To make things even more complicated, in 1696, Newton became warden of the Mint, and he became master of the Mint in 1700. Newton spent half his life obsessed with alchemy, the transformative magic most frequently associated with turning different metals into gold. John Maynard Keynes called Isaac Newton (1642–1726) 'the last of the magicians' with good reason. Isaac Newton: beneath the wig, a brain buzzing about alchemy. 2) Isaac Newton thought alchemy was the future His contemporary Johannes Kepler conducted his own astrological studies, though more reluctantly (he called people who believed in astrology 'fatheads'). Galileo wasn't alone in keeping up on his signs. If students at the University of Padua had taken MCAT, Galileo would have included a question about whether a Leo should date a Gemini. Galileo didn't just believe in astrology: he practiced it, conducted it for wealthy clients, and taught it to medical students. He also was something like a fortune teller.

He advocated heliocentrism - the idea that the sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the solar system - fought an anti-heliocentric church at great risk, and greatly advanced astronomy throughout Europe. Today, Galileo (1564–1642) is held up as a paragon of rationality. Let's take a look: 1) Galileo believed astrology changed everything But that doesn't make their beliefs seem any less weird. We have the benefit of hindsight today, which gives us an unfair advantage over these geniuses. Yet some of their bizarre ideas seemed completely valid to them at the time, and often for very good reasons. Throughout history, scientific geniuses from Galileo to Newton have often believed in completely fantastical things - from astrology to alchemy to straight-up magic. Then again, he also made astrological charts for rich people. Galileo Galilei is quoted as saying that 'where the senses fail us, reason must step in.'

Master of the 5 magics