Magic societies

Occultism Occult means "hidden," and occultism refers to the study of hidden wisdom, which comes from an inner spiritual study. This is in contrast to science, which studies observable, measurable phenomena. The term is most often applied to the initiates of secret magical societies that began to emerge in Western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. 

A peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the transdisciplinary study of Western esotericism Western esoteric traditions including alchemy, astrology, Gnosticism, gnosis, magic, mysticism, Rosicrucianism, and secret societies, and their ramifications in art history, history, literature, and politics... 

Figure 1, Representation of the geometric arrangement for a sample spinning at the magic angle to the magnetic field vector H0. (Reproduced with permission from Ref, 40, Copyright 1982, Royal Society of London,)...

If magic and the occult had been explained in terms of the science of matter and energy, the science of matter and energy was also, during the period from 1895 to 1939, invested with the tropes and concerns of the occult. It is to the story of the Alchemical Society of London, a fertile ground for redprocally rethinking both atomic sdence and occultism, that we must now turn. 

During this period, however, occultism did not die out. Instead, a great synthesis occurred in which magic, alchemy, Hermeticism, and Kabalah were united into one occult system. This synthesis often attempted to include science in the mix as well. At this time occultists tended to gather in secretive societies where members could rise in rank as they learned more about their system. 

In 1854, before he wrote his first book on High Magic, Levi visited London to meet with fellow occultists and conduct a necromantic ritual that he wrote about in his book. By the later half of the nineteenth century, interest in the occult had continued to grow in England. Unlike Levi, who initiated himself and professed his ideas openly, the English occultists preferred to meet in secret societies. The most... 

Figure 2. 50.33 MHz 13C NMR spectrum of lime cutin, obtained with cross polarization (contact time 1.5 ms, repetition rate 1.0 s), magic-angle spinning (5.0 kHz), and dipolar decoupling (762/211 = 48 kHz). This spectrum was the result of 6000 accumulations and was processed with a digital line broadening of 20 Hz. Chemical-shift assignments are summarized in Table I. Reproduced from Ref. 7 of the American Chemical Society.

---