I keep coming back to how Merchant describes early naturalists like Paracelsus seeing the world as a living organism. It’s such a different mindset from the mechanical, dissected version of nature that came later. Everything had a pulse and a purpose (the body, the earth, the stars) all connected through hidden “signatures.” It reminds me of Foucault’s idea of similitude, where people tried to read nature like a text full of echoes and reflections. Nothing existed on its own; every leaf or mineral mirrored something larger.
That’s what I see in Robert Fludd’s cosmic image map of relationships. The world hums like an instrument, and understanding it means tuning yourself to its music rather than taking it apart. There’s something beautiful about that kind of knowledge it’s spiritual, but also deeply attentive. Merchant makes it feel like a lost language, one that tied knowing the world to caring for it. Maybe that’s a connection worth rebuilding today.
When we first read about the earthly signatures, the "four similitudes of the world", I thought it was interesting how notions of God were mentioned between each connection of nature, how an almighty had created everything with distinct purpose, although never explicitly stated as an intentional aspect of creationism. To me, this is an early signifier of a kind of sovereignty, the ability for people to think for themselves and draw these connections even when attributing said discoveries to God. Foucault said, "... there must of course be some mark that will make us aware of these things; otherwise, the secret would remain indefinitely dormant" (Foucault, 26). To this point, he references signatures, a kind of individuality in nature that allows all things to differentiate, "fold in upon itself, duplicate itself, reflect itself, or form a chain with itself," (Foucault, 25) a kind of consciousness, in a way. To me, that is so interesting, this early scientific view of how all things coalesce and emulate. On page 30, Foucault admits that due to his time, he is too primeval to fully understand the world, but yet he understands that there is so much more, and in that view, I think, proves his genius.
I think the shift from seeing the world as filled with divine “signatures” to viewing it through modern scientific reasoning is interesting. The idea that everything in nature once carried hidden marks from God, like Aconite seeds resembling eyes and being seen as cures for eye problems shows how people would search for meaning in appearances. We also see how early modern scientists, even as they moved toward empirical methods, still looked backward to Greece, Ancient Rome, and the Bible in hopes of recovering lost knowledge. The mention of Newgrange captures the feeling of how encountering ancient structures must have reinforced the belief that earlier peoples possessed incredible like magical science. I think about how humans have always searched for connections and patterns, even if the meanings we assign say more about us than about the world itself. I see that even in my own life I think, I have a tendency to learn and understand things through way of connecting and referencing my own knowledge, which while it isn't the same, is, ironically, what I know that I can connect to this.
It was interesting to me how Paracelsus "And even though he has hidden certain things, he has allowed nothing to remain without exterior and visible signs in the form of special marks" (Foucault 26) implying that God intended to leave mysteries that we have, thoughts about ourselves and life around us to eventually be discovered one day about their origins. It is also interesting how it says modern scientists use the ancient Greeks and Romans for references to the questions they have about lost knowledge and even turning towards the Bible for advice. I like how the artist behind the painting of Adam and Eve depicted it as precarious to entail critical thinking, "what is the meaning behind their gestures and body language? What is this supposed to tell us?" There is an interesting turn when the publication mentions how humans are living mini universes and every little thing on us is a collection of mass. It goes on to say how this may be anxiety ridden for some people who are searching for their troubling political alliances, gender identity, and illicit activities.
One of the things that stuck out to me in the Merchant reading when considering the similitudes is when she talks about work. Merchant introduces her section on work with the idea that “one of the most serious human problems brought about by industrial capitalism has been the psychological alienation caused by a person's daily labor for wages…” (87). She then goes on to mention how it is impacted by the idea of others reaping higher rewards than you for work that you did, but I think it is interesting to think about in terms of the similitudes. Through spending more time at work in the midst of and post-industrialization, people, through the logic of the similitudes, are becoming more like the machines they interact with. To put it in terms of the image, there was an interaction between the mineralia and animalia kingdoms of nature that did not exist at such a level beforehand. People, who were firmly separate from minerals and materials, became every day just a little more like machines.
What strikes me in both Foucault and Merchant is how seriously early modern thinkers treated the idea that the world was meant to be read. Foucault quotes Paracelsus saying God left “special marks” (26) in creation like signs pointing us back toward Him. As a Christian this resonates with me because it shows that creation itself reveals God’s character and intention. Merchant writes that “The Renaissance cosmos was a living unit of which all parts were interconnected in a tightly organized system” (100). That sense of order feels very intentional rather than random.
I also think Robert Fludd’s imagery reflects this same pursuit. His diagrams may look strange to us today but they show how deeply people wanted to connect heaven and earth, body and cosmos. To them discovering patterns in nature was not only science but also a way of drawing nearer to God’s wisdom. Unlike some other comments that connect this search more closely to astrology I see a difference between trusting the stars themselves and recognizing the Creator who hung the stars as signs of His order. The treasure hunt metaphor helps here because what they were seeking was not just hidden knowledge but the restoration of what humanity lost at the Fall and the way I see it science is just the study of God’s creation and that is as true today as it was during theRenaissance.
Reading Foucault’s description of the “prose of the world” made me think about how beautifully interconnected everything was believed to be in the early modern period. He goes on to explain aemulatio, where he discusses mirror images throughout the world like, “the means whereby things scattered through the universe can answer one another. The human face, from afar, emulates the sky…” (Foucault 19). This image of things across the universe reflecting one another gives a broader, more poetic view of the world—one that feels delicate and intentional, like everything is part of a larger, meaningful pattern and nothing exists in isolation.
Carolyn Merchant’s chapter, The World as an Organism builds on this idea by describing the early modern view of nature as a living, hierarchical system. In this organism, all parts affect and are affected by the whole, living and nonliving included (Merchant 100). This echoes Robert Fludd’s image that the world as a whole is working together. There cannot be one thing without the other, in order for everything to work the peasants need to tend the field, the kings need to make the laws, etc. It still mirrors the early belief in harmony—-one is just based more on labor than symbolic resemblance. The city functions like a machine, where peasants, artisans, scholars, and leaders each play a role in maintaining the working order. Yes, it's less philosophical but it does still show the connection between everything.
In World as Organism, Merchant describes the cosmos as a “living unit, of which all parts were interconnected in a tightly organized system” (Merchant, 100), where all things worked together as one. Fludd’s artwork presents a cosmic map of this interconnection, giving a more visual version of what Merchant describes. The image uses body parts and chains to link higher beings to the natural world: the hand of God holds Mother Nature, her head connects with the angels above, and her feet rest on both land and sea. This represents the conjunction of sulfur and mercury, two minerals believed to work in Convenientia because of their similar properties and their supposed power to create gold. Fludd’s map shows how minerals, nature, and the heavens were tied into one unified system. At first, I found the map confusing and hard to follow, but as I looked closer, it began to make sense through my own understanding of science. In this way, Fludd’s image feels like a precursor to Carl Linnaeus’s later hierarchy of kingdoms, which also sought to organize the natural world into a connected system.
The world is straying from its natural roots, nature itself. In "The World an Organism", Carolyn Merchant explains the elementary qualities and occult properties in the Neoplatonic world. Elementary qualities were properties of matter, whereas occult properties were "derived from the stars and infused into natural objects". The world nowadays is straying further from things that are considered to be occult and natural objects, while creating new properties of matter. The occult had the power of sympathy and antipathy, which is mentioned by Foucault. It was believed that these occult had the ability to draw similar objects while also repelling dissimilar objects. The occult brings the world together in its similarities and differences. However, mainstream society nowadays only cares about money and making more money. A lot of this money, unfortunately, goes to material goods and destroying the nature and occult that was once highly regarded by most. In the video depicting Fludd's image, the woman representing nature is said to be the animamundi, the soul of the world, and the ape, which she controls by a chain, is representative of art and scientific ingenuity. The image shows how nature used to be the ruling force over man and their ideas. However, I feel that in recent years the chain has loosened, and man's scientific ingenuity and greed are putting suffering on nature.
There is something beautiful about the way past societies viewed the relationship between humanity and nature. It was not something that we used purely for resources or to make money off of, but it was our direct connection to God. It was art, it was protection, it was communication, it was many things before it became our most easily exploitable resource. It is mentioned in the Merchant reading "...the earth was considered to be a mother and the sun a father..." (pg 83) showing how past peoples viewed the earth and the sun, both celestial deities and at the same time, our caretakers and protectors.
In Green's chapters, it is explained that the symbol of the wheel with it's spokes represented the sun, and this symbolism was everywhere in Europe. Sometimes accompanied by a swastika, an eagle, dolphins, bulls, etc. but when seen alone, it was always a representation of a relationship to a higher power that was the sun and sky God.
Whether God truly "hid" messages or art in nature, it does not matter as Humanity would find God in everything, message or not. We found God in a wheel symbol and we put that symbol of God on children's graves to carry them to safety in the afterlife and we put God on necklaces to protect our women and we put God on shields to keep our soldiers safe. Humans find God wherever they can, in the past it was in Nature, as Nature took care of us and where else do we see our Father if not in the very thing that takes care of us?
Carolyn Merchant explains in her chapter “The World of an Organism” the concept called Neoplatonic Magic, which accepts that human beings were seen as just miniature versions of the cosmos, and that to study humans was to study the cosmos and vice versa. According to many natural philosophers, including Ficino and Agrippa, the cosmos is a hierarchical structure, broken up into three divisions: body, soul, and spirit. The Robert Fludd image intentionally has the human placed in the center, standing on earth with a halo on her head, seemingly in the cosmos/spiritual realm. This contrast indicates that humans are the center of the cosmos, and provide that link between the material and spiritual realms.
In fact, according to Merchant, “the spiritus mundi [spirit of the world] was the vehicle by which the influences of superior powers in the celestial realm could be brought down and joined to the inferior powers in the terrestrial region” (Merchant 106). Foucault’s theory of the similitude of analogy fits this idea perfectly, especially when regarding the quote by Merchant. The analogy of the human to the cosmos, and how studying one means understanding the other as well. The bond and adjacency between humans and the cosmos is unwavering, and without boundaries.
The idea that Carolyn Merchant brings attention to, that of the world as an organism greatly helps me understand the shift in the way that western people viewed the Earth. In the times of the middle ages and before the world was viewed as a nurturing sort of mother figure that was interwoven into the lives of those who called it home. This idea began to become phased out as the coinciding events of the age of exploration and colonialism played out. The organic metaphor was replaced as European powers expanded and adopted a more mechanistic view of the world. The world became less of a nurturing host and more of a system of resources awaiting extraction and exploitation as explained in by Merchant “the ecology and economy of farm, forest, and fen were altered by new forms of human interaction with nature, traditional models of organic society and modes of social organization were likewise undermined and transformed.”(pg 69) This brings me to what I interpreted from Robert Fludd’s image, the idea of the three realms and their connection. I saw how heaven, nature, and the realm of human thoughts and practices are and have been by design interwoven. The problems arise when the human mind believes that it has taken precedence and become superior to nature and could therefore lose its connection to heaven and we could potentially spell our own doom. I believe that this idea of connection can be further enhanced and summed up by Foucault “if not because we know that sympathy creates communication between our bodies and the heavens, and transmits the movement of the planets to the affairs of men.”(pg 27-28).
One aspect I really found interesting about both readings shows a lot of the history of how we got to "here" as we talked about in the very first day of class. In "The World as an Organism" there was discussion of organicism which I took to as "The idea the cosmos is an organic entity" which is a belief I have myself. While I don't "believe" in a God per say--but I do believe that their is a higher power somewhere is the cosmos. Which also lead to see how Neoplatonic Magic could be the early history of Astrology and of how we got "here" of some people explaining their behavior on their astrological sign and saying that the stars are the reason why they are as they are.
Also seeing Neoplatioic Magic be defined as the earth being influenced by the heavens sounds like how we now know that the distance of the moon does effect our tides and the water levels. So there can be an argument that the moon can be seen as part of the heavens and we can see that the earth is being influenced by it. This notion also reminds me that an antidote my mother would say to explain why certain parts of her body would be hurting is because of the moon. She reasons that because we are part water and the moon affects the water on earth, we humans must to be affected by the moon in some regards. Very Neoplatonic magic of her.
The hierarchal model is plainly an analogy of the human body translated to a model of society; however, it is explicitly stated in "The Death of a Merchant" (pg 71) that the hierarchal model is based off "Nature's prime examples of communal colonies -- bees and ants" which suggests a conscious attempt at conventia in its formulation. Foucault defines the outcome of contact as an "exchange" from which resemblance is the outcome (Foucault pg 18). I believe this was overt in the formulation of the Hierarchal model to be represented as divine adjacent; which, politically, adds credence to a monarchs right to rule in affirming the model. Foucault talks of the similitudes as something always present and inevitable, I wonder if there is a distinction between rational beings choosing to replicate such systems and nature's own prerogative. I believe Robert Fludd's video (3:10) somewhat answers this with the imagery of humans depicted as an ape measuring a small cosmos. It seems to me they interpreted humans are meant to discover and replicate God's creations.
Both the readings from Carolyn Merchant and Michel Foucault describe nature to be something that needs to be read and interpreted as if there are clues or hidden signs to uncover that can help one make better sense of the world. In “The Prose of the World,” page 27, Foucault says “the face of the world is covered with blazons, with characters, with ciphers and obscure words”, and “the space inhabited by immediate resemblances becomes like a vast open book.” On page 26, he quotes Paracelsus who believed that these were by design and intentional “special marks” left by God. The world was seen as something meant to be read.
Merchant, in her chapter “The World an Organism” expands on this by saying, “The Renaissance cosmos was a living unit, of which all parts were interconnected in a tightly organized system” (Merchant, 100). Our world as an “organized system” is described to be one large living being and consisting of many, small and large beings. To understand the world, it had to be read. And reading it meant that observing plants, people, animals, mountains and stars were all absolutely necessary.
Robert Fludd's image really helps to visualize the way the earth and heavens are connected through a map. It’s fascinating that each part of the image had meaning even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. Looking at the image really does feel like treasure hunting the longer you look. Just like the way they saw the world itself, everything was strategically placed in the image. Even religions were formed by observing the earth, so it’s no wonder science and religion had been pursued together like one.
It's interesting because when trying to go "straight to their marks" (Foucault 26) regarding unearthing signatures in the human body and nature, it relates to the metaphors linking the cosmos and the human body. As mentioned in Chapter 4 in "The Death of Nature," the organic model represents how the body is of the cosmos, from head to toe representing natural order in a physical form. The cosmos could otherwise be known as God, thus leading the Europeans to seek Biblical knowledge, such as Adam and Eve, to see how these signatures of body go hand in hand. In Foucault's chapter of "Prose of the World," the similitude of aemulatio is a perfect example of how objects mirror one another. In regards to nature, the organic model as once mentioned explains how the human body is a literal embodiment of the nature it surrounds itself with. The body doesn't need to touch nature to embody it, it's already of it. "Rather as though the spatial collusion of convenientia had been broken, so that the links of the chain, no longer connected, reproduced their circles at a distance from one another in accordance with a resemblance that needs no contact." (Foucault 19) This emphasizes the point that rather than a self separated entity, its of a whole larger cosmic order.
I keep coming back to how Merchant describes early naturalists like Paracelsus seeing the world as a living organism. It’s such a different mindset from the mechanical, dissected version of nature that came later. Everything had a pulse and a purpose (the body, the earth, the stars) all connected through hidden “signatures.” It reminds me of Foucault’s idea of similitude, where people tried to read nature like a text full of echoes and reflections. Nothing existed on its own; every leaf or mineral mirrored something larger.
That’s what I see in Robert Fludd’s cosmic image map of relationships. The world hums like an instrument, and understanding it means tuning yourself to its music rather than taking it apart. There’s something beautiful about that kind of knowledge it’s spiritual, but also deeply attentive. Merchant makes it feel like a lost language, one that tied knowing the world to caring for it. Maybe that’s a connection worth rebuilding today.
Nice writing Hannah
When we first read about the earthly signatures, the "four similitudes of the world", I thought it was interesting how notions of God were mentioned between each connection of nature, how an almighty had created everything with distinct purpose, although never explicitly stated as an intentional aspect of creationism. To me, this is an early signifier of a kind of sovereignty, the ability for people to think for themselves and draw these connections even when attributing said discoveries to God. Foucault said, "... there must of course be some mark that will make us aware of these things; otherwise, the secret would remain indefinitely dormant" (Foucault, 26). To this point, he references signatures, a kind of individuality in nature that allows all things to differentiate, "fold in upon itself, duplicate itself, reflect itself, or form a chain with itself," (Foucault, 25) a kind of consciousness, in a way. To me, that is so interesting, this early scientific view of how all things coalesce and emulate. On page 30, Foucault admits that due to his time, he is too primeval to fully understand the world, but yet he understands that there is so much more, and in that view, I think, proves his genius.
I think the shift from seeing the world as filled with divine “signatures” to viewing it through modern scientific reasoning is interesting. The idea that everything in nature once carried hidden marks from God, like Aconite seeds resembling eyes and being seen as cures for eye problems shows how people would search for meaning in appearances. We also see how early modern scientists, even as they moved toward empirical methods, still looked backward to Greece, Ancient Rome, and the Bible in hopes of recovering lost knowledge. The mention of Newgrange captures the feeling of how encountering ancient structures must have reinforced the belief that earlier peoples possessed incredible like magical science. I think about how humans have always searched for connections and patterns, even if the meanings we assign say more about us than about the world itself. I see that even in my own life I think, I have a tendency to learn and understand things through way of connecting and referencing my own knowledge, which while it isn't the same, is, ironically, what I know that I can connect to this.
It was interesting to me how Paracelsus "And even though he has hidden certain things, he has allowed nothing to remain without exterior and visible signs in the form of special marks" (Foucault 26) implying that God intended to leave mysteries that we have, thoughts about ourselves and life around us to eventually be discovered one day about their origins. It is also interesting how it says modern scientists use the ancient Greeks and Romans for references to the questions they have about lost knowledge and even turning towards the Bible for advice. I like how the artist behind the painting of Adam and Eve depicted it as precarious to entail critical thinking, "what is the meaning behind their gestures and body language? What is this supposed to tell us?" There is an interesting turn when the publication mentions how humans are living mini universes and every little thing on us is a collection of mass. It goes on to say how this may be anxiety ridden for some people who are searching for their troubling political alliances, gender identity, and illicit activities.
One of the things that stuck out to me in the Merchant reading when considering the similitudes is when she talks about work. Merchant introduces her section on work with the idea that “one of the most serious human problems brought about by industrial capitalism has been the psychological alienation caused by a person's daily labor for wages…” (87). She then goes on to mention how it is impacted by the idea of others reaping higher rewards than you for work that you did, but I think it is interesting to think about in terms of the similitudes. Through spending more time at work in the midst of and post-industrialization, people, through the logic of the similitudes, are becoming more like the machines they interact with. To put it in terms of the image, there was an interaction between the mineralia and animalia kingdoms of nature that did not exist at such a level beforehand. People, who were firmly separate from minerals and materials, became every day just a little more like machines.
What strikes me in both Foucault and Merchant is how seriously early modern thinkers treated the idea that the world was meant to be read. Foucault quotes Paracelsus saying God left “special marks” (26) in creation like signs pointing us back toward Him. As a Christian this resonates with me because it shows that creation itself reveals God’s character and intention. Merchant writes that “The Renaissance cosmos was a living unit of which all parts were interconnected in a tightly organized system” (100). That sense of order feels very intentional rather than random.
I also think Robert Fludd’s imagery reflects this same pursuit. His diagrams may look strange to us today but they show how deeply people wanted to connect heaven and earth, body and cosmos. To them discovering patterns in nature was not only science but also a way of drawing nearer to God’s wisdom. Unlike some other comments that connect this search more closely to astrology I see a difference between trusting the stars themselves and recognizing the Creator who hung the stars as signs of His order. The treasure hunt metaphor helps here because what they were seeking was not just hidden knowledge but the restoration of what humanity lost at the Fall and the way I see it science is just the study of God’s creation and that is as true today as it was during theRenaissance.
Reading Foucault’s description of the “prose of the world” made me think about how beautifully interconnected everything was believed to be in the early modern period. He goes on to explain aemulatio, where he discusses mirror images throughout the world like, “the means whereby things scattered through the universe can answer one another. The human face, from afar, emulates the sky…” (Foucault 19). This image of things across the universe reflecting one another gives a broader, more poetic view of the world—one that feels delicate and intentional, like everything is part of a larger, meaningful pattern and nothing exists in isolation.
Carolyn Merchant’s chapter, The World as an Organism builds on this idea by describing the early modern view of nature as a living, hierarchical system. In this organism, all parts affect and are affected by the whole, living and nonliving included (Merchant 100). This echoes Robert Fludd’s image that the world as a whole is working together. There cannot be one thing without the other, in order for everything to work the peasants need to tend the field, the kings need to make the laws, etc. It still mirrors the early belief in harmony—-one is just based more on labor than symbolic resemblance. The city functions like a machine, where peasants, artisans, scholars, and leaders each play a role in maintaining the working order. Yes, it's less philosophical but it does still show the connection between everything.
In World as Organism, Merchant describes the cosmos as a “living unit, of which all parts were interconnected in a tightly organized system” (Merchant, 100), where all things worked together as one. Fludd’s artwork presents a cosmic map of this interconnection, giving a more visual version of what Merchant describes. The image uses body parts and chains to link higher beings to the natural world: the hand of God holds Mother Nature, her head connects with the angels above, and her feet rest on both land and sea. This represents the conjunction of sulfur and mercury, two minerals believed to work in Convenientia because of their similar properties and their supposed power to create gold. Fludd’s map shows how minerals, nature, and the heavens were tied into one unified system. At first, I found the map confusing and hard to follow, but as I looked closer, it began to make sense through my own understanding of science. In this way, Fludd’s image feels like a precursor to Carl Linnaeus’s later hierarchy of kingdoms, which also sought to organize the natural world into a connected system.
The world is straying from its natural roots, nature itself. In "The World an Organism", Carolyn Merchant explains the elementary qualities and occult properties in the Neoplatonic world. Elementary qualities were properties of matter, whereas occult properties were "derived from the stars and infused into natural objects". The world nowadays is straying further from things that are considered to be occult and natural objects, while creating new properties of matter. The occult had the power of sympathy and antipathy, which is mentioned by Foucault. It was believed that these occult had the ability to draw similar objects while also repelling dissimilar objects. The occult brings the world together in its similarities and differences. However, mainstream society nowadays only cares about money and making more money. A lot of this money, unfortunately, goes to material goods and destroying the nature and occult that was once highly regarded by most. In the video depicting Fludd's image, the woman representing nature is said to be the animamundi, the soul of the world, and the ape, which she controls by a chain, is representative of art and scientific ingenuity. The image shows how nature used to be the ruling force over man and their ideas. However, I feel that in recent years the chain has loosened, and man's scientific ingenuity and greed are putting suffering on nature.
There is something beautiful about the way past societies viewed the relationship between humanity and nature. It was not something that we used purely for resources or to make money off of, but it was our direct connection to God. It was art, it was protection, it was communication, it was many things before it became our most easily exploitable resource. It is mentioned in the Merchant reading "...the earth was considered to be a mother and the sun a father..." (pg 83) showing how past peoples viewed the earth and the sun, both celestial deities and at the same time, our caretakers and protectors.
In Green's chapters, it is explained that the symbol of the wheel with it's spokes represented the sun, and this symbolism was everywhere in Europe. Sometimes accompanied by a swastika, an eagle, dolphins, bulls, etc. but when seen alone, it was always a representation of a relationship to a higher power that was the sun and sky God.
Whether God truly "hid" messages or art in nature, it does not matter as Humanity would find God in everything, message or not. We found God in a wheel symbol and we put that symbol of God on children's graves to carry them to safety in the afterlife and we put God on necklaces to protect our women and we put God on shields to keep our soldiers safe. Humans find God wherever they can, in the past it was in Nature, as Nature took care of us and where else do we see our Father if not in the very thing that takes care of us?
Carolyn Merchant explains in her chapter “The World of an Organism” the concept called Neoplatonic Magic, which accepts that human beings were seen as just miniature versions of the cosmos, and that to study humans was to study the cosmos and vice versa. According to many natural philosophers, including Ficino and Agrippa, the cosmos is a hierarchical structure, broken up into three divisions: body, soul, and spirit. The Robert Fludd image intentionally has the human placed in the center, standing on earth with a halo on her head, seemingly in the cosmos/spiritual realm. This contrast indicates that humans are the center of the cosmos, and provide that link between the material and spiritual realms.
In fact, according to Merchant, “the spiritus mundi [spirit of the world] was the vehicle by which the influences of superior powers in the celestial realm could be brought down and joined to the inferior powers in the terrestrial region” (Merchant 106). Foucault’s theory of the similitude of analogy fits this idea perfectly, especially when regarding the quote by Merchant. The analogy of the human to the cosmos, and how studying one means understanding the other as well. The bond and adjacency between humans and the cosmos is unwavering, and without boundaries.
The idea that Carolyn Merchant brings attention to, that of the world as an organism greatly helps me understand the shift in the way that western people viewed the Earth. In the times of the middle ages and before the world was viewed as a nurturing sort of mother figure that was interwoven into the lives of those who called it home. This idea began to become phased out as the coinciding events of the age of exploration and colonialism played out. The organic metaphor was replaced as European powers expanded and adopted a more mechanistic view of the world. The world became less of a nurturing host and more of a system of resources awaiting extraction and exploitation as explained in by Merchant “the ecology and economy of farm, forest, and fen were altered by new forms of human interaction with nature, traditional models of organic society and modes of social organization were likewise undermined and transformed.”(pg 69) This brings me to what I interpreted from Robert Fludd’s image, the idea of the three realms and their connection. I saw how heaven, nature, and the realm of human thoughts and practices are and have been by design interwoven. The problems arise when the human mind believes that it has taken precedence and become superior to nature and could therefore lose its connection to heaven and we could potentially spell our own doom. I believe that this idea of connection can be further enhanced and summed up by Foucault “if not because we know that sympathy creates communication between our bodies and the heavens, and transmits the movement of the planets to the affairs of men.”(pg 27-28).
One aspect I really found interesting about both readings shows a lot of the history of how we got to "here" as we talked about in the very first day of class. In "The World as an Organism" there was discussion of organicism which I took to as "The idea the cosmos is an organic entity" which is a belief I have myself. While I don't "believe" in a God per say--but I do believe that their is a higher power somewhere is the cosmos. Which also lead to see how Neoplatonic Magic could be the early history of Astrology and of how we got "here" of some people explaining their behavior on their astrological sign and saying that the stars are the reason why they are as they are.
Also seeing Neoplatioic Magic be defined as the earth being influenced by the heavens sounds like how we now know that the distance of the moon does effect our tides and the water levels. So there can be an argument that the moon can be seen as part of the heavens and we can see that the earth is being influenced by it. This notion also reminds me that an antidote my mother would say to explain why certain parts of her body would be hurting is because of the moon. She reasons that because we are part water and the moon affects the water on earth, we humans must to be affected by the moon in some regards. Very Neoplatonic magic of her.
The hierarchal model is plainly an analogy of the human body translated to a model of society; however, it is explicitly stated in "The Death of a Merchant" (pg 71) that the hierarchal model is based off "Nature's prime examples of communal colonies -- bees and ants" which suggests a conscious attempt at conventia in its formulation. Foucault defines the outcome of contact as an "exchange" from which resemblance is the outcome (Foucault pg 18). I believe this was overt in the formulation of the Hierarchal model to be represented as divine adjacent; which, politically, adds credence to a monarchs right to rule in affirming the model. Foucault talks of the similitudes as something always present and inevitable, I wonder if there is a distinction between rational beings choosing to replicate such systems and nature's own prerogative. I believe Robert Fludd's video (3:10) somewhat answers this with the imagery of humans depicted as an ape measuring a small cosmos. It seems to me they interpreted humans are meant to discover and replicate God's creations.
Both the readings from Carolyn Merchant and Michel Foucault describe nature to be something that needs to be read and interpreted as if there are clues or hidden signs to uncover that can help one make better sense of the world. In “The Prose of the World,” page 27, Foucault says “the face of the world is covered with blazons, with characters, with ciphers and obscure words”, and “the space inhabited by immediate resemblances becomes like a vast open book.” On page 26, he quotes Paracelsus who believed that these were by design and intentional “special marks” left by God. The world was seen as something meant to be read.
Merchant, in her chapter “The World an Organism” expands on this by saying, “The Renaissance cosmos was a living unit, of which all parts were interconnected in a tightly organized system” (Merchant, 100). Our world as an “organized system” is described to be one large living being and consisting of many, small and large beings. To understand the world, it had to be read. And reading it meant that observing plants, people, animals, mountains and stars were all absolutely necessary.
Robert Fludd's image really helps to visualize the way the earth and heavens are connected through a map. It’s fascinating that each part of the image had meaning even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. Looking at the image really does feel like treasure hunting the longer you look. Just like the way they saw the world itself, everything was strategically placed in the image. Even religions were formed by observing the earth, so it’s no wonder science and religion had been pursued together like one.
It's interesting because when trying to go "straight to their marks" (Foucault 26) regarding unearthing signatures in the human body and nature, it relates to the metaphors linking the cosmos and the human body. As mentioned in Chapter 4 in "The Death of Nature," the organic model represents how the body is of the cosmos, from head to toe representing natural order in a physical form. The cosmos could otherwise be known as God, thus leading the Europeans to seek Biblical knowledge, such as Adam and Eve, to see how these signatures of body go hand in hand. In Foucault's chapter of "Prose of the World," the similitude of aemulatio is a perfect example of how objects mirror one another. In regards to nature, the organic model as once mentioned explains how the human body is a literal embodiment of the nature it surrounds itself with. The body doesn't need to touch nature to embody it, it's already of it. "Rather as though the spatial collusion of convenientia had been broken, so that the links of the chain, no longer connected, reproduced their circles at a distance from one another in accordance with a resemblance that needs no contact." (Foucault 19) This emphasizes the point that rather than a self separated entity, its of a whole larger cosmic order.