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The Real History of the Rosicrucians: Founded on Their Own M
That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.
Re: The Real History of the Rosicrucians: Founded on Their O
by admin » Sun Jun 30, 2019 3:27 am
The Sixth Day.
Next morning, after we had awaked another, we sate together to discourse what might be the wont of things. Some were of opinion that the corps should all be inlivened again together. Others contradicted this, because the decease of the ancients was not only to restore life but increase too to the young ones. Some imagined that they were not put to death, but that others were beheaded in their stead. Having talked a pretty while, in comes the old man, and first saluting us, looks about to see if all things were ready. We had herein so behaved ourselves that he had no fault to find with our diligence, whereupon he placed all the glasses together, and put them into a case. Presently come certain youths, bringing ladders, roapes, and large wings, which they laid before us and departed. Then the old man began thus: -- "My dear Sons, one of these three things must each of you this day constantly bear about with him. It is free for you to make choice of one of them, or to cast lots." We replied that we would choose. "Nay," said he, "let it rather go by lot. Hereupon he made three little schedules, writing on one Ladder, on the second Rope, on the third Wings. These he laid in an hat; each man must draw, and whatever he happened on was to be his. Those who got ropes imagined themselves in the best case; but I chanced on a ladder, which hugely afflicted me, for it was twelve-foot long, pretty weighty, and I must be forced to carry it, whereas the others could handsomely coyle their ropes about them, and as for the wings, the old man joyned them so neatly on to the third sort as if they had grown upon them.
-- The Pictorial Language of Hieronymus Bosch, by Clement A. Wertheim Aymes
Hereupon he turned the cock, and the fountain ran no longer, and we were fain to remove it out of the way. After all things were carried off, he, taking with him the casket and glasses, took leave, and locked the door after him, so we imagined that we had been imprisoned in this Tower; but it was hardly a quarter of an hour before a round hole above was uncovered, where we saw our Virgin, who bad us good morrow, desiring us to come up. They with the wings were instantly through the hole; only they with the ropes were in an evil plight, for as soon as ever one of us was up, he was commanded to draw up the ladder to him. At last each man's rope was hanged on an iron hook, and he climbed up as well as he could, which indeed was not compassed without blisters. When we were all well up, the hole was again covered, and we were friendly received by the Virgin. This room was the whole breadth of the Tower itself, having six very stately vestries a little raised and reached by three steps. In these we were distributed to pray for the life of the King and Queen. Meanwhile the Virgin went in and out at the little door a till we had done. As soon as our process was absolved, there was brought in through the little door by twelve persons, which were formerly our musitians, a wonderful thing of longish shape, which my companions took to be a fountain, and which was placed in the middle. I well observed that the corps lay in it, for the inner chest was of an oval figure, so large that six persons might well lie therein one by another. After this they again went forth, fetched their instruments, and conducted in our Virgin, with her she-attendants, to a most delicate voice of musick. The Virgin carried a little casket, the rest only branches, and small lamps or lighted torches, which last were immediately given into our hands, and we stood about the fountain in this order.
First stood the Virgin A, with her attendants in a ring round about, with the lamps and branches c. Next stood we with our torches b, then the musitians in a long rank; last of all, the rest of the Virgins d, in another long rank. Whence the Virgins came, whether they dwelt in the Castle, or were brought in by night, I know not, for their faces were covered with delicate white linnen. The Virgin opened the casket, in which was a round thing wrapped in a piece of green double taffata. This she laid in the uppermost kettle, and covered it with the lid, which was full of holes, and had besides a rim, on which she poured in some of the water which we had the day before prepared; the fountain began immediately began to run, and through four small pipes to drive into the little kettle. Beneath the undermost kettle were many sharp points, on which the Virgins stuck their lamps, that the heat might come to the kettle and make the water seeth, which, when it began to simper, by many little holes at a, fell in upon the bodies, and was so hot that it dissolved them all, and turned them into liquor. What the above-said round wrapt-up thing was, my companions knew not, but I understood that it was the Moor's head, from which the water conceived so great heat. At b, round about the great kettle, there were again many holes, in which they stuck their branches, but whether this was done of necessity or for ceremony I know not. However, these branches were continually sprinkled by the fountain, whence it afterwards dropt somewhat of a deeper yellow into the kettle. This lasted for near two hours, the fountain still running, but more faintly. Meantime the musitians went their way, and we walked up and down in the room, which truly was so made that we had opportunity enough to pass away our time. There were images, paintings, clock-works, organs, springing fountains, and the like. When it was near the time that the fountain ceased, the Virgin commanded a golden globe to be brought. At the bottom of the fountain was a tap, by which she let out all the matter dissolved by those hot drops (whereof certain quarts were then very red) into the globe. The rest of the water above in the kettle was poured out, and so this fountain was again carried forth. Whether it was opened abroad, or whether anything of the bodies that was useful yet remained, I dare not certainly say, but the water emptied into the globe was much heavier than six or more of us were able to bear, albeit for its bulk it should have seemed not too heavy for one man. This globe being with much ado gotten out of doors, we again sate alone, but I, perceiving a trampling over head, had an eye to my ladder. After one quarter of an hour, the cover above was lifted, and we commanded to come up, which we did as before, with wings, ladders, and ropes, and it did not a little vex me that whereas the Virgins could go up another way, we were fain to take so much toil; yet I could judge there must be some special reason for it, and we must leave somewhat for the old man to do too. The hole being again shut fast, I saw the globe hanging by a strong chain in the middle of the room, in which there was nothing but windows, with a door between every two, which was covered with a great polished looking-glass. These windows and looking-glasses were so optically opposed that although the sun, which now shined exceeding bright, beat only upon one door, yet (after the windows towards the sun were opened, and the doors before the looking-glasses drawn aside) in all quarters of the room there was nothing but suns, which by artificial refractions beat upon the whole golden globe hanging in the midst, which, being polished, gave such a lustre that none of us could open our eyes, but were forced to look out at windows till the globe was well heated, and brought to the desired effect. In these mirrors I saw the most wonderful spectacles that ever nature brought to light, for there were suns in all places, and the globe in the middle shined brighter yet. At length the virgin commanded to shut up the looking-glasses and make fast the windows to let the globe cool a little, wherefore we thought good, since we might now have leisure, to refresh ourselves with a breakfast. This treatment was again right philosophical, and we had no need to be afraid of intemperance, though we had no want, while the hope of the future joy, with which the virgin continually comforted us, made us so jocond that we regarded not any pains or inconvenience. I can truly say concerning my companions of high quality that their minds never ran after their kitchen or table, but their pleasure was only to attend on this adventurous physic, and hence to contemplate the Creator's wisdom and omnipotency. After our refection we settled ourselves to work, for the globe was sufficiently cooled, which with toil and labour we were to lift off the chain and set upon the floor. The dispute then was how we were to get the globe in sunder, for we were commanded to divide it in the midst. The conclusion was that a sharp-pointed diamond would be best to do it, and when we had thus opened the globe, there was no redness to be seen, but a lovely great snow-white egg, and it mightily rejoyced us that this was so well brought to pass, for the virgin was in perpetual care least the shell might still be too tender. We stood around about this egg as jocond as if we ourselves had laid it, but the Virgin made it presently be carried forth, and departed herself, locking the door behind her. What she did abroad with the egg, or whether it were privately handled, I know not, neither do I believe it. We were again to pause for one quarter of an hour, till the third hole opened, and we, by means of our instruments, came upon the fourth stone or floor. In this room we found a great copper kettle filled with silver sand, which was warmed with a gentle fire, and afterwards the egg was raked up in it, that it might therein come to perfect maturity. This kettle was exactly square. Upon one side stood these two verses writ in great letters --
O. BLI. TO. BIT. MI. LI.
KANT. I. [1] VOLT. BIT. TO. GOLT.
On the second side were these three words --
SANITAS. NIX. HASTA.
The third had but this one word --
F.I.A.T.
But on the hindmost part stood an entire inscription, running thus --
Ignis: Aer: Aqua: Terra:
SANCTIS REGUM ET REGINARUM NOSTR:
Cineribus
Eripere non potuerunt.
Fidelis Chymicorum Turba
IN HANC URNAM
Contulit.
Αὁ
Now, whether the sand or egg were hereby meant I leave the learned to dispute. Our egg, being ready, was taken out, but it needed no cracking, for the Bird soon freed himself, looking very jocond, though bloody and unshapen. We first set him on the warm sand, the Virgin commanding that before we gave him anything to eat we should be sure to make him fast, otherwise he would give us all work enough. This being done, food was brought him, which surely was nothing but the blood of the beheaded deluted with prepared water, by which the Bird grew so fast under our eye that we well saw why the Virgin gave such warning of him. He bit and scratched so devilishly that, could he have had his will upon any of us, he would soon have dispatched him. Now he was wholly black and wild, wherefore other meat was brought him, perhaps the blood of another of the Royal Persons, whereupon all his black feathers moulted and were replaced by snow-white ones. He was somewhat tamer too, and more tractable, though we did not yet trust him. At the third feeding his feathers began to be so curiously coloured that I never saw the like for beauty. He was also exceedingly tame, and behaved himself so friendly with us that, the Virgin consenting, we released him from captivity. "'Tis now reason," she began, "since by your diligence, and our old man's consent, the Bird has attained with his life and the highest perfection, that he be also joyfully consecrated by us." Herewith she commanded to bring in dinner, since the most troublesome part of our work was now over, and it was fit we should begin to enjoy our passed labours. We began to make merry together. Howbeit, we had still our mourning cloaths on, which seemed somewhat reproachful to our mirth. The Virgin was perpetually inquisitive, perhaps to find to which of us her future purpose might prove serviceable, but her discourse was, for the most part, about Melting, and it pleased her well when any one seemed expert in such compendious manuals as do peculiarly commend an artist. This dinner lasted not above three-quarters of an hour, which we yet, for the most part, spent with our Bird, whom we were fain constantly to feed with his meat, though he continued much at the same growth. After Dinner we were not long suffered to digest our food, for the Virgin, together with the Bird, departed from us, and the fifth room was opened, which we reached after the former manner, and tendred our service. In this room a bath was prepared for our Bird, which was so coloured with a fine white powder that it had the appearance of milk. It was cool when the Bird was set into it, and he was mighty well pleased with it, drinking of it, and pleasantly sporting in it. But after it began to heat, by reason of the lamps placed under it, we had enough to do to keep him in the bath. We, therefore, clapt a cover on the kettle, and suffered him to thrust out his head through a hole, till he had lost all his feathers in this bath, and was as smooth as a new-born babe, yet the heat did him no further harm. In this bath the feathers were quite consumed, and the bath was thereby turned into blew. At length we gave the Bird air, who of himself sprung out of the kettle, and was so glitteringly smooth that it was a pleasure to behold him. But because he was still somewhat wild, we were fain to put a collar, with a chain, about his neck, and so led him up and down the room. Meantime a strong fire was made under the kettle, and the bath sodden away till it all came to a blew stone, which we took out, and, having pounded it, we ground it on a stone, and finally with this colour painted the Bird's whole skin over, who then looked much more strangely, for he was all blew except the head, which remained white. Herewith our work in this story was performed, and we, after the Virgin with her blew Bird was departed from us, were called up a hole to the sixth story, where we were mightily troubled, for in the midst a little altar, every way like that in the King's hall, was placed. Upon it stood the six forementioned particulars, and he himself (the Bird) made the seventh. First of all the little fountain was set before him, out of which he drunk a good draught; afterwards he pecked upon the white serpent till she bled mightily. This blood we received in a golden cup, and poured down the Bird's throat, who was mighty averse from it; then we dipt the serpent's head in the fountain, upon which she again revived, and crept into her death's head, so that I saw her no more for a long time. Meanwhile the sphere turned constantly on until it made the desired conjunction. Immediately the watch struck one, upon which there was going another conjunction. Then the watch struck two. Finally, whilst we were observing the third conjunction, and the same was indicated by the watch, the poor Bird of himself submissively laid down his neck upon the book, and willingly suffered his head to be smitten off by one of us, thereto chosen by lot. Howbeit he yielded not one drop of blood till he was opened on the breast, and then the blood spun out so fresh and clear as if it had been a fountain of rubies. His death went to the heart of us, yet we might well judge that a naked bird would stand us in little stead. We removed the little altar, and assisted the Virgin to burn the body, together with the little tablet hanging by, to ashes, with fire kindled at the little taper, afterwards to cleanse the same several times, and to lay them in a box of cypress wood. Here I cannot conceal what a trick I, with three more, was served. After we had diligently taken up the ashes, the Virgin began to speak thus: -- "My Lords, we are here in the sixth room, and have only one more before us, in which our trouble will be at an end, and we shall return home to our castle to awaken our most gratious Lords and Ladies. Now albeit I could heartily wish that all of you had behaved yourselves in such sort that I might have given your commendations to our most renowned King and Queen, and you have obtained a suitable reward, yet because, contrary to my desire, I have found amongst you these four" -- pointing at me and three others -- "lazy and sluggish labourators, and yet according to my good-will to all, I am not willing to deliver them to condign punishment. However, that such negligence may not remain wholly unpunished, I purpose that they shall be excluded from the future seventh and most glorious action of all the rest, and so they shall incur no further blame from their Royal Majesties."
In what a case we now were I leave others to consider, for the Virgin so well knew how to keep her countenance that the water soon ran over our baskets, and we esteemed ourselves the most unhappy of all men. The Virgin by one of her maids, whereof there were many always at hand, caused the musitians to be fetcht, who were with cornets to blow us out of doors with such scorn and derision that they themselves could hardly sound for laughing. But it did particularly afflict us that the Virgin vehemently laughed at our weeping, and that there might be some amongst our companions who were glad of our misfortune. But it proved otherwise, for as soon as we were come out at the door the musitians bid us be of good cheere, and follow them up the winding staires to the eighth floor under the roof, where we found the old man standing upon a little round furnace. He received us friendly, and heartily congratulated us that we were hereto chosen by the Virgin; but after he had understood the fright we had conceived, his belly was ready to burst with laughing that we had taken such good fortune so hainously. "Hence," said he, "my dear sons, learn that man never knoweth how well God intendeth him." The Virgin also came running in, who, after she had sufficiently laughed at us, emptied her ashes into another vessel, filling hers again with other matter, saying, she must now cast a mist before the other artist's eyes, that we in the mean time should obey the old lord, and not remit our former diligence. Herewith she departed from us into the seventh room, whither she called our companions. What she first did with them I cannot tell, for they were not only most earnestly forbidden to speak of it, but we, by reason of our business, durst not peep on them through the cieling. Our work was to moisten the ashes with our fore-prepared water till they became like a very thin dough, after which we set the matter over the fire till it was well heated; then we cast it into two little forms or moulds, and so let it cool a little, when we had leisure to look on our companions through certain crevises in the floor. They were busie at a furnace, and each was himself fain to blow up the fire with a pipe, till he was ready to lose his breath. They imagined they were herein wonderfully preferred before us. This blowing lasted till our old man rouzed us to work again. We opened our little forms, and there appeared two bright and almost transparent little images, a male and a female, the like to which man's eye never saw, each being but four inches long, and that which most mightily surprised me was that they were not hard, but limber and fleshy as other human bodies; yet had they no life, so that I assuredly believe that Lady Venus' image was made after some such way. These angelically fair babes we laid upon two little sattin cushonets, and beheld them till we were almost besotted upon so exquisite an object. The old lord warned us to forbear, and continually to instil the blood of the bird, which had been received in a little golden cup, drop after drop into the mouths of the little images, from whence they apparently encreased, becoming according to proportion much more beautiful. They grew so big that we lifted them from the little cushonets, and were fain to lay them upon a long table covered with white velvet. The old man commanded us to cover them up to the breast with a piece of fine white double taffata, which, because of their unspeakable beauty, almost went against us. Before we had in this manner quite spent the blood, they were in their perfect full growth, having gold-yellow curled hair, and the figure of Venus was nothing to them. But there was not yet any natural warmth or sensibility in them; they were dead figures, yet of a lively and natural colour; and since care was to be taken that they grew not too great, the old man would not permit anything more to be given them, but covered their faces too with the silk, and caused the table to be stuck round about with torches. Let the reader imagine not these lights to have been of necessity, for the old man's intent was that we should not observe when the Soul entred into them, as indeed we should not have taken notice of it, in case I had not twice before seen the flames. However, I permitted the other three to remain in their belief, neither did the old man know that I had seen anything more. Hereupon he bid us sit down on a bench over against the table. The Virgin came in with the musick and all furniture, and carried two curious white garments, the like to which I had never seen in the Castle. I thought no other but that they were meer christal, but they were gentle and not transparent. These she laid upon a table, and after she had disposed her Virgins upon a bench round about, she and the old man began many leger-de-main tricks about the table, which were done only to blind. All this was managed under the roof, which was wonderfully formed, for on the inside it was arched into seven hemispheres, of which the middlemost was somewhat the highest, and had at top a little round hole, which was shut and was observed by none but myself. After many ceremonies stept in six Virgins, each of which bare a large trumpet, rouled about with a green, glittering, and burning material like a wreath, one of which the old man took, and after he had removed some of the lights at top, and uncovered their faces, he placed one of the trumpets upon the mouth of one of the bodies in such manner that the upper and wider part of it was directed towards the fore-mentioned hole. Here my companions always looked upon the images, but as soon as the foliage or wreath about the shank of the trumpet was kindled, I saw the hole at top open and a bright stream of fire shoot down the tube and pass into the body, whereupon the hole was again covered, and the trumpet removed. With this device my companions were deluded into imagining that life came to the image by the fire of the foliage, for as soon as he received his Soul he twinckled his eyes though scarcely stirring. The second time he placed another tube upon its mouth, kindled it again, and the Soul was let down through the tube. This was repeated upon each of them three times, after which all the lights were extinguished and carried away. The velvet carpets of the table were cast together over them, and immediately a travelling bed was unlocked and made ready, into which, thus wrapped up, they were born, and, after the carpets were taken off them, neatly laid by each other, where, with the curtains drawn before them, they slept a good while. It was now time for the Virgin to see how the other artists behaved themselves; they were well pleased because they were to work in gold, which is indeed a piece of this art, but not the most principal, necessary, and best. They had too a part of these ashes, so that they imagined that the whole Bird was provided for the sake of gold, and that life must thereby be restored to the deceased. Mean time we sate very still, attending when our married couple would awake, and thus about half an hour was spent. Then the wanton Cupid presented himself, and, after he had saluted us all, flew to them behind the curtain, tormenting them till they waked. This happened to them with very great amazement, for they imagined that they had slept from the hour in which they were beheaded. Cupid, after he had awaked them, and renewed their acquaintance one with another, stepped aside and permitted them to recruit their strength, mean time playing his tricks with us, and at length he would needs have the musick fetcht to be somewhat the merrier. Not long after the Virgin herself comes, and having most humbly saluted the young King and Queen, who found themselves somewhat faint, and having kissed their hands, she brought them the two fore-mentioned curious garments, which they put on, and so stepped forth. There were already prepared two very curious chaires, wherein they placed themselves, and were by us with most profound reverence congratulated, for which the King in his own person most gratiously returned his thanks, and again re-assured us of all grace. It was already about five of clock, wherefore they could make no longer stay; but as soon as ever the chiefest of their furniture could be laden, we were to attend the young Royal Persons down the stairs, through all doors and watches unto the ship, in which they inbarqued, together with certain Virgins and Cupid, and sailed so swiftly that we soon lost sight of them, yet they were met, as I was informed, by certain stately ships, and in four hours time had made many leagues out at sea. After five of clock the musitians were charged to carry all things back to the ships, and to make themselves ready for the voyage, but because this was somewhat long a doing, the old lord commanded forth a party of his concealed soldiers, who had hitherto been planted in the wall so that we had taken no notice of any of them, whereby I observed that this tower was well guarded against opposition. These soldiers made quick work of our stuff, so that no more remained to be done but to go to supper. The table being compleatly furnished, the Virgin brings us again to our companions, where we were to carry ourselves as if we had truly been in a lamentable condition, while they were always smiling one upon another, though some of them too simpathized with us. At this supper the old lord was with us, who was a most sharp inspector over us, for none could propound anything so discreetly but that he knew how to confute or amend it, or at least to give some good document upon it. I learned most by this lord, and it were good that each would apply himself to him, and take notice of his procedure, for then things would not so often and untowardly miscarry. After we had taken our nocturnal refection, the old lord led us into his closets of rarities, dispersed among the bulworks, where we saw such wonderful productions of nature, and other things which man's wit in imitation of nature had invented, that we needed a year sufficiently to survey them. Thus we spent a good part of the night by candle-light. At last, because we were more inclined to sleep then see many rarities, we were lodged in rooms in the wall, where we had not only costly good beds but extraordinary handsome chambers, which made us the more wonder why we were forced the day before to undergo so many hardships. In this chamber I had good rest, and, being for the most part without care, and weary with continual labour, the gentle rushing of the sea helped me to a sound and sweet sleep, for I continued in one dream from eleven of clock till eight in the morning.
1. This letter is omitted in one of the German editions.
The Seventh Day.
After eight of clock I awaked, and quickly made myself ready, being desirous to return again into the tower, but the dark passages in the wall were so many that I wandered a good while before I could find the way out. The same happened to the rest, till we all meet in the nethermost vault, and habits intirely yellow were given us, together with our golden fleeces. At that time the Virgin declared to us that we were Knights of the Golden Stone, of which we were before ignorant. After we had made ourselves ready, and taken our breakfast, the old man presented each of us with a medal of gold. On the one side stood these words --
AR. NAT. MI.
On the other these,
TEM. NA. F.
exhorting us to enterprize nothing beyond and against this token of remembrance. Herewith we went forth to the sea, where our ships lay so richly equipped that it was not well possible but that such brave things must first have been brought thither. The ships were twelve in number, six of ours and six of the old lord's, who caused his to be freighted with well-appointed soldiers. But he betook himself to us in our ship, where we were all together. In the first the musitians seated themselves, of which the old lord had also a great number. They sailed before us to shorten the time. Our flags were the twelve celestial signs, and we sate in Libra. Besids other things our ship had a noble and curious clock which showed us all the minutes. The sea was so calm that it was a singular pleasure to sail, but that which surpassed all was the old man's discourse, who so well knew how to pass away our time with wonderful histories that I could have been content to sail with him all my life long. The ships passed on, and before we had sailed two hours the mariner told us that he saw the whole lake almost covered with ships, by which we conjectured they were come out to meet us, which proved true, for as soon as we were gotten out of the sea into the lake of the forementioned river, there stood in to us five hundred ships, one of which sparkled with gold and pretious stones, and in it sate the King and Queen, with lords, ladies, and virgins of high birth. As soon as they were well in ken of us the pieces were discharged on both sides, and there was such a din of trumpets, shalms, and kettle-drums, that all the ships upon the sea capered again. As soon as we came near, they brought about our ships together and so made a stand. Old Atlas stepped forth on the King's behalf, making a short but handsom oration, wherein he wellcomed us, and demanded whether the royal Presents were in readiness. The rest of my companions were in an huge amazement whence this King should arise, for they imagined no other but that they must again awaken him. We suffered them to continue in their wonderment, and carried ourselves as if it seemed strange to us too. After Atlas' oration out steps our old man, making somewhat a larger reply, wherein he wished the King and Queen all happiness and increase, after which he delivered a curious small casket, but what was in it I know not. It was committed to the custody of Cupid, who hovered between them both. After the oration they again let off a joyful volle of shot, and so we sailed on a good time together, till we arrived at another shore, near the first gate at which I first entred. At this place there attended a great multitude of the King's family, together with some hundreds of horses. As soon as we were come to shore and disembarqued, the King and Queen presented their hands to all of us, one with another, with singular kindness, and so we were to get up on horseback. Here I desire to have the reader friendly entreated not to interpret the following narration to any vain glory of mine, but to credit me that had there been not a special necessity in it, I could well have concealed the honour which was shewed me. We were all distributed amongst the lords, but our old lord and I, most unworthy, were to ride even with the King, each of us bearing a snow-white ensign with a Red Cross. I indeed was made use of because of my age, for we both had long grey beards and hair. I had besides fastened my tokens round about my hat, of which the young King soon took notice, and demanded if I were he who could at the gate redeem these tokens. I answered yes in the most humble manner, but he laughed on me, saying there henceforth needed no ceremony, I was his Father. Then he asked me wherewith I had redeemed them. I answered, "With Water and Salt," whereupon he wondred who had made me so wise, upon which I grew somewhat more confident, and recounted how it had happened to me with my Bread, the Dove, and the Raven; he was pleased with it, and said expressly, that it must needs be that God had herein vouchsafed me a singular happiness. Herewith we came to the first gate, where the porter with the blew cloaths waited, bearing in his hand a supplication. As soon as he spied me even with the king, he delivered me the supplication, most humbly beseeching me to mention his ingenuity before me towards the King; so, in the first place, I demanded of his majesty what the condition of this porter was, who friendly answered me, that he was a very famous and rare astrologer, always in high regard with the Lord his Father, but having on a time committed a fault against Venus, and beheld her in her bed of rest, this punishment was imposed upon him, that he should so long wait at the gate till some one should release him from thence. I replyed, "May he then be released?" "Yes," said the King, "if anyone can be Found that hath as highly transgressed as himself, he must stand in his stead, and the other shall be free. This word went to my heart; conscience convinced me that I was the offender, yet I held my peace and delivered the supplication. As soon as the King had read it, he was mightily terrified, so that the Queen, who, with our virgins and that other queen whom I mentioned at the hanging of the weights, rid behind us, asked him what the letter might signifie; but he, putting up the paper, began to discourse of other matters, till in about three hours we came quite to the Castle, where we alighted and waited upon the King into his hall, who called immediately for the old Atlas to come to him in a little closet, and showed him the writing. Atlas made no long tarrying, but rid out to the porter to take better cognizance of the matter, after which the young King, with his spouse and other Lords, Ladies, and Virgins sate down. Then began our Virgin highly to commend the diligence we had used, and the pains and labour we had undergone, requesting we might be royally rewarded, and that she henceforward might be permitted to enjoy the benefit of her commission. The old lord stood up too, and attested the truth of all that the Virgin had spoken, and that it was but equity that we should on both parts be contented. Hereupon we were to step out a little; it was concluded that each man should make some possible wish, and were to consider of it till after supper. Meantime the King and Queen, for recreation's sake, began to play together. It looked not unlike chesse, only it had other laws, for it was the vertues and vices one against another, where it might be ingeniously observed with what plots the vices lay in wait for the vertues, and how to re encounter them again. This was so properly and artificially performed that it were to be wished that we had the like game too. During the game in comes Atlas again, and makes his report in private, yet I blushed all over, for my conscience gave me no rest. The King presented me the supplication to read, the contents whereof were to this purpose: First, the writer wished the King prosperity and peace, and that his seed might be spread far and wide. Afterwards he remonstrated that the time was now come wherein, according to the royal promise, he ought to be released; because Venus was already uncovered by one of his guests, for his observations could not lie to him, and that if his Majesty would please to make strict and diligent enquiry, in case this should not prove to be, he would remain before the gate all the days of his life. Then he humbly sued that, upon peril of body and life, he might be present at this night's supper, being in good hopes to spye out the offender and obtain his wished freedom. This was handsomly indited, and I could well perceive his ingenuity, but it was too sharp for me, and I could well have endured never to have seen it. Casting in my mind whether he might perchance be helped through my wish, I asked the King whether he might not be released some other way, but he replyed no, because there was special consideration in the business, but for this night we might gratifie his desire, so he sent one forth to fetch him in. Mean time the tables were prepared in a spatious room, in which we had never before been, which was so compleat that it is not possible for me to describe it. Into this we were conducted with singular ceremony. Cupid was not present, for the disgrace which had happened to his mother had somewhat angered him. In brieff, my offence, and the supplication which had been delivered, were the occasion of much sadness, for the King was in perplexity how to make inquisition amongst his guests. He caused the porter himself to make his strict surveigh, and showed himself as pleasant as he was able. Howbeit, at length they began again to be merry, and to bespeak one another with all sorts of recreative, profitable discourses. The treatment and other ceremonies then performed it is not necessary to declare, since it is neither the reader's concern nor serviceable to my design, but all exceeded more in invention than that we were overcharged with drinking. This was the last and noblest meal at which I was present. After the bancket the tables were suddainly taken away, and certain curious chairs placed round in circle, in which we, together with the King and Queen, both their old men, the Ladies and Virgins, were to sit. After this a very handsom Page opened the above mentioned glorious little book, when Atlas, immediately placing himself in the midst, bespoke us to the ensuing purpose: -- That his Royal Majesty had not yet committed to oblivion the service we had done him, and therefore by way of retribution had elected each of us Knights of the Golden Stone. That it was, therefore, further necessary not only once again to, oblige ourselves towards his Royal Majesty, but to vow upon the following articles, and then His Royal Highness would likewise know how to behave himself towards his high people. Upon which he caused the Page to read over these articles: --
I. You, my Lords the Knights, shall swear that you will at no time ascribe your order either unto any Devil or Spirit, but only to God, your Creator, and His hand-maid Nature.
II. That you will abominate all whoredom, incontinency, and uncleanness, and not defile your order with such vices.
III. That you, through your talents, will be ready to assist all that are worthy and have need of them.
IV. That you desire not to employ this honour to worldly pride and high authority.
V. That you shall not be willing to live longer than God will have you.
At this last article we could not choose but laugh, and it may well have been placed there for a conceit. Now, being sworn them all by the King's scepter, we were afterwards, with the usual ceremonies, installed Knights, and, amongst other privileges, set over ignorance, poverty, and sickness, to handle them at our pleasure. This was afterwards ratified in a little chappel, whither we were conducted in procession, and thanks returned to God for it. There I also at that time, to the honour of God, hung up my golden fleece and hat, and left them for an eternal memorial. And because every one was to write his name there, I writ thus: --
Summa Scientia nihil Scire [The Summit of Knowledge is to know nothing / and those upon whom this degree is conferred need no more outside information]
Fr. CHRISTIANUS ROSENCREUTZ.
Eques aurei Lapidis.
Anno. 1459.
Others writ differently, each as seemed him good; after which we were again brought into the hall, where, being sate down, we were admonished quickly to bethink ourselves what every one would wish. The King and his party retired into a little closet to give audience to our wishes. Each man was called in severally, so that I cannot speak of any man's proper wish; but I thought nothing could be more praiseworthy than, in honour of my order, to demonstrate some laudable vertue, and found that none at present could be more famous and cost me more trouble than gratitude; wherefore, not regarding that I might well have wished somewhat more agreeable to myself, I vanquished myself, and concluded, even with my own peril, to free the porter, my benefactor. Being called in, I was first demanded whether, having read the supplication, I had suspected nothing concerning the offendor, upon which I began undauntedly to relate how all the business had passed, how, through ignorance, I fell into that mistake, and so offered myself to undergo all that I had thereby demerited. The King and the rest of the Lords wondred mightily at so un-hoped for confession, and wished me to step aside a little; and as soon as I was called in again, Atlas declared to me that, although it were grievous to the King's Majesty that I, whom he loved above others, was fallen into such a mischance, yet, because it was not possible for him to transgress his ancient usages, he knew not how else to absolve me but that the other must be at liberty and I placed in his stead; yet he would hope that some other would soon be apprehended, that so I might be able to go home again. However, no release was to be hoped for till the marriage feast of his future son. This sentence near cost me my life, and I first hated myself and my twatling tongue in that I could not hold my peace; yet at last I took courage, and, because I considered there was no remedy, I related how this porter had bestowed a token on me and commended me to the other, by whose assistance I stood upon the scale, and so was made partaker of all the honour and joy already received. And therefore now it was equal that I should show myself grateful to my benefactor, and was willing gently to sustain inconvenience for his sake, who had been helpful to me in coming to so high place; but if by my wish anything might be effected, I wished myself at home again, and that so he by me, as I by my wish, might be at liberty. Answer was made me, that the wishing stretched not so far, yet it was very pleasing to his Royal Majesty that I had behaved myself so generously, but he was affraid I might still be ignorant into what a miserable condition I had plunged myself through this curiosity. Hereupon the good man was pronounced free, and I, with a sad heart, was fain to step aside. The rest were called for after me, and came jocundly out again, which was still more to my smart, for I imagined no other but that I must finish my life under the gate. I had also many pensive thoughts running in my head as to what I should yet undertake, and wherewith to spend the time. At length I considered that I was now old, and, according to the course of Nature, had few more years to live, that this anguish and melancholy life would easily dispatch me, and then my doorkeeping would be at an end, and that by a most happy sleep I might quickly bring myself into the grave. Sometimes it vexed me that I had seen such gallant things, and must be robbed of them; sometimes it rejoyced me that before my end I had been accepted to all joy, and should not be forced so shamefully to depart. Thus this was the last and worst shock that I sustained. During these my cogitations the rest were ready, wherefore, after they had received a good night from the King and Lords, each was conducted into his lodging, but I, most wretched man, had nobody to show me the way, and yet must suffer myself to be tormented. That I might be certain of my future function, I was fain to put on the Ring which the other had worn. Finally, the King exhorted me that, since this was the last time I was like to see him in this manner, I should behave myself according to my place, and not against the Order, upon which he took me in his arms and kissed me, all which I understood as if in the morning I must sit at my gate. After they had all spoken friendly to me, and at last presented their hands, committing me to the divine protection, I was by both the old men -- the Lord of the Tower and Atlas -- conducted into a glorious lodging, in which stood three beds, and each of us lay in one of them, where we yet spent almost two, &c.
Here are wanting about two leaves in quarto, and he (the author hereof), whereas he imagined he must in the morning be door-keeper, returned home.
CHAPTER VI. ON THE CONNECTION OF THE ROSICRUCIAN CLAIMS WITH THOSE OF ALCHEMY AND MAGIC.
THE guise of antiquity being almost indispensable to the pretensions contained in these singular documents, I have preferred presenting them to my readers in the archaic form of the original English translations, which, moreover, represent the Rosicrucian period in this country, than to undertake the somewhat superfluous task of a new version.
If the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis" are to be taken in their literal sense, the publication of these documents will not add new lustre to Rosicrucian reputations. We are accustomed to regard the adepts of the Rose-Cross as beings of sublime elevation and preternatural physical powers, masters of Nature, monarchs of the intellectual world, illuminated by a relative omniscience, and absolutely exalted above all weakness and all prejudice. We imagine them to be "holding no form of creed, but contemplating all" from the solitary grandeur of the Absolute, and invested with the "sublime sorrow of the ages as of the lone ocean." But here in their own acknowledged manifestoes they avow themselves a mere theosophical offshoot of the Lutheran heresy, acknowledging the spiritual supremacy of a temporal prince, and calling the pope Antichrist. We have gauged in these days of enlightenment and universal tolerance the intellectual capacities of all professors, past and present, of that art prophetic which is represented by Baxter and Cumming. We know the value of all the multitudinous speculations in the theological no-man's land of the Apocalypse. We do not expect a new Star of Jacob to rise out of the Galilee of religious intolerance, and out of the frantic folly of sectarian squabblings. We do not calculate the number of the beast, we do not denounce the Jesuits, we are not obsessed by an infectious terror of papal power and its possible aggressions; on the contrary, we respect the associations connected with sovereign pontiffs, grand lamas, and chief patriarchs. We have, most of us, decided that the pope is neither God's vicar nor the Man of Sin; we persistently refuse our adherence to any theory which connects the little horn with Prince Jerome Napoleon, and we are not open to any positive convictions on the identity of the Scarlet Woman, or of the lost tribes of Israel. All persons possessed of such positive convictions we justifiably regard as fanatics, and after due and deliberate consideration of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, we do not feel able to make an exception in favour of this Fraternity, whose
"Manners have not that repose
Which marks the caste of Vere de Vere."
In other words, we find them intemperate in their language, rabid in their religious prejudices, and, instead of towering giant-like above the intellectual average of their age, we see them buffeted by the same passions and identified with all the opinions of the men by whom they were environed. The voice which addresses us behind the mystical mask of the Rose-Cross does not come from an intellectual throne, erected on the pinnacles of high thinking and surrounded by the serene and sunny atmosphere of a far-sighted tolerance; it comes from the very heart of the vexatious and unprofitable strife of sects, and it utters the war-cry of extermination. The scales fall from our eyes, the romance vanishes; we find ourselves in the presence of some Germans of the period, not of "the mystic citizens of the eternal kingdom."
We are dejected and disillusioned, but we are thankful, notwithstanding, to know the truth, as distinguished from the fictions of Mr. Hargrave Jennings and the glamorous fables of professed romancers. In this spirit we proceed to a closer acquaintance with the Rosicrucians as represented by themselves.
I have already said that "The Universal Reformation" has little internal connection with the society which is supposed to have issued it in its Teutonic dress. The conclusion which is reached in that curious tract is, indeed, completely opposed to the expressed hopes of the Fraternity. It illustrates the ludicrous futility and abortiveness of the attempt to reform society, even when undertaken by the flower of the world's "literati." It bids the reformers begin their work at home, and reduces their Utopian scheming from the splendid scale of universal reconstruction to appraising sprats and cabbages. It considers mankind to be as good as his surroundings will allow him, and that "the height of human wisdom lies in the discretion to be content with leaving the world as they found it." On the other hand, the "Fama" and "Confessio" invite "the learned of Europe to co-operate with a secret society for the renovation of the age, the reform of philosophy," and to remedy "the imperfection and inconsistencies of all the arts." The discrepancy is singularly complete, and as "The Universal Reformation" throws no light upon the history or the claims of the Rosicrucians, it need not detain us. "The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz" I shall also set aside for the present, because it is an allegorical romance -- pace Professor Buhle, as De Quincey hath it -- though otherwise of the first importance and interest.
From the "Fama" and "Confessio" we gather the religious opinions of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, and classify them as follows: --
a. They acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
b. Man is born into life by the power of God, falls asleep in Jesus, and will rise again through the Holy Spirit.
c. They acknowledge a personal devil, the old enemy, who "hinders every good purpose by his instruments."
d. They "use two Sacraments, as they are instituted with all Formes and Ceremonies of the first and renewed Church."
e. It follows from this that they believe the Lutheran Reformation restored the Christian Church to its primitive purity.
f. They consider "that from the beginning of the world there hath not been given to man a more excellent, admirable, and wholesome book than the Bible," which is "the whole sum" of their laws.
g. They call the pope Antichrist, a blasphemer against Christ. They execrate him, and look forward to the time "when he shall be torn in pieces with nails." They foretell his "final fall," with the assurance of Brothers the prophet, and in the terminology of Mr. Grattan-Guiness.
The philosophical and scientific opinions and pretensions of the Rosicrucian Society have more claim on our notice. As in their theological views, so in these they are simply the representatives of a certain school of thought current at their epoch. In its aspirations, as distinguished from its methods, this school was considerably in advance of the scientific orthodoxy of the moment. Looking with piercing glance
"Into great Nature's open eye,
To see within it trembling lie
The portrait of the Deity,"
they dreamed of a universal synthesis, and combining profound contemplation with keen observant faculties, the experimental with a priori methods, they sought to arrive at those realities which underlie phenomena, "in more common but more emblematic words," they sought for the substance which is at the base of all the vulgar metals. Mystics in an age of scientific and religious materialism, they were connected by an unbroken chain with the theurgists of the first Christian centuries; they were alchemists in the spiritual sense and the professors of a divine magic. Their disciples, the Rosicrucians, followed closely in their footsteps, and the claims of the "Fama" and "Confessio" must be viewed in the light of the great elder claims of alchemy and magic. In these documents we find --
I. The doctrine of the microcosmus, which considers man as containing the potentialities of the whole universe, or macrocosmus. According to Paracelsus, who first developed this suggestive teaching from obscure hints in the Kabbalistic books, the macrocosmus and the microcosmus are one. "They are one constellation, one influence, one breath, one harmony, one time, one metal, one fruit." Each part of the great organism acts upon "the corresponding part of the small organism in the same sense as the various organs of the human body are intimately connected with and influence each other." Every change that takes place in the macrocosmus may be sensed by the spiritual body which surrounds the spirit of the minutum mundum. The forces composing the one are identical with those of the other. [1]
II. We find, in the next place, the doctrine of Elemental spirits, which it is a common error to suppose originated with the Rosicrucians. This graceful and fanciful hypothesis also owes its development, if not its invention, to the seer of Hohenheim. It was naturalised on French soil by the author of the "Comte de Gabalis," and is known chiefly in England through the preface to "The Rape of the Lock," and of later years through the German "Romance of Undine," which has been many times translated. "When you shall be numbered among the Children of the philosophers," says the "Comte de Gabalis," "and when your eyes shall have been strengthened by the use of the most sacred medecine, you will learn that the Elements are inhabited by creatures of a singular perfection, from the knowledge of, and communication with, whom the sin of Adam has deprived his most wretched posterity. Yon vast space stretching between earth and Heaven has far nobler dwellers than the birds and the gnats; these wide seas hold other guests than the whales and the dolphins; the depths of the earth are not reserved for the moles alone; and that element of fire which is nobler than all the rest was not created to remain void and useless." According to Paracelsus, "the Elementals are not spirits, because they have flesh, blood, and bones; they live and propagate offspring; they eat and talk, act and sleep, &c. . . . They are beings occupying a place between men and spirits, resembling men and women in their organisation and form, and resembling spirits in the rapidity of their locomotion." They must not be confounded with the Elementaries which are the astral bodies of the dead. [2] They are divided into four classes. "The air is replete with an innumerable multitude of creatures, having human shapes, somewhat fierce in appearance, but docile in reality; great lovers of the sciences, subtle, serviceable to the Sages, and enemies of the foolish and ignorant. Their wives and daughters are beauties of the masculine type. . . . The seas and streams are inhabited even as the air; the ancient Sages gave the names of Undines or Nymphs to these Elementals. There are few males among them, and the women are very numerous, and of extreme beauty; the daughters of men cannot compare with them. The earth is filled by gnomes even to its centre, creatures of diminutive size, guardians of mines, treasures, and precious stones. They furnish the Children of the Sages with all the money they desire, and ask little for their services but the distinction of being commanded. The gnomides, their wives, are tiny, but very pleasing, and their apparel is exceedingly curious. As to the Salamanders, those fiery dwellers in the realm of flame, they serve the Philosophers, but do not eagerly seek their company, and their wives and daughters are seldom visible. They transcend all the others in beauty, for they are natives of a purer element." [3]
III. In the third place, the Rosicrucian manifestoes contain the doctrine of the signatura rerum, which again is of Paracelsian origin. This is the "magical writing" referred to in the "Fama," and the mystic characters of that "Book of Nature" which, according to the "Confessio," stands open "for all eyes," but "can be read or understood by only a very few." These characters are the seal of God imprinted "on the wonderful work of creation, on the heavens, the earth, and on all beasts." [4] This "signature of things" is described by Paracelsus as "a certain organic vital activity," which is frequently "expressed even in the exterior form of things; and by observing that form we may learn something in regard to their interior qualities, even without using our interior sight. We see that the internal character of a man is often expressed in his exterior appearance, even in the manner of his walking and in the sound of his voice. Likewise the hidden character of things is to a certain extent expressed in their outward forms. As long as man remained in a natural state, he recognised the signatures of things and knew their true character; but the more he diverged from the path of Nature, and the more his mind became captivated by illusive external appearances, the more this power became lost." [5] The same doctrine is developed by the most distinguished disciple of Paracelsus, the Kentish Rosicrucian, Robert Fludd. "There are other invisible writings, secretly impressed on the leaves of Nature's book, which are not to be read or comprehended save with the eyes of understanding, being traced by the Spirit of the living God on the hidden fleshly tablets of our own hearts.... These internal and spiritual characters, constituting the interior writing, may also to the bodily eyes be the cause and origin of the things which do appear." [6] "It is manifest," he also remarks, "that those vivific letters and characters impressed on the Bible and on the great Book of Nature, and which we call arcane, because they are understood only by the few, are one thing, and that the dead, destroying letters of the same books, whose cortices contain the living and spiritual characters, are another."
IV. These speculative principles appear to have been united with some form of practical magic. Now magic is a term which conjures up into the mind of the ordinary reader some hazy notions either of gross imposture or diabolical compacts and hellish rites; it seems necessary, therefore, to state what it really was in the opinions of those who professed it. According to Paracelsus, magic is that great and hidden wisdom which discovers the interior constitution of everything. "It teaches the true nature of the inner man as well as the organization of his outward body." It includes "a knowledge of visible and invisible nature." It is the only true teacher of the art of healing. If physicians possessed it, their books might be burnt and their medicines be thrown into the ocean. "Magic and sorcery are two entirely different things, and there is as much difference between them as there is between light and darkness, and between white and black." The same authority teaches that the great agent in magic is the imagination confirmed by that faith which perfects will-power, and that the imagination thus strengthened can create its own objects. "Man has a visible and invisible workshop. The visible one is his body; the invisible one his imagination.... The imagination is a sun in the soul of man, acting in its own sphere as the sun of the earth acts in his. Wherever the latter shines, germs planted in the soil grow, and vegetation springs up; and the sun of the soul acts in a similar manner, and calls the forms of the soul into existence.... The spirit is the master, imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material. Imagination is the power by which the will forms sidereal entities out of thoughts. It is not fancy, which latter is the corner-stone of superstition and foolishness.... The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure them." [7] This theory covers all the phenomena of visions, ecstacies, evocations, and other pseudo-miracles, recognising that they are facts, and accounting for the futility of their results.
V. Whether the Rosicrucians pretended to manufacture material gold is a question which is difficult to decide from the materials contained in their manifestoes. They acknowledge the fact of transmutation, and call it a "great gift of God;" but "as it bringeth not always with it a knowledge of Nature, while this knowledge bringeth forth both that and an infinite number of other natural miracles, it is right that we be rather earnest to attain to the knowledge of philosophy, nor tempt excellent wits to the tincture of metals sooner then to the observation of Nature." [8] Whatever may be thought of this reasoning, it definitely places the Rosicrucians in that school of alchemy to which I made reference at the close of the first chapter, and whose aim was to accomplish the spiritual side of the magnum opus, or great work of alchemical reconstruction. For them the transmutation of metals being no operation of common chemistry, [9] both the "Fama" and "Confessio" appear to condemn indiscriminately all professors of the purely physical process, which they call "the ungodly and accursed gold-making." Here, as in their other opinions, they echo Paracelsus. "What shall I say to you about all your alchemical prescriptions, about all your retorts and bottles, crucibles, mortars, and glasses; about all your complicated processes of distilling, melting, cohibiting, coagulating, sublimating, precipitating, and filtering, all the tomfoolery for which you throw away your time and your money. All such things are useless, and the labour over them is lost. They are rather an impediment than a help to arrive at the truth." After the same fashion, the "Confessio" denounces the "monstrous symbols and enigmas" by which pseudo-chymists impose upon credulous curiosity. According to Dr. Hartmann, "Paracelsus asserts that it is possible to make gold and silver by chemical means; still he condemns such experiments as useless, and it seems to be more than probable that even in such chemical experiments as may have succeeded, something more than merely chemical manipulations was required to make them successful." [10] Éliphas Lévi, one of the most profound commentators on Paracelsus, declares that "there is light in gold, gold in light, and light in all things." Thus the first matter of the magnum opus is both within and about us, and "the intelligent will, which assimilates light, directs the operations of substantial form, and only employs chemistry as a very secondary instrument." [11]
At the same time the Rosicrucians claimed to be in possession of "great treasures of gold," and of the purse of Fortunatus. There seems no special reason to doubt that they intended this to be literally construed, and the "Fama" definitely states that it was a project of their founder, C. R., to institute a society in Europe "which might have gold, silver, and precious stones sufficient for to bestow them on kings."
VI. Closely connected with the secret of metallic transmutation is "the supreme medicine of the world," the life-elixir, which, according to Bernard-le-Trevisan (fifteenth century), is the reduction of the Philosophical Stone into mercurial water. It cures all diseases, and prolongs life beyond the normal limits. Without claiming to be actually in possession of this
"Wonderful Catholicon,
Of very subtle and magical powers,"
the Rosicrucians come before us as essentially, or at least primarily, a healing fraternity. "Their agreement was this .... That none of them should profess any other thing than to cure the sick, and that gratis." [12] Professor Buhle, in his notice of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, says that the evils of Germany at this period were immense, that the land was overswept by a "great storm of wretchedness and confusion." The science of medicine was still in its infancy, the Lutheran Reformation, by spoliating monasteries, had destroyed hospitals, [13] and the diseases and miseries unavoidably consequent on unsanitary principles and medical guesswork, were undoubtedly very widely spread. The utter incompetence of the ancient methods led many others besides the Rosicrucians to disregard and denounce the traditional authority, and in the wide field of experimental research to lay the foundations of a new and rational hypothesis. The germs of this revolution are found in Paracelsus, and the practical theosophy -- medicine itself being a branch of mysticism from the standpoint of orthodox mystics -- practised by Rosicrucian adepts is their strongest claim on our favour, the one golden link which joins their dissonant commonplace with the Orphean harmonies of true and divine occultism.
It will be sufficient to enumerate only their belief in a secret philosophy, perpetuated from primeval times, in ever-burning lamps, in vision at a distance, and in the approaching end of the world. I have shown indisputably that there was no novelty in the Rosicrucian pretensions, and no originality in their views. They appear before us as Lutheran disciples of Paracelsus; and, returning for a moment to the problem discussed in the introduction, we find nothing in either manifesto to connect them with the typology of a remote period. It is, therefore, in modern, not ancient, times that we must seek an explanation of the device of the Rose-Cross. A passage contained in "The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz" will assist in the solution of this important point.
1. "Paracelsus," by Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44.
2. According to Eliphas Lévi, the Astral Light, i.e., the substance diffused through infinity, and which is the first matter of the material and psycho-material universe, is "transformed at the moment of conception into human light, and is the first envelope of the soul." In combination with fluids of extreme subtlety, it becomes the astral, etherised, or sidereal body. When a man dies and the divine spirit returns into the empyrean, it leaves two corpses, one on the earth and one in the atmosphere, "one already inert, the other still animated by the universal movement of the soul of the world, but destined to die gradually, being absorbed by the astral energies which produced it." -- "Mysteries of Magic," pp. 97, 105.
3. "Comte de Gabalis." Second Entretien.
4. "Confessio Fraternatis," c. viii.
5. Hartmann's "Paracelsus," pp. 51, 52.
6. Robertus de Fluctibus, "Apologia Compendiana Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce."
7. "Confessio Fraternitatis," c. xi.
9. On this point see "Mysteries of Magic," Biographical and Critical Preface, p. xliii.
10. Hartmann's "Paracelsus," pp. 177, 178.
11. "Mysteries of Magic," p. 204.
12. "Fama Fraternitatis," p. 73.
13. "The origin of our present hospitals must be looked for in monastic arrangements for the care of the sick and indigent. Every monastery had its infirmaria, managed by an infirmarius, in which not only were sick and convalescents treated, but also the aged, the blind, the weak, &c., were housed." -- "Encyc. Brit.," 9th ed., s. v, "Hospitals."
CHAPTER VII. ANTIQUITY OF THE ROSICRUCIAN FRATERNITY.
THE antiquity of the Rose in symbolism and of the Cross in symbolism, as I have already said, is no proof whatsoever of the antiquity of a society which we find to be using them at a period subsequent to the Renaissance; but, according to John Heydon, the Rosicrucians "have been since Christ;" they "inhabite the suburbs of Heaven," and are "as the eyes and ears of the great King, seeing and hearing all things." The existence of a "divine Fraternity" on the astral plane, or in. the fourth dimension, however "seraphically illuminated," and with whatever powers they may be invested by the "Generalissimo of the world," is a point which transcends the investigations of the merely human historian. His researches, however, have determined that, within his own limits--that is, on the physical plane of time and space--there are no vestiges of the Rosicrucians traceable before the beginning of the seventeenth century, and that the belief in their antiquity originates in à priori considerations which are concerned with the predilections and prejudices of thinkers whose faith and imagination have been favoured by evolution or environment at the expense of their judgment, and who determine historical questions by the illumination of their own understandings rather than by the light of facts.
Such persons are beyond the reach of criticism, and, as they are neither numerous nor important, may be left basking in the sunshine of a pleasing aberration, which is interesting in days of disillusion. But the existence and occasional prevalence in all ages of the world of those theosophical ideas, which are at the root of Rosicrucian philosophy, have caused even serious students to consider the Fraternity of an almost incredible antiquity--a hypothesis which wins golden opinions from those who delight in connecting the invisible threads of the secret societies and tracing them to a single primal source, of which one and all are ramifications more or less identical in ceremonies, secrets, and purposes.
Addressing myself to these students, I would say with Buhle that whoever adopts this hypothesis "is bound to show, in the first place, in what respect the deduction of this order from modern history is at all unsatisfactory; and secondly, upon his own assumption of a far elder origin, to explain how it happened that for sixteen entire centuries no contemporary writers have made any allusion to it."
Solomon Semler is one of the few writers whose erudition is unquestionable, and who have supported this view; but the facts which he cites are entirely inconclusive. He proves the existence in the fourteenth century of "an association of physicians and alchemists who united their knowledge and their labours to attain the discovery of the Philosophic Stone." It is this association to which the alchemist Raymond Lully [1] apparently refers in his "Theatrum Chymicum," [2] printed at Strasbourg in 1613, as a sec society existing during the fourteenth century in Italy, and the chief of which was called Rex Physicorum. Figulus [3] states it to have been founded in 1410, and asserts it to have merged in the Rosicrucian Order about the year 1607. The same careful investigator cites an anonymous letter, published at the end of the sixteenth century, and stating the age of a certain secret society to be above two thousand years. It is also asserted that the alchemist Nicholas Barnaud conceived in 1591 a project of establishing a secret convention of theosophical mystics, who were to devote themselves to a determined investigation of all Kabbalistic sciences, and that he scoured both Germany and France with this object. Finally, the "Echo of the God-illuminated Order of the Brethren R. C." tells us that in 1597 an attempt was actually made to found such a society, apparently on the lines laid down by Barnaud, and it is a remarkable fact that the preface to the Christian Reader which is prefixed to this curious publication, is dated June 1597, while that which is addressed to the Brotherhood is dated 1 Nov. 1615, the book itself not having appeared till 1620.
These facts and statements are of the highest interest and of very considerable importance within their own, sphere, but the existence of secret associations even two thousand years old, much less the attempts occasionally made to establish others, affords no proof that they were in any way connected, or are to be identified, with the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, whose violent anti-Papal prejudices and ultra-Protestant principles are sufficient proof of a post-Lutheran origin.
The only sect or association with which the Rosicrucians may be pertinently compared, and which we hear of before the year 1610, is the Militia Crucifera Evangelica which assembled at Lunenburg in 1598 under the auspices of the mystic and theosophist, Simon Studion. Its proceedings are reported in an unprinted work from his pen entitled "Naometria, seu nuda et prima libri, intus et foris scripti, per clavem Davidis et calamum (virgæ similem) apertio; in quo non tantum ad cognoscenda tam S. Scripturæ totius, quam naturæ quoque universæ, mysteria, brevis fit introductio--verum etiam Prognosticus (stellæ illius matutinæ, Anno Domini 1572, conspectæ ductu) demonstrator Adventus ille Christi ante diem novissimum secundus per quem homine peccati (Papa) cum filio sur perditionis (Mahomedo) divinitus devestato, ipse ecclesiam suam et principatus mundi restaurabit, ut in iis post hac sit cum ovili pastor unus. In cruciferæ militiæ Evangelicæ gratiam. Authore Simone Studione inter Scorpiones. Anno 1604." As this work exists only in manuscript, and as there is no transcript of this manuscript to be found in the English public libraries, my chief knowledge of its contents, and of the sect which it represents, is derived from an unsatisfactory notice by Professor Buhle, who describes the Militia as a Protestant sect heated by apocalyptic dreams, and declares the object of the assembly to have been apparently "exclusively connected with religion." But it is clear from the life of Studion that he was passionately devoted to alchemy, and the spiritual side of the magnum opus was probably the aim of these enthusiasts, who are otherwise identified in their views with the illuminati of the Rose-Cross. Like these they believed that the books of Revelation and of Nature were intus et foris scripti, written within and without, that is, they contain a secret meaning for the initiates of mystical wisdom; that the unaccountable appearance of new stars in the sky was significant of important events in the approximate future; that the last day was at hand; that the Pope was Anti-Christ and the Man of Sin; and finally, as Buhle himself confesses, the "Naometria" contains a great deal of mysticism and prophecy about the Rose and the Cross.
These points of resemblance are, I think, insufficient to establish a connection between the Militia Crucifera Evangelica and the Rosicrucians in a logical mind, but they are certainly curious and interesting. It will be shown in the next chapter why the symbolism of the Rose and the Cross was common to both associations.
The antiquity of the Rosicrucians, as I have hinted, finds few supporters at the present day, this view being chiefly confined to the members of pseudo-Rosicrucian societies, and to the pseudo-historian of the order, Mr Hargrave Jennings. From the fictitious importance unaccountably ascribed to the ill-considered and worthless work of this writer, it seems necessary to conclude with a short notice of the incoherent and visionary ramblings in "The Rosicrucians: their Rites and Mysteries." Mr Jennings may congratulate himself on being "that distinguished esoteric littérateur," who writes the worst English of this or any century, but he is a great man, a magician of the first order, in the important matter of titles. I freely confess that his work on this subject is so attractively labelled that it exercises an irresistible charm over the student. "The Rosicrucians: their Rites and Mysteries, with chapters on the ancient Fire and Serpent Worshippers, and explanations of the Mystic Symbols represented on the monuments and talismans of the Primeval Philosophers," is a label not otherwise than superb. It is a "strong delusion" which tempts the hesitating purchaser, and has often prompted the too credulous reader, by the subtlety of its mystic charm, "to believe" -- at least the very opposite of what is true.
The book, so far as the Rosicrucians are concerned, begins with an account of an "historical adventure in Staffordshire," which is curiously distorted in the interests of an inexpensive sensationalism, and after much loquacity on "the insufficiency of worldly objects," we are introduced in the seventh chapter, without preface or apology, to the "Mythical history of the Fleur-de-lys," Druidic Cromlechs, and Gnostic Abraxas Gems. The rest of the work is Rosicrucian certainly, so far as the titles of the chapters are concerned, but not further. Thus we have "The Rosy-Cross in Indian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Mediaeval monuments," "Presence of the Rosicrucians in Christian Architecture," &c., but the chapters themselves are devoted to the lingam and the great pyramid, Persian fire-worship, phallic and serpent symbolism, and etymological speculations which would have astonished even Godfrey Higgins, and which Kenealy himself would disown. Doubtless these things are connected in the mind of Mr Hargrave Jennings with his mysterious and ubiquitous Brotherhood, for his diseased imagination perceives Rosicrucianism everywhere, "as those who believe in witchcraft see sorcery and enchantment everywhere." This connection, however, he nowhere attempts to establish, and it is incredible to suppose that the shallow pretence has ever imposed on anyone. The few statements which he makes concerning the Fraternity must be rejected as worthless; for example, he tells us that the alchemists were a physical branch of the Rosicrucians, whereas the Rosicrucians were a theosophical sect among the alchemists.
I have deemed it unnecessary to consider the alleged connection between the Templars and the Brethren of the Rose-Cross, for this hypothesis depends upon another, now generally set aside, namely, the connection of the Freemasons with the foregoing orders. It is sufficient to say that the Templars were not alchemists, that they had no scientific pretensions, and that their secret, so far as can be ascertained, was a religious secret of an anti-Christian kind. The Rosicrucians, on the other hand, were pre-eminently a learned society, and they were also a Christian sect.
1. This personage is not to be confused with the author of the "Ars Magna Sciendi," the illuminated philosopher and evangelist of Parma in Majorca, who united the saint and the man of science, the metaphysician and the preacher, the apostle and the itinerant lecturer, the dialectician and the martyr, in one remarkable individuality. The alchemist Raymond Lully, "one of the grand and sublime p. 212 masters of the science," according to Eliphas Lévi, lived after 1315, the date of the martyr's death, and nothing is known of his history, except his astounding transmutations. He is said to have been a native of Ferrago, and has peen described as "a Jewish neophyte." John Cremer, the abbot of Westminster, describes his reception by Edward I, King of England, who gave him an apartment in the Tower to perform his transmutations, but the welcome guest soon found himself a prisoner, and with difficulty effected his escape. See "Cremeri Abatis Westmonasteriensis Testamentum," in the "Museum Hermeticum," 4to, Francfurt, 1677-78. Camden, in his "Ecclesiastical Monuments," gives also some details of Lully's sojourn in England.
2. C. 87, p. 139.
3. Benedictus Figulus was the author of "Pandora Magnalium," "Paradisus Aureolus Hermeticus," "Rosarium Novum Olympicum et Benedictum," "Thesaurinella Olympica," all published in 1608.
CHAPTER VIII. THE CASE OF JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS.
Arms of Andreas
MOST existing theories as to the authorship of the Rosicrucian manifestoes are founded upon plausible assumptions or ingenious conclusions drawn from the doubtful materials of merely alleged facts. Each investigator has approached the subject with an ambitious determination to solve the problem connected with the mysterious Order, but, in the absence of adequate materials, has evolved a new hypothesis, where the supposititious has transfigured what is certain for the satisfaction of individual bias. As a simple historian working in the cause of truth, it is neither my inclination nor my duty to contrive a fresh theory, but rather to state the facts which are in conflict with all theories, and to draw no conclusion unwarranted by the direct evidence in hand.
The Rosicrucian theorists may be broadly divided into three bands--I. Those who believe that the history of Christian Rosencreutz is true in fact, and that the society originated in the manner recounted in the "Fama Fraternitatis." II. Those who regard both the society and its founder as purely mythical, and consider with Leibnitz, "que tout ce que l'on a dit des Frères de la Croix de la Rose, est une pure invention de quelque personne ingenieuse." III. Those who, without accepting the historical truth of the story of Rosencreutz, believe in the existence of the Rosicrucians as a secret society, which drew attention to the fact of its existence by a singular and attractive fiction.
In the first division are gathered the men of large imagination and abundant faith, who, unawed by historical difficulties, unaffected by discrepancies of fact, and despising the terra damnata of frigid critical methods, are bewitched by romantic associations and the glamour of impenetrable mystery. They love to contemplate the adepts of the Rose-Cross moving silently among the ignorant and vulgar multitude, diffusing light and healing, masters of terrific secrets, having nothing in appearance and yet possessing all things, ever inscrutable, ever intangible, ever vanishing suddenly. The sublime dreams produced by their mystical hachish are undisturbed by the essential shallowness and commonplace of Rosicrucian manifestoes, for they reject authoritative documents, or interpret objectionable passages in an inverted sense.
Insuperable difficulties prevent us from supposing that the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis" emanated from a secret society whose literal history is contained in them. These difficulties are, for the most part, inherent in the nature of the alleged history, which I undertook in the introduction to prove mythical. It will be unnecessary for this purpose to consider the scientific foundation of Rosicrucian claims. The purse of Fortunatus -- that is, the Stone of the Philosophers--the power of transmutation, the existence of elementary spirits, the doctrine of signatures, ever-burning lamps, and vision at a distance, may be possibilities, however remote on the horizon of natural science. There are many things in heaven and on earth which are undreamed of in the philosophy of Horatio, and occultism is venerable by its antiquity, interesting from its romantic associations, and replete with visionary splendours; but for all this, the fiction of the "Fama" is "monstrous, and betrays itself in every circumstance." [1]
Suspicion is immediately raised by the suppression of all names, and the concealment of the headquarters and all "local habitations" of the supposed Society. C. R. C., the hero of the history, journeys to a fabulous Oriental city, called Damcar, which is not Damascus, though the German originals continually confuse it therewith. A great part of this journey is performed alone by a boy of sixteen, who is described as possessing such "skill in physic" that he "obtained much favour of the Turks," and who, after five years' travelling, returns at the age of twenty-one years to Europe, fired with an inextinguishable ambition to correct the errors of all the arts and to reform the whole philosophia moralis. In Germany he erects a mysterious House of the Holy Spirit, situated apparently in space of three dimensions, besieged by the "unspeakable concourse of the sick," and yet, for the space of nearly two hundred years, completely unknown and unseen by the "wicked world" When the Society was incorporated, and its members despatched on their wanderings, two brethren always remained with the founder, and eight of them were present at his death, yet the secret of his burial-place was completely unknown to the third generation, till its discovery by a newly-initiated member when he was repairing his house, which, nevertheless, does not appear to be the House of the Holy Spirit. The sepulchre has been closed for one hundred and twenty years, and it is found to contain the Vocabularium, Itinerarium, and Life of Paracelsus. Taking 1614 as the year when the Fama was published, and supposing the discovery of the burial-place to have ante-dated the manifesto by the shortest possible period, we are brought back to the year 1494, one year after the birth of Paracelsus, whose books it is supposed to contain. This point is, of course, conclusive, and it is unnecessary to comment on the mystery which surrounds the ultimate fate of the corpse of that "godly and high-illuminated Father, Brother C. R. C."
Thus it is obvious that the history of Christian Rosencreutz is not historically true, and that the Society did not originate in the manner which is described by the "Fama."
The theorists of the second and third divisions are in agreement upon several important points, and may, therefore, be considered together. Most of them unite in seeking the author of the Rosicrucian manifestoes among the literati of the period. On the one side they consider him a satirist, or the perpetrator of an imposture or elaborate jest; on the other, they hold him to be the founder of a secret society, or the mouthpiece of one which was already in existence, and to which they ascribe a various antiquity in accordance with their predilections and their knowledge of the true state of the case. The question of this antiquity has been discussed in the last chapter.
Several authors have been suggested, for the most part on very slender evidence. Some maintain that the manifestoes were written by Taulerus, the author of the German Theologia, an obscure writer not to be identified with the author of the Spiritual Letters, "Institutiones Divinæ," &c., others by Luther, others again by Wiegel. Joachim Junge, [2] the celebrated philosopher of the seventeenth century, has secured several partisans. He was born at Lubeck in 1587, and became an M. A. of Giessen in 1609. At the very period when the "Fama Fraternitatis" first appeared, about 1614, he was holding numerous conferences with his friends on the methods of hastening the progress of philosophy, but his plans are supposed to have been without any immediate result. Subsequently, he sought to establish at Rostock an academy for the advancement of natural sciences; "but the rumour spread that this project concealed some evil designs, and people went so far as to accuse him of being one of the chiefs of the famous order of the Brothers of the Red-Cross, and he was forced to renounce a plan whose execution could only have had good results for his adopted country." [3] He became rector of the University of Hamburg, and died of apoplexy, September 23, 1657. He was the author of "Geometria Empirica," "Harmonica Theoretica," &c., and appears to have been wholly unconnected with the alchemical pursuits of the period. A secretary of the Court of Heidelberg (according to Heidegger, the biographer of Johannes Ludovicus Fabricius) being, it is supposed, in the secret, is said to have confirmed in conversation the current report that Junge was the founder of the Fraternity and the writer of the "Fama Fraternitatis." [4] No reference is made to this matter in the "Historia Vitæ et Mortis Joachimi Jungii Mathematici summi ceteraque Incomparabilis Philosophi," which was written by Martinus Fogelius in 1658. It contains, however, some account of his attempt to found a philosophical society, but the Leges Societatis Ereuneticæ which are to be found at the end of the pamphlet, sufficiently distinguish it from the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. The theosophist, Ægidius Gutmann, is claimed as the true author of the anonymous manifestoes by others -- on what grounds I have not been able to ascertain; but, according to Buhle, this opinion is "supported by no other argument than that he was a distinguished mystic in that age of mysticism."
All these views have manifestly little to recommend them, but that which attributes the composition of the Rosicrucian manifestoes to Johann Valentin Andreas is supported by an extraordinary mass of evidence, which calls for very careful and impartial consideration. This interesting and singular personage, who is described by Brucker [5] as very learned and of a very elegant genius, whom the "Bibliothèque Universelle" [6] considers one of the most useful men which Germany produced in the seventeenth century, and whom all authorities unite in admiring for his talents and virtues, was a renowned theologian of Wirtemberg, and a multifarious littérateur not uncelebrated, even at this day, in his own country, as a poet and a satirist. He was born at Herrenberg, a town in the duchy of Wirtemberg, on the 17th of August 1586. He was the grandson of Jacob Andreas, also a celebrated theologian. His father was the pastor of Herrenberg, his mother, Mary Moseria. The delicacy of his early years characterised his maturer life, but he was of a shrewd and cheerful disposition. He received the rudiments of his education from Michael Beumler [7] Subsequently he pursued his studies at Tubingen, Buhle informs us that, "besides Greek and Latin (in which languages he was distinguished for the elegance of his style), he made himself master of the French, Italian, and Spanish; was well versed in Mathematics, Natural and Civil History, Geography, and Historical Genealogy, without at all neglecting his professional study of divinity." [8] "I so divided my time," he tells us, "that during the day I devoted myself to instruction in the arts; thereto I added long nocturnal studies, passed in the reading of various authors, and carried to such an extravagant extent that not only my eyesight suffered, but I made myself subject to the horrors of sleeplessness, and weakened the strength of memory." [Additional Note 5]
He travelled much within the limits of his own country, visited France, Switzerland, Italy, including Venice, and twice journeyed into Austria. He was married on the second of August 1614, to Agnes Elizabeth, daughter of Josua Grüminger. [9] He passed through various grades of ecclesiastical dignity, and became chaplain to the court at Stuttgart. "Here," says Buhle, "he met with so much thwarting and persecution, that, with his infirm constitution of body and dejection of mind from witnessing the desolation of Germany," the redress of the abuses and evils in which had been the main object of his life--"it is not to be wondered that he . . . sank into deep despondency and misanthropy." At his own earnest importunity he was permitted to resign his post, and died abbot of Adelberg and Lutheran almoner to the Duke of Wirtemberg in the year 1654, "after a long and painful illness."
All authorities are agreed upon one important point in the character of Andreas, and that is his predilection in favour of secret societies as instruments in the reformation of his age and country. According to Buhle, he had a profound and painful sense of the gross evils and innumerable abuses which afflicted the German fatherland, and which were revealed, not eradicated, by the lurid fire-brand of Luther's reformation. These abuses he sought to redress by means of "secret societies." The ambition of his boyhood appears to have been the labour of his after days. "The writings of Andreas, issued during his life-time, are full of arguments on the necessity of forming a society solely devoted to the reformation of sciences and manners. . . . Three of his works, namely, 'Reipublicæ Christianopolitanæ Descriptio'; 'Turris Babel, sive Judiciorum de Fraternitate Rosaceæ Crucis Chaos'; 'Christianæ Societatis Idea,' all published at Strasbourg in the years 1619 and 1620, offer the clearest indications of his project to form a secret society. It is impossible not to perceive that he is always aiming at something of the kind. Some also appeal to his frequent travels as having no other object. [10] A writer in the "Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes" speaks with even greater emphasis. "The works of Andreas, to the number of one hundred, preach promiscuously the necessity of secret societies," [11] and Louis Figuier, whose work, entitled "Alchemy and the Alchemists," though it does not betray much original research, represents in a French vestment the opinions and arguments of some high German authorities, calls Andreas "a fanatical partisan" of the doctrines of Paracelsus, [12] declares him to have been fired with the ambition to fulfil certain predictions of his master which have been before referred to, and that he took upon himself to decide that the "Elias Artista," the robust child, to whom the magician refers, must be understood not of an individual but of a collective body or association.
It seems clear from these authorities, and from the facts of the case, that the mature, long-planned purpose of Andreas was the foundation of a society for the reformation of the age, and we find him cherishing this hope and apparently elaborating his designs at the very period when the first rumours of the Rosicrucian Fraternity began to be heard in Europe. It is, therefore, obviously and incontestably clear that if he had any hand in the foundation of this society, or in the authorship of the documents connected with it, that both were undertaken in all earnestness, and that the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis" are not pieces of frolicsome imposture, and satires on the credulity of the period. Such a supposition is wholly incompatible with Andreas' zeal and enthusiasm.
This point being definitely settled, I proceed to lay before my readers an abstract of those considerations which have induced several erudite investigators to accept Andreas as the author of the Rosicrucian documents.
I. I have said in the fifth chapter that the whole controversy to some extent centres in the "Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz," and since the publication of Seybold's "Autobiographies of Celebrated Men" in 1796, and which printed for the first time, albeit in a German version, the posthumous autobiography of Johann Valentin Andreas, [13] there has been no room for doubt as to its authorship. There he includes it among his earliest productions, states that it was written at the age of fifteen, and that it was one of a series of similar juvenilia which, for the most part, had perished. [14] Now the "Chymical Marriage," having remained several years in manuscript, was printed at Strasbourg in 1616. The C. R. C. of the preceding manifestoes was immediately identified with the Christian Rosencreutz of the allegorical romance, and albeit the first edition of the "Confessio Fraternitatis," and seemingly also of the "Fama," [15] do not describe the society as that of the Rosie Cross, the edition of 1615, printed at Francfurt, calls it the Bruderschafft des Rosen-Creutzes and it is, therefore, argued that the three works must have originated from a single source.
II. The "Chymical Marriage" contains the following passage: -- "Hereupon I prepared myself for the way, put on my white linnen coat, girded my loyns, with a blood-red ribbon bound cross-ways over my shoulder: In my hat I stuck four roses." Elsewhere, he describes himself as a "brother of the Red-Rosie Cross," and a "Knight of the Golden Stone"--eques aurei lapidis.
Now, the armorial bearings of the family of Andreas contain a St Andrew's Cross with four roses, one in each of its angles, which interesting piece of internal evidence indicates the authorship of this romance independently of the autobiographical statement, and points irresistibly, it is said, to the conclusion that the founder of the Rose-Cross Society was the man whose heraldic device was also the Rose and Cross.
III. The identity of the principles contained in the acknowledged work of Andreas, and in the pamphlets which it is sought to attribute to him, are considered too obvious to need enumeration, and it is sufficient to point out that all are equally directed against the charlatanic professors of the magnum opus, thriving in countless numbers upon the credulity and infatuation of the age.
IV. Arnold, in his "History of the Church and of Heretics," states that a comparison between Andreas' undoubtedly authentic writings and those of the Rosicrucian manifestoes do not allow any doubt that he is their author.
V. The earliest edition of Boccalini's "Ragguagli di Parnasso" was published at Venice in 1612. Andreas is known to have been an Italian scholar; he was also an omnivorous reader; he is said to have admired Boccalini, and to have imitated his style; and thence it is argued that he it was who translated Advertisement 77 of the first centuria, under the title of the "Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World."
VI. An intimate friend of Andreas, Professor Besoldt, positively declares that the character of the Rosicrucian manifesto is plain enough, and considers it a marvellous and unexplainable circumstance that so many persons had mistaken that object. From this it is concluded that he was a repository of the secret concerning their authorship, and as he was in the confidence of Andreas, that Andreas was the author.
In this case, the question discussed in the introduction is, of course, definitely set at rest. The symbolism of the Rose-Cross is of no high significance as a badge of the secret society. It does not give expression to the arcana of the alchemical and celestial Dew of the Wise, nor contain the secret of the menstruum of the Red Dragon. It is simply the hereditary device of the founder, and its meaning is to be sought in German heraldry, and not in mysticism.
Those who accredit Andreas with the authorship of the Rosicrucian manifestoes interpret his reasons very variously. According to Arnold, he had already written many satirical pamphlets upon the corruptions and hypocrisy of the period and he considers that the "Fama" and "Confessio" were penned with the same purpose, namely to lay bare the follies of men's lives, and to set before them patterns of good and pious living. He quotes an unmentioned writer as stating that it was necessary that the brethren should be men of unblemished lives, and zealous preachers, who, under the appearance of a society, would try to lead the people to God. According to Figuier, as we have seen, Andreas established the order to fulfil certain prophecies of Paracelsus, and to pursue scientific researches on purely Paracelsian principles. But Buhle, with all his shortcomings, and weighted as he is by an extravagant Masonic hypothesis, is the best exponent of these views, and it will be necessary to cite his arguments at considerable length.
"From a close review of his life and opinions, I am not only satisfied that Andreä wrote the three works which laid the foundation of Rosicrucianism, but I see clearly why he wrote them. The evils of Germany were then enormous, and the necessity of some great reform was universally admitted. As a young man without experience, Andrea imagined that this reform would be easily accomplished. He had the example of Luther before him, the heroic reformer of the preceding century, whose memory was yet fresh in Germany, and whose labours seemed on the point of perishing unless supported by corresponding efforts in the existing generation. To organise these efforts and direct them to proper objects, he projected a society composed of the noble, the enlightened, and the learned--which he hoped to see moving, as under the influence of one soul, towards the redressing of public evils. Under this hope it was that he travelled so much: seeking everywhere, no doubt, for the coadjutors and instruments of his designs. These designs he presented originally in the shape of a Rosicrucian society; and in this particular project he intermingled some features that were at variance with its gravity and really elevated purposes. Young as he was at that time, Andreä knew that men of various tempers and characters could not be brought to co-operate steadily for any object so purely disinterested as the elevation of human nature: he therefore addressed them through the common foible of their age, by holding out promises of occult knowledge which should invest its possessor with authority over the powers of Nature, should lengthen his life, or raise him from the dust of poverty to wealth and high station. In an age of Theosophy, Cabbalism, and Alchemy, he knew that the popular ear would be caught by an account, issuing nobody knew whence, of a great society that professed to be the depository of Oriental mysteries, and to have lasted two centuries. Many would seek to connect themselves with such a society: from these candidates he might gradually select the members of the real society which he projected. The pretensions of the ostensible society were indeed illusions; but before they could be detected as such by the new proselytes, those proselytes would become connected with himself, and (as he hoped) moulded to nobler aspirations. On this view of Andreä's real intentions, we understand at once the ground of the contradictory language which he held about astrology and the transmutation of metals: his satirical works show that he looked through the follies of his age with a penetrating eye. He speaks with toleration then of these follies--as an exoteric concession to the age; he condemns them in his own esoteric character as a religious philosopher. Wishing to conciliate prejudices, he does not forbear to bait his scheme with these delusions: but he is careful to let us know that they are with his society mere παρεργα or collateral pursuits, the direct and main one being true philosophy and religion."
I fully concede the almost overwhelming force of some of the arguments I have enumerated, but, as a partisan of no particular theory, it is my duty to set before my readers a plain statement of certain grave difficulties.
I. The "Chymical Marriage" is called a ludibrium by its author, and Professor Buhle describes it as a comic romance, but those of my readers who are acquainted with alchemical allegories will discern in this singular narrative by a prepared student or artist who was supernaturally and magically elected to participate in the accomplishment of the magnum opus, many matters of grave and occult significance. They will recognise that the comic episodes are part of a serious design, and that the work as a whole is in strict accordance with the general traditions of alchemy. They will question the good faith of the author in the application of a manifestly incongruous epithet. Perhaps they will appear to be wise above what is written, but the position is not really unreasonable, for the passage in which reference is made by Andreas to the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" is calculated to raise suspicion. He was a shrewd and keen observer; he had gauged the passions and the crazes of his period; he was fully aware that the rage for alchemy blinded the eyes and drained the purses of thousands of credulous individuals, who were at the mercy of the most wretched impostors, and that no pretence was too shallow and no recipe too worthless to find believers. He could not be ignorant that a work like the "Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz" was eminently liable to impose upon every class of theosophists. When, therefore, he supposes, and, by implication, expresses, astonishment that his so-called ludibrium became the object of earnest investigation and of high esteem, I freely confess that I, for one, cannot interpret him seriously; in other words, that I reject the statement. This, however, is only the initial difficulty. The same passage of the "Vita ab ipso Conscripta" contains another piece of incredible information, namely that Andreas wrote the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" before he was sixteen, This story gives evidence of an acquaintance with the practice and purposes of alchemy which was absolutely impossible to the most precocious lad. Moreover, the boldness of its conception and the power which is displayed in its execution, setting aside the debateable question of its occult philosophical character, are things utterly transcending the cacoethes scribendi of a youngster barely attained to the age of puberty. I appeal to the discrimination of my readers whether the curious and ingenious perplexities propounded at the supper on the third day are in any way suggestive of "the light fire in the veins of a boy." The romance supposed to have been written in 1602-3 did not see the light till 1616, when it appeared in the full tide of the Rosicrucian controversy. Why did it remain in manuscript for the space of thirteen years at a period when everything treating of alchemy was devoured with unexampled avidity? The "Chymical Marriage," in its original draft, may have been penned at the age of fifteen, but it must have been subjected to a searching revision, though I confess that it betrays no trace of subsequent manipulation. These grave difficulties are enhanced by a fact which is wholly unknown to most Rosicrucian critics, and which was certainly not to be expected in the jest of a schoolboy, namely, that the barbarous enigmatical writings which are to be found in several places of "The Hermetick Wedding" are not an unmeaning hoax, but contain a decipherable and deciphered sense. The secretary of an English Rosicrucian Society says that the Supreme Magus of the Metropolitan College can read all three of the enigmas, and that he himself has deciphered two. Their secret is not a tradition, but the meaning dawns upon the student after certain researches. The last point is curious, and, outside the faculty of clairvoyance, the suggested method does not seem probable, but I give it to be taken at its worth, and have no reason to doubt the statement.
From these facts and considerations, the conclusion does not seem unreasonable, and may certainly be tolerated by an impartial mind, that in spite of the statement of Andreas, and partly because of that statement, the "Chymical Marriage" is not a ludibrium, that it betrays a serious purpose, and conceals a recondite meaning.
II. With this criticism the whole theory practically breaks down. We know that the "Fama Fraternitatis" was published in 1615 as a manifesto of the Bruderschafft des löblichen Ordens des Rosen Creutses. We have good reason to suppose that the original draft of the "Chymical Marriage" was tampered with; we do not know that previous to the year 1615 such a work was in existence as the "Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz." What we know to have existed was simply the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ." Now, supposing the "Fama Fraternitatis" to have emanated from a source independent of Andreas, he would be naturally struck by the resemblance of the mysterious Rosicrucian device to his own armorial bearings, and when in the year 1616 he published his so-called comic romance, this analogy may, not inconceivably, have led him to re-christen his hero, and to introduce those passages which refer to the Rose Cross. This, of course, is conjectural, but it is to be remarked that so far as can be possibly ascertained, the acknowledged symbol of the Fraternity never was a St Andrew's Cross with four Roses, but was a Cross of the ordinary shape, with a Red Rose in the centre, or a Cross rising out of a Rose. There is therefore little real warrant for the identification of the mystical and the heraldic badge. It is on this identification, however, that the Andrean claim is greatly based.
III. We find the "Chymical Marriage," like the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis," crusading against the "vagabond cheaters," "runagates and roguish people," who debased alchemical experiments in the interest of dishonest speculation; yet the one, under a thin veil of fiction, describes the proceedings in the accomplishment of the magnum opus, while the other terms transmutation a great gift of God. These points of resemblance, however, do not necessarily indicate a common authorship, for a general belief in the facts of alchemy was held at that period by many intelligent men, who were well aware, and loud in their condemnation, of the innumerable frauds which disgraced the science. On the other hand, it is plain that the history of C. R. C., as it is contained in the "Fama," is not the history, equally fabulous, of that Knight of the Golden Stone, who is the hero of the "Chymical Marriage."
IV. It is obviously easy to exaggerate the philological argument, or rather the argument from the identity of literary style, in the documents under consideration. This point indeed can only be adequately treated by a German. At present it rests on a single assertion of Arnold, which is uncorroborated by any illustrative facts. I think it will also be plain, even to the casual reader, that the "Chymical Marriage" is a work of "extraordinary talent," as Buhle justly observes, but that the "Fama Fraternitatis" is a work of no particular talent, either inventive or otherwise, while the subsequent "Confession," both in matter and manner, is simply beneath contempt. Yet we are required to believe that the first was produced at the age of fifteen, while the worthless pamphlets are the work of the same writer from seven to thirteen years subsequently.
V. The connection of the "Universal Reformation" with the other Rosicrucian manifestoes is so uncertain, that if Andreas could be proved its translator, his connection with the society would still be doubtful. The appearance of the "Fama Fraternitatis" and the "Universal Reformation" in one pamphlet no more proves them to have emanated from a single source, than the publication of the "Confessio" in the same volume as the "Secretioris Philosophiæ Consideratio" proves Philippus à Gabella to have been the author of that document. The practice of issuing unconnected works within the covers of a single book was common at the period. But the argument which ascribes the "Universal Reformation" to Andreas is entirely conjectural.
VI. There is nothing conclusive in the statement of Professor Besoldt; it may have been simply an expression of personal opinion; those who interpret it otherwise in support of the claim of Andreas, to some extent base their interpretation on the very point which is in question, for unless Andreas were the author of the manifestoes, it is clear that Professor Besoldt is a person of no authority.
These difficulties are of themselves sufficient to cast grave doubt upon the Andrean theory, but when we pass to the consideration of the motives which are attributed to the reputed author by the chief supporter of his claims, we find them indefinitely multiplied. Buhle represents him as a young man without experience who imagined that the evils of his country, enormous as they confessedly were, could be eradicated easily. But if, by courtesy, we allow that the "Fama Fraternitatis" was published so early as 1612, then Andreas was twenty-six years of age, when a man of education and travel would be neither inexperienced nor Utopian.
What, however, is by implication assumed in this hypothesis is that the Rosicrucian manifestoes were written at the same age as the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ," for which there is not a particle of evidence, and that the object of Andreas' travels was to find "coadjutors and instruments for his designs," which is also wholly unsupported. The scheme which is fathered upon Andreas is a monstrous and incredible absurdity; it involves, moreover, a pious fraud which is wholly at variance with the known character of the supposed author. No sane person, much less a man who "looked through the follies of his age with a penetrating eye," could expect anything but failure to result from a gross imposition practised on the members of a projected association, who being assured of the possession of the Philosophical Stone, the life-elixir, and initiation into the secret mysteries of nature, were destined to receive, instead of these prizes, a barren and impossible commission to reform the age. What moral reformation could result from any scheme at once so odious and impracticable?
Let us accept however, for a moment, the repulsive hypothesis of Buhle. Suppose the Rosicrucian manifestoes to have been written in 1602. Suppose Andreas to have scoured Germany and also to have visited other countries in search of appropriate members for his society. It would then be naturally concluded that the publication of the "Fama Fraternitatis" signified that his designs were matured. The subsequent conduct of Andreas is, nevertheless, so completely in the face of this conclusion, that Buhle is obliged to assume that the manifestoes were printed without the author's consent, than which nothing could be more gratuitous, and that the uproar of hostility which followed their publication made it necessary for Andreas to disavow them if he would succeed in his ultimate designs. The hostility provoked by the manifestoes bears no comparison with the welcome they received among all those classes to whom they were indirectly addressed, namely, the alchemists, theosophists, etc. Had Andreas projected a society upon the lines laid down by Buhle, nothing remained but to communicate with the innumerable pamphleteers who wrote in defence of the order during the years immediately succeeding the publication of the "Fama Fraternitatis," as well as with those other persons who in various printed letters offered themselves for admission therein, after which he could have proceeded in the accomplishment of his heartless design. That he did not do so when the circumstances were so favourable is proof positive that he had no such intention. In fact, at this very period, namely, in the year 1614, we find Andreas immersed in no dark and mysterious designs for the reformation of the age by means of a planned imposture, but simply celebrating his nuptials, and settling down into a tranquil domestic life.
One more gross and ineradicable blemish upon this hypothesis remains to be noticed. Not only is Andreas represented relinquishing his design at the very moment when it was possible to put it in force, but diverted at the universal delusion he had succeeded in creating, he is represented as endeavouring to foster it, "to gratify his satirical propensities," and when even in after life he becomes "shocked to find that the delusion had taken firm root in the public mind," he adopts no adequate measures to dispel it. Thus not only does Andreas wilfully turn the long-planned purpose of his life into a wretched fiasco, but to complete the libel on the character of a great and good man, he is supposed to delude his fellow creatures no longer for a lofty purpose, but from the lowest motive which it is possible to attribute to anyone,--a motive indefinitely meaner than any of personal gain.
The facts of the case untortured by any theory are these. The "Fama Fraternitatis" was published, say, in 1612. In 1613 a brief Latin epistle addressed to the venerable Fraternity R. C. is supposed to have appeared at Francfurt, supplemented the following year by an "Assertio Fraternitatis R. C. à quodam Fraterni ejus Socio carmine expressa." These two publications I have been unable to trace, though both are mentioned by Buhle, and are included by Langlet du Fresnoy in the Rosicrucian bibliography which is to be found in the third volume of his "Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique." In 1615, the Latin original of the "Confessio Fraternitatis" appeared, as we have seen, in the alchemical quarto of Philip à Gabella. All these works are attributed to Andreas, and the year 1616 saw the publication of the "Chymical Nuptials of Christian Rosencreutz," which work is undoubtedly his. Taking this view, and comparing these persistent and successive attempts to draw attention to the secret society with the known character and the known ambitions of Andreas, we are evidently face to face with an earnest and determined purpose, not to be arrested by a little hostility and not likely to degenerate into a matter for jest and satire. We must therefore reject the Buhlean hypothesis, because it fails all along the line, "and betrays itself in every circumstance." We must reject also that view which attributes the manifesto to Andreas, but considers them an ingenious jest. It is universally admitted that this jest had a seriously evil effect, and Andreas, on this hypothesis, lived to see some of the best and acutest minds of his time, to say nothing of an incalculable number of honest and earnest seekers, misled by the vicious and wanton joke which had been hatched by the perverted talents of his youth. The wickedness and cruelty of persisting in concealment of the true nature of the case through all his maturer life, through all his age, and not even making a posthumous explanation in the "Vita ab ipso Conscripta," is enough to raise indignation in every breast, and is altogether, and too utterly, vile and mean to ascribe to any right-minded and honourable person, much less to a man of the known intellectual nobility of Johann Valentin Andreas. Buhle says that to have avowed the three books as his own composition would have defeated his scheme, and that "afterwards he had still better reasons for disavowing them." He had no such reasons. The bluntest sense of duty and the feeblest voice of manliness must have provided him with urgent and unanswerable reasons for acknowledging them -- a course to which no serious penalties could possibly attach.
To dispose of the Andrean claim, a third hypothesis must be briefly considered. If Andreas was a follower of Paracelsus, a believer in alchemy, an aspirant towards the spiritual side of the magnum opus, or an adept therein, he would naturally behold with sorrow and disgust the trickery and imposture with which alchemy was then surrounded, and by which it has been indelibly disgraced, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that he may have attempted to reform the science by means of a secret society, whose manifestoes are directed against those very abuses. But in spite of the statement of Louis Figuier, I can find no warrant in the life or writings of Andreas for supposing that he was a profound student, much less a fanatical partisan of Paracelsus, and it is clear from his "Turris Babel," "Mythologia Christiana," and other works, that he considered the Rosicrucian manifestoes a reprehensible hoax. In the twenty-fifth chapter of the first of these books, the author proposes to supply the place of the fabulous Rosicrucian Society by his own Christian Fraternity. Indeed, wherever he speaks of it in his known writings, it is either with contempt or condemnation. Nihil cum hac Fraternitate commune habeo, says Truth in the "Mythologia Christiana." "Listen, ye mortals," cries Fama in the "Turris Babel," "you need not wait any longer for any brotherhood; the comedy is played out; Fama has put it up, and now destroys it. Fama has said Yes, and now utters No."
My readers are now in possession of the facts of the case, and must draw their own conclusions. If in spite of the difficulties which I .have impartially stated, Andreas has any claim upon the authorship of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, it must be viewed in a different light. According to Herder, his purpose was to make the secret societies of his time reconsider their position, and to shew them how much of their aims and movements was ridiculous, but not to found any society himself. According to Figuier, he really founded the Rosicrucian Society, but ended by entire disapproval of its methods, and therefore started his Christian Fraternity. But the facts of the case are against this hypothesis, for the "Invitatio Fraternitatis Christi ad Sacri amoris Candidatos" was published as early as 1617, long before the Rosicrucian Order could have degenerated from the principles of its master. It is impossible that Andreas should have projected two associations at the same time.
But in the face of the failure of all these hypotheses, one fact in the life of their subject remains unexplained. If Andreas did not write the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis," if he had no connection with the secret society from which they may be supposed to have emanated, if he did not study Paracelsus, and did not take interest in alchemy, how are we to account for the existence of the "Chymical Marriage," for its publication in the centre and heart of the Rosicrucian controversy, and for its apparently earnest purpose when he describes it as a jest or ludibrium? Without elaborating a new hypothesis, can we suggest a possible reason for this misnomer? Supposing Andreas to have been actually connected in his younger days with a certain secret society, which may have published the more or less misleading Rosicrucian manifestoes, the oath which all such societies impose upon their members, would for ever prevent him from divulging anything concerning it, though he may have withdrawn from its ranks at an early period. This society may have been identical, or affiliated, with the Militia Crucifera Evangelica, which, from the known character of its founder was probably saturated with alchemical ideas, in which case it offers at the end of the sixteenth century a complete parallel in its opinions with the Rosicrucian Fraternity. Both associations were ultra-Protestant, both were "heated with Apocalyptic dreams," both sought the magnum opus in its transfigured or spiritual sense, both abhorred the Pope, both called him Antichrist, both coupled him with the detested name of Mahomet, both expected the speedy consummation of the age, both studied the secret characters of nature, both believed in the significance of celestial signs, both adopted as their characteristic symbols the mystic Rose and Cross, and the reason which prompted this choice in the one probably guided it in the other. This reason is not to be sought in the typology of a remote period, nor even in the alchemical enigmas of mediæval times. It is not to be sought in the armorial bearings of Johann Valentin Andreas. They bore the Rose and Cross as their badge, not because they were Brethren of the Concocted and Exalted Dew, not because they had studied the book called Zohar, not because they were successors and initiates of the ancient Wisdom-Religion and the sublime hierarchies of Eld, but because they were a narrow sect of theosophical dissidents, because the monk Martin Luther was their idol, prophet, and master, because they were rabidly and extravagantly Protestant, with an ultra-legitimate violence of abusive Protestantism, because, in a single word, the device on the seal of Martin Luther was a Cross-crowned heart rising from the centre of a Rose, thus --
I am in a position to maintain that this was the true and esoteric symbol of the Society, as the Crucified Rose was the avowed, exoteric emblem, because in a professedly authoritative work on the secret figuren of the Order -- "Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer ans dem 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert" -- I find the following remarkable elaboration of the Lutheran seal, which practically decides the question.
Taking into consideration that the "Naometria" of Simon Studion and the original draft of the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" both belong to nearly the same period, and that Andreas was undoubtedly acquainted with the work of the mystical teacher of Marbach, as a passage in the "Turris Babel" makes evident, it is not an impossible supposition that the young student of Tübingen came into personal communication with Studion, who was only some fifty miles distant in the cheapest days of travelling, and having a natural inclination to secret societies, became associated with the Militia Crucifera Evangelica. Out of this connection the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" might naturally spring, and the subsequent Rosicrucian society was the Militia transfigured after the death of Studion, [16] and after the travels and experience of Andreas had divested him of his boyish delusions. Having proved the hollowness of their pretensions, but still bound by his pledge, he speaks of them henceforth as a deception and a mockery, and attempts to replace them by a practical Christian association without mysticism and symbols, making no pretension to occult knowledge, or to transcendant powers.
This view is not altogether a new one, and undoubtedly has its difficulties. It cannot account for the publication of the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" in 1616, nor for the revision which it apparently underwent at the very period when Andreas was projecting the unalchemical Christian Fraternity; but so far as it extends, it does not torture the facts with which it professes to deal. I present it not in my character as a historian, but simply as a hypothesis which may be tolerated. To my own mind it is far from satisfactory, and, from a careful consideration of all the available materials, I consider that no definite conclusion can be arrived at. There is nothing in the internal character of the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis" to shew that they are a jest. On the other hand, they embody a fabulous story. There is no proof that they did or did not emanate from a secret society. [17] The popular argument that the manifestoes were addressed to "the learned of Europe," but the earnest entreaties of the flower of theosophical literati for admission into the ranks of the Fraternity remained unanswered, is no proof that the Society itself did not exist, for the statement is vicious in the extreme. We have absolutely no means of ascertaining with whom it may have come into communication, or what letters and applications were answered, because inviolable secrecy would cover the whole of the proceedings, and those who might have the best reason to know that the Society existed would be most obliged to hold their peace. Thus "the meritorious Order of the R. C." still remains shrouded in mystery, but this mystery is destitute of romance and almost of interest. The avowed opinions of the Fraternity for ever prevent us from supposing that they were in possession of any secrets which would be worth disentombing. To have accomplished the magnum opus of the veritable adept, is to be master of the Absolute and the heir of Eternity, is to be above all prejudices, all fears, and all sectarian bitterness. By the aid of an ultra-Horatian philosophy we may conceive that such men have been, and still are, but they have passed above "material forms" and the clouded atmosphere of terrestrial ideas; they inhabit the ideal "city of intelligence and love." They have left the brawling gutter of religious squabbling, the identification of Antichrist, the destruction of the Pope by means of nails, and the number of the beast, to Baxter and Guinness, Cumming and Brothers the prophet, who may share its squalors and wretchedness with--the Rosicrucian Fraternity.
1. De Quincey, "Rosicrucians and Freemasons," c. iii.
2. This writer is not to be confused with Jung Stilling, whose real name was Johannes Heinrich Jung, and who is, perhaps, more celebrated in England for his works on Pneumatology than is the rector of Hamburg for his contributions to mathematical science.
3. "Biographie Universelle," s.v. Joachim Junge.
4. In the "Acta Eruditorum Lipsiæ," 1698, 4to, p. 172, there is the following passage:--"Natus est Jo. Ludovicus Fabricius Scaphulsi, Helvetiorum Pago primario, die 29 Julii anni seculi hujus trigesimi secundi, patre Jo. Fabricio anno 1630 vi externa e Palatinatu in exilium ejecto, et a Scaphusanis promtissime recepto. Fuit vir ille sic satis excultus, quique ut Fabricius noster familiari in sermone p. 222 retulit, adversus Roseæ Crucis Fratres calami quoque telum strinxit, cujus quidem Sectæ auctorem fuisse Jungium, Mathematicam Hamburgi professum, eumque librum, cui titulus est Fama Frabium Rosæ Crucis cudisse, pariter ex ore Secretarii, rei illius conscii, confirmavit.
5. "Brukeri Historia Crit. Philosophiæ," tome ii., p. 740.
6. Tome ii., p. 126.
7. "Primam infantiam afflictissimam habui, ardeo est non nisi bimus in pedes primus erigerer, quam etiam valetudinis tenuitatem omni vita tolerari, ingenio interim sagaci et festivo, ut propinquis et amicis voluptati essem . . . . Literarum rudimenta a Michaele Beumlero accessi viro optimo."--"Vita ab ipso Conscripts," lib. i.
9. See additional note No. 5.
10. "Bibliothèque Universelle," tome ii., pp. 126-128.
11. "Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes" in the Abbé Migne's "Troisième Encyclopédie Théologique," t. i., p. 90.
12. With the characteristic carelessness of a French reasoner, Figuier stultifies himself on this point by stating a few pages subsequently that Andreas was devoid of any doctrinal fanaticism. "L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes," pp. 293-29.
13. The original Latin text was not printed till 1849, when it appeared in octavo at Berlin under the editorship of F. H. Rheinwald.
14. For the information of students of the Rosicrucian mystery I append the whole passage which refers to the juvenile productions of Andreas. "Jam a secundo et tertio post millesimum sexcentesimum coeperam aliquid exercendi ingenii ergo pangere, cujus facile prima fuere Esther et Hyacinthus comoediae ad aemulationem Anglicorum histrionum juvenili ansu factae, e quibus posterior, quae mihi reliqua est, pro aetate non displicet. Secuta aunt Veneris detestatio et Lachrymae tribus dialogis satis prolixis, ob infelicem, de quo postea, casum meum expressae, quae invita me perierunt. Superfuerunt e contra Nuptiae Chymicae, cum monstrorum foecundo foetu, ludibrium, quod mireris a nonullis aestimatum et subtili indagine explicatum, plane futile et quod inanitatem curiosorum prodat. Invenio etiam in chartis meis titulos Julii Sive Politiae libros tres, Judicium astroligicum contra astrologiam, Iter, sed quod dudum interierunt, quid iis consignarim, non memini."--Vita Lib., i. p. 10, Ed. Rheinwald, 1849.
15. The title of one of the earliest editions is quoted by Arnold as follows:--"Fama Fraternitatis, or Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Worshipful Order of the R. C."
16. There is one fact which is too remarkable to be a mere coincidence, and which seems to have been unnoticed by previous investigators, namely, that Sigmund Richter, who claims to speak p. 244 authoritatively, declares in the year 1710 that one of the Rosicrucian headquarters is at Nurenberg; that is, at the very place where the Militia Crucifera Evangelica originally met in 1586.
17. For the sake of perspicuity, and to avoid forestalling arguments, I have spoken throughout of the Rosicrucians as of a secret society. In the universal uncertainty, this view is as good as another, but it does not necessarily represent my personal opinion. By the term "Rosicrucian Fraternity" I simply mean to indicate the unknown source of the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis."
CHAPTER IX. PROGRESS OF ROSICRUCIANISM IN GERMANY.
THE immediate result of the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis" in Germany has been so well described by Professor Buhle that I cannot do better than transcribe this portion of his work as it is interpreted by Thomas De Quincey.
"The sensation which was produced throughout Germany . . . is sufficiently evidenced by the repeated editions . . . (of the manifestoes) which appeared between 1614 and 1617, but still more by the prodigious commotion which followed in the literary world. In the library at Göttingen there is a body of letters addressed to the imaginary order of Father Rosy Cross, from 1614 to 1617, by persons offering themselves as members. These letters are filled with complimentary expressions and testimonies of the highest respect, and are all printed, the writers alleging that, being unacquainted with the address of the society, they could not send them through any other than a public channel. As certificates of their qualifications, most of the candidates have enclosed specimens of their skill in alchemy and cabbalism. Some of the letters are signed with initials only, or with fictitious names, but assign real places of address. Many other literary persons there were at that day who forbore to write letters to the society, but threw out small pamphlets containing their opinions of the Order, and of its place of residence. Each successive writer pretended to be better informed on that point than all his predecessors. Quarrels arose; partisans started up on all sides; the uproar and confusion became indescribable; cries of heresy and atheism resounded from every corner; some were for calling in the secular power; and the more coyly the invisible society retreated from the public advances so much the more eager and amorous were its admirers, and so much the more bloodthirsty its antagonists. Meantime, there were some who, from the beginning, had escaped the general delusion, and there were many who had gradually recovered from it. It was remarked that of the many printed letters to the society, though courteously and often learnedly written, none had been answered; and all attempts to penetrate the darkness in which the order was shrouded by its unknown memorialist were successfully baffled. Hence arose a suspicion that some bad designs lurked under the ostensible purposes of these mysterious publications. Many vile impostors arose, who gave themselves out for members of the Rosicrucian order; and upon the credit which they thus obtained for a season, cheated numbers of their money by alchemy, or of their health by panaceas. Three in particular made a great noise at Watzlar, at Nuremburg, and at Augsburg; all were punished by the magistracy--one lost his ears in running the gauntlet, and one was hanged. At this crisis stepped forward a powerful writer, who attacked the supposed order with much scorn and homely good sense. This was Andrew Libau. He exposed the impracticability of the meditated reformation, the incredibility of the legend of Father Rosy Cross, and the hollowness of the pretended sciences which they professed. He pointed the attention of governments to the confusions which these impostures were producing, and predicted from them a renewal of the scenes which had attended the fanaticism of the Anabaptists." [1]
Andreas Libavius was born at Halle in Saxony about the year 1560. He was appointed professor of history and poetry at Jena in 1588, practised as a physician at Rotembourg on the Tauber from 1591 till 1605, when he became rector of the college of Casimir at Coburg in Franconia, where he died in 1616. He was the first writer who mentioned the transfusion of blood from one animal to another, and the property of oxide of gold to colour glass red. He also invented a chemical preparation, called the liquor of Libavius, "a highly concentrated muriatic acid, much impregnated with tin," and which has been long used in laboratories. He has been falsely represented by M. Hoefer as a follower of Paracelsus, but appears to have believed in the transmutation of metals, and in the medical virtues of various auriferous preparations. He is considered to rank among the first students of chemistry who pursued experimental researches upon the true method. His "Alchymia Recognita" and his "History of Metals" are among the best practical manuals of the period. Though seeking the Philosophick Stone, he attached no credit to the Rosicrucian manifestoes, and was one of the first writers who attacked them, in two Latin folios dated 1615, and in a smaller German pamphlet which appeared in the following year. The first of these works contains an exhaustive criticism of the Harmonico-Magical Philosophy of the mysterious Brotherhood. It is entitled "Exercitatio Paracelsica nova de notandis ex scripto Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce," and forms part of a larger "Examen Philosophiæ Novæ, quæ veteri abrogandæ Opponitur."
Professor Buhle is one of those interesting literary characters, by no means uncommonly met with, whose luminous hypotheses completely transfigure every fact which comes within the range of their radiation. Few persons who have taken the pains to labour through the ponderous folios of Libavius would dream of terming him a powerful writer, and personally I have failed to discern much of that "homely good sense" which manifested itself so gratuitously before the discerning eyes of the acute German savant. The criticisms, on the contrary, are weak, verbose, and tedious, and the investigations, as a whole, appear to have little raison d'être. It may, in fact, be impartially declared that there is only one thing more barren and wearisome than the host of pamphlets, elucidations, apologies, epistles, and responses written on the Rosicrucian side, and that is the hostile criticism of the opposing party, and the dead level of unprofitable flatness which characterises its prosaic commonplace is an infliction which I honestly trust will be spared to all my readers.
Master Andreas Libavius, though he wrote upon Azoth, was a practical thinker, and he refused to contemplate the projected universal reformation through the magic spectacles of the Rosicrucian. He had not read Wordsworth, and he had no definite opinions as to "the light that never was on land or sea." So he penned what Professor Buhle might call a searching criticism; he was right in so far as the reformation is still to come, but in these days we have read Wordsworth, and we prefer the vague poetry of Rosicrucian aspirations to the perditional dulness of Master Libavius' prose. Still we respect Professor Buhle, chiefly because we love De Quincey, and we have a thin streak of kindly feeling for his alchemical protégé, so we recommend him as an antidote to Mr Hargrave Jennings, who has doubtless never read him, and seems only to have heard by report of such documents as the Fame and Confession of the meritorious order of the Brethren R. C.
Though he disbelieved in the universal reformation, Libavius did not reject the signs of the times. "No one doubts that we are in the last age of the world, by reason of the signs which have preceded nearly every important event, and are still at this day repeatedly appearing." He takes exception to the philosophical peregrination of the high illuminated C. R. C. in Arabia, because it was superfluous to seek magicians in the east when they abounded at home. Some of his objections are, however, sufficiently pertinent. "If the society hath been ordained and commissioned of God, it ought to be in a position to prove its vocation in some conclusive manner." Incidentally he denounces astrology. "We have heard and read innumerable astrological theories, but we have not discovered their rational basis. On the contrary, we are daily deceived by lying predictions." With regard to the secrecy of the Order, he flings at it the following text--Omnis qui male agit, odit lucent et non venit ad lucem, ne arguantur opera ejus. Condemning their anonymous mystery, he asks--"Is their danger greater than Luther's, threatened by the proscription of the Pope and the Emperor both?" Representing the Rosicrucians as promising a new Theologia, Physica, and Mathematica, he asks--"What manner of new theology is this, seeing there is nothing new under the sun? Again, where is its novelty, if it be that of the primitive Church? Is it of the Gentile, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Arian, Anabaptist, Lutheran, or disciple of Paracelsus? Make unto yourselves also a new God, with a new heaven, and beware lest you are plunged into the old perdition! On our part, we will cling to the antiquity of the canonical Scriptures." And then in regard to the new physics, "If it be after the fashion of Parcelsus, chew the cud of your own reflections in silence, and slumber placidly in your absurdity. . . . If ye come with the cabalistic calculations concerning the fifty gates of understanding, scrutinising the mysteriarcham Dei, take care that ye are not consumed by the fire which is therein, for those who will become searchers of majesty shall be overwhelmed with glory."
The "Analysis Confessionis Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce pro admonitione et Instructione eorum, qui, quia judicandum sit de ista nova factione scire cupiant," extracts, after the author's own fashion, the thirty-seven "reasons of our purpose and intention" which are to be found hidden in that Rosicrucian manifesto, and criticises the Viæ accedendi, or methods of approaching the Order, which are--I. By a written petition. II. By the study of the Scriptures and their interpretation in the cabilistico-magical manner of the Paracelsists. III. By the writings and precepts of Paracelsus. IV. By the symbolical characters inscribed on the Macrocosmos.
These two Latin treatises were supplemented by a less tedious German pamphlet, which appeared at Francfurt in 1616 under the title of "Well-wishing objections concerning the Fame and Confession of the Brotherhood of the R. C., and their universal reformation of the whole world before the day of Judgment, and transformation thereof into an Earthly Paradise, such as was inhabited by Adam before the fall, and the restitution of all arts and wisdom as possessed by Adam, Enoch, Salomon, &c. Written with great care, by desire and command of some superior persons, by Andrew Libavius." It claims to be inspired by a spirit of friendly criticism, decides that the Order does exist, advises the accomplishment of a limited and private reformation, leaving the universal one to God, as the world is far too corrupt for improvement before the judgment day, and that a pretension so large will never by any possibility be carried out. Though posing as a critic, he advises all persons to join the Order, because there is much to be learned and much wisdom to be attained by so doing. He praises their sound doctrine in matters of religion, particularly the denunciation of the Pope and Mahomet, the value they set upon the Bible, &c. It is evident, in fact, that in spite of his "homely good sense" he had radically changed his ground. The treatise is divided into forty-three chapters, and among the subjects discussed are the Spheric Art, the Lapis Philosophorum, and the Magical Language.
What we seek as vainly in the most authoritative Rosicrucian apologists as in their critics, is any additional information concerning the society, its members, or its whereabouts. Such information is promised frequently on the title-pages of the innumerable pamphlets of the period, but it is not given, and the proffered proofs of the existence of the Order are confined to abstract considerations devoid of historical value.
Professor Buhle considers that the attacks of Libavius joined to other writings "of the same tendency" might possibly have dispelled the delusion, except for the conduct of Andreas, whom he represents as doing his best to increase it by the publication of other documents, and for that of the Paracelsists. "With frantic eagerness they had sought to press into the imaginary order; but, finding themselves lamentably repulsed in all their efforts, at length they paused; and, turning suddenly round, they said to one another, 'What need to court this perverse order any longer? We are ourselves Rosicrucians as to all the essential marks laid down in the three books. We also are holy persons of great knowledge; we also make gold, or shall make it; we also, no doubt, give us but time, shall reform the world: external ceremonies are nothing: substantially it is clear that we are the Rosicrucian Order.' Upon this they went on in numerous books and pamphlets to assert that they were the identical Order instituted by Father Rosycross, and described in the 'Fama Fraternitatis.' The public mind was now perfectly distracted; no man knew what to think; and the uproar became greater than ever."
Here is a dramatic situation well conceived and described; its only fault is the very slender foundation of actual fact on which it appears to be based. I have failed altogether to discover those numerous books and pamphlets wherein the Paracelsists assert that they are to all intents and purposes identical with the invisible and unapproachable Brotherhood. Their anxiety to be admitted into its ranks may be freely granted, but it is remarkable how few of the pamphleteers who wrote favourably on the Rosicrucian mystery made any claim to be personally connected therewith.
In the pages which follow I shall give a brief account, arranged in chronological order, of the most important and interesting publications that appeared in elucidation of this mystery.
A work of considerable interest was printed in 1615, under the title "Echo of the God-illuminated Brotherhood of the Worthy Order R. C., to wit, an absolute proof that not only all which is stated in the 'Fama' and 'Confessio' of the R. C. Brotherhood is possible and true, but that it has been known already for nineteen years and more to a few God-fearing people, and has been laid down by them in certain secret writings; as it has all been stated and made public in an excellent magical letter and pamphlet by the Worshipful Brotherhood R. C., in print in the German language." The accredited author was Julius Sperber of Anholt, Dessau. This work was printed at Dantzig by Andreas Huenfeldts. It maintains that there have been only a few human beings who have been worthy to become recipients of the wisdom of God, the reason being that so few have sought it with the necessary earnestness. When Christ was on the earth he had innumerable listeners, of whom only a small portion could discern the significance of His teachings. It was for this cause that He said to his disciples--"To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given." Peter, James, and John were the only three of His apostles to whom he revealed these mysteries, and to them He showed the same sight that had been vouchsafed by God to Elias and Moses. Only those who renounce the world and their own fleshly lusts can become worthy to know such secrets. Nobody who is addicted to mundane wisdom can ever attain them, for the wisdom of God and the wisdom of this world are contradictory.
The preface is addressed to the R.C. Brotherhood. It admonishes the members to persevere in the way they have chosen, and to get possessed of the secrets of God. It praises their wisdom and knowledge, but says that much of what is stated in the "Fama" and "Confessio" must appear foolish to the worldly wise. It calls upon the Brethren to meet together in the name of the Holy Trinity, and to teach the true light to the world, as it is contained in the secret meaning of Holy Scripture and of Nature. Some curious information, not always relevant to the main object, is scattered throughout the volume. The second preface mentions a certain Petrus Wirtzigh of Presslau as one of the greatest and wisest men of his time, who, being by profession a medical man, studied the secret arts with such zeal that he became master of many wonderful mysteries. He was the author of many large unpublished volumes which the writer of the "Echo," being his great friend, has been allowed to dip into, and he avers that they contain much wisdom and curious lore. Another wise and God-loving man was Ægidius Guttmann in Suaria, who wrote a book which he divided into twenty-four volumes. The author of the "Echo" compares this work, having regard to the wisdom of its contents, with the seventy volumes which God dictated by His angel to the prophet.
Like other writers on the Rosicrucian side, the author of the "Echo" deals in vague generalities, and even the Laws of the Fraternity which he publishes are worthless as regards information. They run as follows: --
1. Love your neighbour.
2. Talk not badly of him, neither hold him in contempt.
3. Be faithful.
4. Be modest and obedient.
5. Do not ridicule the secret studies.
6. Keep silent about what you learn from these studies.
7. Share your fortune with your fellow-creatures.
According to this apologist of the secret order, "Adam was the first Rosicrucian of the Old Testament and Simeon the last." The golden chain of the esoteric tradition was not broken by Christ, who established "a new college of magic."
In 1615, Julianus de Campis published an "open letter or report," addressed to all who have read anything concerning the new Brotherhood of R. C., or have heard anything of the position of this matter. It accounts for the Rosicrucians not revealing their whereabouts, "and not answering the letters addressed to them. He was himself," he said, "a member of the Order; but in all his travels he had met but three other members, there being (as he presumed) no more persons on the earth worthy of being entrusted with its mysteries." It is needless to say that an initiate of the Fraternity would be accurately acquainted with its numerical strength, and that the writer's statement on this point contradicts the "Fama Fraternitatis." The pamphlet otherwise is not of great importance. "There are many who run for, but few who gain, the jewel. Therefore I, Julianus de Campis, admonish all who are governed by a fortunate disposition not to be made obstinate by their own diffidence, nor by the judgments of ignorant people." Many great secrets are concealed by Nature, and those who study them are worthy of every praise. The R. C. are defended against various accusations, and the theologians who attack them are reminded that the questions raised are without their province, because they are theologi and not theosophi. The secret art of the R. C. is declared to be a matter of fact, and not an abstract or fanciful thing; and the profanum vulgus are assured that those who are in the possession of such an imperial secret can dispense with the praise of the world.
The "Fama Remissa ad Fratres Roseæ Crucis," which appeared in 1616, is to a great extent an anonymous pamphlet written against the pretensions and ideas of the Brethren, principally denouncing their impracticable and Utopian ambition to reform the whole world. It complains bitterly of their religious opinions, and absolutely declines to acknowledge them as a good society until they openly accept and subscribe to the Confession of Augsbourg. A brief Latin appendix incidentally discusses the doctrine of transubstantiation and to reconcile the words of Jesus, "Hoc est corpus meum," with the statement of this Evangelist, et ascendit in cœlum, it speculates on the distance which intervenes between the earth and the Empyrean. According to Pencerus the eighth sphere is distant 20081 1/28 semidiameters of the earth, and the distance, according to the "Fama Remissa," from the Mount of Olives to the Empyrean Heaven is, in its summa tota, 17,266,001 milliaria Germania!
The following year beheld the publication of Brotoffer's curious and perverse alchemical interpretation of the Universal Reformation, another edition of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, with additions by Julianus de Campis and Georg Molthers, and two works from the pen of Michael Maier, which will be noticed in the next chapter. Among the curious pamphlets of this year professing to treat of the mysterious Order, must be included the "'Fraternitatis Rosatæ Crucis Confessio Recepta,' to wit: A short and well-wishing report concerning the Confession or Faith of the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, useful to all readers who not only consider their well-being in this world, but their salvation in the next. Written by A. O. M T. W." This appeared in defence of the Order, and maintains that it is a good and useful Society, which is not merely in possession of many and great secrets, but is righteous in the eyes of Almighty God. The author distinguishes at length between the different ways whereby God makes Himself known, and declares that it requires much study and careful research, as well as personal sacrifice, to become the possessor of transcendental secrets, but that anyone can do so by following the Divine counsels. He concludes with an admonition to "the highly-wise and God-beloved R. C." to press on with their sublime work.
About this time a somewhat vicious attack was made on the supposed Society by a writer calling himself Fredericus G. Menapius, but whose real name was Johann Valentin Alberti, and who is associated by Buhle with Irenæus Agnostus as a personal friend of Andreas. It is clear, however, from the evidence of all the pamphlets, that Agnostus and Menapius are one and the same person. "Epitimia, F. R. C., to wit: The final manifestation or discovery and defence of the worthy and worshipful Order R. C. Also of the true and well-known confession addressed to all classes of literati and illustrious persons in Europe. Written by command of the above-mentioned society by Irenaeus Agnostus (Menapius)." The only edition of this work which I have seen is dated 1619, but it seems to have been originally published about two years previously. It is a skit written against the R. C. by Menapius, but pretends to be printed and published by the command of the Order. The principal purpose of the pamphlet is to prove that the Rosicrucian Fraternity was founded by the Jesuits for the purpose of the secret propaganda of their doctrines in opposition to the Protestant religion. It begins with a lengthy and pseudo-authoritative laudation of the writer, who is declared to be an eminently learned and godly man, having saved the lives of a number of persons in a miraculous manner, and disputed victoriously with the most learned Catholic divines. It proceeds to a vigorous denunciation of the Roman Church for its manifold corruptions and abuses, citing a good many historical examples of princes who have expressed themselves in similar terms, and concluding with an admonition to live well and act uprightly. Speaking in his own person, the author addresses his supposed confrères in the following fashion:--"I know not, my Brothers of the R. C., what manner of men to consider you. T have troubled my mind about you this long time, but can attain to no conclusion, because all that you set down in your writings has been so long familiar. Could you tell me anything of the unicorn, or anything more trustworthy than has emanated from Andreas Baccius, [2] your productions would be much more valuable. A number of hooks have been written by you, or have appeared in your name, but they teem with such violent contradictions that I should imagine you were yourselves in doubt as to who or what you are, and as to your own performances." Afterwards he very reasonably declares that if the Rosicrucians are the depositaries of a beneficial knowledge, they ought to proclaim it publicly in their own persons and not in anonymous pamphlets. He upbraids them as magicians who falsely pretend to great power, says that he has travelled in many countries without hearing anything concerning them, and concludes by expressing his conviction that their supposed wisdom is a shallow pretence, and that they are in reality ignorant people.
This attack was presently followed by a tract entitled "I. Menapius Roseæ Crucis, to wit: Objections on the part of the unanimous Brotherhood against the obscure and unknown writer, F. G. Menapius, and against his being classed among the true brethren. II. A Citation of the same person to our final Court at Schmejarien contra Florentinus de Valentia. III. Finally, a convocation of the R. C. Fratres to the same invisible place. By order of the worshipful society. Written and published by Theophilus Schweighart. 1619." Here Menapius presents himself under another name, and poses as his own opponent. The pamphlet contains a sort of legal process, with citation, defence, &c. One of the arguments used against the Rosicrucian Fraternity, who believed in the manufacture of gold from ignoble metals, is as follows:--"A grown up man is a reasoning being; so is a young boy. A cow is an unreasoning being; so is a calf. But this does not prove that the cow is a calf; and the transmutation of ignoble metals into gold is just as easy as to transform a cow into a calf. of you ask why there is so little gold, it is for the same reason that there are so few cows, namely, in the one case, because the young calves are killed, and in the other, because the ignoble metals are not left long enough in the earth, but are extracted by avaricious people." Menapius is the most entertaining of the dull race of Rosicrucian critics, but his analogical arguments are not of a convincing nature. He concludes with an admonition to all and several--literati, nobles, merchants, peasants, &c.--to live well and to do their duty.
Menapius, as I have said, is represented by Buhle as a friend of Andreas, and Andreas is accredited with two Rosicrucian pamphlets which appeared under the name of "Florentinus de Valentia." The authority may be questionable or not, but the reference is somewhat suicidal to the Buhle-Andrean hypothesis, for not only do we discover the pseudonymous author attacking his personal friend, but hurrying forward full of zeal to the defence of the Rosicrucian pretensions. "Rosa Florescens contra F. G. Menapii Calumniis, to wit: A short notice and refutation of the libels published on June 3, 1617, in Latin, and on July 15 of the same year in German by F. G. Menapius, against the Rosicrucian Society. Written by Florentinus de Valentia in great zeal." It is a reply to the first pamphlet of Menapius, the Latin original of which I have been unable to trace. It begins by blaming Menapius for his extravagant self-laudation, then refers to the attack on the secresy of the Society, and on the anonymous publication of their manifestoes. It declares any other method than that of secresy to be contrary to the will of God, and in other ways dangerous, asserting that nobody suffers by the concealment of their names and places of abode. The writer further accuses Menapius of blind hatred of the Rosicrucians, when he compares them to the devils, for the whole intent of the Society is the welfare of all humanity. He says:--"The opinion of the Fraternity is not that all men should be made or become equal, because the majority are too hard and sinful, but that the few who love God, and live to please Him, should be like Adam in Paradise." The desire of the Order is to serve God as faithfully as possible, to discover the secrets of Nature, and to use them in diffusing a true belief in Christ, and for the glory of God. Therefore, the author requests Menapius to desist from blaming and libelling the members of the Fraternity, but rather to turn round and to love them, because they are true seekers of the veritable wisdom.
In a Latin appendix to a tract entitled "Fons Gratiæ," by Irenæus Agnostus, Johann Valentin Alberti, alias F. G. Menapius, alias Theophilus Schweighart, alias Irenæus Agnostus, published a short rejoinder in prose and verse to the defence of Valentia.
"Judicia de Statu Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce" is a mélange of prose and verse, with addresses ad venerandos, doctissimos, et illuminatissimos, viros Dom. Fratres S. Roseæ Crucis conjunctissimos, and as the judgment is professedly that of an outsider seeking initiation, it does not throw any light upon the proceedings of the Society. It is crammed with extravagant adulation of the pious, learned, and illuminated Brothers, but is otherwise not inelegantly written, and has apt classical quotations. A lofty ambition is claimed by the aspirant to association, who avers that he is in search of no common and metallic gold, but that Philosophical and Spiritual Treasure, one particle of which is sufficient to transmute and perfectionise the soul, and conduct it from illumination to illumination. This is that veritable gold, says the alchemical enthusiast, none other than the first and all-containing knowledge, whereby
Mens pura et nullo mortali pondera pressa,
Libera terrenis affectibus, atria cœli
Scandit, et ætherea cum diis versatur in aula.
None can expect to attain it unless he shall first have expelled--
A sese omne nefas, purgatus crimine ab omni,
Quippe habitare negat fœdum Sapientia pectus,
Impurasque odit, cum sit purissima, mentes.
Those who believe in the existence and magical endowments of the Rosicrucian Brethren will hope that this promising pupil received the recompense so undoubtedly due to the beauty of his aspirations. The Latin Epistle is supplemented by a post datum, which refers to the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" as containing "the whole chymical artifice enigmatically delineated."
"Responsum ad Fratres Rosaceæ Crucis Illustres" is a printed letter addressed to the Fraternity in the year 1618, by Hercules Ovallodius, Alsatus; Heermannus Condesyanus; and Martinus à Casa Cegdessa Marsiliensis. It is a piece of piteous pleading for admission into the ranks of the Brethren by three writers who believe themselves to have fallen upon evil times, and know that there is no entrance into the mystic temple which is filled with the glory and power of God, till the seven last plagues have been poured out upon the earth. They acknowledge the Viri Fratres as the instruments of the Divine vengeance in the consummation of the age. Ipse est malleus noster et arma, vos ipsius servi.
A curious Rosicrucian reverie, entitled "F. R. C. Fama e scanzia Redux," written in execrable Latin, and printed in a style corresponding with its literary merits, appeared Anno Christi M.DC.XVIII., as the title has it. It professes to be the trumpet Jubilei ultimi, that is, presumably, of the last jubilee year among the Jews, and bears for one of its mottoes, "One woe hath passed; behold, there come yet two other woes after this one." It is precisely one of those mysterious and problematical productions which are sometimes supposed to conceal deep secrets, because they are completely unintelligible and barbarous. It professes to contain a Judicium de Fraternitatis R. C. Sigillo et Buccina et futuræ Reformationis Mysterie, and is mystically separated into seven parts or chapters, each terribly intituled. Thus the seventh is the "voice of the dove speaking concerning the jawbone of the ass," and the "Judgment" itself is averred to proceed from a similar quarter "ex asini mandibula." The statement is apparently serious, for this extraordinary local habitation is parenthetically explained to be the fons vitæ, or fount of life. The whole pamphlet is a raving chaos of scriptural quotations concerning the Corner Stone, the Keys of David, and the proximity of the Regnum Dei. It concludes with the following triumphant admonition to the reader:--
Quisquis de Roseæ dubitas Crucis ordine Fratrum,
Hoc lege, perlecto carmine certus eris.
It is needless to say that the whole pamphlet does not contain a single reference to the Rosicrucians.
"φλενσθιουρεδας. Hoc est Redintegratio," addressed to the "Brotherhood of the Rose-Cross," appeared in 1619, with the motto, Omnes de Saba veniunt, aurum et thus deferentes, et laudem Domini annunciantes, and prefaced by the following lines
O Roseæ Fratres crucis, O pia turba sophorum,
Vestro præsentes esse favore mihi.
Fama velut cunctis vos respondere paratos
Exhibet; Ah ne sint irrita vota precor.
Fidus amicus ero, fidos quoque gestit amicus
Mens mea de musis conciliare novem.
At, si scripta fient quædam minus apta, flabello
Fratrum non Momi sint abigenda, pio.
Usus enim Famæ potiori ex parte loquelis
Fratres propitios hinc mage spero mihi.
This little pamphlet compares different expressions of opinions by opposed parties, and concludes that any person may take part with a good conscience in the Brotherhood, and without prejudice to their Christianly convictions. It cites the common reproaches cast at the Order, to wit: that they are enemies of all lawful government, Jesuits, or Calvinists, also the suspicion that there is no order at all, but that the whole business is a farce, written for some undefined purpose. It maintains that there is such an order, and that it is in possession of great secrets, because it consists of pre-eminently learned men. Finally, the author exhorts all to join it.
Among the acknowledged works of Andreas which contain satirical references to the Rosicrucian mystery may be mentioned "Menippus, sive, Dialogorum Satyricorum Centuria, inanitatum nostratium speculum," 1673, 8vo; "Institutio Magica pro curiosis," and "Turris Babel, sive, Judicium de Fraternitatis Roseæ crucis Chaos." Argentorati, 1619, 12mo. They contain absolutely nothing which can be tortured into a confession of the authorship of the manifestoes, nor any gleam of light on any subject connected with the Society. They express simply the personal opinions of Andreas, and those who make a contrary assertion have read their own hypotheses between the lines of their author.
By the year 1620, the subject of the Rosicrucians was completely exhausted in Germany. It had been discussed from all standpoints by men of the most various character, but, in the absence of ascertainable facts, no man was wiser; and as the Rosicrucians, supposing them to have existed, kept silent amidst the confusion of opinions and the unproductive clamour which they had created, making no further sign, the interest concerning them gradually died away. Seekers for the magnum opus, and persons imbued with the ambition to reform the world, looked elsewhere for light and assistance. Pseudo-Rosicrucian societies, of course, appeared on the field, and gangs of miserable tricksters who traded on individual credulity by the power of the magical name. Buhle cites from the "Occulta Philosophia" of Ludovicus Conradus Orvius, the unhappy personal experience of that writer concerning such a society, "pretending to deduce themselves from Father Rosy-Cross, and who were settled at the Hague in 1622. After swindling him out of his own and his wife's fortune, amounting to eleven thousand dollars, they kicked him out of the order, with the assurance that they would murder him if he revealed their secrets, 'which secrets,' says he, 'I have faithfully kept, and for the same reason that women keep secrets--viz., because I have none to reveal; for their knavery is no secret.'"
Vague rumours of veritable Rosicrucian adepts were occasionally heard, but in spite of their boasted powers, in spite of their projected reformation of all the world, and in spite of the seven years' strife of tongues which they occasioned, they had no influence whatsoever upon the thought of their age. An isolated and doubtful transmutation is occasionally ascribed to them, which is the sum total of their alchemical achievements. They posed principally as a healing fraternity, yet their influence on the medical science of their century is less still than that which they exerted upon alchemy. "In medicine," says Figuier, "that art which they were pledged to practise wherever they wandered, according to the first commandment of their master, the catalogue of their triumphs is speedily exhausted. We have already seen that they boasted of having cured the leprosy in an English count. They also claimed to have restored life to a Spanish King after he had been dead for six hours. Apart from these two cures, the second of which is doubtless a miracle, but can boast only of their own testimony, their whole medical history consists in vague allegations and a few unimportant facts, as, for instance, that which Gabriel Naudé cites in the following terms: --
"In the year 1615 a certain pilgrim suddenly appeared in a German town, and assisted, as a doctor, at the prognostication of the death of a woman whom he had helped by some of his remedies; he assumed to be proficient in several languages, related what had occurred in the town during his sojourn at this house; in a word, apart front the doctrine in which he shone still more, he was in every way similar to that Wandering Jew described by Cayot in his "Histoire Septenaire"--moderate, reserved, carelessly clad, never willingly remaining a long time in any one place, and still less desirous to be taken for what he nevertheless claimed to be, the third brother of the R.C., as he testified to the doctor Moltherus, who could not be so certainly persuaded to give credence to his statements, but has presented us with this history, leaving our judgment free to decide if it could establish a certain proof of the existence of this Company." [3]
According to Sprengel, a true Rosicrucian had only to gaze fixedly on a person, and however dangerous his disease, he was instantaneously healed; the Brethren claimed to cure all diseases, without the help of drugs, by means of imagination and faith. But the matter remains at this day just where the claim originally left it, wholly unsupported by fact.
1. De Quincey, "Rosicrucians and Freemasons," c. ii.
2. A voluminous writer on medicine, philosophy, natural history. and antiquities. The reference is to a treatise entitled "De Monocerote seu Unicornu ejusque viribus et usu tractatus per A. B.," afterwards published in Italian, Fiorenza, 1573, 4to. Bacci flourished at the end of the sixteenth century; he was physician to Sixtus V., and professor of botany at Rome from 1557 to 1600.
3. "L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes," p. 301.
CHAPTER X. ROSICRUCIAN APOLOGISTS: MICHAEL MAIER.
THIS celebrated German alchemist was born at Ruidsburg, in Holstein, about the year 1658. In his youth, says the "Biographie Universelle," he applied himself to the study of medicine, and establishing himself at Rostoch, he practised that art with so much success that he became physician to the Emperor Rudolph II., by whom he was ennobled for his services. Some adepts, notwithstanding, succeeded in wiling him from the practical path he had followed so long; il se passionna pour le grand œuvre, and scoured all Germany to hold conferences with those whom he thought to be in possession of transcendent secrets. Another account declares that he sacrificed his health, his fortune, and his time to these "ruinous absurdities." According to Buhle, he travelled extensively, particularly to England, where he made the acquaintance of Robert Fludd. He finished by accepting the post of physician at Magdebourg, where he died in 1622.
Michael Maier is one of the most important and interesting persons connected with the Rosicrucian controversy. He was the first to transplant it into England, "and as he firmly believed in the existence of such a sect, he sought to introduce himself to its notice; but finding this impossible," says Buhle, "he set himself to establish such an order by his own efforts; and in his future writings he spoke of it as already existing--going so far even as to publish its laws." He was a voluminous and ingenious writer, and, according to Langlet du Fresnoy, all his treatises were excessively rare, even in the eighteenth century. "They contain much curious material," says this writer, "and I am astonished that the German booksellers, who publish innumerable worthless works, have not condescended to perceive that a complete collection of the writings of Michael Maier would be more useful and command a larger sale than the trash with which they overwhelm scholars and the public generally."
This task still remains to be accomplished, and considerations of space will prevent me from even supplying a bibliography of these singular works. The most curious of all is "Atalanta Fugiens," which abounds with quaint and mystical copperplate engravings, emblematically revealing the most unsearchable secrets of Nature. This production, with the "Tripus Aureus," or three tracts of Basil Valentin, Thomas Norton, and Cremer, the Abbot of Westminster, all of which were unearthed by the diligence of Maier, seem to have appeared before he had immersed himself in the insoluble Rosicrucian mystery. The "Silentium Post Clamores," however, published at Francfurt in 1617, professes to account not only for the speech in season uttered by the Fraternity in its priceless manifestoes, but for the silence which followed when it declined even to reply to the pamphlets and epistles of persons seeking initiation. The author asserts that from very ancient times philosophical colleges have existed among various nations for the study of medicine and of natural secrets, and that the discoveries which they made were perpetuated from generation to generation by the initiation of new members, whence the existence of a similar association at that present time was no subject for astonishment. The philosophical colleges referred to are those of old Egypt, whose priests in reality were alchemists, "seeing that Isis and Osiris are sulphur and argentum vivum"; of the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries, of the Samothracian Cabiri, the Magi of Persia, the Brachmans of India, the Gymnosophists, Pythagoreans, &c. He maintains that one and all of these were instituted, not for the teaching of exoteric doctrines, but the most arcane mysteries of Nature. Afterwards he argues that if the German Fraternity had existed, as it declares, for so many years, it was better that it should reveal itself, than be concealed for ever under the veil of silence, and that it could not manifest itself otherwise than in the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis," which contain nothing contrary to reason, nature, experience, or the possibility of things. Moreover, the Order rightly observes that silence which Pythagoras imposed on his disciples, and which alone can preserve the mysteries of existence from the prostitution of the vulgar. The contents of the two manifestoes are declared to be true, and we are further informed that we owe a great debt to the Order for their experimental investigations, and for their discovery of the universal Catholicon. The popular objections preferred against it are disposed of in different chapters, e.g., the charges of necromancy and superstition. The explicit statement of the Society, that all communications addressed to it should not fail to reach their destination, although they were unknown and anonymous, proving apparently false, was a special cause of grievance; those who sought health and those who coveted treasures at their hand were equally disappointed, and, according to Michael Maier, appear to have been equally enraged. He expostulates with them, saying Non omnis ad omnia omnibus horis paratus est, but his arguments as a whole can hardly be deemed satisfactory. Locorum absentia, personarum distantia, &c., could scarcely prove obstacles to men who were bound by no considerations of space and time, and readers of the inmost heart would have discovered some who were worthy among the host of applicants.
A much larger work, "Symbola Aureæ Mensæ," published in the same year as the "Silentium Post Clamores" also contains some references to the "College of German Philosophers of R. C." The story of the founder is reprinted, and Apollo with the twin muses are represented as contributing various vexatious metrical enigmas for the benefit of those enquirers who desired to be directed to the local habitation of the Order. Neither of these works represents their author as personally connected with the Rosicrucians, nor do they convey any information respecting them. The same must be said of "Themis Aurea, hoc est, De Legibus Fraternitatis R. C. Tractatus," which Maier published at Francfurt in 1618. It maintains that the laws in question are good, dilates upon the pre-eminent dignity of the healing art, declares that all vices are intolerable in physicians, and that the Rosicrucians are free from all. The most curious and important point in the whole "Apologia" is that Maier declares the "Universal Reformation" to have no connection with the manifestoes of the Society, but to be a tract translated from the Italian, and simply bound up with the "Fama." Moreover, he earnestly endeavours to free the Order from the imputation that it desired to reform the world. Reformatio omnium heræsum potius ad Deum, quam hominem spectat, nec a Fratribus affectatur. But whether the Communis et Generalis Reformatio had any connection with the Rosicrucians, or not, it is evident from the documents about which there is no doubt or question, and particularly from the "Fama Fraternitatis," that they believed a general revolution to be at hand, and that they would be concerned therein.
A posthumous tract of Michael Maier was published in 1624 by one of his personal friends, who explicitly states that he is ignorant whether the departed alchemist, who so warmly and gratuitously defended the cause of the Rosicrucians, was ever received into their number, but that it is certain he was a Brother of the Christian Religion, or a Brother of the Kingdom of Christ. This statement may simply mean that he was a Christian and a man of God, or, on the other hand, it may signify that he was a member of the Christian Fraternity of Andreas. However this may be, two Latin tracts, being translations from the German made by the same friend of Maier, follow the posthumous pamphlet of the alchemist. The first is a colloquy on the Society by personages respectively called Quirinus, Polydorus, Tyrosophus, Promptutus, and Politicus. The second is an "Echo Colloquii" by Benedict Hilarion, who professes to write "Mandato superiorum," to represent the order, and to be himself a Rosicrucian. There are two mottoes on the title page of this work--the one is per augusta ad augusta, the other
Augustis, Augusta, viis petit ardua virtus,
Non datur, ad cœlum currere lata via.
The writer refers in a kindly manner to the propagandist labours of Michael Maier, and assures the anonymous but illustrious Tyrosophus that his Rosicrucian apologies were not written in vain, and hints broadly that he was at length admitted into their Order, which still holds out the promise of initiation to others when the proper time shall have arrived. This publication is singularly free from the sectarian bitterness of the first manifestoes. It recognises that all have erred, including Luther himself, and seems animated by a reasonable and conciliatory spirit. At the end there are published some "Declaratory Canons" of the Order, which define God to be the Eternal Father, incorruptible fire, and everlasting light, discuss the generation of the invisible and incomprehensible Word of God, and the tetradic manifestation of the elements.
In none of these works does the statement of Professor Buhle, concerning the foundation of a Rosicrucian society, and the publication of its laws, receive a particle of corroboration. The other works of Michael Maier are of a purely alchemical nature, save and except some obscure pamphlets which are not in the Library of the British Museum, which I have therefore been unable to consult, and which may contain the information in question; but from my knowledge of Professor Buhle and his romantic methods, I suspect his imagination has been unconsciously at work on some doubtful passages in the writings which have already been noticed, more especially as the personal but anonymous friend who edited Maier's posthumous tract entitled "Ulysses," knew nothing apparently of such a pseudo-association, nor is it likely that the author of the "Echo Colloquii" would hint at his initiation into the genuine order if Maier had instituted a rival society, shining by the borrowed lustre of its name and its symbols.
However this may be, with the death of Michael Maier the Rosicrucians disappear from the literary horizon of Germany till the year 1710, when a writer, calling himself S. R., that is, Sincerus Renatus, otherwise Sigmund Richter, published at Breslau his "Perfect and True Preparation of the Philosophical Stone, according to the Secret of the Brotherhoods of the Golden and Rosy Cross," to which is annexed the "rules of the above-mentioned Order for the initiation of new members" and their enrolment among the Sons of the Doctrine. This extraordinary publication was followed, in 1785-88, by the "Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," which, though published at Altona, seem to have emanated from the same source. The latter work is also of an alchemical nature, and no information of a historical kind is to be found in either. I shall conclude this account of the results of the Rosicrucian manifestoes in Germany with the Laws of the Brotherhood, as published by Sincerus Renatus.
It is certain, says Semler, that the long series of regulations enumerated by this writer were not adopted before 1622, for Montanus (Ludov. Conr. von Berger), who was supposed to have been expelled from the Order in that year, was not acquainted with them.
I. The brotherhood shall not consist of more than sixty-three members.
II. The initiation of Catholics shall be allowed, and one member is prohibited to question another about his belief.
III. The ten years' office of the Rosicrucian imperator shall be abolished, and he shall be elected for life.
IV. The imperator shall keep the address of every member on his list, to enable them to help each other in case of necessity. A list of all names and birthplaces shall likewise be kept. The eldest brother shall always be imperator. Two houses shall be erected at Nurenberg and Ancona for the periodical conventions.
V. If two or three brethren meet together, they shall not be empowered to elect a new member without the permission of the imperator. Any such election shall be void.
VI. The young apprentice or brother shall be obedient unto death to his master.
VII. The brothers shall not eat together except on Sundays, but if they work together they shall be allowed to live, eat, and drink in common.
VIII. It is prohibited for a father to elect his son or brother, unless he shall have proved him well. It is better to elect a stranger so as to prevent the Art becoming hereditary.
IX. Although two or three of the brethren may be gathered together, they shall not permit anyone, whomsoever it may be, to make his profession to the Order unless he shall have previously taken part in the Practice, and has had full experience of all its workings, and has, moreover, an earnest desire to acquire the Art.
X. When one of the brethren intends to make an heir, such an one shall confess in one of the churches built at our expense, and afterwards shall remain about two years as an apprentice. During this probation he shall be made known to the Congregation, and the Imperator shall be informed of his name, country, profession, and origin, to enable him to despatch two or three members at the proper time with his seal to make the apprentice a brother.
XI. When the brethren meet they shall salute each other in the following manner:--The first shall say, Ave Frater! The second shall answer, Roseæ et Aureæ. Whereupon the first shall conclude with Crucis. After they have thus discovered their position, they shall say one to another, Benedictus Dominus Deus noster qui dedit nobis signum, and shall also uncover their seals, because if the name can be falsified the seal cannot.
XII. It is commanded that every brother shall set to work after he has been accepted in our large houses, and has been endowed with the Stone (he receives always a sufficient portion to ensure his life for the space of sixty years). Before beginning he shall recommend himself to God, pledging himself not to use his secret Art to offend Him, to destroy or corrupt the empire, to become a tyrant through ambition or other causes, but always to appear ignorant, invariably asserting that the existence of such secret arts is only proclaimed by charlatans.
XIII. It is prohibited to make extracts from the secret writings, or to have them printed, without permission from the Congregation; also to sign them with the names or characters of any brother. Likewise, it is prohibited to print anything against the Art.
XIV. The brethren shall only be allowed to discourse of the secret Art in a well-closed room.
XV. It is permitted for one brother to bestow the Stone freely upon another, for it shall not be said that this gift of God can be bought with a price.
XVI. It is not permissible to kneel before any one, under any circumstances, unless that person be a member of the Order.
XVII. The brethren shall neither talk much nor marry. Yet it shall be lawful for a member to take a wife if he very much desire it, but he shall live with her in a philosophical mind. He shall not allow his wife to practise over-much with the young brethren. With the old members she may be permitted to practise, and he shall value the honour of his children as his own.
XVIII. The brethren shall refrain from stirring up hatred and discord among men. They shall not discourse of the soul, whether in human beings, animals, or plants, nor of any other subject which, however natural to themselves, may appear miraculous to the common understanding. Such discourse can easily lead to their discovery, as occurred at Rome in the year 1620. But if the brethren be alone they may speak of these secret things.
XIX. It is forbidden to give any portion of the Stone to a woman in labour, as she would be brought to bed prematurely.
XX. The Stone shall not be used at the chase.
XXI. No person having the Stone in his possession shall ask a favour of any one.
XXII. It is not allowable to manufacture pearls or other precious stones larger than the natural size.
XXIII. It is forbidden (under penalty of punishment in one of our large houses) that anyone shall make public the sacred and secret matter, or any manipulation, coagulation, or solution thereof.
XXIV. Because it may happen that several brethren are present together in the same town, it is advised, but not commanded, that on Whitsuntideday any brother shall go to that end of the town which is situated towards sunrise and shall hang up a green cross if he be a Rosicrucian, and a red one if he be a brother of the Golden Cross. Afterwards, such a brother shall tarry in the vicinity till sunset, to see if another brother shall come and hang up his cross also, when they shall salute after the usual manner, make themselves mutually acquainted, and subsequently inform the imperator of their meeting.
XXV. The imperator shall every ten years change his abode, name, and surname. Should he think it needful he may do so at shorter periods, the brethren to be informed with all possible secresy.
XXVI. It is commanded that each brother, after his initiation into the Order, shall change his name and surname, and alter his years with the Stone. Likewise, should he travel from one country to another, he shall change his name to prevent recognition.
XXVII. No brother shall remain longer than ten years out of his own country, and whenever he departs into another he shall give notice of his destination, and of the name he has adopted.
XXVIII. No brother shall begin to work till he has been one year in the town where he is residing, and has made the acquaintance of its inhabitants. He shall have no acquaintance with the professores ignorantes.
XXIX. No brother shall dare to reveal his treasures, either of gold or silver, to any person whomsoever; he shall be particularly careful with members of religious societies, two of our brethren having been lost, anno 1641, thereby. No member of any such society shall be accepted as a brother upon any pretence whatever.
XXX. While working, the brethren shall select persons of years as servants in preference to the young.
XXXI. When the brethren wish to renew themselves, they must, in the first place, travel through another kingdom, and after their renovation is accomplished, must remain absent from their former abode.
XXXII. When brethren dine together, the host, in accordance with the conditions already laid down, shall endeavour to instruct his guests as much as possible.
XXXIII. The brethren shall assemble in our great houses as frequently as possible, and shall communicate one to another the name and abode of the Imperator.
XXXIV. The brethren in their travels shall have no connection nor conversation with women, but shall choose one or two friends, generally not of the Order.
XXXV. When the brethren intend to leave any place, they shall divulge their destination to no one, neither shall they sell anything which they cannot carry away, but shall direct their landlord to divide it among the poor, if they do not return in six weeks.
XXXVI. A brother who is travelling shall carry nothing in oil, but only in the form of powder of the first projection, which shall be enclosed in a metallic box having a metal stopper.
XXXVII. No brother should carry any written description of the Art about him, but should he do so, it must be written in an enigmatical manner.
XXXVIII. Brethren who travel, or take any active part in the world, shall not eat if invited by any man to his table unless their host has first tasted the food. If this be not possible, they shall take in the morning, before leaving home, one grain of our medicine in the sixth projection, after which they can eat without fear, but both in eating and drinking they shall be moderate.
XXXIX. No brother shall give the Stone in the sixth projection to strangers, but only to sick brethren.
XL. If a brother, who is at work with anyone, be questioned as to his position, he shall say that he is a novice and very ignorant.
XLI. Should a brother desire to work, he shall only employ an apprentice in default of securing the help of a brother, and shall be careful that such an apprentice is not present at all his operations.
XLII. No married man shall be eligible for initiation as a brother, and in case any brother seeks to appoint an heir, he shall choose some one unencumbered by many friends. If he have friends, he must take a special oath to communicate the secrets to none, under penalty of punishment by the imperator.
XLIII. The brethren may take as an apprentice anyone they have chosen for their heir, provided he be ten years old. Let the person make profession. When the permission of the imperator is obtained, whereby anybody is really accepted as a member, he can be constituted heir.
XLIV. It is commanded that a brother who by any accident has been discovered by any prince, shall sooner die than initiate him into the secret; and all the other brethren, including the imperator, shall be obliged to venture their life for his liberation. If, by misfortune, the prince remain obstinate, and the brother dies to preserve the secret, he shall be declared a martyr, a relative shall be received in his place, and a monument with secret inscriptions shall be erected in his honour.
XLV. It is commanded that a new brother can only be received into the Order in one of the churches built at our expense, and in the presence of six brethren. It is necessary to instruct him for three months, and to provide him with all things needful. Afterwards he must receive the sign of Peace, a palm-branch, and three kisses, with the words--"Dear brother, we command you to be silent." After this, he must kneel before the imperator in a special dress, with an assistant on either side, the one being his magister, and the other a brother. He shall then say I, N. N., swear by the eternal and living God not to make known the secret which has been communicated to me (here he uplifts two fingers [1] to any human being, but to preserve it in concealment under the natural seal all the days of my life; likewise to keep secret all things connected therewith as far as they maybe made known to me; likewise to discover nothing concerning the position of our brotherhood, neither the abode, name, or surname of our imperator, nor to shew the Stone to anyone; all which I promise to preserve eternally in silence, by peril of my life, as God and His Word may help me."
Afterwards his magister cuts seven tufts of hair from his head and seals them up in seven papers, writing on each the name and surname of the new brother, and giving them to the imperator to keep. The next day the brethren proceed to the residence of the new brother, and eat therein without speaking or saluting one another. When they go away, however, they must say, "Frater Aureæ (vel Roseæ) Crucis Deus sit tecum cum perpetuo silentio Deo promisso et nostræ sanctæ congregationi." This is done three days in succession.
XLVI. When these three days are passed, they shall give some gifts to the poor, according to their intention and discretion.
XLVII. It is forbidden to tarry in our houses longer than two months together.
XLVIII. After a certain time the brethren shall be on a more familiar footing with the new brother, and shall instruct him as much as possible.
XLIX. No brother need perform more than three projections while he stays in our large house, because there are certain operations which belong to the magisters.
L. The brethren shall be called, in their conversation with each other, by the name they received at their reception.
LI. In presence of strangers they shall be called by their ordinary names.
LII. The new brother shall invariably receive the name of the brother then last deceased; and all the brethren shall be obedient to these rules when they have been accepted by the Order, and have taken the oath of fidelity in the name of the Lord Jesus Christus.
1. See "The Mysteries of Magic," pp. 324, 325.
CHAPTER XI. ROSICRUCIAN APOLOGISTS: ROBERT FLUDD.
THE central figure of Rosicrucian literature, towering as an intellectual giant above the crowd of souffleurs, theosophists, and charlatanic professors of the magnum opus, who, directly or otherwise, were connected with the mysterious Brotherhood, is Robertus de Fluctibus, the great English mystical philosopher of the seventeenth century, a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his writings, of extreme personal sanctity. Ennemoser describes him as one of the most distinguished disciples of Paracelsus, but refuses to number him with "those consecrated theosophists who draw all wisdom from the fountain of eternal light." He does not state his reasons for this depreciatory judgment, and the brief and inadequate notice which he gives of Fludd's system displays such a cursory acquaintance with the works in which it is developed, that it is doubtful whether he had taken pains to understand his author. I should rank the Kentish mystic second to none among the disciples of the "divine" Theophrastus, while in the profundity and extent of his learning, there can be no question that he far surpassed his master, who is said to have known little but to have divined almost everything, and who is, therefore, called divinus, in the narrower sense of that now much abused term.
Robert Fludd was born at Milgate House, [1] in the parish of Bersted, Kent, during the year 1574. By his mother's side he was descended from the ancient family of Andros of Taunton in Somerset. His father, Thomas Fludd, was a representative of a Shropshire stock, and successively occupied several high positions. He was victualler of Bewick, and then of Newhaven in France; afterwards he was made Receiver of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and being appointed treasurer of the army sent under Lord Willoughby to Henry IV. of France, "he behaved so honourably that he was knighted, and on his return to England was made treasurer of all her Majesty's forces in the Low Countries." [2] This was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; he was constantly a justice of the peace where he resided, and was also treasurer of the Cinque ports. "He bore for his arms--vert, a chevron between three wolves' heads erased, argent, which coat, with his quarterings, was confirmed to him by Robert Cook, Clar., Nov. 10, 1572." [3]
I have succeeded in compiling from various sources the following scanty genealogy of the Fludd family:--
Robert Flood Genealogical Tree
According to this genealogy, Robert Fludd was the youngest of five sons. He was entered of St John's College in the year 1591, at the age of seventeen. Having graduated both in arts and medicine, he appears to have travelled extensively, for the space of six years, in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. On his return to England, he was made a member of the London College of Physicians, and took his degree of Master in Arts in the year 1605. His first published work appeared in 1616, about which time he was visited by Michael Maier, by whom he was probably acquainted with the Rosicrucian controversy, and with whom he corresponded after the renowned German alchemist had returned to his own country. Fludd appears to have resided chiefly in London, then as now the great intellectual centre of England. He had a house in Fenchurch Street, according to Fuller, [4] and another in Coleman Street, where he died in the year 1637, on the 8th day of September. He was buried in the chancel of Bersted Church, under a tomb which he had previously erected--"An oblong square of dark, slate-coloured marble, occupying a large space of the chancel wall on the left as you stand before the altar, looking up the body of the small church towards the door. There is a seated half-length figure of Fludd, with his hand on a book, as if just raising his head from reading to look at you. Upon the monument are two marble books inscribed Misterium Cabalisticum and Philosophia Sacra. There were originally eight books. The inscription to his memory is as follows:--
"'VIII. Die Mensis VII. Ao Dm, M.D.C.XXXVII. O doribus vrua vaporat crypta tegit cineres nec speciosa tvos ovod mortale minvs tibi. Te committimus vnvm ingenii vivent hic monumenta tui nam tibi qui similis scribit moriturque sepulchrum pro tota eternum posteritate facit. Hoc monumentum Thomas Flood Gore Court in oram apud Cantianos armiger infoelissimam in charissimi patrin sui memoriam nexit, die Mensis Augusti M.D.C.XXXVII.'" [5]
Bersted Church is situated on high ground, at a small distance south of Bersted Green. It is dedicated to the Holy Cross, and, according to Hasted, [6] is a handsome building, consisting of two aisles and two chancels, with a square beacon tower at the west end of it. This is in the Perpendicular style, and at three angles of the summit are three rude figures, said to be three dogs or bears seiant, but so defaced by time that they cannot well be distinguished.
The list of Fludd's works is as follows:--
Apologia Compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis et infamiæ maculis aspersam, veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens et abstergens. Leyden, 1616. 8vo.
Tractatus Apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rosea Cruce defendens. Lugduni Batavorum, 1617. 8vo. A duplicate of the preceding with a new title.
Utriusque Cosmi majoris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia in dua volumina secundum cosmi differentiam divisa. 2 tom. Oppenheimii, Francofurti, 1617-24. Fol.
Veritatis Proscenium . . . seu demonstratio quædam analytica, in qua cuilibet comparationis particulæ, in appendice quadam à J. Kepplero, nuper in fine Harmoniæ suæ Mundanæ edita, factæ inter Harmoniam suam mundanam et illam R. F. ipsissimis veritatis argumentis respondetur. Francofurti, 1621. Fol. Monochordum Mundi Symphoniacum, seu, Replicatio R. F. . . . ad apologiam . . . J. Kepleri adversus demonstrationem suam analyticam nuperrime editam in qua Robertus validioribus Joannis objectionibus Harmoniæ sum legi repugnantibus, comiter respondere aggreditur. Francofurti, 1622. 4to.
Anatomiæ Amphitheatrum effigie triplici, more et conditione varia designatam. Francfurte, 1623. Fol.
Philosophia Sacra et vere Christiana, seu Meteorologica Cosmica. Francofurti, 1626. Fol.
Medecina Catholica, seu mysticum artis medicandi sacrarium. 5 parts. Francofurti, 1629-31.
Sophiæ cum moria certamen, in quo, lapsis Lydius a falso structore . . . M. Mersemio . . . reprobatus, celeberrima voluminis sui Babylonici figmenta accurate examinat (Summum bonum, quod est verum subjectum veræ magicæ, cabalæ, alchymiæ fratrum Roseæ Crucis verorum in dictarum scientiarum laudem, et insignis calumniatoris . . . M. Mersenni dedecus publicatum, per J. Frizium). 2 pt. Francofurti, 1629. Fol.
Doctor Fludd's Answer unto M. Foster, or the squesing of Parson Foster's Sponge, ordained by him for the wiping away of the weapon-salve. London, 1631. 4to.
Clavis Philosophiæ et Alchymiæ. (A Reply to Father Gassendi.) Francofurti, 1633. Fol.
Phylosophia Mosaica. In qua Sapientia et Scientia creationis et creaturarum sacra vereque Christiana . . . ad amussim et enuncleate explicatur. Goudæ, 1638. Fol.
It will be seen from this list that the Rosicrucian manifestoes found an immediate defender in Robert Fludd, that is, if the "Apologia" which bears his name is to be considered his work. There is some uncertainty on this point, but it has been disputed on insufficient grounds, As a maiden effort, it will not of course bear comparison with the dialectical skill of his mature productions, but the principles it propounds are those of the "Mosaicall Philosophy" and the "Tractatus Varii." "What was the particular occasion of his own first acquaintance with Rosicrucianism is not recorded," says Buhle. "All the books of Alchemy or other occult knowledge, published in Germany, were at that time immediately carried over to England--provided they were written in Latin; and if written in German, were soon translated for the benefit of English students. He may therefore have gained his knowledge immediately from the Rosicrucian books, but it is more probable that he acquired it from his friend Maier. . . . At all events, he must have been initiated into Rosicrucianism at an early period."
By whomsoever written, the "Tractatus Apologeticus" is an exceedingly curious work, so astonishing occasionally in the nature of its arguments that it is difficult to suppose that they were put forward seriously. It was called for by Andrew Libavius' "searching and hostile analysis" of the Rosicrucian Confession, and was written to clear the Society from the Infamiæ maculæ cast on it by the accusations then brought forward, and above all from the charges of detestable magic and diabolical superstition. It is divided into three parts, and various chapters are illustrated by appropriate quotations from the manifesto it is defending, whose underlying principles are developed and explained. The first part treats of the various departments of magical science, of the Cabala, of the Books of God, both visible and invisible, of the secret characters of Nature, and of the value of astrological portents. The second part is devoted to a lugubrious consideration of the impediments and degeneracy of the arts and sciences in modern times--de scientiarum hodierno die in scholis vigentium impedimentis. It enlarges on the urgent necessity for a reformation in Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Alchemy.
Concerning the first, the author declares it to be impossible for any one to attain to the supreme summit of the natural sciences unless he be profoundly versed in the occult meaning of the ancient philosophers, but the minute and most accurate observer who does achieve this height will not find it difficult to adapt the materials which are prepared by Nature in such a manner as to produce, by the application of actives to passives, many marvellous effects before the time ordained by Nature; and this, he adds, will be mistaken by the uninitiated for a miracle.
Like others of his school, he insists on the uncertainty of à posteriori and experimental methods, to which he unhesitatingly attributes all the errors of the natural sciences. "Particulars are frequently fallible, but universals never. Occult philosophy lays bare Nature in her complete nakedness, and alone contemplates the wisdom of universals by the eyes of intelligence. Accustomed to partake of the rivers which flow from the Fountain of Life, it is unacquainted with grossness and with clouded waters."
In Medicine he laments the loss of that universal panacea referred to by Hippocrates:--"But absolutely nothing remains of that one and only medicament of which Hippocrates makes mention (darkly and mystically, I admit) in several places, and still less are its operations understood, inasmuch as no one now searches with lynx-like eyes into the profound depths of true natural philosophy, to gain an accurate knowledge of its composition and its virtues."
Concerning Arithmetic, he asks mournfully, and with apparent earnestness, "Which of us has, at this day, the ability to discover those true and vivific numbers whereby the elements are united and bound to one another?" And then, with regard to music, which, as he remarks, non aliter succedit Arithmeticæ quàm medicina Philosophiæ Naturali, he cries after the same fashion:--"But, good God, what is this when compared with that deep and true music of the wise, whereby the proportions of natural things are investigated, the harmonical concord and the qualities of the whole world are revealed, by which also connected things are bound together, peace established between conflicting elements, and whereby each star is perpetually suspended in its appointed place by its weight and strength, and by the harmony of its lucent spirit." It is impossible to read without a smile when the author urges the necessity for a musical reformation, on the ground that we have lost that art of Orpheus by which he moved insensible stones, and that of Arion by which the fishes were charmed.
The cursory review of alchemy is equally gloomy:--"The art, also, of alchemy or chemistry is surrounded with such insoluble enigmas that we can scarcely gain anything but ignorance therefrom, and ignotum per ignotius." He enlarges on its fictitious vocabulary, and quotes Maricinus as follows:--"The magisterium of the philosophers is hidden and concealed, and wherever found is known by a thousand names; moreover, it is surrounded by symbols and is revealed to the wise alone, yet this is, notwithstanding, the one, only, and lineal way of the whole operation." Then he himself continues:--"Neither common fire, but Nature herself, neither artificial furnaces, but natural matrices, are needed in this work, which is the work of Nature only, and wherein nothing is required save the brief co-operation of her minister, by whom things natural to things also natural, and species to their congruents, are duly and accurately applied." Mathematics, optics, and astronomy he treats after the same fashion, comparing their tame and commonplace frivolities with the sublime knowledge of the ancients.
The third part is entitled "De Naturæ Arcanis," and treats of the mysteries of Light, &c., developing in a small space a curious and profound philosophy. It describes God as the ens entium, eternal form, inviolable, purely igneous, without any intermixture of material, unmanifested before the creation of the universe, according to the maxim of Mercurius Trismegistus, "Monas generat molem, et in seipsum reflectit ardorem suam." Earth is defined to be a gross water, water a gross air, air a gross fire, fire a gross ether, while the ether itself is the grosser part of the empyrean, which is distinguished from the ethereal realm, and is described as a water of extreme tenuity, constituted of three parts of luminous substance to one aqueous part; it is the purest essence of all substances, and is identical with the luminiferous ether of the latest scientific hypothesis. Its place is the medium mundi, wherein is the sphæra æqualitatis, in which the sun performs its revolution. The sun itself is composed of equal parts of light and water. Light is the cause of all energies--nihil in hoc mundo peractum fuerit, sine lucis mediatione aut actu divino. "It is impossible for man to desire more complete felicity than the admirable knowledge of light and its virtues," by which the ancient magi constructed their ever-burning lamps, forced fire out of stones and wood, kindled tapers from the rays of stars, and naturally, by means of its reflections, produced many wonders in the air, such as phantom writing, and, more than all, by the true use of the lux invisibilis, made men themselves invisible.
The information scattered through the various parts of the apology on the different departments of magic is also noteworthy. It distinguishes between natural, mathematical, venific, necromantic, and thaumaturgie magic. "That most occult and secret department of physics by which the mystical properties of natural substances are extracted, we term Natural Magic. The wise kings who (led by the new Star from the East) sought the infant Christ, are called Magi, because they had attained a perfect knowledge of natural things, whether celestial or sublunar. This branch of the Magi also includes Salomon, since he was versed in the arcane virtues and properties of all substances, and is said to have understood the nature of every plant from the cedar to the hyssop. Magicians who are proficient in the mathematical division construct marvellous machines by means of their geometrical knowledge; such were the flying dove of Archytas, and the brazen heads of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, which are said to have spoken. Venific magic is familiar with potions, philtres, and with the various preparations of poisons; it is in a measure included in the natural division, because a knowledge of the properties of natural things is requisite to produce its results. Necromantic Magic is divided into goëtic, maleficient, and Theurgic. The first consists in diabolical commerce with unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and invocations, and in the evocation of the souls of the dead. The second is the adjuration of the devils by the Virtue of Divine Names. The third pretends to be governed by good angels and the Divine Will, but its wonders are most frequently performed by evil spirits, who assume the names of God and of the angels. This department of Necromancy n can, however, be performed by natural powers, definite rites and ceremonies, whereby celestial and divine virtues are reconciled and drawn to us; the ancient Magi promulgated in their secret books many rules of this doctrine. The last species of magic is the thaumaturgie, begetting illusory phenomena; by this art the Magi produced their phantasms and other marvels."
When speaking of the wonders wrought mechanically by Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Boëtius, the apologist of the Rosicrucians tells us that he himself, by his assiduity in mechanical arts, constructed a wooden bull which lowed and bellowed after the fashion of the living animal; a dragon which flapped its wings, hissed, and vomited forth fire and flames upon the bull; and a lyre which played melodies without human intervention, as well as many other things, which by the simple mathematical art, apart from natural magic, could not have been accomplished.
The scientific and philosophical principles of Robert Fludd were attacked by Father Mersenne, with special reference to his belief in the Rosicrucian Society. Some twelve years had passed since the appearance of the "Tractatus Apologeticus," which he probably no longer valued. He replied to the attack in the work entitled "Sophiæ cum Moriâ Certamen," without mentioning the Rosicrucians. But the "Summum Bonum," by Joachim Fritz, which accompanied this reply, contains an elaborate defence of the Order, to which, in one of its phases, Fludd is said to have belonged. The authorship of this defence he is supposed to have disavowed. Buhle, however, points out that as "the principles, the style, the animosity towards Mersenne, the publisher, and the year, were severally the same as in the 'Sophiæ cum Moriâ Certamen' which Fludd acknowledged, there cannot be much reason to doubt that it was his." But as I am unwilling to consider that a man of Fludd's high character would be guilty of deliberate falsehood, and as it was not his habit to write either anonymously or pseudonymously, I prefer the alternative offered by the German critic when he says, "If not Fludd's, it was the work of a friend of Fludd's." In either case, his opinions are represented. On the title-page of the "Summum Bonum," there is a large Rose on which two bees have alighted, with this motto above--Dat Rosa mel apibus. The book treats of the noble art of magic, the foundation and nature of the Cabala, the essence of veritable alchemy, and of the Causa Fratrum Roseæ Crucis. It identifies the palace or home of the Rosicrucians with the Scriptural house of wisdom. Ascendamus ad montem rationabilem, et ædificemus domum Sapientiæ. The foundation of the mountain thus referred to is declared to be the Lapis angularis, the corner-stone, cut out of the mountain without hands. This stone is Christ. It is the spiritual palace which the Rosicrucians desire to reveal, and is therefore no earthly or material abode. There is a long disquisition on the significance of the Rose and the Cross, a purely spiritual interpretation being adopted. At the conclusion, the writer anticipates the question whether he himself is a brother of the Rose Cross, since he has settled all questions as to their religion and symbolism. His answer is that he least of any has deserved such a grace of God; if it have pleased God to have so ordained it, it is enough. To satisfy, however, the curiosity of his readers, he supplies them with a curious letter supposed to have emanated from the society, and which has been quaintly translated in a manuscript of the seventeenth century.
This Epistle was written and sent by ye Brethren of R. C. to a certaine Germaine, a coppy whereof Dr Flud obtained of a Polander of Dantziche his friend, which he since printed in Latin at ye end of his tract, intituled, De Summo Bono.
Venerable and Honourable Sr.
Seeing that this will be ye first yeare of thy nativity, wee pray that thou mayst have from ye Most High God, a most happy entrance into and departure from out of thy life, and because thou hast hitherto been with a good mind a constant searcher of holy philosophy, well done! Proceed, fear God, for thus thou mayest gaine Heaven. Get to thyself the most true knowledge, for it is God who hath found out every way; it is God who alone is circumference and centre. But draw thee neere, listen, take this to thee , for he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, because that in much knowledge is much griefe, wee speake by experience. For all worldlings, and vaine-glorious, vauntinge boasters, gorgious men, talkers, and vaine people doe unworthily scandalize, yea, and curse us for an unknown matter. But we wonder not that ye ungrateful world doe persecute ye professors of ye true Arts, together with ye truth itself. Yett for thy sake wee shall briefly answer to these questions, viz.: What wee doe? What can wee doe? Or whether are any such as wee? In John, therefore, wee reade that God is ye Supreme Light, and in light wee walke, so that wee exhibit light (although in a lanthern) to ye world. But thou man of ye world that deniest this, thou knowest not or seest not it behoves thee to know that in thy vile boddy Jesus dwelleth. This thou hast from ye apostle. "And Jesus knew all their thoughts," to whom if thou adherest, thou are at length made one spirit with Him, and being such, who prohibeteth thee with Solomon to know as well ye wicked as good contentions of men. And this thou mayest take from me out of ye premises. And hence it is that wee doe not answer to all, viz., because of the deceitfull minds of some. For whosoever are alienated from God are contrary to us, and who is so foolish as to permit a new-come stranger to enter into another man's house? But if thou objectest that this union is onely to be expected in ye world to come, behold now in this thou showest thyself for a worldling who extinguishest light by thy ignorance. Also thou are not ashamed to make ye apostle a liar, in whom those things are more clearly manifested in these wordes--"So that you may be wanting in no grace, expectinge ye Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ." But thou sayest that this is not to be understood of this inferiour life. What therefore does ye followinge verse intend? "Who shall confirme you even to the end," for in the Kingdome of God there is noe end, therefore in this temporall state will appear ye glory of ye Lord, and Jesus glorified. If any thinge is further demanded concerning our office, our endeavoure is to leade backe lost sheepe to ye true sheepefold. You labore therefore in vaine, O miserable mortals, who enter upon another way than that ye apostle wills by putinge off your tabernacle, which way is not walked in through dyinge, but as Peter willeth when he saith: "As Christ hath taught mee," viz., when he was transfigured in ye mount, which laienge down, if it had not bine secret and hidden, ye apostle had not saide, "as Jesus taught mee," neither had ye Supreme Truth saide: "Tell this to no man," for accordinge to ye vulgar way, vulgarly to die was known to all men from ye beginninge of ye world. Be yee changed therefore, be yee changed from dead stones into livinge philosophical stones. The apostle shews ye way when he saith: "Lett the same minde be in you as is in Jesus." Also he explains that minde in ye followinge words, viz., when as beinge in ye form of God, he thought it no robbery to be equal to God. Behould these things, O all you that search into ye abstruse secrets of nature! Yee heare these matters, but you believe them not, O miserable mortals, who doe so anxiously run into youre own ruine, but wilt thou be more happy, O thou most miserable, wilt thou be elevated above ye circles of ye world, O thou proud one, wilt thou command in Heaven above, this earth, and thy darke body, O thou ambitious, will yee performe all miracles, O yee unworthy? Know yee, therefore, ye rejected, of what nature it is, before it is sought. But thou, O Brother, hearken! I will speake with S. John, that thou mayest have fellowshippe with us, and indeed our fellowshippe is with ye Father and with Jesus, and wee write unto you that yee may rejoyce because God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. But that thou mayest come unto us, behould this light, for it is impossible for thee to see us (unless when wee will) in another light. In this, therefore, follow us, whereby thou mayest be made happy with us, for our most immoveable pallace is ye centre of all things, likewise is it much obscured, because covered with many names. Enter, enter into ye glory of God and thy own salvation, ye gates and Schoole of Philosophicall Love, in which is taught everlastinge charity and fraternall love, and that some resplendent and invisible castle which is built upon the mountaine of ye Lord, out of whose roote goeth forth a fountaine of livinge waters, and a river of love! Drinke, drinke, and againe drinke, that thou mayest see all hidden things, and converse with us! Againe beware! But what? For thou knowest very well that nature receives nothing for nutriment but that which is subtile, the thick and fœculent is cast out as excrements. It is also well disputed by thyself, that those who will live in ye minde, rather than in ye body, take in nourishment by ye spirit, not by ye mouth. As for example, it is lawful to know Heaven by Heaven, not by earth, but ye virtues of this by ye other, and if you understand me aright, no man ascends into Heaven, which thou seekest, except He who descended from Heaven, which thou seekest not, enlighteneth him first. Whatsoever therefore is not from Heaven is a false immage, and cannot be called a virtue. Therefore, O Brother, thou canst not be better confirmed then by virtue itselfe, which is ye Supreame Truth, which if thou wilt religiously, and with all thy might, endeavour to follow in all thy wordes and workes, it will confirm thee, daily more and more, for it is a fiery spirite, a glisteninge sparke, a graine impossible, never diinge, subliminge his own body, dwellinge in every created beeinge, sustaininge and governinge it, gold burninge, and by Christ purged, pure in ye fire, allwaye more glorious and pure, jubilatinge without diminution, this shall (I say) confirme thee daily, untill (as a certaine learned man saith) thou art made like a lion in battle, and canst take away all ye strength of ye world, and fearest not death, nor any violence whatsoever a divellish tyranny can invent, viz., seeinge thou art become such a one as thou desirest, a stone and a worke. And that God may bless thy labours which thou shalt receive in most approved authors under a shaddow, for a wise man reads one thinge and understands another. Art thou imperfect? Aspire after a due perfection. Art thou foul and unclean? Purge thyself with teares, sublime thyselfe with good manners and virtues, adorn and beautify thyselfe with sacramentall graces! Make thy soule sublime and subtile for ye contemplation of heavenly thinges, and conformable to angelicall spirits, that it may vivify thy vile ashes and vulgar body, and make it white, and render it altogether incorruptible and impassible by ye resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Doe these thinges, and thou wilt confess that no man hath wrote more plainly then I. These thinges the Lady Virtue hath commended should be told to thee, from (or by) whom, accordinge to thy deserts, thou shalt hereafter be more largely taught, these read, if thou wilt, as the apostle willeth, keepe that which is committed to thy trust. Farewell.
F. T. F., in Light and C.
By his talents and intellectual ability, Robert Fludd is a character so important in English Rosicrucian literature, that I propose to give a short sketch or syllabus of his singular cosmical philosophy. The substance will be taken from the "Mosaicall Philosophy," and the folio volume entitled Tractatus Varii, and it will be rendered as far as possible in the philosopher's own words.
The author distinguishes in several places between the Divine σοφία, the eternal sapience, the heavenly wisdom, which is only mystically revealed to mankind, and the wisdom which is derived from the invention and tradition of men. He declares the philosophy of the Grecians, or the ethnick philosophy, to be based only on the second, and to be terrene, animal, and diabolical, not being founded on the deific corner-stone, namely, Jesus Christ, who is the essential substance and foundation of the true science.
The original fountain of true wisdom is in God, the natura naturans, the infinite, illimitable Spirit, beyond all imagination, transcending all essence, without name, all wise, all-clement, the Father, the Word, and the ineffable, Holy Spirit, the highest and only good, the indivisible Trinity, the most splendid and indescribable light. This Wisdom is the vapor virtutis Dei, and the stainless mirror of the majesty and beneficence of God. All things, of what nature and condition soever, were made in, by, and through this Divine Word or emanation, which is God Himself, as it is the Divine Act, whose root is the Logos, that is, Christ. This Eternal Wisdom is the fountain or corner-stone of the higher arts, by which also all mysterious and miraculous discoveries are effected and brought to light.
Before the spagirical separation which the Word of God, or divine Elohim, effected in the six days of creation, the heavens and earth were one deformed, rude, undigested mass, complicitly comprehended in one dark abyss, but explicitly as yet nothing. This nothing is compared by St Augustine to speech, which while it is in the speaker's mind is as nothing to the hearer, but when uttered, that which existed complicitly in animo loquentis, is explicitly apprehended by the hearer. This nihilum or nothing is not a nihilum negativum. It is the First Matter, the infinite, informal. primordial Ens, the mysterium magnum of the Paracelsists. It existed eternally in God. If God had not produced all things essentially out of Himself, they could not be rightly referred to Him. The primeval darkness is the potentia divina as light is the actus divinus--the Aleph tenebrosum and Aleph lucidum. Void of form and life, it is still a material developing from potentiality into the actual, and was informed by the Maker of the world with a universal essence, which is the Light of Moses, and was first evolved in the empyrean heaven, the highest and supernatural region of the world, the habitaculum fontis lucidi, the region not of matter but of form--form simple and spiritual beyond all imagination. There is a second spiritual heaven, participating in the clarity and tenuity of the first, of which it is the base; this is the medial heaven, called the sphæra æqualitatis and it is corporeal in respect of the former. The third heaven is the locality of the four elements. The progression of the primordial light through the three celestial spaces was accomplished during the first three days of creation. Christ the Wisdom and Word of God, by His apparition out of darkness, that is, by the mutation of the first principle from dark Aleph to light Aleph, revealed the waters contained in the profound bosom of the abyss, and animated them by the emanation of the spirit of eternal fire, and then by his admirable activity distinguished and separated the darkness from the light, the obscure and gross waters from the subtle and pure waters, disposing the heavens and spheres, as above stated, and dividing the grosser waters into sublunary elements. These elements are described as follows:--Earth is the conglomeration of the material darkness and the refuse of the heavens; Water is the more gross spirit of the darkness of the inferior heaven, nearly devoid of light; Air is the spirit of the second heaven; Fire, the spirit of the darkness of the Empyrean heaven.
Fludd's theory of the Macrocosmus is enunciated in the following manner.
DE MACROCOSMI PRINCIPIIS.
DE MACROCOSMI FABRICA.
According to Fludd's philosophy, the whole universe was fashioned after the pattern of an archetypal world which existed in the Divine ideality, and was framed out of unity in a threefold manner. The Eternal Monad or Unity, without any egression from his own central profundity, compasses complicitly the three cosmical dimensions, namely, root, square, and cube. If we multiply unity as a root, in itself, it will produce only unity for its square, which being again multiplied in itself, brings forth a cube which is one with root and square. Thus we have three branches differing in formal progression, yet one unity in which all things remain potentially, and that after a most abstruse manner. The archetypal world was made by the egression of one out of one, and by the regression of that one, so emitted, into itself by emanation. According to this ideal image, or archetypal world, our universe was subsequently fashioned as a true type and exemplar of the Divine Pattern; for out of unity in his abstract existence, viz., as it was hidden in the dark chaos, or potential mass, the bright flame of all formal being did shine forth, and the Spirit of Wisdom, proceeding from them both, conjoined the formal emanation with the potential matter, so that by the union of the divine emanation of light and the substantial darkness, which was water, the heavens were made of old, and the whole world.
God, according to these abstruse speculations, is that pure, catholic unity which includes and comprehends all multiplicity, and which before the objective projection of the cosmos must be considered as a transcendent entity, reserved only in itself, in whose divine puissance, as in a place without end or limit, all things which are now explicitly apparent were then complicitly contained, though in regard to our finite faculties it can only be conceived as nothing--nihil, non finis, non ens, aleph tenebrosum, the Absolute Monad or Unity.
Joined to the cosmical philosophy of Robert Fludd, there is an elaborate system of spiritual evolution, and the foundation of both is to be sought in the gigantic hypotheses of the Kabbalah. His angelology is derived from the works of pseudo-Dionysius on the celestial hierarchies, and he teaches the doctrine of the pre-existence of human souls, which are derived from the vivifying emanation dwelling in the Anima Mundi, the world's spiritual vehicle, the catholic soul, which itself is inacted and preserved by the Catholic and Eternal Spirit, sent out from the fountain of life to inact and vivify all things.
These mystical speculations, whatever their ultimate value, are sublime flights of an exalted imagination, but they are found, in the writings of Robert Fludd, side by side with the crudest physical theories, and the most exploded astronomical notions. He denies the diurnal revolution of the earth, and considers the light of all the stars to be derived from the one "heavenly candle" of the sun. Rejecting the natural if inadequate explanations of Aristotle and his successors, he presents the most extravagant definitions of the nature of winds, clouds, snow, &c. The last is described as a meteor which God draweth forth of His hidden treasury in the form of wool, or as a creature produced out of the air by the cold breath of the Divine Spirit to perform his will on earth. Thunder is a noise which is made in the cloudy tent or pavilion of Jehovah, lightning a certain fiery air or spirit animated by the brightness and burning from the face or presence of Jehovah. Literally interpreting the poetic imagery of Scripture, he perceives the direct interference of the Deity in all the phenomena of Nature, and denounces more rational views as "terrene, animal, and diabolical."
1. The seat of Milgat was formerly esteemed a manor. It was anciently possessed by the family of Coloigne, one of whom, Robert de Coloigne, died feifed of it in the 35th year of Edward III. In process of time his descendants came to be called Coluney, one of whom, Thomas Coluney, as appears by an old survey of Bersted, possessed it in the 14th year of Edward IV. In the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. it was become the property of the family of Stone-house, whose ancient seat was at Hazelwood, Boughton Malherbe (Philpot, p. 68). Robert Stonehouse was of Bersted, Esquire, at the latter end of Henry VIII. His son George, at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, alienated this seat to Thomas Fludd, Esquire, afterwards knighted, and who considerably improved and augmented it." One corner of this edifice is still said to remain built in the manor-house erected on its site when the old house fell into ruins.--Hasted, "History of Kent," vol. ii., pp. 486, 487.
2. Hasted's "History of Kent," vol. ii., p. 486.
3. "Visitation of County of Kent, 1574 and 1619."
4. "Worthies of Great Britain," p. 78 of the second part.
5. Hargrave Jennings, "The Rosicrucians, &c.," p. 364.
6. "History of Kent," vol. ii., p. 489.
CHAPTER XII. ROSICRUCIAN APOLOGISTS: THOMAS VAUGHAN.
EUGENIUS PHILALETHES, the author of the renowned "Introitus apertus ad occlusum Regis Palatium," the "Entrance opened to the Closed Palace of the King," is so far connected with the Rosicrucians that he published a translation, as we have seen, of the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis," and his philosophical doctrines are very similar to those of the mysterious Brotherhood, of which he has been erroneously, and despite his express and repeated denials, represented as a member. Like them, he expected the advent of the artist Elias who was foretold by Paracelsus, represents his most important alchemical work as his precursor, and declares that problematical personage to be already born into the world. The entire universe is to be transmuted and transfigured by the science of this artist into the pure mystical gold of the Spiritual City of God, when all currencies have been destroyed.
"A few brief years," he cries in his prophetic mood, "and I trust that money will be despised as completely as dross, and that we shall behold the destruction of this vile invention, so opposed to the spirit of Jesus Christ. The world is bewitched by it, and the infatuated nations adore this vain and gross metal as a divinity. Is it this which will help towards our coming redemption and our lofty future hopes? By this shall we enter that New Jerusalem when its ways are paved with gold, and its gates are of pearls and precious stones, and when the Tree of Life, planted in the centre of Paradise, will dispense health to the whole of humanity? I foresee that my writings will be esteemed as highly as the purest gold and silver now are, and that, thanks to my works, these metals will be as despised as dung."
The date of this author's birth was 1612; he is supposed to have been a native of Scotland, but the fact of his placing a Welsh motto on the title of one of his books, together with his true name, Thomas Vaughan, which is pure Welsh, is a strong argument of his Welsh nationality. He adopted various pseudonyms in the different countries through which he passed in his wanderings as an alchemical propagandist. Thus in America he called himself Doctor Zheil, and in Holland Carnobius. According to Herthodt, his true name was Childe, while Langlet du Fresnoy writes it Thomas Vagan, by a characteristic French blunder. His nom de plume was Eugenius not Irenæus Philalethes, as Figuier states. [1] The life of this adept is involved in an almost Rosicrucian uncertainty; he was a mystery even to his publishers, who received his works from "an unknown person." Nearly all that is ascertained concerning him, and concerning his marvellous transmutations, rests on the authority of Urbiger, who has been proved inaccurate in more than one of his statements. His sojourn in America is an established fact, according to Louis Figuier, and the projections which he there accomplished in the laboratory of George Starkey, an apothecary, were subsequently published by the latter in London. His writings shew him to be a supreme adept of spiritual alchemy, and he despised the gold which he claimed to be able to manufacture. The history of this man who roamed from place to place, performing the most lavish transmutations, but always anonymous, always obliterating his personality, often disguised to conceal his identity, by his own representation in continual dangers and difficulties through the possession of his terrific secret, and gaining nothing by his labours, is a curious study of the perversity of human character for those who disbelieve in alchemy, and some ground for the faith of those who believe in it. The essential elements of fraud are wanting, and the intellectual nobility of the man, illuminated, moreover, by lofty religious aspirations, is conspicuous in all his works.
The list of his writings is as follows:--
"Anthroposophia Magica;" or a Discourse of the Nature of Man and his State after Death. "Anima Magica Abscondita;" or a Discourse of the Universall Spirit of Nature. London, 1650. 8vo.
"Magia Adamica;" or the Antiquities of Magic, and the descent thereof from Adam downwards proved. Whereunto is added a perfect and full discovery of the "Cœlum Terræ." London, 1650. 8vo.
The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap . . . for Gnawing the Margins of Eugenius Philalethes. (A satire on Henry More, who attacked him in a pamphlet entitled "Observations upon 'Anthroposophia Magica,'" etc.) London, 1650. 8vo.
"Lumen de Lumine;" or a New Magicall Light discovered and communicated to the World, with the Aphorismi Magici Eugenianii." London, 1651. 8vo.
The Second Wash; or The Moore Scour'd once more, being a charitable cure for the distractions of Alazonomastix (i.e., Henry More). London, 1651. 8vo.
The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R. C., with a Preface annexed thereto, and a short declaration of their physicall work. London, 1652. 8vo.
Euphrates; or The Waters of the East; being a short discourse of that great fountain whose water flows from Fire, and carries in it the beams of the Sun and Moon. London, 1655. 8vo.
A Brief Natural History, intermixed with variety of Philosophical Discourses and Observations of the Burnings of Mount Etna, &c. London, 1669. 8vo.
Introitus Apertus ad Occlusum Regis Palatium. Philalethæ Tractatus Tres. I. Metallorum Metamorphosis. II. Brevis Manductio ad Rubrium Cœlestem. III. Fons Chymicæ Veritatis. 1678. 4to.
It is only in the introduction to the "Fame and Confession" that Philalethes makes any important reference to the Rosicrucian Society. There his opinions are expressed in the following manner:--"I am in the humour to affirm the essence and existence of that admired chimæra, the Fraternitie of R. C. And now, gentlemen, I thank you, I have aire and room enough; methinks you sneak and steal from me, as if the plague and this Red Cross were inseparable. Take my Lord have mercy along with you, for I pitty your sickly braines, and certainly as to your present state the inscription is not unseasonable. But in lieu of this, some of you may advise me to an assertion of the Capreols of del Phæbo, or a review of the library of that discreet gentleman of La Mancha, for in your opinion those knights and these brothers are equally invisible. This is hard measure, but I shall not insist to disprove you. If there be any amongst the living of the same bookish faith with myself, they are the persons I would speak to."
The preface proceeds to discourse upon the contempt which magic has undergone in all ages, and then the author distinctly denies his personal acquaintance with the Rosicrucian Society. "As for that Fraternity, whose History and Confession I have here adventured to publish, I have, for my own part; no relation to them, neither do I much desire their acquaintance. I know they are masters of great mysteries, and I know withal that nature is so large they may as wel receive as give. I was never yet so lavish an admirer of them as to prefer them to all the world, for it is possible, and perhaps true, that a private man may have that in his possession whereof they are ignorant. It is not their title and the noise it has occasioned which makes me commend them. The acknowledgment I give them was first procured by their books, for there I found them true philosophers, and therefore not chimæras, as most think, but men. Their principles are every way correspondent to the ancient and primitive wisedome--nay, they are consonant to our very religion, and confirm every point thereof. I question not but most of their proposals may seem irregular to common capacities, but when the prerogative and power of Nature is known, there they will quickly fall even, for they want not order and sobriety. It will be expected, perhaps, that I should speak something as to their persons and habitations, but in this my cold acquaintance will excuse me, or, had I any familiarity with them, I should not doubt to use it with more discretion. As for their existence (if I may speak like a schoolman), there is great reason we should believe it; neither do I see how we can deny it, unless we grant that Nature is studied, and books also written and published, by some other creatures then men. It is true, indeed, that their knowledg at first was not purchased by their own disquisitions, for they received it from the Arabians, amongst whom it remained as the monument and legacy of the children of the East. Nor is this at all improbable, for the eastern countries have been always famous for magical and secret societies."
He compares the habitation of the Brachmans, as it is described by Philostratus in his life of Apollonius, with the Rosicrucian Locus Sancti Spiritus, concerning which he quotes the following curious passage by a writer whom he does not name:--"Vidi aliquando Olympicas domos, non procul a Fluviolo et Civitate notâ, quas S. Spiritus vocari imaginamur. Helicon est de quo loquor, aut biceps Parnassus, in quo Equus Pegasus fontem aperuit perennis aquæ adhuc stillantem, [2] in quo Diana se lavat, cui Venus ut Pedissequa et Saturnus ut Anteambulo, conjunguntur. Intelligenti nimium, inexperto minimum hoc erit dictum." Quoting afterwards the description of the Elysium of the Brachmans--"I have seen (saith Apollonius) the Brachmans of India dwelling on the earth and not on the earth; they were guarded without walls, and possessing nothing, they enjoyed all things"--this is plain enough, says Philalethes, "and on this hill have I also a desire to live, if it were for no other reason but what the sophist applyed to the mountains--
Hos primum sol salutat, ultimosque deserit,
Quis locum non amet, dies longiores habentem?
But of this place I will not speak any more, lest the readers should be so mad as to entertain a suspicion that I am of the Order." He attempts, however, to show "the conformity of the old and new professors,"--namely, the Rosicrucians and the Indian initiates. "When we have evidence that magicians have been, it is proof also that they may be. . . . I hold it then worth our observation that even those magi who came to Christ Himself came from the East; but as we cannot prove they were Brachmans, so neither can we prove they were not. If any man will . . . contend for the negative, it must follow that the East afforded more magical societies then one. . . . The learned will not deny but wisdom and light were first manifested in the same parts, namely, in the East. From this fountain also, this living, oriental one did the Brothers of R. C. draw their wholesom waters."
He concludes by reiterating his previous statement -- "I have no acquaintance with this Fraternity as to their persons."
1. Irenæus Philalethes was the pseudonym of George Starkey, the American disciple of Thomas Vaughan.
2. See Introduction, ante, p. 10.
CHAPTER XIII. ROSICRUCIAN APOLOGISTS: JOHN HEYDON.
THE last of the line of apologists who has any claim on our notice is the extraordinary Royalist mystic and geomancer, John Heydon, who, in the preface to "The Holy Guide," has left us the following interesting and curious fragment of autobiography: --
"I was descended from a noble family of London in England, being born of a complete tall stature, small limbs, but in every part proportionable, of a dark flaxen haire, it curling as you see in the Effigies, [1] and the above figures of Astrologie at the time I was born: this is also the Character of my Genius Malhitriel, and Spirit Taphza Benezelthar Thascraphimarah. I had the small pox and rickets very young--Ascendent to Conjunction, Mars, and Sol to the quartile of Saturn. I was at Tardebich in Warwickshire, neer Hewel, where my mother was borne, and there I learned, and so carefull were they to keep me to the book and from danger, that I had one purposely to attend me at school and at home. For, indeed, my parents were both of them honourably descended. They put me to learn the Latine tongue to one Mr George Linacre, the minister of the Gospel at Golton; of him I learned the Latine and Greek perfectly, and then was fitted for Oxford. But the Warrs began, and the Sun came to the body of Saturn and frustrated that design; and whereas you are pleased to stile me a noble-natured, sweet gentleman, [2] you see my nativity:--Mercury, Venus, and Saturn are strong, and by them the Dragon's head and Mars, I judge my behaviour full of rigour, and acknowledge my conversation austere. In my devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat, and hand, with all those outward and sensible motions which may express or promote invisible devotion. I followed the army of the King to Edgehill, and commanded a troop of horse, but never violated any man, &c., nor defaced the memory of saint or martyr. I never killed any man wilfully, but took him prisoner and disarmed him; I did never divide myself from any man upon the difference of opinion, or was angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps, within a few dayes, I should dissent myself. I never regarded what religion any man was of that did not question mine. And yet there is no Church in the world whose every part so squares unto my conscience, whose articles, constitutions, and customs seem so consonant unto reason, and, as it were, framed to my particular devotion as this whereof I hold my belief, the Church of England, to whose faith I am a sworn subject, and therefore in a double obligation subscribe unto her articles, and endeavour to observe her constitutions. Whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe according to the rules of my private reason, or the humour and fashion of my devotion, neither believing this because Luther affirmed it, or disproving that because Calvin hath disfavoured it. Now as all that dye in the war are not termed souldiers, neither can I properly term all those that suffer in matters of religion martyrs. And I say, there are not many extant that in a noble way fear the face of death lesse than myselfe; yet from the moral duty I owe to the commandement of God, and the natural respects that I tender unto the conversation of my essoine and being, I would not perish upon a ceremony, politique points, or indifferency; nor is my belief of that untractable temper, as not to bow at their obstacles or connive at matters wherein there are not manifest impieties. The leaves, therefore, and ferment of all, not only civil, but religious actions, is wisdome, without which to commit ourselves to the flames is homicide, and, I fear, but to passe through one fire into another. I behold, as a champion, with pride and spirites, and trophies of my victories over my enemies, and can with patience embrace this life, yet in my best meditations do often defie death; I honour any man that contemns it, nor can I love any that is afraid of it--this makes me naturally love a souldier that will follow his captain. In my figure you may see that I am naturally bashful. Yet you may read my qualities on my countenance. About the time I travelled into Spain, Italy, Turkey, and Arabia, the Ascendent was then directed to the Trine of the Moon, Sextile of Mercury and Quartile of Venus. I studied philosophy and writ this treatise, [3] and the 'Temple of Wisdome,' &c. Conversation, age, or travell hath not been able to affront or enrage me, yet I have one part of the modesty which I have seldom discovered in another, that is (to speak truly), I am not so much afraid of Death as ashamed thereof. It is the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our beloved friends stand afraid and start at us; the birds and beasts of the field that before in a naturall feare obeyed us, forgetting all allegiance, begin to prey upon us. This very thought in a storm at sea hath disposed and left me willing to be swallowed up in the abyss of waters, wherein I had perished unseen, unpitied, without wondering eyes, tears of pity, lectures of morality, and none had said;--Quantum mutatus ab illo. Not that I am ashamed of the anatomy of my parts, or can accuse Nature of playing the pupil in any part of me, or my own vitious life for contracting any shameful disease upon me, whereby I might not call myself a compleat bodyed man, free from all diseases, sound, and, I thank God, in perfect health.
"I writ my 'Harmony of the World,' when they were all at discord, and saw many revolutions of kingdomes, emperours, grand signiours, and popes; I was twenty when this book was finished, but me thinks I have outlived myself, and begin to be weary of the Sun, although the Sun now applies to a Trine of Mars. I have shaken hands with delight and know all is vanity, and I think no man can live well once but he that could live twice, yet for my part I would not live over my howres past, or begin again the minutes of my dayes, not because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse. At my death I mean to take a total adieu of the world, not caring for the burthen of a tombstone and epitaph, nor so much as the bare memory of my name to be found anywhere, but in the Universal Register of God. I thank God that with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of Hell, nor never grew pale at the mention of Sheol, or Tophet, &c., because I understand the policy of a pulpit, and fix my contemplations on Heaven.
"I writ the 'Rosie Crucian Infallible Axiomata,' in foure books, and study not for my own sake only but for theirs that study not for themselves. In the Law I began to be a perfect clerk; I writ the 'Idea of the Law,' &c., for the benefit of my friends and practice in the King's Bench. I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pitty them that know lesse. For Ignorance is rude, uncivill, and will abuse any man, as we see in bayliffs, who are often killed for their impudent attempts; they'll forge a warrant and fright a fellow to fling away his money, that they may take it up; the devill, that did but buffet St. Paul, playes me thinks at Sharpe with me. To do no injury nor take none, was a principle which to my former years and impatient affection seemed to contain enough of morality, but my more settled years and Christian constitution have fallen upon severer resolutions. I hold there is no such thing as injury, and if there be, there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of an injury. There be those that will venture to write against my doctrine, when I am dead, that never durst answer me when alive. I see Cicero is abused by Cardan, who is angry at Tully for praising his own daughter; and Origanus is so impudent, that he adventures to forge a position of the heavens and calls it Cornelius Agrippa's nativity, and they say that Cornelius was borne to believe lyes and to broach them. Is not this unworthiness to write such lyes, and shew such reasons for them? His nativity I could never finde, I believe no man knows it, but by a false figure thus they scandalize him. And so they may use me, but behold the scheam of my nativity in Geomancy, and the character of my spirit Taphzabnezeltharthaseraphimarah, projected by a learned lord for the honour (? hour) of birth. Now let any astrologer, geomancer, philosopher, &c., judge my geniture; the figures are right according to the exact time of my birth, rectified by accidents and verified by the effects of directions. Now in the midst of all my endeavours, there is but one thought that dejects me--that my acquired parts mast perish with myself, nor can be legacyed amongst my dearly beloved and honoured friends. I do not fall out or contemn a man for an errour, or conceive why a difference in opinion should divide an affection; for a modest reproof or dispute, if it meet with discreet and peaceable natures, doth not infringe the laws of charity in all arguments.
"When the mid heaven was directed to the Trine of the Moon, I writ another book, and entituled it, 'The Fundamental Elements of Philosophy, Policy, Government and the Laws,' &c. After this time I had many misfortunes, and yet I think there is no man that apprehends his own miseries less than myself, and no man that so nearly apprehends another's. I could lose an arm without a tear, and with few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces, yet can I weep seriously, with a true passion, to see the merciless Rebels in England forge a debt against the King's most loyall subjects, purposely to put them in the Marshalsey, or other Houses of Hell to be destroyed in prison, or starved, or killed by the keepers, and then two or three poore old women for as many shillings shall perswade the Crowner and the people to believe the men dyed of consumptions. It is a barbarous part in humanity to add unto any afflicted parties' misery, or endeavour to multiply in any man a passion whose single nature is already above his patience.
"The Ascendent to the Quartile of Saturn, and part of Fortune to the Sextile of the Moon came next; and it is true I had loved a lady in Devonshire, but when I seriously perused my nativity, I found the seventh House afflicted, and therefore never resolve to marry; for, behold, I am a man, and I know not how: I was so proportioned 1 and have something in me that can be without me, and will be after me, and here is the misery of a man's life; he eats, drinks, and sleeps to-day that he may do so tomorrow, and this breeds diseases, which bring death, 'for all flesh is grass.' And all these creatures we behold are but the herbs of the field digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves; we are devourers not onely of men but of ourselves, and that not in an allegory but a positive truth, for all this masse of flesh which we behold came in at our mouths; this frame we look upon hath been upon our trenchers, and we have devoured ourselves, and what are we? I could be content that we might raise each other from death to life as Rosie Crucians doe without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vain way of coition as Dr Brown calls it. It is the foolishest act a wise man commits all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cold imagination than to consider what an odd errour he hath committed. [4] Had the stars favoured me, I might have been happy in that sweet sex.
"I remember also that this Quartile of Saturn imprisoned me at a messenger's house for contending with Cromwell, who maliciously commanded I should be kept close in Lambeth House, as indeed I was two years. My person he feared, and my tongue and pen offended him, because, amongst many things, I said particularly, such a day he would die, and he dyed. It is very true Oliver opposed me all his life, and made my father pay seventeen-hundred pounds for his liberty; besides, they stole, under pretence of sequestering him, two thousand pounds in jewels, plate, &c., and yet the King's noblest servants suffer upon suspition of death.
"When the moon was directed to the Quartile of Sol, and the M. C. to the opposition of Sol, I was by the phanatick Committee of Safety committed to prison, and my books burnt, yet I would not entertain a base design, or an action that should call me villain, for all the riches in England; and for this only do I love and honour my own soul, and have, methinks, two arms too few to embrace myself. My conversation is like the Sun with all men, and with a friendly aspect to good and bad. Methinks there is no man bad, and the worst best, that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities wherein there is good. The method I should use in distributive justice I often observe in commutation, and keep a geometrical proportion in both, whereby becomming equal to others, I become unjust to myself, and suberogate in that common principle, 'Doe unto others as thou wouldst be done unto thy self'; yet I give no alms to satisfie the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of God. This general and indifferent temper of mine doth nearly dispose me to this noble virtue amongst those million of vices I do inherit and hold from Adam. I have escaped one and that a mortal enemy to charity, the first and father sin, not onely of man, but of the devil, Pride--a vice whose name is comprehended in a monosyllable, but in its nature not circumscribed with a world. I have escaped it in a condition that can hardly avoid it; these petty acquisitions and reputed perfections that advance and elevate the conceits of other men add no feather unto mine. And this is the observation of my life--I can love and forgive even my enemies."
The materials supplied in this singular fragment of an autobiography are supplemented by a "Life of John Heydon," from the pen of Frederick Talbot, Esq., which was prefixed to "The Wise Man's Crown," and which I shall present to my readers in a compressed form, to avoid the prolixity and irrelevance of much of the original.
John Heydon, the son of Francis and Mary Heydon, now of Sidmouth in Devonshire, is not basely but nobly descended. Antiquaries derive them from Julius Heydon, King of Hungary and Westphalia, that were descended from the noble family of Cæsar Heydon in Rome, and since this royal race the line runs down to the Hon. Sir Christopher Heydon of Heydon, near Northwick; Sir John Heydon, late lord-lieutenant of the king's Tower of London, and the noble Chandlers in Worcestershire of the mother's side, which line spread by marriage into Devonshire, among the Collins, Ducks, Drues, and Bears. He had one sister, named Anne Heydon, who dyed two years since, his father and mother being yet living. He was born at his father's house in Green-Arbour, London, and baptized at S. Sepulchre's, and so was his sister, both in the fifth and seventh years of the reign of King Charles I. He was educated in Warwickshire, among his mother's friends, and so careful were they to keep him and his sister from danger, and to their books, that they had one continually to wait upon them, both to the school and at home.
He was commended by Mr John Dennis, his tutor in Tardebick, to Mr George Linacre, priest of Cougheton, where he learned the Latine and Greek tongues. The war at this time began to molest the universities of this nation. He was then articled to Mr Michael Petty, an attorney at Clifford's Inn, with eighty pound, that at five years' end he should be sworn before Chief Justice Roll. Being very young, he applyed his minde to learning, and by his happy wit obtained great knowledge in all arts and sciences. Afterwards he followed the armies of the King, and for his valour commanded in the troops. When he was by these means famous for learning and arms, he travelled into Spain, Italy, Arabia, Ægypt, and Persia, gave his minde to writing, and composed, about twenty years since, "The Harmony of the World," and other books, preserved by the good hand of God in the custody of Mr Thomas Heydon, Sir John Hanmer, Sir Ralph Freeman, and Sir Richard Temple. During the tyrant's time first one had these books, then another, and at last, at the command of these honourable, learned, and valiant knights, they were printed.
He wrote many excellent things, and performed many rare experiments in the arts of astromancy, geomancy, &c., but especially eighty-one--the first upon the King's death, predicted in Arabia by him to his friends; the second upon the losses of the King at Worcester, predicted at Thauris, in Persia; the third predicted the death of Oliver Cromwell in Lambeth House, to many persons of honour, mentioned in his books; the fourth he wrote of the overthrow of Lambert, and of the Duke of Albymarle his bringing again of the King to his happy countries, and gave it to Major Christopher Berkenhead, a goldsmith at the Anchor, by Fettes Lane End in Holborn; the fifth precaution or prediction he gave to his Highness the Duke of Buckingham, two months before the evil was practised, and his enemy, Abraham Goodman, lies now in the Tower for attempting the death of that noble prince; the sixth, for Count Grammont, when he was banished into England by the King of France; and he predicted, by the art of astromancy and geomancy, the King's receiving of him again into favor, and his marriage to the Lady Hamelton; the seventh, for Duke Minulaus, a peer of Germany, that, the Emperour sent to him when the Turk had an army against him, and of the death of the pope. The rest are in his books. By these monuments the name of Heydon, for the variety of his learning, was famous not onely in England, but also in many other nations into which his books are translated. He hath taught the way to happiness, the way to long life, the way to health, the way to wax young, being old; the way to resolve all manner of questions, present and to come, by the rules of astromancy and geomancy, and how to raise the dead.
He is a man of middle stature, tending to tallness, a handsome straight body; an ovall, ruddy face, mixed with a clear white, his hair of a dark flaxen-brown colour, soft, and curling in rings gently at the ends of the locks; his hands and fingers long and slender, his legs and feet well proportioned, so that to look upon he is a very compleat gentleman. But he never yet cast affection on a woman, nor do I find him inclined to marry. He is very often in great ladies' chambers, and, I believe, his modest behaviour makes them the more delighted in his company. The princes and peers, not only of England but of Spain, Italy, France, and Germany, send to him dayly, and upon every occasion he sheweth strong parts and a vigorous brain. His wishes and aimes speak him owner of a noble and generous heart; his excellent books are admired by the world of lettered men as prodigies of these later times; indeed (if I am able to judge anything), they are full of the profoundest learning I ever met withal'. if any man should question my judgement, they may read the comendations of both universities, besides the learned Thomas White and Thomas Revell, Esquires, both famous in Rome and other parts beyond sea, that have highly honoured this gentleman in their books. Yet he hath suffered many misfortunes. His father was sequestered, imprisoned, and lost two thousand pounds by Cromwell; this Oliver imprisoned this son also two years and a half, or thereabout, in Lambeth House, for he and his father's family were always for the king, and endeavoured to the utmost his restoration; and indeed the tyrant was cruel, but John Thurloe, his secretary, was kind to him, and pittied his curious youth. Joshua Leadbeater, the messenger, kept him (at his request and Mr John Bradley's) at his own house, and gave him often leave to go abroad, but being yet zealous and active for the king, he was again taken and clapt up in Lambeth House. In these misfortunes it cost him £1000 and upwards. After this, some envious villains forged actions of debt against him, and put him in prison. It seems at the beginning of these misfortunes a certain harlot would have him marry her, but denying her suit, or that he ever promised any such thing, and that he ever spake to her in his life good or evil, she devised, with her confederates, abundance of mischief against him. Many courted him to marry, but he denyed. Now there was left amongst a few old almanacks and scraps of other men's wits, collected and bequeathed unto the world by Nicholas Culpeper, his widdow, Alice Culpeper; she hearing of this gentleman that he was an heir to a great fortune, courts him by letters of love to no purpose. The next saint in order was she that calls herself the German princess; but he flies high and scorns such fowl, great beasts. The first of these two blessed birds caused Heath to arrest him, and another after him laid actions against him that he never knew or heard of.
In this perplexity was he imprisoned two years, for they did desire nothing but to get money or destroy him, for fear, if ever he got his liberty, he might punish them; but he, being of a noble nature, forgave them all their malice, and scorns to revenge himself upon such pittiful things. God indeed hath done him justice, for this Heath consumes to worse then nothing; and, indeed, if I can judge or predict anything, his baudy-houses will be pawned, and he will die a miserable, diseased beggar. Heydon's mistris, when he was very young, and a clerk, desired him to lye with her; but he, like Joseph, refusing, she hated him all her life. God preserved him, although one of these three lewd women swore this gentleman practised the art magick. She told Oliver Cromwell she saw familiar spirits come and go to him in the shape of conies, and her maid swore she had often seen them in his chamber when he was abroad, and sometimes walking upon the house top in a moonshine night, and sometimes vanishing away into a wall or aire; yet she never saw him in her life, nor could she tell what manner of man he was. These stories were not credited, and for all these, and many more, afflictions and false accusations, I never saw him angry, nor did he ever arrest or imprison any man or woman in all his life, yet no client of his was ever damnyfied in his suit.
He was falsly accused but lately of writing a seditious book, and imprisoned in a messenger's custody; but his noble friend, the duke of Buckingham, finding him innocent and alwaies for the king, he was discharged, and indeed this glorious duke is a very good and just judge; although some speak slightly of him, he studies the way to preserve his king and country in peace, plenty, and prosperity. It is pitty the king hath no more such brave men as he; a thousand such wise dukes as this,
"Like marshall'd thunder, back'd with flames of fire,"
would make all the enemies of the King and Christendome quake, and the Turk fly before such great generals. In all submission we humbly pray for this great prince, and leave him to his pleasure, and return to our subject.
John Heydon hath purposely forsaken Spittle-Fields, and his lodgings there, to live a private life, free from the concourse of multitudes of people that daily followed him; but if any desire to be advised, let them by way of letter leave their business at his booksellers, and they shall have answer and counsel without reward, for he is neither envious nor enemie to any man; what I write is upon my own knowledge.
He writes now from Hermeupolis, a place I was never at. It seems, by the word, to be the City of Mercury, and truly he hath been in many strange places, among the Rosie Crucians, and at their castles, holy houses, temples, sepulchres, sacrifices; all the world knows this gentleman studies honourable things, and faithfully communicates them to others; yet, if any traduce him hereafter, they must not expect his vindication. He hath referred his quarrel to the God of Nature; it is involved in the concernments of his truths, and he is satisfied with the peace of a good conscience. He hath been misinterpreted in his writing; with studied calumnies, they disparage his person whom they never saw, nor perhaps will see. He is resolved for the future to suffer, for he says, "God condemns no man for his patience." His enemies are forced to praise his vertue, and his friends are sorry he hath not ten thousand pounds a year. He doth not resent the common spleen; and when the world shall submit to the general tribunal, he will find his advocate where they shall find their judge. When I writ this gentleman's life, God can bear me witness, it was unknown to him, and for no private ends. I was forced to it by a strong admiration of the mistery and majesty of Nature written by this servant of God and secretary of Nature. I began his life some years since, and do set it down as I do finde it. If any man oppose this I shall answer; if you are for peace, peace be with you; if you are for war, I have been so too (Mr Heydon doth resolve never to draw sword again in England, except the King command him). Now, let not him that puts on the armour boast like him that puts it off. Gaudet patientia duris is his motto, and thus I present myself a friend to all artists, and enemy to no man.
The list of Heydon's published works is as follows:--
Eugenius Theodidactus, The Prophetical Trumpeter . . . illustrating the Fate of Great Britain. (A celestial vision in heroic verse) . . . By the Muses' most unworthy John Heydon. London, 1655.
A New Method of Rosie Crucian Physick; wherein is shewed the cause and . . . cure of all diseases. London, 1658. 4to.
Advice to a Daughter in opposition to advice to a Son, or directions for your better conduct through the various and most important events of this life. London, 1658. 12mo.
The Idea of the Law charactered from Moses to King Charles. London, 1660. 8vo.
The Rosie Crucian Infallible Axiomata; or, generall rules to know all things past, present, and to come. London, 1660. 12mo.
The Holy Guide, Leading the Way to the Wonder of the World: A Compleat Phisitian, teaching the knowledge of all things, past, present, and to come. London, 1662. 8vo.
Theomagia; or, The Temple of Wisdome. In three parts spirituall, celestiall, and elementall. London, 1662-3-4. 8vo.
The Harmony of the World, being a discourse of God, Heaven, Angels, Stars, Planets, Earth, &c., whereunto is added the State of the New Jerusalem. . . . London, 1662. 8vo.
Psonthonpanchia; Being a Word in Season to the Enemies of Christians, and an appeal to the natural faculties of the mind of man, whether there be not a God. London, 1664. 8vo.
The Wise Man's Crown; or, The Glory of the Rosie-Cross . . . with the full discovery of the true Cœlum Terræ, or first matter of the Philosophers. . . . With the Regio Lucis, and Holy Household of Rosie Crucian Philosophers. London, 1664. 8vo.
El Havarevna; or, the English Physitian's Tutor in the Astrobolismes of Mettals Rosie Crucian. London, 1665. 8vo.
The philosophical principles of John Heydon need hardly detain us long. That Typhon is the adversary of Beata Pulchra, that Hyle is the spirit of the cold and dry earth, that Beata Pulchra is the vivifying spirit of Nature, that the bodies of the dead rebellious angels became a fruitless and unprofitable chaos, are matters which will scarcely interest the serious student. His alchemical theories and experiments belong to the lowest dregs of this much degraded science, except in those parts which are bodily stolen from Eugenius Philalethes; [5] and all that is of value in his numerical mysticism, geomantic revelations, astromancy, and investigations of spiritual mysteries, is derived from anterior writers. His medical treatises are disfigured by his gross superstition and credulity; but the unheard of experiments and recipes which they occasionally provide make them extremely curious reading. Très rares, très curieux, et récherchés des amateurs, his books, one and all, command large prices in the market, and the republication of his marvellous Rosicrucian reveries and romances, is a venture that deserves well at the hands of all students of the byways of occultism.
In John Heydon we find the names Rosicrucian, Rosicrucianism, &c., used in a general sense, and as terms to conjure with. The supposed brethren are confounded with the elder alchemists, theosophists, etc., and an irrational antiquity is gratuitously bestowed on them. The author denies that he is a member of the Fraternity, but he interprets all its secrets, and expounds all its doctrines, in an authoritative manner, and he claims personal acquaintance with various members of the Society, as will appear from the following
1. The portraits prefixed to several of John Heydon's works represent him as a young, beardless man, of an amiable but melancholy countenance.
2. This account is addressed to the high priest or grand master of the Rosicrucians, in whose presence he represents himself to be standing.
3. "The Holy Guide."
4. "I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition: it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed. I speak not in prejudice, nor am averse from that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful."--Religio Medici, pt. ii. sec. 9.
5. Compare the "Temple of Wisdome," vol. i., last pages, with the Preface to Vaughan's "Euphrates," and also with the "Occult Philosophy" of Agrippa, book iv.
Apologue for an Epilogue.
I shall here tell you what Rosie Crucians are, and that Moses was their Father, and he was Θεοῦ παῖς; some say they were of the order of Elias, some say the Disciples of Ezekiel; others define them to be the Officers of the Generalissimo of the World, that are as the eyes and ears of the Great King, [1] seeing and hearing all things; they are seraphically illuminated, as Moses was, according to this order of the Elements, Earth refined to Water, Water to Air, Air to Fire, so of a man to be one of the Heroes, of a Hero a Daemon, or good Genius, of a Genius a partaker of Divine things, and a companion of the holy company of unbodied Soules and immortal Angels, and according to their vehicles, a versatile, life, turning themselves, Proteus-like, into any shape.
But there are yet arguments to procure Mr. Walfoord, and T. Williams, Rosie Crucians by election, and that is the miracles that were done by them in my sight; for it should seem Rosie Crucians were not only initiated into the Mosaical Theory, but have arrived also to the power of working miracles, as Moses, Elias, Ezekiel, and the succeeding Prophets did, being transported where they please, and one of these went from me to a friend of mine in Devonshire, and came and brought me an answer to London the same day, which is four dayes journey; they taught me excellent predictions of Astrology and Earthquakes; they slack the Plague in Cities; they silence the violent Winds and Tempests; they calm the rage of the Sea and Rivers; they walk in the Air; they frustrate the malicious aspect of Witches; they cure all Diseases. I desired one of these to tell me whether my Complexion were capable of the society of my good Genius? When I see you again, said he, I will tell you, which is when he pleases to come to me, for I know not where to go to him. When I saw him again, then he said, Ye should pray to God; for a good and holy man can offer no more acceptable sacrifice to God than the oblation of himself, his soul. [2]
He said also, that the good Genii are as the benigne eyes of God, running to and fro in the world, with love and pity beholding the innocent endeavours of harmless and single-hearted men, ever ready to do them good, and to help them; at his going away he bid me beware of my seeming friends, who would do me all the hurt they could, and cause the Governours of the Nations to be angry with me, and set bounds to my liberty: which truly happened to me. Many things more he told me before we parted, but I shall not name them here.
This Rosie Crucian Physick or Medecines, I happily and unexpectedly light upon in Arabia, which will prove a restauration of health to all that are afflicted with sickness which we ordinarily call natural, and all other diseases. These men have no small insight into the body; Walfoord, Williams, and others of the Fraternity now living, may bear up in the same likely equipage with those noble Divine Spirits their Predecessors; though the unskilfulness in men commonly acknowledges more of supernatural assistance in hot, unsettled fancies, and perplexed melancholy, than in the calm and distinct use of reason; yet for mine own part, I look upon these Rosie Crucians above all men truly inspired, and more than any that professed themselves so this sixteen hundred years, and I am ravished with admiration of their miracles and transcendant mechanical inventions, for the salving the Phænomena of the world; I may without offence, therefore, compare them with Bezaliel and Aholiab, those skilful workers of the Tabernacle, who, as Moses testifies, were filled with the Spirit of God, and therefore were of an excellent understanding to find out all manner of curious work.
Nor is it any more argument that those Rosie Crucians were not inspired, because they do not say they are, then that others are inspired, because they say they are; the suppression of what so happened would argue sobriety and modesty, when as the profession of it with sober men would be suspected of some piece of melancholy and distraction, especially in these things, where the grand pleasure is the evidence and exercise of reason, not a bare belief, or an ineffable sense of life, in respect whereof there is no true Christian but he is inspired. If any more zealous pretender to prudence and righteousness, wanting either leisure or ability to examine these Rosie Crucian Medecines to the bottome, shall notwithstanding either condemn them or admire them, he hath unbecoming ventured out of his sphere, and I cannot acquit him of injustice or folly. Nor am I a Rosie Crucian, nor do I speak of spite, or hope of gain, or for any such matter; there is no cause, God knows; I envie no man, be he what he will be; I am no Physitian never was, nor never mean to be: what I am it makes no matter as to my profession.
Lastly, these holy and good. men would have me know that the greatest sweet and perfection of a vertuous soul is the kindly accomplishment of her own nature, in true wisdome and divine love; and these miraculous things that are done by them are performed in order that the worth and knowledge within them may be taken notice of, and that God thereby may be glorified, whose witnesses they are; but no other happiness accrues to them, but that hereby they may be in a better capacity of making others happy.
This "Apologue" forms a sort of preface to the sixth book of "The Holy Guide," which is thus entitled--
The Rosie Cross Uncovered, and the Places,
Temples, Holy Houses, Castles, and
Invisible Mountains of the Brethren
discovered and communicated to the
World, for the full satisfaction of
Philosophers, Alchymists, Astromancers,
Geomancers, Physitians, and Astronomers.
By John Heydon, Gent, φιλόνομος, a Servant of God, and
a Secretary of Nature.
This publication is a sort of perverted version of the "Fama Fraternitatis." It represents the Rosicrucians as acknowledging the renewed church in England, and its Christian head Carolus Magnus Secundus, and warning "all learned men to take heed of the 'Aurum Chymicum Britannicum,' published by Elias Ashmole, Esquire." [3] It contains some information on English Rosicrucians, which can hardly be taken seriously even by an enthusiastic believer, but which is worth reprinting on account of the curiosity of its details.
1. This is stolen from a treatise on the Immortality of the Soul by Henry More, the Platonist, who applies it to the beneficent genii.
2. This remark is also pirated from the same treatise by Henry More.
3. A reason for this animosity will be found in the preface of Ashmole's "Way to Bliss," which states that work to have been published to prevent the issue of an imperfect copy by Heydon, which Heydon, however, denies.
The Rosicrucians in England.
At this day the Rosie Crucians, that have been since Christ, say their fraternity inhabits the west of England, and they have likewise power to renew themselves and wax young again, as those did before the birth of Jesus Christ, as you may read in many books.
Dr F. saith, somewhere there is a castle in the west of England, in the earth and not on the earth, and there the Rosie Crucians dwell, guarded without walls, and possessing nothing they enjoy all things. In this castle are great riches, the halls fair and rich to behold, the chambers made and composed of white marble. At the end of the hall there is a chimney, whereof the two pillars that sustain the mantle tree are of fine jasper, the mantle is of rich calcedony and the lintel is made of fine emeralds trailed with a wing of fine gold, the grapes of fine silver. All the pillars in the hall are of red calcedoine, and the pavement is of fine amber.
The chambers are hanged with rich clothes, and the benches and bedsteads are all of white ivory, richly garnished with pretious stones; the beds are richly covered; there are ivory presses, whereon are all manner of birds cunningly wrought; and in these presses are gowns and robes of most fine gold, most rich mantles furred with sables, and all manner of costly garments.
And there is a vault, but it is bigger then that in Germany, which is as clear as though the sun in the midst of the day had entred in at ten windows, yet it is sevenscore steps underground. And there are ten servants of the Rosie Crucians, fair young men. C. B. reports this:--"When I first came to the Society, I saw a great oven with two mouths, which did cast out great clearness, by which four young men made paste for bread, and two delivered the loaves to other two, and they sit them down upon a rich cloath of silk. Then the other two men took the loaves and delivered them unto one man by two loaves at once, and he did set them into the oven to bake. At the other mouth of the oven there was a man that drew out the white loaves and pasts, and before him was another young man that received them, and put them into baskets which were richly painted."
C. B. went into another chamber, eighty-one cubits from this, and the Rosie Crucians welcomed him. He found a table ready set and the cloth laid; there stood pots of silver and vessels of gold., bordered with precious stones and pearle, and basons and ewers of gold to wash their hands. Then we went to dinner. Of all manner of flesh, fowl, and fish, of all manner of meat in the world, there they had plenty, and pots of gold, garnished with precious stones, full of wine. This chamber was made of chrystal, and painted richly with gold and azure; upon the walls were written and engraven all things past, prevent, and to come, and all manner of golden medecines for the diseased. Upon the pavement was spread abroad roses, flowers, and herbs, sweet smelling above all savours in the world; and in this chamber were divers birds flying about and singing marvellous sweetly.
In this place have I a desire to live, if it were for no other reason but what the sophist sometimes applied to the mountains--Hos primum sol salutat, ultimosque deserit. Quis locum non amet, dies longiores habentem. But of this place I will not speak any more, lest readers should mistake me, so as to entertain a suspition that I am of this Order. [1]
The medical and other recipes which are given on the authority of the Fraternity may be judged from the following specimens:--
The Rosie Crucians say pearl helpeth swoundings, and withstands the plague of poysons; and smarge and jacinth help the plague, and heale the wounds of venomous stings. The water of Nile makes the women of Egypt quick of conceite and fruitful: sometimes they bear seven children at a birth, and this is salt-peter-water. There is a wonderful vertue in the oyl of tobacco, in the tincture of saffron, in the flower of brimston, in quicksilver, in common salt; and coppress, molten and made a water, kills the poyson of the toadstool. Juyce of poppy and amber, which is no stone but a hard, clammy juyce, called bitumen, easeth the labour of women and the falling-sickness in children.
Now for mettals, if it be true, which all men grant, that precious stones show such power and vertue of healing, what shall the mixtures of all these mettals under a fortunate constellation, made in the conversion of their own planets, do. This mixture they call electrum, sigil, telesme, saying it will cure the cramp, benumming, palsie, falling-sickness, gout, leprosie, dropsie, if it be worn on the heart-finger. Others they make to cause beauty in ladies, &c.
A perfume of R. C. is compounded of the saphirick earth and the æther. If it be brought to its full exaltation, it will shine like the day-star in her fresh eastern glories. It hath a fascinating, attractive quality, for if you expose it to the open air, it will draw to it birds and beasts, and drive away evil spirits. Astrum Solis, or the R. C. mineral sun, is compounded of the æther, and a bloody, fiery-spirited earth; it appears in a gummy consistency, but with a fiery, hot, glowing complexion. It is substantially a certain purple, animated, divine salt, and cureth all manner of venereal distempers, consumptions, and diseases of the mind.
We give another medecine, which is an azure or skie-coloured water, the tincture of it is light and bright, it reflects a most beautiful rainbow, and two drops of this water keeps a man healthy. In it lies a blood-red earth of great vertue.
In the pages that immediately follow, I shall reprint the stories, and allegories which are to be found in the works of John Heydon, and which have reference to the Rosicrucian Order. They may be permitted to speak for themselves. It is obvious that they are devoid of historical value, but they are all excessively curious, and the piece which I have entitled, "Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians," and which forms the general preface to "The Holy Guide," is an interesting romantic fiction.
1. This passage is stolen from Eugenius Philalethes. Cf. p. 313 of this history.
A very true Narrative of a Gentleman R. C., who hath the continual society of a Guardian Genius. [1]
Oblation of itself was such a sacrifice to God, that a good and holy man could offer no greater, as appears by the acceptance of a gentleman by descent from the lynes of the Plantaginets, who was in Egypt, Italy, and Arabia, and there frequented the society of the inspired Christians, with whom he became acquainted after this manner. In England, being at a tavern in Cheap-side more to hear and better his judgment of the reputed wise than to drink wine, their discourse being of the nature and dignity of Angels, which was interrupted by a gentleman, for so he appeared, that said to another in the company--"Sir, you are not far from the Kingdome of God." At this many were silent, yet several thoughts arose; some desired this strange gentleman to stay, but he refused, and being pressed, he gave the gentleman a paper of white and yellow powder, bade him read the chapter that lay open in the Bible in his chamber, and sing such psalms; then the window flew open and the gentleman vanished.
He burnt the pouder as he was bid, and there appeared a shining flye upon the Bible which he had in his hand. This vanished whilest he slept, which was then about eight in the morning, Gemini being the ascendant, and Mercury in Virgo. The gentleman conceived that this spirit had been with him all his life-time, as he gathered from certain monitory dreams and visions, whereby he was forwarned as well of several dangers as vices.
Mr. Waters and two gentlemen more were at his house, and desired him to go along with them to the Exchange, and dine with them and some other merchants, which he did, and going along, one of them espied a ball of gold upon his breast shining so gloriously that it dazled the eyes of them all, and this continued all the rising of Mercury, who was then in Vergo. This spirit discovered himself to him after he had for a whole year together earnestly prayed to God to send a good angel to him, to be a guide of his life and action; also he prayed for a token that this was the will and pleasure of God, which was granted, for in a bright shining day, no cloud appearing, there fell a drop of water upon his hat, which to this day is not dry, and, I think, never will be, although it be worne in this hot weather.
He prayes God to defend him and guide him in the true religion, reading two or three hours in the Holy Bible.
After this, amongst many other divine dreams and visions, he once in his sleep seemed to hear the voice of God, saying to him, "I will save thy soul; I am He that before appeared unto thee." Since doth the spirit every day knock at his doore about three or four o'clock in the morning. He rising, there appeareth a child of faire stature, very comely, who gave him a book which he keepeth very well, yet letteth many see it that can prevaile with him; this book is full of divine things, such as I never red or heard of. Another time his candle did fall down upon the ground and went out, and there appeared before him something about the bignesse of a nut, round and shining, and made a noyse; he strived to take it up, but it turned like quicksilver, so that he could not handle it.
Many gentlemen have been in his company when he hath been pulled by the coat, as they have seen but could not perceive who did it; sometimes his gloves, lying at one end of the table, have been brought and given him, but they see the gloves, as they thought, come of themselves.
Another time, being with some merchants at dinner that were strangers to this spirit, and were abashed when they heard the noise but saw nothing, presently a paper was given to the gentleman, who read it, and so did the others. It said that he should serve God and fear nothing, for the enemies of his father which hated him should all surely die, and so should all that sought to do him hurt, and to be assured he named such a man, and said he shall die such a day, and he died. The merchants were strucken with fear, but he bid them be of good courage, for there was no hurt towards them, and, the better to assure them of it, he told the truth of the whole matter.
Ever since this spirit hath been alwaies with him, and by some sensible signe did ever advertise him of things, as by striking his right eare, if he did not well, if otherwise, his left; if any danger threatened, he was foretold of it. When he began to praise God in psalms, he was presently raised and strengthened with a spiritual and supernatural power. He daily begged of God that He would teach him His will, His law, and His truth; he set one day of the week apart for reading the Scripture and meditation, with singing of Psalms all the day in his house, but in his ordinary conversation he is sufficiently merry, if he like his company and be of a cheerful minde; if he talk of any vain thing, or indiscreetly, or offer to discover any secret he is forbidden, or if he at any time would discover any inspired secret, he is forthwith admonished thereof in his eare. Every morning he is called to prayer. He often goes to meet the Holy Company at certain times, and they make resolution of all their actions.
He gives almes secretly, and the more he bestows the more prosperous he is; he dares not commit any known fault, and hath by Providence of God been directed through many eminent dangers; even those that sought his life died.
At another time, when he was in very great danger, upon the ascendant coming to the body of the Sun, and the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter opposing his ascendant, he being newly gone to bed, he said that the spirit would not let him alone till he had raised him again and told him he was falsely accused, wherefore he watched and prayed all that night. The day after he escaped the hands of his persecutors in a wonderful manner--one died and the other is very sick. Then came a voice to him, saying, "Sing Qui sedit in Latibulo Altissimi."
Many other passages happen to this party daily, as a hundred will testifie; but it is an endless labour to recite them all. The man is now alive, in good health, and well known among all men to be a friend to all and desirous to do good.
1. This story is another theft from the works of Henry More, who does not state that the subject of the narrative was "a gentleman R. C."
John Heydon encounters the Spirit Euterpe.
Walking upon the plains of Bulverton Hill to study numbers and the nature of things one evening, I could see, between me and the light, a most exquisite divine beauty, her frame neither long nor short, but a main decent stature; attired she was in thin loose silks, but so green that I never saw the like, for the colour was not earthly; in some places it was fancied with gold and silver ribbands, which looked like the sun and lyllies in the field of grass. Her head was overcast with a thin floating tiffany, which she held up with one of her hands, and looked, as it were, from under it. Her eyes were quick, fresh, and celestial, but had something of a start, as if she had been puzzled with a suddain occurrence. From her vaile did leer locks break out, like sun beams from a mist; they ran disheveld to her brest, and then returned to her cheeks in curls and rings of gold. Her hair behind her was rowled to a curious globe, with a small short spire flowered with purple and skie-colour knots. Her rings were pure intire emeralds, for she valued no metal,. and her pendants of burning carbuncles. In brief, her whole habit was youthful and flowery; it smelt like the East, and was thoroughly ayrd with rich Arabian diapasms.
Whilst I admired her perfections, and prepared to make my addresses, she prevents me with a voluntary approach. Here, indeed, I expected some discourse from her, but she, looking very seriously and silently in my face, takes me by the hand and softly whispers: "My love I freely give you, and with it these tokens--mystery and signet; the one opens, the other shuts; be sure to use both with discretion. As for the mysteries of the Rosie Cross, you have my Library to peruse them all. There is not anything here but I will gladly reveal it unto you; I will teach you the virtues of numbers, of names, of angels, and genii of men. I have one precept to commend to you--you must be silent. You shall not in your writings exceed my allowance; remember that I am your love, and you will not make me a prostitute. But because I wish you serviceable to those of your own disposition, I give you an emblematical type of my sanctuary, namely, the Axiomata of the R. C., the secrets of numbers, with a full priviledge to publish it. And now I am going to the invisible region, amongst the ethereal goddesses. Let not that proverb take place with you, Out of sight, out of mind. Remember me and be happy."
I asked her if she would favour me with her name. To this she replyed very familiarly, as if she had known me long before:--"My dear friend H., I have many names, but my best beloved is Euterpe. Observe in your R. C. Axiomata that the genuine time of impression of characters, names, angels, numbers, and genii of men, is when the principles are Spermade and Callado; but being once coagulated to a perfect body, the time of stellification is past. Now the R. C. in old time used strange astrological lamps, images, rings, and plates, with the numbers and names engraven, which at certain hours would produce incredible extraordinary effects. The common astrologer he takes a piece of metalls, another whining associate he helps him with a chrystal stone, and these they figure with ridiculous characters, and then expose them to the planets, not in an Alkemust, but as they dream they know not what. When this is done, all is to no purpose, but though they faile in their practice, they yet believe they understand the Axiomata of numbers well enough. Now, my beloved J. H., that you may know what to do, I will teach you by example:--Take a ripe grain of corn that is hard and drye; expose it to the sun beams in a glass or other vessell, and it will be a dry grain for ever; but if you do bury it in the earth, that the nitrous saltish moysture of the element may dissolve it, then the sun will work upon it and make it sprout to a new body. It is just thus with the common astrologer; he exposeth to the planets a perfect compacted body, and by this meanes thinkes to perform the Rosie Crucian Gamaœa, and marry the inferiour and superiour worlds.
"It must be a body reduced into sperme, that the heavenly feminine moisture, which receives and retains the impress of the Astrall Agent; may be at liberty, and immediately exposed to the masculine fire of Nature. This is the ground of the Beril, but you must remember that nothing can be stellified without the joynt magnetism of three heavens--what they are you know already."
When she had thus said, she took out of her bosom two miraculous medalls with numbers and names on them; they were not metalline, but such as I had never seen, neither did I conceive there was in Nature such pure and glorious substances. In my judgment, they were two magical Telesms, but she called them Saphiricks of the sun and moon. These miracles Euterpe commended to my perusal, and stopt in a mute ceremony. She lookt upon me in silent smiles, mixt with a pretty kind of sadness, for we were unwilling to part, but her hour of translation was come, and, taking, as I thought, her last leave, she past before my eyes into the ether of Nature, excusing herself as being sleepy--otherwise she had expounded them to me. I lookt, admired, and wearied myself in that contemplation; their complexion was so heavenly, their continuance so mysterious, I did not well know what to make of them. I turned aside to see if she was still asleep, but she was gone, and this did not a little trouble me. I expected her return till the day was quite spent, but she did not appear. At last, fixing my eyes on that place where she sometimes rested, I discovered certain pieces of gold, full of numbers and names, which she had left behinde her, and hard by a paper folded like a letter. These I took up, and now the night approaching, the evening star tinned in the West, when taking my last survey of her flowery pillow, I parted from it in these verses--
"Pretty green bank, farewel, and mayst thou wear
Sun-beams, and rose, and lillies all the year;
She slept on thee, but needed not to shed
Her gold, 'twas joy enough to be her bed.
Thy flowers are favourites, for this loved day
They were my rivals, and with her did play;
They found their heaven at hand, and in her eyes
Enjoy'd a copy of their absent skies.
Their weaker paint did with true glories trade,
And mingl'd with her cheeks one posy made;
And did not her soft skin confine their pride,
And with a skreen of silk her flowers divide,
They had suck'd life from thence, and from her heat
Borrow'd a soul to make themselves compleat.
O happy pillow! though thou art laid even
With dust, she made thee up almost a heaven;
Her breath rain'd spices, and each amber ring
Of her bright locks strew'd bracelets o'er thy spring.
That earth's not poor, did such a treasure hold,
But thrice inrich'd with amber, spice, and gold."
Thus much at this time and no more am I allowed by my mistress Euterpe to publish. Be, therefore, gentle reader, admonished, that with me you do earnestly pray to God, that it please Him to open the hearts and ears of all ill-hearing people, and to grant unto them His blessing, that they may be able to know Him in His omnipotency, with admiring contemplation of Nature, to His honour and praise, and to the love, help, comfort, and strengthening of our neighbours, and to the restoring of all the diseased by the medecines above taught.
I had given you a more large account of the mysteries of Nature and the Rosie Cross, but whilst I studyed medecines to cure others, my deare sister Anne Heydon dyed, and I never heard she was sick (for she was one hundred miles from mee), which puts an end to my writings, and thus I take my leave of the world. I shall write no more; you know my books by name, and this I write that none may abuse me by printing books in my name, as Cole does Culpeper's. I return to my first happy solitudes.
Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians.
We travelled from Sydmouth for London and Spain by the south sea, taking with us victuals for twelve moneths, and had good winds from the East, though soft and weake, for five moneths' space and more. But then the winds came about into the West, so as we could make little way, and were sometimes in purpose to turn back. Then again there arose strong and great winds from the South, with a point East, which carried us up towards the North, by which time our victuals failed us, and we gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. We did lift up our hearts and voices to God, beseeching Him of His mercy that He would discover land to us, that we might not perish. The next day about evening we saw before us, towards the North, as it were thick clouds, which did put us in hope of land, knowing that part of the south sea was utterly unknown, and might have islands or continents hitherto not come to light. We bent our course thither all that evening, and in the dawning of the next day discerned a land flat and full of boscage. After an houre and a half's sayling, we entred into a good haven, the port of a faire city, not great indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from sea. We came close to shore, and offered to land, but straightwayes we saw divers people with bastons in their hands forbidding us, yet without any cryes or fierceness, but onely warning us off by signes that they made, whereupon, being not a little discomfitted, we were advising with ourselves what we should do, during which there made forth to us a small boat, with about eight persons in it, whereof one had in his hand a tipstaff of yellow cane, tipped at both ends with green, who came aboard without any shew of distrust, and drew forth a little scroule of parchment, somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing tables, but otherwise soft and flexible, and delivered it to our foremost man. In this scroule were written in antient Hebrew, antient Greeke, good Latine of the School, and in Spanish, these words:--"Land ye not, none of you, and provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen dayes, except you have further time given you. Mean while, if you want fresh water, victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repaire, write down your wants, and you shall have that which belongeth to mercy." This scroule was signed with a stamp of cherubin's wings, not spread but hanging downwards, and by them a crosse. This being delivered, the officer returned, and left onely a servant to receive our answer. Consulting amongst ourselves, the denial of landing, and hasty warning us away, troubled us much; on the other side, to finde the people had languages, and were full of humanity, did comfort us; above all, the signe of the crosse was to us a great rejoycing and a certain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue--that our ship was well, our sick many, and in very ill case, so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran in danger of their lives. Our other wants we set down in particular, adding that we had some little merchandize, which, if it pleased them to deale for, might supply our wants without being chargable unto them. We offered some reward in pistolet unto the servant, and a piece of crimson velvet for the officer, but he took them not, nor would scarce look upon them, and so left us in another boat which was sent for him.
About three hours after there came towards us a person of place. He had a gown with wide sleaves of a kinde of water chamolot, of an excellent green colour, farre more glossie than ours. His under apparel was green azure, and so was his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made and not so large as Turkish turbans. The locks of his haire came below the brims of it. A reverend man was he to behold. He came in a boat partly gilt, with foure persons more, and was followed by another boat, wherein were some twenty. When he was within a flight-shot of our ship, signes were made that we should send some to meet him, which we presently did in our ship boat, sending the principall man amongst us, save one, and foure of our number with him. When we were come within six yards of their boat, they called to us to stay, and thereupon the man whom I before described stood up, and with a loud voice, in Spanish, asked, "Are ye Christians?" We answered that we were, at which he lift up his right hand towards Heaven, and drew it softly to his mouth (which is the gesture they use when they thank God), and then said, "If ye will swear by the merit of the Saviour that ye are no pirates, nor have shed blood, lawfully or unlawfully, within forty dayes past, you may have license to land." We said that we were all ready to take that oath, whereupon one of those with him, being, as it seemed, a notarie, made an entrie of this act, which done, another, after his lord had spoken a little to him, said:--"My lord would have you know that it is not of pride that he commeth not aboard your ship, but for that you declare that you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by the conservation of health that he should keep a distance." We were his humble servants, and accounted for great honour and singular humanity towards us that which had been already done, but hoped that the nature of the sickness was not infectious. So he returned, and a while after came the notary aboard, holding a fruit like an orange, but of colour between orange-tawney and scarlet, which cast a most excellent odour. He used it for a preservative against infection. He gave us our oath, "by the name of Jesus and His merits," and told us that next day, by six in the morning, we should be sent to and brought to the strangers' house, where we should be accommodated both for our whole and our sick. When we offered him some pistolets, he smiling said he must not be twice paid for one labour.
The next morning there came the same officer that came to us at first with his cane, to conduct us to the strangers' house. "If you will follow my advice," said he, "some few will first go with me and see the place, and how it may be made convenient for you; then you may send for your sick and the rest of your number." We thanked him, and said that this care which he took of desolate strangers God would reward, and six of us went ashore with him. He led us thorow three faire streets, and all the way there were gathered some people on both sides in a row, but in so civill a fashion as if it had been not to wonder at us, but to welcome us. Divers of them as we passed put their arms a little abroad, which is their gesture when they bid any welcome. The strangers' house is faire and spacious, built of brick, and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambrick oyled. He brought us into a faire parlour above staires, and then asked what number of persons we were, and how many sick? We answered that we were in all 250, whereof our sick were seventeen. He desired us to stay till he came back, which was about an houre after, and then he led us to see the chambers provided for us, being in number 250. They cast it that foure of those chambers, which were better than the rest, might receive foure of our principal men; the rest were to lodge us. The chambers were handsome, cheerful, and furnished civilly. Then he led us to a long gallery, where he showed us along one side seventeen cells, having partitions of cedar, which gallery and cells, being in all 900, were instituted as an infirmary. He told us withall that as any one sick waxed well he might be removed to a chamber, for which purpose there were set forth ten spare chambers. This done, he brought us back to the parlour, and lifting up his cane a little, as they doe when they give any command, said to us:--"Ye are to know that the custom of the land requireth that, after this day and to-morrow, which we give you for removing your people from your ship, you are to keep within doores for three dayes; do not think yourselves restrained, but rather left to your rest. You shall want nothing; there are six of our people appointed to attend you for any businesse you may have abroad." We gave him thanks with all affection and respects, and said:--"God surely is manifested in this land." We offered him also twenty pistolets, but he smiled, and said:--"What! twice paid!" and so left us. Soon after our dinner was served in, which was right good viands both for bread, meat, wine, &c., better than any diet that I have known in Europe. We had drink of three sorts, ale, beer, syder, all wholesome; wine of the grape, and another drink of grain, like our mum but more clear, and a kinde of perry, like the peare juice, made of a fruit of that countrey, a wonderfull pleasing and refreshing drink. Besides, there were brought in great store of those scarlet oranges for our sick, which were an assured remedy for sicknesse taken at sea. There was given us also a box of small grey pills which they wished our sick should take, one every night before sleeping, to hasten their recovery. The next day, after that our trouble of carriage of our men and goods out of our ship was somewhat settled, I thought good to call our company together, and said unto them;--"My dear friends, let us know ourselves, and how it standeth with us. We are cast on land, as Jonas was out of the whale's belly, when we were as buried in the deep, and now we are on land, we are but between death and life, for we are beyond both the old world and the new. Whether ever we shall see Europe God onely knoweth. A kinde of miracle hath brought us hither, and it must be little lesse that shall take us hence. Therefore in regard of our deliverance past, and danger present, let us look to God and every man reform his own wayes. We are come amongst a Christian people, full of piety and humanity. Let us not bring confusion of face upon ourselves by shewing our vices or unworthinesse, They have cloistered us for three daies; who knoweth whether it be not to take some taste of our manners and conditions, and if they find them bad to banish us straight wayes, if good to give us further time? For God's love let us so behave ourselves as we may be at peace with God and may finde grace in the eyes of this people." Our company with one voice thanked me for my good admonition, and promised to live soberly and civilly, without giving the least occasion of offence. We spent our three dayes joyfully, during which time we had every houre joy of the amendment of our sick.
Return to Ancien Regime
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