History of the United States in 100 Objects -- 14: The Winthrop Alchemical Physician's Chair
Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong
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The Alchemy of John Winthrop Junior
There was a lot of interest in sorcery and divination, in the occult arts. The authorities either were weaker or they were less interested in investigating and enforcing orthodoxy. There's this antinomian idea that person who is saved is freed from the law. They are incapable of sin. And also, sometimes connected with antinomistism, there is perfectionism. So you can see it as almost a kind of astrological machine guiding and empowering the treatment of this patient and ling the patient. It might sound a little weird or a little far fetched as a process happening in puritan colonial connecticut.
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