Enlightenment

16 moments, 1717 to 1796–97.

1717

Premier Grand Lodge of London

Four London lodges meet at the Goose and Gridiron alehouse on St John's Day to form a Grand Lodge, beginning organised speculative Freemasonry.
Liber XXV · Secret Societies
1723

Anderson's Constitutions

James Anderson's charges and regulations for Freemasons standardise the craft and give it a legendary history reaching back to Adam.
Liber XXV · Secret Societies
1727

Last witch execution in Scotland

Janet Horne is burned at Dornoch, the last person legally executed for witchcraft in Britain.
Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca
1735–36

Witchcraft Act of 1735

Britain repeals laws against witchcraft and instead penalises pretending to magical powers—an act that survives until 1951.
Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca
1745

Swedenborg's spiritual call

The Swedish scientist experiences visions in London and turns to scriptural interpretation and accounts of heaven, hell and the spirits.
Liber XXXIII · Theosophy
1746

Death of Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto

The Padua kabbalist and author of The Path of the Just dies in Acre after rabbinic opposition to his mystical circle (some lists give 1747).
Liber XX · Kabbalah
1749–56

Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia

Eight volumes of spiritual exegesis of Genesis and Exodus set out Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences between natural and spiritual worlds.
Liber XXXIII · Theosophy
1759

Frankist disputation at Lwów

Followers of Jacob Frank, heirs of Sabbatean antinomianism, debate rabbis and then accept mass baptism.
Liber XX · Kabbalah
1760

Death of the Baal Shem Tov

Israel ben Eliezer, healer and founder of Hasidism, dies in Medzhybizh; his disciples spread a joyful, popular mysticism.
Liber XX · Kabbalah
1772

Ban on Hasidim; Swedenborg dies

The Vilna Gaon's circle pronounces a ban against the Hasidim; Swedenborg dies in London the same year.
Liber XX · Kabbalah
1776

Bavarian Illuminati founded

Adam Weishaupt founds an Enlightenment secret society in Ingolstadt; suppressed in 1784–85, it becomes a fixture of conspiracy theory.
Liber XXV · Secret Societies
1781

Court de Gébelin's Egyptian tarot

In Le Monde primitif, Antoine Court de Gébelin claims the tarot preserves the lost Book of Thoth, birth of the esoteric tarot.
Liber VII · Divination
1782

Anna Göldi executed; Etz Hayyim printed

Göldi is beheaded in Glarus, often called Europe's last witch execution; Hayyim Vital's Lurianic Etz Hayyim is first printed.
Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca
1784

Royal commission on Mesmer

A French commission including Franklin and Lavoisier attributes 'animal magnetism' to imagination, yet mesmerism flourishes and feeds later occultism.
Liber XXXIII · Theosophy
1785

Askew Codex and Etteilla's tarot

The British Museum acquires the Askew Codex containing the Gnostic Pistis Sophia; around this time Etteilla popularises tarot cartomancy.
Liber IX · Gnosticism
1796–97

The Tanya printed

Shneur Zalman of Liadi's systematic Hasidic work founds Chabad, reworking Lurianic Kabbalah for contemplative devotion.
Liber XX · Kabbalah