“If Imhotep is the start of our philosophy,” I said to Ammonius, “and Amenhotep son of Hapu is the end of it, then what would you say our philosophy is?”

“Oh,” said Ammonius. “The Books of Wisdom. What else would philosophy be?”

“I suppose that’s true,” I said.

“Is not the initiate in the training book, The Chamber of Darkness, ‘The One Who Loves Wisdom?’ This is what we teach.”

“Who are our chief philosophers then?”

“You sound like a Greek,” said Ammonius. “The only philosopher who matters is Thoth. What can personal wisdom be, next to the divine?”

“But if you had to make a list, who would you say?”

“Well,” said Ammonius, “of everyone who has written an Instruction, the first was Imhotep. Then came Hardjedef, who was a son of King Khufu, the King of the Great Pyramid. Then there was Ptahhotep, who like Imhotep was a vizier. His son was Akhethotep, to whom his instruction is addressed. Then there was Kaires, your namesake, who was the father Kagemni, who wrote the Instruction of Kagemni.”

“Imhotep, Hardjedef, Ptahhotep,” I said. “Akhethotep, Kaires, Kagemni.”

“Then we have the reign of King Amenemhat I,” said Ammonius. “This was after the rebellion of the reshyt, which Imhotep warned of in his Instruction, but which became inevitable after the reign of Pepi II. During this rebellion, there was Khety, who wrote an instruction. These were the philosophers who, because they had witnessed most the breaches of justice in their times, championed the ancient alliance of Justice and Truth: Neferty, Ptahmedjehuty, Khakheperraseneb.

“These are the greatest of our philosophers.”

“But Father,” I said. “What is this book which Imhotep wrote?”

“It is a book for how to live well,” said Ammonius. “And a reminder to the King’s Court, which almost did not receive him.”

“The famine…” I said.

“Yes, there was a famine in the time of Imhotep,” said Ammonius. “Caused by the negligence and disorder of the nobility.”

“This is what he was warning us about,” I said.

“Yes,” said Ammonius. “This is why I say Imhotep began our philosophy; Amenhotep ended it.”

“Because of your Order,” I said. “Tell me, what do our philosophers say regarding the soul, and the parts of the soul?”

“There are five parts of the soul,” said Ammonius. “The Ba. The Ka. The Name. The Shadow. The Akh.”

“Is there not also the Heart, and the Physical Body?”

“Yes,” said Ammonius. “But the Ba contains the body, and the body contains the heart.”

“What is the relationship between the Ba and the Ka?”

“The Ka transmigrates,” said Ammonius. “The Ba abides.”

“Can you explain this more to me, Father?”

“The Ba is the personality. It contains the set of all that one ever is, was, and shall be, as it occurs in Eternity. Thus the Ba is what attends in the Land of the Dead; it is the Ba which returns to inhabit the image of a person, or the embalmed body. This is the way in which the Ba is connected with the Name, or the representation.”

“So is the Name the Ba, Father?”

“No. The Name represents the Ba, and by saying the name, or making an offering, one invokes a Ba.”

“I still do not understand what you mean Father, when you say the Ba is an image of Eternity.”

“The World of the Dead is timeless,” said Ammonius. “We have within it the true Forms of all that we see here before us now. In that realm all our actions are complete. There you exist as a Ba, in the fullness of your actions, either good, or bad. This is the true meaning of the Weighing of the Heart. The Weighing of the Heart is happening all the time.”

“But how does the Ka relate, Father?”

“The Ka is the breath of life. It is the vital force. It is the cause of life. When life is done, the Ka departs and goes somewhere else. It does not abide as the Ba does. Yet when you make an offering before the shrine of one who is dead, it is to the Ka that you make the offering, although it is the Ba which arrives, and inhabits the statue or the Name.”

“Why is this, Father?”

“You are approaching the heart of the mystery of reincarnation, my son.”

“Then what is the Shadow?”

“The Shadow is the opposite of every Name, and every Ba, and is a necessary part of its existence. Even now, you have a shadow from your very body, which is the incarnation of your Ba. But you do not know it, so you do not know your Name. This is the meaning of the saying ‘Keep your shadow close.’ ”

“Oh Father,” I said. “I understand the relationship between the Ka and the Ba, and the relationship between the Shadow and the Name, but tell me, how do the Ka and the Ba combine to form the Akh?”

“This is the purpose, my son, of all our philosophy. All of the men whom I have listed made this their goal. Some, such as Imhotep and Amenhotep, have achieved it. For if one can achieve sainthood within one’s lifetime, then the Ba and the Ka will unite after death and form the Akh. Then immortality will be achieved.”

“But what of those,” I said, “to whom we leave offerings, and yet they were not saints or sages in their lives?”

“For those who do not attain union with God, we keep to the old rites such that their Bas might still have a chance of achieving salvation through their descendants. This is why the saddest thing is a lineage that has died out, for it traps the Ba-souls forever in the Land of the Dead, with no one to speak for them.”

“What a terrible fate,” I cried, “for those who are left in the Land of the Dead, with no one to remember them.”

“Yes my son,” said Ammonius. “But remember, that the soul also transmigrates, and that when the Ka completes its journey within the cycles of time, then also those Ba-souls will be released. So there is no tragedy that lasts forever.”

“This must be true, oh Father,” I said, “For the Kas and the Bas of the common people, but what of the soul of the King?”

“You are now speaking of the religion of Osiris,” said Ammonius. “This was the religion founded by Menes. It was different than the religion founded by Imhotep, and was the religion of the masses, whereas Imhotep’s religion is the religion of the educated. This is why it is said the Egyptians have two religions.”

“But what is taught in the religion of Osiris, for I desire to know that too.”

“You remember what I said to you last time?” said Ammonius. “Concerning the Order of my God, and the conflict for the throne?”

“Yes Father,” I said.

“That was a conflict between these two religions.

“The religion of Menes was centered in Abydos. The religion of Imhotep was centered in Memphis. The way of Osiris was a way for the masses to attain salvation in the person of the Divine Kingship. The King embodied the Holy Word which completes creation. As an incarnation of the ultimate upon Earth, he also wielded absolute power. As the Osirian way fell into decadence, and the later Kings were not able to embody this principle - as Imhotep warned us about - the collapse represented by the Heretic was inevitable.”

“So you are saying,” I said, “that the religion of Imhotep is the true religion of Egypt.”

“It is the tradition,” said Ammonius, “that has steered Egypt, that has been the rudder of the sacred barque, in the same way that Thoth, allied with the Moon, keeps the ledger of the sacred accounts for Re. And keeps the Sun turning in its course in the sky.”

“What are these spells, Father, which keep the Sun turning in the sky?”

“Oh, my son,” said Ammonius. “You must know we are in great danger. Across Egypt, the Oracles of the Gods are becoming silent. The divine waters are dying up. The Gods no longer speak to man. They are withdrawing from the world. We are in a crisis. Fools think that the Sun will keep turning across the sky without our ritual aid, but they do not realize that just as there are two religions, there are two Suns.”

“Two Suns, Father?”

“Yes, my Son. One appears to be the Sun we see there, which looks as though it revolves around us every day, rising in the East and setting in the West. The other is the Central Fire, the Flame Imperishable, about which the other Sun turns, as indeed our Earth does too, and all the planets with it. Now if we do not tend to the Sun of appearances with our prayers, and our constant adoration, it will cease to go across the sky. Then, no matter how it may appear, that there is still a fire in the sky, in our hearts it will be darkness, for the God of the Sun will have no way to speak to mankind, and we will be rudderless.”

“In that era, my Son, which is coming, there will be no word of the Gods anymore. Men will regard the Divine as something laughable, a fantasy. They will not be able to see what is right in front of their eyes: that the world is sacred, and deserves honor, praise and worship in the mystery of its being. They will cut themselves off from the Divine and, like children, they will cease to believe in God. Then will demons come, and drive them to madness, and chaos will rule their world. Yet still they will not realize what is happening to them: they will blame other demons, and cease to be aware that the cause of their distress are the Gods who, in their arrogance and naivete, they had banished from the world.

“Then will the stars not keep to their course. The seas will rise, and fire will rain upon the world. It is only in that time that perhaps salvation will come. In that time, I foretell, will be the true end of Our Philosophy, and we will know whether the work of Egypt has been for good, or ill.”

“Father,” I said, “thank you for the lesson.”

This article is the result of research conducted over the course of two years during the pandemic, and as I reached the end I felt that I wished there was some way I could share it. So it really is a great honor to be able to present this here. Before we begin I have some disclaimers, however.

First off I would like to make a disclaimer about information. Most of this article consists of information about mystics, and the books they left behind to record their visions. I don’t believe that studying will necessarily make you a better mystic because it has to come from your experience, but there may be a reason why, if you are reading/watching this [a video of the talk this article was drawn from is available here] and are drawn to a particular figure, you might want to read their writings, and that could help you on your path.

The second disclaimer is that I have not read all of these mystics. I have read most of them, but a couple of the books I am recommending are books I have not read. I have done this research to build a bibliography to serve others, not necessarily to know all this information. Also, I am not an expert on this topic, and this bibliography is almost certainly woefully incomplete. There are many more people in the 14th century, in this tradition, whom I have not investigated, and about whom I know nothing. 

Thirdly, even if I were an expert in the 14th century Rhineland mystics, this subject is incredibly deep and no one knows very much about it or knows anything for sure. We are talking about a group of Orders which existed outside of the Church, who wrote very little, and what they did write down is full of mysterious figures, such as the Friend of God of the Oberland, who is almost certainly a visionary figure but might be a real person.

What does the 14th century have to do with Rosicrucianism?

When we talk about the beginning of radical pietism, we usually begin the history with Jacob Boehme, a mystic to whom the Rosicrucians are indirectly connected. But the mystical tradition Boehme was working in actually begins much earlier. There already was a German Christian mysticism which existed before even the Lutheran Reformation, which had its own character in Christendom, and even informed the character of the Reformation — Luther himself was highly influenced by it. 

In the case of the Rosicrucians I am bringing up an enigmatic remark by Faivre, that Theosophy and Rosicrucianism were what occurred when German mysticism encountered Hermeticism through the works of Paracelsus. And if we look at the historical record we can see this is the case. Paracelsian alchemy stresses the importance of the outer light as a form of mystic interpretation, similar to following the footsteps of nature, and he includes salt as a principle with sulfur and mercury, in order to reflect the Holy Trinity.

In the Fama, Paracelsus is mentioned as being an ideal Rosicrucian, although he is stated as being “not part of the order.” This can be read as one of the Fama’s many literary riffs, indicating that the principles of the imagined Rosicrucianism are essentially Paracelsian. Historically we see this backed up in the adjacent writings of many of the writers of the manifestoes, such as Tobias Hess, who was a Paracelsian and was being attacked for it by the Galenists.

Often when studying or practicing Rosicrucianism it is the Hermetic and alchemical elements which come to the foreground in our understanding of the phenomenon. But in the background, a pre-existing German mysticism absorbed alchemical and Paracelsian influences, and Theosophy and Rosicrucianism were born from the synthesis. If we want to find evidence of this pre-existing mysticism, we can go to the Confessio, where the writers of the manifestoes clarify their position.

But that also every Christian may know of what Religion and belief we are, we confess to have the knowledge of Jesus Christ (as the same now in these last days, and chiefly in Germany, most clear and pure is professed...)

Confessio Fraternitatis

Although we cannot be by any suspected of the least heresy, or of any wicked beginning, or purpose against the worldly government, we do condemn the East and the West (meaning the Pope and Mahomet) blasphemers against our Lord Jesus Christ, and offer and present with a good will to the chief head of the Roman Empire our prayers, secrets, and great treasures of gold.

Confessio Fraternitatis

The first quote here emphasizes that the order is a Christian order, first and foremost. But what I would like to draw everyone’s attention to is that they state that Christianity is only most purely professed in Germany. This is an example of German chauvinism which occurs again and again in the communications we have remaining from Andreae and his circle. They sincerely believed that Germany was a spiritually chosen nation. We must understand this in the context of the Lutheran Reformation, and my interpretation of what they mean is that Lutheran orthodoxy is the exoteric and even esoteric Christian theology and mysticism of the sect. 

We see this echoed in the second quote, where they make it clear to all the many who accused them of heterodox theology that they “condemn the East and the West, meaning the Pope and Mohamet” responding to some of the ambiguities in the Fama where their readers were not sure, in the many pamphlets published in response, whether they were in fact Muslims or whether they were Catholic, because they talked about the Church of Rome. They are here clearly stating that they are Christian mystics existing in the Lutheran tradition, and that Germany is a special nation. I want everyone to remember this chauvinism that the writers of the manifestoes have, because later we will see that it even manifests against members of other Protestant sects. There is a profoundly Germanic theological bias that this circle has. 

But what not many people know is that even Luther was drawing on a mystical tradition that existed in Germany from before the Reformation, and that the seeds of the Reformation were actually planted in the 14th century. One of these mystics that both Luther and the authors of the manifestoes were aware of was Johannes Tauler.

German Mysticism & Radical Pietism

Johannes Tauler was a disciple of Meister Eckhart, and he wrote a book of highly influential sermons. The connection between Tauler and Rosicrucianism is not unknown, I have found it remarked upon in several sources. However it is almost always in passing. Interestingly enough about two days ago I discovered a paper which writes about this subject, but I have not been able to get access to it yet. Mostly, people in sources will mention that Rosicrucianism can ultimately be traced back to Johannes Tauler and the circle called 'The Friends of God', but not go into it. I’ve highlighted here some sources which mention it.

Waite, in The Real History of the Rosicrucians, is highly disappointed to discover that, rather than being ascended masters on the Tibetan Plateau, that the actual Rosicrucians were Lutheran heretics of a very mundane variety. He mentions Tauler, and then proceeds to his other investigations. Notably, in 1896 in the first ever issue of Quator Coronati in an article about Hermeticism there is a mention that Rosicrucianism is related to Tauler and that more research should be done on this subject. There may be many more references to this connection I am not aware of, perhaps people have published monographs I have not discovered yet. However, in general I have found the connection to be mentioned, because Tauler in many ways initiated the mystical tradition that Boehme and the Rosicrucians would draw from, but not investigated very deeply.

As I mentioned Johannes Tauler was the chief disciple of Meister Eckhart. He is notable for taking Eckhart’s work, which was highly mystical, heretical and earth-shattering and turning it into a practice, a tradition which people of a less mystical inclination could participate in, although there were still mystical elements. He is the loyal disciple who translates the master’s teaching into something the public can understand. He does this through his Sermons, which were recorded in a book which I believe had an influence of Jacob Boehme. He was also part of the Friends of God, a mysterious spiritual group connected with the 'Heresy of the Free Spirit' which met outside the bounds of the Church. We can see in this the beginnings of radical Pietism because this is the exact spirit of pietistic faith - seekers who follow the inner light, seeking God, beyond the realm of orthodoxy, in an inner mystic Christianity, who form communities of seekers outside the Church. Tauler’s Friends of God was the beginning, or more accurately a reinvention of this tradition, because it goes back even before him.

As I mentioned, Tauler was a disciple of Meister Eckhart. In addition to him Henry Suso was also a notable disciple, and there were many others. The context for seeking God outside the church, characteristic of the Friends of God and the Brethren of the Free Spirit, was driven by a time in which the great schism was occurring, and the anti-Pope was in Avignon. This caused an immense rupture in Christendom, and as both Popes attempted to discredit the other, they published propaganda about corruption in their rival churches, polemics whose language would be reused in the Reformation era. Ironically, the schism in the church alerted the public to corruption within its body, and made them more aware of its failings. It became possible to doubt and question the church because the church doubted itself. So in an exoteric political as well as an esoteric Christian mystic sense, the seeds of the Reformation were laid during this time. This included the Theologia Germanica, a book that was written anonymously, we are told, by a member of Teutonic Knights. This book was also connected to the Friends of God, and Eckhart and influenced Luther.

Radical pietism is also a child of this era, because this time of immense chaos and doubt lead many to seek private spiritual insight and started to found 'lay religious Orders' or Orders outside the bounds of the Church - groups which we, who are Rosicrucians, should be most interested in, because what is the Rosicrucian order, ultimately, if not a holy order meant to be founded outside the boundaries of the Church? And indeed, these pietist orders may actually be part of what the writers of manifestos are alluding to.

Meister Eckhart and the Beguines

The most famous, influential, and important of these orders were the Beguines and the Beghards. When we speak of these groups, really we are talking about the Beguines. The Beguines were an order of women. However, there were also Beghards, who were “male Beguines.” But it is the women who had the most influence here, and they initiated the movement. The Beguines were women who organized themselves into autonomous spiritual intentional communities - today we would call them 'communes'. They formed nunneries outside the bounds of the Church, and the Church was very worried about them. So they sent a trained theologian, Meister Eckhart, to monitor them and make sure they did not say or do anything heretical. He was supposed to go regulate the women.

Unfortunately for the Church, things did not go according to plan. Instead of monitoring them Eckhart 'went native' and was influenced by the writings of the three most famous Beguine mystics. Then he himself began professing heretical views, and he was himself tried for heresy. I read recently that he is the only trained theologian in the medieval era to be tried for heresy.

One of the things which makes Eckhart’s mysticism so unique is that he was a trained theologian who had read Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and had been influenced by Neoplatonism. So, when he did take this path and was influenced by the practices of the Beguines, what emerged was powerful and dangerous. He was practicing women’s spirituality within a masculine sphere and in a masculine way. Before his verdict was received, Eckhart died, so we will never know whether he would have been burned at the stake, but many other members of the Friends of God were burned after him. We also do not know if the Friends of God had yet been founded at the time of his death, or whether he merely influenced the formation of the group.

But this story is actually about the Beguines, the women who influenced Eckhart, especially because this part of the story was only recovered in the 20th century. Mechthild of Magdeburg writes a beautiful book called The Flowing Light of the Godhead which I highly recommend. I have read this book, but at the beginning Mechthild says that if you want to understand it you must read it nine times. I have only read this book once, so I cannot say that I understand it. It is a book of visions and it is very beautiful.

What I will say about its contents is that at one point she mentions a new holy Order which will emerge at the End of Times. This order will travel throughout all nations and be highly persecuted, and it will “heal the sick, gratis.” I could not help but be reminded of the Rosicrucian Order when I read this. I will not say anything more about this, but if anyone wants to experience Mechthild’s visions you can find them in this book.

The other two famous Beguines were Haedewijc of Brabant and Marguerite Porete. Especially Marguerite Porete we will mention more later, because she had a direct influence on Eckhart, and was also tried for heresy. Like the Friends of God the Beguines were pietistic orders which existed outside the church. I recommend the book God Within for anyone who wants to learn more about this.

Conversation between England, Germany and the Netherlands

The influence of this tradition was conveyed beyond Germany, and reached England via the Netherlands. There are many English mystics mentioned in God Within, my favorite being Julian of Norwich, who in some rather touching passages imagines Jesus Christ as though he were her mother. But I also want to draw everyone’s attention to Ruysbroeck, a very important mystic from the Netherlands. He attempted to harmonize the heresy of the Free Spirit with the orthodoxy of the Church, and he did this by creating a mysticism that followed the Via Positiva as far as it could go, and ending with a mystical speculation which identified the Trinity with the Godhead. Evelyn Underhill viewed Ruysbroeck as one of the greatest mystics who ever lived, and you can read her book about this. This is an incredibly subtle form of mysticism, and while it is very sophisticated, it remains identifiable as being within the tradition which began with the Beguines.

This spiritual conversation between Germany, the Netherlands and England, with lines of mutual influence extending in both directions, continues in the 17th century and resurfaces in many ways. It is evident when the Familia Caritatis, a secret society from the Netherlands, transmit their teachings to the court of Elizabeth I, and when John Dee travels to the continent and transmits his message to Rudolf II, influencing the formation of Rosicrucianism. It occurs as well in the immense influence the manifestoes had once they reached England. There is a movement from East to West and West to East. I have my own personal, ahistorical speculations about mysterious similarities between mystics and philosophers in the 14th century with those in the 17th. It is as if there is a historical reprise in which certain figures, namely Boehme, Spinoza and Bacon, respond to figures from the 14th century, Eckhart, Ruysbroeck, and William of Ockham, the great Empiricist. It is as if a theme, once heard before, returns to the symphony for a last hurrah before bowing out.

The Knights Templar

Returning to the 14th century I want to mention one of the most important parts of our story, and this is the Knights Templar. You were probably not expecting them to show up in this tale - I certainly was not - but they are connected to the Beguines in an indirect way. When King Philip needed to find a way to burn the Templars, he set his inquisitor William up to the task. William recommended burning them for heresy, but the legal means to do so did not exist yet. William was aware of Marguerite Poerete, who had written a book called The Mirror of Simple Souls - lost to history until the early 20th century - and suggested trying her for heresy seeing as the book was clearly heterodox and she refused to recant. The book was burned in front of her and then she was burned, and this was given as the legal precedent for burning the Templars. Below is a quote from Michael Sells, which describes how this event influenced the Beguines and Meister Eckhart:

Within a few years, Porete's name was being associated with what was called "the heresy of the free spirit." A series of suspect propositions was condemned in 1312 by Clement V in the Papal Bull ad nostrum, and in the bull cum de quibusdam mulieribus restrictions were imposed upon the beguines and the beghards (the male counterparts of the beguines), their houses and their habits. In 1317, Clement's successor, John XXII, promulgated the Clementine bulls and a major inquisition was begun in Strassburg by Bishop John of Durbheim. In 1327, the Dominican friar, theologian, administrator and preacher, Meister Eckhart, who had preached in Strassburg and whose ideas show strong Beguine influence...was condemned in the Papal Bull in agro dominico. For the next several decades, inquisitions were carried out throughout Europe against alleged followers of the free-spirit heresy.

Mystical Languages of Unsaying, Michael A. Sells

14th Century Hermeticism and the Manichaeans

We’re nearing the end now, and I’m going to pivot to speculating about some of the bigger picture meanings of this tradition. The first question that I want to ask is, was the 14th century Hermetic? There has always been, since the beginning of Rosicrucianism, a need for Protestant Germans to justify their having received their Hermeticism from Italian Catholics. This continues to this day, but there is some evidence that there were at least some Hermetic teachings already present in the German speaking world, and alchemy, but certainly there were not very many. As I have already noted Eckhart was a Neoplatonist. The Book of the 24 Philosophers consisting of 24 aphorisms, and coming from Sufi literature was popular among them as well, and the first two aphorisms in this book are Hermetic.

There was an immense influence of Islam upon these groups, from too many different vectors for me to be able to summarize here. But I do want to talk about Manichaeism, a Persian religion in the Zoroastrian tradition founded by the prophet Mani in the 3rd century, and partially influenced by the teachings of Christianity. Waite, in The Real History of the Rosicrucians I mentioned before, calls the Rosicrucians 'Manichaean Buddhists'.

This is a very strange statement to make, and he also says in the same passage that they have “moved to India,” which may have something to do with the Theosophical Society of the era Waite was writing with, and their deep fascination and appropriation of Indian religious practices which they grafted onto the Western spiritual traditions. Manichaean Buddhists are associated with the city of Merv in modern-day Turkmenistan, or Bactria, which is where those religions blended. It is also associated with the persecution of Buddhists in Tang dynasty China, where even though Buddhists were heavily persecuted, Manichaeans were even more persecuted. I have on the slide the only surviving Manichaean temple in the world which has survived in China by pretending to be a Buddhist monastery.

But there were also Manichaeans in Europe, famously the Cathars persecuted in the Albigensian Heresy are said to have practiced a Manichaean tradition they received from the Bogomils. Equally, as is well known, the Templars were inspired by the Ismaili Shia order known as the Assassins. What is less well known is that Ismaili Shia Sufi orders often transmit Manichaean esoteric teachings. There is a Zoroastrian matrix which exists especially in Iranian Sufism and anyone interested in this subject and what it might mean for Rosicrucianism can consult the work of Henry Corbin, as I mention on this slide. Regardless Manichaeism is elliptically connected to the history I have been talking about because it is also part of Europe’s 'Free Spirit Underground' of heretics and the persecuted, whether Templars and Beguines.

And finally, I mention the name of the infamous Jesuit Abbe Barruel, whose conspiracy theories after the French revolution hinged on Freemasonry being identical with the teachings of the Templars who practiced Manichaeism. This is most assuredly nonsense, and this conspiracy theory has done a lot of damage over the years. However I find it rather eerie that while he was off the mark there is some connection in that Manichaeism is often transmitted in Sufi orders, and what these early Christian mystics of the 14th century were often seeking was something akin to what Majorcan mystic Ramon Llull called “a Christian Sufism” in his novel Blaquerna, and Llull certainly had some contact with the Sufis. Wherever the Manichaeans went from Europe to China, they were persecuted. I don’t have any historical proof for a connection between Manichaeism and the Rhineland Mystics, but many people have made this kind of association.

Christian Mysticism and the Rosicrucian Order

Returning now to the Rosicrucian Order of the 17th century I want to conclude by making the statement that, while we tend to focus on the Hermetic and alchemical aspects of Rosicrucianism, the Hermetic element is like a plant rooted in a soil that is Christian Mysticism, possibly influenced by Sufi Manichaeism. Too often we overlook that radical Pietism did not begin with Jacob Boehme, and that it extended back to the Beguines, and perhaps even before them to figures like the famous Hildegard von Bingen. The manifestoes are to some extent aware of this tradition, and the figure of Christian Rozenkreutz is a metaphor for exactly what Antoine Faivre says Theosophy and Rosicrucianism was: Christian Mystics who discovered Paracelsian Alchemy and the Hermetic wisdom of the East. In order to understand Rosicrucianism it is important to understand the tradition of German Mysticism from which it sprang.

It is also important to understand that Christian Mysticism is what most accurately represents the motivations of the people who wrote the manifestoes. The most famous of them were Johann Valentin Andreae, Tobias Hess, his teacher, and Christoph Besold, who regrettably turned on them and joined the Jesuits. The reason why there was (as Michael Maier put it) silentium post clamores, was because the Rosicrucians were persecuted by those who said they were not Orthodox Lutherans, and hounded by enthusiasts who were more interested in the occult than in Christian Mysticism and building Utopias. I want to focus on Andreae here, and I want to bring back the German Chauvinism which I mentioned at the beginning of this talk.

Many commentators often remark how, in his 20s Andreae was experimenting with radical Hermetic ideas, but by his 30s and 40s one finds him espousing only the most Orthodox Lutheranism. However, if you look closely at even his youthful writings, one finds his basic views remain unchanged. What happened was he had trouble conveying them to the world. In later life, Andreae continued to pursue the construction of Christian Utopias and a reform of the scientific project. However, he eschewed the name of Rosicrucianism and tried to distance himself from it because of what it had come to represent. To one interpretation he was attempting to create the same thing before, during and after Rosicrucianism. 

In the letter to Comenius where Andreae very enigmatically describes Rosicrucianism as a “ludibrium” or a “joke” or a “game,” he also condemns Comenius for being a member of the Czech Brethren of the Free Spirit rather than a German Lutheran. To which Comenius rightly responds that Andreae is being a strange bigot, given that the Brethren rebelled against the Church with Jan Huss, well before Luther, so to claim that Lutheranism was a more orthodox movement than his was odd. And it was, but that is all part of the highly Germanic chauvinism which was woven into all of this, and I would argue, has resurfaced again in movements relating to German culture, most recently in the early 20th century in the form of Nazism. This Germanic chauvinism was also present in the manifestos and early Rosicrucianism.

On this point are two books which deal with this material. The Golden Builders, by Tobias Churton, is very accessible and it talks a little bit about the Lutheran history of Rosicrucianism and the circle of people surrounding Andreae. I highly recommend Tobias Churton, probably many of you will know more about this book than I do.

The Tessera of Antilia by Donald R. Dickson is highly scholarly, very obscure, and also contains material which has not been published anywhere else in the world because it came from the Hartlib papers. The title of the book "A Tessera of Antilia" refers to the password given by those to prove they were members of the many underground societies who sought to build an “Antilia”, a Utopia similar to the one described in Andreae’s Christianopolis.

Most interesting is that in the appendix the actual "Rosicrucian” by-laws are given - not truly Rosicrucian because although these are the by-laws of the circles which wrote the manifestoes, they themselves distanced themselves from Rosicrucianism after it took off because they felt it had evolved into something at odds with their radical Pietism. This book is an incredibly unique insight into some very obscure and forgotten texts, and it cements the case for an interpretation and consideration of Rosicrucianism as merely one, particularly Hermetic, offshoot of a pre-existing tradition of radical Pietism and German mysticism going back to the 14th century.

Bibliography

Theosophy, Imagination, Tradition, by Antoine Faivre

The Real History of the Rosicrucians by A. E. Waite

Quator Coronati Journal from 1896

The Flowing Light of the Godhead by Mechthild of Magdeburg

God Within: The Mystical Tradition of Northern Europe by Oliver Davies

Ruysbroeck, by Evelyn Underhill

The Mirror of Simple Souls, by Marguerite Porete

The Beguine, the Angel and the Inquisitor, by Sean L. Field

The Tessera of Antilia, by Donald R. Dickson

The Sermons of Johannes Tauler

The Golden Builders by Tobias Churton

“Wise is the man who contents himself with the spectacle of the world.” — Fernando Pessoa

We had not yet seen the remains of our Father, the prudish man, the wise man. To this end we pulled the altar aside. Then we were able to lift a solid slab of yellow metal, and there was in its beauty a distinguished body, intact, unaltered. He held in his hand a little book of parchment, with gold letters, titled “T”. Book which is, after the Bible, our highest treasure, and which should not be subjected to the censorship of the world.

Fama Fraternitatis, 1614

 I.       The Portuguese Poet Pessoa and His Esoterism

“How many am I? Who am I?
What is this interval that slips between me and me?" — Fernando Pessoa

Poet with many faces, Fernando Pessoa is a witness to the history of Portugal, a great figure of the literary avant-garde of his country, author of a multiple work, complex and unquiet. He is the greatest Portuguese poet after or with Camoes^[1]Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524 or 1525 - 10 June 1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, … Continue reading.

"Imagine that, in the years 1910-1920, Valéry, Cocteau, Cendrars, Apollinaire and Larbaud were one and the same man, hidden under several "masks": we will have an idea of the adventure experienced at the same time in Portugal by the one who single-handedly wrote the works of at least five writers of genius, as different from each other at first sight as the French poets I have quoted."

Robert Bréchon, in the foreword to La Pléiade dedicated to Fernando Pessoa (2001)

Born in Lisbon into a middle-class family on June 13, 1888 (Saint Anthony), Pessoa lost his father when he was 5 years old, then his brother a few months later. He died in Lisbon on November 30, 1935 (Saint Andrew's Day), at the age of 47 years old and most probably from liver complications.

In 1896, his mother left to South Africa where she joined her new husband, the then Portuguese Consul in Durban. English becomes the boy's "intellectual" language. He began to write poems under the name of Alexander Search, an author he created when he was 10 years old.

On his return to Lisbon in 1905 - Portugal which he would never leave anymore - he attended for a while the Faculty of Letters and published in several journals. He lives off small jobs as a clerk mainly for export-import companies as a clerk to save time for writing.

1914 is a decisive year: on January 29 around 11 o'clock in the evening "was born in his soul the so-called Doctor Ricardo Reis^[2]Fernando Pessoa writes in his letter dated Janeiro 13th 1935 to Adolfo Casais Monteiro, that Ricardo Reis was born in 1887 (although he couldn’t recall the exact date), in Oporto. He describes him … Continue reading, one of his main heteronyms.

Born in the mind of Pessoa, his heteronyms^[3]Pessoa was a prolific writer, and not only under his own name, for he created approximately seventy-five others, of which three stand out, Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. He did … Continue reading have biographies, political opinions, aesthetic ideas, feelings. One hundred and thirty-six of his literary doubles are known to date: many of them have their own inspiration, their own style and their "personal" work.

“He is a poet who defines himself as a consciousness split in the universe that he tries to embrace, by an excess of confidence. He has a thousand ways of defining himself, he embraces all points of view."

Michel Chandeigne, writer

Shortly before his death, in a letter addressed to the critic Casais Monteiro, Pessoa will explain the genesis of (his) heteronyms. It goes back to childhood, with the creation of the "Chevalier de pas, hero of my six years", responsible for filling the emotional void from which he suffers.

At his death, the trunk in which he piled up his unpublished manuscripts revealed thousands of pages of unsuspected writings, nearly thirty thousand pages of texts, touching on all genres except the novel, and which we have not yet fully understood. Pessoa's work is indeed immense, composed mainly of fragments, often unfinished. This character corresponds to the essential personality of Pessoa who has always wanted to be multiple and in search of truths.

It was not until 1934 that the only book published during his lifetime appeared: “MENSAGEM” / “Message”. An epic poem, a true masterpiece nourished by a Templar and Rosicrucian symbolism intended to be a book carrying a “universalist patriotism”.

Universalism expressed in the idea of ​​a future spiritual, evangelical and very Christian Empire, the result of a general reform uniting science and spirit, temporal and spiritual.

He explored all possible paths as a personal initiatory path that can lead to gnosis.

Speaking of his research he said "I am not evolving, I travel". This “journey” is essential to fully understand this brilliant poet, he who, apparently paradoxical, has hardly ever left Lisbon. Obviously, this is an inner journey. A journey which - if we read the Fama Fraternitatis - also corresponds to those made by (our) Master Christian Rosencreutz in the East and, let us dare the shortcut, whose secret story undoubtedly rests in the closed book which he holds against his heart in his tomb.

Pessoa, being deeply spiritual in search of oneself, of the mysteries of life, of human nature and of its relationship with God and the Divine, has always felt concerned by religious, initiatory, esoteric and occultist questions without ever being part of any such organizations…

He was very much interested in MacGregor Mathers and in 1930 was in touch with Aleister Crowley (visit to Lisbon) but he never wanted to follow the magical and dangerous path of this one and affirmed his predilection for what he called 'the alchemical path' - "the most difficult and most perfect of all because it prepares for the "transmutation of the personality without leading it there in spite of itself." I mean without forcing him to sacrifice without returning to his intuitive intelligence ”.

It was this intelligence that made Pessoa travelling more than evolve. Poet, Pessoa wanted to remain free and used a path allowing zigs-zags and backtracking. Art, poetry in particular through the intuitive use of the symbolism is the main engine, the fundamental tool, that Pessoa used to bring his spiritual being to life. Through poetry, the artist travel the imaginal world, an interval in which his creative imagination is expressed between the earthly man, God and the Divine.

"The poet is the quintessential follower," Pessoa wrote. Adding "Its mission is to recognize the truth as truth and at the same time as error and to live the opposites without accepting them, to feel everything in all ways and ultimately to be nothing, if not the intelligence of everything".

In short, we have in front of us a Pessoa, defining himself as a Gnostic Christian, Roman anti-Catholic, belonging to an “invisible church”, faithful to the secret tradition of Christianity, builder of a “Universal Temple”.

II. Was Pessoa a Rosicrucian?

Although he never joined any 19^th century Rosicrucian society, one can answer “in spirit, yes”.

Very early on in South Africa, Pessoa experienced a decisive intellectual and spiritual shock upon reading an English book on "The Rites and Mysteries of the Rose Croix." As he pointed it to a friend in a letter of 1915. In this work he learned about the doctrine of the Brotherhood of the Rose-Cross as described in the 17^th century by Johann Valentin Andrea. It is to this School of thought that he will feel intellectually the closest till the end.

Another revelation came when he had to translate a book by Annie Besant^[4]Pessoa translated into Portuguese few books by leading theosophists such as Helena Blavatsky, Charles Webster Leadbeater, Annie Besant, and Mabel Collins.Besant, Annie … Continue reading from English.

He read and was acquainted in a profound way the hermetic, magical, neoplatonic, and kabbalistic writings. Occultism, theurgy and even spiritualism were part of his experiences. Pessoa specialists would agree in recognizing him as self-initiated.

Although he did not adhere to the Golden Dawn Hermetic, he nevertheless borrowed from it the terms Neophyte and Adeptus Minor as being the first two fundamental degrees of the initiatory path.

At least twice he will quote in his writings Christian Rosencreutz: In the poem entitled "In the Tomb of Rosencreutz" and in notes where he evokes different degrees of ascending initiation dealing with the tombs of Hiram, Rosencreutz and Jesus Christ.

In the “Hidden King” poem belonging to “Message” (1934) he wonderfully evokes Christ, the Rose and the Cross. “Message” (which in itself would deserve a long and fascinating study) is said “Messagem” in Portuguese. Finally and very central in Pessoa’s life and thought, his soul is fed with the three fundamental Portuguese myths:

Sebastianism, and the Myth of the Hidden King;
The Fifth Empire;
And the Worship of the Holy Spirit.

Portuguese myths which perfectly fit with the spirit of reform of Andrea’s Rose Croix movement. A movement which, if we go back in history, undoubtedly has its deep roots in Joachimite prophecy and its millennialism.

Let us dwell for a while into this Portuguese mythology and psyche.

A key thinker was/is Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flore. Born in 1135 and died in 1202, he was an Italian Christian theologian, catholic abbot, and the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore and according to theologians "the most important apocalyptic thinker of the whole medieval period”.

In a nutshell, he revived Millenarianism with its division of the history of humanity into three ages - The Age of the Father, The Age of the Son and the Age of the Holly Spirit - leading to the Cult of the Holy Spirit supported by the Franciscans. Joachim's idea of the Age of the Holy Spirit would also later greatly influence the Cult of the Holy Spirit which would in later centuries have considerable impact in Portugal and its colonies, and would suffer severe persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition.

His theories can be considered millenarian as he believed i.a. that history, by analogy with the Trinity, was divided into three fundamental epochs:

• The Age of the Father, corresponding to the Old Testament, characterized by obedience of mankind to the Rules of God;
• The Age of the Son, between the advent of Christ and 1260, represented by the New Testament, when Man became the son of God;
  
• The Age of the Holy Spirit, a contemplative utopia - “The Kingdom of the Holy Spirit” - a new dispensation of universal love, would proceed from the Gospel of Christ, but transcend the letter of it. In this new Age the ecclesiastical organization would be replaced and the Order of the Just would rule the Church. This Order of the Just was later identified with the Franciscan order by his follower Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino^[5]Gerard of Borgo San Donnino was an Italian friar of the Order of Friars Minor. He was a Joachimite, a follower of the millenarian ideas of Abbot Joachim of Fiore. Around 1250 Gerardo published in … Continue reading.

According to Joachim, only in this Third Age will it be possible to truly understand the words of God in their deepest meanings, and not merely literally.

In this period, instead of the parousia (second Advent of Christ), a new era of peace and concord would begin; also, a new religious "order" of spiritual men will arise, thus making the present hierarchy of the Church almost unnecessary.

It is in this intersection of Joachimite prophecy and the Franciscan spiritual movement with the Templar vocation as a basis that the Cult of the Holy Spirit flourished in the Portuguese soul in a lightning way.

This Cult of the Holy Spirit prepared in the collective imagination for the coming of the consoling “Paraclete of the end of time”. He crowned the emperor of a future world unified by the Spirit.

This cult existed in Portugal in enthusiastic popular form long before Isabel and King Denis of Portugal made it official at the beginning of the 14^th century, decreeing the Royal Order of the Holy Spirit.

At the same time in Portugal a very strong idea of ​​spiritual chivalry took root : (i) the establishment of the Order of the Golden Fleece through the union with the House of Burgundy; (ii) debt also to the Order of the Templars which had actively participated in the development of the country by driving out the Moors.

In the 15^th and 16^th century a very strong Arthurian current developed which ended up making Portugal heard as the Port of the Grail.

It was King Denis who somehow 'substituted' the Order of the Templars by the Order of the Knights of Christ^[6]The Military Order of Christ (previously Ordem dos Cavaleiros de Cristo "Order of the Knights of Christ") was founded in 1318. The order, in all essence of the word, were 'Knights Templar' whom … Continue readingin 1318.

And it was under the colors of this Order that Portugal undertook her great maritime discoveries giving "The world to Europe" as Pessoa puts it.

It would be thus up to Portugal to take the lead in the preparation and the blossoming of the new world age.

III. Sebastianism and the Fifth Empire

The Portuguese shoemaker writer Gonçalo Annes Bandarra (1500-1556) interpreted the Old Testament scriptures in a series of trovas. He devoted himself to astrology and to publicizing in verse messianic character prophecies famous around 1531. As an adult he moved to Lisbon at the request of new-Christian mystics and theologians who desired that he had more contact and discussion with the Lisbon community. He was accused by the Portuguese Inquisition of Judaism and his trovas were included in the catalogue of forbidden books, since they aroused interest especially among the new Christians. He faced this tribunal, which deemed him innocent.

He prophesied the coming of The 'Encoberto', a hidden king, and the future of Portugal turned towards a universal kingdom thanks to the return of this king. He interpreted the night visions of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel in terms of succession of Empires. After that of the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, an empire would appear which would see the unification of Christendom by a Portuguese Messiah.

It brings us to August 1578 when the Battle of the Three Kings took place, in Alcacer Quibir, northern Morocco which saw the defeat (prophesied) of the young king of Portugal Don Sebastian (the Desired King)^[7]Sebastian (20 January 1554 – 4 August 1578) was King of Portugal from 11 June 1557 to 4 August 1578 and the penultimate Portuguese monarch of the House of Aviz. He disappeared (presumably killed in … Continue reading.

His body has never been found.

It doesn't take more than that for the legend of the Hidden King to emerge…

According to Bandarra's Encoberto, “He will reappear on a foggy morning, at the Tagus estuary on a white horse...Then will begin the dawn of the fifth empire, empire of the Holy Spirit. Don Sebastian being the paraclete, the Christ.” He would hide, says the legend, in the wealthy islands, in Cape Verde perhaps… In the new spiritual Indies… This disappearance marked the beginning of the decadence of Portugal the Fall, the end of its glory of the time of the discoveries and this small country incapable of founding a materially powerful colonial empire will immediately spiritualize this fall by creating in the collective unconscious the myth of the restoration to come on the fertile ground of the Cult of the Holy Spirit, anchored in the Portuguese soul.

The Bandarra’s trovas were interpreted as announcing the return of King Sebastian. The myth of the Fifth Empire will be that of the everlasting gospel. A sort of kingdom of God, a spiritual monarchy, the unification of Christendom under the same monarch.

It was the Jesuit Father Antonio Vieira who took this myth to the highest levels by establishing a resurrected Portuguese empire in "The Story of the Future".

For the Portuguese tradition, Portugal will be the center of the future unified world. The throne will be in Lisbon and the first emperor will be the king of Portugal.

It is this nostalgia for a glorious past associated with the hope for a future of peace and regained grandeur that represents the very spirit of what is called the Saudade.

This is as well all the depth of the meta-story told in Pessoa's poem “Message”. Pessoa describing himself as a national Sebastianist.

Let‘s move back to the following quote from the Fama Fraternitatis:

We had not yet seen the remains of our Father, the prudish man, the wise man. To this end we pulled the altar aside. Then we were able to lift a solid slab of yellow metal, and there was in its beauty a distinguished body, intact, unaltered. He held in his hand a little book of parchment, with gold letters, titled “T”. Book which is, after the Bible, our highest treasure, and which should not be subjected to the censorship of the world.

Fama Fraternitatis, 1614

The image of the Master's corpse holding a mysterious book is “mind blowing” : the “dead who knows” is opposed to “the living who ignores”. The book contains a voice which bears witness to the Knowledge acquired and which silence protects.

The closed book obviously represents esoteric knowledge unlike the exoteric open book.

It contains esoteric prophetic knowledge. An absolute knowledge of the unspoken Word which will be revealed at the end of time.

The Tomb of Rosencreutz brings us back to at least three themes:

• The one of the beautiful and glorious body of the Master. Uncorrupted. That of a Saint thus.
  
• The one of the closed book containing a precious treasure. The Fama specifies that this book is in letters of gold. Entitled T. What is the nature of this treasure?
  
• and the one of the Hidden King, resonating with the myth of the Encoberto we pointed out a bit earlier. Myth not specific to Portugal obviously, cfr King Arthur Isle of Avallon, King priest John, who in the process Portuguese navigators sought in Ethiopia, 12^th Shiite Imam, etc.

At the Tomb of Christian Rosencreutz ^[8]"At the Tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz.” This trio of sonnets was given to Almada Negreiros to be published in Sudoeste but did not actually see print until 1942.

Poem by Raphael Baldaya / Fernando Pessa

Three sonnets which resonate with the above-mentioned quote from the Fama:

1

When, awakened from this sleep, life,

We will learn what we are, and what was

This fall to the Body, this descent

Until the Night that encumbers the Soul,

Then will we know the whole truth

Hidden, that of all that is or is flowing?

No: even in the free soul it remains unknown ...

And God, who created us, does not contain it in Him.

God is the Man of another greater God:

Supreme Adam, he also knew the Fall;

And he too, as he was our creator,

He was created, for him the Truth died ...

From above His Spirit, the Abyss, hides it from Him

Here below she is not in Her Body, our World.

2

But before was the Word, lost here.

When the Infinite Light, now extinct,

From Chaos, ground of Being, was lifted

In Shadow, and that the absent verb was obscured.

But if the soul feels that its form is wrong

In herself - this Shadow - she ends up seeing

Shine the Word, human and sacred, of this world,

Rose of Perfection, in crucified God.

So, lords of the threshold that opens onto Heaven,

So we can go look beyond God

And the Secret of the Master and the essential Good;

Awakened from here below and already, from ourselves,

In the present blood of Christ emancipated

From this al-God who dies the genesis of the world.

3

 But unfortunately ! Here below, unreal, erroneous,

We sleep what we are, and the truth,

Who finally can only be seen in dreams

We see it, for it is in a dream, in falsehood.

Shadows in bad shape, if the quest is successful,

How to feel the reality of these bodies?

Because with shadow hands, Shadows, what do we touch?

Our touch is nothing but absence and emptiness.

Who will deliver us from this closed soul?

Without seeing we listen beyond the room

Of Being: but how, here, to open the door?

...

Calm in the false death before us exposed,

Against her bosom the Hermetic Book placed,

Our Father Rose-Croix knows and is silent.

END

For Pessoa the Creator of the World is not the Creator of Reality.

He is not the ineffable God but a Man God, or Man God similar to us but superior to us at the same time.

This poem is - quoting from Lima de Freitas ^[9]Lima de Freitas (1927–1998) was a Portuguese painter, illustrator, ceramicist and writer. He studied at the Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa.- “a meditation on death as an awakening from the dream of life on what the soul can know of the Truth about God as "the Man of another greater God."

In this poem Pessoa realizes what he expects from poetry, namely: "That thought transcends itself in order to be able to establish itself on its other side"

Lima de Freinas who also reminds us that “the ancient Egyptians transformed their sarcophagi into real open books. Message left by the corpse. The mummy then represented another sarcophagus in a book, closed this one, with a secret interior text.”

The Rosicrucians announced a general reform. With within this agitation the legend of Christian Rosencreutz and his pilgrimage to the East.  In Portugal we have seen the myth of the Fifth Empire developing at the same time, Following Sebastianism and Portuguese fervor for the cult of the Holy Spirit.

It is therefore appropriate to place this Rosicrucian poem by Pessoa within the Portuguese spiritual atmosphere and the initiatory thought of Pessoa.

To 'conclude', two poems from Message which summarize - for our meditation – an inspired and inspiring Rosicrucian Pessoa:

The HIDDEN KING

What a fruitful symbol

Coming in anxious dawn?

On the dead cross of the world

The life that is the Rose

What a divine symbol

Brings up the day already glimpsed?

On the Cross which is Destiny,

The Rose who is Christ

What a last symbol

Show the sun already awake?

On the dead and fatal cross

The Rose of the Hidden King

DON SEBASTAO

Hope!

I fell on the sands in the opposing hour

May God grant his own

Opening the gap in which to immerse the soul

Deep in the dreams that are God

What do the sands, death, misfortune

If with God, I kept myself?

He is what I dream of and that lasts forever

It is transmuted in him that I will come back to you.

Ian H. Gladwin, 2022

Over the past two hundred years, many Rosicrucian groups have looked to the 18^th century German Gold- und Rosenkreuzer Order as a source of authentic Rosicrucianism. The reasons for this have been both practical and historical. Practically speaking, the G+RC stand to date as one of the oldest, fullest systematized Order representing Rosicrucianism. Since their demise, many groups have modeled the Order’s structure and system to align more closely with their practices and ideology. On the historical side, though, the G+RC also represents a continuation and connection to the Rosicrucian Manifestos.

Through a careful study of their practices and teachings, as found in their own materials, the G+RC proves to have embraced the basic precepts (i.e. landmarks) presented therein. These landmarks, from a practical point of view, could be referred to as a trinosophia of Rosicrucianism, with an emphasis on Cabala, alchemy, and magic—with aims for higher spiritual purposes rather than for their materialistic or secular value ^[1]A trinosophia of Rosicrucian practices can be discovered through gathering their basic points of practice introduced in the Manifestos. In the Fama Fraternitatis, these can be identified by looking … Continue reading.

The Gold- und Rosenkreuzer were an order that manifested at different periods of time. Many have placed their appearance at two different periods—one at the early 18^th century and another at the later part of the 18^th century. It has been established, however, that individuals and groups identifying through either a Gold —or— Rose cross have existed since the 17^th century. The Rose Cross of the Manifestos is common knowledge, but the Gold Cross has received attention only somewhat recently. In Henricus Madathanus’ (Adrian von Mynsicht) Aureum Seculum Redivivum, for example, he refers to himself as a ‘Frater Aurea Crucis’ (Brother of the Gold Cross) in 1621^[2]Madathanus, p 72.

The alchemical and symbolic content of Aureum Seculum Redivivum may be sufficient for drawing parallels to the Rosicrucian Manifestos, especially The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. As an isolated example, this might seem insubstantial, however other appearances of a Gold Cross in connection to alchemical groups appears within the next few decades. In the mid-17^th century, the German-Italian alchemist Federico Gualdi’s Cavalieri dell'Aurea Croce (Knights of the Gold Cross) were documented as being active in Venice^[3]Trial against Federico Gualdi, spontaneous appearance by Francesco Giusto, 21 April, 1676. Venice, Archivio di Stato, Sant’ Uffizzio, b. 119.. Elsewhere, manuscripts in the possession of one of Gualdi’s circle are stated to belong to a Fratelli dell'Aurea Croce o vero dell'Aurea Rosea (Brothers of the Gold Cross, or more properly, the true Gold Rose). These were discovered in Naples^[4]‘Osservationi inviolabibli da osservarsi dalli Fratelli dell; Aurea Croce, o vero dell’ Aurea Rosa precedenti la solita professione’. Naples: Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, Cod. XII-E-30, ff. … Continue reading. Meanwhile, in Rome, the Marquise Massimiliano Palombara wrote of "a company named after the rosy cross, or, as others say, of the golden cross" near the same time^[5]Palombara, Massimiliano. La Bugia. Vatican Library, Ms. Reginensis Latini 1521. 1656. Perhaps tellingly, Palombara’s villa in Rome contained what has since been called the “alchemical portal”— a false entryway featuring symbols unique to few sources, one of them is an emblem that appears on the bookplate for Madathanus’ Aureum Seculum Redivivum.

It should be noted that in each case where the Gold Cross is specified, the organization placed emphasis on laboratory alchemy. With Gualdi, Madathanus, Santinelli and Palombara, this alchemical connection is held in common. With the exception of Madathanus, however, missing from these associations with the Gold Cross is the pietism, or emphasis of venerating and embodying the divine, which is prevalent in much other material associated with the Rosicrucians^[6]The Pietism most associated with the Rosicrucians would be that of figures like Johann Arndt, Jakob Böhme, and those in the German mystic tradition whose theology was focused on emulating … Continue reading. Such a list of pietist alchemists would include Paracelsus, Valentine Weigel, Jacob Boehme, Daniel Mögling, Heinrich Khunrath, and Michael Maier. Now, since the Manifestos had revealed a Rose Cross society professing wisdom of what lies above the world of the profaned alchemists (i.e. seeking material wealth), it stands to reason that what the Gold Cross revealed was the natural science, or natural magic, of the sensible, (meta)physical world. Yet, this equally was not of the profane variety. Through their full exploration of creation's divine cosmos which includes the natural world, the Gold Cross sought value of a spiritual dimension of everything. The significance of their work was theosophical, alchemical, and theurgical in dimension — embracing the totality of God's divinity both in the below as well as the above.

After the turn of the 18^th century, works like Samuel Richter’s The full and complete preparation of the philosophical stone of the brothers created from the order of the Gülden- und Rosen-Creutzes and manuscripts known as the Testamentum or Thesaurus Thesaraurum of the Fraternitatae Rosea et Aurea Crucis demonstrated—what appeared to be—a union of these two crosses of Gold and Rose. Considering the combined alchemical and pietistic evidence supported in his work, all appearances would suggest this was the case. One of Renatus’ rules for members to identify each other members seems to emphasize such a union as well, with members belonging to the Rose Cross instructed to wear a green cross, and those belonging to the Gold Cross to wear a red one^[7]Richter,  p 106-107.

In the late 18^th century, where the G+RC emerges in its more robust form (a period often referred to as their Alten System, or old system) evidence of these components becomes more abundant in their recognition of a RC trinosophia demonstrated through their pietistic/theosophical, alchemical, and theurgic approach. Beginning with pietism and theosophy, it served a dual purpose, first introduced in the early grades to orienting initiates towards deep introspection, a veneration of God’s presence, and a practical embodiment of Christ's and the biblical fathers' teachings. Later on, it serves as a system for comprehending the metaphysical forces unfolding through the divine plan of creation. Prime examples of this can be found in works by John Mason, Jacob Boehme, Georg Von Welling, and Josef Kirchweger where faith, inner work, and wisdom of God's kingdom come together.^[8]The work of Jacob Boehme surrounds the pietist nature of the order in general. Other works recommended by the Order for initiates to study were John Mason’s Self Knowledge, Georg Von Welling’s … Continue reading

For Cabala, the G+RC's approach was somewhat different than what might be understood from either a Rabbinical Jewish or Hermetic Kabbalistic perspective. Whereas their Cabala equally presents a cosmological system of emanation, offering gnosis on the composite nature of souls and matter in the divine scheme, in a more or less Christian Renaissance reception of Cabala, the G+RC's Cabala concerned itself with knowledge of the language or creative Word. The work of Johannes Reuchlin would be key for understanding the G+RC's approach^[9]Reuchlin,  Johannes. De Verbo Mirifico. Tübingen: T. Anshelm, 1514. & Reuchlin, Johannes. De Arte Cabalistica Libri Tres. dicati. Hagenau: T. Anshelm, 1517.. For the G+RC, God's finger had traced the alphabet of Nature as a legible and intelligible Word for our understanding. God's 'Word' could thus be seen as the Logos, as the reason or measure giving structure of meaning to the world in general.

For alchemy, the G+RC’s approach was not (only) directed towards processes of “inner” or spiritual alchemy, but primarily focused on practical laboratory alchemy. This may be considered from a few viewpoints. As an extension of their “Cabala”, their alchemy was a practical, scientific, and metaphysical labor concerned with knowledge of the miraculous forces of creation in nature, with creation itself understood not only through physical substances, but through the substances of souls and spirits as well. Their alchemy was a universal system for understanding the various levels of creation through the vegetable, mineral, animal, and astral kingdoms up to the Spiritus Mundi, or World Soul.

These kingdoms more or less correspond to Aristotelian definitions of the ensouled cosmos, which were received and preserved through the practices of medieval alchemists, which in turn were derived from Arabic alchemy and commentators on Aristotle’s metaphysics^[10] It is well documented that alchemy as it entered into the Western Latin-speaking world was derived from Arabic sources such as the work of Jābir ibn Hayyān. Jābir, in turn had developed a system … Continue reading. Through these kingdoms, the G+RC learned how to produce universal solvents (menstruums), tinctures, and a variety of other substances used for physical health and psychotropic purposes. The alchemical operations culminated in the production of stones (i.e. philosophic stones) which in the final grade were used in ritual involving prophesy and theurgy. 

Magic, for the G+RC, would appear to sit squarely with the way it is presented in the Manifestos, where in the Fama Fraternitatis it is alluded to as being in harmony with God, Heaven and Earth. In their grade materials, the G+RC didn’t make excessive displays of magic (there are a few mere instances where it appears in their rituals). Ceremonial magic was reserved for their highest grades. To this author’s knowledge, detailed instructions covering the Order’s highest grade of Magus haven’t appeared [Editor's Note: you can find an English translation of a ritual believed to be related to the Magus grade in the SRIA London December MMXXI pamphlet], however, various versions of their grade plans leave specific clues, mentioning the Shemhamphoresh angels and the Urim and Thummim^[11]Several Hauptplans (Main Plans) belonging to the Order have appeared with this information. The Main Plan is a document providing an outline of the grade names and numbers, jewels, leader locations, … Continue reading. It’s known that the G+RC possessed manuscript copies of the work Magia Divina,  a text that gives instructions for the creation and use of the Urim and Thummim, (meaning “lights” and “perfection”, in biblical literature used to speak with, or hear, God). The original 1745 publication of Magia Divina also describes workings practiced in a group setting.

The Urim and Thummim was created via a process of metallurgic alchemy involving an alloy made out of the seven planetary metals referred to as Electro Magico, or electrum. Five stones produced from the vegetable through astral kingdoms were inset around a reflective surface used for scrying into. Other rituals were performed with the Urim and Thummim as well, including one’s meeting and conversation with their Holy Guardian Angel. Perhaps one of the most revealing examples of the Order’s magia in the form of theurgy also appears, wherein operations are performed to draw down the forces of Greco-Roman gods into statues upon which are written also the names of the archangels. Such practices known as telestike (τελεστικη) can be found in the classical Hermetica, particularly the Latin Asclepius (originally called the Logos Teleios, λόγος τέλειος, in Greek) as well as mentioned in Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy^[12]Agrippa, Book II, Chapter L, ‘Of Certain Celestial Observations and the Practice of Some Images.’ p 404.

This overview portrays the G+RC not only upholding a RC trinosophia of magic, alchemy, and Cabala expressed in the Rosicrucian Manifestos, but existing also at a time when the existence of such beliefs and practices were being threatened in a world moving further into the direction of scientific rationalism. Following the developments of subjects learned in tandem with magic such as humanism, philosophy, theology, and natural science during the Western European Renaissances, the following centuries would bring a much different climate wherein the subjects of religion, philosophy, and science became increasing isolated from one another.

This separation can perhaps be best exemplified by the so-called “mind-body duality” of Renes Descartes, where the soul and physical body were no longer thought to exist as integrated with one another, but fully separate components of a person’s constitution working in cooperation. Such ideas caught on during the Enlightenment in religious forms of Deism which sought to explain God’s creation through models of geometry and science, yet seeing God completely distant or unavailable in that picture altogether. For the G+RC this simply wasn’t acceptable, and for this reason were often seen not only out of step with their time and going to war with opponents such as the Bavarian Illuminati, but adhering to an older form of mago-mysticism dating from another era.

Bibliography

Barbierato, Federico; Malena, Adelisa. Rosacroce, libertini e alchimisti nella società veneta del secondo Seicento: i Cavalieri dell'Aurea e Rosa Croce, Storia d’Italia, Annali, 25, Esoterismo , G.M. Cazzaniga , Einaudi , 2010, pp. 323-357

Beyer, Dr. Bernhard. Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer. Pansophie-Verlag, Leipzig. 1925

Gold- und Rosenkreuzer, 4^th Class, 5^th Class, 7^th Class, and instruction for the 8^th Grade, Kloss Archives at the Vrijmetselarij Museum, Den Haag

Madathanus, Heinrich (Adrian von Mynsicht). Aureum seculum redivivum, quod nunc iterum apparuit suaviter floruit, et odoriferum aureumque semen peperit / carum pretiosumque illud semen omnibus verae sapientiae & doctrinae filiis monstrat & relevat Hinricus Madathanus. 1621, Frankfurt.

Magia divina oder gründ- und deutlicher Unterricht von denen fürnehmsten caballistischen Kunst-Stücken der alten Israeliten, Welt-Weisen und Ersten. Frankfurt, Leipzig 1745.
Marx, Arnold. Die Gold- und Rosenkreuzer : Ein Mysterienbund des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland. Zeulenroda-Leipzig : Sporn, 1929

Richter, Samuel (Sincerus Renatus). Die warhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des philosophischen Steins der Brüderschafft aus dem Orden des Gülden- und Rosen-Creutzes… Breslau, 1710

Testamentum Der Fraternitet Rosæ et Auræ Crucis, als gewisse Extases oder geheime Operationes, wodurch das Mysterium eröffnet an unsere Kinder der Weisheit göttlicher Magie und englischer Cabbalae. I.W.R. Anno 580., Cod SN 2897, Vienna Nationalbibliothek

Pascal H. Gregoire, 2021

Christian Hermeticism offers a complex and wide open field of research, even more as a lot of the writings can be related to apocryphal literature, to the lubidrium¹ or to a more contentious way of writing history. Which does not mean that they are not usually very interesting for the serious historians as for the philosophers and genuine researchers keen to spiritual hermeneutics², wisdom literature and philosophical texts.

I. The Manifestos

As we know, between 1614 and 1616, two anonymous manifestos were published and spread, first in Germany³ in the protestant city of Cassel (part of Württemberg) and later throughout Europe.

Written in German, they were the Fama Fraternitatis of the Meritorious Order of the Rosy Cross (The Fame of the Brotherhood of the RC) published in 1614 by Wilhelm Wessel (printer for Prince Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse) – which narrates the legend of a man, Christian Rosenkreuz (CRC) said to have lived from 1378 to 1484, thus till the canonic age of 106 years old - and the Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC) in 1616 whereas the doctrines and notions expressed in it are not simply those of the Fama, but have something more and of a totally different tone, dilating upon a very harsh condemnation of Roman Catholicism and the pope, being considered as anti-Christ (note: Islam was not spared either by the way). The tone is definitely Lutheran as experts tell us.

The first one - the Fama - with its thirty pages was also a part of a 147 pages work/volume named the “Universal and General Reformation of Whole Wide World” which was therefore quite different from the original “General Reformation” as it indeed included as an appendix the first appearance in print of the anonymous “Fama pamphlet”.

This little pamphlet alone was about to trigger tremendous responses for the decades to come and well beyond…

However, the Rosicrucian epic actually might have begun in 1610 since a reply to the Fama had already been printed in 1612 by Adam Haselmayer⁴ who might have seen a manuscript copy of the Fama in Tyrol in 1610 about four years before the Fama being published. So enthusiastic was Haselmayer with the Rosicrucians ideas, that indeed his open letter with the title “Answer to the Laudable Fraternity of Rosicrucian Theosophists" (published in 1612) was published at the end of the first Rosicrucian Manifesto.

Another 'Fama connected incident' also occurred in 1612. In that year, "De Ragguagli di Parnasso” [“News from Parnassus”] was published in Venice by the Italian anti-Habsburg writer Traiano Boccalini, an architect by profession and a satirist in heart.

II. Context of the Times

In these few years flourished the Rosicrucian movement with its promise of a general reformation of mankind, with its perspectives of enlightenment, of understanding the world and nature, all things which could not but announce a better future, happiness and freedom of thought. All that was wiped out by the horrors of war.

Let’s not forget that in the years 1610’s, Europe was at a cross-road between (i) a period of intellectual and spiritual turmoil, which had brought about the greatest revolution since the introduction of Christianity 16 centuries earlier, and (ii) the beginning of a war which would be a disaster for the whole continent, comparable to the black death which had slaughtered 60% of the population in the 14th century. At that time (early XVII^th century) “everyone in Europe” was aspiring for a “New Reformation”. This is in such a context that the Rosicrucian Messages were sent out into the wide/wild world, proposing new approaches to restore harmony and peace and in particular pushing forward Hermeticism as a possible way forward.

A few years after the publication of the pamphlet, the most devastating conflict that Europe had ever experienced started in 1618. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was a series of wars principally fought in Central Europe, involving most of the continent, from France to Sweden. It was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest continuous wars in modern history.

Religion was the main motivation for war as Protestant and Catholic states battled it out even though they all were inside the Holy Roman Empire. A major consequence of the Thirty Years' War was the devastation of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies. Famine and disease significantly decreased the population of the German states, Bohemia, the Low Countries, and Italy; most of the fighting powers were bankrupted.

*

Interestingly enough, the preface Allgemeine Reformation turned out to be nothing else that a German translation - possibly by Besold⁵ - of the 77^th chapter of the Ragguagli di Parnaso by the Italian writer Traiano Boccalini, published in Venice in 1612, shortly before the author’s death.

Boccalini was an anti-catholic political author and satirist, born near Ancona in 1556, but thought it prudent to move to Venice later on because of his political views, which had caused Spanish resentment towards him and his works. He anyway died in Venice in 1613, apparently strangled in his bed by hired assassins.

Titled, "Generale Riforma dell' Universo (“General Reformation of the Whole World"), this 77^th chapter is conceived as an imaginary news sheet from the kingdom of Parnasso, which actually mirrors the reality of Boccalini’s contemporary world and preoccupations. This satire was in fact partly targeting as well the second Council of Trent⁶ and its chaotic attempt to reform Catholicism.

It described an assize or court held on mount Parnassus by the god Apollo to find a remedy for the problem of the increasing rate of suicide among humans. After Thales, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen and others were unable to suggest a remedy it was decided 'The Age' itself should be summoned before the court for examination. When 'The Age' was called before them, however, and the deceptive gay jacket was stripped off its body, they found the rotten carcass plastered with appearance four inches thick all over. And when the reformers tried to scrape them away with their razors they found them so far eaten into the bone that in all that huge colossus they could not find one ounce of good live flesh. Therefore they covered 'The Age' back up and resolved that until such time as a universal reformation could be brought about, philosophers must be content with “restricting themselves to regulating the price of cabbages”…

To be pointed out: Boccalini does not offer any “remedy” as such but indicates that a great reformation (“reset”) is necessary before the divine secrets of nature can be entrusted to the keeping of mortal beings. No doubt, this still sounds quite familiar as well, isn’t?

In any case, it can be said that the pessimist tone of this text - despairing of seeing peace restored in Europe - contrasted with the more optimistic views of the Rosicrucian Manifestos.

III. Federico Gualdi. The Building of a Legend

On April 21 1676, more than sixty years after the publication of Boccalini’s work and the Rosicrucian Manifestos, a merchant, Francesco Giusto, steps into the Venetian offices of the feared “Sant’Uffizio” - the Holy Office - namely the Inquisition to provide a declaration supposed to trigger a trial against a peculiar individual.

The beginning of the confession states Giusto’s intentions quite clearly: “to denounce a dangerous necromancian operating in Venitia of the name of Federico Gualdi”.

This declaration was worth of notice for the Inquisition officials as it didn’t speak only of an individual, but of a whole group, a seemingly organized sect lead by a “necromancer” thus.

Even more interesting was the identity of this leader. The phantasmagorical and real one(s).

What we know?

Federico Gualdi was without any doubt a high-profile character of Venice’s life.

Possibly born around 1600, he was an Italian alchemist, engineer, trader and much more. Regarding the date of his death, no historical trace has been found to date.

He declared himself of German origin but the information is not certain as it is not documented. A portrait of Gualdi is frontispiece of “La critica della morte”, a work published in 1690 by Sebastiano Casizzi.

It is undeniable that Gualdi staid in Venice between 1660 and 1678, but we do not know much more about his life until 1660.

In 1660 and in 1663, Gualdi submitted to the Republic of Venice two proposals to remedy the recurring floods causing the Acqua alta. To do so, it used a specific right in Venice known as "Raccordo", which is a "request for any citizen to present to the Council of Ten or another magistracy a subject of great importance to the State". The drawings of the two Gualdi projects have been published and can be found via the Internet. These projects remained unfulfilled but it made Gualdi famous in the City.

Gualdi also held a know-how in the mining field. In this capacity, from 1663 to 1666, he was either a mining operator or an ore miner at the service of the wealthy Crotta family, who owned deposits in Val Imperina (Belluno province). He experimented with a new process of "dry" and "wet" ore smelting that increases copper production. This discovery allowed as much its personal enrichment as the one of the family Crotta.

The lifestyle of Gualdi during his stay in Venice must also have created many jealousies which probably did not fail to lead to a denunciation to the court of the Inquisition for alchemical activities and belonging to the hermetic-alchemical movement of the "Aurea Croce".

In this respect, among the disciples of this "Aurea Croce" were prominent characters such as the Marquis and Poet Francesco Maria Santinelli (close to Queen Christina of Sweden).

Interestingly enough, the Inquisition, after questioning some people who have been around Gualdi in his daily life, will not summon him. The trial will never take place, which might suggest that Gualdi had very well placed relations with representatives of the power of the Serenissima.

Another interesting piece of the “Gualdi’s enigma” is his alchemical text written in German and in Latin: “De lapide philosophorum” (The Philosopher's Stone).

“De Lapide philosophorum” is a text divided into 55 paragraphs where one can read the sweet dream of the alchemist who aspires to turn lead - a toxic metal for the human body since it causes kidney failure - into gold.

Gualdi synthesized this quest in a charade: "In the man is a kidney, which consists of six letters (lumbus), to which, if you add a P (plumbus), you know how to turn the S into M (plumbum), - Hush! such will be our bronze, it is also the philosopher's stone. Solution: philosopher's lead, or antimony, but by the fixed route ".

Note that this charade paid tribute to the darling of the treaties of alchemy: the antimony which, since the beginning of the XVII^th century, was very popular in the process of creating the philosopher's stone. Let us also note that the number of letters of lumbus might evoke the six days of labor of creation, and that of plumbum the last day when the divine work was accomplished.

By composing his De Lapide philosophorum, Gualdi projected on the human being more than the empirically perceptible phenomenon, thinking the symbolic and the real as if they both formed one.

Thanks to this prominent role in trade Gualdi, came to know many wealthy entrepreneurs, among which was Francesco Giusto. Hearing of Giusto’s interest for the “natural sciences”, he asked to meet him and introduced him to his circle of “disciples”, among which important figures as the marquis Francesco Maria Santinelli, the physician Vincenzo Pezzi, the Knight of Malta Rubensi and Michelangelo Salomoni, the Republic’s expert on biological and chemical warfare.

As he frequented Gualdi’s circle, Giusto grew increasingly alarmed by the heterodox practices he saw performed there, among which figured “diabolical evocations” and magical work with familiar spirits.

Giusto reported that: the members of the sect were 85, divided into two orders: an inner order of 12 disciples (including Gualdi himself; another notable member was Santinelli) and an outer one of 72. Secrecy was highly regarded (on penalty of death), and on their initiation the members had to leave a lock of hair. Federico Gualdi only could decide to whom teach the secrets that were held in the higher circle. Another particularity was the oath that each member had to undertake, namely to never pursue any magical activities with the purpose of gaining wealth or other material goals. Another important feat was the scrupulous annotation of all members’ data in a register.

At one point during his declarations for the trial on June 16,1676, Giusto stated that a certain Pietro Agnese, who had been seen in the circles surrounding Gualdi, had declared to be “one of the 4 Knights of the Golden and Rosy Cross”. This expression held a certain significance in Italy in the second half of the 17^th century, as it mentioned a mysterious but precise group, whose obscure genealogy need to be addressed if we want to unveil the possible nature of Gualdi's esoteric circle.

Already in 1656 and in his work “La Bugia” (The Little Candlestick), the marquis Massimiliano Palombara had mentioned this organization: “I continuously hear and read people talking about the existence in the world of a group of the “Golden or Rosy Cross". Another reference to the «Rosea Croce» appears in a poem by the mentioned Francesco Maria Santinelli (a prominent member of Gualdi’s sect), at one time favorite of Queen Christina of Sweden, entitled "Charles V".

As we will remember it, the official statute of the so-called Brotherhood of the Golden and Rosy Cross wouldn’t appear before 1710, authored by Samuel Richter⁷ (Sincerus Renatus). But it has been proved in the meantime that Richter’s documents were of Italian origins (De Dànann 2006; Gilly-Van Heertum, 2002).

Futhermore and as a 1678 manuscript - “Osservazioni inviolabili da osservarsi delli fratelli dell Aurea Croce etc” (Rules of The Order) - kept at Naples’ Biblioteca Nazionale shows, Richter’s was just a slightly modified translation of a text written in Italian and already circulating in the 60’s and 70’s of the 17^th century.

Even if it’s not possible to establish a direct link between Gualdi’s group and the Golden and Rosy Cross, it’s on the other hand undeniable that Gualdi himself, exactly in those years, was in epistolary communication with several Neapolitan disciples seeking advice from him, as they considered him an undisputed authority on alchemy (La critica della morte, 1694, cfr. the “epistole” in the appendix).

If one looks at Naples’ document and puts it in comparison on the known fact concerning the Venetian group, there are several similarities (Barbierato-Malena, 2010).

Osservazioni inviolabili were divided into 47 points. Point no. 4 mentions the obligation of keeping the name, status, zodiacal sign etc. of member in a specifically designed register (De Dànann, 2006); point no. 27 states that members should change name, surname and identity every now and then, to preserve secrecy”. Richter’s version adds that one could even intervene on one’s biological age thanks to the “stone”, which brings to mind Gualdi’s quest for the “universal medicine” and immortality. And an even more interesting detail, in point no. 46 of Richter’s 1710 document, there is the description of the initiation ceremony of a new Brother, where it is described the cutting of seven locks of hair to be kept by the initiator.

The Italian origins of the Golden and Rosy Cross and Gualdi’s possible affiliation to the movement would also explain why in the Osservazioni there is no mention to Christian Rosenkreutz nor to the original brotherhood of the Fama and the Confessio, but rather alchemical collections such as 1625’s Musaeum Hermeticum.

It’s also true that if Gualdi’s doctrines were directly linked to those of Rosicrucianism, it was a bizarre one indeed: there was no abiding to Christianism, that was altogether shunned and scorned; there were clear references to the practical use of the black arts in general and demonology in particular; they shunned profit, but actively pursued the defeat of the limitations of biological life and the renovation of the body. Gualdi’s Rosicrucianism was such in certain forms; in practice his was more alike a certain form of “libertine esotericism”. (Barbierato Malena, 2010), but that in Rosicrucianism it would find some sort of 'intellectual horizon', a collocation.

Gualdi established a group with one foot in the mythical past of the Rosy Cross and another in a proto-masonic society of esoteric teachings and mutual assistance, a forerunner of the type of the charismatic leader and a genuinely mysterious character, present in politics, trade and esotericism alike.

IV. To (Temporarily) Close Gualdi’s File

Boccalini and Gualdi: two different fates and events, yet linked by the Rosicrucian trait d’union. Ironically, their destinies, at the opposite ends of the 17^th century, would also be radically different as we saw it.

A mythical figure already among his contemporaries, Federico Gualdi was considered to be highly skilled in the mysteries of alchemy, which had allowed him to reach the age of 400; some said he was of Polish origins, some others that he came from Germany. He was a charming man, well versed in the most secret political plots and owned a limitless education; as an alchemist he pursued the research of an “universal medicine” and immortality (note: quite successfully it seems considering his age!): this is at least the description that his friends gave of him, and an aura of fascination surrounded him long after he mysteriously left Venice, probably in 1682 which further strengthen (his) legend…

In the XVII^th century, several people claimed as Federico Gualdi, including a quack doctor, Enlightenment German, Melech Augustus Hultazob. Joseph Balsamo also wanted to appear for him and the Comte de Saint-Germain said he knew him.

In 1988, Umberto Eco, fond of medieval history and occultism, alludes to the character in his “Foucault's Pendulum” even creating for the needs of the cause a 'new street' in Milan: "Via Marchese Gualdi", which is supposed to house the publishing house Manunzio specialized in esoteric publications.

In any case, one can assert that Gualdi was definitively part of the 'microhistory' of this key period when science started to distance itself from philosophy and religion.

Mines exploiter, he experimented with new ways to melt metals. Talented engineer and visionary, he designed practical solutions to protect Venice’s and his inhabitants from the strong attacks of the waters. He left behind him a unique and singular opus « De lapide philosophorum » which is a refreshing meditation to say the least. Protection by Venice’s ruling class allowed him and his companions to escape from any kind of possible major troubles. The trial was immediately interrupted and the accused were cleared. By then, Federico Gualdi had long since left Venice without leaving any trace.

Much was still to be told though about his later exploits abroad. But this is another story…

Footnotes

1. Term often used by Johann Valentine Andreae in phrases like “The lubidrium of the fictious Rosicrucian Fraternity” when describing the Rosicrucian Order, most notably in the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz anonymously published in 1916.
2. Theory and methodology of interpretation, especially of biblical texts / exegesis of scriptures.
3. German esoterists (few) : (i) Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, occultist (1486-1533) ; Teophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, Paracelse (1493-1541, born in Switzerland) ; (iii) Joannes Reuchlin (qabbalist (1455-1522); Michael Maier, alchemical physician (1568-1622).
4. Adam Haslmayr (or Haselmayer), Adam, * ca. 1560 (Bolzano), † 1630 (Augsburg) (?) An enthusiastic Paracelsian, Haslmayr was born around 1560 in Bolzano, South Tyrol. By 1588 he was the organist in a Cordelier convent, while teaching Latin and fulfilling the duties of an imperial secretary (Notarius Caesareus). In 1593, Archduke Ferdinand of the Tyrol granted him a patent of nobility. His strong positions against the catholic church brought him, thanks to the Inquisition, to the galleys of the Habsburgs in October 1612 for 4.5 terrible years.
5. Christoph Besold (1577-1649). Born in Esslingen and nine years older than Andreae, had a chair in Jurisprudence at Tübingen in 1610, three years after Andreae had been sent down from the university for writing a lude poem about a totor’s wife. He knew nine languages, including Hebrew and Arabic and was familiar with Qabalah and occult sciences. “I was searching for you outside of myself, and did not find the God in my heart”.
6. The Council of Trent. Held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (northern Italy), it was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. The Council issued condemnations of what it defined to be heresies committed by proponents of Protestantism, and also issued key statements and clarifications of the Church's doctrine and teachings. More than three hundred years passed until the next ecumenical council, the First Vatican Council, was convened in 1869.
7. Samuel Richter (* late 17th century in Reichau , Silesia; † after 1722), also known as Sincerus Renatus , was a German theologian , alchemist and Rosicrucian who strongly influenced Rosicrucianism in the 18th century with his alchemical treatises and writings. His pseudonym - roughly: "the sincere risen one" - suggests the mindset of Samuel Richter, who as a pietist believed in the idea of rebirth . He is said to have worked as a tutor for noble families and studied medicine, then theology, at Halle, before becoming a Lutheran pastor at Hartmannsdorf, near Landeshut (Silesia). His first publication, dated 1709, published 1710, and presented by the author as an ancient manuscript transmitted by initiates, was called Die Warhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung Des Philosophischen Steins (“The True and Perfect Reason of Divine and Natural Knowledge, thereby both tinctures, the heavenly and earthly, can be preserved“, Breslau, 1711).
   
   Bibliographic sources available upon request

Silence and Secrecy

Before I discuss the paradoxical relationship between our hermetic science and the secrecy and silence required of its practitioners, let us look on the face of silence.

In my paper Radiance of Nature, which was included in the pamphlet published by the SRIA Province of Greater London to mark the winter solstice of 2020, I included, though did not discuss, the face of silence.

The illustration which I used was part of a memorial sculpture created for the tomb of Jacob Robles and situated in the Jewish section of the Parisian cemetery of Pere Lachaise. The artist who created and carved this work was Antoine-Augustin Preault (1809-1879), of whose extraordinary life as a revolutionary and artist of the romantic movement, it was said that he was:

possessed by the fever of poetry, the drunkenness of beauty, the horror of vulgarity, and the madness of glory

We see around the carved figure a wreath of ivy. As an evergreen plant that persists throughout winter, ivy has had spiritual significance for many traditions. To Christians it represented the eternal life of the soul after the death of the body, for Preault, a passionate Romantic, he knew ivy as a symbol of the ephemeral nature of human life and its achievements.

Within the wreath of ivy is the face of silence. His features are idealised and powerful, their origin is in the gothic age, but reimagined and revived by an artist of the romantic era. As we all look at that face it reveals its identity to each of us. For me I see in those robes and shroud the face of Virgil as he is depicted by Gustave Dore in his illustration of the Divine Comedy. Silence gazes at us from his world to our own.

Let us now look more closely at the face of the sculpture. We know from its name that it is the head of a man. This is appropriate because silence, in the ancient Greek world, was personified by the god Harpocrates. However, that name originated from the transliteration of the hieroglyph for the ancient Egyptian god whose name means ‘Horus-the-Child’, ‘the new-born sun’, and ‘the first strength of the winter sun’. Both Harpocrates and Horus-the-Child hold a finger to their mouths. For the Greeks, this sign was the gesture of silence, but for the Egyptians it represented the hieroglyph for child. So, our Art reveals that it is in silence that the Son of the Sun is born.

Preault positions each of the fingers of the right hand very carefully. If we look closely, we see that it is not the forefinger, as we would expect, that is placed on the lips but the middle finger. The chin then rests on the bent fourth or ring finger. For the Romans, the middle finger represented Saturn, death, but became through the influence of Christianity to represent resurrection in the name of Christ. The fourth finger upon which his chin rests alludes to the divine world that we hope to know through our work in this world. Thus, in silence we die but with the hope that through our work we will be reborn in the Son of the Sun.

As well as his characteristic gesture, the other symbol that designates Harpocrates is the rose, the gift of Aphrodite, its meaning is that the knowledge of the gods should be kept secret through silence. In every respect, the rose of the Rosicrucian acts as a constant reminder that secrecy and silence is required of us by those who freely share with us their knowledge.

The Paradox of Silence and Secrecy

Let me briefly consider the paradox of silence. In all societies, associations, and traditions that practice hermetic science, obligations, pledge or vows, are required of the aspirant. These concern what we will learn and prohibit its disclosure to the profane world, and those unworthy individuals we may meet.

And yet we find texts published by authors some of whom are anonymous, others that attribute their works to our masters, and by those masters themselves. Indeed, here I am, within a study group of our Society presenting a paper on our art yet acknowledging our tradition of secrecy and silence. It is a paradox.

Let me recall three recent examples. First, Mary Ann Atwood who in 1850 published anonymously her most famous work ‘A Suggestive Enquiry into the Hermetic Mystery’.  Second, Voyages en Kaleidoscope written by Irene Hillel-Erlanger and published in 1919 shortly before her death. Lastly, Jean-Julien Champagne whose publication of the achievement of the ‘blue and red glass of Chartres’ was halted only by his death. All adepts, they believed in the sanctity of secrecy and silence, and the reality of the traditional penalties exacted for any breach of their vows.

The Beginning of our Work

Without doubt, silence and secrecy is the beginning of our work. As many have said, any art that places philosophical gold at its heart can be misunderstood and would require of its students silence and secrecy. These reasons and other rational explanations are of course convincing but are not all, there is a deeper purpose.

All the vows, obligations, and promises that we freely enter into are binding and the penalties exacted for their breach are immediate and final. Silence and secrecy form a covenant between the initiate and all that is, a holy trust. It is a first test, one that if met is the foundation of those that are in the initiates future. Its breach closes off all future progress and opens up a terrible path to darkness and death.

We should recall the moment in our Zelator ceremony when the lighted taper is extinguished.

As the light of this taper, so shall your light be extinguished from amongst us if you fail.

Therefore, the precaution that all true adepts have taken is to cloak their written or visual art within an allegory whose meaning is never explicit, but which works as a riddle whose solution is found through the changing perception of the aspirant. Curiously, once initiated, the aspirant can only speak of knowledge gained in the language of allegory.

We cannot speak of what we do not know but when we know we cannot speak. We are ‘trans-muted’- that is ‘muted’ by change.

Preaults sculpture is itself an allegory. The figure is frozen in a fixed gesture and expression. He cannot tell us of what he has seen, knows, or wishes to warn us of. But by opening our heart to the sculptor’s intention, rendered in stone, we may begin to hear a silent voice and the knowledge it communicates.

The contemplation of an image and meditation on its meaning is a silent task, its hope is to reveal the secrets of the image. This reveals a further truth- that our work takes place in a laboratory of silence.

If it is only possible, only permissible, to speak and write allegorically of our art it necessarily follows that those who purport to state our methods and philosophy openly and directly are a danger to themselves and to others. To themselves because knowledge without knowing is a path of ignorance and darkness. To others who are attracted to the apparent simplicity of an explicit methodology may find themselves condemned to endless, repetitive, laboratory practice.

A Choice of Allegories

If my argument is correct that truth can only be communicated through allegory, then it is important to briefly consider what an allegory is and how we recognise it. The definition of allegory is:

a story, poem or image that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning

This is of course at once a definition that we would all agree but at the same time is quite slippery- can we further agree which texts or images do have a hidden meaning? Some texts helpfully tell us that they are allegories, famously the rituals of Freemasonry which are ‘mysteries veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols’. Some authors are very clear that their works are not allegories – JRR Tolkien detested allegories and was insistent that his work, The Lord of the Rings was an alternative history and not an allegory. But in our post-modern world texts have been liberated from their authors. It is readers who are free to choose whatever hidden meanings they may find in the text.

If allegories conceal truth and wisdom, which texts should we seek and where are they to be found? To approach an answer to this question I thought that I would compare two hugely different texts and two contrasting works of visual art. The first text is well known to you but perhaps not to a wider audience, the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. The second is a text much more widely known, intended for children, and according to its author signifying nothing, that is the Hunting of the Snark. The first work of visual art is a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby entitled The Alchemist in Search of the Philosphers Stone. The second is a poster by Theophile Steinlen promoting the Chat Noir Café.

Let us begin with the Chemical Wedding - what does it tell us about our work?

The Wedding

I have used the edition published by Adam McLean consisting of his commentary and a translation by Joscelyn Godwin, which I would recommend as an excellent introduction to the text. In his otherwise measured commentary, McLean makes the bold assertion that the text is one of the greatest hermetic, Rosicrucian, and alchemical allegories, or to be more direct, the truest guide to Our Art and the Great Work. To be sure the reputation and fame of the text as a foundation document of Rosicrucianism is assured but why then does McLean believe that it was, and is, so much more important. How can this be?

No explanation of a text can begin without its author. It is now accepted that the author of the Chemical Wedding was Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654). He was a highly educated Lutheran priest who had travelled widely throughout Europe before settling near Stuttgart in 1614 where he published over 20 works, many of which took myth and allegory as their themes. The Chemical Wedding is not listed in his works and is now thought to have been written when he was a student at Tübingen University in 1604/5. It was only published after the Fama in 1614 and Confessio in 1615. The relationship of Andreae to the authors of those works and the wider nascent Rosicrucian movement, or his purpose in publishing his student work is the subject of controversy. Its impact, however, was profound. An alchemical and hermetic allegory was placed at the centre of what otherwise would have been a movement for spiritual and social renewal.

What of the text, Andreae described it as a ludibrium, a lampoon that poked fun at alchemy as unworthy of serious study. Indeed, as a theologian he seems to have had no more interest in hermeticism or alchemy than would be expected of a well-educated academic of his time. Because we see so much of our art in his book, we forget his genius was as a writer, particularly in the creation of his protagonist, Christian Rosencreutz. The Fama and Confessio are altogether too serious to portray him, as Andreae does, as a man full of humanity. He experiences anxiety, distress, ridicule, happiness, and despair during the events of the wedding despite being the guest upon which all depends. Andreae’s triumph was literary, we want to read the text, to find out what happens to our hero, to experience what he experiences. That way we enter his world, his truth. The other characters in the Chemical Wedding are much less developed and some just cyphers depending on their contribution to the narrative.

Despite his stated ambiguity, Andreae constructs an elaborate structure for his story. Part of which is very direct- seven days, seven parts of the altar, seven gifts received and bestowed by Christian Rosencreutz, and seven acts of the play performed on the fourth day. Much though is enigmatic, for example the sleeping Lady Venus. There are dreams and nightmares, masques and drama creating a sense that both we and Christian Rosencreutz are permitted knowledge of only some of the events of the wedding, so heightening the quality of mystery and suspense.

Is this book just a highly successful work of literature whose language and concerns happen to be highly alchemical?  This argument presupposes that great works of the alchemical canon are themselves about alchemy. They are not they are alchemy. To read and understand them is a transformation or transmutation.  Andreae book is such a gesture, it uses the language of alchemy to communicate those transformatory spiritual truths that he regards as of the highest importance, the spiritual and active divine principles that form all that is - it is these truths that are the meaning within the allegory.

The First Day

And this day shall be a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations…Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation.

Exodus 12

‘On an evening before Easter Day, I (Christian Rosencreutz) sat at my table and as was my custom was in my humble prayer, conversing with my Creator, considering many great mysteries, and being ready in my heart to prepare with my Paschal Lamb, a small unleavened, undefiled bread.’

‘I took courage and persisted in my meditation till somebody touched me…I looked and beheld a fair and glorious lady…in her right hand she bore a trumpet of beaten gold and in her left a bundle of letters. She had large and beautiful wings, full of eyes throughout. At length she drew out a small letter, which with great reverence she laid down upon the table. As I examined it carefully, I found it closed with a small seal on which was engraved a small cross and the motto In hoc signo + vinces.

An Invitation

So begins the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. The revelation it describes corresponds to that represented in the first plate of the Mutus Liber. As you look at it, I will read the commentary written by Armand Barbault in his book Gold of a Thousand Mornings.

‘This plate, the Annunciation, is the most important image in the book. No one can hope to accomplish the Great Work if he has not been vouchsafed revelation. if he has not been called in some way by the divinities or the higher powers that preside over our work. A glance at the plate shows a figure asleep against the side of a rock which is surrounded by the elements of nature. The entire picture is encircled by a crown of roses showing that the individual has been chosen to receive the Annunciation. Jacobs Ladder rises from his feet. On the lower rungs of the ladder is an Angel blowing a trumpet towards the sleeping man revealing his mission to him. At the top of the ladder, a second angel is also blowing a trumpet directed at the first angel……. The shrouded landscape symbolises the need for slow unobtrusive preparation of the individual, much of which is done whilst he is asleep. Profound knowledge cannot be transmitted until the individual has been properly prepared.’

Gold of a Thousand Mornings, Armand Barbault

This helps us to understand the events at the beginning of the first day, as they are experienced by Christian Rosencreutz. The prayer and meditation and the ‘conversation’ with his Creator- is the silent preparation for the events that are to come. The vow of silence, symbolised by the wreath of roses in the Mutus Liber, is as Barbault informs us, necessary for any progression in the Great Work.

For Christian Rosencreutz the revelation unfolds in the form of a wedding to which he is invited. It begins with the invitation itself and the angel who delivers it. The winged female figure is an angel. Or rather the angel appears as a woman because angels are spiritual beings who can manifest as either gender. The spiritual being the author has chosen to depict in a garment of blue has the attributes of the angel of the Annunciation who appeared to Mary as Gabriel and now appears in a feminine form to Christian Rosencreutz.

You are highly favoured; the Lord is with you.

1 Luke xxvii

But where is the second angel as the creators of the Mutus Liber depict? In the description of the angel observed by Christian Rosencruetz, it is stated that her wings were covered by eyes. This one point is an important distinction because the presence of many eyes is not a feature of an Archangel but of a Cherub. Cherubim are those angelic beings closest to God who transmit His will to other spiritual beings and to those Angels and Archangels who communicate directly with beings in the material world.  The single angel seen by Christian Rosencreutz is in fact twofold, an Archangel in this world, and within and behind it a Cherub. Therefore, the First Day of the Chemical Wedding and the first plate of the Mutus Liber are entirely consistent in the way they render initiation into the Great Work of Alchemy.

In Hoc Signo Vinces

Now we understand the importance of the heavenly messenger, let us consider the invitation. The invitation is closed or sealed with the words In hoc signo + vinces ‘in this sign thou shalt conquer’. These words were seen in the sky as part of a vision experienced by Constantine before fought the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. I wrote of these words in my paper published in the pamphlet produced by the SRIA Province of Greater London in December 2020 where I considered the iconography of the Labarum, which is the image you see now. Whilst we cannot be sure of the vision Constantine experienced, or indeed if the event was a creation of later writers, a representation of that vision was incorporated into the Labarum, or Imperial Standard which was used after his vision by Constantine and all future Emperors of the Romans. In particular the Christogram which surmounts the labarum and is formed of the Greek letters Chi (X) and Rho (P), that is C and R in the Latin alphabet.

The sign on the seal is the symbol of our Saviour who will both protect and guide Christian Rosencreutz during his perilous journey and is the truest hope of his ultimate success. Chi Rho also reveals that he who has issued the invitation acknowledges that our brother CR is a rose cross Christian, representative of all those who seek the knowledge of the attributes represented in his name. Therefore, we too understand that the invitation which Christian Rosencreutz receives comes directly from God and presages a divine revelation.

Of the invitation itself, the symbol that accompanies the text and is often overlooked is the Monas Hieroglyphica. It represents the unity of the Cosmos and is a composite of various esoteric, astrological, and alchemical symbols. In the illustration I have used you see the four elements, planets, and secret fire. Its presence reinforces an interpretation that the Chemical Wedding is of the greatest significance and concerns not just a symbolic union of masculine and feminine but of the principles that form all that we see. Christian Rosencreutz must now follow the path into the labyrinth of the allegorical wedding.

An Everlasting Memorial

Christian Rosencreutz writes in the book within the chapel of the royal palace following his investiture as a Knight of the Golden Stone:

The height of knowledge is to know nothing. Brother Christian Rosenkreutz. Knight of the Golden Stone. In the year 1459.

What are we to understand from this memorial? It is a reference to the saying ‘I know that I know nothing’ derived from Plato’s account of the life of Socrates, also called the Socratic Paradox. Because Socrates did not claim to know what he did not know he was regarded by his contemporaries, and even the Pythia of the Temple of Delphi as the wisest of men. Socrates insight is regarded as the basis of Western Philosophy. That we should seek a teacher, a master of our art, who can share with us what we do not know.

Paradoxical Ambiguity

It is paradoxical that the ambiguity of the text has been key to its success. At once a highly complex and sophisticated work of literature and also a lampoon- a humorous work of satire and irony.

If my argument holds true, then it raises some thorny questions. How can we know from the external form of the allegory what truths it may contain? Do only allegories using the language of alchemy and hermeticism contain the truths of those arts. Or should we look more widely, be open to those allegorical texts we would otherwise dismiss, for those truths that illuminate our art?

The Hidden Dangers of the Snark

Could we find a text more different than the Hunting of the Snark, a work of nonsense, which was written by Lewis Carroll for an audience of children and published on April Fool’s Day 1876? As I stated earlier, no text can be considered without its author whom I shall refer throughout by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll. Like Andreae, Carroll was highly educated, a gifted mathematician, and ordained deacon, who held a lectureship in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. He remained there throughout his life, publishing twelve books on geometry, algebra, and matrix theory. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research and had an interest in emerging fields of knowledge that we now regard as ‘esoteric’. Where Andreae lived through the turmoil following the Reformation, Carroll endured the crisis between science and religion that engulfed society following the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859.

Of his books, Alice In Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass are two of the most successful works in the English language and finest of the literary nonsense genre. I presented two papers on these books to the Metropolitan College in 2007 explaining why nonsense is not necessarily no-sense. In its literary form it refers to a style of writing that descends from Latin parodies, religious masques, and political satire combined with oral folk traditions. It shares its energy with the festivals of boy bishops and the muddy entertainments of the court of miracles beloved of Victor Hugo and Fulcanelli.

Words, meanings, and purposes are used and dispensed with. Its nonsensicality is like that of an unsolved riddle, when you solve a riddle you understand its meaning.

Therefore, Andreae’s description of his work as a lampoon and Carroll’s of his as nonsense are the same. This is because they share a philosophic tradition of courtly drama, masques, and satire, and because we make sense of their work by seeking and knowing its meaning.

A Drama in Eight Fits

The Hunting of the Snark is a poem described by Carroll as an ‘agony in eight fits’ as if each verse is wrenched from a brain in turmoil. It recounts the journey of ten crew to a mysterious island in search of the Snark. However, they find something far more terrible, the Boojum, which causes one of their number to ‘softly and suddenly vanish away.’

Its success also depends on its illustrations by Henry Halliday- it is his work you see of the crew in pursuit of the snark.

As with the Chemical Wedding, any protestations of it being nonsense are at variance with the sophistication of its construction. Again, numbers are at the fore:

• The rule of three-when anything is stated three times it is true- the triple cry of the Bellman when proclaiming the law.
• Five points or marks by which the Snark is identified.
• Eight fits.
• The ten crew all whose descriptions begin with B, of which one is not illustrated so alluding to the ennead, nine enclosing one, three times three that is the perfect triangle. The truth of truth.
• Forty-two which pervades the Alice books and the Hunting of the Snark. Lewis Carroll when asked his age would often reply 42.

Whilst the poem is a much shorter text, Carroll also humanises his characters, for example the baker, who fades into oblivion at the end of the poem is the only character aware of that risk when they embark.  His fate, like that of Christian Rosencreutz is utterly predetermined. Dreams and ritual engage the characters on their journey. Their destination, the island where the terrifying Jabberwocky had been slain, is of uncertain location.

If it can be said that Andreae looked forward to a future shaped by hermetic philosophy and theology guided by reformed Christianity, Carroll foreshadowed the existential anxiety and surrealism of our modern age where science causes religion to ‘softly and suddenly vanish away’. Each of his ten travellers are written with ‘the’ capital T’ and capital ‘B’. Their predetermined fate is to be the ‘To Be’ or ‘not To Be’.

Carroll satirised the folly of pure intellect, of trying to find meaning by simply thinking about it when we live in a world that our imagination partly creates.

So, we discover that neither the Chemical Wedding nor the Hunting of the Snark are what we thought they were, that is an alchemical allegory or a nonsense poem for children. They are works whose literary and philosophical origins arise from a classical and gothic philosophy encompassing irony, diplomacy, and concealment. Truth is hidden beneath the mask, within a drama or masque, expressed through riddles and puns.

Both follow the form of ancient classical literature. The protagonist, the hero, undertakes a journey from innocence, through experience to knowledge. What the hero comes to know as we discover in their narrative, determines whether their story, and our life, is a tragedy, comedy, or initiation.

What Sidney Williams writes in his book ‘The Handbook of the Literature of Rev C Dodgson’ can be said of both the Chemical Wedding and the Hunting of the Snark.

They describe with infinite care the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature.

An Alchemist Revealed

Let us now look at an image from the imagination of a visual artist. The Alchemist in Search of the Philosophers Stone which was painted by Joseph Wright of Derby between 1771 and 1795.

It depicts the German alchemist Hennig Brand who in 1669 discovered a method that involved the progressive concentration of urine into a viscous liquid from which he extracted red oil leaving a spongy black mass. The red oil was reintroduced, mixed with the black solid, and the resulting substance heated for 16 hours until it emitted a white gas. The white gas was then collected and condensed into a solid that tended to burn with intense white light. That discovery is depicted in Wrights painting, with Brand kneeling at the appearance of what he believed to be.

a king most pure… born into the world…. you see his star… follow it to its crucible… you will see the Son of the Sun.

Philalethes

However, Wright’s painting is not so straightforward as it seems. For a start Wright was a painter of the enlightenment and industrial revolution, science, and technology, so the painting is unlikely to be a straightforward history painting of alchemy. In fact, the event which he has chosen to illustrate was not the discovery of the philosopher’s stone but that of the element, Phosphorus. The approach that Brand had chosen for his research led him to unknowingly discover a technique for the isolation of Phosphorus from Sodium Phosphate found in urine. It is illustrative of the bifurcation of chymestry into esoteric alchemy and scientific chemistry, the triumph of chemistry and the fall of alchemy into obscurity.

Yet if we linger on the painting it slowly becomes clear that virtually nothing, we see is what it appears, certainly not Henning Brand, his laboratory, or apparatus. In fact, the painting is not set in the later seventeenth century when those events took place but within a much older vaulted chamber through whose gothic windows a full moon glows. The laboratory is divided by a green curtain, outside of which are two assistants melting lead rather than engaged in the large-scale concentration of urine. On the screen from which the curtain hangs are books, vessels, and a globe. One open book displays a horoscope which appears to refer to the events depicted in the painting. In front of the curtain and hidden from the view of his assistants Brand kneels and gazes into heaven. His head has little or no likeness to Brand but is almost identical to the depiction of Gaspar, one of the three Kings painted by the artist Peter Paul Rubens. He is clothed in the robes of the wise magus rather than as a laboratory worker. The gestures of his hands resemble the traditional positioning of those of St Francis of Assisi as he receives the marks of the stigmata. His upraised right arm also indicates that the holy space in which he is placed, is separate from that of his assistants.

So rather than diminish or satirise Henning Brand, the iconography of the painting sanctifies the alchemist as a wise and holy man, a saint who seeks God, and approaches Him through the materia of His creation before finally kneeling before Him at His Incarnation. So, we find unexpected layers of meaning in the image, some of which seem elusive and incomplete within a work that is almost intentionally mysterious. It unexpectedly reveals truths about alchemy as perhaps the true cost of the industrial revolution was becoming known.

Its mystery disturbed those who admired Wrights work-it was not a simple homage to science and dismissal of superstition, and perhaps for that reason the painting was not sold during the painter’s lifetime and was finally acquired by the City of Derby.

A Cat

And so, let us move to my final image, the famous poster by Theophile Steinlen created in 1896 to promote a tour by the cabaret which performed at the Chat Noir Café and whose master of ceremonies was the incomparable Rudolph Salis. His personality- ironic, theatrical, flamboyant, and erudite created a crucible for bel epoque occultism. At his café artists, philosophers, musicians, and intellectuals mixed with politicians, and aristocrats such as the family of Comte Ferdinand de Lesseps. Together they listened to the ironic and humorous cabaret with its puppetry and theatricalities. And at their usual table would have been members of the College of the Fraternity of Heliopolis discussing their work as they listed to the café band under the baton of Erik Satie.

It was said that the curious atmosphere of the café influenced Steinlen’s portrayal of the cat. He has turned what appears to be carefully positioned decorative lettering into a halo, or circle of light, behind the head of the cat. When a halo is depicted by red lines, as it is in this poster, it signifies fire. Such iconography recalls the goddess Bastet who was depicted as a cat with a solar disc about her head which refers to Ra, her father. She carried a sistrum, a musical instrument used in temple dances. The whiskers and eyebrows, in four groups of two and three are greatly exaggerated and conspicuously angled.

Is an Egyptian goddess concealed beneath a black cat on a bel epoque poster? Is she the inspiration, the muse of the café, dancing and singing to the beat of her sistrum, and thereby illuminating the patrons through comedy and music? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it seems even the sign of a café can include a small fragment of the meaning of our art. Similarly, we should never underestimate those who may visit us in the most unlikely surroundings.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Hebrews 13 v ii

A Final Thought

And so, as this paper comes to a close, I hope that you now have a greater understanding of the invariable laws fixed for all aspirants to our art.

Silence is the womb, within which we are prepared as we sleep and meditate until that moment when a heavenly messenger announces that our labours have the blessing of heaven.

Our work is undertaken in silence and secrecy not for reasons of concealment from this world but because they are necessary conditions for our being to change in conformity with the materia with which we work. 

Allegory is the source of our knowledge and the language we use to communicate our achievement. Its finest expression is found in great art and literature but, it seems, it can be formed from images and words that we may never know in full or in context, containing meaning hidden within ambiguity.

It is our task, not just to see meaning within the form of art and text but to see meaning in all that is around us, all that is. Through attending to such abstraction, we will be led to perceive the golden dawn of the Son of the Sun, the beginning and the end of the transmutation of both the artist and the materia of all that is.

From all this I understood that tomorrow I must sit by my gate

The seventh day, The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz

Frater Stephen Goulder

Metropolitan College & London College of Adepts

Hamon le Strange College

July 2021

Bibliography

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, Translated by Joscelyn Godwin. Introduction and commentary by Adam McLean. Magnus Opus Hermetic Sourcebooks.

Gold of a Thousand Mornings. Armand Barbault

Hunting of the Snark. Edited with notes by Martin Gardner.

First Day. Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. A paper presented to the MSG by Mark Russell on the 20 June 1998.

It can also be found in the book Companions of Christian Rosenkreutz: Collected Papers 2008-2016 available now from Lewis Masonic.

The Logos

by Alexi Petrou, 2016

The object of my paper is to try and give an interpretation around an area of Christian symbology which features prevalently in its mysticism and theology. I have heavily focused on Kabbalistic, Hermetic and Christian symbolism to analyse an aspect of the divinity; which from first appearance is seemingly beyond human comprehension.

I must confess that I am an amateur with respect to Kabbalism and Hermeticism and what I have written in this paper I do not advertise as truth, or as originating from any particular lineage. The contents of my essay are merely my analysis and interpretation on a challenging aspect of spirituality.

This paper is in some respects my meditations on what is God; why would God wish to create; how God would go about doing so and how would one go about reconciling the concept of an absolute and seemingly separated God, with belief that God is somehow present in our imperfect/limited universe. This paper is therefore a snapshot of a monumental task, a life’s work, and is only meant to be taken by its readers and listeners as a stimulus for their own further study.

Although references are made to certain materials and teachings, I have as far as possible attempted to refrain from making this an academic paper. I have, however, given a list of the reference material I have used should anyone wish to further their own researches.

Concept

My paper may seem somewhat odd, in the sense that I shall begin with my conclusion and attempt to demonstrate how this concept exists within certain mystical and esoteric traditions. I especially believe that this concept is also heavily involved in the Kabbalah and is somewhat important in decoding its precepts, especially in relation to numbers and letters.

My conclusion is simple: it is that God, a seemingly distant infinite being, is actually a lot closer than we perceive and that we as human beings replicate the moment of creation every moment of the day, thus fulfilling the proverb spoken by Christ: I have made ye gods.

In a nutshell, I believe the Logos is an analogy of demonstrating how this creating principle occurs: i.e. through the interaction of Sophia, Nous and Logos (perceive, intellectualise and create). I will now attempt to demonstrate the use of the analogy.

God as Mind

When we begin to investigate how humans attempt to understand their surroundings and develop knowledge generally, we observe that humans often begin with self analysis. In theosophy and philosophy it is generally recognised that there exists three types of knowledge, a priori knowledge (that which comes from within and simply is); a posteriori knowledge (that which comes from without the person); and a priori synthetic (a combination of the two as described by Immanuel Kant in his critique of pure reason). It can therefore be observed that it is entirely possible that when humans begin to analyse or comprehend God, they do so from an analysis of themselves. Consequently, what better way to begin an analysis of God then by attempting to draw parallels between that most elusive part of our existence—consciousness—for as it was expressed at the entrance to the sacred mysteries, ‘know thyself and you shall know the universe and God’.

Consciousness and the development of knowledge has always been an anomaly, not just for empiricists but for most human beings. It is quite perplexing in the sense that our existence is self verifiable. Unlike the state of our existence, the accuracy of which can be verified by others, or when measured against external stimuli (e.g. our height measured against another’s etc.), our actual conscious existence is dependent only upon self verification. There is therefore weight to Rene Descartes’ proposition ‘I think therefore I am’, in the sense that this knowledge is only of itself. Our conscious existence can therefore only be at its core a priori knowledge. For example it would be a contradiction for another to verify that you do not exist, as that would require recognition and communication of that recognition.

Likewise we also find in Kabbalah and Hermeticism references to God, as with consciousness, as simply being. One of the most famous examples of this occurs in the Old Testament when Moses perceives God through the angel in the burning bush. Moses has a dialogue with God about how he should describe him to his people. God simply states, Eheheih esher Eheheih, or I am that I am, I was and will be.

In essence God is relating itself to that part of the human being which is equally unexplainable, man’s mind or consciousness. Therefore God, like man, is self verifying and also by extension must exist. I believe the explanation of this aspect of God equates to the source of the individual’s consciousness, it is one and the same; it is a state of being. It is not influenced or affected by the external but rather, through introspection, is that foundation upon which our individual conscious vehicle is built. Therefore, if the I aspect of ourselves is literally or by analogy similar to the I aspect of God, the processes of our own consciousness may also be a useful analogy of the way God creates, thereby fulfilling the maxim ‘as above, so below’. For example, from self study it is quite readily ascertainable that the processes of the human mind are not limited to simply a state of being.

So if God is mind, how within this analogy would one explain how God creates? It is simple really, because as I have mentioned in my introduction we, as conscious beings, do so on a daily basis. Plato described this process as Sophia, Nous and Logos and in essence I believe it is a way of explaining the manifestation/exercise of the will, or in this respect the will of God.

Reflect on, for example, what occurs when one thinks of communicating a word. First one would have to manifest within one’s consciousness the concept; this requires some understanding of what that concept is. The mind then draws from the state of being the concept and attempts to intellectualise it by translating the idea or understanding of that thing ready to be communicated or manifested. This would naturally involve transmuting and limiting the idea through the rules of the individual’s chosen language. The final stage would be creating that word by speaking it. This in turn is received by the recipient who is then influenced by the meaning of the word (e.g. understands or reacts to the word).

As can therefore be seen, this process demonstrates the individual’s ability to manifest something which at first was un-manifested; thereby effecting their will and intention. In much the same way, I believe God creates by first drawing the concept from its state of being (Sophia); limiting, or defining the concept through form (a process of intellectualising); or processing it in a somewhat more linear fashion than before (Nous); then manifesting it by creating that concept (Logos).

Kabbalah

From my very amateur study of Kabbalistic philosophy, I believe this concept of using the logos (or word) as a symbol for manifesting the will of the divinity, is central to beginning to understand the system itself. Words themselves, especially names, are the central means of representing the divinity and planes of reality. This could be because the Hebrew tradition tended (at least in its later years) to avoid the use of idols or anything which could be considered to limit (at least in form) God. The use of words in the system (e.g. in gemetria and gemancia) is therefore extremely important, especially as methods of revealing divine truths. It is not surprising why oral traditions in Judaism refer to God manifesting reality by speaking a word. That God spoke and that particular thing came into being, e.g. God saying chair and the chair simply manifesting as a result.

This symbolic way of expressing the manifestation of the will also seems to be represented at least implicitly within the Tree of Life itself, and even in the foundation and source of the Tree. For example, if one analyses the Ain principle at the start of creating, one can begin to see similarities with the definition of the I principle of God. We learn from various Kabbalistic commentaries that God, the ultimate and total state of existence (or negative existence/no-thing-ness), began a process whereby it made space (or cleared a way for cause and effect), and then created that cause itself. This is in essence the movement from Ain to Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur (focused through Kether). Moreover Ain, from its analysis, is quite similar to the principle of simply being; it is in a way the I aspect. From this one could also interpret the Ain Soph aspect as the beginning of intellectualising, or creating a vehicle for the manifestation of reality. The third aspect, Ain Soph Aur (Limitless Light), funnelled into Kether (the Crown), could therefore be considered the manifestation of what would have otherwise been dormant in God. Ain Soph Aur (Limitless Light) can be therefore be thought of as the first reference to the Logos aspect of divinity. Light and Logos might therefore be considered the same thing, Light symbolising manifest existence itself. This at first seems perplexing as we would consider words to be associated with sound; however from a further analysis one must deduce that all existence is light itself, simply manifesting at different rates.

What is also noticeable is that St. John may have also been aware of the concept that the Logos, proceeding forth from the mind of God is synonymous with light. For example in the first chapter of his gospel, St. John states:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and life was the Light of men.

And the Light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

The above passage is also strikingly similar to another passage contained in what is thought to be a contemporary of St. John’s gospel, the Corpus Hermeticum, where it states:

[Thereon] out of the light...a Holy Word (Logos) descended on that Nature. And upwards to the height from the Moist Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too...

That Light, He said, am I, thy God, Mind, prior to Moist Nature which appeared from Darkness; the Light-Word (Logos) [that appeared] from Mind is Son of God.

It is therefore apparent that Kabbalists would also have been aware of these concepts and may have incorporated the explanation in a more cryptic form in the Tree of Life. The importance of the Logos is also reaffirmed in the Sepher Yetzirah, which goes on to quote some detail regarding how God first created letters; these letters as with the Logos being the manifested will of God.

For example, in the opening chapter it states: He created this universe by three Sepharim, Number, writing and speech. Ten are the numbers, as are the Sephiroth, and twenty-two the letters, these are the foundations of all things. Of these letters, three are mothers, seven are double, and twelve are simple.

The Logos and the Tetragrammaton

Perhaps in the Kabbalah the most famous example of a word being used as an algorithm of creation or manifestation of the will of God, is the Tetragrammaton (the four lettered word). Much mystery and lore surrounds the use of the Tetragrammaton and it is said that by the congregation and significance of its letters one can ascertain truths about God and begin to have an insight into the rules governing the universe. In a way, the Tetragrammaton is used to symbolise the divine man (Adam Kadmon) and also all of the planes of reality which exist within the four worlds: Aziluth, Briah, Yetsirah and Assiah. Moreover, in its occult sense the word represents what the ancients considered the building blocks of life: primordial fire, air, water and earth (which is the synthesis of the preceding three elements). It also represents the four dimensions which the great God sealed our reality. It is in a way an outward symbol of the process which has been described above, the mind of God being reflected in reality. For this reason it is quite interesting that Christian mystics used the Tetragrammaton as a means of symbolising Christ, the Logos, as its completion (the Pentagrammaton). For example, by inserting the Hebrew character shin (which refers to the Shekinah, the spirit of God resting in creation), we are able to make out a name from an otherwise unpronounceable word: Yeheshuah.

In the Old Testament, the ancient Hebrews believed that the spirit of God or Shekinah resided on the Ark of the Covenant which rested in the heart of the temple. The ark representing not only the covenant between God and man, but a direct link between God and man. It was for that reason the priests had to symbolically purify themselves mentally, emotionally and physically before they entered the sanctum which represented the metaphysical. Now it is believed by some scholars that the temple itself was representative of the microcosm (Malkuth). Indeed this is one of the main myths which is promulgated by masonic ceremonies. In fact, Christ himself taught that his body and indeed the body of man is the temple of God.

So when we review the Pentagrammaton in this light, and with what has already been described above, the Tetragrammaton can also be viewed as an outward symbol of the temple and the microcosm. However, absent the shin (Shekinah), it is incomplete as a formula — it is creation un-animated. Add the shin (representing three higher trinities), or spirit, the word not only becomes pronounceable but now includes that element which animates the others and from which all the other derive. For the Christian mystic, without the addition of the shin, although the mind of God is creating, individual consciousness has not occurred; God has not impregnated itself in the reality which it has created. This is why the Pentagrammaton is important as a culmination of the Logos factor, it assists mankind to complete the anomaly of consciousness and assists them to understand that they are the temple of God and that they house the foundation of all the universe within them. That God has given them through their individuality and consciousness (through spirit), the ability to create and bring the Kingdom of Heaven ever closer to earth, by first realising that it is ever present within.

The Logos is therefore not only the outward manifestation of our ability to create, but also proof of our ever present connection and union with God. That the Logos resides inside us and we are in effect logoi — reflections of the higher Logos Christ to whom we must strive to become like.