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Scholarly Discipline

History of Renaissance Occultism

Humanities
Origin from 1964

The study of Hermetic, kabbalistic and astrological philosophy among Renaissance scholars such as Ficino, Pico and Bruno, established as serious intellectual history by Frances Yates in 1964. Places Renaissance magic within the natural philosophy of its own period.

Facts
Subject
Subject
the revival of Hermetic, kabbalistic and astrological philosophy among Renaissance scholars, and its place within respectable natural philosophy of the period 2
Method
Method
close reading of Renaissance philosophical and magical treatises within the intellectual world that produced them, rather than as isolated curiosities 2
Identity
Field Category
Humanities 1
Parent Field
History of Western Esotericism 1
Origins
Emerged As Named Discipline
from 1964 2
Learn More
Frances Yates and the Hermetic Tradition Bruno Was Burned For

The history of Renaissance occultism studies the revival of Hermetic philosophy, Christian Kabbalah and astral magic among fifteenth and sixteenth century European scholars, reading figures like Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno within the serious intellectual culture that produced them rather than as isolated eccentrics. The discipline's foundational modern study is Frances Yates's Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, published in 1964, which argued that Renaissance thinkers took the Hermetic texts to be genuinely ancient Egyptian wisdom predating Moses, and that this belief, false as it later proved, drove serious philosophical and even early scientific inquiry rather than sitting at its margins.

Yates's work reshaped how historians treat the boundary between magic and the science of the period, showing that astrology, alchemy and Hermetic philosophy were pursued by the same scholars who also advanced mathematics and natural philosophy, not by a separate credulous fringe. The atlas draws on this scholarship to place Renaissance magical and esoteric systems in their documented historical setting, distinguishing what fifteenth and sixteenth century practitioners actually believed and why from later occult revivals that borrowed their names and symbols for different purposes.

Connections

Branch Of

History of Western Esotericism, Scholarly Disciplines
Source Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental DevelopmentOECD

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Source De Heptarchia Mystica (Sloane MS 3191), Joseph H. Peterson's editionJohn Dee, edited by Joseph H. Peterson
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Where does the Theban sign for J come from, and does Trithemius's ascription of the script to Honorius of Thebes rest on anything but his own word?, Open Questions
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Where does the Theban sign for L come from, and does Trithemius's ascription of the script to Honorius of Thebes rest on anything but his own word?, Open Questions
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Where does the Theban sign for M come from, and does Trithemius's ascription of the script to Honorius of Thebes rest on anything but his own word?, Open Questions
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Where does the Theban sign for P come from, and does Trithemius's ascription of the script to Honorius of Thebes rest on anything but his own word?, Open Questions
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Source Theban alphabet (reference article)Wikipedia contributors
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Where does the Theban sign for X come from, and does Trithemius's ascription of the script to Honorius of Thebes rest on anything but his own word?, Open Questions
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Where does the Theban sign for Y come from, and does Trithemius's ascription of the script to Honorius of Thebes rest on anything but his own word?, Open Questions
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Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
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Source Three Books of Occult PhilosophyHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Sources
1. Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development
OECD, OECD Publishing, 2015View the Source
2. Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism
Wouter J. Hanegraaff (editor), Brill, 2005
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