Posted on 12/11/2023 3:21:48 PM PST by Angelino97
Many people believe our turbulent, anxious age is unique. A few years ago I created an art exhibit with the same title as this article, and became convinced that the century most akin to ours is the 18th, the so-called “Age of Reason and Enlightenment.”
There are uncanny similarities between the two centuries: fascination with scientific discoveries and rapid technological progress, emphasis on reason and intellectual discourse (recently, alas, that’s less robust), and right next to these themes, religious fanaticism, multiplying fringe cults, superstitions, irrationality, and violence.
So, the 18th century is as much the century of Diderot, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, as it is of Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, Mesmer, and, of course, Robespierre and the insanity of the Terror. All followed by endless wars.
And I see exactly the same phenomena in our time— many on the surface, others subterranean...
Did people feel it coming? Perhaps. The melancholy art of Jean-Antoine Watteau and Nicolas Lancret, the desperation in the writing of Novalis and in the paintings of Caspar Friedrich give us a hint. The merriment was on the surface, the anxiety underneath.
Our collective addiction to entertainments is as unbounded as it has ever been: the Internet, the thousands of electronic games, and hundreds of streaming TV programs. Most are artistically inept, intellectually shallow, and ideologically repugnant. That doesn’t matter, though, since they seem to keep people happy. But do they? We suffer from rampant crime, homelessness, drug overdoses, and suicides, especially among the young. And the guillotine, “morphed” into the shape of nuclear annhiliation and a looming Third World War, is creeping towards us from the fog. Again, merriment on the surface, desperation underneath.
(Excerpt) Read more at chroniclesmagazine.org ...
Both eras are gripped with a fanaticism to reject Christ, erase history, and, beginning with a blank slate, remake society so people will be perfectly equal and sexually free.
In the 18th century, the Age of Reason championed enlightenment and rational thinking, while the 21st century grapples with a mix of technological progress and global uncertainties, fostering both reason and fear.
Interesting article. Thanks for posting.
You are correct.
Such an interesting contrast.
The 18th century was moving toward reason and rejecting superstition, especially paganism, witchcraft, and such.
The 21st century appears to be moving toward rejecting reason and embracing paganism, witchcraft and such.
I’m curious about whether the alterations are specific to certain regions, particularly in Europe and Asia.
The article also points out that the “Age of Reason” also had many celebrities who promoted superstition, spiritualism, and pseudo-science in fashionable salons.
No.
The 18th century was moving toward reason and rejecting superstition, especially paganism, witchcraft, and such.
From the article:
irrationality, fascination with spiritualism and the supernatural, divination, and black magic also thrived during the 18th century.
The most prominent practitioners of these were Comte de Saint-Germain, Franz Mesmer and Cagliostro...
[Comte de Saint-Germain's] adherents believed that he possessed the secrets of the universe, the powers of telepathy and levitation, and that he could even walk through walls.
He traveled all over Europe and enjoyed the patronage of many great princes. Gazing intently into the eyes of his interlocutors, he would say that he was 3,000 years old, had met Helen of Troy, had been reincarnated in the seventh century B.C. as Hesiod—and thus had a direct connection to Greek mysticism and cosmology—and then, in the 16th century had been the great Francis Bacon, philosopher and proponent of “natural magic.”...
No less remarkable was the life of Giuseppe Balsamo, known as Cagliostro “the Magician” and was invited to royal courts to perform occult mysteries. He would chant loudly, or whisper the names of angels and spirits, both good and evil. He performed exorcisms and claimed the ability to cure all illnesses though he had never studied medicine. He deciphered dreams, invoked protections from misfortunes, including the “evil eye,” and blessed those who sought his powers....
Then, there was Franz Mesmer, a German physician born in 1739, and from whom we have the word “mesmerize.” He was fascinated with music and astrology—his dissertation was called “On the Influence of Planets on the Human Body and its Diseases.”
Mesmer believed he had discovered what he called “animal magnetism,” or the constant flow of energy between animate and inanimate objects. According to his theory, knowledge about how to control this flow is the key in healing all ailments of the human body, including restoring vision to the blind. Mesmer considered himself the ultimate channeler of this energy.
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