Welcoming Conference and Guided Reading Workshop
Occult Sciences and the Forms of Authority across Arabic, Persian, and Latin Traditions
A MOSAIC event on occult sciences, authority, and textual traditions, combining an afternoon welcoming conference with a guided reading workshop over the following two days. Through Arabic, Persian, and Latin passages, participants will explore how occult knowledge was authorised, transmitted, translated, and debated from the medieval to the early modern period.
Overview
This MOSAIC event combines an afternoon Welcoming Conference with a two-day Guided Reading Workshop devoted to the forms of authority that structure occult sciences across Arabic, Persian, and Latin traditions.
The event will open with a presentation of the MOSAIC project and a small number of related papers by members of the MOSAIC team. The following two days will be devoted to guided readings of short textual passages, provisional translation, and collective discussion.
The aim is not to reproduce the format of a conventional conference, but to create a space where participants can think together through texts.
Event Structure
24 November 2026, 16:00–19:00
MOSAIC Welcoming Conference Project presentation and related papers by members of the MOSAIC team.
25 November 2026, 10:00–13:00 and 15:00–18:00
Guided Reading Workshop
Short textual passages, reading in the original language, provisional translation, and collective discussion.
26 November 2026, 10:00–13:00
Guided Reading Workshop and Final Discussion Continuation of the reading workshop and final discussion around the main questions emerging from the sessions.
Aim of the Reading Workshop
The reading workshop explores how occult sciences — including alchemy, astrology, cosmology, and related disciplines — were authorised, transmitted, and interpreted across Arabic, Persian, and Latin traditions.
The chronological focus will be the medieval and early modern periods, approximately from the ninth to the sixteenth century, with attention to later manuscript transmission when it preserves, reworks, or reframes earlier materials.
While secondary causation, per causas secundas, represents one important way of legitimising occult knowledge within natural philosophy, it does not exhaust the forms of authority on which these disciplines relied.
The workshop will therefore examine a plurality of authorities: natural, textual, cosmological, prophetic, technical, political, anthropological, and institutional.
Particular attention will be given to the ways in which occult sciences contributed to models of transformation, human perfection, cosmic order, and political legitimacy, from figures such as the Ṣāḥib al-Qirān and al-Insān al-Kāmil to Latin traditions in which authority is more widely distributed across theology, natural philosophy, astrology, and alchemy.
Reading Format
The workshop is conceived as a guided reading laboratory. It is addressed to readers willing to work directly on short, conceptually dense passages in Arabic, Persian, or Latin.
Invited readers may either propose a passage themselves or select one in dialogue with the MOSAIC team. The chosen texts should open a question related to authority, causation, transmission, transformation, cosmology, or legitimacy in the occult sciences.
The aim is not to present finished papers, but to think together through texts.
Possible Textual Areas
The workshop may include Arabic, Persian, and Latin materials on:
- celestial influence and secondary causation;
- alchemy, transformation, and perfection;
- cosmology and hidden properties of nature;
- ancient sages, textual attribution, and prophetic transmission;
- intermediary beings and cosmic hierarchy;
- astrological historiography and political legitimacy;
- models of human perfection and cosmic authority.
Material Output: The Volvelle of Authority
As a distinctive feature, each participant will receive a Volvelle of Authority, a printed circular reading instrument inspired by medieval manuscript volvelles and cosmological diagrams.
The volvelle will accompany the participant throughout the workshop and will be completed progressively during the readings and discussions.
At the end of the workshop, each participant will take away their completed volvelle as a material trace of the reading process.
Participants
The event is intended for members of MOSAIC, UCLouvain colleagues, invited specialists, PhD students, and early-career researchers working on Arabic, Persian, and Latin intellectual traditions, especially in relation to astrology, alchemy, cosmology, natural philosophy, theology, manuscript studies, and the history of occult sciences.
Organizers
Godefroid de Callataÿ