Penitence is “the best of all medicines”. We must lose confidence in ourselves, and in the world. Once the flesh is mortified, that is governed by the Spirit, the Spirit of God lives in us. Wisdom destroys man to renovate him; she humiliates him to exalt him. She darkens him to make in him a new light. This is accomplished by the alchemy of regeneration. The more frequently the metal ‘dies’, the more it is transmuted into noble metal, the more it abandons its old ‘body’. The better the metal, the more it must die, to reveal the gold. If you are especially gifted, expect to suffer. The more often he dies, the more death illuminates him by the resurrection of Christ in himself. The imitation of Christ is the real alchemy, culminating in the real New Man.
Besold uses the image of the Christian knight and of ‘the sleeping fiancé’, brought in time to the rose-garden. Few are called there, and few are chosen. The chosen are the elect : nothing to be proud of. The elect are not a sect, which is always a human invention and therefore ultimately sterile. Besold quotes Augustine : “I was searching for you outside of myself, and did not find the God in my heart.” God is at the centre of the soul.
Regarding the path of the mystics and the seeing-of-visions, Besold says that visions are dangerous for those not thoroughly schooled in humility, (as occult and mainstream history makes abundantly clear). The divine garden is always there, but no-one can force entry. The door is always ajar, but not everyone can enter. We make our own barriers. Besold regrets the blindness of man who cannot see the signs sent to awaken him. Paraphrasing the gospel (Matthew XIV. 22-27), Besold writes how Christ returned at the fourth watch of the night to the boat of the disciples (meaning the time of Luther), but was unrecognised and taken for a ghost. The Church-boat is still rocking with the winds of doctrinal conflict and will continue to do so until the moment comes when Christ will re-enter the boat and the ocean will become calm.
But the ocean will not be calm. The already wild surface is about to receive a colossal splash whose waves will billow for a generation.
Christoph Besold
“I was searching for you outside of myself, and did not find the God in my heart”
*Quotations from Schwenckfeld (pp. 116 - 118) appear in Williams, George, The Radical Reformation (Westminster, US, 1962, pp. 106 - 112, 257f., 466ff.).
*Quoted by Roland Edighoffer in his analysis of Christoph Besold in his excellent and invaluable study of the Rosicrucian phenomenon, Rose-Croix et Société Ideale (2 vols. Paris, 1982).
Chapter Nine
The Greatest Publicity Stunt of all Time
A ROSE, as fair as ever saw the North,
Grew in a little garden all alone;
A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth,
Nor fairer garden yet was never known :
The maidens danced about it morn and noon,
And learned bards of it their ditties made;
The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon,
Water'd the root and kissed her pretty shade.
But well-a-day! - the gardener careless grew;
The maids and fairies both were kept away,
And in a drought the caterpillars threw
Themselves upon the bud and every spray.
God shield the stock! If heaven send no supplies,
The fairest blossom of the garden dies.27
The Rose
1613 : a year before the publication of the Fama. While two responses to the manuscript version emerge - one from ‘I.B’ in Prague, the other from Joannes Combach in Marburg - the Czech genius and Rose-Cross enthusiast Johann Amos Comensky (Comenius) enters the city of Heidelberg. He is just in time to see the Elector of the Palatine Frederick V returning to that city in a triumphal parade with the King of England, Scotland and Ireland's daughter, the learned and beautiful Princess Elizabeth as his bride.
There were great hopes for the Elector Frederick. He was identified with the symbolic animal of the Palatinate : the lion - and was not the lion the beast who defeated the many-headed eagle in the second, apocalyptic Book of Esdras? That fearsome Habsburg eagle was now flapping its feathers in Bohemia, where the new Emperor Matthias was overseeing a growing reversal of Rudolf II's laws of Toleration : laws which had been established to protect the Bohemian Protestants. The Bohemian Protestants looked to Frederick as their future king. Now he was wed to the daughter of the most powerful Protestant monarch in the world, surely their cause was not only just but politically powerful. Those who had seen and remembered Simon Studion's Naometria (completed in 1604) may have recalled the conclusion to that gigantic work : a six-part choral canon which had called for King James of Britain, Frederick of Württemberg, and the Lily of France (in the person of the tolerant King Henri IV of Navarre, now dead) to rally behind the banner of the Rose. In spite of signs of a growing political crisis in central Europe, great men in England, Scotland and Germany saw the union of Frederick and Elizabeth as one full of extraordinary promise : a great expansion of neo-Elizabethan culture, a new beginning for the whole world : a time of toleration, wisdom, knowledge and art : an age of gold.
During the previous year (1612) the Paracelsian doctor and alchemist Michael Maier of Rostock (1568-1622), formerly physician to the Emperor Rudolf II, had been in England. Soon he was to work for both Moritz von Hessen and for Augustus von Anhalt. He would also become, along with England's very own Paracelsian Hermetist Dr. Robert Fludd, the most determined supporter of the Rosicrucian cause. While in Britain, (where he met James I's physician Sir Wiliam Paddy and very probably the aforementioned Fludd), Maier sent a curious Christmas card to James I. The card, on parchment three feet by two, consisted of a huge rose divided into eight petals : a rose formed of various pious and optimistic Latin phrases whose dominant message offered “Greetings to James, for a long time King of Great Britain. By your true protection may the rose be joyful.”
The Fama's strong bias towards medicine may well have attracted Maier to the Fraternity - had he seen it at this stage. (Maier was in Prague at the time of I.B's early response from that city). We certainly cannot be sure as to what significance the word “rose”28 had for him in this context, any more than that “rose” of Simon Studion behind which enlightened princes were invited to gather round in 1604 (the year of Christian Rosenkreuz's exhumation, according to the Confessio Fraternitatis). Holding back the supposition that the Rose referred to the Fraternity of the Rose-Cross, let us first consider more pertinent avenues, principally in the realm of alchemy, that art so dear to the hearts of Fludd, Maier and Maier's patrons.
The rose had undoubted symbolic, alchemical associations with, for example, the alchemical Pleroma and with Christ; with the womb of the Virgin (wherein the Christ-Lapis=Stone is born) and above all with the lapis philosophorum, the philosopher's Stone itself29. Furthermore, there is the red-and-white rose, the “golden flower” of alchemy and birthplace of the filius philosophorum - the regenerated human-being - which appears in the English alchemical Ripley Scrowle of 158830. The “rose-garden of the philosophers” is one of the favourite images of alchemy, with a many-layered matrix of appropriate meanings. The Rose might have indicated an eloquent and simple password for those seeking the Stone - at whatever level (for the Stone is polyvalent) : including the Stone of political and religious unity.
In the Rosarium philosophorum (1550), well-known to Maier and to most alchemists of the time, the lapis says : “Protect me and I will protect you. Give me my due that I may help you.” This could make sense as a meaningful symbol for political and spiritual co-operation. Meanwhile, close inspection of the unique Christmas card which Maier sent to James I reveals at the Rose's centre a point in a circle. Not only does this bring to mind the heavenly rose at the heart of Dante's Paradiso (=Garden)31 but it also symbolises the fountain at the centre of the Rose-garden : the unifying spiritual heart from which all Good flows : the analogue for the spiritual stone - the lost stone of unity, lost when the Reformation split Europe into religious pieces. (The symbolism of the poi
nt in the circle also pertains to the ideal of the Third Degree Master Mason in early 18th century Freemasonry). It would then I think seem reasonable to take the Rose as representing a gathering-point or shorthand for the deepest political and spiritual endeavours of the time. A simple question such as : “Are you for or against the Rose?” would immediately elicit knowledge of the correspondent's political and spiritual proclivity.
Sure enough, history suggests something of this nature was indeed being assiduously sought by powerful and not-so-powerful people in Germany and Great Britain32. Ludwig and Christian of Anhalt (the politically active elder brothers of Augustus) were already planning a new union of Protestant Princes to centre around Frederick and his English wife Elizabeth, whose parentage seemed to suggest British support for their schemes. Comenius, who had come from Bohemia (where Protestants put hope in Frederick's legitimate candidacy for the Bohemian crown) to Heidelberg for his studies, must have gazed in wonder at the great celebrations in Heidelberg, as the bells rang out across the Neckar to welcome the English Rose, Elizabeth33.
Meanwhile, word was getting about (in highly select circles) of a secret Fraternity of the Rose-Cross. The Rose and the Cross - could Johann Valentin Andreae ever have dreamed that his family coat-of-arms - the S. Andrew's cross with four roses : might suddenly gain such powerful meaning to those steeped in symbolism, in a world where politics was frequently expressed in symbolic references? We know that Augustus von Anhalt had seen a copy of the Fama and wanted to know more. Did he speak about it with his brother Ludwig (based a few miles away at Köthen), friend of Frederick of the Palatinate, a man with whom he shared ‘literary interests’?
The Furore Begins
The publication of the Fama Fraternitatis represents not only the “greatest publicity-stunt of all time”, sparking off a movement which persists to this day, but it also provided Europe with its first multinational conspiracy story. Indeed, every occult conspiracy story since owes its basic shape to the excitement generated by the prospect of a secret, underground body of initiates pledged to change the world by invisible means, privy to all knowledge, advanced science and vast wealth. Whether or not readers thought such a prospect dangerous or as something wonderful to be welcomed with open arms depended very much on whether that person was in fundamental sympathy with the aims of the Brotherhood. Since the Confessio Fraternitatis (published as a follow-up in 1615) made it clear that the Brotherhood stood against the Papacy, response to the Brotherhood was likely to be split according to religious affiliation. Furthermore, it did not take long before the plea for universally shared knowledge and the announcement of enlightenment began to appear as an attempt to subvert the established order of government, education and religion. It was - but not in the way its enemies thought.
From 1614 until the mid-1620s when the Thirty Years War began to take the steam out of the furore, Europe was split between those in favour of the Rosicrucian movement, and who wished to join its ranks, and those who were against it. Wiser commentators stayed on the fence, a few aware of the method behind the apparent madness of the Rosicrucian self-publicity : to stir up debate on fundamental issues regarding the nature and orientation of religion and science. One thing was for sure, whoever had published the Fama had taken any control the Tübingen circle might have had over its dissemination right out of their hands. As a published work the Fama began to look very different indeed from a select manuscript submitted for private consideration and intimate response. This no longer looked like an enquiry into the minds of men of learning; this was a broad, politico-religious manifesto. The authors may well have been shaken by the reaction - although in the first instance one does suspect a mite of ribald laughter at the sight of people looking for an invisible fraternity while remaining completely blind to that fraternity which could be realised all about them. The Philosopher's Stone was, according to the alchemists, everywhere to be found but nowhere seen. Andreae and others pondered upon the words of John's Gospel (I.10-11) : He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. The world, Besold said, is a sect.
The Stone Falls
Initial response to the Fama came in the form of a bewildering number of books and pamphlets which flew back and forth across northern and central Europe. Many wished to join; some defended the movement, some even said they were members of the Brotherhood -or knew somebody who was. Others virulently opposed the Brotherhood, accusing it of heresy and worse crimes. Some writers wrote defending the Brotherhood one day while repudiating it the next. The Brotherhood was sought everywhere, but found nowhere. Surely, some surmised, the Brotherhood must be invisible! The Fama had fallen like a catalyst into the religious and intellectual bosom of Europe, winnowing out a vast array of pros and contras.
In Tübingen: Wilhelm Schickhard, Wilhelm Bidenbach, Thomas Lanz, Abraham Hölzl, Samuel Hafenreffer - all pro. Caspar Bücher, Theodor Thummius34, Lucas Osiander35 -against. In Darmstadt: Theophilus Schweighardt (real name, Daniel Mögling36) and Heinrich Nollius37 - both for the Brotherhood. In Frankfurt : Johann Bringer and Lucas Jennis - both printers and both pro. In Marburg: Rudolph Goclenius, Georg Zimmerman, Raphael Eglin38, Johann Hartmann, Joannes Combach and Philipp Homagius39 - all in favour. In Ulm: opposition from Zimbertus Wehe, Johann Hebenstreit and Conrad Dieterich. In favour: Johann Faulhaber, a brilliant mathematician40. In Augsburg, carrying a torch for the Brotherhood were Carl Widemann, David Ehinger and from 1617 Adam Haslmayr, lately returned from sea.
In Coburg lived one of the most active and virulently anti-Rosicrucian writers: Andreas Libavius41. Libavius was a famous ‘chymist’ who, while approving Paracelsus' introduction of chemistry into medicine, absolutely despised the magical interest in Paracelsus and stood as a staunch defender of traditional Galenic and Aristotelian medicine. In fact Libavius was against the whole gamut of Renaissance occult philosophy : John Dee, Magia, Cabala, Hermes Trismegistus, Agrippa, Trithemius - anyone of a gnostic tinge. He was also deeply suspicious of the politics of the manifestos, linking their hopes to extravagant plans for a ‘Paracelsist Lion’. Following the defeat of Frederick V at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 (after the fateful monarch had acceded to the Bohemian Protestants' wish that he take the throne of Bohemia) the ‘Rosicrucians’ were even more strongly attacked as political renegades, utopian subversives and spiritual terrorists in a series of vicious pro-Habsburg pamphlets.
Another regular contributor to the anti-Rosicrucian pamphlet war was Friedrich Grick, a private tutor from Altdorf near Nuremberg who also wrote under the pseudonyms Irenaeus Agnostus (Irenaeus being of course the chief patristic anti-Gnostic theologian), Menapius and other fanciful names. Grick seems to have been obsessed by the Rosicrucians and one suspects that his perpetual forays into print, approving of this and disapproving of that, evinced some conflict in his own mind; he really could not let the matter drop. Like so many others at the time, he was hooked. He may also have been enduring an identity-crisis. In Tintinabulum Sophorum (Nuremberg, 1619) he talks of “our” Fama and “our” brotherhood. Indeed, he blames the Brotherhood for trickery and then tells his readers that Christian love is the gold of their alchemy. He seems rather confused and admits as much himself in a reply to one Justus Cornelius who had written to him - he was now setting himself up as an expert on the subject - (not difficult to do when the ‘real’ Rosicrucians refused to stand up) :
The first author of the Fama and Confessio R.C. is a great man and wishes particularly to remain a while longer concealed. He desired, however, only to learn the opinions of people and of these he experienced many kinds. …I originally took [him] for a mad or capricious innovator; for this reason I set myself against him and wrote the Fortalitum Scientiae but when my first writing saw the light I learned that I had written a tragedy with jesting words and, at least with the curious, had provoked judgement and condemnation.
Grick devoted his future works to rebutting those who used
the Rosicrucian works for their own ends; he was embarrassed.
Meanwhile, Leipzig gave a good showing of pro-Rosicrucian works: Kerner, Schwanbach; Paul Nagel42 (Augustus von Anhalt's astrologer) and Paul Felgenhauer43. Erfurt's Johann Weber was against. Herrn Isaias Stiefel and Meth from Langensalzach were pro. Dresden's Matthias Höe was in favour, while Johann Francus of Bautzen had a foot in both camps.
The case of the gnostic Jacob Böhme of Görlitz, Upper Lusatia, is an interesting one. Even today some Rosicrucian enthusiasts count Böhme the German Theosopher as one of the Brotherhood since he had absorbed so much of the mysticism and Paracelsian terminology for which the manifestos appeared to demonstrate such approval, and clearly Böhme was an illuminated man. Böhme read the manifestos and thought them interesting but mad. His devoted follower Balthasar Walter, on the other hand, admired both the Rosicrucians and the messianic-type mystagogue Steifel. Böhme wrote against Steifel (the latter had used Böhmist theosophy), in response to which the astrologer Nagel and his friends moved to suppress Böhme's work, since they admired Stiefel so much. Nagel claimed he knew a nobleman who was a Rosicrucian (he might have been thinking of his patron Augustus von Anhalt) and himself went to great lengths to find the Brotherhood but, as for everyone else, the search proved vain. The mist thickened into fog, the fog into darkness. The less hard fact was forthcoming, the deeper and more fantastic the speculations became. One man appeared, Philip Ziegler by name, who claimed to be the King of the Rosicrucians, declaring that John Dee was one of their Fraternity. Confusion reigned. Recriminations flew thick and fast. Madness was in the air, and Andreae sighed.
The Golden Builders Page 18