New Video: “Francis Bacon – Scientist or Magician?”

Legendary science popularizer Carl Sagan quoted Francis Bacon, a key figure of the Scientific Revolution, as an enemy of superstition, and suggested he was an early advocate of modern scientific naturalism. Never mind Bacon was a firm believer in occult phenomena and proposed experiments to test them – only to advise against such research in the end.

Find out why in the latest video:

KEY READINGS:

Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution (second updated ed.). University of Chicago Press, 2018 [Buy on Amazon] [Buy on Abebooks].

Henry, John. Knowledge is Power. How Magic, the Government and an Apocalyptic Vision inspired Francis Bacon to create Modern Science. Icon, 2002 (& other editions) [Buy on Amazon] [Buy on Abebooks].

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Sources & Recommended Readings:

Bacon, Francis. The Works of Francis Bacon (10 vols.). London: Bryer, 1803 [Buy on Abebooks] [Buy on eBay].

Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford University Press, 1999 [Buy on Amazon] [Buy on Abebooks].

Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. Zone Books, 1998 [Buy on Amazon] [Buy on Abebooks].

Daston, Lorraine. “Preternatural philosophy.” In L. Daston (Ed.), Biographies of Scientific Objects (pp. 15-41). University of Chicago Press, 2000 [Buy on Amazon] [Buy on Abebooks].

Ross, Sydney. “Scientist: The story of a word.” Annals of Science, 18 (1962), 65-86.

Sommer, Andreas. “Psychical research in the history and philosophy of science. An introduction and review.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 48 (2014), 38-45.

Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science (8 vols.). Macmillan (vols. 1-2) and Columbia University Press (vol. 3), 1923-1934 [Buy on Abebooks] [Buy on eBay].

Walker, Daniel Pickering. Spiritual & Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000 (first published in 1958) [Buy on Amazon] [Buy on Abebooks].