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The Dark Side of the Enlightenment

Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Reason

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The Dark Side of the Enlightenment

By: John V. Fleming
Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
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About this listen

Why spiritual and supernatural yearnings, even investigations into the occult, flourished in the era of rationalist philosophy.

In The Dark Side of the Enlightenment, John V. Fleming shows how the impulses of the European Enlightenment - generally associated with great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion - were challenged by tenacious religious ideas or channeled into the "darker" pursuits of the esoteric and the occult. His engaging topics include the stubborn survival of the miraculous, the Enlightenment roles of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, and the widespread pursuit of magic and alchemy.

Though we tend not to associate what was once called alchemy with what we now call chemistry, Fleming shows that the difference is merely one of linguistic modernization. Alchemy was once the chemistry, of Arabic derivation, and its practitioners were among the principal scientists and physicians of their ages. No point is more important for understanding the strange and fascinating figures in this book than the prestige of alchemy among the learned men of the age.

Fleming follows some of these complexities and contradictions of the "Age of Lights" into the biographies of two of its extraordinary offspring. The first is the controversial wizard known as Count Cagliostro, the "Egyptian" freemason, unconventional healer, and alchemist known most infamously for his ambiguous association with the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which history has viewed as among the possible harbingers of the French Revolution and a major contributing factor in the growing unpopularity of Marie Antoinette. Fleming also reviews the career of Julie de Krüdener, the sentimental novelist, Pietist preacher, and political mystic who would later become notorious as a prophet.

Impressively researched and wonderfully erudite, this rich narrative history sheds light on some lesser-known mental extravagances and beliefs of the Enlightenment era and brings to life some of the most extraordinary characters ever encountered either in history or fiction.

©2013 John V. Fleming (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
17th Century 18th Century Occult World Alchemy Magic Users French Revolution
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Fascinating book, excellently read

This is one of the most informative and dryly amusing books I have ever read - or listened to. No, it is not a general account of the Enlightenment, or even one aspect of it. Like Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, it samples the age by looking in detail at a few individuals in turn. And what a gallery of eccentrics Fleming parades before us! If they were simply unusual, the book would be entertaining enough, but in fact each illustrates aspects of the period quite vividly, so sheds a great deal of light on it. The book is also excellently read, with just the right straight, but ever so slightly ironic, tone.

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3 people found this helpful