The Left Heresy and Directional Preference in Early Science and Technology

Abstract

THIS paper is the product of the author's interest in the mechanical devices and mineralogy of the 16th and 17th centuries. Examining the many classes of machine in this period, either in common use or published as fanciful possibilities, one can be led to suspect that mere constructional considerations were not wholly responsible for the form that many of these machines and devices took. Many machines appeared to exhibit, where it was applicable, a definite rotational preference and this idea is reinforced by the odd example where one may note that an unnecessary complexity in gear coupling has been included to achieve what may be interpreted as an attempt to retain a preferred direction of rotation. If such was the case, was it the result of some prejudice-a superstition? Certainly superstition, and a dependence upon the occult, played a significant part in the finding of ores, minerals and metals in these early times; did such ideas find their way into, and thus control to some extent, the form and construction of the machines that processed these materials? What part, if any, did similar ideas take in other aspects of machine design? Moreover, how did such ideas originate and how did they manifest themselves? It appears that one convenient answer is to be found in the peculiar practices and irrational fears and opinions concerning the left hand and circular movement in a leftward (anti-clockwise) direction, namely that these are in varying contexts illomened, malevolent, destructive, unlucky, unclean-in a word, 'sinister.' This cluster of beliefs, which is extremely widespread, has frequently been studied in so far as it manifests itself in the fields of popular religion and magic, folk customs, and older rural activities (e.g. ploughing, fishing).' However, its possible influence on more developed technology has been ignored, since it is generally thought that it was only in the mystical proto-sciences of astrology and alchemy that magic and superstition played a significant part. This brief study explores the degree to which a composite superstition, sinistralism and rotational symbolism, made incursions into the early sciences and technology, and left traces upon them even to modern times. It is generally agreed that such beliefs originated in primitive sun-worship, in some culture where rituals and ceremonies were carried out facing north, and where the sun was therefore thought of as rising in the Right quarter and setting in the Left. That which did not align itself with the movement of the sun, or indeed fled the (good) sun, was the antithesis of the sign of good, and was therefore bad. Such was the case in ancient Greece, and though the Roman augurs made their observations facing south, they nevertheless still held that omens on the left (e.g. sinistra cornix, 'a left-hand crow') were unlucky ones. Christianity reinforced the association; in Christian ritual anti-clockwise movement occurs only in penitential or funereal contexts,2 and in Christian belief and art there is a strong association, based upon Scriptural passages, between the left and the Devil and his retinue of demons and damned souls. Thus sinistralism, from simply implying the adverse, became perverse and evil? In such