Rule the world with magic

The English Whig Party valued the legacy of the Scientific Revolution and its Renaissance precursors. This attitude was linked to a revolutionary tradition that opposed established courts and churches. Peaking in the second half of the 17^th century, the Scientific Revolution contributed to the development of a new pantheistic view of nature and the republican ideals of the Commonwealth, a confederation of states. In pantheism, God exists in all things in the world; simply put, God and the universe are one and the same.

Pantheism existed in the shadows of 18^th-century English thought. This does not mean that pantheists did not play a decisive role in shaping events, nor that their clandestine efforts were irrelevant. Rather, it means that they did not publicly defend their system but rather used secret channels to do so.

They rejected divine revelation and asserted that human reason could independently uncover all essential religious truths. This gave rise to a fundamental distrust of religion and state authority. The resulting autonomy of man also extended to the realm of politics. Another consequence of denying Christ’s divine authority was that he could not establish an apostolic succession of the priesthood, nor could he exercise his mediating function based on a supposed divine right. If the church could not claim divine origin, then the state was obviously secular.

Freemasonry served as a propaganda tool, spreading from Scotland and England to the Netherlands and eventually gaining a foothold in France and other countries. In its wake, the Neoplatonic Renaissance view of humanity found its way into the minds of influential intellectuals and aristocrats. The guiding principle of hermetic magic is: “As above, so below.” According to this principle, man and the cosmos were connected by a chain of beings in their physical nature. A hidden—but no less real or absolute—line of connection ran through the lower and higher worlds. Magicians believed this knowledge gave them access to the secret centers of power in the universe. Through the skillful manipulation of celestial bodies, magicians believed they could alter the course of fate. Just as manipulating objects nearby had effects far away, so too did magical influence on external elements directly affect humans. Furthermore, certain interventions in nature have far-reaching effects on the environment. British Germanist Elizabeth M. Butler therefore viewed the fundamental goal of magic as the realization of the human will to rule over nature, people, and spirits.

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