Sir Isaac Newton's mystical obsessions revealed

Sir Isaac Newton, who laid the foundations of classical physics and is considered to be one of the greatest scientists ever, also had a keen interest in the occult and applied a scientific approach to the study of scripture and Jewish mysticism, according to newly uploaded texts.

Israel’s national library, which contains a vast treasure of Newton’s esoteric writings, has digitised his occult collection and posted it online.

Among the yellowed texts is Newton’s famed prediction of the apocalypse in 2060.

The curator of Israel’s national library’s humanities collection asserted that Newton was also a devout Christian who believed that scripture provided a ‘code’ to the natural world.

“Today, we tend to make a distinction between science and faith, but to Newton it was all part of the same world,” the Daily Mail quoted Milka Levy-Rubin as saying.

“He believed that careful study of holy texts was a type of science, that if analysed correctly could predict what was to come.”

To enhance his understanding, Newton learned Hebrew and explored the esoteric Jewish philosophy, the mysticism of Kabbala and the Talmud.

For example, he based his calculation on the end of days on information gleaned from the Book of Daniel, which projected the apocalypse 1,260 years later.

Newton discovered that this count started from the crowning of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in the year 800.

He also believed that the geometry of Solomon’s temple encoded ancient wisdom about proportions in nature and man’s place in Creation.

The papers cover topics like interpretations of the Bible, theology, the history of ancient cultures, the Tabernacle and the geometry of Solomon’s Temple.

The collection also constitutes maps that Newton sketched to help him in his calculations and his attempts to divulge the secret knowledge he believed was encrypted within.

He tried to project what the end of days would look like, and the role Jews would play when it happened.

“He took a great interest in the Jews, and we found no negative expressions toward Jews in his writing,” said Levy-Rubin.

“He said the Jews would ultimately return to their land.”

But the university rejected his nonscientific papers, which is why the family auctioned them off at Sotheby’s in London in 1936.

The library exhibited the papers for the first time in 2007, and now they are accessible to everyone - free of charge - on the Internet.

The collection comprises hundreds of pages of Newton’s flowing handwriting on fraying parchment in 18th-century English.