Occult knowledge and knowledge organization from Alchemy to AI
This lecture examines forms of hidden, secret, and specialised knowledge from alchemy to artificial intelligence, exploring how such knowledge is organised, encoded, and transmitted across different historical periods.
Instructor: Sarah Lang
Course Overview
The course explores the concept of “occult knowledge” as a broad category encompassing practices through which hidden or specialised knowledge is organised, encoded, and transmitted. Moving from early modern alchemy, artisanal knowledge, astrology, and cryptographic texts to contemporary debates on artificial intelligence, the lecture examines how different forms of knowledge are made accessible, concealed, or rendered opaque.
Drawing on examples from Digital Humanities research, the course investigates historical and contemporary forms of knowledge organisation and considers how questions of secrecy, transparency, and interpretability continue to shape knowledge production from alchemy to AI.
This lecture was taught at Bergische Universität Wuppertal as part of a guest professorship in Summer Semester 2026 and was originally titled Okkultes Wissen und Wissensorganisation von Alchemie bis AI.