If you wish to be considered a scientific-minded person, you probably know that you really shouldn’t believe in the occurrence of events commonly referred to as ‘supernatural’. If there was something to that sort of thing, surely the greats of science such as Newton, Bacon, Boyle, the Curies and Einstein would have told us.
What may surprise you is that each of the scientific icons named above, and many others of similar standing, took reports of ‘marvellous’ phenomena quite seriously. In fact, the consensus in historical scholarship regarding the relationship between science and ‘magic’ has shifted notably during the past five decades. Even the most conservative historian of science will tell you today what previous generations ignored or denied:
That the revolutionary scientific works of Brahe, Kepler, Newton and other early moderns were inextricably related to their committed beliefs in biblical prophecy, astrology and other ‘occult’ ideas and practices.
That others like Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, and later Pierre Curie, J. J. Thomson and William James observed and rigorously tested reported ‘miraculous’ goings-on, and insisted that certain instances of distant mental influence constituted facts of nature.
That these examples are not mere anachronisms, but that – contrary to traditional assertions of a ‘disenchantment of nature’ – interest in ‘miraculous’ phenomena has continued in elite members of scientific communities, though not necessarily pursued within curricula of professionalized sciences.
That at least since the nineteenth century, scientific interest in these things has been marked by a pluralism of interpretations, and cannot simply be pigeon-holed as instances of a religious need to believe or ‘flight from reason’.
Depending on your personal sensibilities and experiences, such statements may provoke reactions ranging from surprise to consternation – some of the standard responses historians of science and medicine working on unorthodox topics encounter when we try to explain our work to non-historians, and which have determined the choice of this blog’s title. ‘Forbidden Histories’ may have a melodramatic ring to it, but means to implicate the existence of a certain taboo, comprised of a variety of concerns that have prevented mainstream historical research from becoming part of common knowledge.