a poor second to interests of plot.

Missing from romance treatments of the magician is any sense that he has entered into an agreement with the devil in order to obtain his powers. Indeed, the only conjuring in the romances I have read is done not by a magician but by a "good man [who] toke a stole aboute hys neck and a booke, and than he conjoured on that booke. And with that they saw the fyende in an hydeous fygure, that there was no man so hardéherted in the worlde but he sholde a bene aferde." Here the "good man" merely wants to know if a priestly colleague who has been killed is damned or saved; the devils are being asked to provide information (as are the spirits who are summoned in Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois), not to perform any evil acts. Occasional references indicate that authors were well aware of the possible identification of magicians and devils: Malory has a sorceress who, when her temptations fail, disappears, only to be identified as the devil himself. Here and in similar references, however, the tone is casual. The romances are not anxious to explore the moral implications of magic or to characterize it as "white" or "black," natural or demonic.

What is important to notice is the possibility of good—or even merely "neutral"—magic in medieval literature. In this respect romance magic is similar to the magic of the later philosophers: good magic can exist and, indeed, be a desirable attribute. Of course, both traditions also acknowledge the existence and danger of bad magic, but neither sees magic as exclusively bad.

Where the two sorts of magic differ radically, however, is in their emphases. The medieval romances show little or no interest in theories of magic. Instead, they develop the magician for literary use. Competition between magicians, magical prophecy to provide suspense or foreshadowing, humor and practical jokes arising from magical powers, and plot interest heightened by miraculous occurrences were all useful in the romances. Many of these same techniques were also used by dramatists in the portrayal of stage magicians.

III

The combined influence of these two traditions of magic, the fictive and the philosophical, perhaps first appeared in a nondramatic form, the romance epic. Boiardo, Tasso, Ariosto, and Spenser all included magic and magicians in their epics. Their magicians generally resemble medieval romance magicians: they move the plot; they create and use magical equipment; they frequently compete with one another; they prophesy. But these characters also show certain differences from magicians found in medieval romance.

For example, epic magicians are clearly learned in a way romance magicians are not. All of Spenser's magicians are dependent on books for their magic: Busirane and Merlin work from texts and write "straunge characters" that seem to be some sort of magical hieroglyphics (3.3.14; 3.12.31). Archimago, in his deception of the Red Cross Knight, goes into his study to search his magic books; after his first attempt fails, he "searcht his balefull bookes againe" (1.2.2).

A similar association of magic with books appears in the Italian epics. Ariosto carried his portrait of the bookish magician almost to absurdity when he portrayed Atlantes astride the flying hippogryph, his magic shield on one arm and his open book in the other hand, reading aloud magical incantations. In fact, Bradamant defeats Atlantes partly because the magician has carelessly left his book behind:

That wretched man, the volume by whose aid
He all his battles fought, on earth had laid.
                                            (4.25)

This growing reliance on books and stress on learning suggest that philosophic magic was influencing Renaissance writers' conception of the magician.

A second important change is the almost formulaic association of the magician with spirits or demons. The most famous Spenserian lines suggesting this connection are those on Archimago's flies:

And forth he cald out of deepe darknesse dred
Legions of Sprights, the which like little flyes
Fluttering about his euer damned hed,
A-waite whereto their seruice he applyes.
                                          (1.1.38)

But Merlin, too, has legions of "sprights" working underground, and his strange writing serves a purpose: "With … [it] the stubborn feends he to his seruice bound" (3.3.10-14). These associations are not only Spenser's. At one point in Orlando Furioso, Melissa, a magical assistant to the dead but still vocal Merlin, calls up a parade of demons, but only after drawing a circle around Bradamant and tying a pentacle to her head to protect her from the spirits. In Jerusalem Delivered, Tasso tried to distinguish between evil and good magicians in terms of their demonic associations. The great magical feat in the poem is Ismen's creation of the enchanted forest, which he accomplishes by assigning a demon to every tree and bush. The conjuration scene, described in great detail, produces "legions of devils." To balance this overtly demonic magic, Tasso portrayed a hermit, a good magician, who practices only natural magic:

Nor yet by help of devil or aid from hell
 I do this uncouth work and wond'rous feat;
The Lord forbid I use or charm or spell
 To raise foul Dis from his infernal seat;
But of all herbs, of every spring and well,
 The hidden power I know and virtue great,
And all that kind hath hid from mortal sight,
And all the stars, their motions and their might.
                                               (14.42)

Yet this hermit, conspicuous in his disclaimer of demonic magic, is the exception. Most epic magicians had passed beyond strictly natural magic and unabashedly employed demons, whether they themselves served God or the devil.

Increased dependence on books and demonic aid is important not only as an indication of the possible influence of philosophical magic on the literary conception of the magician but also for his development as a character. The need for books and for assistance from spirits moves the magician closer to the ordinary man. If—like most romance magicians—he is granted special powers from birth and is thus able to work magic with no help, then he is a creature set apart from the rest of mankind. But if his magical ability comes from study and if his magical acts are actually performed by spirits, then the magician can be human.

Peopled as it is by stereotypes and allegorical characters, the romance epic is hardly the place for realistic character development. But the beginnings of a more human magician can be seen in a character like Spenser's Archimago. Far from infallible, Archimago constantly reveals human weaknesses, despite his considerable magical ability. Having created the false Una, for example, "The maker selfe [Archimago] for all his wondrous witt, / Was nigh beguiled with so goodly sight" (1.1.45). Archimago is no more able to detect deceptive appearances than the good characters and is fooled by Braggadochio's fine armor into choosing him as a worthy foe to Guyon and Red Cross Knight. Archimago is sensually tempted and easily fooled because, like all of Spenser's heroes (with the exception of Arthur), he is subject to human failings. Far from being the devil personified, Archimago is a man, as dedicated to evil as Gloriana's knights are to good, but as prone as they to fall short of his goal. Similar fallibility coupled with magical ability is seen repeatedly in stage magicians; indeed, it becomes part of a stock formula for both good and evil magicians.

Another element of this stock formula that found early development in the romance epic is the portrait of the magician as artist, as creator and director of spectacle, pageant, and masque. Commenting on Archimago, Donald Cheney remarked, [in Spenser's Image of Nature] "Spenser directs his emphasis in particular toward the suggestion of a demonic figure of the artist. He is repeatedly the victim of his own art."

Magicians specialize, as do artists, in the creation of illusion, and it is not surprising that the one becomes a symbol for the other. Though the Italian epics also have creative magicians, the best example of the magician as artist is Spenser's Busirane. Creator of the enigmatic Mask of Cupid and apparently chief curator of his house filled with lovely works of art, Busirane exercises a power that resides not in his "vile" self but in his artistic creations. Despite his frequent identification with Lust, Busirane has not built another Bower of Bliss that tempts by direct physical sensuality. Rather his house is a temptation through carefully selected art, a temptation to believe the didactic message that tapestry, statuary, and masque all convey: Love is cruel and painful as well as erotic. But Spenser, supremely aware of the dangers of illusion, foils Busirane with a heroine who pushes beyond the art to its source: "Bold Britomart… / Neither of idle shewes, nor of false charmes aghast," pushes through to the plain third room, not meant to be seen, from which the magician operates.

Busirane is, in many ways, typical of the Renaissance magician as he will develop onstage. The magical creation of pageant and masque will recur repeatedly (Prospero's wedding masque and Faustus's necromantic pageants are simply the two most obvious examples). As a creator, the magician can be compared to other creators, and new realms of possible significance attach to him. From a religious perspective, for example, creation is an imitation of God, and to create sensual lures is to rival God and to work against his purposes. So in the Faerie Queene all the "bad" magical figures (Archimago, Busirane, Acrasia, and the witch) create illusions or false duplicates of real characters. But Merlin, the good magical figure, creates a mirror that reveals truth and a shield before which everything false or illusory crumbles.

From another perspective, the creator is also the artist, and Busirane is very much the dramatic artist, directing all from behind the scenes. The pageant he creates is described in clearly dramatic terms:

[Ease appears] as on the ready flore
Of some Theatre, a graue personage,
That in his hand a branch of laurell bore,
With comely haueour and count'nance sage,
Yclad in costly garments, fit for tragicke Stage.
                                           (3.12.3)

In Spenser's moral framework, such dramatic illusion can only be negative. But in other contexts, the metaphor of magician as artist can be (and is) exploited more positively. Busirane's connection with masque is only an early example of the magician as artist. The tradition of associating masque and magician, and the verisimilitude of stage illusion to magical illusion, strengthens as the drama develops.

The changes in the portrayal of the magician in the romance epics open up a series of new and complex possibilities for the magician as a character. How will he use his abilities? At what price comes his power over spirits? How do his contacts with the world of spirits change his life on earth? Will human weakness limit his magical power? The conflicts with which it is now possible for the writer to endow the magician pave the way for his development as an interesting stage character. While in some plays he remains a set piece, a conventional, undeveloped figure, in others he is a complex, often morally perplexed man.

John S. Mebane (essat date 1989)

SOURCE : "Magic, Science, and Witchcraft in Renaissance England," in Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age: The Occult Tradition and Marlowe, Jonson, and Shakespeare, University of Nebraska Press, 1989, pp. 73-112.

[In the essay below, Mebane provides an overview of the debate over rival theories of the natural and supernatural worlds in Renaissance England.]

The immediate context of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays on magic was an intense and wide-ranging controversy concerning the uses of knowledge, the status of traditional authorities, and the limits of the human personality. In addition to those who were influenced directly by the works of Ficino, Pico, and Agrippa, there were technologists, mathematicians, Paracelsian physicians, and many others who argued throughout the sixteenth century that received opinion should be tested by the light of experience, in order that a more firm foundation be established for progress in both theoretical and practical knowledge. Social and economic conditions favorable to the development of science intensified in the 1580s, after the return of Francis Drake's treasure-laden ship from its remarkable voyage around the globe encouraged Englishmen to envision the possibility of a British Empire which would rival that of the Spaniards in wealth and power. Militant Protestants such as the earl of Leicester, Christopher Hatton, and Walter Ralegh offered patronage to those whose knowledge of navigation, munitions, and geography promised to give England an advantage over its Catholic rival. After the Armada, the possibilities seemed boundless.

The study of the debates over magic and science in the Renaissance reveals the vigor and the diversity of the forces which were pressing for intellectual and technological change, as well as the power and variety of the conservative and reactionary forces. There were, on the one hand, members of dissenting sects who embraced occult philosophy because they readily perceived its subversive potential; on the other, there were monarchists like John Dee who wished to buttress the political and social status quo and who failed to comprehend their opponents' fears that the overthrow of authorities in natural philosophy could result in the undermining of social, political, and religious authorities as well. Mathematics in general was sometimes suspected of being associated with evil conjurers and antisocial forces, and it was fairly common in the sixteenth century for unfamiliar and impressive mechanical devices, such as the flying Scarabeus which Dee constructed for a Cambridge production of Aristophanes' Pax, to be regarded as products of demonic aid. At the same time, there were individuals who comprehended the possibilities of applied science and who could distinguish between advanced mathematics or technology and the apparent illusions of magic. In short, although we can be certain that magic was an important and volatile issue, we can posit no one attitude which would be typical of an Elizabethan audience. By exploring the various opinions which existed concerning magic and science in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, we can, however, illuminate the historical and philosophical issues to which Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare, and other authors were responding, and we can identify, in some cases, specific influences upon individual dramatists.

Assertions that experience is an important teacher exist throughout the Middle Ages. "Experience though noon auctoritee / Were in this world is right ynogh for me," Chaucer's Wife of Bath tells us, and questions concerning the relative value of experience, as opposed to book learning, occur frequently in The Canterbury Tales, as in other medieval literary works and philosophical treatises. Explicit confrontations between experience and authority, however—including assertions that inherited opinions must be questioned so that human knowledge can be entirely reformed—begin to multiply quite notably in the mid-sixteenth century in England and intensify until the movement reaches its climax in Francis Bacon. Although the general notion of a reformation of knowledge and the rejection of the absolute authority of Aristotle has roots in humanism, the most outspoken criticism of received authority in sixteenth-century England seems to have developed among practical technologists and physicians, many of whom were influenced by the Hermetic and Neopla-tonic traditions.

In 1551, for example, Thomas Rainold argued in a medical treatise that in his own lifetime God had aroused "excellent uertuous witts" who have examined all doctrine of the ancients so rigorously that in a few years, "science wil be so renuid, refreshid, and purgid, that thei which hitherto haue boren al the bruit, & haue obtained al autorite, wil leese a greate portion of there credit." Interestingly, Rainold is a student of alchemy who is critical of the grandiose claims of some practitioners of the art. Although he gives directions for the preparation of an alchemical medicine which will concentrate the "spirites, life, and … verrue" of natural substances, he is skeptical of the idea that anyone could concoct an "elixir of life" which would cure all diseases.… Even though Rainold's assumptions concerning natural philosophy are in many ways those of an occult philosopher, he is aware of the relatively new tendency to examine critically the received opinion which has been handed down through books, and he is highly enthusiastic about the renovation of learning: the current revolution in knowledge, Rainold asserts, promises to renew virtually all of the arts and sciences, and in a relatively short period of time many of the ancients will be regarded as having good intentions, but thoroughly outdated. Rainold is aware that some "excellent wits" are afraid to publish their findings, since they fear being criticized by reactionaries, but he admonishes us to remember that contributing to human knowledge, especially in medicine, is an act of Christian charity.…

One of the most influential mathematicians of the sixteenth century was Robert Recorde, who was employed by the Muscovy Company to study applied mathematics and navigational technology, and who gave lectures to the company's seamen. Although Recorde died in 1558, his textbooks on mathematics and astronomy were widely used throughout the century, and in these works he promoted the idea that through diligence in the pursuit and application of knowledge Englishmen could affirm human dignity, procure wealth, and improve the quality of human life. The illustration for the title page of the 1556 edition of The Castle of Knowledge illustrates Recorde's belief that knowledge could give humankind a degree of control over its own destiny. On the right is a blindfolded figure, standing on an insecure sphere and apparently turning Fortune's wheel, with the motto, "The wheele of Fortune, whose ruler is Ignoraunce." On the left, in contrast, is a figure holding a pair of compasses and standing on a secure cube, holding "The Sphere of Destinye, whose governour is Knowledge." The textbook itself provides more than one commentary on the emblem. Recorde suggests, first of all, that we can, to some extent, control the course of our own lives through various applications of mathematics and astronomy, including navigation, medicine, and other arts. In order to accomplish this goal, however, we must subject traditional authorities such as Ptolemy to the tests of experience and logical analysis: "Be not abused by their autoritye, but evermore attend to their reasons, and examine them well, ever regarding more what is saide, and how it is proued, then who saieth it: for autoritie often times deceaueth many menne." These progressive and enlightened attitudes exist side by side with a prominent interest in astrology, and Recorde also argues that knowledge of the stars enables us to control our destinies by allowing us to plan the conduct of our affairs in auspicious astrological circumstances. He who understands the heavens

shall be able not only to avoide many inconveniences, but also to atchive many unlikely attempts: and in conclusion be a governoure and rulare of the stars accordynge to that vulgare [i.e., commonly known] sentence gathered of Ptolemye:

Sapiens dominabitur astris
The wise by prudence, and good skyll,
Maye rule the starres to serve his will.…

Recorde is well aware that mathematics, astrology, and technology are often suspected of being diabolical, especially when striking feats are performed by mechanical or other scientific means. He acknowledges that Roger Bacon, the pride of English scientists, was accused of being a necromancer who conjured with evil spirits, but Recorde insists that the accusation cannot be supported by evidence. Repeatedly he defends the study of astronomy as consistent with piety, pointing out that contemplation of the incorruptible and constant heavens uplifts the mind and inspires us with respect for God's creative power. As an epigraph for the preface of The Castle of Knowledge Recorde provides the following verse:

If reasons reache transcende the Skye,
    Why shoulde it then to earthe be bounde?
The witte is wronged and leadde awrye,
    If mynde be mar[r]ied to the grounde.

In the 1580s and 1590s intensified aspirations for wealth, military success, and empire generated an increased demand for research and instruction in what we would now call the applied sciences. Francis Drake himself, as well as Richard Hakluyt, William Gilbert, John Dee, Walter Ralegh, and others, insisted on the need for training programs in navigation, geography, cartography, and gunnery. Gilbert's proposal for a new academy in London recommends that "there shalbe placed two Mathematicians, And the one of them shall one day reade Arithmetick, and the other day Geometry, which shalbe onely employed to Imbattelinges, fortificacions, and matters of warre, with the practize of Artillery, and vse of all manner of Instruments belonging to the same.… The other Mathematician shall reade one day Cosmographie and Astronomy, and the other day tend the practizes thereof, onely to arte of Nauigacion, with the knowledge of necessary starres, making vse of Instrumentes apertaining to the same." Richard Hakluyt praised Sir Walter Ralegh for perceiving the importance of such instruction and for employing Thomas Harriot, "a man pre-eminent in those studies," to instruct him and his sea captains. "This one thing I know," Hakluyt told Ralegh, "and that is that you are entering upon the one and only method by which first the Portuguese and then the Spaniards at last carried out to their own satisfaction what they had previously attempted.… There yet remain for you new lands, ample realms, unknown peoples; they wait, yet, I say, to be discovered and subdued, quickly and easily, under the happy auspices of your arms and enterprise, and the sceptre of our most serene Elizabeth, Empress—as even the Spaniard himself admits—of the Ocean."

Eventually Gresham College was established to provide the research and instruction for which Hakluyt, Gilbert, Drake, and others had called, with instructors such as Henry Briggs, an acquaintance of Ralegh and Harriot, and Matthew Gwinne, who had come to know Giordano Bruno. The Muscovy Company continued for decades to instruct its own seamen, with John Dee serving the company in much the same capacity as Robert Recorde had in previous years. Contacts among those who taught at Gresham and those who worked for private companies or for Ralegh were frequent, and the scientific community in London was much more receptive to new ideas than were other segments of Elizabethan society. Copernicanism, atomism, and the concepts of the infinity and homogeneity of the universe, first interrelated by Giordano Bruno, found a favorable reception in these circles; and Jean Jacquot has argued convincingly that the transition from Bruno's magical philosophy to genuine science was effected in part by Thomas Harriot, Nicholas Hill, Walter Warner, and other researchers who were patronized by Sir Walter Ralegh and the earl of Northumberland. Jacquot points out that some of the new philosophical concepts which were conducive to the development of genuine science tended to stimulate the theological heresies of which Harriot, as well as his acquaintance Christopher Marlowe, was frequently accused:

According to one Mr. Haggar, who was a mathematician and well acquainted with Harriot, [Harriot] could not believe in the story of Genesis, and would say ex nihilo nihil fit. Torporley considered that the dogma of Creation was at stake in the controversy of atoms, and sought to prove the contrary maxim: ex nihilo omnia. Ancient atomism offered the model of a universe indefinitely extended in space and time, where everything was subject to generation and decay but was made up of indestructible particles of matter. This view could fit neither with Christian eschatology nor Aristotelian cosmology. But such a universe could be conceived as homogeneous, all its parts being subject to the same physical laws. And this suited the purpose of the new astronomy which tended to dispense with qualitative distinctions between different regions of the cosmos.

Denial of the existence of heaven and hell, questions about the Creation, and the rejection of traditional scientific and religious beliefs in the interest of gaining control over nature and obtaining wealth and military power are the heart of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. The remark attributed to Marlowe by Richard Baines, that "Moyses was but a Jugler & that one Hariots being Sir W Raleighs man Can do more then he," suggests that the playwright was familiar with the theory that Moses performed his feats of magic through practical Cabala (or, perhaps, that Moses' feats were merely illusions) and that Marlowe knew that Harriot's scientific knowledge was more genuine—and consequently more potent—than that of his predecessors in the quest for control of nature. Thomas Ky d listed "Harriot, Warner, Royden, and some stationers in Paules churchyard" as those with whom Marlowe had discussed his heretical religious beliefs, and "Warner" is almost certainly the scientist Walter Warner, the close associate and colleague of Harriot's whose philosophy Jacquot has shown to have been extensively influenced by Giordano Bruno and whose research on biology, psychology, and other aspects of natural philosophy in turn influenced Thomas Hobbes. Although Harriot avoided making explicitly heretical statements in print, he was accused throughout his life of asserting that heaven and hell were merely fictions designed to enforce obedience to the state, of denying the immortality of the individual soul, of questioning the biblical account of the Creation, and of conjuring. In a list which he compiled of printed references to himself, Harriot confirms that he feels himself to be the so-called "conjurer" whom Robert Parsons said was the "Master" of Sir Walter Ralegh's "School of Atheism," and at Ralegh's trial for treason in 1603 Chief Justice Richard Popham is recorded to have admonished Ralegh by saying, "An d lett not Heriott nor any such Doctor persuade you there is no Eternity." At the inquiry into Ralegh's alleged atheism in 1594, Nicholas Jefferys testified that Harriot had been questioned by the Privy Council concerning his denial of the resurrection of the body, and it is possible that this questioning occurred as a part of the Privy Council's investigation of Marlowe in 1593.…

There is, in fact, a remark in Harriot's A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia which suggests that he regarded the doctrines of salvation and damnation as an effective means of regulating behavior. In discussing the Indians' religion he describes in considerable detail their conceptions of heaven and hell, and he then remarks that "what subtilty soeuer be in the … Priestes, this opinion worketh so much in manie of the common and simple sort of people that it maketh them have great respect to their Gouernours." Although it cannot be proved that any of these men were atheists in the modern sense of the term, it is clear that Harriot, Walter Warner, Nicholas Hill, Ralegh, and Marlowe engaged in serious criticism of many traditional beliefs and institutions; what they shared was not a single set of beliefs, but rather a willingness to subject all opinions to rigorous logical analysis. Ralegh was loyal to Christianity, but he struggled with the question of whether religious doctrine could be supported through rational argument, and the evidence brought forward at the Cerne Abbas hearing demonstrates that he frequently engaged in much more open-minded discussion of religion than most of his contemporaries could tolerate. Ralegh, Harriot, and Marlowe differed in many important respects, but they shared a resentment of the attempts of rulers to impose uniformity of belief upon the populace. The use of established churches as a means of enforcing obedience to the government was, of course, an obvious fact of life in the Renaissance; what is remarkable is not that Marlowe or Harriot perceived the situation accurately, but that they had the courage even to hint at it in print or on the stage. Of central importance for the present study is the fact that Marlowe was in contact with several of the most advanced and open-minded scientists and philosophers in Europe, and he was intensely and no doubt uncomfortably aware that among the tools used to suppress freedom of inquiry were accusations of atheism and witchcraft. As I shall argue in detail in the next chapter, the ambivalence of Dr. Faustus is in part the product of Marlowe's strategy for questioning his society's condemnation of independence of mind as sinful, while at the same time concealing the playwright's own heterodoxy within the framework of an ostensibly orthodox morality drama.

Ralegh studied occult philosophy extensively, and in the philosophical sections of his History of the World he consistently defends the opinions of "the Platonists," including Pico, Ficino, and Plotinus, and the "ancient theologians," such as Hermes Trismegistus and Zoroaster. In book 1, chapter 1, entitled "O f the creation and preservation of the world," Ralegh draws directly upon the Hermetic books and on the Bible, as well as on the works of Ficino, Pico, and other theologians, to support his belief that the nature and powers of God are revealed in the created world. In his preface he quotes Ficino's description in the Theologia Platonica of a realm of eternal Ideas, created by God as the archetype of the physical universe, and in his discussion of human nature Ralegh emphasizes that we are endowed by our Creator with an intuitive faculty, the Mens, or pure understanding (Works, 2:lii, 48-54, 59). His section entitled "Of the free power which man had in his first creation to dispose of himself" is based primarily upon Pico's Oration:

God gave unto man all kind of seeds and grafts of life, to wit, the vegetative life of plants, the sensual of beasts, the rational of man, and the intellectual of angels; whereof whichsoever he took pleasure to plant and cultiv[at]e, the same should futurely grow in him, and bring forth fruit, agreeable to his own choice and plantation. This freedom of the first man Adam, and our first father, was enigmatically described by Asclepius Atheniensis, saith Mirandula, in the person and fable of Proteus, who was said, as often as he pleased, to change his shape. (Works 2:62)

Chapter 11 of the first book of Ralegh's History is devoted to a defense of magic. Magic is an "art, saith Mirandula," which "few understand, and many reprehend: … As dogs bark at those they know not; so they condemn and hate the things they understand not" (2:381). Although the name "magic" has sometimes been applied to the practices of witchcraft, the true magician is a servant of God. Magic "containeth the whole philosophy of nature; not the brabblings of the Aristotelians, but that which bringeth to light the inmost virtues, and draweth them out of nature's hidden bosom to human use" (2:384-85). Ralegh accepts astrology and alchemy, but he regards theurgy as an illusion, denying that any magical ceremony can compel either devils or angels. In chapter 6, section 7 (2:181), he quotes Pico's third Orphic Conclusion, explaining that the names within the Orphic Hymns refer to "natural and divine virtues," not demons. Here, as elsewhere, he struggles to reconcile his defense of the occult tradition with his understanding of the Bible. He respects the Cabala, for example, as a tradition based on secrets given by God to Moses and handed down in an oral tradition, but he denies that Cabalisi explication of the Scriptures in any way cancels their literal truth (2:72-75, 152-54). Furthermore, he admits that the devil may take advantage of the ambitions of those who pursue even the lawful kinds of magic; Satan has the power to disguise himself as an angel of light and attempt to lead the magus into idolatrous practices such as worshipping the stars, "teaching men to esteem them as gods, and not as instruments" (2:391). Similarly, it is permissible and even pious to utilize the occult virtues of natural objects, but the devil seeks to corrupt legitimate magic by teaching people to believe superstitiously in "the strength of words and letters; (which without faith in God are but ink or common breath)" (2:392). Although many have rejected natural philosophy and mathematics because of these dangers, Ralegh continues, we should not abandon our quest for truth because of the difficulty of separating science from idolatrous superstition; if we permit ourselves to be hindered from practicing benign arts merely because they could be corrupted, "we shall in a short time bury in forgetfulness all excellent knowledge and all learning, or obscure and cover it over with a most scornful and beggarly ignorance" (2:395).

In chapter 3 of book 1 of the History (2:84), Ralegh remarks that ancient philosophers, reflecting upon the power of the censors, often feared to express their religious beliefs explicitly. One might be tempted to infer from this remark that Ralegh himself at times expresses his own unorthodox ideas in an indirect fashion. It should be emphasized, however, that regardless of what Ralegh may have believed concerning religious and political institutions or concerning magic, he devotes hundreds of pages in the History to reconciling his opinions on occult philosophy, the Creation, and other subjects with his obviously firm belief in the literal truth of the Scriptures. Although he is fascinated by magic and heavily influenced by Renaissance Neoplatonism and the Hermetic/ Cabalisi tradition, he does not hesitate to criticize those Cabalists who imply that the Bible is purely allegorical. Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of the History is the conflict between Ralegh's fervent desire to affirm learning—including magic—and his anxiety concerning the manner in which the quest for truth can be corrupted by excessive pride and selfishness. Despite his inquiring mind and his admiration of the descriptions of human dignity, freedom, and power which he has found in the occult tradition, Ralegh never extends his criticism of traditional authorities to the Bible, nor does he entirely abandon the biblical conception of the frailties of fallen human nature. The devil creeps into the minds and hearts of human beings, he tells us, and "sets before them the high and shining idol of glory, the all-commanding image of bright gold. He tells them that truth is the goddess of dangers and oppressions; that chastity is the enemy of nature; and lastly, that as all virtue, in general, is without taste, so pleasure satisfieth and delighteth every sense: for true wisdom, saith he, is exercised in nothing else than in the obtaining of power to oppress, and of riches to maintain plentifully our worldly delights" (2:186).

Ralegh's assertion that the devil tells us that truth is "the goddess of dangers and oppressions" is challenging and enigmatic. Does the remark express Ralegh's commitment to truth despite the "dangers and oppressions" which he himself faced while in prison composing his History? Could it refer to the belief, attributed to Harriot and Marlowe, that religion was merely a tool of oppressive governments? If so, is Ralegh expressing his disapproval of opinions which he has heard expressed by his associates? Regardless of how one might answer these questions, Ralegh's History reveals the profound self-examination of a man who had sought truth, both through his own studies and through his patronage of scientists and intellectuals, and who came to know that he himself was subject to the passions which make us vulnerable, as he suggests in the passage just quoted, to the wiles of the devil.

Ralegh was a major participant in the cult of Elizabeth which described the Virgin Queen as a reincarnation of the mythical virgin Astraea, the goddess of justice who had returned to earth in order to revive the Golden Age. The rhetoric of universal reform that was developed by Ralegh, Dee, Spenser, and others as an idealistic rationale for the British Empire was influenced in part by the emphasis on the purification of humanity and of the fallen world which lies at the heart of the occult tradition. Much of the Cabala and several of the ancient Hermetic and pseudo-Hermetic treatises contain Messianic elements which eventually became a significant force behind many of the most important Utopian and millenarian movements of the period, including those which contributed to the English Revolution. As I mentioned in my previous discussion of Pico della Mirandola, many of the Jewish Cabalists believed that God originally had intended for the earthly Adam to complete the process of creation which had been interrupted by the catastrophic "breaking of the vessels" in which the divine light emanating from Adam Kadmon had become scattered and confounded with matter. The terrestrial Adam had failed to complete the harmonious order of creation only because of his own sin, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries both Jewish and Christian Cabalists placed increasing emphasis on the idea that any individual who refused to repeat Adam's fall could still contribute to the process of Tikkun, or restoration. Many of them believed that magic performed by individuals could actually hasten the onset of the Messianic age. The Cabalists' doctrine was one of many variations upon the Gnostic version of the myth of loss and restoration: the archetypus mundi had been fragmented, but enlightened and virtuous individuals who have become aware of their divine origins can help to reassemble it. The myth was transformed in numerous intriguing ways in the various branches of the occult tradition, but one central belief always remained intact: the world would become perfect when humanity regained the knowledge and power it had lost through original sin.

One of the most prominent of the sixteenth-century reformers whose vision was inspired by the Cabala was Guillaume Postel. In 1552 Postel felt himself to be reborn through the descent of the Holy Spirit, and thereafter he considered himself to be the prophet and herald of a new age in which religious harmony would be restored and all traces of sin and imperfection would be eradicated from human nature. He planned a missionary effort to convert the entire world to Christianity, and he believed that once all of humankind was truly enlightened, the Messianic Age would begin. He ingenuously described his program to the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I, in 1560: "Led by the mater mundi, who is right reason, I have proposed a method by which the Christian Republic may be preserved uninjured and undisturbed. This is to be accomplished by a universal empire, which will enable the teachings of the Christian religion, confirmed by right reason, to be set forth. In this way, Christ will be seen to restore as much as Satan has destroyed, and it will be as though Adam had never sinned."

Postel centered his hopes primarily on the French monarchy, and the research of R.J.W. Evans, Frances Yates, Peter French, and others has demonstrated that ideas derived from Cabalisi and Hermetic sources were also influential in stimulating the cult of mystical imperialism which surrounded Queen Elizabeth. John Dee … , one of the most influential spokesmen for Elizabethan imperialism, met Postel in 1550 in Paris, where the young English scholar was lecturing on mathematics; and upon his return to England Dee embarked on a lifelong career of occult studies and promotion of his belief that the English had been chosen by God to renew human knowledge, purify religion, and unite the world in a new Golden Age. As early as 1564, Dee proclaimed in his Monas Hieroglyphica … that a successful adept who mastered occult philosophy could help restore to humankind the knowledge and power which had been lost since "the first age of Man" ("vsque ab ipsa prima Hominum aetate"). Al though it is uncertain whether Dee's phrase "prima Hominum aetate" refers to the ancient world or to the Garden of Eden, he clearly implies that those few magi who have been granted "great wisdom, power over other creatures, and large dominion" (217) have undergone a process of transformation and self-purification similar to that described by Pico della Mirandola in his Oratio and Conclusiones. Subsequently, in his Mathematicall Preface to Sir Henry Billingsley's translation of Euclid's Elements of Geometrie, Dee asserts that the human soul is a microcosm which "participateth with Spirites and Angels: and is made to the Image and similitude of God." By the 1580s Dee had begun to use the techniques of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy in order to summon the angels and learn from them the secrets of the universe; actual transcripts of the seances make clear that Dee believed himself to have been chosen to purify the church and put an end to religious strife in Christendom. His medium in the seances was Edward Kelley, through whom the angels presumably spoke, and who probably deceived him. Dee approached these experiments in the pious spirit of a man who hoped to be granted a closer relationship with God, but he also planned to use the knowledge he gained from his occult studies and his communion with the angels for practical purposes. The ascent to knowledge of divinity and the subsequent descent to practical technology were, for Dee, two sides of one coin: "The Mathematicall minde, [can] deale Speculatiuely in his own Arte: and by good meanes, Mount aboue the cloudes and sierres [i.e., to the intelligible world]: And thirdly, he can, by order, Descend, to frame Naturali thinges, to wonderfull vses: and when he list, retire home into his own Centre: and there, prepare more Meanes, to Ascend or Descend by: and, all, to the glory of God, and our honest delectation in earth." (Mathematical Preface, sig. C3v; my emphasis). Dee believed it was his sacred duty to harness the occult forces of the universe (which he thought of in mathematical terms) in order to ameliorate our earthly condition. This amelioration involved extending to all humankind the benefits of the just rule of Queen Elizabeth and the true religion of English Protestantism (tempered with Dee's Hermeticism), and he therefore placed his knowledge of applied mathematics, navigation, and geography at the service of Elizabeth's armed forces.

The modern student may find it paradoxical that Dee's vision of world peace under a united and reformed Christendom served to justify what many of us would now regard as the ruthless conquest of "heathen peoples," an activity which Dee felt to be the duty of every Christian ruler.… We also may question Dee's belief that imperialist ventures ought to make England wealthy while at the same time spreading the light of true religion. These contradictions apparently never bothered Dee, who firmly believed that one could procure wealth and political advancement for oneself and one's country while simultaneously pursuing an idealistic mission. Whether Elizabeth herself fully shared Dee's grandiose vision we cannot say, but we do know that she allowed him to play an important role is building up the "Tudor myth" which she used so skillfully in strengthening her ancestral claim to the British throne. In fact, Dee's significance in Renaissance history may derive more from his success as a propagandist than from his contributions to science and technology. The theory that the Tudor monarchs were descendents of the legendary Arthur and ultimately of the Trojan Brutus received considerable support from Dee's antiquarian studies, and he also argued that British title to newly discovered lands was justified by King Arthur's ancient conquests. Both at court and in his own home he discussed his theories of history and his knowledge of geography with the earl of Leicester, Francis Walsingham, Christopher Hatton, Walter Ralegh, Edward Dyer (who was godfather to Dee's son Arthur), and the queen herself. Dee served Elizabeth as an astrologer and, on at least one occasion, as a physician, and his theories about imminent reform in Christendom helped to shape the vision of militant Protestantism which influenced Elizabeth's foreign policy.

In 1583 the Polish prince Albrecht Laski (or Alasco) visited England and was received by Sir Philip Sidney and the earl of Leicester. Sidney and Laski were present at the famous confrontation between Giordano Bruno and the dons of Oxford, and after the debate Sidney took the Polish prince to visit Dee. When Laski returned to the continent later in the year, both Dee and Edward Kelley accompanied him. From Laski's home in Poland Dee and Kelley travelled to the court of Rudolf II , where they came into contact with other occultists who shared Dee's reformist impulses. In Bohemia Dee and Kelley conducted seances which confirmed Dee's belief that he had been chosen to lead a universal religious reform; Dee never fully gained Rudolf II's confidence, however, and eventually the Catholic authorities, convinced that Dee was a conjurer who had been deceived by evil spirits, had him expelled from Bohemia. On his way back to England in 1589 Dee travelled through Germany, and Frances Yates has suggested [in Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964] that important ties were at that time established between the English monarchy and the German Protestant princes. Yates also mentions that in 1586 an alliance was formed between Elizabeth, Henry of Navarre, and the king of Denmark, and she believes that Navarre may well have been influenced by Bruno, who had returned to France from England the year before the alliance was formed. Yates's suggestion that Dee may have been authorized by the queen to conduct affairs on the continent is speculative, but the research of C. H. Josten has verified [in "A n Unknown Chapter in the Life of John Dee," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965)] that in Dee's own mind the journey was connected with the English magician's hopes for universal reform. Ben Jonson alludes prominently to Dee and Kelley's trip to Bohemia in The Alchemist, and the context of the allusions suggests that Jonson is aware of the connection between the occultists' prophecies of reform and the political ambitions of various monarchs—including Elizabeth. The fact that the occultists' prophecies concerning the renewal of human society were used by political leaders as propaganda for their own nationalistic ambitions casts the magicians' optimism about human nature in a peculiarly ironic light, and Ben Jonson was not the only playwright to notice that irony. Despite the important differences among the plays by Marlowe, Jonson, and Shakespeare, the feeling that the magicians' idealism about human nature has been undercut by the ruthless actions of those who seek political power is a major thread which ties together Dr. Faustus, The Alchemist, and, to some extent,The Tempest.

While Dee was on the continent, Giordano Bruno remained in London at the home of the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissière, and in 1583-85 he pub lished several of his most important works, two of which were dedicated to Philip Sidney. Some of the writings which Bruno published in London—particularly Spaccio della bestia trionfante (The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast), De gli eroici furori (The Heroic Frenzies), and Cena de le ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper)—describe an essentially Gnostic religious experience in which the individual purifies his or her personality by expelling vice and corruption and becoming fully aware of the human soul's innate divinity. Although Bruno's works are often allegorical and at times obscure, apparently he entertained a desperate hope that by promulgating a purified Hermetic religion which transcended the dogmatic sectarianism of both Protestantism and traditional Catholicism, he could contribute to the reformation of human society and the elimination of religious warfare. Yates has argued that Bruno's magical philosophy contributed to the Utopian dreams of some Elizabethans, and she sees evidence in The Heroic Frenzies that Bruno hoped that Elizabeth would play a role in effecting universal reform. Professor Werner's research has shown that if Bruno did want to promote a conciliatory atmosphere and religious toleration, he was somewhat less successful with such militant Protestants as Philip Sidney, Francis Walsingham, and the earl of Leicester than he wished. As I have suggested above, however, he exerted considerable influence upon important scientists and philosophers, as well as poets, and his notoriety in England undoubtedly intensified the controversies in which magic was the central, symbolic issue. As a result of his publications and his debate at Oxford, Bruno gained a reputation as a conjurer, a bold defender of Copernicus, and a heretical religious thinker who trusted in his own intellect rather than traditional authorities. He had publicized openly his conviction that through heroic exertions of intellect and will the individual could release the divine, magical powers of the soul and thus gain the power to contribute to a reformed world order. In the following passage from The Ash Wednesday Supper, Bruno boldly describes himself as the prophet of the new era:

The Nolan [i.e., Bruno himself] … has released the human spirit, and set knowledge at liberty. Man's mind was suffocating in the close air of a narrow prison house whence only dimly, and, as it were, through chinks could he behold the far distant stars. His wings were clipped, so that he might not soar upwards through the cloudy veil to see what really lies beyond it and liberate himself from the foolish imaginations of those who … have with many kinds of deceit imposed brutal follies and vices upon the world in the guise of virtues, of divinity and discipline, quenching the light which rendered the souls of our fathers in antique times divine and heroic.… Behold now, standing before you, the man who has pierced the air and penetrated the sky, wended his way amongst the stars and overpassed the margins of the world, who has broken down those imaginary divisions between spheres—the first, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth, or what you will—which are described in the false mathematics of blind and popular philosophy.

As Yates has demonstrated in her analysis of The Ash Wednesday Supper, the new light which Bruno claims to have brought to humankind is the ancient magical philosophy, and the "fools and sophists" who have "imposed brutal follies and vices upon the world in the guise of virtues, of divinity and discipline" are the conservative theologians and philosophers who reject magic and pagan philosophy as Satanic.… Moreover, in a very striking section of the first dialogue of the Cena de le ceneri, one of the speakers points out that most people are so thoroughly indoctrinated with the traditional beliefs of their own nation that they believe it to be an act of piety to oppress, conquer, or assassinate those who believe differently. To the question of whether anyone who has been misled by custom and tradition can ever be receptive to an unorthodox truth, Theophil, who speaks for Bruno, replies simply that the capacity to accept revolutionary insights in science or religion is a gift of the gods. In view of passages such as this one, it seems likely that Bruno—who was executed as an unrepentant heretic in Rome in 1600—would have appealed to thinkers such as Harriot or Marlowe not only because of the specific ideas which he asserted, but also because of his courageous, and tragically self-destructive, independence from traditional authorities.

Although Bruno was an important influence upon individual philosophers, scientists, and poets, a much more pervasive revolutionary force was exerted in England by Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim—who apparently called himself "Paracelsus" in order to suggest his superiority to Celsus, the legendary Roman physician. Ralegh, Harriot, and Dee were monarchists who identified their own interests with the establishment of the British empire, and although their critique of traditional authorities in science ultimately contributed to the overthrow of authoritarian casts of mind, they tended to express their unorthodox religious and political ideas either in private or, when they committed themselves to print, equivocally. In Cornelius Agrippa's De vanitate we see clearly an assault upon the social, political, and intellectual establishment, but when challenged by the authorities whom he had criticized Agrippa was willing to protect himself by claiming to be a satirical railer whose strident criticism of society was not meant to be taken seriously. When we encounter Paracelsus we are confronted with a degree of boldness and self-assertiveness in challenging the existing order which is unsurpassed in all of Renaissance history. He not only condemned vehemently the standard medical and scientific authorities of his day, such as Galen, Aristotle, and Avicenna, but he also presented himself to the world as a prophet chosen by God to initiate a new age of social revolution and universal enlightenment. Whereas Bruno still regarded gnosis as available only to a spiritual elite, Paracelsus predicted that genuine enlightenment would spread throughout the working classes, whose practical experience, he asserted, brought them a more intimate knowledge of reality than could ever be attained through conventional, formal education. Conservatives and reaction-aries who were threatened by the revolutionary currents of Renaissance thought found in the life and works of Paracelsus a more than ample justification for their fear that a challenge to the reigning authorities in natural philosophy would lead inevitably to the overthrow of existing social, political, and religious institutions. Consider, for example, Paracelsus' preface to "The Book Concerning the Tincture of the Philosophers":

From the middle of this age the Monarchy of all the Arts has been at length derived and conferred on me, Theophrastus Paracelsus, Prince of Philosophy and of Medicine. For this purpose I have been chosen by God to extinguish and blot out all the phantasies of elaborate and false works, of delusive and presumptuous words, be they the words of Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna, Mesva, or the dogmas of any among their followers. My theory, proceeding as it does from the light of Nature, can never, through its consistency, pass away or be changed: but in the fifty-eighth year after its millennium and a half it will then begin to flourish. The practice at the same time following upon the theory will be proved by wonderful and incredible signs, so as to be open to mechanics and common people, and they will thoroughly understand how firm and immovable is that Paracelsic Art against the triflings of the Sophists: though meanwhile that sophistical science has to have its ineptitude propped up and fortified by papal and imperial privileges.

Paracelsus goes on to say that he has a treasure—apparently the philosopher's stone—which neither Pope Leo X nor the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V could purchase, despite their wealth and power. In the present treatise he will explain how to prepare the "Tincture of the Philosophers," so that those who love truth may enjoy its benefits. "B y this arcanum," he concludes, "the last age shall be illuminated clearly and compensated for all its losses by the gift of grace and the reward of the spirit of truth, so that since the beginning of the world no similar germination of the intelligence and of wisdom shall ever have been heard of" (1:20).

Paracelsus insisted that the search for occult virtues—the arcana, as he termed them—must proceed primarily through practical experience, guided and illuminated by divine grace. Ficino, Pico, and Agrippa (in De occulta philosophia) all had retained a deep respect for books, especially the revered classics of the Neoplatonic and Hermetic traditions; the authorities they invoked were often different from the conventional ones, but never did they go so far as Paracelsus in affirming that actual laboratory experiment is of primary importance. One must actually labor at the furnace, prepare one's own medicines, and learn through first-hand observation the properties of various chemicals, Paracelsus insists, if one is to be an effective alchemical physician. Furthermore, one must explore the natural world in order to discover the virtues of plants and herbs, be willing to learn from the practitioners of folk medicine, and, in addition, deal more directly with one's patients than was popular at the time among most university-trained physicians, who generally assessed the symptoms of a disease and left orders for actual treatment with their subordinates. As for traditional medical authorities, Paracelsus' attitude was dramatized during his understandably brief tenure as a professor of medicine at the University of Basel in 1527 when he threw the revered Canon of Avicenna into the St. John's Day bonfire.

Paracelsus continually reminds us that alchemy is essentially redemptive: transforming base metals into gold is simply one of many processes which seek to remove the impurities and corruptions of fallen nature. Alchemy is an art which God granted to humanity so that we may ameliorate our fallen condition. We may learn to extract elixirs, tinctures, or quintessences from plants or metals, for example, and utilize them to eliminate diseases and impurities from our bodies and to lengthen our lives. The fact that knowledge of these arts was increasing in the sixteenth century, Paracelsus believed, was a sign of the approaching Millennium: God intended for the Elect to advance steadily in knowledge and power until they eventually overthrew the ignorant who oppose them and who now occupy the seats of power. Human nature itself was to be purified, as our divine potential freed itself from corruption. Alchemical adepts shall become God's agents in reforming not only the physical world, but also society and religion. Although Paracelsus apparently never associated himself formally with a specific Protestant denomination and his relation to the Roman Catholic church remains ambiguous, he did compare his own renovation of medicine and science with Luther's attempts to reform Christianity, and throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Paracelsus' followers compared their innovations in science—which they described as the recovery of the knowledge which had been lost at the Fall of humankind—with the reform of religion. This Protestant strategy for justifying the renovation of natural philosophy and the overthrow of received opinion was especially common in England, where it was used by Anglicans such as Francis Bacon as well as by adherents of the radical sects.

Some of the English Paracelsians were interested purely in the practical advantages of Paracelsus' chemical medicines and were either indifferent or hostile to the radical social, political, and religious implications of his philosophy. To varying degrees, however, many of them regarded it as their duty to insist that received opinion should be tested through practical experience. John Hester, an apothecary, published translations of a number of Paracelsian treatises in London in the 1580s and 1590s, and Hester's prefaces, as well as the treatises themselves, emphasize that relying upon experiment and questioning received traditions could enable us to contribute to the renovation of knowledge which Paracelsus and others had initiated. In an epistle to Sir Walter Ralegh which prefaces A Hundred and fourtene experiments and cures of the famous Phisition Philippus Aureolis Theophrastus Paracelsus (c. 1583), Hester proclaims that the pursuit of knowledge has no limit because the mind of humankind is insatiable. In another dedicatory epistle in 1590 he decries the practice of blindly revering ancient authorities, accepting their conclusions without examining their proofs; we naively assume that a mere ipse dixit has the weight of genuine evidence. We should not "peevishly distrust our owne wittes, furnished with so many helpers, and apishly admire other mens, onelie for theyr antiquitie: this were to tie God to times and seasons, & to play bopeepe in a secure shroude of idlenesse, utterly dis-franchising our selves of the free legacie, Dii laboribus dona dant sua [the Gods grant their gifts to those who labor]."

Following Hester's death in 1593, his edition of The Pearle of Practise was completed by James Forester, an enthusiastic Paracelsian and friend of Hester's, and the book was published in 1594 by Richard Field, a native of Stratford who printed Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece in the same year and who had published Venus and Adonis in 1593. Charles Nicholl has noted [in The Chemical Theatre, 1980] this connection and speculated that Shakespeare may have known Forester; Nicholl also notes the interesting fact that Forester's Pearl of Practise was dedicated to George Cary, son of Henry Cary, lord chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare's theatrical company. Although Nicholl may very well be correct, we need not rely solely upon evidence of personal relationships with Paracelsians to establish the fact that Shakespeare—or any other dramatist—had access to Hermetic and alchemical treatises. As Nicholl's very thorough research has shown, the resurgence of interest in alchemy and related subjects in late-sixteenth-century England was of such magnitude that one may fairly say that no literate Londoner could be unaware of it. Many of the city's apothecaries, in addition to some of England's most advanced scientists, were heavily influenced by the movement. In addition to books and pamphlets by Paracelsians and Hermetic philosophers such as John Dee, Thomas Tymme, and Samuel Norton, there were new editions of works by medieval alchemists, including several works attributed to Roger Bacon. The growing scientific community in London stimulated renewed interest in investigating alchemical theories and procedures, and the language of alchemy, with its emphasis on the purification of nature and the human personality, struck a responsive chord in the minds and hearts of those who saw the era as one which was about to witness the final purification of religion, the triumph of the arts and sciences, and the full control of humankind over its environment.

In 1585 R. Bostock published a detailed defense of the entire Renaissance occult tradition ["The Authors obtestation to almightie God"]. He argues that Paracelsus and his followers were restoring to humankind the knowledge which God had granted to Adam but which had become lost or corrupted in the course of human history; this restoration correlated with the purification of religion, and it would occur only when the reigning authorities in natural philosophy were no longer protected by the authority of governments. According to Bostock, the truths of natural philosophy, medicine, and religion were passed down through Adam's children to Abraham, who conveyed them to certain Egyptian priests. Although some of the Egyptians confounded these truths with idolatry, others retained a purer understanding, and Bostock thinks it likely that among these superior priests were the teachers of Moses. Not long after the time of Moses was born Hermes Trismegistus, author of Asclepius, Pimander, and other works containing genuine religion and philosophy. The Greeks, in general, had no independent revelation; but Plato, Pythagoras, Aesculapius, and others travelled to Egypt, Judea, or other nations where the ancient wisdom was remembered. Hippocrates wrote down a somewhat corrupted version of the ancient physic; a more serious departure from the truth occurred when Galen, in his commentary on Hippocrates, departed from his master's doctrine by erroneously attributing the causes of diseases and their cures to "bare dead qualities of heat[,] could, &c , which be caused and not causes. And so our later Phisitions, following their Prince and Captaine Gallen, that heathen and professed enemy of Christ, in steade of Phisitions and healers or curers of sicknesses and griefes, are become warmers, or coolers and bathers, whereas Hypocrates teacheth plainly and expressely that diseases are not caused nor cured by the bare dead qualities of heate and cold, &c , but by such things that have power to worke".… Similarly, Aristotle, motivated by envy and vainglory, dissented from Plato's teaching and attempted to attribute all effects to purely natural causes, rather than to the occult virtues through which God's spiritual power is infused into all living creatures.… Just as the Roman Catholic religion is a mixture of the pure and the impure, relying on outward ceremonies and traditions which are a hindrance to genuine spirituality, Bostock argues, so are the medicines of the Galenist gross and impure, when compared to those whose spiritual power has been purified by fire.…

Bostock's detailed history of the occult tradition is designed to show that Paracelsus is a reformer who is restoring medicine to its ancient purity, just as Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin have restored the purity of the church and Copernicus has restored the ancient knowledge of the movements of the heavens.… Although Bostock is incorrect in his assertion that Copernicus's contribution to astronomy consists purely of the recovery of Ptolemy's original teachings, which had suffered centuries of corruption, it is true that Copernicus developed De revolutionibus as, in many respects, a revision of Ptolemy's Almagest in the light of ancient Pythagorean philosophy, as well as his own mathematical calculations; both Bostock and Copernicus himself are prime examples of the fact that in the sixteenth century, the most radical ideas were often defended by the assertion that centuries of corruption had obscured an ancient truth.

Although Bostock believes that the present age has seen magnificent progress toward the renovation of knowledge, he is nonetheless concerned that progress is hindered because "in the scholes nothing may be received nor allowed that savoreth not of Aristotle, Gallen, Avicen, and other Ethnickes, whereby the young beginners are either not acquainted with this [Paracelsian] doctrine, or els it is brought into hatred with them. And abrode likewise the Galenists be so armed and defended by the protection, priviledges and authoritie of Princes, that nothing can be allowed that they disalowe, and nothing may bee received that agreeth not with their pleasures and doctrine." One may wonder whether Bostock is using the term "abrode" to mean "at large in the world" or "in foreign countries"; although England was not as consistently reactionary as some other nations, English universities and the Royal College of Physicians tended to regard Paracelsianism, like other forms of magic, as subversive of authority. Although some English physicians were able to incorporate aspects of Paracelsian medicine into their practice while remaining socially and politically conservative, Paracelsus' proclamation that practical experience and divine favor often conferred advanced knowledge on the working classes eventually contributed to the growth of revolutionary attitudes. In the seventeenth century, members of the dissenting sects whose doctrines had the most radical political and social consequences, such as the Anabaptists and the Family of Love, quite often found in Paracelsianism an ideology which supported their cause; and during the Puritan revolution many of the radicals claimed that Paracelsus had been a true prophet whose predictions were coming true in seventeenth-century England. When the sects felt increasingly free to express their ideas during the Interregnum, an unprecedented flood of Hermetic and alchemical works was published, and many of the treatises have a strong Utopian or millenarian emphasis. Some of them propose such measures as community of goods and complete political egalitarianism, and at times even Oliver Cromwell found it difficult to maintain control of the more radical elements within his own army. Although progress in science and technology initially served the ends of the established monarchy, and the rhetoric of the return of the Golden Age was at the heart of the propaganda of the British Empire, one of the long-range effects of the assault upon authorities in natural philosophy was an awareness that authorities in other spheres of life could also be challenged. The movement ultimately contributed to the forces of intellectual, social, and political change in ways which Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, or John Dee could not have anticipated.

Studies of the witchcraft persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have often suggested that the witch-hunts were a means of suppressing virtually all forms of heresy and social deviation, including those generated by attempts at radical religious and social reform. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Norman Cohn, and others have documented the connection between the witchcraft trials and the efforts to destroy heretical sects such as the Waldensians, and Trevor-Roper further pointed out that witchcraft persecutions intensified after the Reformation, as various parties in the religious conflicts of the era felt the need to cast their enemies in the role of servants of Satan. In addition, Trevor-Roper argues that Renaissance Neoplatonists and Paracelsians were, in many respects, progressives who often opposed the witch-hunts and who consequently were identified by the authorities as allies of Satan. In The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, Frances Yates has gone much further: she argues that the Hermetic/Cabalist philosophy was the dominant school of thought among advanced thinkers in the English Renaissance; the witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were, in her view, primarily a reaction against the progressive and revolutionary forces which were associated with the occult tradition. In order to support these generalizations, Yates departs from her earlier conception of the relationships among occult philosophy, humanism, and the Reformation. In Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition she had seen humanism as generally conservative in its conception of human nature and its attitude toward social and religious reform, and she regarded the Hermetic/Cabalist tradition as progressive. In The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, she asserts that the Cabala itself was at the heart of the new learning promoted by the humanists. Because Cabalisi exegesis sought to find new depths of meaning in the Scriptures, she argues, Cabalisi studies, as well as humanist scholarship, contributed to the reform movements in both Roman Catholic and, subsequently, Protestant circles. She cites the reaction of conservatives against Johannes Reuchlin's Judaic studies and his interest in the Cabala as evidence that occult philosophy and humanism were allies, both of them opposed to the Aristotelian scholasticism which the existing authorities had chosen as the only sanctioned philosophy. She sees Reuchlin as a precursor of Martin Luther. Both the occult movement and the counter-reaction intensified in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Yates points out, and she emphasizes that the efforts of John Dee, Walter Ralegh, and others to promote technology—which they regarded as "natural magic"—are precisely contemporaneous with the most intense period of the European witch-hunts. She credits Jean Bodin, who visited England during the 1580s and whose works were influential there, with intensifying the witch hunts through his De la démonomanie des sorciers, in which he condemns Pico and Agrippa for attempting to use Cabala for transitive magic. She also cites Martin Del Rio's Disqvisitionum magicarum libri sex (Louvain, 1600), a work utilized by Ben Jonson in The Alchemist, as evidence that reactionary activity intensified around the turn of the century and that conservative thinkers perceived occult philosophy as one of the most significant threats to the intellectual and political establishment.

Certainly it is true that the efflorescence of occult philosophy, the increase in challenges to traditional authorities, and the intensification of the witch persecutions occurred simultaneously. The studies of Trevor-Roper, Cohn, Alan Macfarlane, Keith Thomas, and Christina Larner, however, have demonstrated that the witch-hunts served a variety of sociological and psychological functions, and to assert that the intensification of the witch-hunts in the Renaissance was primarily a response to humanism, occult philosophy, or the new science is much too broad a generalization. At the same time, an examination of the treatises on witchcraft which were influential in late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century England reveals that Ficino, Pico, Agrippa, Paracelsus, and others who dissented from authorized versions of natural philosophy were often among the major targets of those who promoted the witch trials. The papal bull which prefaces the inquisitors' manual, Malleus maleficarum, reminds us that witches were, first and foremost, arch-heretics, and once the official beliefs about witchcraft were firmly established, they could readily be invoked whenever any form of dissent became a threat. Professor Larner has argued effectively [in Enemies of God, 1981] that the persecution of witches was a form of social control; the witch-hunts attempted to eliminate any form of social deviation and to demonstrate the presumed efficacy of the authorities in morally cleansing society. Such persecutions became prominent during the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation because there was an intensified effort to impose ideological unity: the witch became "a personification of all forms of deviance and revolt," and a high percentage of the accused were women who failed to conform to traditional stereotypes of feminine behavior. Although Professor Larner is concerned primarily with the connection between witchcraft and antifeminism, there is considerable evidence that accusations of witchcraft were also used to suppress innovations in natural philosophy, especially when those innovations were perceived as being allied with subversive religious or political beliefs. To Jean Bodin, Martin Del Rio, and King James I, the religious, intellectual, and scientific ferment of the Renaissance was a sign of an increase in monstrous alliances with Satan. Numerous authorities agreed that while some witches were motivated to ally themselves with the devil out of greed, lust, or a desire for revenge upon their enemies, others were prompted by a damnable intellectual curiosity.

We must remember that what was orthodox in one community was heresy in another, and different authors' conceptions of what must be defended and what forces were subversive sometimes varied considerably. Peter Burke [in The Damned Art, edited by S. Anglo, 1977], for example, in his analysis of Strix, by Gian Francesco Pico (the nephew of Giovanni Pico, the famous Cabalisi), has provided interesting support for the idea that witch persecution was in some cases a reaction against the revival of classical literature and philosophy. Burke points out that the witchcraft ceremonies described and condemned in the younger Pico's treatise strongly resemble pagan religion, and he argues that Gian Francesco Pico feared that humanism and occult philosophy would revive the worship of those Greek and Roman gods whom the orthodox often believed to be devils. Gian Francesco also wrote a widely read biography of his uncle, translated into English by Thomas More, which emphasized the elder Pico's repentance of his excessive pride in learning and his subsequent asceticism; in both the biography and in Strix G. F. Pico is critical of the revival of ancient learning, and he strongly reasserts otherworldly values and traditional Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

Jean Bodin, in contrast to Gian Francesco Pico, was a Judaizer who accepted contemplative Cabala, as well as some of the beliefs of the pagan mystery religions, and he therefore would have been regarded by the younger Pico as a dangerous heretic. Bodin condemns the transitive Cabala, which attempts to utilize spirits to perform magical operations, and he explicitly accuses Giovanni Pico and Cornelius Agrippa of witchcraft. The Orphic hymns commended by Pico, Bodin asserts, are in reality addressed to the devil. Bodin seems motivated primarily by genuine fear of the dangerous threat which he feels witchcraft poses to the commonwealth, and he asserts that diabolical practices have at times become so widespread that they have resulted in wholesale rebellion.… Interestingly, he also emphasizes that the devil has loyal subjects in all estates, and popes, emperors, and princes have at times fallen under Satan's dominion … , an opinion which we shall also encounter in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. Bodin seems fearful of any attempt to control nature, and he associates genuine piety quite closely with the confession of the extreme limitations of the human mind: "All human science," he tells us, "is filled with ignorance".… This reaction against learning and intellectual presumption is a common thread which runs through many of the witchcraft treatises, even though they sometimes differ in some of their religious and political assumptions. While some of the works on witchcraft react against all learning and all science, others affirm traditional natural philosophy and direct accusations of witchcraft solely against those who are guilty of innovation.

Although the influence of De la démonomanie in England was significant, Bodin had many predecessors and contemporaries who similarly argued that the quest for occult wisdom was the epitome of intellectual pride and inevitably led to a pact with Satan. In 1561 Francis Coxe published what he claimed to be his personal confession as a convicted conjurer [A short treatise declaring the detestable wickednesse of magical sciences] who had received clemency from the Privy Council and who now felt it his duty "to declare and open the wickednes[s] of those artes and sciences, which hath of late time to [the] provocation of God[']s wrath and almightie displeasure, ben had in suche estimation." Astrology, geomancy, and all forms of prophecy or magic are unlawful and impious inquiries into realms of knowledge which God has reserved to Himself. Included in Coxe's list of conjurers who have been seduced by evil spirits to seek forbidden powers is Roger Bacon, who Coxe says was starved to death as punishment for his crimes, and he also condemns Cornelius Agrippa, whose works, Coxe asserts, are widely circulated and debated.… Eight years after the publication of Coxe's pamphlet, Agrippa's own confession in De incertitudine et vanitale scientiarum atque artium was translated into English by James Sanford. Agrippa's De vantiate was undoubtedly one of the most influential documents in the English Renaissance in promoting the idea that magic is a natural consequence of excessive intellectual pride and that it leads the practitioner to fall into the clutches of the devil. Here was the confession of one of Europe's most infamous conjurers … Agrippa describes his own misguided and sinful involvement in occult sciences as the product of his vanity, greed, and social ambition. Elizabethan readers found De vanitate an important, unsettling treatise, and it is interesting to notice the ways in which various readers misinterpret the work by accepting only those aspects of Agrippa's critique of pride and worldliness which do not touch them personally. English Protestants, for example, readily accepted Agrippa's criticism of monasticism and the papacy, but they sometimes argued that his condemnation of all of the arts and sciences was merely satirical railing and not to be taken seriously. Although Agrippa acknowledges that witchcraft is a reality, his true account of his defense of an innocent woman who was accused of the crime underscores the fact that his major criticism is directed against the moral corruption of those who seek, or who already possess, worldly power. Despite the complexity of Agrippa's treatise and the varying responses of some Elizabethan readers, it must have been uncomfortably clear to many of them that Agrippa felt it much more likely that the devil would possess the heart of a king than the soul of a humble peasant.

Much more defensive of existing political institutions and fearful of antiauthoritarian forces was Thomas Erastus, whose Dispvtationvm de medicina nova Philippi Paracelsi (Disputations on the New Medicine of Philippus Paraclesus) was the only detailed discussion of Paracelsus' philosophy which circulated in England prior to the 1580s. Erastus was a professor of philosophy, theology, and medicine at the University of Heidelberg, and he is best known for his defense of the principle that secular rulers have the authority to oversee the purity of the church and the moral and spiritual life of the populace. In his dedicatory epistle to the elector of Saxony, Erastus says that his motive in the Disputations is to stem the rising tide of Paracelsianism and to prevent the further spread of Paracelsus' errors and blasphemies. He is particularly incensed by Paracelsus' claim to unique revelations and his assertion that the common people possess more wisdom than the educated classes. Erastus' intense loyalty to certain features of Renaissance humanism is underscored by his complaint that Paracelsus' works are not only filled with ignorance, self-contradiction, and false doctrine but are also written in an utterly barbaric prose style.… He often charges Paracelsus with ignorance of the classics, and it is obvious that Erastus is personally affronted by this commoner who dares to question the wisdom of established university professors.

Erastus' conception of the canon of true authorities is determined largely by his strict Lutheranism. Although he deeply respects Aristotle and Galen, he is sometimes critical of the Scholastic interpreters of Aristotle, and he prefers above all else the evidence of the Scriptures and, secondarily, the early church fathers. In several instances he is even willing to subject Aristotle himself to the test of experience, and occasionally he finds him wanting (e.g., Dispvtationvm, pars prima, 25-28, 74, 123). At first it might seem that Erastus and Paracelsus would agree on the primacy of the Bible and of experience, but Erastus perceives quite correctly that Paracelsus' interpretations of Scripture and his natural philosophy are strongly influenced by ideas ultimately derived from Gnosticism, whereas Erastus himself relies primarily upon those traditional academic authorities whose works are still acceptable to the Lutheran church.

Erastus begins his disputations by explaining that Paracelsus' philosophy is similar to the accursed doctrine of the monstrous Gnostic heretics. He points out that Paracelsus' view of the creation of the world resembles the Gnostic idea that the material world and humankind were both created by subordinate deities, or demiurges. If we are tempted to believe the false tales of Paracelsus' marvellous cures and, consequently, to question traditional medical authorities, we should remember that Galen had never been so irrational as to develop so base a conception of the origins of humanity as we find in Paracelsus' works; certainly Galen, whose thought is consistent with Christianity, is to be trusted more than a palpable heretic such as Paracelsus. Furthermore, Paracelsus, like most of the Platonists, erroneously believes that earthly forms, whether natural or artificial, can participate directly in the powers of spiritual forces whose influence is mediated by the heavenly bodies and by the anima mundi. Erastus seeks to destroy this claim, which is fundamental to the theory of natural magic, by asserting that both Aristotle and our own experience should convince us that the heavens exert an influence on the lower world only through light and heat; all objects are thus affected uniformly, and nothing on this earth receives a unique, occult virtue from the stars.… Words, Erastus also asserts, are merely the natural creations of the human mind, and they are not connected with the exemplars of creation, as the Platonists claim. The human mind, which creates language, cannot be directly influenced by the heavens, and Ficino merely revived the ancient heresy of Plotinus when he imagined that earthly events were caused by occult forces.… Having adduced evidence at great length from Aristotelian physics, Galenic and Hippocratic medicine, and the test of experience (interpreted in the light of orthodox religious doctrine) to the effect that all charms, spells, images, songs, characters, or other devices of magicians are utterly without effect, Erastus concludes that any observed result of a magical procedure must come from one of two sources: either evil spirits have deceived the senses of the observers and produced an illusion, or else God has permitted the sorcerers such powers as may suit His purposes. The Lord may sometimes permit magicians to perform such things as will result in punishment for their idolatry, or He may permit the devil to create trials for the spiritual benefit of the virtuous, as He did in the case of Job. In response to the question of whether some magicians may not simply learn their magical procedures through books, without entering a pact with Satan, or whether indeed it might be possible to control evil spirits, Erastus asserts that, as he has already shown, no magical effect can be wrought without the aid of devils, and any such use of demons, even if we pridefully deceive ourselves into thinking we can control them, constitutes an alliance with the infernal powers.… Given the major premise that the traditional science of Aristotle and Galen can be supported through references to the Scriptures and orthodox theologians and is therefore God's truth, and the minor premise—established easily enough—that the Paracelsians and the Renaissance Neoplatonists dissent from this doctrine, Erastus draws what he sees as the only valid conclusion: all such dissenters are the servants of Satan.

Controversies over magic, science, and witchcraft were especially intense from the 1570s through the early years of the seventeenth century, and in many treatises one can see various authors struggling to defend their religious beliefs while also endeavoring to respond in some systematic way to the innovations in natural philosophy which have threatened the coherence of their world views. Lambert Daneau, whose book on the relation between religion and science was translated as The wonderfull woorkman-ship of the world by Thomas Twyne in 1578, argues that the study of nature can enhance our reverence for the Creator, and yet Daneau decries the diversity of opinions which have arisen concerning the creation ex nihilo and other aspects of natural philosophy. This distressing variety of theories has evolved, Daneau says, because scholars have too curiously inquired into heathen philosophy and have failed to regard the Bible as the ultimate test of truth. At times Daneau quotes classical authors to support his own opinions, but he insists that the Scriptures alone are infallible. In a passage which seems designed as an ironic allusion to Hermes Trismegistus' exhortation to explore with our minds all levels of the cosmos, Daneau admonishes the reader that we cannot understand all the secrets of the universe, "either bicause they bee higher in heauen than our vnderstanding is able to attain unto them, or perhaps are in vnhabitable regions of the earth: or lie hidden very low in the bottom of the deapths." In A Dialogue of Witches, published in London in 1575 in a translation sometimes attributed to Thomas Twyne, Daneau makes clear that the increase in learning has undermined religious dogma and consequently contributed to the spread of witchcraft. Although many of the lower classes are won over to Satan because they hope to escape poverty or gain sufficient power to exert some control over their lives, there are many scholars who become Satan's vassals because they are proud of their presumed intellectual gifts and cannot accept the limitations imposed by the Almighty on the human understanding. Such scholars imagine that the devil can grant forms of knowledge which are, in fact, denied to mortals, or that Satan can grant them power to perform feats which are normally beyond human skill. Explaining why he will not inquire into the details of magic or engage in subtle proofs of his assertions, Theophilus, one of the two major speakers in the dialogue, expresses his fear of becoming subject to that vanity which leads to scholarly debate and dissension: rather than fall prey to such intellectual curiosity, one should "imitate the auncient Christians, who utterly banished all kynde of curious knowledge out of their scooles and assembl[i]es, and threwe their unprofitable bookes into the fire".… Those who wander beyond the bounds of doctrine are always seeking but never learning, always doubting and never determining the truth. Daneau explicitly condemns both the "Schoolmen" and the Platonists, and he asserts that magic, although common among idolaters of all ages, has increased in the present age because the intensified study of pagan authors has begotten increasing diversity of opinion. God permits Satan to seduce heretics into witchcraft in order to punish them for their apostasy, and in recent years the study of unorthodox philosophy has, lamentably, caused an increasing number of scholars and natural philosophers to abandon ancient truths and to imperil their souls by seeking in vain for new knowledge.…

Accusations of witchcraft were powerful political weapons. An assault upon the social and political hierarchy, such as Agrippa's, was likely to contend that Satan's influence was strongest in the seats of power; on the other hand, those who wished to defend the status quo associated witchcraft with rebelliousness and discontent among the lower classes and/or among those who dissented from government-sanctioned religion and natural philosophy. Until the early years of the Interregnum, when censorship was temporarily relaxed and fear of reprisal diminished, conservative ideas are, of course, dominant in printed books and pamphlets. Treatises which emphasize the social and political implications of witchcraft doctrine often assert that the world is divided into two kingdoms, the servants of God and the slaves of Satan, and the Kingdom of Darkness is described as a demonic parody of the Kingdom of Light. In 1590 Henry Holland [in A Treatise Against Witchcraft] characterized Satan as a "tyrannical usurper," and the language of Holland's treatise is heavily laden with images of rebellion and conquest, reinforcing the idea that salvation lay in subjection to proper authorities. In reminding his readers of "the divine maiestie and powerfull might" of the Gospel, Holland emphasizes that "a man must be, as it were conquered [by true religion] before he doe yeelde sincere and sound obedience unto Christ. And certen it is, that before men be brought downe to that subjection, they fall often into daungerous errours in minde." William Perkins, who began his career as a popular and influential preacher and professor of theology at Cambridge while Christopher Marlowe was a student there, asserted [A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft] that Satan's kingdom is upheld by witches who fall prey to two major categories of temptation: first, there are those who are unwilling to accept their subordinate social status and who wish to use magical powers in order to attain wealth and political power; the second major category includes those who are dissatisfied with the limitations of the human mind and who feel an inordinate thirst for knowledge. Perkins includes in this category all occult philosophers, and he conducts a detailed refutation of the theory used by Pico, Agrippa, Paracelsus, and others as a rationale for what they claimed to be a benevolent form of magic. Perkins bases his argument on the premise that the heavens act upon all areas of the earth uniformly, so that no earthly substance possesses a specific occult virtue. Consequently, all astrology is vain, and charms, spells, amulets, and exorcisms all have no inherent efficacy. Magicians derive whatever actual powers they may possess from the superior scientific knowledge of the devil, who may indeed enable his followers to perform certain feats, either by natural means or through illusions, in order to win himself a following among foolish worldlings. Perkins combines his critique of Neoplatonic and Hermetic philosophy with an assault on the village "cunning men" or "wise women" to whom the ignorant populace frequently turn instead of relying upon genuinely learned and properly licensed physicians. Perkins approves of the use of drugs and other cures when they are provided by university-trained doctors of physic who are loyal to the established medical authorities, but he regards the practitioners of folk medicine, whom Paracelsus had defended, as not merely superstitious or misguided, but as servants of the devil. All who consult them stand in peril of their souls. Perkins' treatise is one of the most detailed and systematic discussions of witchcraft to appear in Renaissance England, and it is clear that, in his opinion, there were three classes of persons who are most likely to become witches: Catholics, whose idolatrous worship, exorcisms, and spurious miracles are all effected by Satan; learned magicians, whose intellectual pride has led them to adopt a fallacious pagan philosophy and to fall prey to Satan's temptations of fame, wealth, and power; and members of the uneducated classes who are presumptuous enough to attempt to compete with trained physicians or who simply wish to escape the humble lot to which God has assigned them.

King James I assumed a leading role in witchcraft persecution largely because of his vision of himself as a philosopher-king and religious teacher. Witches were the ultimate traitors to both God and the state, and their ranks constituted a counter-kingdom of perversion and disorder. James believed that witches' powers diminished in proportion to the hierarchical status of the official who prosecuted them, and his personal involvement in the witch trials, as well as his publication of Daemonologie, enabled the king to perform the role of a divinely ordained spiritual and temporal leader. In the published account of the North Berwick case [in Newesfrom Scotland] in which a sorcerer named Dr. Fian and his followers were accused of attempting to shipwreck the king as he sailed from Denmark to Scotland, one of the witches is reported to have testified that the devil had a special enmity to James because "the King is the greatest enemy he hath in the worlde".… The pamphlet describes the interrogation of the accused by the king himself, the means by which they were tortured, their confessions, and their final sentencing to be burned at the stake. It concludes with a paragraph affirming James's heroic courage and his steadfast faith; in the future, as in the past, the reader is assured, the Lord will protect his anointed against the enchantments of Satan's followers.

James's Daemonologie is of special interest because of the manner in which the king apparently projects onto learned magicians his own feelings of guilt with regard to intellectual pride. Early in the treatise he explains that the devil appeals to witches through greed, desire for revenge, or an excessive desire for knowledge, and he devotes most of book 1 to the problem of insatiable intellectual curiosity. He sets out to refute the claims of the Renaissance occult tradition and to expose the dangers of those arts and sciences which he terms "the devil's school." James does not condemn all astronomy or mathematics as sinful, as many of the popular demonologists had done; the dangerous branch of the art, he says, is judicial astrology, through which those who have already mastered legitimate knowledge seek to transcend human limitations by learning to predict the future. At first this study seems lawful to them, but "they are so allured thereby, that finding their practize to prooue true in sundry things, they studie to know the cause thereof: and so mounting from degree to degree, upon the slipperie and vncertaine scale of curiositie; they are at last entised, that where lawfull artes or sciences failes, to satisfie their restles mindes, even to seeke to that black and vnlawfull science of Magie" (Daemonologie, 10). That James feared his own intellectual aspirations is strongly suggested by a close reading of Daemonologie in conjunction with Sir John Harrington's account of his personal interview with the king, reprinted by Professor Harrison in his edition of James's treatise. Evidently much of the conversation centered upon James's opinion that "a Kynge should … be the best clerke in his owne countrie," and he took great pains to assure himself that his subjects adequately respected his intellect (Daemonologie, vii-viii). The most important revelation is that James himself had sought the power of prophecy:

His Highnesse tolde me [the queen's] death was visible in Scotlande before it did really happen, being, as he said, 'spoken of in secrete by those whose power of sighte presentede to them a bloodie heade dancinge in the aire.' He then did remarke much on this gifte, and saide he had soughte out of certaine bookes a sure waie to attaine knowledge of future chances. Hereat, he namede many bookes, which I did not knowe, nor by whom written; but advisede me not to consult some authors which woulde leade me to evile consultations. (Daemonologie, viii)

In the Daemonologie itself James dwells at length upon the fact that scholars who indulge their "curiosity" with regard to foreseeing the future have taken the first step toward crossing the boundary between lawful and unlawful arts. Perhaps he felt that as God's anointed he was privileged to explore with impunity those subjects which would endanger the souls of lesser mortals. It seems likely, however, that just as the typical demonologist projected his own lust onto the presumably insatiable women whose carnality made them easy prey for the devil, so James's attack on the dangerous presumption of scholars grows from his fear of his own desire to gain forbidden knowledge. Having warned his listener that the devil seduces us by appealing to "passiones that are within our selues" (8), Epistemon, who speaks for King James in the dialogue, expresses profound anxiety over the dangers of learning about prophecy, charms, and conjurations, the rudiments of the devil's school. When asked for further information about these matters, he prefaces his discussion with the comment, "I thinke ye take me to be a Witch my selfe" (16; cf. 8-18). On the one hand, James believed that the king should assume the role of teacher and spiritual guide to his people; on the other, he felt the danger of seeking to be godlike in knowledge and in power. Perhaps an awareness of this mixture of pride and fear in King James may help us to understand how the royal demonologist who had so vehemently denounced intellectual magic could subsequently identify with Prospero, the benevolent royal magician of The Tempest, which was performed before the king on November 1, 1611, and again during the winter of 1612/13. It is possible that James had grown somewhat more tolerant as he was influenced by the growing skepticism of the period with regard to witchcraft, but it seems likely that the most significant factor was political: one could write a play about a magician so long as the proper authorities were reaffirmed, rather than challenged.

During the years when plays on magic and witchcraft flourished on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, actual practitioners of the occult arts, of chemistry, and of tech nology continued to test the theories of alchemists and Hermetic philosophers, and increasingly they dismissed the more grandiose claims of the Hermetic/Cabalist tradition and began to find genuinely reliable methods of investigating nature. As Hugh Plat complained in 1594 [in The Jewel House of Art and Nature], the progress of genuine knowledge was hindered both by credulity and by unreflective, dogmatic reaction against all "natural magic," and what was needed was a willingness to test the speculations of the Paracelsians and other natural philosophers with a rigorous method of experimentation. As credulity gradually began to wane, alchemists and Hermetic magi increasingly became the objects of ridicule rather than fear, and satirists such as Gabriel Harvey, Thomas Lodge, and Ben Jonson mocked the occultists as hypocritical charlatans or deluded fools.… But the boldest voice in England prior to Francis Bacon was that of Reginald Scot, a justice of the peace who was sufficiently horrified by the torture and execution of alleged witches to publish a detailed refutation of the belief that any mortal could command either benevolent or evil spirits or in any way obtain supernatural powers. In A Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) Scot asserts that the age of miracles has passed, and consequently all accounts of supernatural feats performed by witches or benevolent magi are based on false confessions and fallacious hearsay, or, in some cases, are records of tricks performed by legerdemain—mere "juggling." Anticipating some of the modern explanations of the witchcraft phenomenon, Scot asserts that people need tangible villains to blame for their misfortunes, and by projecting their guilt onto presumed witches they can avoid admitting that adversity may be a punishment for their own sins. Occasionally an old woman who cursed a neighbor who had done her a disservice might be deluded enough to think that she indeed caused whatever ailment or other affliction subsequently befell the family, but more frequently the accused simply break down under severe torture and are willing to confess anything.

Scot demonstrates a thorough knowledge of Renaissance occult philosophy, and he refutes the claim that the magus, emulating God, can purify or renew the fallen world. For "we ought not to take upon us to conterfet, or resemble him, which with his word created all things. For we, neither all the conjurors, Cabalists, papists, soothsaiers, inchanters, witches, nor charmers in the world, neither anie other humane or yet diabolicall cunning can adde anie such strength to Gods workmanship, as to make anie thing anew, or else to exchange one thing into another".… Drawing upon Agrippa's De vanitate, he denies that our knowledge of the influence of the heavens is sufficient to provide a foundation for judicial astrology or other, related occult arts which claim to foretell the future.… Scot believes, however, that there is a form of "natural magic" which investigates the virtues and qualities of natural substances, and such science, being totally free of supernatural forces, is lawful; the most obvious example of benevolent use of our knowledge of natural properties is medicine, but Scot also believes that there may be other instances of "natural magic" which experience may prove to be legitimate and beneficial to human-kind.… Scot also describes in great detail the manner in which some persons who possess genuine knowledge of nature can—sometimes with the aid of legerdemain—produce feats which the ignorant will attribute to witch-craft. Lamentably, "we are so fond, mistrustfull & credulous, that we feare more the fables of Robin good fellow; astrologers, & witches, & beleeve more the things that are not, than the things that are. And the more unpossible a thing is, the more we stand in feare thereof; and the lesse likelie to be true, the more we beleeve it. And if we were not such, I thinke with Cornelius Agrippa, that these divinors, astrologers, conjurors, and cousenors would die for hunger".… Although Scot concedes that God chose to work through miracles in the Apostolic era, he denies virtually all supernatural influence in subsequent periods of history, believing firmly that the Creator chooses to work through natural law.

In the preface to Daemonologie, King James says that his book is written principally against two damnably misguided authors: Johann Wier, whose defense of witches as mentally ill plainly reveals that he himself was of their profession, and "one called SCOT an Englishman, [who] is not ashamed in publike print to deny, that ther can be such a thing as Witch-craft: and so mainteines the old error of the Sadducees, in denying of spirits" (Daemonologie, xi-xii). One wonders how many Elizabethans may have shared Scot's skepticism with regard to witches and spirits, as well as his faith in the order of nature, but refrained from expressing themselves out of fear of persecution. Only when Francis Bacon convinced a significant percentage of his countrymen that innovation in natural philosophy need not undermine the traditional authorities in politics and religion could the nation commit its resources to scientific and technological endeavors. Bacon adopted from the occult and alchemical traditions the belief that civilization was on the eve of a renewal of knowledge which would restore to humankind the powers with which God had originally endowed us: "For man by the fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over creation. Both of these losses can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences." The humanist conviction that knowledge must issue in virtuous action had been carried to its logical extreme in occult philosophy and ultimately contributed to Bacon's vision of a society in which science would improve the lot of all social and economic classes. Among the many aspects of occultism which Bacon rejected, however, was the idea that knowledge could be perfected through the vision of an inspired, self-reliant individual. For Bacon and his followers in the Royal Society, science progressed through controlled experimentation and the combined labors of a large community of researchers who replicated each other's findings, and to a considerable extent it was this emphasis upon the limitations of the individual which made it possible for scientists to form an alliance with traditional political and religious authorities. Although the theoretical basis of this alliance has proven acceptable to many of Western civilization's most influential thinkers, there have always remained compel ling reasons for some religious and ethical thinkers to question any form of magic or science which sought to compel nature to serve human purposes. As Sir James Frazer pointed out in The Golden Bough, miracles wrought by prayer in an orthodox religious context result from an attitude of submission; works accomplished either through magical ceremonies or as a result of genuine science and technology are typically an assertion of human power, of our daring to assert control over our own destiny.

Although we are no longer engaged in debate over the technical details of magical procedure or the existence of witchcraft, many of the fundamental intellectual, social, psychological, and spiritual problems which gave rise to the controversies and the officially sanctioned violence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still very much with us. We continue to be threatened by the confusion of religious sincerity with dogmatism and self-vindication, and it would be naive indeed to flatter ourselves that rationality and openmindedness have entirely triumphed in the twentieth century over the need to defend those personal biases which are, in large part, the result of one's economic and social status. Moreover, as the research of Professors Cohn, Larner, and others has reminded us, the desire to destroy entire classes of human beings who are imagined to constitute a subversive counter-society, and onto whom the guilt and the sense of failure of others can be projected, is not merely a characteristic of sixteenthand seventeenth-century Europe, or of other cultures distant from us in space or time. The psychological roots of such intolerance lie deep within the human personality, and the social dynamics which bring such forces to the surface threaten to appear in virtually all human societies. Science and technology, while capable of bringing incalculable improvement of the quality of human life, have also made it possible for us to witness the destructive consequences of human fear and hatred on a scale which makes the European witch-hunts, as appalling as they are, appear relatively limited by comparison. The history of the twentieth century has intensified, rather than diminished, the perennial questions concerning the limitations of human nature and its potential for benevolence and for destruction. That fact is one of the most compelling reasons for the enduring power of the plays by Marlowe, Jonson, and Shakespeare.…