Today we hear frequent exhortations coming from Fundamental and Evangelical leaders that the
Church needs a "new Reformation," or a
second or third Reformation. For example, Rick Warren has stated:
"I intend to use the Purpose Driven movement to fulfill PEACE in a new
reformation." (Florida Baptist Witness, May 6, 2004)
By "new reformation", Rick Warren means the following:
"Well, as I said, I could take you to villages that don't have a clinic...
But they've got a church. In fact, in many countries the only infrastructure
that is there is religion... What if in this 21st century we were able to
network these churches providing the...manpower in local congregations.
Let's just take my religion by itself. Christianity... The church is bigger
than any government in the world. Then you add in Muslims, you add in
Hindus, you add in all the different religions, and you use those
houses of worship as distribution centers, not just for spiritual care
but for health care. What could be done?
"Government has a role and business has a role and churches, house of
worship have a role. I think it's time to go to the moon, and I invite you
to go with us." (Time Magazine, Nov. 1, 2005)
"In the 1990s I trained about a quarter of a million pastors. It's now gone,
as I said, to over 400,000... And we're talking about all different kinds of
groups, including priests in the Catholic Church, and including rabbis... So
anyway, then in the 21st century I said that now we're going global."
(Speech to Religious Newscasters Association Convention in 2005)
Here we see that, despite the positive connotations
attached to the word, "reformation" does not necessarily mean that the end
result will be the spiritual enrichment of Christianity, in other words, a
Christianity more faithful to Scripture. To "reform" may also mean "to form
again," which is to restructure and, by implication, to change into a
completely different entity. "Transformation"
—
another definition of "reformation"
—
is
also a term commonly heard from today's Evangelical leaders.
Given their unbiblical teachings, a "Transformation of
the Church" by false teachers like Rick Warren would "transform" Christianity into
another religion altogether, even if it retained the nominal label of
"Christian."
Few Christians realize that plans for a future and final Reformation of the
Church were
developed by leading occultists of the 17th century Rosicrucian Enlightenment. The documentation we have presented on this web page
represents our research into the Rosicrucian infiltration of the Protestant
Reformation and the Rosicrucian plan for yet another Reformation of the Church. Our investigation was
undertaken to determine if the Protestant Reformation was at the outset a
work of the Rosicrucians for the purpose of dividing and conquering the
Roman Catholic Church.
The following outline contains information gleaned from various sources,
but primarily from the works of high level occultists, with special focus on
the Rosicrucians. The Christian reader will find, as we did, some
disturbing information in these passages.
“The Merovingian Franks (450-741) built monasteries as a means of
infiltration...for Merovingian monasteries later became Benedictine/
Cistercians... Pope Gregory the Great…promoted Benedictine monasticism. His
feast day is the day he became pope, September 3 [590 AD]. This was accomplished
by the infiltration of the Church, for Gregory was part of that infiltration.
Sept. 3 became a day of victory for the Red Movement when he was installed as
their pope, for Gregory marks the history of the papacy in that he was the very
first ‘MONK’ to become a pope.” (Merovingian
Infiltration of the Church Through Monasticism)
"John of Parma, Boccaccio, Petrarch, St
Catherine of Sienna, and St Bridget of Sweden...as also various sects,
Waldensians, Albigensians, Begards, Dolcinists, all of whom, according
to Quinet, Joachim of Fiore and the Eternal
Evangel appear as a constant..." - 256:79
"Leroux saw the thirteenth century as
one of extraordinary religious ferment and, with a fine disregard for
doctrinal differences, put all the heretics into one basket -- Amalricians, Albigensians, Waldensians, Cathars,
Apostolic Begards, Followers of Eon de l'Etiole, and Pierre de Bruys,
Joachites, and so on -- for according to him they were all preaching the
doctrine of the new evangel, of a religion
superior to Christianity." - 256:88
"...[George Sand] echoes Leroux in pointing to all those earlier 'voices
of St John' who sustain the heresy of the Evangel,
including Joachim of Fiore, John of Parma, St Francis... In other lists,
he names the Poor of Lions, Wycliffites, Pickards, Taborites, Adamites,
Fraticelli, Begards, Waldensians... Here, she says, is the key to all
the convulsions and mysteries of the Middle Ages, and she asks the
question: where shall we find another key to open the problems of this
present time?" - 256:100
"In some way...there was a connection the Cathars, who
were tied with the Bogomils and the older Manichaeans, or followers of
Mani. It was from here at the close of the Cathar influence in the
Albigensian Crusades that a young boy of the German nobel house of
Germel was prepared for training in Persia when he was to come of age.
The legend of C.R.C. [Christian Rosencreutz] that was the focus of the
first Rosicrucian manifesto published in 1614 was an allegorical vehicle
based upon his life and work. Geoffrey de St. Adhémar had also been
originally from a town in the Albigensian lands of the Cathars. He later
was tutored in the tradition, and co-founded the first
Militae Evangelicae in 1089." (Rosicrucian
Library)
"A Society
allied to the Rosicrucians and incorporating much of their philosophy
was founded at Lunenberg in 1571, under the name Militia Crucifera Evangelica. The MSS of this Society refers to
the Rose and Cross. This organization cooperated with another in
Holland, known as the 'Friends of the Cross.'" - "Christian Rosencreutz"
(S.R.I.A.)
"...it was only with
Schelling that the medieval heresy of the Eternal
Evangel reappeared. When in 1831 he began to deliver his famous
lectures on The Philosophy of Revelation in Munich, he felt himself to
be invested with a great mission to announce the
universal religion to come, the Church of St John... It has been said that 'Many a
listener...had the impression that he was watching the rise of new stage
of consciousness and the birth of a new religion.'... Like others,
Schelling saw St John as the apostle of the future in concord with
Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist in the Old Dispensation, he placed
Peter, Paul, and John in the New, representing the three stages in the
Christian Church. Peter was the Apostle of the Father, Paul of the Son,
while John was the Apostle of the Spirit
who was leading mankind into the full truth of the future.
The first
stage was that of Catholicism, the second of Protestantism, but the
third will be the perfect religion of mankind." -
256:62
See: Heeding Bible Prophecy:
New Scripture: New Gospel
"But
when from 1305 to 1378 the papal curia was at Avignon
and the cardinals were nearly all Frenchmen, Englishmen were
offended: and from 1378 to 1418 the two popes, at Rome
and Avignon, caused scandal to all. Men could only suggest that both
popes should be persuaded to resign (which they would
not), or that a great council should be held, as long before at Nicea
or Chalcedon. Canon law, however, would not recognize the possibility of
such a council unless convened by the pope, and the fourteenth century
canonists had worked out an extreme doctrine of the
plenitude of papal power. The study by the twelfth century canonists
at Bologna of the Digest and the Code had influenced the
concept of papal sovereignty: theologians, for
the great canonists were theologians, had restated the limits of the plenitudo potestatis papae
after this study of Roman sovereignty. Dr.
Walter Ullmann, in his recent notable book on Medieval Papalism,
quotes the fourteenth century papalists as asserting that
the pope, in the fulness of his power, was beyond the
reach of any mortal, emperor, king or any other. There was no one who
could say to the pope, ‘Cur ita facies?’ The pope could do and say whatever
he pleased to do and say in all and everything: he was
above the law, whether natural (and, as it were divine) or whether
humanly devised. The Roman principle that the prince was above the law was
translated to the ecclesiastical prince. All human and divine law was
entrusted to him alone: whoever resisted his power, resisted the ordinance
of God. ‘In the conception of the canonists,’ Dr. Ullmann writes, ‘the
pope was truly God on earth.’...
"...Wycliffe was actually dealing with canon
law as laid down by the fourteenth century canonists: with the public
difficulties of the Church which it seemed impossible to remedy: which were
not, in fact, remedied for forty years, before the end of the Great Schism
in 1417. I think this has a real bearing on Wycliffe’s
great break-away: his desire for another law, ‘Goddis law’: and his
criterion for reform, that things must be as they were shown once to have
been in ‘Christis law’. A word then about Wycliffe’s anti-clericalism, a
factor now so much stressed as one of the causes of the sixteenth century
Reformation. Anti-clericalism did not begin with Wycliffe or in England: it
existed in France at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It spread from
the south French university of Montpellier, a
great law school, which trained most of the anti-clerical courtiers and
ministers of Philip IV...
"To sum up, then: Wycliffe’s translation of
the whole Bible was an undertaking with a political side: the lay party
could use it against the clericals: disendowment was in the air. But the
spiritual side of Wycliffe’s intention was much the stronger. He desired to
put the clock back: to restore the Church to her poor and primitive state.
He had no realisation that in destroying the
institutions of the Church of his day he might be endangering the Christian
religion itself..." (Margaret Deanesly,
The Significance of the Lollard Bible)
"Popes,
Cardinals, and officials of the Chancery and Apostolic Camera
appointed bishops, collected taxes, and imposed disreputable
political interdicts and excommunications throughout much of
Christendom with greater abandon than ever before. They did so in
tight association with countless princes and other representatives
of the late medieval Establishment. Bankers were particularly
welcome in their entourage. As Alvaro Pelayo, himself a fervent
supporter of the Holy See, noted in De planctu ecclesiae,
'Whenever I entered the chambers of the ecclesiastics of the Papal
Court, I found brokers and clergy engaged in weighing and reckoning
the money which lay in heaps before them.' (Pastor, I, 72).
"A myriad of astonishing abuses, many
of them the product of exceedingly pro-papal canonists influenced
heavily by Roman Law and purely utilitarian power considerations,
became associated with the Avignon administration. Charitable covers
for raking in illicit funds were multiplied. Sees were left vacant
or filled in ways that furthered the increase of gross curial muscle
and wealth. Legal cases were painfully delayed so as to milk more
loot from long-suffering plaintiffs and defendants. And, once again,
all this was done in dangerous cahoots with locally important
political and banker hacks.
"Even more destructive was the
treatment of diocesan matters as property rather than pastoral
questions. Bishoprics were assigned either to curial officials—to
provide, from their endowments, salaries the Papacy could not
otherwise pay—or to friends of political allies whose cooperative
behavior needed to be rewarded. Since it was impossible for papal
employees to leave their governmental positions in Avignon to tend
to even one diocese—much less the two or more often entrusted to
their misuse—episcopal charges inevitably entailed the same
absenteeism already practiced by the pope himself. Perhaps the most
bizarre long term development from such unfortunate policies was to
be the creation of nominal 'bishops' who were often not even
priests. Lay 'bishops' got the revenues from their 'property', and
then employed some hireling to do the episcopal tasks they
themselves could not legitimately perform.
...Avignon's abuses merely confirmed the
convictions of those who already thought of the Church and her mission
as a blasphemous work of Satan. This was the major reason why her
scandals were so detested by orthodox believers." ("The
Great Western Schism")
“We
often think of Martin Luther lighting the torch of
the Reformation, but the Czechs have the oldest Reformation tradition in
mainland Europe. Long before Luther nailed his theses to the door of
Wittenberg Church in 1517, the Czechs had established their own national
Protestant church with their own vernacular Bible and hymn book. In 1406
or 1407 and perhaps as early as 1385, Czech students studying at Oxford
brought back to Prague the writings of John Wyclif.
“The
rector of Charles University in Prague, Jan Hus (1372?-1415), a man of
outstanding intellectual gifts and personal integrity, took up Wyclif's
ideas. In particular, he took up the belief that, in true remembrance of
the Last Supper, the Communion, or Eucharist, should be given in both
kinds—bread and wine. The chalice became the symbol of the Hussite
revolution, and Hussite supporters were often referred to as 'Utraquists,'
meaning 'in both kinds.' Jan Hus was a great scholar and a gifted
preacher. Between 1402 and 1403 the Bethlehem Chapel in the Old Town
district of Prague was regularly packed, standing room only, with people
eager to hear him expound on the Bible in their own Czech tongue.
“In
1412, Antipope John XXIII declared war on Naples and, to raise money,
instituted the practice of selling indulgences — official forgiveness by
the Church. Hus was outraged and was promptly excommunicated for his
protest. Outlawed from Prague, Hus wandered about the countryside
preaching and spreading Reformation ideas throughout the country. In
1415 the Council of Constance invited him to explain his views and
promised him safe conduct. It was a trap: on false charges he was
condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. It was
his birthday he was just forty-three years old. Jan Hus began, and
Comenius continued, even in exile, the reformed
group that came to be called the Unitas Fratrum (the Unity of
Brethren), also now known as the Moravian Church, which still exists
with a worldwide following. Its formation was formalized in 1457, and it
is the oldest of all Protestant churches, with its own hymn book (1505)
and Czech-language Bible.”
(The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited, p. 201)
"Problems of another sort arise from Montgomery's critical biography, Cross
and Crucible (1972), which is driven by an image of Andreae as a pious,
orthodox Lutheran theologian whose life was a seamless whole. Like others
before him, Montgomery presumed that no other evidence, save Andreae's
unfortunate choice of the name Christian Rosencreutz for a persona in the
Chymische Hochzeit, linked him to the manifestos."
("Johann
Valentin Andreae's utopian brotherhoods")
“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...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 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”)
“…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)
". . . 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 not 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 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)
January 17, 1648 - "England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No
Address, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby
setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War." -
Wikipedia
"And amongst the earnest enthusiasts for the model society, and its vast
possibilities for expansion, was Samuel Hartlib. ...it was the Andraean combination of evangelical piety with science, and the utilitarian
application of science, which inspired Hartlib's untiring efforts.
"And with Hartlib, and his friends and helpers
John Dury and
John Amos Comenius, the movement returned to
England, for it was in
Parliamentarian
England
[Cromwell/Puritan], which had returned to
the old Elizabethan role of champion of Protestant
Europe, that Hartlib saw the best chance of
establishing the new reformation. As the
R. C. Fraternity had represented hopes raised by the English alliance, through
the Elector Palatine's English marriage, so, when those hopes failed, it was
towards an England restored to its Elizabethan role that Hartlib and his
friends turned for support for their ideals of universal reformation, their
continuation of the Rosicrucian dream under other names."
46:155
"Those in England, and they were many, who were dissatisfied with the
non-Parliamentarian and anti-Puritan, or even potentially Papist, policies of
James I and Charles I, looked with longing towards that Protestant royal
family at The Hague which represented a possible succession to the throne...
"Elizabeth was not only
popular with loyal monarchists of Protestant sympathy; she was also popular
with Parliamentarians. The Parliaments under James and Charles had always
been sympathetic to her and when Parliament overthrew the monarchy,
Parliamentarians still continued to feel respect for Elizabeth of Bohemia. In
fact, it may be asked whether if she had succeeded to the throne there might
never have been a revolution. Parliamentarians, and Oliver Cromwell
himself, did not really object to monarchy as such. Oliver thought that
monarchy of the Elizabethan type was the best form of government. The
objection was to monarchs who tried to rule without Parliament and whose
foreign policy was not directed towards the support of the Protestant cause in
Europe. Elizabeth Stuart was free from these
objections to her royal relatives. In fact, she and her husband really
represented the kind of foreign policy which Parliamentarians would have
wished James and Charles to follow. It is thus not surprising that the
revolutionary Parliament recognized the right of the Queen of Bohemia to its
support. She had received a pension from Charles I which Parliament
continued. From her court at
The Hague,
Elizabeth was thus in a position of being
able to follow vicissitudes in
England without entirely losing
touch with either side. Though she remained absolutely firm in her sympathy
for her brother Charles, and was horrified by his death, there were some
aspects of Parliamentarian and Cromwellian thinking which were not so much out
of line with her position.
"(Elizabeth) was, so to speak,
the ideological link through whom the thoughts of the three 'foreigners',
Hartlib, Dury and Comenius, could become acclimatized in an
England which was throwing off
monarchical despotism." -
46:173-75
"There has never, I think, been suggested that James's doubtful attitude
towards Baconian science might be connected with his very deep interest in,
and dread of, magic and witchcraft. These subjects had a fascination for him
which was tied up with neuroses about some experiences in his early life. In
his
Demonology (1597) James advocated the death penalty for all
witches, though he urges care in the examination of cases. The subject was
for him a most serious one, a branch of theology. Obviously James was not the
right person to examine the - always rather difficult - problem of when
Renaissance Magia and Cabala were valuable movements, leading to science, and
when they verged on sorcery, the problem of defining the differences between
good magic and bad magic. James was not interested in science and would react
with fear from any sort of magic.
"It is not surprising that when old
John Dee appealed to James for help in
clearing his reputation from charges of conjuring devils, James would have
nothing to do with him.
Dee's fruitless appeal to James was made in June 1604.
The old man to whose learning the Elizabethan age was so infinitely indebted
was disgraced in the reign of James and died in great poverty in 1608. Bacon
must have taken good note of James's attitude to
Dee, and he must also have noted that survivors from
the Elizabethan age of mathematics and magic, of navigational boldness and
anti-Spanish exploits, were not sure of encouragement under James as they had
been under
Elizabeth. Northumberland and Raleigh
pursued their studies in prison in the Tower under James, working at
mathematics and alchemy with their learned associate, Thomas Hariot.
"Obviously, Bacon would have been careful to avoid, in works intended to
interest James, anything savouring of
Dee and his suspicious mathematics. Even so, Bacon did
not succeed in allaying James's suspicions of scientific advancement, however
carefully presented.
"And even more obviously, it was not the way to influence James in favour
of his son-in-law's plans and projects in the
Palatinate and
Bohemia to associate him with a movement
which wrapped its designs in enchanted vaults and invisible R. C. Brothers,
who could easily be turned into sorcerers by witch-hunters. Among the many
mistakes made by the friends of the unfortunate Elector Palatine, the
Rosicrucian manifestos may have been one of the worst. If any rumour of them
came to James's ears, and any rumour of their being associated with Frederick,
this would certainly have done more than anything else to turn him against
Frederick, and to destroy any hope that he would countenance his projects.
"Thus Frances Bacon as he propagated advancement of learning, and
particularly of scientific learning, during the reign of James 1 was moving
amongst pitfalls. The old Elizabethan scientific tradition was not in favour,
and some of its major surviving representatives were shunned or in prison.
The late Queen Elizabeth had asked
John Dee to explain his Monas hieroglypica
to her; King James would have nothing to do with its author. Bacon, when
he published The Advancement of Learning in 1605, would have been aware
that James had repulsed
Dee in the preceding year. And moreover the exported
Elizabethan traditions, which had gone over to the
Palatinate with James's daughter and her husband, were
not in favour either. Francis Bacon was one of those who regretted James's
foreign policy and urged support of the Elector Palatine. Here, too, the
writer of English manifestos for the advancement of learning would have to
walk warily, lest he might seem to much implicated in movements in the
Palatinate." -
46:123-25
"(Hartlib, Dury and Comenius) were the men who came to
England and tried to propagate
here, universal reformation, advancement of learning, and other utopist
ideals. They represented
Bohemia and
Germany in exile and dispersion,
and if we add to them Theodore Haak, who acted as Comenius's agent in
England, we have the
Palatinate represented, for Haak was a
refugee from the
Palatinate.
"In 1640 the Long Parliament met, angry at Parliament's long exclusion
from the affairs of the nation, angry at the domestic policy pursued by the
monarchy, and angry, above all, at its foreign policy, which had been one of
'peace with ignominy while the cause of Protestantism was going down abroad'.
When, by the execution of Strafford, this Parliament seemed to have broken
the 'tyranny', the way seemed open for a new period in human affairs to
begin. A mood of great enthusiasm was generated and thoughts turned to
far-reaching vistas of some universal reformation, in education, in religion,
in advancement of learning for the good of mankind. . .
"In this thrilling hour when it seemed that England might be the land
chosen by Jehovah to be the scene of the restoration of all things, when the
possibility dawned that here imaginary commonwealths might become real
commonwealths, invisible colleges, real colleges, Hartlib wrote to Comenius
and urged him to come to England to assist in the great work. Though
Parliament did not actually sponsor the invitation, there was general goodwill
behind it, and behind a similar one to Dury. In a sermon delivered to
Parliament in 1640, Comenius and Dury were mentioned as the philosophers who
should be followed in future reforms. Comenius in far away Poland was
overjoyed. He believed that he had a mandate from Parliament to build
Bacon's New Atlantis in England." -
46:177-8
“The Christian group 'Gold und Rosenkreuzer' (Golden and Rosy Cross) was
founded by the alchemist Samuel Richter
(Sincerus Renatus) in Prague in the early 18th century...as a deeply
hierarchical secret society, composed of internal circles, recognition
signs and based upon alchemy treatises... Its members claimed that the
leaders of the Rosicrucian Order had invented Freemasonry and only they
knew the secret meaning of Masonic symbols. According to this group's
legend, the Rosicrucian Order was founded by Egyptian 'Ormusse' or 'Licht-Weise'
who emigrated to Scotland with the name 'Builders from the East'. Then
the original Order disappeared and was supposed to have been resurrected
by Oliver Cromwell as 'Freemasonry'.”
(Answers.com)
Webster, John
Affiliation: Calvinist
"A Puritan who was active on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War and did
not conform at the Restoration.
"Webster is best known for a famous attack on the university curriculum,
Academiarum examen, urging laboratory observation as in chemistry, a work
drawing upon the Paracelsian tradition and on Van Helmont, and indebted as
well to [Robert] Fludd [Grand Master of
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 supersitition still seemed to thrive because it had not yet
been confronted with the purer, keener outlook of the restoration.
"This was the work of
John Webster. His book The Displaying of
supposed Witchcraft (1677) does not contribute any new material to the
controversy; in fact, he admits himself that the demonographers had already
been “quashed and silenced” by Wier, Tandler, Scot, Ady and Wagstaffe. But,
while reproducing their arguments, whether based on theology or common-sense,
he did more than they all, by bringing the controversy into an atmosphere
in which the superstition could not live: the atmosphere of confidence in
nature and reverence for an immaterial God. Now that Hakewill,
Harvey,
Newton and Locke were teaching men to
investigate and not fear the mysteries of life, Webster insists that all
evidence in support of sorcery should be subjected to the same scientific
scrutiny. Besides, what need was there to suspect the handiwork of the
devil in any miracle, when “Mr. Boyl” was able to “manifest the great and
wonderful virtues that God hath endowed stones, minerals, plants and roots
withal,” when Van Helmont had already proved that metals have even greater
healing power and Paracelsus had ascribed this power to God. Now that natural
laws were being discovered, Webster represents this God, not according to the
old anthropomorphic ideas, but as a transcendental spirit, who rules men
through their thoughts and wills. Satan is merely one of the means of
communication. Hence, if there is a league between the devil and a witch, it
is “internal, mental and spiritual”; the league which always exists between a
malefactor and the spirit of evil. For Webster is the first to point
out—what many of his contemporaries must have felt—that the current theory of
witchcraft was utterly unworthy of the modern conception of human nature.
Neurasthenics, whose imaginations have been infected with stories of ghosts
and goblins, may conceive themselves to be the victims of all kinds of
malpractices and diseases. But the devil only enslaves men by “their corrupt
wills and dispositions.”
"Webster’s book by no means drove out superstition. The belief in
necromancy, sortilege and magic exists at the present time in cities as
well as in rural districts and will always be found wherever the great
emotions of life 84
are wrought to a higher pitch than the intellect. But The Displaying of
supposed Witchcraft marks the time when this error definitely lost its
hold on men’s lower passions and on the sense of human degradation. The
period of witch persecutions has universally been regarded as the darkest blot
on English civilisation and it produced a literature no less dreary. Witch
treatises, with a few exceptions, are voluminous, rambling and ill-constructed
dissertations in which patristic dogmas and scholastic arguments are endlessly
reiterated. And yet one is almost tempted to regard this controversy, together
with the civil war pamphlets and the puritan tirades, as an inevitable phase
in the evolution of English modern thought. Movements like the renascence,
which appeal chiefly to courtiers and scholars, who, after all, are only the
surface of a nation, can well be inspired from foreign sources. But when a
whole people change their attitude of mind, the impulse must come from
within. We have seen how social and political influences drove popular
writers to the most extravagant thoughts and utterances, thereby creating an
atmosphere in which great works cannot thrive. But, at the same time, it must
be remembered that, if informal literature ran to excess, it became, in this
way, a self-exposure, and startled the whole nation into an effort towards
higher civilisation. (The Cambridge History of English and American
Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan. XVI. The
Advent of Modern Thought in Popular Literature.§ 18. John
Wagstaffe’s Question of Witchcraft."
(Bartleby)
-
Rosicrucian poet, John Milton, was Cromwell's Foreign Secretary
from 1649 to 1660.
"During this time, also, 17th Century Rosicrucians protected each other and
their sacred works by simply hinting at their connection with the
Brotherhood. They made signature marks or gave signs in papers and books in
order for others of like mind to identify their works at any time it was
necessary. The title page of Milton's first edition of Paradise Lost
in 10 Books, states that it was "Licensed and Entred according to Order."
The title page of the second edition in 12 Books, however, says only, 'Printed
by S. Simmons next door to the Golden Lion'. Thus, a
'licensing' suggests the sanctioning, and the determination must be made as to
the intent of the use of the word, 'Order.' The "Golden Lion" is an
esoteric symbol seen in many of the Hermetic engravings from the Middle Ages
and Renaissance that are linked specifically with the
Evangelicals or Rosicrucians, among the many names that identified
these certain Hermetic resources. Being 'next door' is being close
to or in the same 'place' as something else, i.e., of like nature, even if in
this case, it may be a different 'address,' i.e., a different name. (Ref.
Addendum for Images of Title Pages)
"Additionally, it was a pronounced Rosicrucian practice to scatter partial
hints at connections with the Rosicrucians among several different
written works, so that taken alone, it would not be obvious as to the
meaning. If identified together, such "hints" are consistent with the
Rosicrucian practice of marking and linking sacred material for the future.
"John Milton's Sixth Elegy, as one
example of a separate part, states the very purpose of his whole body of
writing. It is one of the most important messages of
Milton to be understood in combination with
his life's devoted purpose.
". . .if you would like to know what I am doing . . . I am singing the prince
of peace, the son of Heaven, and the blessed ages promised in the sacred
books. . . . For the true poet is sacred to the gods, he is a priest of the
gods; and his inmost soul and his lips breathe out Jove." —John
Milton (1608-1674), Sixth Elegy
"Paradise Lost,
in its stated purpose, "to justify the ways of God
to men," is an elucidation of the Sixth Elegy's general purpose
statement. Taken together, the "hints" from his title pages and Milton's
own purpose statements in Paradise Lost and the Sixth Elegy, can
mark him with the 17th Century Rosicrucian movement, even aside from other
such examples. However, even if the specifically Rosicrucian identification
could only be a coincidence, Milton's work is certainly marked by the same
profound Rosicrucian themes of his Hermetic and natural imagery that are
largely pantheistic, and consistent with the classic Western esoteric
tradition. ("God is everywhere, in all things, is all-knowing,
all-loving.")
"Besides the use of subtle allusions to non-biblical themes,
John Milton also marked his work with a
number of grammatical oddities, some which were, no doubt, peculiar to17th
Century English usage. However, where spelling was not yet standardized, or
the use of capitalization or punctuation, by reviewing his work for it's own
layered structure and consistency, it can be suggested that, we should pay
very close attention to the simple use and non-use of capitalization for words
usually understood to be proper nouns, as well as other consistent patterns of
his work.
Milton Jailed Politically
"Even though his work succeeded in avoiding the critical eye of the Church
authorities, through his admitted "artfulness," Milton did not escape
political danger altogether. While writing Paradise Lost, he was
actually best known during his lifetime for his many pamphlets denouncing
the repression of various liberties, and elucidating on the right to dissent
and the freedom of the press, the right to hold different personal religious
beliefs, as well as the attributes of divorce, free love and the ideal of
Platonic love with the opposite gender other than a spouse. In June 1660,
when he was 52 years old, the English Parliament ordered Milton's arrest and
his political publications burned. After being in hiding for several months,
he was indeed arrested and held for nearly six months. . ." (Questions
on the Esoteric Content of Paradise Lost)
"Milton states very plainly and directly in
Paradise Lost, Book IX, that he has a specific muse, or mediumistic
resource, a spiritual being who communicated to him while he slept. So it was
also in dream, that he was given the information from which to also create a
dream story line, complete with 'fantasy' and, therefore, an acceptable
'reality' for Church authorities....
20. "If answerable style I can obtain
21. Of my Celestial Patroness, who deigns
22. Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
23. And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
24. Easy my
unpremeditated verse:..." (Paradise
Lost)
