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Enthusiasm and the Light Within

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Henry More, 1614–1687

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Abstract

As we saw in More’s poetic allegory of the spiritual journey in his Poems, he had first defined ‘Enthusiasm’ in terms reminiscent of the spiritual acceptance of a ‘false light’ described in the Theologia Germanica as an almost inevitable temptation upon the path of spiritual development, or as he later put it, a “full but false persuasion that in a man that he is inspired”.1 For More this was the result of the ‘natural’ consciousness of body and self possessing the mind — a temptation which was furthered by the determinism and ‘unfelt hypocrisy’ of orthodox Calvinism.2 From this perspective, Enthusiasm was one important aspect of the negative delusive forces assailing the soul in quest of union with God. For this reason in his later theological works More uses the concept of Enthusiasm alongside that of Atheism and Roman Catholicism as three interrelated expressions of the ‘mystery of iniquity’ assailing both the individual and the Church.3

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Notes

  1. ET (1656): 2.

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  2. Psychozoia“, iii,10–22; and TG (1854), xl, and see below.

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  3. See More, GMG, V,viii-xii; VI,xii-xviii; VIl,xvii; Mystery of Iniquity, I,xi ff.; and TW (1708), An Alphabetical Table: 834: “Antichristianism”, and below.

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  4. Vaughan (1622–1666) was the brother of the poet, Henry Vaughan. See A. Rudrum (ed.), Works of Thomas Vaughan (1984): 7–12. On More’s debate with Vaughan, see Fouke, Enthusiastical Concerns: 53 ff. and A. Miller Guinsburg, “Henry More, Thomas Vaughan and the late Renaissance Magical Tradition”, Ambix, 27 (1980): 36–58; F.L. Burnham, “The More-Vaughan Controversy: the Revolt against Philosophical Enthusiasm”, J.H.I., 35 (1975): 33–49; N.I. Brann, “The Conflict between Reason and Magic in Seventeenth Century England. A Case Study on the Vaughan-More Debate”, H.L.Q., 43 (1980): 103–126; and L. Mulligan, “’Reason’, `Right Reason’, and `Revelation’ in midseventeenth-century England”, in Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (1984): 375–401; and below. Vaughan appears to have been on the fringes of those alchemists associated with Robert Boyle, but no one has yet found any direct connection between them. It is highly unlikely Boyle would have approved of Vaughan’s intemperate language, or for that matter, his alleged drunkenness.

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  5. On the widespread abusive use of the term, see M. Heyd, “The Reaction against Enthusiasm in the Seventeenth Century: Towards an Integrative Approach” Journal of Modern History 53 (1981): 25880. See also, for example, Meric Casaubon, Treatise concerning Enthusiasme (1656): 52–4, 110–119 and 125–130, whose more conservative account, putting Platonists and Cartesians into this category, provides a useful contrast to More’s.

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  6. See Lawrence Pincipe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998 ). The apparent personal connection between Vaughan and Boyle needs further elucidation.

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  7. E. Philalethes, The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap and Tortur’d to Death for Gnawing the Margins of Eugenius Philalethes (1650). Vaughan was later used as a `type’ of enthusiasm by Samuel Butler and Jonathan Swift. See Rudrum, Works (1984): 27–30.

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  8. More, Second Lash, in ET: 174–5.

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  9. More is referring to his PP.

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  10. As Walker points out, Spiritual and Demonic Magic (1975): 52 and 75 ff., there were significant tensions within Renaissance Platonism between a fascination for theurgy and magical practices, whether for specific cures or for illumination, and a denial of the necessity or legality of such practices. In Agrippa, Vaughan’s avowed master, this tension can be clearly see (Ibid, 54–5, and 90–1). While More is unequivocally anti-magical, Vaughan follows his master in apologising for his earlier magical concerns, in Euphrates (1655), `To the Reader’.

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  11. As does Burnham, “More-Vaughan”: 33–49. However, N. Brann, “Conflict”: 104, who remarks that the debate can best be viewed as “more of a fraternal rivalry within the same family than as a combat between spokesmen of radically divergent world views” seems to take the opposing view too far.

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  12. See the discussion below, and the comments in A. Miller Guinsburg, “Henry More, Thomas Vaughan”: 45.

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  13. Compare for example, More’s use of Agrippa, PP: 364, and Vaughan’s defence of the latter, Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650): 33–4, and comment on 50: “He indeed is my Author, and next to God I owe all that I have unto him.”

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  14. See Miller Guinsburg, “Henry More, Thomas Vaughan”:41.

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  15. More, Psychozoia ii-iii, Psychathanasia, I,iii; Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine (1651): 225.

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  16. More, Psychozoia iii,69–71; Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine (1651): 13–15.

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  17. Vaughan, Anthroposophia Theomagica (1651): 5.

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  18. More, Second Lash, in ET: 175, cited above.

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  19. Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 10.

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  20. See Fouke, Enthusiastical Concerns, chapter 4; C.H. Josten, “A Translation of John Dee’s Monas Heiroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), with an Introduction and Annotations.” Ambix, 12 (1964): 100–4; and also M. Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible (1978): 225–7.

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  21. More, “Psychozoia” ii,9–12, and the “Interpretation Generall” in PP, under le’; and see Plotinus, IV,ii,9, which More explains, PP: 353–4.

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  22. Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 79; and see also Euphrates (1655): 23.

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  23. See Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine (1651): 21 and 68 ff.; and Pincipe, Aspiring Adept. See also Eliade, Forge: 154.

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  24. More, Second Lash, in ET: 218. More explicitly rejects a real primal matter, but it is clear that he accepted the idea of an abstract principle representing the potentiality of material existence, which preexisted the real `atomic’ matter from which bodies were formed (by the ‘Spirit of Nature). See “Psychozoia”, ii,9; “Psychathanasia”, I.ii,54; DP,12–16; and CC, The Philosophical Cabbala i,1–3; and the discussion below.

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  25. See Vaughan, Anima Magica Abscondita (1650): 51–3, and More’s reaction in Observations (1650): 55 and 59–61. More’s interpretation of Plotinus is necessarily selective: see for instance Plotinus, IV,iv,36 and IV,iv,40, which would lend credence to Vaughan’s view rather than More’s. On More and Plotinus, see above.

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  26. Euphrates (1655): 17.

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  27. Plato, Timaeus, 31b ff, and 69c ff., and Philebus, 29e. The image is also Stoic.

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  28. More, Second Lash, in ET: 204–5.

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  29. Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 65; and see also his Euphrates (1655): 36–9.

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  30. Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 35. On Vaughan’s alchemical prowess, and claims to have discovered the cosmic `menstruum’, see Rudrum, Works (1984): 13. More’s more poetic use of such `miraculous incredible symbols’ can be seen in his treatment of Copernicanism in his “Psychathanasia”, III,iii; and in his poem “Circulatio Sanguinis” (OP OM (vol.3, 1679): 751–753) discussed above.

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  31. The doctrine is Stoic in origin, though it is clear More’s source is Plotinus, V,ix,9; II,ii,2; and II,iii,17. Plotinus is referring back to Plato, Timaeus, 29a ff. See the more explicit discussion in Cudworth, TIS (1687): 158–9, and More’s interpretation, PP: 345–6.

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  32. PP: 345–6; and Plotinus, III,11,2.

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  33. See “Psychozoia”, ii,7–9, and CC, The Philosophical Cabbala., i,1–2.

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  34. More, Second Lash, in ET: 269–70; and see the discussion below, next chapter.

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  35. Psychozoia, i,41–47; and IS, III,xii,l-6; and see the discussion below, next chapter.

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  36. Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 182; and see also Euphrates (1655): 16–8.

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  37. Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 180.

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  38. Vaughan, Man-Mouse Taken (1650): 104–6; and see also Euphrates (1655): 67–8.

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  39. Second Wash (1651): 181; and see also Euphrates (1655): 18 and p.93.

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  40. See for instance, ET.: 51.

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  41. See Euphrates (1655): 17, cited above.

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  42. More, Observations (1650): 6; and Second Lash, in ET: 261–6.

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  43. This quarrel over the soul touches upon the `learned ministry’ debate. For Vaughan by implication was attacking the scholastic curriculum, even while protesting his faithfulness to Oxford. See Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650), “To the Reader”, and see Rudrum, Works (1984): 2–6.

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  44. More, Second Lash, in ET: 259.

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  45. Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650): 7.

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  46. Man-Mouse Caught (1651): 76–7.

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  47. See Lumen de Lumine (1651): 251–3, and the engraved plate facing p.22.

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  48. More is never very consistent with his use of the term `reason’. For he considers it to be the expression of a `middle life’ in the soul, which must choose between becoming `immersed’ in the `animal’ or `divine Life’. It appears from this that he means two things by the word, depending on its context - a divine intellectual principle in man, and a discursive faculty, which he places with the imagination in the ‘middle part’ of the soul. Compare the definition in GMG, II,xi,1 with the treatment of ‘Right Reason’ (as a successive copy of the Logos) in EE, II,iii,3; II,iv,6; II,v,4–7; and II,ix,14–6.

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  49. More, PP: 302, and see above.

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  50. Op.cit, in ET: 177.

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  51. See below, Chapter, on More’s similar judgement of the natural philosophy of John Webster.

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  52. Second Lash, in ET: 178.

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  53. See Vaughan, Second Wash (1651), dedicatory poem “by H.M., Oxon”, and “To the Reader”, replying to More, Second Lash, in ET: 178–84.

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  54. See G.H. Williams, Radical Reformation (1962): 363 ff.

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  55. See Vaughan, Second Wash (1651): 10 ff.

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  56. See below, especially Chapters 11 and 12.

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  57. TG: xl.

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  58. TG:: 134–5. Compare More, ET: sig.A5 ff.

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  59. See the title: Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, or, a discourse of the nature, causes, kinds and cure of Enthusiasm (1656), and Mastix his Letter, in Ibid: 309 ff..

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  60. See for example Nicolson: 100, and 378 ff.

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  61. I emphasise More’s ambivalence here, as the evidence that he became `more sympathetic’ to Boehme is somewhat entangled with Anne Conway’s renewed interest in the latter after Elizabeth Foxcroft came to live with her (pace Hutton, “More and Boehme” in Hutton). On Boehme’s influence in contemporary England, see M. Bailey, Milton and Jacob Boehme (1914); Jones, Spiritual Reformers (1928): 208 ff.; and Thune, The Behmenists and the Philadelphians (1948).

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  62. Mastix his Letter, in ET: 275.

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  63. Nicolson: 306.

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  64. This was written in English in 1670, according to the PG, but is known only in the Latin version published in the OP OM (tom.2, 1679): 529 ff.

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  65. Teutonica Censura, Preface, sect.22, in OP OM. (tom.2, 1679): 535. See also DD: 465–470.

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  66. ET: 42–3; compare Teutonicae Censura, Quaestio 1, OP OM (tom.2, 1679): 538–40. See also More on Boehme’s claim to understand the language of Nature, DD: 461–3.

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  67. See also Teutonica Censura (1679), Quaestio 1, sect.13–15, OP OM. (tom. 2, 1679 ): 538–9.

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  68. Op.cit (1656): 48.

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  69. DD: 469–70.

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  70. Op.cit, Quaestio 2, sect.7 and 9, in OP OM (tom.2, 1679): 541–2. See also DD: 467.

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  71. Teutonica Censura, sect. 4–5, in OP OM (tom.2, 1679): 541.

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  72. Teutonica Censura, Quaestio 3, sect.2 ff., in OP OM (tom. 2, 1679 ): 542–3.

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  73. See DD: 468–70, where More effectively excuses the Behmenists from being the great danger to the world they appeared to be: 470: “God does notable execution upon the dead Formality and Carnality of Christendom by these zealous Evangelists of an internal Saviour.”

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  74. GMG: VIII xii 1–2. This passage could serve as a prose commentary on More’s description of Glaucis in “Psychozoia” (1647): ii 87 ff.

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  75. See below, and for example, GMG: VI xii-xiii.

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  76. See TG: xl.

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  77. See Hamilton, Family of Love (1981). The works of Niclaes were all translated into English, though by the time More was writing the sect had practically disappeared in England, the name `Familist’ being then mainly applied to the Quakers. See for example, H. Hallywell, An Account of Familism as it is Revived and Propagated by the Quakers (1673). After 1668 More was particularly concerned with denouncing Niclaes because of his apparent popularity with Anne Conway and her companion, Elizabeth Foxcroft. See Nicolson: 304.

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  78. See Hamilton, op.cit (1981): 26 ff., and 55–61; and More, GMG: VI xii 3–5.

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  79. Hamilton, op.cit (1981): 50–1; More, GMG: VI xii 3–5; and ET: 34–5.

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  80. GMG: V viii 6 and VI xii 1–3, and passim.

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  81. Nicolson: 297. Elizabeth Foxcroft was Benjamin Whichcote’s sister, and appears to have first introduced Anne Conway to the Quakers. She was in touch with the Quaker, Henry Bromley, in 1666. In a letter from him (Ibid: 278–80) he speaks respectfully of Anne Conway as a person already in sympathy with the Friends (in Nov.1666). This suggests that Anne first encountered them before 1670. On September 15, 1670, More mentions George Keith in a letter to her as though he was already a familiar figure to both of them. So the beginning of Quaker influence on Anne Conway predates the arrival of van Helmont at Ragley (late 1670), by some years. Versus Coudert, “A Quaker-Kabbalist Controversy: George Fox’s Reaction to Francis Mercurius Van Helmont”, J.W.C.I. 39 (1976): 179. See Nicolson: 307.

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  82. See GMG: VI xiv-xvii; and DD: 565 ff.

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    Robert Crocker

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Crocker, R. (2003). Enthusiasm and the Light Within. In: Henry More, 1614–1687. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 185. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_4

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