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Sympathy and Antipathy

Sympathy and Antipathy


 Sympathy and antipathy are causal forces used to explain a wide range of phenomena. The theories of sympathy and antipathy were often seen and written about as though they were dogma of natural science. Some examples of people who wrote about the concepts of sympathy and antipathy were Plato, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, Plotinus, Proclus, Tomasso Campanella, and Athanasius Kircher.

  As Proclus describes, sympathy is usually discussed as a force that drives things near, while antipathy drives things away (Copenhaver 2015, 210).  He discusses the lotus flower, and its behaviors in which he observed. He says, “The lotus shows that there is sympathy,” in the way it unfolds in the presence of the sun rising, expanding when the sun is at its peak, and contracts with the sunset (2015, 208). In a slightly different way, Campanella describes that there is a, “…natural love and hate in sentient things…” (2015, 534)—again describing an attraction/aversion relationship relating to sympathy and antipathy. Plato appeals to this idea of “love” as the “…divine harmonizer of all the world’s antipathies and sympathies,” (2015, 94) and that love (sympathy) is the force that energizes the world brings it all together (2015, 107). Pliny justifies daily activities and habits, “…by theoretical motions like sympathy and antipathy,” (Copenhaver 2015, 133-135). For example, he believes that people can have occult qualities that, “By the antipathy innate in all these peoples…can heal someone just by meeting him,” (2015, 133-135).

  The principle of sympathy was also often seen as the main force governing the cosmos. Ptolemy discusses the moon, and how the rivers, seas, plants and animals sympathize with it (Copenhaver 2015, 141). Sympathy is discussed as a driving force that is the reason behind how the moon and other parts of the cosmos are able to affect/control living and nonliving things on Earth. Plotinus discusses how the system of the cosmos is “energized” and “harmonized” by the force of cosmic sympathy, which he says operates on its own (2015, 161)

  Kircher discusses magnetism, which he treated as a universal force—one that he says others describe as, “a quality of sympathy and antipathy,” (Copenhaver 2015, 557). He goes on to say that all things act, “…through a kind of attraction and repulsion. This attraction is a kind of love whereby, through natural desire, things seek what is good, friendly and similar to the,. And repulsion is the anger in a  kind of hatred whereby they strive to get rid of the bad…” (2015, 557). Although Kircher’s analogy is related to a magnet, as he explains, these qualities are those of sympathy and antipathy.


Key words: action at a distance, magnetism, vitalism, macrocosm, microcosm


Bibliography:

Copenhaver, Brian. 2015. The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment. Penguin Classics.

Campanella, Tomasso. 2015. "Science is Magic: Campanella, On Sense and Magic, 4.5-6." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 534.

Kircher, Athanasius. 2015. “Magnetisms: Athanasius Kircher, Nature’s Magnetic Kingdom, I." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 556-57.
Plato. 2015. “A Science of Erotics: Plato, Symposium, 185E-88D." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 107.

Pliny. 2015. “Who Invented Such Things?: Pliny, Natural History, 28.4-32." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 133-35.

Plotinus. 2015. “The Reining Sympathy: Plotinus, Enneads, 4.4.40-44." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 174.

Proclus. 2015. “Attracting by Likeness: Proclus, On the Priestly Art." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 208-210.

Ptolemy. 2015. “Configurations of Sun, Moon, and Stars: Ptolemy, Treatise in Four Books, 1.1-2." In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver. Penguin Classics, 140-41.

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