Early English Reformers and Magical Healing

Abstract

Keith Thomas wrote in 1971:

We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that men emancipated themselves from these magical beliefs without necessarily having devised any effective technology with which to replace them. In the seventeenth century they were able to take this step because magic was ceasing to be intellectually acceptable, and because their religion taught them to try self-help before invoking supernatural aid. But the ultimate origins of this faith in unaided human capacity remain mysterious.¹

Why did magic decline? Where did people find the confidence to confront and examine the world, without fear of mysterious powers imbuing the objects they handled? Why did people begin to look to their own power without recourse to techniques which call upon higher powers? What is more, what was it that encouraged people to overcome their fear of the world in general and begin to look upon it positively, as a thing to be explored and utilised? Keith Thomas, in his book Religion and the Decline of Magic, surveyed a range of options for the decline of magic, but returned to this point: people in the sixteenth century found an acceptable alternative to magic, and Thomas did not know whence it came. Since Thomas, though other works have been written on magic, no one seems to have taken up this challenge.