The Incarnate Secret: The Human Body Between Medicine and Secret Sciences
Le secret incarné : le corps humain entre médecine et sciences secrètes
Revue Arcana Naturae, n°8 (2027)
Published on Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Abstract
From the Renaissance up to the thresholds of the 20th century, the human body was never a simple biological object, but a genuine “incarnate secret” and a conceptual nexus at the crossroads of scientific knowledge and occult lore. The body has often been perceived as the greatest of Nature’s secrets. For centuries, the inquiry into the body represented a battlefield and a point of collaboration between disciplines. Particular attention will be paid to the body-as-sign (between manifestation and dissimulation), the body-as-medium (a laboratory for occult forces), and the body-as-science (corporeal epistemology and knowledge
Announcement
Argument
From the Renaissance to the 19th century, the human body was the site where theories collided with experience. Conceived as an “incarnate secret,” the body, often considered the greatest of Nature’s secrets, was the material manifestation of occult, celestial, and natural forces.
This thematic issue of Arcana Naturae aims to study the body as an epistemological territory shared and disputed between medicine and traditions relating to physiognomy, magic, alchemy, and occult knowledge over the longue durée. From Renaissance Humanism steeped in the ancient theories of Galen and Hippocrates up to the end of the 19th century, we will explore how the body served as a catalyst and a laboratory, determining the convergences and divergences of disciplines such as physiognomy (the reading of corporeal signs), medicine (care and diagnostics), and natural magic (the manipulation of occult virtues). Specific attention will be paid to the Microcosm Man model, which served as a framework for decoding the correspondences between the body and the universe. Analyzed over the long term, attention will also be paid to the evolution of these practices and their metamorphoses into criminology, psychiatry, and psychosomatics during the 19th century.
We invite contributions that analyze how the inquiry into the body structured knowledge practices, the ethics of disclosure, and experimental models during this vast historical period.
Contributions should focus on the ways in which the body generated a unique “science of secrets” between 1400 and the thresholds of the 20th century, by engaging with the following conceptual axes and nodes :
1. The Body-as-Sign : Between Manifestation and Dissimulation
The Body as Text : The evolution of physiognomy, cranioscopy, and chiromancy as systems for deciphering signs and their persistence as diagnostic and prognostic practices.
Corporeal Typologies of the 19th Century : The permanence of physiognomic methodologies in criminology (e.g., Lombroso), physical anthropology, and psychiatry (e.g., the search for degenerative stigmata) as a new approach to the “secret” of the deviant body.
Aesthetics and Power : The use of corporeal typologies for social taxonomy, moral judgment, and judicial practices throughout the centuries.
2. The Body-as-Medium : A Laboratory for Occult Forces (Medicine, Magic, and Psyche)
Experimentation and Energy Transfer : The body as a field of action for natural magic practices (and their later transformation into magnetism and occult forces), aiming to manipulate or transfer forces (e.g., alchemy, imagination, spiritus, fluid, animal magnetism, Mesmerism, mediumship).
The Force of the Mind : The shift from the investigation of corporeal fluids to the analysis of inner forces (hypnosis, hysteria, spiritualism) and the establishment of psychiatry as a discipline dealing with the “hidden” (but effective) secret of the body.
Tension Between Medical Theory, Empiricism, and Occultism : The balance between taught medical theories (Galen, Hippocrates, etc.), the empiricism of anatomical and clinical medicine, and the search for occult qualities (from vitalism to early psychosomatic theories). These epistemological tensions may also be explored in their social variations : charlatans, “empirics,” surgeons, physicians, etc.
3. The Body-as-Science : Corporeal Epistemology and Knowledge Communities
Disclosure and Popularization : The role of the mage, the physician, and the scientist in mediating access to the body’s secrets between academic communities, popular publications (e.g., Secreti literature and almanacs), and esoteric circles (e.g., Theosophy).
The Role of Peripheral Knowledge : The interaction between academic theories and practical, magical, and popular knowledge related to the body (for example, healers, bone-setters, “secret healers”).
The Sacred Body and its Proportions : The study of corporeal proportions illustrates how the body becomes an instrument of shared knowledge. Between scientific measurements, aesthetic canons, and symbolic interpretations, the body’s dimensions served to codify harmony, assess health, or infer moral traits, circulating among scholarly communities, practitioners, and esoteric circles.
Secrets of the Hands : The hands are one of the privileged sites for the expression of the secret. In many traditions, they become an instrument of occult transmission—Lullian hand, gestural coding, or initiatory signs—allowing for the communication of hidden knowledge or the manipulation of invisible forces.
Submission Guidelines
Abstract : Interested researchers are invited to submit an abstract (max 600 words), accompanied by a brief biographical note (max 300 words).
- Deadline for Abstract Submission : May 30, 2026.
- Notification of Acceptance : June 30, 2026.
- Full Article Submission for Double-Blind Review : February 28, 2027.
Article Length : Between 30,000 and 50,000 characters (including spaces, notes, and bibliography). Please follow the editorial guidelines of Arcana Naturae.
Contact : Please send your proposal to : arcana.revue@gmail.com.
Editor
- Donato Verardi
Assistant editor
- Thibaut Rioult
Editorial board
Ovanes Akopyan (Innsbruck) – Léo Bernard (Paris) – Manuel De Carli (Tours) – Tom Fischer (Paris) – Laetitia Marcucci (Nice) – Christophe Poncet (Paris) – Thibaut Rioult (Paris) – Luana Rizzo (Lecce) – Jérôme Rousse-Lacordaire (Paris)
Scientific committee
- Jean-Pierre Brach (EPHE, Paris, France)
- Jean Céard (Université Paris X-Nanterre, France)
- Rebekah Compton (College of Charleston, Charleston, USA)
- Brian P. Copenhaver (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
- William Eamon (New-Mexico State University, USA)
- Jeremiah Hackett (University of South Carolina, USA)
- Didier Kahn (CNRS, Paris, France)
- Alfredo Perifano (Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon, France)
- Roshdi Rashed (CNRS, Paris, France)
- Antonella Sannino (Università di Napoli – L’Orientale, Italia)
- Marco Sgarbi (Università di Venezia, Italia)
- Valeria Sorge † (Università di Napoli – Federico II, Italia)
- Julien Véronèse (Université d’Orléans, France)
- Nicolas Weill-Parot (EPHE, Paris, France)
Avec le soutien de l’Association Francophone pour l’Étude Universitaire des Courants Ésotériques
Subjects
- Science studies (Main category)
- Mind and language > Representation > Cultural history
- Periods > Modern > Nineteenth century
- Society > Ethnology, anthropology > Cultural anthropology
- Mind and language > Thought > Intellectual history
- Periods > Early modern
- Society > Ethnology, anthropology > Religious anthropology
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Epistemology
Date(s)
- Saturday, May 30, 2026
Attached files
Keywords
- médecine, corps, magie, astrologie, physiognomonie, mains, microcosme, ésotérisme, occultisme, sciences naturelles, histoire des idées
Contact(s)
- Thibaut Rioult
courriel : rioult [dot] thibaut [at] gmail [dot] com
Reference Urls
Information source
- Thibaut Rioult
courriel : rioult [dot] thibaut [at] gmail [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« The Incarnate Secret: The Human Body Between Medicine and Secret Sciences », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/157cb
