Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen
336
Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen
336Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORE
Your local store may have stock of this item.
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780835608572 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Quest Books |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2008 |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.04(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.79(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Politics and the Occult
The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen
By GARY LACHMAN
Theosophical Publishing House
Copyright © 2008 Gary LachmanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-0857-2
CHAPTER 1
ROSICRUCIAN DAWN
In 1614, a pamphlet appeared in Cassel, Germany, announcing the existence of a strange secret society, the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, and inviting its readers to seek it out and to join it in its work. Soon other documents relating to this mysterious organization appeared, and within a few years a "Rosicrucian furor" had broken out across practically half of Europe. Exactly who or what the Rosicrucians were remains a mystery, and to this day historians of the occult and of secret societies debate whether in fact they ever existed. In his classic work, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, the occult scholar Manly P. Hall asks "Who were the Rosicrucians?" and offers several possibilities. "Were they," Hall asks, "an organization of profound thinkers rebelling against the inquisitional religious and philosophical limitations of their time?" Or "isolated transcendentalists united only by the similarity of their viewpoints and deductions?" Were they a "religious and philosophical brotherhood, as they claimed to be?" Or was this a front for their true aim, "which possibly was the political control of Europe?" Other similar questions fill Hall's chapter, and I leave to interested readers the pleasure of discovering them.
Like all good occult historians, Hall leaves the matter open. But the Fama Fraternitas, the document announcing their arrival, has no doubts about the Fraternity's existence or mission. It tells the story of one Christian Rosencreutz and his adventures in the East, where he studied secret esoteric lore. It also speaks of his return to Europe and his desire to bring about a "reformation" of all Western arts, sciences, politics, and religion. This "brother C.R." was also the protagonist of a later, even more mysterious document, The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, published in 1616, a kind of esoteric novel that in alchemical and often surreal language presents a series of dreamlike evocative tableaux.
Exactly what transpires in the Chemical Wedding, like the significance of the Rosicrucians themselves, is still a matter of debate, although the general sense is that it relates in symbolic form the Great Work of spiritual transformation that is at the heart of all esoteric teaching. But the Rosicrucian message, which combines elements of alchemy, hermeticism, astrology, and other occult disciplines, wasn't limited to the transformation of the individual alone. It also aimed to transform European society as a whole. It was, as the historian Frances Yates argues, "an apocalyptic message of universal reformation leading to a millennium." The Fama Fraternitas was, in short, a powerful and influential polemic of occult politics that in many ways set the tone for similar works to come.
ROSICRUCIAN ENLIGHTENMENT
The story of Christian Rosencreutz's travels and search for secret knowledge has become an archetype of the Western spiritual path, informing most, if not all, of the esoteric currents that followed, as well as the plethora of conspiracy theories and spiritual revolutions that came in their wake; the theme of "hidden superiors" that runs throughout occult politics has Rosicrucian roots. His "esotourism," to coin an awkward term, appears, for example, in the eighteenth-century figure of the "noble traveler" and finds echoes in Madame Blavatsky's journeys to the Himalayas, G. I. Gurdjieff's through Central Asia, and those of thousands of lesser-known seekers who hit the hippie and later New Age trails in search of the mystic East. Yet aside from the Rosicrucian documents, there's no record of his ever existing. He's thought to have been born in 1378 and to have lived until 1484, making him 106, a remarkable age, but also a number said to have cabalistic significance. Though descended of noble parents, he was born in poverty, and at the age of five he was placed in a cloister where he learned Latin and Greek. He was apprenticed to a monk who was determined to visit the Holy Land. Making his pilgrimage, his mentor died in Cyprus, but Christian continued the journey to Jerusalem. He fell ill in the mysterious city of Damcar, where he remained for some time, learning much from the Turks, meeting the wise men of Arabia, and continuing his studies in spiritual and esoteric knowledge.
The wise men suggested he visit Damascus, and, changing his plans, Christian headed there. He arrived and was welcomed "not as a stranger" but as one "long expected." He learned Arabic and translated a strange book, "M," into Latin; henceforth he would carry this with him wherever he went. He also perfected his knowledge of physics and mathematics.
After visiting Egypt, where he studied plants and animal life, Christian sailed to Fez. Unlike the envious and petty minds of Europe who kept their knowledge to themselves, the sages Christian encountered in the East seemed to be in agreement with each other and were happy to share what they knew. Here the author(s) of the Fama may be suggesting that the knowledge the Eastern sages shared was part of the prisca theologia, the lost ancient wisdom that began to be recovered when Cosimo de' Medici asked Marsilio Ficino to translate the newly discovered Corpus Hermeticum. That this wisdom comes from the East, specifically Muslim countries—Arabia and Morocco—suggests it was part of the "treasure" thought to have been brought back to Christian countries by the Order of the Knights Templar, a powerful religious and political society that emerged from the Crusades in the early twelfth century. In esoteric history, the Rosicrucians come more or less in between the Knights Templar and modern Freemasonry, which, in the eighteenth century, carried on the Rosicrucian tradition of occult politics.
HOUSES OF THE HOLY
After two years in Fez, Christian returned to Europe. In Spain he "conferred with the learned," showing them their errors and how to correct them. They only laughed, more concerned about their reputations than about the truth, a problem Christian found elsewhere. Finding no recipients for his reforming zeal, Christian returned to Germany, where he built a house and meditated on his journeys. Five years later he set out again, this time with a few followers, the original Brothers of the Rosy Cross. In the end they separated, each brother going to a different country to spread the word, taking upon themselves certain vows: to heal the sick without payment; to wear the dress of their adopted country; to meet each year on an appointed day at the house, Sancti Spiritus, or "House of the Holy Spirit" that Christian had built; to seek another to replace oneself when the time came; to use the initials "C.R." as a secret mark; and to keep the existence and work of the Fraternity a secret for one hundred years.
THE SECRET TOMB OF CHRISTIAN ROSENCREUTZ
Years passed and Christian died. Knowledge of the society was handed down to younger seekers until all that remained of the founders was legend. When the hundred years of silence had ended, a senior member informed the newer recruits—the author(s) of the Fama—that "the Fraternity shouldn't remain hidden, but should come forth and be helpful to the whole German nation." He then decided to do some home improvement on the House of the Holy Spirit, and move a brass memorial containing the names of previous brethren to a more suitable location. Behind the memorial they discovered a hidden door leading to a secret room, and within this was the tomb of Christian Rosencreutz. The author(s) of the Fama remark: "As our door was after so many years wonderfully discovered, also there shall be opened a door to Europe (when the wall is removed) which already doth begin to appear, and with great desire is expected of many."
Within a seven-sided vault illuminated by a kind of miniature sun, Christian's body lay. Although it had rested there for more than a century, miraculously it showed no signs of decay. Geometrical figures covered the walls, and within were many treasures, including works by the sixteenth-century Swiss healer and alchemist Paracelsus, bells, lamps, mirrors, and something they call "artificial songs"—reference, perhaps, to a form of mechanical marvel popular at that time. The vault resembled a kind of time capsule, the idea being that "if it should happen after many hundred years the Order or Fraternity should come to nothing, they might by this only vault be restored again."
In Christian's hand they discovered a parchment book, "I," which, next to the Bible, they counted as their greatest treasure. At the end of the book they found this inscription: "We are born of God, we die in Jesus, we live again through the Holy Spirit," suggesting that Christian may have been a follower of Joachim of Fiore. Born in Calabria in 1135, Joachim was a monk, mystic, and theologian who prophesied a new age of spiritual freedom, due to arrive in 1260. He died in 1202, too early to know if he was right or not. Joachim saw history unfolding in three stages: the Age of the Father, characterized by the Old Testament and obedience to the laws of God; the Age of the Son, beginning with the advent of Christ and continuing to 1260, during which man becomes the Son of God; and the Age of the Holy Spirit, when mankind would achieve direct contact with God and experience the spiritual freedom that is the true message of Christianity. Joachim believed that at this stage the hierarchy of the Church would be unnecessary and the true, rather than merely literal, meaning of the Gospels would prevail. Thomas Aquinas argued against his ideas, but Dante placed Joachim in Paradise, and his beliefs inspired Christian breakaway sects like the Brethren of the Free Spirit. The Church, understandably, wasn't that happy with his prophecies—it rarely appreciates any challenge to its authority. But they were precisely the sort of thing the Rosicrucians looked forward to.
Rejoicing in their discovery, the author(s) of the Fama suggest that their readers might also find the lost tombs of other deceased brethren and that other doors in Europe might be opened. Convinced that the "general reformation" will take place, the author(s) are confident that others will join them and increase their numbers. Accepting the "Roman Empire" as their "Christian head," they are nevertheless aware of "what alterations be at hand" and promise to "help with secret aid this so good a cause." They claim that their philosophy, which Adam received after his fall and which Moses and Solomon put to good use, is in agreement with Plato, Pythagoras, Enoch, Abraham, and, importantly, the Bible. Their remark that the wisdom of these sages "makes a sphere or Globe, whose total parts are equidistant from the Center," again suggests the prisca theologia, the ancient wisdom at the core, handed down from initiate to initiate.
The brethren shouldn't be confused, however, with those who concern themselves with common gold-making, a fraudulent practice sadly prevalent at the time, a dig at the "puffers" and mountebanks who ingratiated themselves into the courts of influential figures like the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and gave alchemy a bad reputation. The true alchemist, they know, works to transform himself, not lead, into gold: the spiritually regenerated man. In closing, the Fama's author(s) entreat those who hear their call to seek them out, assuring that if seekers "behold the present time with diligence," their desire to reach the brethren will be known.
THE FUROR CONTINUES
If the appearance of the Fama caused a furor, this only increased the next year when a follow-up document appeared, the Confessio Fraternitas. Although the Fama was published in German, the Confessio appeared in Latin and was aimed at a more learned audience. Doubtless the declaration that its author(s) "do now altogether freely and securely, and without hurt, call the Pope of Rome Antichrist" made the most powerful impression on its readers. This reference to the "end time" announced in the Book of Revelations was reinforced by the remark that Jehovah, "seeing that the Lord's Sabbath is almost at hand," "doth turn about the course of Nature."
Along with the Pope, "Mahomet" (Muhammad), too, is charged with blasphemy against Jesus. Yet the Fraternity itself, the author(s) insist, is innocent of the least heresy or conspiracy against the worldly government. Readers of the Fama shouldn't reject its message out of hand, nor believe in it too hastily, they advise, but consider it seriously and deeply. And the remarkable accomplishments of Christian Rosencreutz are now placed in a context of what seems a project of social regeneration. Such knowledge as the Fraternity possesses, we are told, could free mankind from a host of perennial worries. "Were it not good," the author(s) ask rhetorically, "that we needed not to care, not to fear hunger, poverty, sickness and age?" The brethren could "release" the world "from innumerable miseries." One sign that such a transformation of earthly life is at hand are the "new stars" in the constellations Serpentarius and Cygnus, which were first sighted in 1604, the year Christian Rosencreutz's tomb was supposedly discovered. These, the author(s) tell us, clearly indicate that "the World shall awake out of her heavy and drowsy sleep," to meet "the new arising Sun."
THE INVISIBLES
This somewhat detailed account of the Rosicrucian documents may, I hope, convey the strange atmosphere their appearance created. Yet perhaps the strangest thing is that after sounding a clarion call to join them in their work of reformation, the Brothers of the Rosy Cross were nowhere to be found. That such famous figures as the philosophers Robert Fludd, René Descartes, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz are associated with the Rosicrucians makes their obscurity all the more intriguing. All attempts to contact them seem to have failed, and their absence led to the name "the Invisibles." At the time this made them even more mysterious and attractive, but in later years it encouraged doubts about their existence. Most historians of the period conclude that the whole thing was a hoax. And that as a teenager, Johann Valentin Andreae, author of the Chemical Wedding and possibly responsible for the earlier manifestos, had written a version of the Chemical Wedding that he later admitted was a ludibrium, or joke, albeit a serious one, suggests that, in one of his contemporaries' phrases, it was all "much ado about nothing."
Yet Frances Yates in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment makes clear that, whatever the truth behind the occult claims of the Rosicrucians, the political and religious climate in which the Fama, Confessio, and Chemical Wedding appeared was very serious indeed. The Rosicrucian furor emerged during the years of struggle between Catholics and Protestants that led to the devastating Thirty Years' War (1618–48). Many at the time hoped the schism fracturing the Church might be healed. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg brought about a temporary calm in hostilities and gave official status to Lutheranism within the Holy Roman Empire. According to its edict, cuius regio, eius religio: literally, "whose region, his religion," the religion of a particular ruler would be the religion of his land. While this satisfied some Protestant groups, others, like the Calvinists and Anabaptists, had to wait until 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia to be recognized. Many others simply felt that Rome had lost its way and indeed become the seat of the Antichrist.
In 1517, a century before the Fama's appearance, Martin Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church (although whether he actually did this or not is a matter of debate), declaring his contempt for Rome's practice of "indulgences." These were basically bribes accepted by priests in return for assuring ones' salvation or that of a deceased loved one, a procedure that smacks of magic: for a price, a priest will use his "powers" to make things right between you and the gods. This nauseated Luther; he knew the indulgences did nothing for one's salvation and that the money was really used by Pope Leo X to rebuild the basilica of St. Peter in Rome, further evidence that the Church had moved away from Christ's true teachings to become a symbol of worldly power. Like Joachim of Fiore, Luther believed that the hierarchy of Rome had become an obstacle to the true Christian message, a belief the Rosicrucians—whoever they were—shared. It's been suggested that the rose of the Rosicrucians is taken from Luther's own emblem, in which a heart and a cross rise up from a flower. Alternative theories suggest that Rosicrucian is derived from the alchemical Ros (dew) and Crux (cross), or that it is linked to the chivalric Order of the Garter, a ceremony that Johann Valentin Andreae is said to have witnessed in his student days, at the time when he wrote the first Chemical Wedding. Yet symbols are elusive and their origins difficult to nail; the rose has a history of mystical associations that precedes its links to Luther. It was an important symbol for the Islamic mystics, the Sufis, and through them passed to the troubadours, and later reached Dante. Further associations link it and the cross to the yoni and lingam of the Tantric mysteries, emblems of natural generation and of spiritual re-generation, processes that clearly interested the Rosicrucians.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Politics and the Occult by GARY LACHMAN. Copyright © 2008 Gary Lachman. Excerpted by permission of Theosophical Publishing House.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Introduction: Hidden Superiors and the Retreat from the Modern World,
1. Rosicrucian Dawn,
2. Invisible Colleges,
3. Masonic Maneuvers,
4. Erotic Esoteric Revolutions,
5. Illuminations,
6. Spirits Rebellious,
7. Journeys to the East,
8. Kings of the World on the Mountains of Truth,
9. Reactions,
10. Dark Sides,
11. Archangels of Our Darker Nature,
Last Words: New World Orders?,
Notes,