ABSTRACT
The chapter illustrates the conviction formulated centuries back by Nicholas of Cusa that every inquiry is comparative and uses the means of comparative relation. This applies efficiently in an intercultural and interdisciplinary research on a period whose dramatic multiplication of categories and competing paradigms turned comparison into the dominant form of inquiry, and the imitation of God, nature or models from other countries or eras into the foundation of creativity, with the resulting cultivation of analogical thinking. Perennial philosophy, theatre and magic were involved in the linguistic reassessment of intellectual patterns and the word creativity of the time. The chapter provides necessary conceptual clarifications, considering the early modern diversity of theatrical phenomena, the various understandings of magic, and the multiple names given to perennial philosophy in the scholarly tradition. It shows that the process was strongly influenced on each side by the religious mutations, in particular by the Reformation and the Catholic reaction to it.
