The Dark Side of the Enlightenment

Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Reason

Scholars generally include among the principal features of the European Enlightenment great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion and the retreat of the concept of the supernatural before the advance of empirical science.

John V. Fleming shows how the enlightenment was challenged by tenacious religious ideas, the esoteric and the occult. He explores the stubborn survival of the miraculous, the Enlightenment roles of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry and the widespread pursuit of magic and alchemy

Following some of the complexities and contradictions of the time, he looks at the lives of the controversial wizard known as Count Cagliostro and the sentimental novelist, preacher and mystic Julie de Krudener.