ROSICRUCIANS & PROTESTANTS TOGETHER
“In some way...there was a connection the
Cathars,
who were tied with the Bogomils and the older Manichaeans, or followers
of Mani. It was from here at the close of the Cathar influence in the
Albigensian Crusades that a young boy of the German nobel house of
Germel was prepared for training in Persia when he was to come of age. The legend of C.R.C. [Christian Rosencreutz] that was the focus of the first Rosicrucian manifesto published
in 1614 was an allegorical vehicle based upon his life and work.
Geoffrey de St. Adhémar had also been originally from a town in the
Albigensian lands of the Cathars. He later was tutored in the tradition,
and co-founded the first
Militae Evangelicae in 1089.”
(Rosicrucian
Library)
“A Society
allied to the Rosicrucians and incorporating much of their philosophy
was founded at Lunenberg in 1571, under the name Militia Crucifera Evangelica.
The MSS of this Society refers to the Rose and Cross. This organization
cooperated with another in Holland, known as the ‘Friends of the
Cross.’” - “Christian Rosencreutz”
(S.R.I.A.)
“...it was only with
Schelling that the medieval heresy of the Eternal
Evangel reappeared. When in 1831 he began to deliver his famous
lectures on The Philosophy of Revelation in Munich, he felt himself to
be invested with a great mission to announce the
universal religion to come, the Church of St John... It has been said that
‘Many a
listener...had the impression that he was watching the rise of new stage
of consciousness and the birth of a new religion.’... Like others,
Schelling saw St John as the apostle of the future in concord with
Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist in the Old Dispensation, he placed
Peter, Paul, and John in the New, representing the three stages in the
Christian Church. Peter was the Apostle of the Father, Paul of the Son,
while John was the Apostle of the Spirit
who was leading mankind into the full truth of the future. The first
stage was that of Catholicism, the second of Protestantism, but the
third will be the perfect religion of mankind.” -
256:62
See: Heeding Bible Prophecy:
New Scripture: New Gospel
“. . . the Fraternity
(of the Rosy Cross) has taken on a new significance
through the finding of the vault in which Brother Rosencreutz is buried. The
door into this vault was miraculously discovered, and it typifies the opening
of a door in
Europe which is greatly desired by many.
“The description of this vault is a central feature of the Rosencreutz
legend. . . . The tomb of Rosencreutz was under the altar in the vault. . .
“The discovery of the vault is the signal for the general reformation; it
is the dawn preceding a sunrise. ‘We know. . . that there will now be a
general reformation, both of divine and human things, according to our desire
and the expectation of others; for it is fitting that before the rising of the
Sun there should break forth Aurora, or some clearness or divine light, in the
sky.’ The date at which the vault was discovered is indirectly indicated as
1604.
“This very peculiar document, the
Fama Fraternitatis, thus seems to
recount, through the allegory of the vault, the discovery of a new, or rather
new-old, philosophy, primarily alchemical and related to medicine and healing,
but also concerned with number and geometry and with the production of
mechanical marvels. It represents, not only an advancement of learning, but
above all an illumination of a religious and spiritual nature. This new
philosophy is about to be revealed to the world and will bring about a general
reformation. The mythical agents of its spread are the R. C. Brothers. These
are said to be reformed German Christians, devoutly
evangelical. Their religious faith seems closely connected with
their alchemical philosophy, which has nothing to do with ‘ungodly and
accursed gold making’, for the riches which Father Rosencreutz offers are
spiritual; ‘he doth not rejoice that he can make gold but is glad that
he seeth the Heavens open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending, and his name written in the Book of Life.’”
46:45-6
“Apart from
(Johann Valentin) Andreae. . .there are two writers who are
generally recognized as the chief exponents of Rosicrucian philosophy. These
are Robert Fludd and Michael Maier. Though both Fludd and Maier denied that
they were Rosicrucians, they both spoke with interest and approval of the
Rosicrucian manifestos, and their philosophies are, roughly speaking, in line
with the attitudes expressed in the manifestos. But the modes of thought which
are veiled in the fictions of the Fama, Confessio, and Wedding are developed by Fludd and Maier into whole libraries of weighty
books which were published in the years following the appearance of those
three exciting works...
“It is thus with a sense of satisfaction, as of a confirmation from
another quarter of the correctness of the historical line of approach followed
in the preceding chapters, that one notes that the major works of Fludd and
Maier were published in the Palatinate during the reign of Frederick V. . . Maier was a Lutheran.
. .”
46:70, 73
“Fludd. . .approves the manifestos. The Brothers, he maintains, are true
Christians. They are not wickedly magical or seditious. They would not have
trumpeted their message aloud had they been wicked people. Like Lutherans and
Calvinists they are against the Pope but are not
therefore heretical. Perhaps these Brothers are truly illuminated
by God. . .”
46:75
“When later defending himself from the charge made against him in England
that he had had his books printed ‘beyond the seas’ because the magic in them
forbade their publication in England, Fludd quotes a letter from a German
scholar stating that the printer (that is De Bry) had shown his volume before
printing to learned men, including some Jesuits, who had all admired it and
recommended publication, though the Jesuits disapproved of his sections on
geomancy and wished them omitted. They were, however, evidently not omitted.
Fludd is convinced that his volumes are not distasteful to the
Calvinists, amongst whom his printer lives, nor to
the Lutherans ‘which are his bordering neighbours’, nor even to the Papists, who have approved them, but he
ignores the fact that, according to himself, the Jesuits had not wholly
approved.
“The first of Fludd’s Oppenheim volumes, the
‘History of the Macrocosm’ of
1617, is dedicated to James I, a most impressive dedication in which James is
saluted as ‘Ter Maximus’, the epithet sacred to Hermes Trismegestus, and as
the most potent and wise prince in the world. The significance of this
dedication stands out now that we more fully understand the significance of
the publication of Fludd’s books at Oppenheim. Fludd and his
Palatinate publisher were assuming the interest of
James in a work published in his son-in-law’s dominions. They were drawing
this most potent prince into their philosophy, assigning to him a Hermetic
role. If this book circulated much in
Germany, or in
Bohemia, it would have confirmed their
impression, or illusion, that thought movements in the
Palatinate had the approval of James.
“We can also now begin to see the situation more clearly from James’s
point of view. His son-in-law, and that son-in-law’s advisers and friends,
were not only trying to involve James in a political line of action of which
he disapproved--the activist polity which was leading towards the Bohemian
enterprise. They were also trying to involve him in a philosophy of which he
disapproved. James was desperately afraid of anything magic; this
was his most deep-seated neurosis. He had disapproved, of (John)
Dee, would not receive him, and relegated him to
a kind of banishment. And now, in his son-in-law’s domains, there
is published an immense work on the Dee type of Hermetic philosophy,
dedicated to him, and attempting by that dedication to draw him into
that point of view, or to give the impression that he is favourable to
it. . .”
46:77-78
“Maier, (was) a devout Lutheran Christian (Fludd was a devout
Anglican). . . Whatever else they may represent, Fludd and Maier are most
certainly Hermetic philosophers, representing a kind of Hermetic Renaissance
at a time when the original Hermetic impulses of the earlier Renaissance were
waning in some quarters.”
46:82
“Maier may have been influenced by a
(Giordano) Bruno tradition as well as
by the
Dee tradition. We know that Bruno
claimed to have founded a sect of ‘Giordanisti’ among the Lutherans. (See Giordano
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 312-13) Maier was a Lutheran;
his intensively Hermetic religious movement might therefore have
included some Bruno influence, might be an attempt at the
Hermetic reform of religion, the infusion of greater
life into religion through the Hermetic influences, such as Bruno
had so passionately advocated. On the other hand the strongly alchemical
aspect of Maier’s movement points to
Dee as the major influence. Perhaps in the
Palatinate type of Hermetic reform, currents descending
from the
Dee type of Hermetic tradition mingle with a
Bruno type.”
46:85
“Maier is activated by a very strong religious Hermetic impulse, as
strong, in its way, as that which had moved Giordano Bruno in the late
sixteenth century, though combined in Maier with Lutheran piety---the sort of
combination one might expect if Bruno’s influence took root in Lutheran
circles in
Germany.”
46:88
“The criticism of the R. C. Brothers. . .rests on the following points.
It is suspected that their activities may be subversive of established
government;. . . There is a frequently made general accusation of magical
practices. (ff. Defenders maintain that their magic is good and godly.)
Finally--and this is one of the most important points--their enemies complain
that the religious position of the R. C. Brothers is not clear.
Some call them Lutherans, some Calvinists, and some Socinians or Deists.
They are even suspected of being Jesuits.
“This is suggestive of what may have been one of the most important
aspects of the Rosicrucian movement, that it could include different
religious denominations. As we have seen, Fludd claimed that his
work found favour with truly religious persons of all denominations.
Fludd was a devout Anglican, friend of Anglican bishops; so was Elizabeth Stuart, the
wife of the Elector Palatine. The Elector was a devout Calvinist,
as was Christian of Anhalt, his chief adviser. Maier was a devout Lutheran,
as was also Andreae and many of the other Rosicrucian writers. The
common denominator which would draw all of them together would be the
macro-microcosmic musical philosophy, the mystical alchemy, of which
Fludd and Meier were the two chief exponents. . .”
46:97-98
“The R. C. movement collapsed when the Palatinate movement collapsed, when
those inspiring vistas opened up behind the Elector Palatine and his brilliant
alliances failed utterly with the flight of the King and Queen of Bohemia from
Prague after the Battle of White Mountain, when it was realized that neither the King of Great Britain nor their German Protestant allies would help them,
when the Hapsburg troops moved into the Palatinate and the Thirty Years
War began its dreadful course.”
46:100
“Giordano Bruno as he wandered through
Europe had preached an approaching general reformation
of the world, based on return to the ‘Egyptian’ religion taught in the
Hermetic treatises, a religion which was to transcend religious differences
through love and magic, which was to be based on a new vision of nature
achieved through Hermetic contemplative exercises. He had preached this
religion, enveloped in mythological forms, in
France,
England, and
Germany. According to himself, he
had formed a sect in
Germany, called the ‘Giordanisti’,
which had much influence among the Lutherans.”
46:136
“Johann Amos Komensky, or Comenius, born in 1592, was six years younger
than Johann Valentin Andreae, whose works and outlook influenced him
enormously. Comenius was one of the Bohemian Brethren, the mystical branch of the oldest reformation
tradition in
Europe, that stemming from
John Huss. Comenius and Andreae had much
in common. Both were devout, reformed clerics; both were interested in new
intellectual movements which they grafted on to their native piety, the German
Lutheran tradition in one case, in the other, the Hussite tradition.
“Comenius received his first schooling in his native
Moravia and afterwards attended the Calvinist
university of
Herborn, in
Nassau. In the spring of 1613, Comenius left
Herborn and made fro
Heidelberg to continue his studies at the
university. . .
“Comenius was attending the lectures of the
Heidelberg professor David Paraeus . .
.(who) was interested in uniting Lutherans and Calvinists; both he and
the other professors who lectured to Comenius were closely associated with the
Elector Frederick.
46:156
“The face
(of Frederick V) is not one’s idea of a Calvinist face, but
Calvinism, in the Palatinate, was the carrier of mystical traditions, of the
Renaissance Hermetic-Cabalist tradition which had moved over to that side.
Frederick’s spiritual advisor was an
‘orientalist’; perhaps, like Rudolph II, he sought an esoteric way
through the religious situation.”
46:172
The
Rosicrucian ENLIGHTENMENT
“(Francis) Bacon died in 1626. In 1627 there was published from his papers an
unfinished and undated work in which he set forth his Utopia, his dream of an
ideal religious and scientific society. It takes the form of an allegory,
about the discovery by storm-tossed mariners of a new land, the New Atlantis.
The inhabitants of the New Atlantis had built there the perfect society,
though remaining entirely unknown to the rest of the world. They were
Christians; Christianity had been brought to them in early times, an evangelical Christianity
which emphasized brotherly love.
They were also in an advanced state of scientific knowledge. In their great
college, called Salomon’s House, an order of priest-scientists pursued
researches in all the arts and sciences, the results of which they knew how to
apply for the benefit of men.
“...The religion of the
New Atlantis has much in common with that
of the Rosicrucian manifestos. It is intensely Christian in spirit, though
not doctrinal, interpreting the Christian spirit in terms of practical
benevolence, like the R. C. Brothers. It is profoundly influenced by
Hebraic-Christian mysticism, as in Christian Cabala. The inhabitants of
New Atlantis respect the Jews; they call their college after Solomon and seek
for God in nature.”
46:125-9
“We need a reconstruction of our theology on the basis, not of God’s
sovereignty, but of God’s holy love to all mankind,
which he has made in his own image, and redeemed with the blood of his own
son. Every age must produce its own theology.” -
208:476-7
“. . .a message which is closely parallel to that of the
Fama, the
need for a new reformation since former attempts at reformation have failed,
for a movement which should emphasized Christian love and charity as its main
inspiration. . .” -
46:135
“The Rosicrucian manifesto may now take on a somewhat wider meaning. It
calls for a general reformation because other reformations have failed. The
Protestant Reformation is losing strength and is divided. The Catholic
Counter-Reformation has taken a wrong turning. A new general reformation of
the whole wide world is called for, and this third
reformation is to find its strength in Evangelical Christianity with its emphasis on brotherly love,
in the esoteric Hermetic-Cabalist tradition, and in an accompanying turning
towards the works of God in nature in a scientific spirit of exploration, using
science or magic, magical science or scientific magic, in the service of man.” -
46:139
“At some time around 1617. . .
(Johann Valentin Andreae) urged the formation of ‘Christian Unions’, or
‘Christian Societies’. These
societies or unions were to be inspired by aims very similar to those
expressed in the Rosicrucian manifestos. They were to give expression to
a
renewal in religion, or a new reformation, to encourage by precept and
example the spread of Christian charity and
brotherly love, and to engage earnestly in intellectual and
scientific activities for the good of mankind.”
46:140
“Andreae’s most important work, the description of the ideal or utopian city of
Christianopolis. . .begins by deploring the oppression of the church
of Christ by Antichrist, which has aroused the determination to restore light
and dispel darkness. Luther’s reformation is now to be succeeded by a new
reformation. The drama of Luther’s days ‘may be played out in our own day’,
for ‘the light of a purer religion has
dawned on us.’ Men of fervent spirit. . .have called for a time of meditation and
spiritual renewal and for the spread of a new
outpouring of the Christian spirit in these times.”
46:145
“The intense Christian piety of Dee-inspired Christianopolis would perhaps
be nearer to Hartlib’s strong evangelical pietism
and mysticism than Bacon’s cooler temperament.” -
46:181
The Puritan Protectorate
(1653-1658)
“The word ‘Cathar’ probably comes from the Greek ‘pure,’
and the Cathar doctrines show the sect to have been Gnostic of the
ascetic type. They believed that the world had been created by an evil
being—that there were a series of spheres of being between God and the
material world-that procreation was evil because it introduced another
spark of the divine into matter. These are familiar tenets. In the
Languedoc the Cathars flourished, until in 1207 Pope Innocent III
solicited help from the magnates of the North to crush the dangerous
heresy. Strictly speaking it was not a heresy, but a rival religion; and
as such it was ruthlessly wiped out.” (Webb
207)
-
Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan “Lord Protector” of England, Scotland
and Ireland, was financed by Jewish elites.
“When King Charles I was brought into disagreement with his Parliament a
Jewish Money-Baron in Holland named Manasseh Ben Israel had his agents contact
Oliver Cromwell. They offered him large sums
of money if he would carry out their plan to overthrow the British Throne. Manasseh Ben Israel, and other German and French money-lenders financed
Cromwell. Fernandez Carvajal of Portugal, often referred to in
history as ‘The Great Jew,’ became Cromwell’s Chief Military Contractor. He re-organized the Round Heads into a model army.
He provided them with the best arms and equipment money could buy. Once the
conspiracy was under way, hundreds of trained revolutionaries were smuggled
into England and were absorbed into the Jewish Underground. The same thing is
going on in America today.
“The head of the Jewish underground in England at that time was a Jew named De
Souze. The Great Jew, Fernandez Carvajal, had used his influence to have De
Souze appointed Portuguese Ambassador. It was in his house, protected by
diplomatic immunity, that the leaders of the Jewish revolutionary underground
remained hidden and worked out their plots and intrigue.
“Once the revolution had been decided upon, the
Jewish plotters introduced
Calvinism into England to split Church and
State, and divide the people.” (Chronology of The International Conspiracy)
“During the first half of the seventeenth century some extravagant
notions of the near approach of the Messianic time, and more especially
of the redemption of the Jews and their return to Jerusalem, were set
forth by Christian writers and entertained by Jews and Christians alike.
The so-called apocalyptic year was assigned by Christian authors to the
year 1666. This belief was so predominant that
Manasseh b. Israel
in his letter to Cromwell and the English Parliament did not hesitate to
use it as a motive for his plea for the readmission of the Jews into
England, remarking that ‘the opinions of many Christians and mine do
concur herein, that we both believe that the restoring time of our
Nation into their native country is very near at hand’ (see Grätz, ‘Gesch.’
x., note 3, pp. xxix. et seq.).” (Jewish
Encyclopedia)
January 17, 1648 - “England’s Long Parliament passes the Vote of No
Address, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby
setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.” -
Wikipedia
“And amongst the earnest enthusiasts for the model society, and its vast
possibilities for expansion, was Samuel Hartlib. ...it was the Andraean combination of evangelical piety with science, and the utilitarian
application of science, which inspired Hartlib’s untiring efforts.
“And with Hartlib, and his friends and helpers
John Dury and
John Amos Comenius, the movement returned to
England, for it was in Parliamentarian
England [Cromwell/Puritan], which had returned to
the old Elizabethan role of champion of Protestant
Europe, that Hartlib saw the best chance of
establishing the new reformation. As the
R. C. Fraternity had represented hopes raised by the English alliance, through
the Elector Palatine’s English marriage, so, when those hopes failed, it was
towards an England restored to its Elizabethan role that Hartlib and his
friends turned for support for their ideals of universal reformation,
their continuation of the Rosicrucian dream under other names.”
46:155
“Those in England, and they were many, who were dissatisfied with the
non-Parliamentarian and anti-Puritan, or even potentially Papist, policies of
James I and Charles I, looked with longing towards that Protestant royal
family at The Hague which represented a possible succession to the throne...
“Elizabeth was not only
popular with loyal monarchists of Protestant sympathy; she was also popular
with Parliamentarians. The Parliaments under James and Charles had always
been sympathetic to her and when Parliament overthrew the monarchy,
Parliamentarians still continued to feel respect for Elizabeth of Bohemia. In
fact, it may be asked whether if she had succeeded to the throne there might
never have been a revolution. Parliamentarians, and Oliver Cromwell
himself, did not really object to monarchy as such. Oliver thought that
monarchy of the Elizabethan type was the best form of government. The
objection was to monarchs who tried to rule without Parliament and whose
foreign policy was not directed towards the support of the Protestant cause in
Europe. Elizabeth Stuart was free from these
objections to her royal relatives. In fact, she and her husband really
represented the kind of foreign policy which Parliamentarians would have
wished James and Charles to follow. It is thus not surprising that the
revolutionary Parliament recognized the right of the Queen of Bohemia to its
support. She had received a pension from Charles I which Parliament
continued. From her court at
The Hague,
Elizabeth was thus in a position of being
able to follow vicissitudes in
England without entirely losing
touch with either side. Though she remained absolutely firm in her sympathy
for her brother Charles, and was horrified by his death, there were some
aspects of Parliamentarian and Cromwellian thinking which were not so much out
of line with her position.
“(Elizabeth) was, so to speak,
the ideological link through whom the thoughts of the three ‘foreigners’, Hartlib, Dury and Comenius, could become acclimatized in an
England which was throwing off
monarchical despotism.” -
46:173-75
“There has never, I think, been suggested that James’s doubtful attitude
towards Baconian science might be connected with his very deep interest in,
and dread of, magic and witchcraft. These subjects had a fascination for him
which was tied up with neuroses about some experiences in his early life. In
his
Demonology (1597) James advocated the death penalty for all
witches, though he urges care in the examination of cases. The subject was
for him a most serious one, a branch of theology. Obviously James was not the
right person to examine the - always rather difficult - problem of when
Renaissance Magia and Cabala were valuable movements, leading to science, and
when they verged on sorcery, the problem of defining the differences between
good magic and bad magic. James was not interested in science and would react
with fear from any sort of magic.
“It is not surprising that when old
John Dee appealed to James for help in
clearing his reputation from charges of conjuring devils, James would have
nothing to do with him.
Dee’s fruitless appeal to James was made in June 1604.
The old man to whose learning the Elizabethan age was so infinitely indebted
was disgraced in the reign of James and died in great poverty in 1608. Bacon
must have taken good note of James’s attitude to
Dee, and he must also have noted that survivors from
the Elizabethan age of mathematics and magic, of navigational boldness and
anti-Spanish exploits, were not sure of encouragement under James as they had
been under
Elizabeth. Northumberland and Raleigh
pursued their studies in prison in the Tower under James, working at
mathematics and alchemy with their learned associate, Thomas Hariot.
“Obviously, Bacon would have been careful to avoid, in works intended to
interest James, anything savouring of
Dee and his suspicious mathematics. Even so, Bacon did
not succeed in allaying James’s suspicions of scientific advancement, however
carefully presented.
“And even more obviously, it was not the way to influence James in favour
of his son-in-law’s plans and projects in the
Palatinate and
Bohemia to associate him with a movement
which wrapped its designs in enchanted vaults and invisible R. C. Brothers,
who could easily be turned into sorcerers by witch-hunters. Among the many
mistakes made by the friends of the unfortunate Elector Palatine, the
Rosicrucian manifestos may have been one of the worst. If any rumour of them
came to James’s ears, and any rumour of their being associated with Frederick,
this would certainly have done more than anything else to turn him against
Frederick, and to destroy any hope that he would countenance his projects.
“Thus Frances Bacon as he propagated advancement of learning, and
particularly of scientific learning, during the reign of James 1 was moving
amongst pitfalls. The old Elizabethan scientific tradition was not in favour,
and some of its major surviving representatives were shunned or in prison.
The late Queen Elizabeth had asked
John Dee to explain his Monas hieroglypica
to her; King James would have nothing to do with its author. Bacon, when
he published The Advancement of Learning in 1605, would have been aware
that James had repulsed
Dee in the preceding year. And moreover the exported
Elizabethan traditions, which had gone over to the
Palatinate with James’s daughter and her husband, were
not in favour either. Francis Bacon was one of those who regretted James’s
foreign policy and urged support of the Elector Palatine. Here, too, the
writer of English manifestos for the advancement of learning would have to
walk warily, lest he might seem to much implicated in movements in the
Palatinate.” -
46:123-25
“(Hartlib, Dury and Comenius) were the men who came to
England and tried to propagate
here, universal reformation, advancement of learning, and other utopist
ideals. They represented
Bohemia and
Germany in exile and dispersion,
and if we add to them Theodore Haak, who acted as Comenius’s agent in
England, we have the
Palatinate represented, for Haak was a
refugee from the
Palatinate.
“In 1640 the Long Parliament met, angry at Parliament’s long exclusion
from the affairs of the nation, angry at the domestic policy pursued by the
monarchy, and angry, above all, at its foreign policy, which had been one of
’peace with ignominy while the cause of Protestantism was going down abroad’.
When, by the execution of Strafford, this Parliament seemed to have broken
the ‘tyranny’, the way seemed open for a new period in human affairs to
begin. A mood of great enthusiasm was generated and thoughts turned to
far-reaching vistas of some universal reformation, in education, in religion,
in advancement of learning for the good of mankind. . .
“In this thrilling hour when it seemed that England might be the land
chosen by Jehovah to be the scene of the restoration of all things, when the
possibility dawned that here imaginary commonwealths might become real
commonwealths, invisible colleges, real colleges, Hartlib wrote to Comenius
and urged him to come to England to assist in the great work. Though
Parliament did not actually sponsor the invitation, there was general goodwill
behind it, and behind a similar one to Dury. In a sermon delivered to
Parliament in 1640, Comenius and Dury were mentioned as the philosophers who
should be followed in future reforms. Comenius in far away Poland was
overjoyed. He believed that he had a mandate from Parliament to build
Bacon’s New Atlantis in England.” -
46:177-8
“The Christian group ’Gold und Rosenkreuzer’ (Golden and Rosy Cross) was
founded by the alchemist Samuel Richter
(Sincerus Renatus) in Prague in the early 18th century...as a deeply
hierarchical secret society, composed of internal circles, recognition
signs and based upon alchemy treatises... Its members claimed that the
leaders of the Rosicrucian Order had invented Freemasonry and only they
knew the secret meaning of Masonic symbols. According to this group’s
legend, the Rosicrucian Order was founded by Egyptian ‘Ormusse’ or ‘Licht-Weise’
who emigrated to Scotland with the name ‘Builders from the East’. Then
the original Order disappeared and was supposed to have been resurrected
by Oliver Cromwell as ‘Freemasonry’.”
(Answers.com)
Webster, John
Affiliation:
Calvinist
“A Puritan who was active on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War and did
not conform at the Restoration.
“Webster is best known for a famous attack on the university curriculum, Academiarum examen, urging laboratory observation as in chemistry, a work
drawing upon the Paracelsian tradition and on Van Helmont, and indebted as
well to [Robert] Fludd [Grand Master of
Prieuré de Sion].
“He published Metallographia, 1671 (possibly an earlier edition in 1661), which
again displayed his debt to Paracelsus and Van Helmont. Both in
England and on the continent, this
book was considered an important work on metals and on minerals.
He also engaged in a debate on witchcraft with Glanvill, Casaubon, and More.
Webster rejected witchcraft because Glanvill, Casaubon, and More linked it
with magic and the occult sciences, which Webster, the Paracelsian, defended...
Chaplain in the Parliamentary army, 1643-8...”
(The
Scientific Revolution)
“The, as it were, public acknowledgement of the
Fama and the Confessio may have encouraged
John Webster, a Puritan divine, to come
out with a remarkable work in which he urges that ‘the philosophy of Hermes
revived by the Paracelsian school’ should be taught in the universities.
Webster goes very deeply into the kind of doctrines that are behind the
Rosicrucian manifestos, urging, like them, the replacement of Aristotelian
scholasticism by a Hermetic-Paracelsist type of natural philosophy, through
which to learn the language of nature rather than the language of the
schools. His only mention of the ‘highly illuminated fraternity of the Rosie
Cross’ is in connection with the ‘language of nature’, which he speaks of as a
secret known to the ‘divinely inspired Teutonic Boehme’ and ‘in some measure
acknowledged’ by the Rosy Cross Fraternity, and interesting (and undoubtedly
correct) insight into the affinity between Boehme and the Rosicrucian
manifestos.
“Within the ‘philosophy of Hermes’, Webster includes mathematics
particularly as recommended by
John Dee in his Preface to Euclid from which
Webster quotes at length, with ecstatic encomiums of Dee. He also profoundly
reveres that ‘profoundly learned man Dr. Fludd’, and he is under the
impression that if authors like these--and his book is an amalgam of Paracelsist, Agrippan and similar Renaissance magico-scientific type of
thinking, with Dee and Fludd as his favourites---were taught in the
universities, ‘the arcana and magnalia of nature’ arrived at by Francis Bacon
might be brought to perfection. . .
“In the heart of Puritan England, this
Parliamentarian chaplain
produces a work which is right in the Renaissance magico-scientific tradition,
culminating in Dee and Fludd, and he thinks that this is what should be taught
in the universities, together with Baconianism. . .” -
46:186
“…Meric Casaubon, in Of Credulity and Incredulity (1668) discusses
many wonders which the enlightenment of his age had now proved to be natural
phenomena. But he is alarmed at the spread of rationalism and too deeply
imbued with reverence for the Bible to question any doctrines which were
supposed to emanate from that source. So he condemns as atheists and
uneducated all those who denied a league between the devil and men, and dwells
on the enormous volume of testimony, ancient and modern, literary and
judicial, in proof of sorcery. And yet it is manifest that these scholars were
pleading a lost cause. Men believed in witchcraft so long as its horror,
grotesqueness and defilement fascinated their imagination. The earlier
demonologists had quoted Scripture and the classics to the full, but their
conviction really rested on the prurient or ghastly anecdotes with which this
superstition abounded. The spell of mystery and horror still exercised its
power over the vulgar, and broadsides continued to report cases of
bewitchment; but the age had learnt to criticise its own ideas and educated apologists
already showed a
degree of sensibility and intellectual refinement quite inconsistent with
these beliefs. The superstition still seemed to thrive because it had not yet
been confronted with the purer, keener outlook of the restoration.
“This was the work of
John Webster. His book The Displaying of
supposed Witchcraft (1677) does not contribute any new material to the
controversy; in fact, he admits himself that the demonographers had already
been “quashed and silenced” by Wier, Tandler, Scot, Ady and Wagstaffe. But,
while reproducing their arguments, whether based on theology or common-sense,
he did more than they all, by bringing the controversy into an atmosphere
in which the superstition could not live: the atmosphere of confidence in
nature and reverence for an immaterial God. Now that Hakewill,
Harvey,
Newton and Locke were teaching men to
investigate and not fear the mysteries of life, Webster insists that all
evidence in support of sorcery should be subjected to the same scientific
scrutiny. Besides, what need was there to suspect the handiwork of the
devil in any miracle, when “Mr. Boyl” was able to “manifest the great and
wonderful virtues that God hath endowed stones, minerals, plants and roots
withal,” when Van Helmont had already proved that metals have even greater
healing power and Paracelsus had ascribed this power to God. Now that natural
laws were being discovered, Webster represents this God, not according to the
old anthropomorphic ideas, but as a transcendental spirit, who rules men
through their thoughts and wills. Satan is merely one of the means of
communication. Hence, if there is a league between the devil and a witch, it
is “internal, mental and spiritual”; the league which always exists between a
malefactor and the spirit of evil. For Webster is the first to point
out—what many of his contemporaries must have felt—that the current theory of
witchcraft was utterly unworthy of the modern conception of human nature.
Neurasthenics, whose imaginations have been infected with stories of ghosts
and goblins, may conceive themselves to be the victims of all kinds of
malpractices and diseases. But the devil only enslaves men by “their corrupt
wills and dispositions.”
“Webster’s book by no means drove out superstition. The belief in
necromancy, sortilege and magic exists at the present time in cities as
well as in rural districts and will always be found wherever the great
emotions of life 84
are wrought to a higher pitch than the intellect. But The Displaying of
supposed Witchcraft marks the time when this error definitely lost its
hold on men’s lower passions and on the sense of human degradation. The
period of witch persecutions has universally been regarded as the darkest blot
on English civilisation and it produced a literature no less dreary. Witch
treatises, with a few exceptions, are voluminous, rambling and ill-constructed
dissertations in which patristic dogmas and scholastic arguments are endlessly
reiterated. And yet one is almost tempted to regard this controversy, together
with the civil war pamphlets and the puritan tirades, as an inevitable phase
in the evolution of English modern thought. Movements like the renascence,
which appeal chiefly to courtiers and scholars, who, after all, are only the
surface of a nation, can well be inspired from foreign sources. But when a
whole people change their attitude of mind, the impulse must come from
within. We have seen how social and political influences drove popular
writers to the most extravagant thoughts and utterances, thereby creating an
atmosphere in which great works cannot thrive. But, at the same time, it must
be remembered that, if informal literature ran to excess, it became, in this
way, a self-exposure, and startled the whole nation into an effort towards
higher civilisation. (The Cambridge History of English and American
Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan. XVI. The
Advent of Modern Thought in Popular Literature.§ 18. John
Wagstaffe’s Question of Witchcraft.”
(Bartleby)
-
Rosicrucian poet, John Milton, was Cromwell’s Foreign Secretary
from 1649 to 1660.
“During this time, also, 17th Century Rosicrucians protected each other and
their sacred works by simply hinting at their connection with the
Brotherhood. They made signature marks or gave signs in papers and books in
order for others of like mind to identify their works at any time it was
necessary. The title page of Milton’s first edition of Paradise Lost
in 10 Books, states that it was “Licensed and Entred according to Order.”
The title page of the second edition in 12 Books, however, says only, ‘Printed
by S. Simmons next door to the Golden Lion’. Thus, a
‘licensing’ suggests the sanctioning, and the determination must be made as to
the intent of the use of the word, ‘Order.’ The “Golden Lion” is an
esoteric symbol seen in many of the Hermetic engravings from the Middle Ages
and Renaissance that are linked specifically with the
Evangelicals or Rosicrucians, among the many names that identified
these certain Hermetic resources. Being ‘next door’ is being close
to or in the same ‘place’ as something else, i.e., of like nature, even if in
this case, it may be a different ‘address,’ i.e., a different name. (Ref.
Addendum for Images of Title Pages)
“Additionally, it was a pronounced Rosicrucian practice to scatter partial
hints at connections with the Rosicrucians among several different
written works, so that taken alone, it would not be obvious as to the
meaning. If identified together, such “hints” are consistent with the
Rosicrucian practice of marking and linking sacred material for the future.
“John Milton’s Sixth Elegy, as one
example of a separate part, states the very purpose of his whole body of
writing. It is one of the most important messages of
Milton to be understood in combination with
his life’s devoted purpose.
“. . .if you would like to know what I am doing . . . I am singing the prince
of peace, the son of Heaven, and the blessed ages promised in the sacred
books. . . . For the true poet is sacred to the gods, he is a priest of the
gods; and his inmost soul and his lips breathe out Jove.” —John
Milton (1608-1674), Sixth Elegy
“Paradise Lost,
in its stated purpose, “to justify the ways of God
to men,” is an elucidation of the Sixth Elegy’s general purpose
statement. Taken together, the “hints” from his title pages and Milton’s
own purpose statements in Paradise Lost and the Sixth Elegy, can
mark him with the 17th Century Rosicrucian movement, even aside from other
such examples. However, even if the specifically Rosicrucian identification
could only be a coincidence, Milton’s work is certainly marked by the same
profound Rosicrucian themes of his Hermetic and natural imagery that are
largely pantheistic, and consistent with the classic Western esoteric
tradition. (“God is everywhere, in all things, is all-knowing,
all-loving.”)
“Besides the use of subtle allusions to non-biblical themes,
John Milton also marked his work with a
number of grammatical oddities, some which were, no doubt, peculiar to17th
Century English usage. However, where spelling was not yet standardized, or
the use of capitalization or punctuation, by reviewing his work for it’s own
layered structure and consistency, it can be suggested that, we should pay
very close attention to the simple use and non-use of capitalization for words
usually understood to be proper nouns, as well as other consistent patterns of
his work.
Milton Jailed Politically
“Even though his work succeeded in avoiding the critical eye of the Church
authorities, through his admitted “artfulness,” Milton did not escape
political danger altogether. While writing Paradise Lost, he was
actually best known during his lifetime for his many pamphlets denouncing
the repression of various liberties, and elucidating on the right to dissent
and the freedom of the press, the right to hold different personal religious
beliefs, as well as the attributes of divorce, free love and the ideal of
Platonic love with the opposite gender other than a spouse. In June 1660,
when he was 52 years old, the English Parliament ordered Milton’s arrest and
his political publications burned. After being in hiding for several months,
he was indeed arrested and held for nearly six months. . .” (Questions
on the Esoteric Content of Paradise Lost)
“Milton states very plainly and directly in
Paradise Lost, Book IX, that he has a specific muse, or mediumistic
resource, a spiritual being who communicated to him while he slept. So it was
also in dream, that he was given the information from which to also create a
dream story line, complete with ‘fantasy’ and, therefore, an acceptable
‘reality’ for Church authorities....
20. “If answerable style I can obtain
21. Of my Celestial Patroness, who deigns
22. Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,
23. And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
24. Easy my
unpremeditated verse:...” (Paradise
Lost)
The New
Reformation
“We stand in need of
a new reformation on the foundation of the old, and especially on
the foundation of the Bible, which is eternally new and from which many
treasures are yet to be drawn.”
208:42
“On the strong pinions of hope we pass far beyond sea and
land, mountain and valley, yea beyond all space and time, and sin and
death into the land of true liberty endlessly manifold and yet one, the
realm of the blessed where there shall be no Europe, no America, no
Catholicism and no Protestantism, but an undivided kingdom of God:
No old and no new world, but the one glorious church of the redeemed,
resplendent in immortal youth.”
246:14-15
“The
Protocols contain other even more flagrant anomalies. The text speaks
repeatedly, for example, of the advent of a ‘Masonic kingdom,’ and of a ‘King of
the blood of Sion’ who will preside over this ‘Masonic kingdom.’ It asserts that
the future king will be of ‘the dynastic roots of King David.’ It affirms that
‘the King of the Jews will be the real Pope’ and ‘the patriarch of an
international church.’ And it concludes in a most cryptic fashion, ‘Certain
members of the seed of David will prepare the Kings and their heirs...
Only the King and the three who stood to sponsor for him will know what
is coming...’
“. . .Both Radclyffe’s Masonry and the Masonry
(Jean-Luc) Chaumeil describes would have been acceptable, despite papal
condemnation, to devout Catholics; they also seem, on the basis of available
evidence, to have received a major and exhilarating transfusion of faith--a
transfusion that enabled them to see themselves as, if anything, more truly
Christian than the papacy.
“The institution in question was called the
Hieron du Val d’Or which. . .proved relevant by virtue of its formulation of.
. .an esoteric geo-political and an ethnarchichal world order. Translated
into more mundane terms this entailed, in effect, the establishment of a new
Holy Roman Empire in nineteenth-century Europe---a revitalized and
reconstituted Holy Roman Empire, a secular state that unified all peoples
and rested ultimately on spiritual, rather than social, political, or economic
foundations. Unlike its predecessor, this new
Holy Roman Empire would have been genuinely ‘holy’,
genuinely ‘Roman,’ and genuinely ‘imperial’---although the specific meaning of
these terms would have differed crucially from the meaning accepted by
tradition and convention. Such a state would have realized the centuries-old
dream of a ‘heavenly kingdom’ on earth, a terrestrial replica or mirror image
of the order, harmony, and hierarchy of the cosmos. It would have actualized
the ancient Hermetic premise, ‘As above, so below.’ . .
“During the nineteenth century the Prieure de
Sion, working through Freemasonry and the Hieron du Val d’Or, attempted to
establish a revived and ‘updated’ Holy Roman Empire---a kind of theocratic
United States of Europe, ruled simultaneously by the Hapsburgs and by a radically reformed Church. This enterprise was thwarted by the First
World War and the fall of
Europe’s reigning dynasties. But it is not
unreasonable to suppose that Sion’s present objectives are basically
similar--at least in their general outlines--to those of the Hieron de Val
d’Or.” (Holy Blood, Holy Grail)
31:193,197-98,410-11
See:
Death of the Phoenix:
New Reformation
