Newton, who gave us laws of motion and gravity, calculus and many other scientific advances, was driven by a search for truth. Newton appears to have been largely a recluse, locked away in his lodgings at Cambridge studying 18 hours a day. He was an intensely religious man, wholly dedicated to God but not in a conventional sense. He was puritanical in outlook and vigorously opposed to Catholicism.
His secret interest was alchemy. Newton believed that it could help him discover God's secret. He also believed that secrets had been handed down through sacred writings, not just the biblical writings but through myths and poetry too. These writings were codes and when deciphered gave recipes which could be 'worked through alchemy. In Ovid, for example, he found a recipe for something called 'the net' which resulted in a purple alloy. Just as the mythic codes gave the recipes the alchemical recipes were given strange colourful language to conceal the ingredients used.
The ultimate purpose behind all this was to find the philosopher's stone - God's secret. Newton believed that he himself had been chosen and equipped to do this work. He translated his name into Latin, played around with anagrams of this and discovered that he was a chosen, an adept.
He worked tirelessly on scientific experiments to the extent of endangering himself and after work on the true nature of colour made the discovery that white light was not 'pure' as previously thought but consisted of all the colours of the rainbow. He was offered a chair at Trinity Cambridge but this was awkward for him as to accept meant taking holy orders which he didn't want to do.
Newton had also researched the history of Christianity and believed it to have rested on a mistake or many. He, like many before and after him, read himself into heresy. He denied both the trinity and the divinity of Jesus. He thought the fault mainly lay with the early church fathers in 4th century who were villains and had distorted true Christianity. This, however, was all part of his dark secret and would have been very dangerous to divulge at that time.
Newton hated the Catholic Church with a vengeance and among his favourite texts were the prophetic books of Daniel and Revelation. He identified the scarlet woman as the Catholic Church - a harlot who had corrupted Christianity with non-biblical teaching.
Part of Newton's worldview came from alchemy and hermetic ideas contained therein. He believed in something called salnitrum - a substance or energy that made the earth a living being. This was a sort of magical ingredient which enabled metals to grow like plants - the vegetation of metals. The earth itself was a great animal or more correctly an animate vegetable. Through ideas like this he explained the law of gravity. This imperceptible material was in effect the very hand of God that influenced all things and this proved to Newton that Descartes theory of Deus ex machina was wrong.
Newton joined the Royal Society and amazed them with his treatise on the properties of light. Here again he expounded the theory that nature was circular alchemy had given him many new insights
Another interest of Newton was sacred architecture. Newton believed that ancient temples held secrets and most especially Solomon's temple. He spent years attempting to break the code was held in that temple. He was also concerned with the heavenly temple of Revelation and speculated what it looked like. He believed that the temple would one day be rebuilt in Jerusalem and that it was a blueprint for creation.
Another temple he was interested in was Stonehenge. He did not go there but visited it only in his imagination. He believed, however, that it was in many respects like other ancient temples which revealed that ancient peoples had been given important knowledge concerning the universe. Amongst other things the layout of temples demonstrated that the ancients knew that the sun was the centre of the universe.
In 1684 Halley asked him a question regarding the movement of planets which led to the discovery of the law of gravity. Soon afterwards Newton produced his most famous work the Principia Mathematica which explained the laws of motion and the universal law of gravity. Here too was alchemical magical stuff in action. Something on one side of the universe exerts a force which has an effect on the other side.
Newton also had an alchemical explanation for comets. Comets were instruments of God's wrath and would bring about the apocalypse. In another sense however they also contributed to sustain the universe because the tails of comets sink down to the world and feed back into the sun so fuelling it. The end of the world, the final apocalypse would bring in the 1000 years of pure Christianity. In manuscripts by Newton found in Jerusalem it was discovered that Newton predicted that this would occur in 2060.
But don't worry too much. In an article I found on the internet Matthew Goff* suggests that from Newton's book on the Revelation it is likely that it was the institution of the Holy Roman Empire that Newton was principally concerned with. Instituted in 800 and lasting for 1260 years (from the prophetic books) Newton predicted its end in 2060. But Newton was wrong about this. Napoleon 1 formally dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
1693 He carried out what may have been his final alchemical experiment which he thought would reveal God's ultimate secret. Mixing gold and special mercury the stuff swelled before his eyes. But it was a failure. Newton who had had success in every other area felt that he had failed at alchemy. Soon after this he had a nervous breakdown.
This time marked a complete change in his life and instead of being a reclusive academic he sought and gained power and money. 1696 Newton became warden of the royal mint and in 1703 president of the royal Society. When he died he refused the sacraments and revealed his heretical interests but said that the time was not right to tell about it. Two close friends helped the cover up. It only came to light in 1936 when journals and personal work of Newton were auctioned. John Maynard Keynes, the economist bought them and later made the announcement that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians."
I found the documentary quite fascinating and wonderfully climactic with the disclosure of the apocalyptic date at the very end. It amused me to discover that Newton so often hailed as the first modern scientist and invariably considered to be a thoroughgoing rationalist turns out to have been a hermeticist. This of course could make him an even more modern scientist.
Newton's name has been linked with occult secrets in other ways. In the Holy Blood, Holy Grail the authors maintain that Newton, and many other members of the Royal Society, were involved in a secret society linked to the Templars and Masons. But having seen the documentary I wondered if this was really that likely.
For one thing, Newton was portrayed largely as a recluse and while he was definitely interested in Temples, the models he constructed were based on Ezekiel's 'heavenly' temple not on any secret knowledge he had obtained by virtue of a secret society.
On balance I think that Newton was a religious man, a heretic yes, but deeply religious nevertheless who pursued truth and knowledge and found it.
Although Newton would certainly be classed as an occultist I find in him an interesting contrast to latter day occultists. Newton worked hard in his quest for truth and although it was a quest for God's truth he uncovered a great deal of use in this world. Modern 19th century occultists, on the other hand, searched for hidden secrets and codes and found them but these on the whole do not seem to have generated anything useful to the world in the same way.
The overriding impetus behind Newton's great work was a search for the truth of God. Perhaps in his times the search for scientific knowledge could not be truly separated from theology but nevertheless what he discovered and how was astounding.
