Newton: Last of the Magicians

[Smithee]

"May God us keep From Single vision and Newton's sleep." - William Blake. Blake seems to have suffered from single vision regarding Sir Isaac Newton.

After purchasing and studying Newton's alchemical works in 1942, economist John Maynard Keynes .... opined that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians". In the Early Modern Period of Newton's lifetime, the educated embraced a world view different from that of later centuries. Distinctions between science, superstition, and pseudoscience were still being formulated, and a devoutly Christian Biblical perspective permeated Western culture.

Read more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies

[Smithee]

Feb 8, 2014 12:17:09 GMT 10 Smithee said:

"May God us keep From Single vision...." - William Blake.

May God keep us from False vision. “There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there.” - Thomas Hardy.

[Tamrin]

Tessa Morrison, Isaac Newton's Temple of Solomon and his Reconstruction of Sacred Architecture, Birkhäuser, ISBN 978-3-0348-0045-7, p.102.

[Tamrin]

Feb 8, 2014 12:17:09 GMT 10 Smithee said:

"May God us keep From Single vision and Newton's sleep." - William Blake. Blake seems to have suffered from single vision regarding Sir Isaac Newton.

Even so, Blake depicted Newton as an earthly version of his vision of the "Ancient of Days".

[xnoubis]

Yes, gentlemen like Newton, and Frances Bacon before him, had a vision whereby science and religion were not at war, indeed were married - perhaps an alchemical union of opposites (although I don't see them as opposites) - its a vision we have lost sight of and one we should actively endeavour to reclaim. Masonry teaches us respect for God as well as respect for science and learning. It is a great arrogance, and a great ignorance, in contemporary intellectual life that sees the hight of rationality in the discarding of a respect for the unseen.