Solomon's Secret Arts

by Paul Kléber Monod

  46. For a sceptical assessment of Beckford's interest in magic, see Boyd Alexander, England's Wealthiest Son: A Study of William Beckford (London, 1962), p. 82. The splendid exhibition catalogue edited by Derek E. Ostergard, William Beckford, 1760–1844: An Eye for the Magnificent (New Haven, 2001), more or less avoids the subject. The biographical details here are taken from these works as well as from Lewis Melville, The Life and Letters of William Beckford of Fonthill (London, 1910), and the biography in ODNB.

  47. William Beckford, Vathek, ed. Roger Lonsdale (Oxford, 1983), pp. 36, 113.

  48. Melville, Life of Beckford, p. 19.

  49. The Valuable Library of Books, in Fonthill Abbey. A Catalogue of the Magnificent, Rare, and Valuable Library (of 20,000 Volumes) ([London], [1823]), lots 3557, 3609, 3640. No books on astrology or ritual magic were sold at the auction.

  50. [Margaret Baron-Wilson], The Life and Correspondence of M.G. Lewis (2 vols, London, 1839), vol. 1, ch. 3; also, Elizabeth R. Napier, The Failure of Gothic: Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-Century Literary Form (Cambridge, 1987); Michael Gamer, Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception and Canon Formation (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 73–89; David Lorne Macdonald, Monk Lewis: A Critical Biography (Toronto, 2000).

  51. Matthew Lewis, The Monk, ed. Emma McEvoy (Oxford, 1995), pp. 275–7.

  52. Matthew Lewis, The Castle Spectre: A Drama (London, 1798), “To the Reader,” p. 102.

  53. Henry Ridgely Evans, History of Conjuring and Magic (revised ed., Kenton, Ohio, 1930), pp. 42–4.

  54. Philip Breslaw, Breslaw's Last Legacy; or, The Magical Companion (London, 1784), pp. x, 101.

  55. Malcolm Macleod, The Key to Knowledge; or Universal Conjuror (London, 1800), p. iv.

  56. Malcolm Macleod, Macleod's History of Witches, &c. The Majesty of Darkness Discovered: in a Series of Tremendous Tales (London, 1793), pp. 88–97.

  57. Evans, History of Conjuring, pp. 53–6; Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 84–5; Guide to Health, Beauty, Riches and Honour, pp. 59–61.

  58. Ralph G. Allen, “The Stage Spectacles of Philip James de Loutherbourg,” Yale School of Drama, D.F.A. thesis, 1960, pp. 67–79, 80–8; Christopher Baugh, Garrick and Loutherbourg (Cambridge and Alexandria, Va., 1990), pp. 97–115; David Worrall, Theatrical Revolution: Drama, Censorship and Romantic Period Subcultures, 1773–1832 (Oxford, 2006), ch. 4.

  59. “At the large house, fronting Leicester-Street, Leicester-Square, This present THURSDAY, January 31, 1782, will be Exhibited for the first time, EIDOPHUSIKON …” (handbill, London, 1782); “At the Large House, fronting Leicester-Street, Leicester-Square, On every MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY EVENINGS, will be exhibited ('till further Notice), EIDOPHUSIKON …” (handbill, London, 1782); Altick, Shows of London, pp. 117–27.

  60. Clery, Rise of Supernatural Fiction, p. 146; Altick, Shows of London, pp. 217–18; Mervyn Heard, Phantasmagoria: The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern (Hastings, 2006), chs 3–7.

  61. Allen, “Stage Spectacles,” pp. 264–302; Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London and New York, 2003), pp. 63–70; Harriet Guest, “Ornament and Use: Mai and Cook in London,” in Kathleen Wilson, ed., A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 317–44; Daniel O'Quinn, Staging Governance: Theatrical Imperialism in London, 1770–1800 (Baltimore, 2005), ch. 2.

  62. Conyers Middleton, A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers, Which Are Supposed to Have Subsisted in the Christian Church, from the Earliest Ages through Several Successive Centuries (London, 1749); David Hume, Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (4 vols, London and Edinburgh, 1760), vol. 3: “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” pp. 167–202. As Jane Shaw points out in Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, 2006), pp. 160–1, 175, these were relatively late contributions to a long-running debate.

  63. See David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, Conn., 2005).

  64. Jean Orcibal, “The Theological Originality of John Wesley and Continental Spirituality,” in Rupert Davies and Gordon Rupp, eds, A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (4 vols, London, 1965–88), vol. 1, pp. 83–111; John Wesley, A Second Letter to the Author of the Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar'd (London, 1751), in Gerald R. Cragg, ed., The Works of John Wesley: Volume 2: The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion and Certain Related Open Letters (Oxford, 1975), p. 416.

  65. David Hempton, The Religion of the People: Methodism and Popular Religion, c. 1750–1900 (London, 1996).

  66. James Lackington, Memoirs of the First Forty-Five Years of the Life of James Lackington (rev. ed., London, 1794), p. 294. Earlier versions of Lackington's autobiography do not contain these remarks.

  67. Ibid., p. 305; John Wesley, Primitive Physic: or, An Easy and Natural Method, of Curing Most Diseases (20th ed., London, 1780); Antoine-Joseph Pernety, The History of a Voyage to the Malouine (or Falklands) Islands, Made in 1763 and 1764, under the Command of M. de Bougainville (London, 1771), pp. 153–62.

  68. Curnock, ed., Journals of John Wesley, vol. 5, pp. 265–75; James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (2 vols, London, 1904), vol. 2, pp. 224–5, 296; Handley, Visions of an Unseen World, pp. 148–53.

  69. A Narrative of the Extraordinary Case of Geo, Lukins, of Yatton, Somerset, Who Was Possessed of Evil Spirits, for Near Eighteen Years (Bristol, 1788); Owen Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951 (Manchester, 1999), pp. 20–2; and for the Methodist view of spirit possession, Clarke Garrett, Spirit Possession and Popular Religion: From the Camisards to the Shakers (Baltimore and London, 1987), ch. 4.

  70. Narrative of the Extraordinary Case, p. 5; Joseph Easterbrook, An Appeal to the Public Respecting George Lukins, (Called the Yatton Demoniac,) Containing an Account of his Affliction and Deliverance (Bristol, 1788), p. 4.

  71. Samuel Norman, Authentic Anecdotes of George Lukins, the Yatton Demoniac; with a View of the Controversy, and a Full Refutation of the Imposture (Bristol, 1788), p. 44.

  72. For the history of Shakerism around Manchester between 1758 and 1774, see Garrett, Spirit Possession, chs 5–8. B.J. Gibbons, Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought: Behmenism and its Development in England (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 158–62, argues for the influence of “popular Behmenism” on the Shakers, which is not impossible given the location of their early community.

  73. Jacob Boehme, The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher (2 vols, London, 1764), vol. 1, pp. vii–ix; Jacob Boehme, Forty Questions of the Soul, trans. John Sparrow (London, 1661), sigs A5–A9. The phrase “from that which we find in others” replaced the original words “from that which we find in the Experimental Physicians, Philosophers, Astronomers.” Clearly, the eighteenth-century editors of Boehme were less concerned than Sparrow to identify a scientific attitude that could be harmonized with magic through Theosophy.

  74. Jacob Boehme, The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher, Vol. 3 (London, 1772), p. 12 ff. A fourth and final volume appeared in 1781; it contained Law's paraphrase of Boehme's Way to Christ.

  75. Curnock, ed., Journals of Wesley, vol. 6, pp. 10–12; also, Garrett, Spirit Possession, pp. 145–6.

  76. DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, pp. 104–19; Christopher Walton, Notes and Materials for an Adequate Biography of … William Law (London, 1854), pp. 595–7; Francis Okely, ed. and trans., Memoirs of the Life, Death, Burial, and Wonderful Writings of Jacob Behmen (Northampton, 1780), pp. 105–6; Muses, Illumination on Jacob Boehme, pp. 58–9; Barry, “Medicine and Religion,” p. 155. Amazingly enough, Mills was the grandfather of Thomas Babington Macaulay, the Whig historian.

  77. DWL, Ms. Walton I.1.43, pp. 67–74.

  78. W.C. and R[alph] M[ather], An Impartial Representation of the Case of the Poor Cotton Spinners in Lancashire, &c. With a Mode Proposed to the Legislature for their Relief (London, 1780), reproduced in Labour Disputes in the Early
Days of the Industrial Revolution: Four Pamphlets, 1758–1780 (New York, 1970), p. 15.

  79. DWL, Walton I.1.43, p. 74.

  80. R.L. Tafel, ed., Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg (2 vols in 4 parts, London, 1875–7), vol. 2, part 2, p. 1253; F.J.F. Schreck, History of the New Church in Birmingham (London,1916), accessed at http://www.newchurchhistory.org/articles/ejs2007/ejs2007.php#footnotes; Ralph Mather, Rational Reflections on Tale-Bearing and Detraction (London, 1786). A commonplace book kept by J.W. Salmon in 1799, entitled “Fragments of Wisdom Collected by a Society of Gentlemen,” is in Swedenborg House, London, Ms. A/187.

  81. Carl Theophilus Odhner, Annals of the New Church (2 vols, Bryn Athyn, 1904), vol. 1, pp. 126, 128, 133, 147, 160, 166, 189–90, 191; Andrew Levy, The First Emancipator: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed his Slaves (New York, 2005). A 1795 letter from Mather to Carter, mentioning the founding of the Philadelphia New Church, is in the Virginia Historical Society, Ms. C2468a 621. I owe this reference to my colleague Amy Morsman.

  82. Lackington, Memoirs, p. 195.

  83. An excellent introduction to Swedenborg's thought is Ernst Benz, Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason, trans. Nicholas Goodrich-Clarke (West Chester, Pa., 2002); but there is interesting biographical material in Signe Toksvig, Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic (New Haven, Conn., 1948); Inge Jonsson, Emanuel Swedenborg, trans. Catherine Djurklou (New York, 1971). See also Clarke Garrett, “Swedenborg and the Mystical Enlightenment in Late Eighteenth-Century England,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 45 (1984), pp. 67–81, and for a conspiratorial approach, Keith Schuchard, “Jacobite and Visionary: The Masonic Journey of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772),” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 115 (2002), pp. 33–72.

  84. James Hindmarch, ed., A New Dictionary of Correspondences, Representations, &c. Or the Spiritual Significations of Words, Sentences, &c. As Used in the Sacred Scriptures (London, 1790), p. 227, which is derived from Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia (10 vols, New York, 1882), vol. 7, pp. 84–5, no. 6692. See also Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia (8 vols, London, 1749–56), vol. 6 (1753), p. 303; Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christian Religion: Containing the Universal Theology of the New Church (2 vols, London, 1781), vol. 2, p. 161; Emanuel Swedenborg, The Wisdom of Angels Concerning the Divine Providence (London, 1790), p. 423; Emanuel Swedenborg, The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love (London, 1794), pp. 235, 435.

  85. Odhner, Annals of the New Church, vol. 1, pp. 195–6, 202.

  86. Johann Heinrich Cohausen, Hermippus Redivivus: or, The Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave (London, 1744). An expanded version of the work was printed in 1744, a second edition in 1749, a pirated Dublin edition in 1760 and a third edition in 1771.

  87. The Museum, or, The Literary and Historical Register, vol. 3, no. 33, 20 June 1747, p. 256. Akenside was editor of The Museum, which was published by Robert Dodsley.

  88. Elizabeth E. Barker and Alex Kidson, eds, Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool (New Haven, Conn., 2007), pp. 172–4; Judy Egerton, Wright of Derby (New York, 1990), pp. 84–91; also, Burdett's entry in ODNB.

  89. The visit was mentioned by Stephen Glover in the gazetteer section of The History of the County of Derby, ed. Thomas Noble (2 vols, Derby, 1828), vol. 2, p. 616, and explained in a newspaper article by Maxwell Craven, “Why Did the Chevalier Who Liked to Dress as a Woman Visit Derby?” Derby Evening Telegraph, accessed at http://youandyesterday.com/articles. See also Maxwell Craven, John Whitehurst of Derby, Clockmaker and Scientist, 1713–88 (Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 1996), p. 222. For Louis IX of Hesse-Darmstadt, see René Le Forestier, La Franc-Maçonnerie Templière et Occultiste aux XVIIIe et XIXe Siècles (Paris and Louvain, 1970), p. 628 n. 33. D'Eon's membership in the London Lodge of Immortality is chronicled in W.J. Chetwode Crawley, “The Chevalier d'Eon,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 16 (1903), pp. 231–51, and his long residence at the home of Earl Ferrers is mentioned in Gary Kates, Monsieur d'Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade (Baltimore, Md., 1995), p. 189–90.

  90. Johann Christian Gädicke, Freimaurer-Lexicon (Berlin, 1818), pp. 42, 102; Allgemeines Handbuch der Freimaurerei (3 vols, Leipzig, 1863), vol. 1, p. 61.

  91. Leonard W. Labaree et al, eds, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (39 vols, New Haven, Conn., 1959–2008), vol. 21, p. 386; vol. 24, p. 144. Burdett knew Franklin through the Lunar Society of Birmingham. For Steuben, see Albert J. Mackey and H.L. Haywood, eds, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (2 vols, New York, 1920), vol. 2, p. 1084.

  92. This interpretation has already been proposed by Janet Vertesi in “Light and Enlightenment in Joseph Wright's ‘The Alchemist,’” accessed at http://www.reocities.com/jvertesi/wright/.

  93. Egerton, Wright of Derby, pp. 91–4. The Miravan story is probably derived from [John Gilbert Cooper], Letters Concerning Taste (London, 1755), Letter X, pp. 69–70.

  94. An early example of that view is found in Robert Freke Gould, The History of Freemasonry (6 vols, London, 1882–7), vol. 5, pp. 80–123.

  95. G.D. Henderson, Chevalier Ramsay (London, 1952), pp. 20, 107.

  96. Andrew Michael Ramsay, The Travels of Cyrus (2 vols, London, 1727), vol. 1, p. 86.

  97. Bodl. Lib., Carte Ms. 246, f. 420; Henderson, Ramsay, chs 10–12. For Ramsay's relationship to scepticism, see Richard H. Popkin, “David Hume and the Pyrrhonian Controversy,” in his The High Road to Pyrrhonism, ed. Richard A. Watson and James E. Force (Indianapolis, 1993), pp. 135–6; and for Ramsay's personal assessment of David Hume, ibid., p. 142 n. 40.

  98. Andrew Michael Ramsay, “Discours Prononcé à la Réception des Frée-Maçons [sic],” in Lettre Philosophique, par M. de V***, avec Plusieurs Pièces Galantes et Nouvelles de Differens Auteurs ([London?], 1775), pp. 44–5. Interestingly, this copy of the “Discours” is bound up with a selection of freethinking and erotic pieces. For the cancelled speech, see Bodl. Lib., Carte Ms. 246, f. 398. An English translation of the “Discours” was made by the Jacobite agent George Kelly. A scholarly discussion of the origins of the speech can be found in Alain Bernheim, “Ramsay and his Discours Revisited,” a lecture delivered to the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 2003 and available at http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/bernheim_ramsay.html.

  99. Ramsay, “Discours,” pp. 51–4.

  100. Ibid., pp. 56–61.

  101. The most reliable source for the early history of these lodges is Alain Bernheim, “Notes on the Order of Kilwinning or Scotch Heredom, the Present Royal Order of Scotland,” available at http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/royal_order_scotland.html.

  102. For Hund, see Le Forestier, Franc-Maçonnerie Templière et Occultiste, pp. 107–241, 610–78; Karl R. Frick, Die Erleuchteten: Gnostisch-theosophische und alchemistisch-rosenkreuzerische Geheimgesellschaften bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (Graz, 1973), ch. 3; Antoine Faivre, L'Esoterisme au XVIIIe Siècle en France et en Allemagne (Paris, 1973); and for the Golden or Rosy Cross Masons, Christopher McIntosh, The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology and Rituals of an Esoteric Order (York Beach, Maine, 1998), chs 7–8.

  103. Le Forestier, Franc-Maçonnerie Templière et Occultiste, pp. 275–531; “Papus” [Gérard Encausse], L'Illuminisme en France (1767–1774): Martinez Pasqually (Paris, 1895); Arthur Edward Waite, The Life of Louis Claude de St. Martin, the Unknown Philosopher (London, 1901), pp. 22–86; Gould, History of Freemasonry, vol. 5, pp. 117–19.

  104. Antoine-Joseph Pernety, Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermétique (Paris, 1758). For his life, see Joanny Bricaud, Les Illuminés d'Avignon (Paris, 1927), chs 1–3. Pernety was noticed in John Aikin, Thomas Morgan and William Johnson, General Biography (10 vols, London, 1799–1815), vol. 8, p. 54, the ODNB of its day.

  105. Le Forestier, Franc-Maçonnerie Templière et Occultiste, pp. 784–5.

  106. For Preston, see ODNB and his Illustrations of Masonry (reprint of 1804 ed., Wellingborough, Northants, 1986), introduction.

  107. William Preston, Illustrat
ions of Masonry (2nd rev. ed., London, 1775), pp. 6, 69, 156–7 n. 7, 186–8, 205–6. 210–11.

  108. Preston's view of the dispute is found in the 1779 edition of Illustrations of Masonry, pp. 288–95. A summary of events is provided by Gilbert Y. Johnson, “The Grand Lodge South of the River Trent,” in Harry Carr, ed., The Collected Prestonian Lectures, Volume 1: 1925–60 (London, 1965), pp. 283–96.

  109. William James Hughan, ed., Masonic Sketches and Reprints: 1. History of Freemasonry in York. 2. Unpublished Records of the Craft (London, 1871); Wilhelm Begemann, Vorgeschichte und Anfänge der Freimaruerei in England (2 vols, Berlin, 1909), vol. 2, pp. 417–42; W. Wonnacott, “The Rite of the Seven Degrees in London,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 39 (1926), pp. 63–98; George S. Draffen, “Some Further Notes on the Rite of Seven Degrees in England,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 68 (1955), pp. 94–110.

  110. Bodl. Lib., Rylands Ms. D.8, pp. 6–7. The Royal Arch Supreme Grand Chapter was founded in 1765, probably in imitation of the Grand Lodge of Antients.

  111. Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, A Picture of England (2 vols, London, 1789), vol. 1, pp. 181–3. For Samuel Falk, see Cecil Roth, Essays and Portraits in Anglo-Jewish History (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 139–64; Michal Oron, “Dr. Samuel Falk and the Eibeschuetz-Emden Controversy,” in Karl Erich Grözinger and Joseph Dan, eds, Mysticism, Magic and Kabbalah in Ashkenazi Judaism (Berlin, 1995), pp. 243–56; Marsha Keith Schuchard, “Dr. Samuel Falk: A Sabbatian Adventurer in the Masonic Underground,” in Matt Goldish and Richard Henry Popkin, eds, Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, Volume 1: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World (Dordrecht, 2001), pp. 203–26. For his connections with Freemasons, see Gordon P.G. Hills, “Notes on Some Contemporary References to Dr. Falk, the Baal Shem of London, in the Rainsford Mss. at the British Museum,” The Jewish Historical Society of England: Transactions, 8 (1915–17), pp. 122–8. Hills did not believe Falk himself was a Mason.

  112. See Richard Sher, The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and their Publishers in Britain, Ireland and America (Chicago, 2010); Richard B. Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1990); Paul Wood, ed., The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation (Rochester, 2000); and for a comparison of the Enlightenment in Scotland and Naples, John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760 (Cambridge, 2005).