THE HISTORY OF MAGIC · LESSON 6 OF 7 · 20 MIN
Enlightenment, Animal Magnetism & the Secret Societies
How the eighteenth century turned magic into a question of nature, reason and brotherhood — and gave rise to the occult societies.
The Enlightenment is usually told as the story of magic's decline: reason replaced superstition. The truth is more interesting. In the eighteenth century, magic did not disappear. It was reshaped. Practitioners began to argue that unseen forces were natural, that they could be studied, and that the right people could master them. Those ideas are the seed of the modern occult.