Occultism is the belief in hidden or mysterious powers not explained by known scientific principles of nature, and the attempt to bring these powers within human control by scientific methods. The medieval concept of occult properties included only those properties that may be revealed by experimentation. The alchemists, astrologers, seers, and others who practised this 'science' of experimentation were a small group, usually in conflict with orthodox theology. Consequently, their work was considered mysterious, and the term occultism gradually came to denote the study of supernatural forces. Nevertheless, all the so-called natural sciences stemmed from occultism, and early scientists were frequently called magicians and sorcerers because of the mystery attributed to their investigations by most of their contemporaries. Modern occultism is generally considered to have begun with the concept of animal magnetism, first developed by the Austrian physician Franz Mesmer in the late 18th century. Mesmer believed that certain individuals possess occult powers,
comparable to the powers of the magnet, that can be used to invoke the supernatural. In the mid-19th century occultism took the form of spiritualism, a belief that the spirits of the dead may manifest themselves through the agency of living persons called mediums. After the turn of the century occultism included serious investigations of forms of extrasensory perception (ESP) such as mental telepathy. Although still not within the usual area of scientific research, these are considered by some valid natural phenomena explicable by accepted scientific methods. Research Occultism
Galileo Galilee was an Italian physicist. He was born in 1564 at Pisa and died in 1642. The son of a Florentine nobleman, his father intended him to go into medicine and procured for him an excellent education in literature and the arts, and in 1581 he entered the University of Pisa.
At nineteen the swinging of a lamp in Pisacathedral led him to investigate the laws of the oscillation of the pendulum, which he subsequently applied in the measurement of time; and in 1586 the works of Archimedes suggested his invention of the hydrostatic balance. He now devoted his attention exclusively to mathematics and natural science, and in 1589 was made professor of mathematics in the University of Pisa.
In 1592 he was appointed professor of mathematics in Padua, where he continued eighteen years, and his lectures acquired European fame. Here he made the important discovery that the spaces through which a body falls, in equal times, increase as the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7. If he did not invent he improved the thermometer, and made some interesting observations on the magnet. To the telescope, which in Holland remained not only imperfect but useless, he gave a new importance. He noted the irregularity of the moon's surface, and taught his scholars to measure the height of its mountains by their shadow.
A particular nebula he resolved into individual stars, and conjectured that the Milky Way might be resolved in the same manner. His most remarkable discovery was that of Jupiter's satellites in 1610, and he observed, though imperfectly, the ring of Saturn. He also detected the sun's spots, and inferred, from their regular advance from east to west, the rotation of the sun, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of the ecliptic.
In 1610 Cosmo II, grand-duke of Tuscany, appointed him grand-ducal mathematician and philosopher, and with increased leisure he lived sometimes in Florence, and sometimes at the country seat of his friend Salviata, where he gained a decisive victory for the Copernican system by the discovery of the varying phases of Mercury, Venus, and Mars. In 1611 he visited Rome for the first time, where he was honourably received; but on his return to Florence he became more and more involved in controversy, which gradually took a theological turn.
The, monks preached against him, and in 1616 he found himself again obliged to proceed to Rome, where he is doubtfully said to have pledged himself to abstain from promulgating his astronomical views. In 1623 Galileo replied to an attack upon him in his Saggiatore, a masterpiece of eloquence, which drew upon him the fury of the Jesuits. In 1632, with the permission of the pope, he published a dialogue expounding the Copernican system as against the Ptolemaic. A congregation of cardinals, monks, and mathematicians, all sworn enemies of Galileo, examined his work, condemned it as highly dangerous, and summoned him before the tribunal of the Inquisition. The veteran philosopher was compelled to go to Rome early in 1633, and was condemned to renounce upon his knees the truths he had maintained. At the moment when he arose, he is said (but this is doubtful) to have exclaimed, in an undertone, stamping his foot, 'E pur si muove!' (and yet it moves!). Upon this he was sentenced to the dungeons of the Inquisition for an indefinite time, and every week, for three years, was to repeat the seven penitential psalms of David. After a few days' detention his sentence of imprisonment was commuted to banishment to the villa of the Grand-duke of Tuscany at Rome, and then to the archiepiscopal palace at Sienna.
He was afterwards allowed to return to his residence at Arcetri, near Florence, where he employed his last years principally in the study of mechanics and projectiles. The results are found in two important works on the laws of motion, the foundation of the present system of physics and astronomy. At the same time he tried to make use of Jupiter's satellites for the calculation of longitudes; and though he brought nothing to perfection in this branch, he was the first who reflected systematically on such a method of fixing geographical longitudes. He was at this time afflicted with a disease in his eyes, one of which was wholly blind and the other almost useless, when, in 1637, he discovered the libration of the moon.
Domestic troubles and disease embittered the last years of Galileo's life. After his death his remains were ultimately deposited in the church of Sta. Croce, at Florence. Research Galileo
J (John) Gregory Smith was an American politician and railroadmagnet. He was born in 1818 at St Albans, Vermont and died in 1891. He attended the University of Vermont and Yale Law School, and was admitted to the Vermont bar in 1842. His father was a lawyer who was actively involved in the expansion of the railroads in Vermont and J Gregory joined him both in the practice of law and railroad management. John Smith was on the board of the Vermont Central Railroad, a railroad chartered in 1843 and headquartered in Northfield, and was president of the Vermont and CanadaRailroad, which he had started in 1845 to eventually connect the Vermont Central Railroad with Montreal. Upon his father's death in 1858, J Gregory Smith became president of the Vermont Central Railroad and his brother, Worthington C. Smith, was named president of the Vermont and Canada. The Central VermontRailroad was organized in 1873 and assumed management of both the Vermont Central and Vermont and Canada Railroads. In 1883 the Consolidated Railroad of Vermont
was formed to purchase the Vermont Central and Vermont and Canada property, and immediately leased it to the Central VermontRailroad thereby consolidating the Smith family's railroad holdings. The family expanded their holdings to include related industries such as the St. Albans Foundry, the National Car Company, and its subsidiary the Vermont Iron and Car Company. While expanding his holdings in Vermont and the northeast,
J Gregory Smith became interested in the idea of a railroad to the west and became president of the Northern PacificRailroad Company in 1866, a position he held until 1872. Smith was also active in politics and was elected to the state senate in 1858 and 1859. In 1860, 1861, and 1862 he was elected to the house as a representative of St. Albans, and served as speaker of the house. In 1863 Smith was elected governor and served two terms before retiring to devote time to his duties as the president of Central Vermont and the Northern PacificRailroad.
J Gregory Smith married Ann Eliza Brainerd of St Albans in 1843 and together they had six children: George Gregory (who married Frances Lewis), Edward Curtis (who married Anna B. James), Lawrence (who died in infancy), Annie B., Julia B. (who married Oliver Stevens), Helen L. (who married D. SageMackay). Research J Gregory Smith
Simon Marks was a British chain-store magnet. He was born in 1888 and died in 1964. The son of a Polish immigrant, Michael Marks, who together with Tom Spencer started a number of 'penny bazaars' in 1887. Simon Marks entered the business in 1907 and built up a chain of more than 200 stores and started a democratic revolution in dress for men and women. Research Simon Marks
William Gilbert was an English physician and physicist. He was born in 1544 at Colchester and died in 1603. He coined the word electricity to describe the property of amber for attracting light objects. He also pioneered work into magnetism, being the first to suggest that the earth was a giantmagnet, and demonstrated magnetism to queen Elizabeth I. Research William Gilbert
James Fox (real name William Fox) is an English actor. He was born in 1939. He first appeared in films in the 1950 'The Minnerver Story' and in the same year 'The Magnet' under the name 'William Fox' and then after taking ten years off returned using the name 'James Fox', first appearing in the 1962 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'. Research James Fox
Armature is a term applied to the piece of soft iron which is placed across the poles of permanent or electro-magnets for the purpose of receiving and concentrating the attractive force. In the case of permanent magnets it is also important for preserving their magnetism when not in use, and hence it is sometimes termed the keeper. It produces this effect in virtue of the well-known law of induction, by which the armature, when placed near or across the poles of the magnet, is itself converted into a temporary magnet with reversed poles, and these, reacting upon the permanent magnet, keep its particles in a state of constant magnetic tension, or, in other words, in that constrained position which is supposed to constitute magnetism. A horse-shoemagnet should therefore never be laid aside without its armature; and in the case of straight bar-magnets two should be placed parallel to each other, with their poles reversed, and a keeper or armature across them at both ends. The term is also applied to the core and coil of the electro-magnet, which revolves before the poles of the permanent magnet in the magneto-electric machine. Research Armature
A compass is an instrument used to indicate the magnetic meridian or the position of objects with respect to that meridian, and employed especially on ships, and by surveyors and travellers.
The origin of the compass is unknown, but it is supposed to have been brought from China to Europe about the middle of the 13th century. As now generally used it consists of three parts: namely, the box, the card or fly, and the needle - the
latter being the really essential part, and consisting of a small magnet so suspended that it may be able to move freely in a horizontal direction. The box, which contains the card and needle, is, in the case of the common mariner's compass, a circular brass receptacle hung within a wooden one by two concentric rings called gimbals,, so fixed by the cross centres to the box that the inner one, or compass-box, shall retain a horizontal position in all motions of the ship. The circular card is divided into thirty-two equal parts by lines drawn from the centre to the circumference, called points or rhumbs; the intervals between the points are also divided into halves and quarters, and the whole circumference into equal parts or degrees, 360 of which complete the circle; and, consequently, the distance or angle comprehended between any two rhumbs is equal to 11.25 degrees.
The four principal rhumbs are called cardinal points: North, South, East, and West. The names of the rest are compounded of these.
The needle is a small bar of magnetized steel. It is fixed on the under side of the card, and in the centre is placed a conical socket, which is poised on an upright pointed pin fixed in the bottom of the box; so that the card, hanging on the pin, turns freely round its centre, and one of the points, by the property of the needle, will always be directed towards the north pole. The needle, however, is liable to a certain deviation owing to the magnetism of the ship itself, and this is especially strong in iron ships. To obviate this Sir W Thomson (LordKelvin) invented a compass, having a number of needles arranged in a particular manner instead of one. In this compass quadrantal errors are corrected by means of two iron globes fixed on opposite sides of the binnacle; while the various components of the ship's magnetic force are neutralized by a series of bar-magnets so arranged as to act as correctors. In the compass used by land-surveyors and others the needle is not fixed to the card, but plays alone, the card being-drawn on the bottom of the box. Research Compass
Abbreviations
Research Lithomancy
