Interest in The Occult
Oughtred had an interest in alchemy and astrology. The testimony for his occult activities is quite slender, but there has been an accretion to his reputation based on his contemporaries.
According to John Aubrey, he was not entirely sceptical about astrology. William Lilly, an eminent astrologer, claimed in his autobiography to have intervened on behalf of Oughtred to prevent his ejection by Parliament in 1646. In fact Oughtred was protected at this time by Bulstrode Whitelocke. Aubrey states that (despite their political differences) he was also defended by Sir Richard Onslow.
Elias Ashmole was (according to Aubrey) a neighbour in Surrey, though Ashmole's estates acquired by marriage were over the county line in Berkshire; and Oughtred's name has been mentioned in purported histories of early freemasonry, a suggestion that Oughtred was present at Ashmole's 1646 initiation going back to Thomas De Quincey. It was used by George Wharton in publishing The Cabal of the Twelve Houses astrological by Morinus (Jean-Baptiste Morin) in 1659.
He expressed millenarian views to John Evelyn, as recorded in Evelyn's Diary, entry for 28 August 1655.
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