The aim of the GHOST project was to explore how different Ottoman social and cultural groups related to the ‘supernatural/preternatural’ element, in order to ultimately investigate the way social and cultural change shaped Ottoman worldviews over time. Using a wide array of sources, from scientific treatises to literary works and from chronicles to compendia of magic, as well as archival material, the GHOST team examined the reasoning of divination and magic in the Ottoman tradition, the use of tropes related to magic and the marvelous in early Ottoman epics, images of and polemics around sainthood and miracle-working, and the marvels and wonders of the world. Furthermore, the project investigated thoroughly various aspects of Islamicate occult sciences in the Ottoman period, vernacular practices and the history of emotions, the position of occult and theological sciences in the classification of knowledge, the role of science in the process of disenchantment, as well as theological disputes pertaining to the human agency. The overall objective of the project was to demarcate the place of the supernatural in the Ottoman worldview(s), the technology connected to it, and the complex and intersecting political, social and ideological factors influencing it. In part informed by debates on ‘Islamic enlightenment’ or ‘scientific revolution’, the project coordinated a wide array of approaches towards different aspects of this worldview, testing a ‘partial disenchantment’ model that would be applicable to certain, but not all, social groups in the Ottoman Empire. Thus, it contributed to integrate Ottoman intellectual history into the broader early modern cultural history and brought forth important insights concerning the notions of (early) modernity and global enlightenment, as well as and the intertwining of cultural and social dynamics. It produced an unprecedented understanding of the various Ottoman world images connecting the natural and the supernatural world, seeking to link them with different social actors and to produce an argument for the partially parallel ways Ottoman and Western European society evolved throughout the early modernity.
