Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Introduction. 1: Early Life and Education. 1. Grantham, Eton and Cambridge. 2. Conversion to Platonism. 3. Early Influences: Gell and Castellio. 2: Psychozoia and the Life of the Soul. 1. The `Divine Life' and its Goal. 2. The Allegory of the Spiritual Journey. 3: Metaphysics, Psychology and Natural Philosophy in the Psychodia Platonica. 1. The `Ogdoas' or Chain of Being. 2. The Psychology of Illumination. 3. Arguing from Nature. 4: Enthusiasm and the Light Within. 1. `A Full but False Persuasion'. 2. `Philosophical Enthusiasm'. 3. `Political Enthusiasm'. 5: Plato Democritans: the Ancient Cabbala Revived. 1. Some Early Disciples and Friends. 2. Platonism and Cartesianism. 3. Innate Ideas and Incorporeal Things. 6: The Cupri-Cosmits and the Latitude-Men. 1. `The Cupri-Cosmits'. 2. The Restoration in Cambridge. 3. Some `Rules to Judge Opinions by'. 7: The Apology of Dr Henry More. 1. The Grounds for Authority. 2. The Intelligibility of Doctrine. 3. The Coherence of Prophecy. 8: The Preexistence of the Soul. 1. `A Most Likely Hypothesis'. 2. The Reaction against Preexistence. 3. Preexistence and Providence. 9: A Natural History of the World of Spirits 1. A `True History of Spirits'. 2. The Webster-More Debate. 10: The Limits of Mechanism and the Experimental Philosophy of the Royal Society. 1. The Two Keys of Providence. 2. The Threat of 'Nullibism'. 3. Henry Stubbe and the Royal Society. 4. Robert Boyle and the Spirit of Nature. 11: Hylozoism and the Nature of Material Substance. 1. Glisson's `Energetic Substance'. 2. The `Psychopyrism' of Richard Baxter. 3. Errant Disciple: John Finch and his Treatise. 12: The Kabbalah and the Quakers: F.M. van Helmont, Anne Conway, van Helmont, and Knorr von Rosenroth. 1. The Jewish and `Greek' Cabbalas. 2. More, Anne Conway and the Quakers. Conclusion. Bibliography: 1. Primary Sources. 2. Secondary Sources. Appendix: The Correspondence of Henry More. Index.

Henry More (1614-1687), the Cambridge Platonist, is often presented as an elusive and contradictory figure. An early apologist for the new natural philosophy and its rational support for Christian doctrine, More also defended the existence of witchcraft and wrote extensively on the nature of the soul and the world of spirits. A vigorous and prolific controversialist against many varieties of contemporary `atheism' and `enthusiasm', More was himself a spiritual perfectionist and illuminist, believing that the goal of the religious life was a conscious union with God.
Until now, most biographies of More have ignored these, his own, preoccupations, and have made of him a rather eccentric but important illustrative figure in one of several larger narratives dominated by canonical figures like Descartes, Boyle, Spinoza or Newton. This is the first modern biography to place his own religious and philosophical preoccupations centre-stage, and to provide a coherent interpretation of his work from a consideration of his own writings, their contexts and aims. It is also the first study of More to exploit the full range of his prolific writings and a number of unknown manuscripts relating to his life. In addition, it contains an annotated handlist of his extant correspondence.