THE REFORMATION: ROSICRUCIAN CONNECTIONS 2

The Jesuit Oath

(The Superior speaks:)

My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the dissembler: among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to be a spy even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. Among the Reformers, to be a Reformer; among the Huguenots, to be a Huguenot; among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among other Protestants, generally to be a Protestant; and obtaining their confidence, to seek even to preach from their pulpits, and to denounce with all the vehemence in your nature our Holy Religion and the Pope; and even to descend so low as to become a Jew among Jews, that you might be enabled to gather together all information for the benefit of your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope. You have been taught to plant insidiously the seeds of jealousy and hatred between communities, provinces, states that were at peace, and to incite them to deeds of blood, involving them in war with each other, and to create revolutions and civil wars in countries that were independent and prosperous, cultivating the arts and the sciences and enjoying the blessings of peace; to take sides with the combatants and to act secretly with your brother Jesuit, who might be engaged on the other side, but openly opposed to that with which you might be connected, only that the Church might be the gainer in the end, in the conditions fixed in the treaties for peace and that the end justifies the means. You have been taught your duty as a spy, to gather all statistics, facts and information in your power from every source; to ingratiate yourself into the confidence of the family circle of Protestants and heretics of every class and character, as well as that of the merchant, the banker, the lawyer, among the schools and universities, in parliaments and legislatures, and the judiciaries and councils of state, and to be all things to all men, for the Pope's sake, whose servants we are unto death. You have received all your instructions heretofore as a novice, a neophyte, and have served as co-adjurer, confessor and priest, but you have not yet been invested with all that is necessary to command in the Army of Loyola in the service of the Pope. You must serve the proper time as the instrument and executioner as directed by your superiors; for none can command here who has not consecrated his labours with the blood of the heretic; for "without the shedding of blood no man can be saved". (Journals of the 62nd Congress, 3rd Session, of the United States Congressional Record (House Calendar No. 397, Report No. 1523, 15 February, 1913, pp. 3215-3216) (European Institute of Protestant Studies)

 

See: Mystery Babylon: Catholic or Jewish?

JOHN CALVIN

Calvin was also a Jew and an agent of the Prieure de Sion.

“Contrary to general belief, Calvinism is of Jewish origin. It was deliberately conceived to split the adherents of the Christian religions and divide the people. Calvin's real name was Cohen! When he went from Geneva to France to start preaching his doctrine he became known as Cauin. Then in England it became Calvin. History proves that there is hardly a revolutionary plot that wasn't hatched in Switzerland; there is hardly a Jewish revolutionary leader who hasn't changed his name.

“At B'nai B'rith celebrations held in Paris, France, in 1936 Cohen, Cauvin, or Calvin, whatever his name may have been, was enthusiastically acclaimed to have been of Jewish descent (The Catholic Gazette, February, 1936).

“‘As long as there remains among the Gentiles any moral conception of the social order, and until all faith, patriotism, and dignity are uprooted, our reign over the world shall not come...And the Gentiles, in their stupidity, have proved easier dupes than we expected them to be. One would expect more intelligence and more practical common sense, but they are no better than a herd of sheep. Let them graze in our fields till they become fat enough to be worthy of being immolated to our future King of the World...We have founded many secret associations, which all work for our purpose, under our orders and our direction. We have made it an honor, a great honor, for the Gentiles to join us in our organizations, which are, thanks to our gold, flourishing now more than ever. Yet it remains our secret that those Gentiles who betray their own and most precious interests, by joining us in our plot, should never know that those associations are of our creation, and that they serve our purpose.

"‘One of the many triumphs of our Freemasonry is that those Gentiles who become members of our Lodges, should never suspect that we are using them to build their own jails, upon whose terraces we shall erect the throne of our Universal King of the Jews; and should never know that we are commanding them to forge the chains of their own servility to our future King of the World...We have induced some of our children to join the Christian Body, with the explicit intimation that they should work in a still more efficient way for the disintegration of the Christian Church, by creating scandals within her. We have thus followed the advice of our Prince of the Jews, who so wisely said: 'Let some of your children become cannons, so that they may destroy the Church.' Unfortunately, not all among the 'convert' Jews have proved faithful to their mission. Many of them have even betrayed us! But, on the other hand, others have kept their promise and honored their word. Thus the counsel of our Elders has proved successful.

“‘We are the Fathers of all Revolutions, even of those which sometimes happen to turn against us. We are the supreme Masters of Peace and War. We can boast of being the Creators of the REFORMATION ! Calvin was one of our Children; he was of Jewish descent, and was entrusted by Jewish authority and encouraged with Jewish finance to draft his scheme in the Reformation (which was to convince Christians it was alright to charge usury and other damnable heresies which are in violation of God's Laws).

“‘Martin Luther yielded to the influence of his Jewish friends unknowingly, and again, by Jewish authority, and with Jewish finance, his plot against the Catholic Church met with success. But unfortunately he discovered the deception, and became a threat to us, so we disposed of him as we have so many others who dare to oppose us...Many countries, including the United States have already fallen for our scheming. But the Christian Church is still alive...We must destroy it without the least delay and without the slightest mercy. Most of the Press in the world is under our Control; let us therefore encourage in a still more violent way the hatred of the world against the Christian Church. Let us intensify our activities in poisoning the morality of the Gentiles. Let us spread the spirit of revolution in the minds of the people. They must be made to despise Patriotism and the love of their family, to consider their faith as a humbug, their obedience to their Christ as a degrading servility, so that they become deaf to the appeal of the Church and blind to her warnings against us. Let us, above all, make it impossible for Christians to be reunited, or for non-Christians to join the Church; otherwise the greatest obstruction to our domination will be strengthened and all our work undone. Our plot will be unveiled, the Gentiles will turn against us, in the spirit of revenge, and our domination over them will never be realized.

“’Let us remember that as long as there still remain active enemies of the Christian Church, we may hope to become Master of the World ...And let us remember always that the future Jewish King will never reign in the world before Christianity is overthrown...’”

(From a series of speeches at the B'nai B'rith Convention in Paris, published shortly afterwards in the London Catholic Gazette, February, 1936; Paris Le Reveil du Peuple published similar account a little later). (The Catholic Gazette, February, 1936)

Calvin was an ecumenist.

"Calvin...in a memorandum probably in December 1560...described the 'Free and Universal Council' that was needed 'to put an end to the existing divisions in Christianity'.  It must be free with respect to place of meeting, personnel, and procedure, and bound only by Scripture.  Location should be central to the attending nations. This interesting document offers what is virtually an agenda for the Council, listing numerous points in dispute in the realms of doctrine, worship and polity.  Calvin's council was to be a conference on Faith and Order -- with power.  The Pope was not excluded, but he must submit to the council's decisions and swear to abide by them.  Calvin insists that while a national synod may undertake internal reform, only a genuinely universal council can allay the troubles of Christendom." 84:33-4 (Rouse, History of the Ecumenical Movement)

 

"Edinburgh 1910 gave the impulse which issued in the World Conference on Faith and Order (at Lausanne in 1927)." (Rouse, History of the Ecumenical Movement) 84:360

 

"Now Martin Luther and John Calvin have all made it abundantly clear that they did not think of the church formation which they saw growing up in their lifetime as the last word.  On the contrary, they all thought in terms of the Church Catholic and prayed for the restoration of the full catholicity and unity of the church."  (Harold E. Fey, History of the Ecumenical Movement, Vol. II, p. 123)

 

    "At the time of the massacre of the Waldensians by Francis I (1545), Calvin did his utmost to arouse German and Swiss protests to the French government and to bring relief to the survivors.  In a letter to Bullinger (24 May 1561) he praised the heroic zeal of young volunteers in ministering to their partially restored communities.

    "John Calvin's outlook was ecumenical from the outset, but interest in Church unity was probably quickened by his contacts with Bucer and Strasburg (1538-41). He worked in close harmony with Bucer and formed a friendship with Melanchthon (Luther’s assistant), whom he met first at Frankfurt in 1539. He took a minor part with these men at the Colloquies of Worms, Hagenau and Ratisbon (1540-41). 

    "Calvin had already, during his first period in Geneva, sought a unification of the Swiss Protestants, and had criticized Bucer for his over-zealous insistence on the Wittenberg Concord when this was presented in Berne."  (Rouse, History of the Ecumenical Movement) 84:48-9

Calvin enforced the Old Testament Law.

“Calvin was vicious toward his enemies, acting more like a devouring wolf than a harmless sheep. Historian William Jones observed that ‘that most hateful feature of popery adhered to Calvin through life, the spirit of persecution.’ Note how he described his theological opponents: ‘...all that filth and villainy...mad dogs who vomit their filth against the majesty of God and want to pervert all religion. Must they be spared?’ (Oct. 16, 1555). He hated the Anabaptists and called them ‘henchmen of Satan.’ Four men who disagreed with him on who should be admitted to the Lord's Supper were beheaded, quartered, and their body parts hung in strategic locations in Geneva as a warning to others. He burned Michael Servetus (for rejecting infant baptism and for denying Christ’s deity). Calvin wrote about Servetus, ‘One should not be content with simply killing such people, but should burn them cruelly.’” (FBIS, “The Calvinism Debate”)

Calvin required infant baptism as the continuation of God's covenant with the Jews through circumcision of their infants.

“…John Calvin…was unsound at the very foundation of the Christian faith. Calvin never gave a testimony of the new birth; rather he identified with his Catholic infant baptism. Note the following quotes from his Institutes: ‘At whatever time we are baptized, we are washed and purified once for the whole of life’ (Institutes, IV). ‘By baptism we are ingrafted into the body of Christ ... infants are to be baptized ... children of Christians, as they are immediately on their birth received by God as heirs of the covenant, are also to be admitted to baptism’ (Institutes, IV).” (FBIS, “The Calvinism Debate”)

 

“We have, therefore, a spiritual promise given to the fathers in circumcision, similar to that which is given to us in baptism, since it figured to them both the forgiveness of sins and the mortification of the flesh. Besides, as we have shown that Christ, in whom both of these reside, is the foundation of baptism, so must he also be the foundation of circumcision. For he is promised to Abraham, and in him all nations are blessed. To seal this grace, the sign of circumcision is added.

     4. The difference is in externals only

“There is now no difficulty in seeing wherein the two signs agree, and wherein they differ. The promise, in which we have shown that the power of the signs consists, is one in both, viz., the promise of the paternal favour of God, of forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. And the thing figured is one and the same, viz., regeneration. . . . Hence we may conclude, that every thing applicable to circumcision applies also to baptism, excepting always the difference in the visible ceremony. . .  For just as circumcision, which was a kind of badge to the Jews, assuring them that they were adopted as the people and family of God, was their first entrance into the Church, while they, in their turn, professed their allegiance to God, so now we are initiated by baptism, so as to be enrolled among his people, and at the same time swear unto his name. Hence it is incontrovertible, that baptism has been substituted for circumcision, and performs the same office.

     5. Infants are participants in the covenant

“Now, if we are to investigate whether or not baptism is justly given to infants, will we not say that the man trifles, or rather is delirious, who would stop short at the element of water, and the external observance, and not allow his mind to rise to the spiritual mystery? If reason is listened to, it will undoubtedly appear that baptism is properly administered to infants as a thing due to them. The Lord did not anciently bestow circumcision upon them without making them partakers of all the things signified by circumcision. He would have deluded his people with mere imposture, had he quieted them with fallacious symbols: the very idea is shocking. This distinctly declares, that the circumcision of the infant will be instead of a seal of the promise of the covenant. But if the covenant remains firm and fixed, it is no less applicable to the children of Christians in the present day, than to the children of the Jews under the Old Testament. Now, if they are partakers of the thing signified, how can they be denied the sign? If they obtain the reality, how can they be refused the figure? The external sign is so united in the sacrament with the word, that it cannot be separated from it; but if they can be separated, to which of the two shall we attach the greater value? Surely, when we see that the sign is subservient to the word, we shall say that it is subordinate, and assign it the inferior place. Since, then, the word of baptism is destined for infants why should we deny them the signs which is an appendage of the word? This one reason, could no other be furnished, would be amply sufficient to refute all gainsayers. The objection, that there was a fixed day for circumcision, is a mere quibble. We admit that we are not now, like the Jews, tied down to certain days; but when the Lord declares that though he prescribes no day, yet he is pleased that infants shall be formally admitted to his covenant, what more do we ask?

     6. Difference in the mode of confirmation only

“Scripture gives us a still clearer knowledge of the truth. For it is most evident that the covenant, which the Lord once made with Abraham (cf. Gen. 17:14), is not less applicable to Christians now than it was anciently to the Jewish people, and, therefore, that word has no less reference to Christians than to Jews. Unless, indeed, we imagine that Christ, by his advent, diminished or curtailed the grace of the Father - an idea not free from execrable blasphemy. Wherefore, both the children of the Jews, because, when made heirs of that covenant, they were separated from the heathen, were called a holy seed (Ezra 9:2; Isaiah 6:13), and for the same reason the children of Christians, or those who have only one believing parent, are called holy, and, by the testimony of the apostle, differ from the impure seed of idolaters (I Cor. 7:14). Then, since the Lord, immediately after the covenant was made with Abraham ordered it to be sealed, infants by an outward sacrament (Gen. 17:12), how can it be said that Christians are not to attest it in the present day, and seal it in their children?” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Chapter 16)

Calvinism's 5-point T.U.L.I.P. derived from Gnostic Judaism.

Total Depravity

Unconditional Election

Limited Atonement

Irresistible Grace

Perseverance of the Saints

“Those, therefore, whom God passes by the reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children...

“The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint, it must be directed against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.xxiii.1, 7)

 

“‘Gnosis’ means knowledge. The Gnostic religion was based on the possession of this knowledge: knowledge of God and things divine, either through direct mystical experience, or through the possession of a secret body of doctrine which had been handed down to the initiates...

“...[T]here was a form of pagan Greek Gnosticism and a pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism... The Gnosis, the knowledge which ensures salvation, is the realization by man that he contains a spark of God, and of the necessity of awakening  from the half-life he leads on earth...to a full consciousness of his divinity and of how it has been ensnared in matter. This awakening can lead to several reactions. In any case, the Gnostic is one of the elect...

“...two heresies in particular do show evidence of contact with the sources of the Secret Tradition. These are the heresy of the Cathars and that of the Free Spirit... The word ‘Cathar’ probably comes from the Greek ‘pure,’ [cf. Puritans] and the Cathar doctrines show the sect to have been Gnostic of the ascetic type... Strictly speaking it was not a heresy, but a rival religion; and as such it was ruthlessly wiped out...

“It is interesting to note that Calvin's theory that those destined to salvation would ‘know’ of this and thus be numbered among the elect, is a fair approximation of Gnostic doctrine and had to some extent been anticipated by the heresy of the Free Spirit.” (James Webb, The Occult Underground, pp. 199, 207, 239)

 

“As to the Albigenses, their name derived from Albi, a town of the Languedoc, covered not one but many sects issued from Manicheism and Arianism, and counted also many Jews or judaised Christians. Under this appellation of Albigenses, historians, whether political or religious, have almost unanimously included the Cathares.” [Miller 163-4]

 

"The face (of Frederick V) is not one's idea of a Calvinist face, but Calvinism, in the Palatinate, was the carrier of mystical traditions, of the Renaissance Hermetic-Cabalist tradition which had moved over to that side.  Frederick's spiritual advisor was an 'orientalist'; perhaps, like Rudolph II, he sought an esoteric way through the religious situation." (Francis Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 172)

 

    “What virtues and what vices brought upon the Jew this universal enmity? Why was he in turn equally maltreated and hated by the Alexandrians and the Romans, by the Persians and the Arabs, by the Turks and by the Christian nation? Because everywhere and up to the present day the Jew was an unsociable being.

    “Why was he unsociable? Because he was exclusive, and his exclusiveness was at the same time political and religious or in other words, he kept to his political, religious cult and his law...This faith in their predestination, in their election, enveloped in the Jews an immense pride; they came to look upon non-Jews with contempt and often hatred, when patriotic reasons were added to theological ones.” (L'AntisCmitisme, (1894) Bernard Lazare; LCon de Poncins, The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, (1929).

 

 

 

ROSICRUCIANS & PROTESTANTS TOGETHER

The Rosicrucians infiltrated the Protestant Reformation and labeled their movement "Evangelical," after the medieval heresy of the "Eternal Evangel."

"In some way...there was a connection the Cathars, who were tied with the Bogomils and the older Manichaeans, or followers of Mani. It was from here at the close of the Cathar influence in the Albigensian Crusades that a young boy of the German nobel house of Germel was prepared for training in Persia when he was to come of age. The legend of C.R.C. [Christian Rosencreutz] that was the focus of the first Rosicrucian manifesto published in 1614 was an allegorical vehicle based upon his life and work. Geoffrey de St. Adhemar had also been originally from a town in the Albigensian lands of the Cathars. He later was tutored in the tradition, and co-founded the first Militae Evangelicae in 1089." (Rosicrucian Library)

 

"A Society allied to the Rosicrucians and incorporating much of their philosophy was founded at Lunenberg in 1571, under the name Militia Crucifera Evangelica. The MSS of this Society refers to the Rose and Cross. This organization cooperated with another in Holland, known as the 'Friends of the Cross.'" - "Christian Rosencreutz" (S.R.I.A.)

 

"...it was only with Schelling that the medieval heresy of the Eternal Evangel reappeared. When in 1831 he began to deliver his famous lectures on The Philosophy of Revelation in Munich, he felt himself to be invested with a great mission to announce the universal religion to come, the Church of St John... It has been said that 'Many a listener...had the impression that he was watching the rise of new stage of consciousness and the birth of a new religion.'... Like others, Schelling saw St John as the apostle of the future in concord with Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist in the Old Dispensation, he placed Peter, Paul, and John in the New, representing the three stages in the Christian Church. Peter was the Apostle of the Father, Paul of the Son, while John was the Apostle of the Spirit who was leading mankind into the full truth of the future. The first stage was that of Catholicism, the second of Protestantism, but the third will be the perfect religion of mankind." - 256:62  

 

See: Heeding Bible Prophecy: New Scripture: New Gospel

Protestantism was infested with Rosicrucians by the 17th century.

    ". . . the Fraternity (of the Rosy Cross) has taken on a new significance through the finding of the vault in which Brother Rosencreutz is buried.  The door into this vault was miraculously discovered, and it typifies the opening of a door in Europe which is greatly desired by many. 

    "The description of this vault is a central feature of the Rosencreutz legend. . . . The tomb of Rosencreutz was under the altar in the vault. . .

    "The discovery of the vault is the signal for the general reformation; it is the dawn preceding a sunrise. 'We know. . . that there will now be a general reformation, both of divine and human things, according to our desire and the expectation of others; for it is fitting that before the rising of the Sun there should break forth Aurora, or some clearness or divine light, in the sky.' The date at which the vault was discovered is indirectly indicated as 1604.

    "This very peculiar document, the Fama Fraternitatis, thus seems to recount, through the allegory of the vault, the discovery of a new, or rather new-old, philosophy, primarily alchemical and related to medicine and healing, but also concerned with number and geometry and with the production of mechanical marvels.  It represents, not only an advancement of learning, but above all an illumination of a religious and spiritual nature. This new philosophy is about to be revealed to the world and will bring about a general reformation.  The mythical agents of its spread are the R. C. Brothers.  These are said to be reformed German Christians, devoutly evangelical.  Their religious faith seems closely connected with their alchemical philosophy, which has nothing to do with 'ungodly and accursed gold making', for the riches which Father Rosencreutz offers are spiritual; 'he doth not rejoice that he can make gold but is glad that he seeth the Heavens open, and the angels of God ascending and descending, and his name written in the Book of Life.'" 46:45-6

 

    "Apart from (Johann Valentin) Andreae. . .there are two writers who are generally recognized as the chief exponents of Rosicrucian philosophy.  These are Robert Fludd and Michael Maier.  Though both Fludd and Maier denied that they were Rosicrucians, they both spoke with interest and approval of the Rosicrucian manifestos, and their philosophies are, roughly speaking, in line with the attitudes expressed in the manifestos. But the modes of thought which are veiled in the fictions of the Fama, Confessio, and Wedding are developed by Fludd and Maier into whole libraries of weighty books which were published in the years following the appearance of those three exciting works...

    "It is thus with a sense of satisfaction, as of a confirmation from another quarter of the correctness of the historical line of approach followed in the preceding chapters, that one notes that the major works of Fludd and Maier were published in the Palatinate during the reign of Frederick V. . . Maier was a Lutheran. . ." 46:70, 73

 

"Fludd. . .approves the manifestos.  The Brothers, he maintains, are true Christians.  They are not wickedly magical or seditious.  They would not have trumpeted their message aloud had they been wicked people.  Like Lutherans and Calvinists they are against the Pope but are not therefore heretical.  Perhaps these Brothers are truly illuminated by God. . ." 46:75

   

    "When later defending himself from the charge made against him in England that he had had his books printed 'beyond the seas' because the magic in them forbade their publication in England, Fludd quotes a letter from a German scholar stating that the printer (that is De Bry) had shown his volume before printing to learned men, including some Jesuits, who had all admired it and recommended publication, though the Jesuits disapproved of his sections on geomancy and wished them omitted.  They were, however, evidently not omitted.  Fludd is convinced that his volumes are not distasteful to the Calvinists, amongst whom his printer lives, nor to the Lutherans 'which are his bordering neighbours', nor even to the Papists, who have approved them, but he ignores the fact that, according to himself, the Jesuits had not wholly approved.

    "The first of Fludd's Oppenheim volumes, the 'History of the Macrocosm' of 1617, is dedicated to James I, a most impressive dedication in which James is saluted as 'Ter Maximus', the epithet sacred to Hermes Trismegestus, and as the most potent and wise prince in the world.  The significance of this dedication stands out now that we more fully understand the significance of the publication of Fludd's books at Oppenheim. Fludd and his Palatinate publisher were assuming the interest of James in a work published in his son-in-law's dominions.  They were drawing this most potent prince into their philosophy, assigning to him a Hermetic role.  If this book circulated much in Germany, or in Bohemia, it would have confirmed their impression, or illusion, that thought movements in the Palatinate had the approval of James.

    "We can also now begin to see the situation more clearly from James's point of view.  His son-in-law, and that son-in-law's advisers and friends, were not only trying to involve James in a political line of action of which he disapproved--the activist polity which was leading towards the Bohemian enterprise. They were also trying to involve him in a philosophy of which he disapproved.  James was desperately afraid of anything magic; this was his most deep-seated neurosis.  He had disapproved, of (John) Dee, would not receive him, and relegated him to a kind of banishment.  And now, in his son-in-law's domains, there is published an immense work on the Dee type of Hermetic philosophy, dedicated to him, and attempting by that dedication to draw him into that point of view, or to give the impression that he is favourable to it. . ." 46:77-78

 

"Maier, (was) a devout Lutheran Christian (Fludd was a devout Anglican). . .  Whatever else they may represent, Fludd and Maier are most certainly Hermetic philosophers, representing a kind of Hermetic Renaissance at a time when the original Hermetic impulses of the earlier Renaissance were waning in some quarters."  46:82

 

"Maier may have been influenced by a (Giordano) Bruno tradition as well as by the Dee tradition.  We know that Bruno claimed to have founded a sect of 'Giordanisti' among the Lutherans. (See Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 312-13) Maier was a Lutheran; his intensively Hermetic religious movement might therefore have included some Bruno influence, might be an attempt at the Hermetic reform of religion, the infusion of greater life into religion through the Hermetic influences, such as Bruno had so passionately advocated.  On the other hand the strongly alchemical aspect of Maier's movement points to Dee as the major influence.  Perhaps in the Palatinate type of Hermetic reform, currents descending from the Dee type of Hermetic tradition mingle with a Bruno type." 46:85

 

"Maier is activated by a very strong religious Hermetic impulse, as strong, in its way, as that which had moved Giordano Bruno in the late sixteenth century, though combined in Maier with Lutheran piety---the sort of combination one might expect if Bruno's influence took root in Lutheran circles in Germany." 46:88

 

    "The criticism of the R. C. Brothers. . .rests on the following points.  It is suspected that their activities may be subversive of established government;. . . There is a frequently made general accusation of magical practices. (ff. Defenders maintain that their magic is good and godly.) Finally--and this is one of the most important points--their enemies complain that the religious position of the R. C. Brothers is not clear.  Some call them Lutherans, some Calvinists, and some Socinians or Deists.  They are even suspected of being Jesuits.

    "This is suggestive of what may have been one of the most important aspects of the Rosicrucian movement, that it could include different religious denominations.  As we have seen, Fludd claimed that his work found favour with truly religious persons of all denominations. Fludd was a devout Anglican, friend of Anglican bishops; so was Elizabeth Stuart, the wife of the Elector Palatine.  The Elector was a devout Calvinist, as was Christian of Anhalt, his chief adviser.  Maier was a devout Lutheran, as was also Andreae and many of the other Rosicrucian writers.  The common denominator which would draw all of them together would be the macro-microcosmic musical philosophy, the mystical alchemy, of which Fludd and Meier were the two chief exponents. . ." 46:97-98

 

"The R. C. movement collapsed when the Palatinate movement collapsed, when those inspiring vistas opened up behind the Elector Palatine and his brilliant alliances failed utterly with the flight of the King and Queen of Bohemia from Prague after the Battle of White Mountain, when it was realized that neither the King of Great Britain nor their German Protestant allies would help them, when the Hapsburg troops moved into the Palatinate and the Thirty Years War began its dreadful course." 46:100

 

"Giordano Bruno as he wandered through Europe had preached an approaching general reformation of the world, based on return to the 'Egyptian' religion taught in the Hermetic treatises, a religion which was to transcend religious differences through love and magic, which was to be based on a new vision of nature achieved through Hermetic contemplative exercises.  He had preached this religion, enveloped in mythological forms, in France, England, and Germany.  According to himself, he had formed a sect in Germany, called the 'Giordanisti', which had much influence among the Lutherans." 46:136

 

   "Johann Amos Komensky, or Comenius, born in 1592, was six years younger than Johann Valentin Andreae, whose works and outlook influenced him enormously.  Comenius was one of the Bohemian Brethren, the mystical branch of the oldest reformation tradition in Europe, that stemming from John Huss.  Comenius and Andreae had much in common. Both were devout, reformed clerics; both were interested in new intellectual movements which they grafted on to their native piety, the German Lutheran tradition in one case, in the other, the Hussite tradition.

    "Comenius received his first schooling in his native Moravia and afterwards attended the Calvinist university of Herborn, in Nassau. In the spring of 1613, Comenius left Herborn and made fro Heidelberg to continue his studies at the university. . .

    "Comenius was attending the lectures of the Heidelberg professor David Paraeus . . .(who) was interested in uniting Lutherans and Calvinists; both he and the other professors who lectured to Comenius were closely associated with the Elector Frederick. 46:156

 

"The face (of Frederick V) is not one's idea of a Calvinist face, but Calvinism, in the Palatinate, was the carrier of mystical traditions, of the Renaissance Hermetic-Cabalist tradition which had moved over to that side.  Frederick's spiritual advisor was an 'orientalist'; perhaps, like Rudolph II, he sought an esoteric way through the religious situation." 46:172

THE ROSICRUCIAN ENLIGHTENMENT

The Rosicrucians planned another Reformation which would come through Evangelical Christianity.

    "(Francis) Bacon died in 1626. In 1627 there was published from his papers an unfinished and undated work in which he set forth his Utopia, his dream of an ideal religious and scientific society.  It takes the form of an allegory, about the discovery by storm-tossed mariners of a new land, the New Atlantis.  The inhabitants of the New Atlantis had built there the perfect society, though remaining entirely unknown to the rest of the world.  They were Christians; Christianity had been brought to them in early times, an evangelical Christianity which emphasized brotherly love.  They were also in an advanced state of scientific knowledge.  In their great college, called Salomon's House, an order of priest-scientists pursued researches in all the arts and sciences, the results of which they knew how to apply for the benefit of men.

    "...The religion of the New Atlantis has much in common with that of the Rosicrucian manifestos.  It is intensely Christian in spirit, though not doctrinal, interpreting the Christian spirit in terms of practical benevolence, like the R. C. Brothers. It is profoundly influenced by Hebraic-Christian mysticism, as in Christian Cabala.  The inhabitants of New Atlantis respect the Jews; they call their college after Solomon and seek for God in nature."  46:125-9

 

"We need a reconstruction of our theology on the basis, not of God's sovereignty, but of God's holy love to all mankind, which he has made in his own image, and redeemed with the blood of his own son. Every age must produce its own theology." - 208:476-7

 

". . .a message which is closely parallel to that of the Fama, the need for a new reformation since former attempts at reformation have failed, for a movement which should emphasized Christian love and charity as its main inspiration. . ." - 46:135

 

"The Rosicrucian manifesto may now take on a somewhat wider meaning.  It calls for a general reformation because other reformations have failed.  The Protestant Reformation is losing strength and is divided.  The Catholic Counter-Reformation has taken a wrong turning.  A new general reformation of the whole wide world is called for, and this third reformation is to find its strength in Evangelical Christianity with its emphasis on brotherly love, in the esoteric Hermetic-Cabalist tradition, and in an accompanying turning towards the works of God in nature in a scientific spirit of exploration, using science or magic, magical science or scientific magic, in the service of man." - 46:139

 

"At some time around 1617. . . (Johann Valentin Andreae) urged the formation of 'Christian Unions', or 'Christian Societies'.  These societies or unions were to be inspired by aims very similar to those expressed in the Rosicrucian manifestos.  They were to give expression to a renewal in religion, or a new reformation, to encourage by precept and example the spread of Christian charity and brotherly love, and to engage earnestly in intellectual and scientific activities for the good of mankind." 46:140

 

"Andreae's most important work, the description of the ideal or utopian city of Christianopolis. . .begins by deploring the oppression of the church of Christ by Antichrist, which has aroused the determination to restore light and dispel darkness.  Luther's reformation is now to be succeeded by a new reformation.  The drama of Luther's days 'may be played out in our own day', for 'the light of a purer religion has dawned on us.' Men of fervent spirit. . .have called for a time of meditation and spiritual renewal and for the spread of a new outpouring of the Christian spirit in these times." 46:145

 

"The intense Christian piety of Dee-inspired Christianopolis would perhaps be nearer to Hartlib's strong evangelical pietism and mysticism than Bacon's cooler temperament." -  46:181

THE PURITAN PROTECTORATE (1653-1658)

The term "Puritan" comes from the same root word as the heretical "Cathari" who believed themselves to be "pure".

“The word ‘Cathar’ probably comes from the Greek ‘pure,’ and the Cathar doctrines show the sect to have been Gnostic of the ascetic type. They believed that the world had been created by an evil being—that there were a series of spheres of being between God and the material world-that procreation was evil because it introduced another spark of the divine into matter. These are familiar tenets. In the Languedoc the Cathars flourished, until in 1207 Pope Innocent III solicited help from the magnates of the North to crush the dangerous heresy. Strictly speaking it was not a heresy, but a rival religion; and as such it was ruthlessly wiped out.” (Webb 207)

Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan "Lord Protector" of England, Scotland and Ireland, was financed by Jewish elites.

“When King Charles I was brought into disagreement with his Parliament a Jewish Money-Baron in Holland named Manasseh Ben Israel had his agents contact Oliver Cromwell. They offered him large sums of money if he would carry out their plan to overthrow the British Throne. Manasseh Ben Israel, and other German and French money-lenders financed Cromwell. Fernandez Carvajal of Portugal, often referred to in history as ‘The Great Jew,’ became Cromwell's Chief Military Contractor. He re-organized the Round Heads into a model army. He provided them with the best arms and equipment money could buy. Once the conspiracy was under way, hundreds of trained revolutionaries were smuggled into England and were absorbed into the Jewish Underground. The same thing is going on in America today.

“The head of the Jewish underground in England at that time was a Jew named De Souze. The Great Jew, Fernandez Carvajal, had used his influence to have De Souze appointed Portuguese Ambassador. It was in his house, protected by diplomatic immunity, that the leaders of the Jewish revolutionary underground remained hidden and worked out their plots and intrigue.

“Once the revolution had been decided upon, the Jewish plotters introduced Calvinism into England to split Church and State, and divide the people." (Chronology of The International Conspiracy)

Parliament severed negotiations with King Charles I on January 17, the day on which the Prieure de Sion elects Grand Masters.

January 17, 1648 - "England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No Address, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War." - Wikipedia

Under Cromwell, Parliament took control of the English monarchy and eliminated witch trials.

    "And amongst the earnest enthusiasts for the model society, and its vast possibilities for expansion, was Samuel Hartlib. ...it was the Andraean combination of evangelical piety with science, and the utilitarian application of science, which inspired Hartlib's untiring efforts.

    "And with Hartlib, and his friends and helpers John Dury and John Amos Comenius, the movement returned to England, for it was in Parliamentarian England [Cromwell/Puritan], which had returned to the old Elizabethan role of champion of Protestant Europe, that Hartlib saw the best chance of establishing the new reformation.  As the R. C. Fraternity had represented hopes raised by the English alliance, through the Elector Palatine's English marriage, so, when those hopes failed, it was towards an England restored to its Elizabethan role that Hartlib and his friends turned for support for their ideals of universal reformation, their continuation of the Rosicrucian dream under other names." 46:155

 

    "Those in England, and they were many, who were dissatisfied with the non-Parliamentarian and anti-Puritan, or even potentially Papist, policies of James I and Charles I, looked with longing towards that Protestant royal family at The Hague which represented a possible succession to the throne...

    "Elizabeth was not only popular with loyal monarchists of Protestant sympathy; she was also popular with Parliamentarians.  The Parliaments under James and Charles had always been sympathetic to her and when Parliament overthrew the monarchy, Parliamentarians still continued to feel respect for Elizabeth of Bohemia.  In fact, it may be asked whether if she had succeeded to the throne there might never have been a revolution.  Parliamentarians, and Oliver Cromwell himself, did not really object to monarchy as such.  Oliver thought that monarchy of the Elizabethan type was the best form of government.  The objection was to monarchs who tried to rule without Parliament and whose foreign policy was not directed towards the support of the Protestant cause in Europe.  Elizabeth Stuart was free from these objections to her royal relatives.  In fact, she and her husband really represented the kind of foreign policy which Parliamentarians would have wished James and Charles to follow.  It is thus not surprising that the revolutionary Parliament recognized the right of the Queen of Bohemia to its support.  She had received a pension from Charles I which Parliament continued.  From her court at The Hague, Elizabeth was thus in a position of being able to follow vicissitudes in England without entirely losing touch with either side.  Though she remained absolutely firm in her sympathy for her brother Charles, and was horrified by his death, there were some aspects of Parliamentarian and Cromwellian thinking which were not so much out of line with her position.

    "(Elizabeth) was, so to speak, the ideological link through whom the thoughts of the three 'foreigners', Hartlib, Dury and Comenius, could become acclimatized in an England which was throwing off monarchical despotism."  - 46:173-75

 

    "There has never, I think, been suggested that James's doubtful attitude towards Baconian science might be connected with his very deep interest in, and dread of, magic and witchcraft. These subjects had a fascination for him which was tied up with neuroses about some experiences in his early life. In his Demonology (1597)  James advocated the death penalty for all witches, though he urges care in the examination of cases. The subject was for him a most serious one, a branch of theology. Obviously James was not the right person to examine the - always rather difficult - problem of when Renaissance Magia and Cabala were valuable movements, leading to science, and when they verged on sorcery, the problem of defining the differences between good magic and bad magic. James was not interested in science and would react with fear from any sort of magic.

    "It is not surprising that when old John Dee appealed to James for help in clearing his reputation from charges of conjuring devils, James would have nothing to do with him. Dee's fruitless appeal to James was made in June 1604. The old man to whose learning the Elizabethan age was so infinitely indebted was disgraced in the reign of James and died in great poverty in 1608. Bacon must have taken good note of James's attitude to Dee, and he must also have noted that survivors from the Elizabethan age of mathematics and magic, of navigational boldness and anti-Spanish exploits, were not sure of encouragement under James as they had been under Elizabeth.  Northumberland and Raleigh pursued their studies in prison in the Tower under James, working at mathematics and alchemy with their learned associate, Thomas Hariot.

    "Obviously, Bacon would have been careful to avoid, in works intended to interest James, anything savouring of Dee and his suspicious mathematics.  Even so, Bacon did not succeed in allaying James's suspicions of scientific advancement, however carefully presented.

    "And even more obviously, it was not the way to influence James in favour of his son-in-law's plans and projects in the Palatinate and Bohemia to associate him with a movement which wrapped its designs in enchanted vaults and invisible R. C. Brothers, who could easily be turned into sorcerers by witch-hunters.  Among the many mistakes made by the friends of the unfortunate Elector Palatine, the Rosicrucian manifestos may have been one of the worst.  If any rumour of them came to James's ears, and any rumour of their being associated with Frederick, this would certainly have done more than anything else to turn him against Frederick, and to destroy any hope that he would countenance his projects.

    "Thus Frances Bacon as he propagated advancement of learning, and particularly of scientific learning, during the reign of James 1 was moving amongst pitfalls.  The old Elizabethan scientific tradition was not in favour, and some of its major surviving representatives were shunned or in prison.  The late Queen Elizabeth had asked John Dee to explain his Monas hieroglypica to her;  King James would have nothing to do with its author.  Bacon, when he published The Advancement of Learning in 1605, would have been aware that James had repulsed Dee in the preceding year.  And moreover the  exported Elizabethan traditions, which had gone over to the Palatinate with James's daughter and her husband, were not in favour either.  Francis Bacon was one of those who regretted James's foreign policy and urged support of the Elector Palatine.  Here, too, the writer of English manifestos for the advancement of learning would have to walk warily, lest he might seem to much implicated in movements in the Palatinate." - 46:123-25

 

    "(Hartlib, Dury and Comenius) were the men who came to England and tried to propagate here, universal reformation, advancement of learning, and other utopist ideals.  They represented Bohemia and Germany in exile and dispersion, and if we add to them Theodore Haak, who acted as Comenius's agent in England, we have the Palatinate represented, for Haak was a refugee from the Palatinate.

    "In 1640 the Long Parliament met, angry at Parliament's long exclusion from the affairs of the nation, angry at the domestic policy pursued by the monarchy, and angry, above all, at its foreign policy, which had been one of 'peace with ignominy while the cause of Protestantism was going down abroad'.  When, by the execution of Strafford, this Parliament seemed to have broken the 'tyranny', the way seemed open for a new period in human affairs to begin.  A mood of great enthusiasm was generated and thoughts turned to far-reaching vistas of some universal reformation, in education, in religion, in advancement of learning for the good of mankind. . .

    "In this thrilling hour when it seemed that England might be the land chosen by Jehovah to be the scene of the restoration of all things, when the possibility dawned that here imaginary commonwealths might become real commonwealths, invisible colleges, real colleges, Hartlib wrote to Comenius and urged him to come to England to assist in the great work. Though Parliament did not actually sponsor the invitation, there was general goodwill behind it, and behind a similar one to Dury.  In a sermon delivered to Parliament in 1640, Comenius and Dury were mentioned as the philosophers who should be followed in future reforms.  Comenius in far away Poland was overjoyed.  He believed that he had a mandate from Parliament to build Bacon's New Atlantis in England." - 46:177-8

Oliver Cromwell revived the Rosicrucian Order as Freemasonry.

“The Christian group 'Gold und Rosenkreuzer' (Golden and Rosy Cross) was founded by the alchemist Samuel Richter (Sincerus Renatus) in Prague in the early 18th century...as a deeply hierarchical secret society, composed of internal circles, recognition signs and based upon alchemy treatises... Its members claimed that the leaders of the Rosicrucian Order had invented Freemasonry and only they knew the secret meaning of Masonic symbols. According to this group's legend, the Rosicrucian Order was founded by Egyptian 'Ormusse' or 'Licht-Weise' who emigrated to Scotland with the name 'Builders from the East'. Then the original Order disappeared and was supposed to have been resurrected by Oliver Cromwell as 'Freemasonry'.” (Answers.com)

John Webster (Calvinist/Rosicrucian), Parliamentarian chaplain, changed public attitudes toward the occult sciences.

Webster, John

Affiliation: Calvinist

"A Puritan who was active on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War and did not conform at the Restoration.

"Webster is best known for a famous attack on the university curriculum, Academiarum examen, urging laboratory observation as in chemistry, a work drawing upon the Paracelsian tradition and on Van Helmont, and indebted as well to [Robert] Fludd [Grand Master of Prieure de Sion].

"He published Metallographia, 1671 (possibly an earlier edition in 1661), which again displayed his debt to Paracelsus and Van Helmont. Both in England and on the continent, this book was considered an important work on metals and on minerals.

He also engaged in a debate on witchcraft with Glanvill, Casaubon, and More. Webster rejected witchcraft because Glanvill, Casaubon, and More linked it with magic and the occult sciences, which Webster, the Paracelsian, defended... Chaplain in the Parliamentary army, 1643-8..." (The Scientific Revolution)

 

    "The, as it were, public acknowledgement of the Fama and the Confessio may have encouraged John Webster, a Puritan divine, to come out with a remarkable work in which he urges that 'the philosophy of Hermes revived by the Paracelsian school' should be taught in the universities.  Webster goes very deeply into the kind of doctrines that are behind the Rosicrucian manifestos, urging, like them, the replacement of Aristotelian scholasticism by a Hermetic-Paracelsist type of natural philosophy, through which to learn the language of nature rather than the language of the schools.  His only mention of the 'highly illuminated fraternity of the Rosie Cross' is in connection with the 'language of nature', which he speaks of as a secret known to the 'divinely inspired Teutonic Boehme' and 'in some measure acknowledged' by the Rosy Cross Fraternity, and interesting (and undoubtedly correct) insight into the affinity between Boehme and the Rosicrucian manifestos.

    "Within the 'philosophy of Hermes', Webster includes mathematics particularly as recommended by John Dee in his Preface to Euclid from which Webster quotes at length, with ecstatic encomiums of Dee.  He also profoundly reveres that 'profoundly learned man Dr. Fludd', and he is under the impression that if authors like these--and his book is an amalgam of Paracelsist, Agrippan and similar Renaissance magico-scientific type of thinking, with Dee and Fludd as his favourites---were taught in the universities, 'the arcana and magnalia of nature' arrived at by Francis Bacon might be brought to perfection. . .

    "In the heart of Puritan England, this Parliamentarian chaplain produces a work which is right in the Renaissance magico-scientific tradition, culminating in Dee and Fludd, and he thinks that this is what should be taught in the universities, together with Baconianism. . ." - 46:186

 

   "…Meric Casaubon, in Of Credulity and Incredulity (1668) discusses many wonders which the enlightenment of his age had now proved to be natural phenomena. But he is alarmed at the spread of rationalism and too deeply imbued with reverence for the Bible to question any doctrines which were supposed to emanate from that source. So he condemns as atheists and uneducated all those who denied a league between the devil and men, and dwells on the enormous volume of testimony, ancient and modern, literary and judicial, in proof of sorcery. And yet it is manifest that these scholars were pleading a lost cause. Men believed in witchcraft so long as its horror, grotesqueness and defilement fascinated their imagination. The earlier demonologists had quoted Scripture and the classics to the full, but their conviction really rested on the prurient or ghastly anecdotes with which this superstition abounded. The spell of mystery and horror still exercised its power over the vulgar, and broadsides continued to report cases of bewitchment; but the age had learnt to criticise its own ideas and educated apologists already showed a degree of sensibility and intellectual refinement quite inconsistent with these beliefs. The superstition still seemed to thrive because it had not yet been confronted with the purer, keener outlook of the restoration.

    "This was the work of John Webster. His book The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft (1677) does not contribute any new material to the controversy; in fact, he admits himself that the demonographers had already been “quashed and silenced” by Wier, Tandler, Scot, Ady and Wagstaffe. But, while reproducing their arguments, whether based on theology or common-sense, he did more than they all, by bringing the controversy into an atmosphere in which the superstition could not live: the atmosphere of confidence in nature and reverence for an immaterial God. Now that Hakewill, Harvey, Newton and Locke were teaching men to investigate and not fear the mysteries of life, Webster insists that all evidence in support of sorcery should be subjected to the same scientific scrutiny. Besides, what need was there to suspect the handiwork of the devil in any miracle, when “Mr. Boyl” was able to “manifest the great and wonderful virtues that God hath endowed stones, minerals, plants and roots withal,” when Van Helmont had already proved that metals have even greater healing power and Paracelsus had ascribed this power to God. Now that natural laws were being discovered, Webster represents this God, not according to the old anthropomorphic ideas, but as a transcendental spirit, who rules men through their thoughts and wills. Satan is merely one of the means of communication. Hence, if there is a league between the devil and a witch, it is “internal, mental and spiritual”; the league which always exists between a malefactor and the spirit of evil. For Webster is the first to point out—what many of his contemporaries must have felt—that the current theory of witchcraft was utterly unworthy of the modern conception of human nature. Neurasthenics, whose imaginations have been infected with stories of ghosts and goblins, may conceive themselves to be the victims of all kinds of malpractices and diseases. But the devil only enslaves men by “their corrupt wills and dispositions.”

    "Webster’s book by no means drove out superstition. The belief in necromancy, sortilege and magic exists at the present time in cities as well as in rural districts and will always be found wherever the great emotions of life 84  are wrought to a higher pitch than the intellect. But The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft marks the time when this error definitely lost its hold on men’s lower passions and on the sense of human degradation.  The period of witch persecutions has universally been regarded as the darkest blot on English civilisation and it produced a literature no less dreary. Witch treatises, with a few exceptions, are voluminous, rambling and ill-constructed dissertations in which patristic dogmas and scholastic arguments are endlessly reiterated. And yet one is almost tempted to regard this controversy, together with the civil war pamphlets and the puritan tirades, as an inevitable phase in the evolution of English modern thought.  Movements like the renascence, which appeal chiefly to courtiers and scholars, who, after all, are only the surface of a nation, can well be inspired from foreign sources.  But when a whole people change their attitude of mind, the impulse must come from within.  We have seen how social and political influences drove popular writers to the most extravagant thoughts and utterances, thereby creating an atmosphere in which great works cannot thrive. But, at the same time, it must be remembered that, if informal literature ran to excess, it became, in this way, a self-exposure, and startled the whole nation into an effort towards higher civilisation.  (The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan. XVI. The Advent of Modern Thought in Popular Literature.§ 18. John Wagstaffe’s Question of Witchcraft." (Bartleby)

Rosicrucian poet, John Milton, was Cromwell's Foreign Secretary from 1649 to 1660.

  "During this time, also, 17th Century Rosicrucians protected each other and their sacred works by simply hinting at their connection with the Brotherhood.  They made signature marks or gave signs in papers and books in order for others of like mind to identify their works at any time it was necessary.  The title page of Milton's first edition of Paradise Lost in 10 Books, states that it was "Licensed and Entred according to Order."  The title page of the second edition in 12 Books, however, says only, 'Printed by S. Simmons next door to the Golden Lion'.  Thus, a 'licensing' suggests the sanctioning, and the determination must be made as to the intent of the use of the word, 'Order.'  The "Golden Lion" is an esoteric symbol seen in many of the Hermetic engravings from the Middle Ages and Renaissance that are linked specifically with the Evangelicals or Rosicrucians, among the many names that identified these certain Hermetic resources.  Being 'next door' is being close to or in the same 'place' as something else, i.e., of like nature, even if in this case, it may be a different 'address,' i.e., a different name. (Ref. Addendum for Images of Title Pages) 

    "Additionally, it was a pronounced Rosicrucian practice to scatter partial hints at connections with the Rosicrucians among several different written works, so that taken alone, it would not be obvious as to the meaning.  If identified together, such "hints" are consistent with the Rosicrucian practice of marking and linking sacred material for the future.

"John Milton's Sixth Elegy, as one example of a separate part, states the very purpose of his whole body of writing. It is one of the most important messages of Milton to be understood in combination with his life's devoted purpose.

(자료출처 http://watch.pair.com/reformation.html#luther)