Professional Documents
Culture Documents
P
ansophers has been a long time fan of Dr. Hereward Tilton which is
why we are proud to present the first of his articles published on
this blog with us. Hereward has taught on European esoteric
traditions at the University of Exeter, the University of Amsterdam
and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Our fans will best know
him for his published work on Rosicrucianism, magic and alchemy titled “The
Quest for the Phoenix: Spiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism in the Work of
Count Michael Maier (1569-1622).” We are excited to see more from
Hereward as he currently rolls out his findings from reading the source
materials of the Gold und Rosenkreuzer, a favourite topic of everyone here!
I came to Austria on the trail of the ʾûrîm and tūmmîm (אוּרִ ים ו ְתֻ מִּים, ‘lights
and perfections’). Enigmatic objects born upon the ḥōšęn (חשֶׁן ֹ , breastplate)
of the high priests of pre-exilic Israel, they were lost to history until their
resurrection as ritual magical artefacts by the alchemico-Cabalist Heinrich
Khunrath in the late sixteenth century. A century later we find them among
the initiates of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz; in accordance with Khunrath’s
tradition, they are conceived as Philosophers’ Stones, inlaid upon an object
composed of the seven metals and utilised for scrying by the seven Magi at
the order’s peak. Having studied Gold- und Rosenkreuz manuscripts in
London and Munich detailing the construction and use of this artefact, I was
invited by Thomas Hakl to inspect the Octagon copy of the Thesaurus
thesaurorum (Treasure of Treasures), an extensive manuscript compendium
of the order which contains fleeting references to the Urim and the
Thummim (referred to synecdochically as a singular ‘Urim’), as well as to the
electrum magicum upon which they were inlaid. With a wealth of manuscript
and printed Rosicrucian material to hand, and ensconced within what
seemed to be the very vault of Christian Rosenkreuz, I set about a source-
critical analysis of the Thesaurus thesaurorum which would cast a great deal
of light not only upon the cultus (group religious ceremonial) of the Gold-
und Rosenkreuz, but also upon the history of this important occult order.
Perhaps most surprisingly, I discovered that a pre-Rosicrucian Christian
Cabalistic tradition handed down by a Böhmian exile in Amsterdam lay at
the heart of the order’s doctrine and praxis. Indeed, while the quest to
uncover the origins of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz has shifted to Italy in
recent decades, my own research suggests those origins lie well north of the
Alps.
a) a pseudo-history tracing the origins of the order and its prisca magia to
the Hebrew patriarchs, who utilised the Urim to evaluate new candidates for
their ‘magical priesthood’
b) the laws of the order and details of the neophyte initiation ceremony
The title of the Thesaurus thesaurorum states that its raison d’être is the
transmission of esoteric knowledge within the order; the fact the text is
committed to safe-keeping within the Ark of the Covenant is symbolic of its
status as restricted knowledge controlled by the ‘high priests and
consummate Magi’ alone. Given the order reconstructed the artefacts of the
ancient Hebrew cultus for its ritual practice, the ‘Ark’ may also have been a
physical object: thus in the related initiatory rituals of the Asiatic Brethren
the Urim is taken from the Holy of Holies amidst the burning of entheogenic
incense.[11] A Freemasonesque concern with the Tabernacle and its fixtures
is evident throughout the order’s Hebrew patriarchal pseudo-history given in
both the Thesaurus thesaurorum and the Testamentum, which identifies
Bezalel – the chief artisan of the Ark and its sanctuary – as the first
Imperator. The order’s alchemical and magical practices are portrayed as
traditions established by the patriarchs: thus the twelve stones of the Urim
are associated with the twelve stones collected by representatives of the
twelve tribes at the parting of the Jordan (Joshua 3.1-4.24). Together with
the twelve ‘magical priests’ carrying the Ark, these men represent the
order’s traditional membership quota (twenty-four).[12]
Both the pendant and the free-standing Urim are created by inserting stones
from the four realms into crystal fixtures within artefacts of electrum
magicum – an alloy of the seven metals first described in the pseudo-
Paracelsian Archidoxis magica, which details the creation of magical mirrors
and spirit-summoning bells similar to those described in the order’s
manuscripts.[21] At the centre of both types of Urim the Tetragrammaton is
inscribed and a larger stone incorporating all four types of stone is inserted;
the free-standing artefact is crowned by a further colloidal gold ‘ruby’
manufactured with a liquid ‘fire of the Lord’.[22]
A third text associated with the Gold- und Rosenkreuz that is listed in
Reger’s inventory of Pfeffer’s works is the Testamentum an die Kinder der
Kunst und Weißheit Göttlicher Magiae, Englischer Cabalae und Natürlicher
Philosophiae. There is no further indication of the content of this manuscript
in Reger’s Gründlicher Bericht, but given a) the correspondence of the title’s
terminology and syntax to that of the Testamentum; b) the aforementioned
presence of Pfeffer’s words in the Thesaurus thesaurorum and another text
describing the order’s magical activities (Himmlisches und übernatürliches
Geheimnis des Geistes und der Seele der Welt); and c), the doctrinal and
terminological commonalities of Pfeffer’s oeuvre with the Cabalistic sections
of the Testamentum, it is highly likely that the manuscript in Reger’s
inventory was a forebear of the order compendia analysed here.
Figure 8. The book with seven seals: Gold- und Rosenkreuz manuscript
(c.1760), Beinecke Library, Mellon MS 110 (A) and Ad 1ste Hauptstuffe Nr. 1
+ Nr. 3 (Asiatic Brethren tables), Octagon Collection (B).
However, some commonalities are less generic. Thus the Gründlicher Bericht
states that, just as higher angels instruct those beneath them, so the secret
of the Urim and Thummim was passed down in an esoteric lineage among
the prophets, who were practitioners of magia divina.[67] In another place
in Pfeffer’s presumed oeuvre divine revelations in a speculum magicum
divinum are mentioned.[68] At the end of his inventory, Reger also lists a
number of manuscripts owned but not authored by Pfeffer ‘that have never
been printed’: this includes a ‘manual’ of Heinrich Khunrath that is the likely
source of the esoteric magical practices in question.[69]
Tes t[d]ament[d]um [der Frader Aurae vel Rosae – als gewiße Extases oder
geheime operationes, wo durch das Misterio er öffnet.] an die [unßere]
Kinder der Kunst und Weiß[ys]heit[,] Göttlicher Magiae, [und] Englischer
Cabalae und Natürlicher Philosophiae. [I. W. R. anno 580.]
Note that the last term in Pfeffer’s all-pervasive leitmotiv – göttliche Magia,
englische Cabala und natürliche Philosophia[70] – has been removed,
indicating the excision from Pfeffer’s Testamentum of material written under
the rubric of ‘natural philosophy’ (i.e. the medical reflections to be found in
Pfeffer’s surviving printed texts). However, there is insufficient data to draw
a firm conclusion concerning the tract’s authorship. Notwithstanding the fact
we are examining both texts through the lens of a number of redactions,
stylistic dissimilarities between the Böhmian passages of the Testamentum
and the work which can most safely be ascribed to Pfeffer – Das Buch Amor
Proximi – raise the possibility that the Testamentum was a work redacted
by, but not first authored by, Pfeffer.
In the case of the order’s Testamentum, the most likely scenario given the
available evidence is that the redactor: 1) was a resident of Utrecht; 2)
wrote under the name of ‘Friedrich Gualdi’; 3) was a custodian of Pfeffer’s
esoteric magical tradition; 4) worked at the hub of a large epistolary
network of practicing alchemists and magicians; and 5), died in 1724.
According to this scenario, the ‘pseudo-Gualdi’ in question was responsible
for splicing Pfeffer’s Testamentum together with the laws of the fraternity
associated with the true Friedrich Gualdi. The earliest version of these laws
in exoteric circulation is an Italian manuscript housed at the Biblioteca
Nazionale in Naples and dated to 1678.[80] A comparison of these Italian
laws with those given in the three Testamentum codices reveals the
insertion of idiosyncratic material designed to bring them into conformity
with Pfeffer’s esoteric tradition:
The short pseudo-history of the Italian laws describes the reformation of the
order in 1542-43.[86] In its stead the Testamentum supplies the much
longer patriarchal pseudo-history I have briefly described; various fictional
‘events’ in the history of the order are also added to the laws, such as the
exposure of brethren due to indiscretions with women and canting clerics.
[87]
The Italian laws appear to belong to the alchemical and magical sect led by
Friedrich Gualdi: the Cavallieri dell’ Aurea Croce (Knights of the Gold Cross),
which constituted a conspiratorial cabal within high diplomatic and political
circles in Venice. Notwithstanding their likely inclusion of hearsay and
deliberate defamation, the Inquisitorial records refer to Gualdi as ‘a star that
dominates Venice’ (presumably just as the sage dominates the stars),[88]
and mention is made of an elixir produced from human semen by which the
operator is ‘exalted to an angelic nature’ and becomes a ‘prophet dominating
the aerial and subterranean spirits’.[89] These are summoned and subdued
with the help of un libro di negromanzia containing their characters, legions
and circles;[90] thus one diabolical spirit is said to be kept captive in a flask
(cf. figure 6, lower left).[91] The legend of Gualdi’s longevity is also present
in the records.[92] This is attributable to the Philosophers’ Stone he
possesses: thus most of the Italian laws (if they indeed belong to Gualdi’s
‘high sect’)[93] are directed toward the maintenance of secrecy and the
correct handling of this lapis, which takes powdered, liquid and solid forms.
There are also references to a (magical or ecstatic?) riversioni di spiriti as
well as natural magical artefacts such as ever-burning lights.[94]
What was the relationship of the Cavallieri dell’ Aurea Croce to the Germanic
Gold- und Rosenkreuz associated with Pfeffer’s esoteric tradition? There is
little indication in either the Inquisitorial records, the Italian laws or Gualdi’s
genuine works[95] of Pietist, Böhmian and Christian Cabalistic themes or
terminology. Nevertheless, angelification via a seminal tincture (alchemically
assisted theurgy)[96] and pseudo-Solomonic demon-binding are consonant
with the practices described in the esoteric manuscript literature of the Gold-
und Rosenkreuz.[97] The twofold division of the order into ‘brethren of the
golden cross’ (signified by a red cross) and ‘brethren of the rosy cross’
(signified by a green cross) alluded to in all existing versions of the order’s
laws may indicate the amalgamation of the alchemically oriented Italian
‘Philosophers of the Gold Cross’[98] with a Rosicrucian tradition based in
Nuremberg and represented by Gualdi.[99] Although Gilly argues that the
laws of the order were ‘originally written in Italian by Roman Catholics’, and
that their content is ‘of good Catholic stock’,[100] the Naples manuscript
clearly states that the order’s headquarters (la casa maggiore) are in
Nuremberg, residence of the imperatore (quite possibly Gualdi, the ‘prince
of the high sect’).[101] Moreover, Gualdi is repeatedly referred to in the
Inquisitorial records as a German and ‘native of Augsburg’.[102] Nor are
Richter’s laws a translation of the Naples text, as Gilly asserts.[103] Rather,
they are derived from a Protestant German manuscript (RQ2); therefore it is
too early to conclude the laws are an ‘Italian import product’.[104]
Whether it existed beforehand or not, the first hard evidence for the
doctrinal and organisational continuity of the Cavallieri dell’ Aurea Croce with
the Germanic Gold- und Rosenkreuz is to be found in the figure of pseudo-
Gualdi – a follower of both Gualdi and Pfeffer who (according to the
aforementioned scenario) was responsible for those transformations in the
order’s grade system and cultus that are manifestly derived from Pfeffer’s
esoteric tradition.[105] After Gualdi’s death, this pseudo-Gualdi more or less
opportunistically traded on the mystique surrounding Gualdi and his life-
giving elixir.[106] Thus the Amsterdam manuscript of Pfeffer’s ‘orphaned’
Cabala et philosophia naturae et artis is ascribed to ‘Fridericus Gualdianus’,
and has a preface signed in Utrecht in ‘1678’ – yet the real Gualdi was still
in Venice in that year.[107] Furthermore, two Pietistically tinged letters
describe a Dutch ‘Friedrich Gualdianus’ undertaking a mission in September
1721 on behalf of the ‘Brüderschafft der Rosen-Creutzer’ to collect secret
manuscripts belonging to a recently deceased ‘brother’: a two-part Schlüssel
der wahren Weisheit (Key to True Wisdom) and Der güldene Begriff (The
Golden Compendium), the latter of which forms the bulk of the fourth book
of the Darmstadt Thesaurus thesaurorum.[108] While the veracity of the
narrative presented in these letters is by no means assured, pseudo-Gualdi
refers to himself therein as a Dutchman, and describes a journey from
Utrecht to Nuremberg, Augsburg and Biberbach, where the brother’s widow
awaits him with the said order manuscripts.[109] Another tract ascribed to
‘Prinz Utasop a.k.a. Friedrich Gualdianus’ and dated to 1722 is to be found in
a collection of thirteen ‘letters’ from pseudonymous brethren of the
‘Fradernität Rosee Crucis Aurea’; purportedly written from Utrecht (home to
the ‘Imperator’), Limbourg, Helsingør, Wolfenbüttel, Hamburg, Maastricht
and Lübeck, they give the impression of an epistolary network used to share
laboratory experience and exchange alchemical recipes for the creation of
tinctures from the four realms.[110] One manuscript version of these letters
is bound together with the aforementioned laws of the fraternity; another is
bound with the spurious ‘third’ book of Kirchweger’s Aurea catena Homeri,
which in its printed version is also dated ‘Utrecht the 18th of October 1654’.
[111]
The identity of pseudo-Gualdi is addressed by the Swiss alchemist Friedrich
Mumenthaler (1700-1777), who is better known by his pseudonym
‘Hermann Fictuld’.[112] Mumenthaler was the customs inspector and public
treasurer of Langenthal, a small but prosperous trading centre some 50
kilometres south of Basel; to the east of this country town he built a (now
ruined) manor-house he named Sonnenberg (solar mountain), where it was
[113]
rumoured he engaged in alchemical and magical experiments. In his
Probier-stein Mumenthaler describes two men writing under the name of
Friedrich Gualdi: 1) ‘Fredricus Gualdus der I’, a German resident in
seventeenth-century Venice and Vicenza who wrote tracts in both Italian and
German; and 2), ‘Fredricus Gualdus der II’, who wrote letters under the
name of the first Gualdi and who was a personal friend of Mumenthaler.
[114] This second pseudo-Gualdi was a ‘descendant and disciple’ of the first
Gualdi who adopted his name and title ‘out of thankfulness and high respect
for his patron’, and who spent his days visiting and corresponding with other
disciples (hence, perhaps, his alleged journey to Augsburg, Nuremberg and
Biberbach).[115] According to Mumenthaler, pseudo-Gualdi died in 1724 – a
date confirmed by the alchemist Johann Gottfried Meister, who adds that he
died in ‘N.’, where the town administration took possession of his effects.
[116] The widespread dissemination and publication of order texts in the
years that followed may well be contingent upon this fact.
Gilly has argued that ‘the Rosicrucians experienced their cultural nadir’
under the Gold- und Rosenkreuz, having replaced the noble reform
programme of the original manifestos with ‘empty ceremony and hollow
alchemical phraseology’.[136] My research under the patronage of Thomas
Hakl has painted a very different picture of the order. The cultus of the Gold-
und Rosenkreuz has its origins in an esoteric tradition predating the
manifestos; amongst this tradition’s guardians and practitioners we find a
preponderance of manual workers (miners are prominently represented)
[137] with an enchanted experience of the natural order, a pious disregard
for conformity and an ‘exilic’ Gnostic attitude linked to an imminentist
eschatology.[138] In their marginalised form of Christianity, interaction with
lower spirits is an essential step on a path to God that at once reverses and
consummates the cosmogony; for this reason their faith has all too easily
been condemned as diabolical heresy, enthusiastic insanity or irrational
absurdity by those who have failed to subjugate (and are therefore ruled by)
their own demons. While there is no evidence of any continuity of
organisation between the Gold- und Rosenkreuz and the early network in
Gießen, Ulm and Marburg ostensibly self-identifying as ‘Rosicrucian’,[139]
both were inheritors of an anti-institutional inspirationist tendency –
present, albeit obscured, in the manifestos – promoting the irenicism of the
radical Reformers (Franck, Weigel) and drawn to the addressative magic of
the Paracelsians, Christian Cabalists and the grimoire tradition. Flowing
forward in time to the Golden Dawn and Thelema, this is a current of
esoteric praxis that is not always visible to the intellectual historian or
historian of ideas, but that is nevertheless of considerable significance to the
history of religion in Europe.
Bibliography
Manuscripts
Arcana divina. Yale: Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Mellon MS 88.
Aurum Seculum ChurFürst. Augusti und Christano. Primi. mid Eignen henden
gearbeidet. Dresden: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und
Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, MS e 8/1.
Das zweyte Silentium Dei in des Königs Salomonis des Weisen
paradiessischen Lustgarten. Yale: Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Mellon MS 136.
I. N. R. I. Magia divina, die Gott der Herr nur seinen Kindern vorbehalten
hat, worinnen unaussprechliche Wunder zu sehen, von Wort zu Wort
beschrieben. The Hague: Bibliotheek van de Orde van Vrijmetselaren, MS
240 A 43.
Magia divina die Gott der Herr nur seinen Kindern vorbehalten hat, worinnen
unaussprechliche Wunder zu sehen, von Wort zu Wort beschrieben.
Dresden: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
Dresden, MS N 166.
Paracelsus [pseud.]. ‘Dei [sic] magia oder magia divina seu praxis Cabulae
albae et naturalis’, in Septimus sapientiae: Liber verus ac genuinus. Munich:
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Kiesewetteriana 1 e, pp. 426-572.
Tesdamendum der Frader Aurae vel Rosae [sic] – als gewiße Extases oder
geheime operationes, wo durch das Misterio er öffnet. an unßere Kinder der
Kunst und Weysheit, Göttlicher Magia und Englischer Cabala. I. W. R. anno
580. Dresden: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und
Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, MS N 158.
Books
Die alten Matrikeln der Universitaet Strassburg 1621 bis 1793, vol 1, ed.
Gustav Carl Knod. Strasbourg: Karl J. Trübner, 1897.
Die Brüder St. Johannis des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa, oder die
einzige wahre und ächte Freimaurerei. Berlin: Johann Wilhelm Schmidt,
1803.
Dreyzehn geheime Briefe von dem großen Geheimniße des Universals und
Particulars der goldenen und Rosenkreutzer. Leipzig: Adam Friedrich Böhme,
1788.
Geffarth, Renko. Religion und arkane Hierarchie: Der Orden der Gold- und
Rosenkreuzer als geheime Kirche im 18. Jahrhundert. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Gilly, Carlos and Cis van Heertum. Magia, alchimia, scienza dal ‘400 al ‘700.
L’influsso di Ermete Trismegisto, vol 2. Florence: Centro Di, 2005.
Kopp, Hermann. Die Alchemie in älterer und neuerer Zeit: ein Beitrag zur
Culturgeschichte, vol 1. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1886.
Magia divina, oder gründ- und deutlicher Unterricht, von denen fürnehmsten
Caballistischen Kunst-Stücken derer Alten Israeliten Welt-Weisen, und
Ersten, auch noch einigen heutigen wahren Christen. S.l.: L. v. H., 1745.
Mulsow, Martin. ‘You Only Live Twice: Charlatanism, Alchemy, and Critique of
Religion, Hamburg, 1747–1761’, Cultural and Social History 3 (2006), 273-
286.
[Pfeffer, Ulrich]. Das Buch Amor Proximi: Geflossen aus dem Oehl der
Göttlichen Barmhertzigkeit. The Hague: Pieter Hagen, 1686.
Scholem, Gershom. ‘Zu Abraham Eleazars Buch und dem Esch Mezareph’,
Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 70, 3 (1926),
202-209.
Söldner, Johann Anton. Keren Happuch, Posaunen Elia des Künstlers, oder
deutsches Fegefeuer der Scheidekunst. Hamburg: Libernickel, 1702.
Tilton, Hereward. ‘Of Electrum and the Armour of Achilles: Myth and Magic
in a Manuscript of Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605)’, Aries: Journal for the
Study of Western Esotericism 6, 2 (2006), 117-157.
von der Recke, Elisa. Nachricht von des berüchtigten Cagliostro Aufenthalte
in Mittau, im Jahre 1779. Berlin: Friedrich Nicolai, 1787.
von Schinkel, Bernt and Carl Bergman. Minnen ur Sveriges nyare historia,
vol 3. Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1853.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. London: William
Rider & Son, 1924.
[9] Thus the related group of ‘animal tinctures’ made from blood, urine and
sweat are numbered one to three in MS Darmstadt, 346-363; in MS
Octagon, III, 73-81, the blood tincture is omitted, as is the numbering for
the other two tinctures.
[11] Johann Christoph von Woellner, Der Signatstern oder die enthüllten
sämmtlichen sieben Grade der mystischen Freimaurerei nebst dem Orden
der Ritter des Lichts, vol 2 (Berlin: C. G. Schöne, 1803), pp. 114, 117. The
primary ingredient of the incense is mandrake; the Holy of Holies and other
fixtures are illustrated in the Octagon’s Asiatic Brethren manuscript tables
for the first main grade rituals, Ad 1ste Hauptstuffe Nr. 1 + Nr. 3 (c.1786);
cf. Die Brüder St. Johannis des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa, oder die
einzige wahre und ächte Freimaurerei (Berlin: Johann Wilhelm Schmidt,
1803), pp. 208 ff.
[13] Thus both the Thesaurus thesaurorum and the Testamentum instruct
initiates to show only the laws of the fraternity and the Buch der Weißheit
(cf. infra) to a potential candidate; and as even these tracts allude to higher
secrets, care should be taken lest ‘the seal is broken prematurely’, the
candidate leaves and restricted knowledge is profaned.
[14] MS Vienna, 248: ‘…habe bey der handt eine Kugel, so aus der Electrum
gegossen, wie wir dir solches gelehret in der Magia Divina’. Magia divina die
Gott der Herr nur seinen Kindern vorbehalten hat, worinnen
unaussprechliche Wunder zu sehen, von Wort zu Wort beschrieben.
Dresden: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
Dresden, MS N 166, pp. 167-197 (1728); I. N. R. I. Magia divina, die Gott
der Herr nur seinen Kindern vorbehalten hat, worinnen unaussprechliche
Wunder zu sehen, von Wort zu Wort beschrieben. The Hague: Bibliotheek
van de Orde van Vrijmetselaren, MS 240 A 43 (1730); De magia divina oder
Caballistischer Geheimnüsse. London: Wellcome Library, MS 4808, pp. 223-
263 (1737); Kabbalistische Geheimnisse de magia divina worinnen allerhand
rare unerhoerte Dinge enthalten. Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS
Kiesewetteriana 18 (1767); published as Magia divina, oder gründ- und
deutlicher Unterricht, von denen fürnehmsten Caballistischen Kunst-Stücken
derer Alten Israeliten Welt-Weisen, und Ersten, auch noch einigen heutigen
wahren Christen (s.l.: L. v. H., 1745), a rare work also held at the Octagon.
[15] MS Octagon, II, 22: ‘…habe bey der hand eine Kugel, so aus dem
Electro seu Wismutho gegossen ist’; MS Darmstadt, 155: ‘…habe bey der
Hand eine Kugel, so aus dem Electro im ersten Theil dieses Buchs gegossen
worden’; in this manner the scribes refer to electrum not as an alloy of the
seven metals (electrum magicum) but rather as bismuth, i.e. the mineral
referred to in the first book of ThQ1 (cf. MS Darmstadt, 106). This is a
reference to electrum as a mineral ‘full of seminal power’: Paracelsus,
Werke, vol 5, ed. Will-Erich Peuckert (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1968), p. 415.
[16] Pseudo-Paracelsus, ‘Dei [sic] magia oder magia divina seu praxis
Cabulae albae et naturalis’, in Septimus sapientiae: Liber verus ac genuinus.
Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Kiesewetteriana 1 e (1778), pp.
426-572 (pp. 567-568).
[20] γνῶθι σεαυτόν seu noscete ipsum: Sextus sapientiae liber verus ac
genuinus. Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Kiesewetteriana 1 d
(1777); the title of this manuscript comes from its first chapter, which
corresponds with that of MS Stuttgart, MS Darmstadt and the Testamentum
(‘Erkenne dich’).
[21] Cf. Hereward Tilton, ‘Of Electrum and the Armour of Achilles: Myth and
Magic in a Manuscript of Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605)’, Aries: Journal for
the Study of Western Esotericism 6, 2 (2006), pp. 117-157.
[22] Cf. Hereward Tilton, ‘Of Ether, Entheogens and Colloidal Gold: Heinrich
Khunrath and the Making of a Philosophers’ Stone’, in Aaron Cheak (ed.),
Alchemical Traditions: From Antiquity to the Avant-Garde (Melbourne:
Numen Books, 2013), pp. 355-422; see also Khunrath, De igne Magorum,
89-90: the ‘URIM Theosophorum’ is created ‘Physico-Chymicé, divino
Magicé, Et Christiano-Kabalicé’ from the ‘IGNIS Naturae internus Catholicus’.
[33] An expression of the notion that the psalms exert magical power over
spirits: hence a Psalterium magicum is bound together with the Dresden
Magia divina (cf. n. 14 supra).
[34] Khunrath, Consilium, 43; the origins of the electrum magicum bells are
to be found in pseudo-Paracelsus, Archidoxis magica, in Paracelsus,
Sämtliche Werke, vol 14, ed. K. Sudhoff (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1933), pp.
437-498 (p. 488); the same tradition is described in (e.g.) De magia divina,
Wellcome MS 4808, 244-248.
[36] Edward Scott, Index to the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Museum
(London: William Clowes and Sons, 1904), p. 90 (cf. p. 289) dates it to the
seventeenth century, while Samuel Ayscough, A Catalogue of the
Manuscripts Preserved in the British Museum Hitherto Undescribed, vol 2
(London: John Rivington, 1782), p. 880, dates it to the sixteenth; the
chirography and the interior design of the theosopher’s house suggest a
slightly later date than the related oratory emblem of the Amphitheatrum
(which was engraved in 1595), but still possibly within Khunrath’s lifetime.
[37] George Ernst Aurelius Reger, Gründlicher Bericht auff einige Fragen
(Hamburg: Georg Wolff, 1683), p. 76: ‘…ich habe auch in meiner Jugend
gemeint bey dieser Huren grosse Weißheit zu finden/ aber ich fand nur der
Schlangen Klugheit/ welche ich als bittere Galle wieder hab müssen
ausspeyen.’
[40] Breckling graduated from the University of Strasbourg in the same year
(1655) as another member of the Holstein Quaker circle, Johannes
Grimmenstein; both men were from Flensburg. Die alten Matrikeln der
Universitaet Strassburg 1621 bis 1793, vol 1, ed. Gustav Carl Knod
(Strasbourg: Karl J. Trübner, 1897), p. 623.
[42] Thus Johann Anton Söldner, Keren Happuch, Posaunen Elia des
Künstlers, oder deutsches Fegefeuer der Scheidekunst (Hamburg:
Libernickel, 1702), p. 119, gives ‘Neglandirs Kraft in Amsterdam’ as Pfeffer’s
former residence; this is a corruption of ‘Negelantiers-gracht’, as it was
known at the time.
[47] Breckling, Autobiographie, 50-51; note the year of death coincides with
the death of ‘E. P. J. H.’ (Reger, Gründlicher Bericht, 118) and the release of
his manuscript oeuvre, thus confirming Söldner’s identification of those
initials as ‘Ericus Pfeffer, Itzehoensis Holsatus’: Söldner, Keren Happuch,
119.
[50] Söldner, Keren Happuch, 120, accuses Reger of ‘cobbling these books
together’ from Pfeffer’s work, while Breckling (in Arnold, Fortsetzung und
Erläuterung, 1098) states Rottman passed off Pfeffer’s works as those of an
‘unknown adept’; stylistic and thematic commonalities support these
accusations. Reger’s copies of Pfeffer’s manuscripts passed to Abraham van
Brün (d. 1745-1750) of Amsterdam; while Friedrich Schröder, Neue
alchymistische Bibliothek für den Naturkundiger, vol 1 (Frankfurt am Main:
Heinrich Ludwig Brünner, 1772), pp. 21-22, declared that van Brün did not
belong to any lineage of adepts, the anonymous author of the ‘Authentische
Nachricht von den eigentlichen Grundsätzen der wahren Rosenkreutzer, und
wo sich die Originalnachrichten davon befinden’, Der Deutsche Zuschauer
16, 6 (1787), pp. 198-208 (p. 201), responded that van Brün was the last of
the ‘true’ Rosicrucian lineage represented by Pfeffer and Reger.
[51] Anonymous [Ulrich Pfeffer], Das Buch Amor Proximi: Geflossen aus
dem Oehl der Göttlichen Barmhertzigkeit (The Hague: Pieter Hagen, 1686);
in Nosce te ipsum, 4, Reger claims responsibility for the publication of Das
Buch Amor Proximi. The work is praised and claimed for the brotherhood in
Carl Hubert Lobreich von Plumenoek [Bernhard Joseph Schleiß von
Löwenfeld], Geoffenbarter Einfluß in das allgemeine Wohl der Staaten der
ächten Freymäurerey (Amsterdam [Regensburg]: s.n., 1777), p. 34.
[59] MS Vienna, 200; Das Buch Amor Proximi, 55 (‘Darum ist ihre
Syderische Vernunft todt’).
[60] MS Hamburg, 157 (‘der Mensch muß gantz mit Gott vereinigt seyn, es
muß der Natürliche Mensch gefangen worden’), 159 (‘denn so bald der
Mensch seine Vernunft mit einmischt… ist solcher ein Greuel vor seinem
Angesicht’); Gründlicher Bericht, 82 (‘siehe O du Weltkluge Vernunfft/ dein
Schlangen-Klugheit hilfft dir nichts’); Das Buch Amor Proximi, 55 (‘im
Niedergang deiner natürlichen Vernunft’).
[62] MS Hamburg, 171 (‘Der neue leib aus der neuen geburth’); Das Buch
Amor Proximi, 47 (‘den reinen Cristal Leib… aus dem unreinen Leib, durch
die Wiedergeburt’); 55-56 (‘…in diese neugeborne Microcosmische Welt…
deinen ganzen neuen Leib’).
[64] Das Buch Amor Proximi, 28-29 (cf. Rev. 4.5): the seven source-spirits
are Fackeln (torches, cf. the Menorah); together with the Trinity they are
homologous with the sefirot. On the function of the Quellgeister in the
brightening and darkening of the Urim, see Schrifftliche Unterrichtung, 225.
[70] E.g Das Buch Amor Proximi, 46; Gründlicher Bericht, 33; Treuhertzige
Vermahnung, f. C ii recto.
[71] Das Buch Amor Proximi, 96 (‘…darum ist nöthig, dass, nach der F. R.
Ermahnung, ein junger Hermetis nicht allein die H. Schrift fleisig lese,
sondern auch nach der Regel, darinn vorgeschrieben, ernstlich wandle, und
Gott in dem Namen JEsu fleisig um den H. Geist bitte.’)
[76] Gershom Scholem, ‘Zu Abraham Eleazars Buch und dem Esch
Mezareph’, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums
70, 3 (1926), pp. 202-209 (p. 202); there is no unambiguous reference to
the text prior to the Curieuse Untersuchung, ff. D i verso – D ii verso (where
the anonymous author, a member of the ‘Collegium Curiosorum’, cites a
passage from a ‘secret manuscript’ corresponding to Uraltes chymisches
Werck, vol 1, 12-14). The most prominent defence of a fourteenth-century
authorship remains Raphael Patai, The Jewish Alchemists: A History and
Source Book (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), pp. 238-257;
however, the faux-Jewish elements of the Uraltes chymisches Werck are
directed towards a Protestant inspirationist diaspora.
[93] Gualdi is the ‘prince of the high sect’: Francesci Giusti contra Federicum
Gualdum, section II.2.c.
[94] MS Naples, f. 232 verso. While the brethren are forbidden to make
‘lumi perpetui’ (perpetual lamps) in the Naples manuscript, they are
forbidden to cause ‘immerwährenden Haß’ (perpetual hatred) in the laws
printed by Samuel Richter, Die wahrhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des
Philosophischen Steins der Bruderschaft aus dem Orden des Gulden- und
Rosen-creutzes (Breslau: Fellgiebels seelige Wittwe und Erben, 1710), p.
105. This apparent error is also present in MS Vienna, 29, and is carried
over into the Thesaurus thesaurorum (e.g. MS Darmstadt, 22). As MS
Vienna is not derived from the Breslau laws (cf. their respective pseudo-
histories), the error was present in their Protestant German-language
common source (RQ2), while an earlier version of the laws (RQ1) did not
contain the error. RQ1 may also have been a German-language manuscript,
as ‘immerwährenden Haß’ is more likely to be a mistranscription of
‘immerwährenden Lampen’ rather than a mistranslation of ‘lumi perpetui’,
‘lucernae inextinguibiles’, etc.; furthermore, the redactor of the more
comprehensive laws in MS Hamburg may have had recourse to RQ1 or a
derivative which did not contain the error (hence MS Hamburg, 28: ‘die
außerordentliche und den unwißende als wunderwercke vorkommende
dinge’).
[98] Cf. Jesvs et Maria et Ioseph. London: Wellcome Library, MS 259.1, ff. 1
recto – 2 verso (1649). The thirteen laws given here lack any unambiguous
relation to the later laws of the Cavallieri dell’ Aurea Croce.
[100] Carlos Gilly and Cis van Heertum, Magia, alchimia, scienza dal ‘400 al
‘700. L’influsso di Ermete Trismegisto, vol 2 (Florence: Centro Di, 2005), pp.
224, 226. The lament in the Naples manuscript that Calvinists and Muslims
have been forced to convert to Catholicism in order to join the order surely
cannot be taken at face value; rather, the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ template
presented in both the ‘Catholic’ Naples manuscript and Richter’s ‘Protestant’
laws can be read as the expression of a trans-confessional irenicism, and a
willingness of the order’s elite to dissemble before neophytes. This tendency
culminates in the late (now lost) laws of the Dégh manuscript Aureum
vellus, seu Junioratus fratrum Rosae crucis, in which separate Catholic and
Protestant ‘companies’ exist side-by-side within the order: Ludwig Abafi-
Aigner, ‘Die Entstehung der neuen Rosenkreuzer’, Die Bauhütte 36, 11
(1893), 81-85 (p. 82).
[101] MS Naples, ff. 228 recto, 235 recto; Francesci Giusti contra Federicum
Gualdum, section II.2.c (‘Prencipe dell’alta seta’).
[104] Gilly and van Heertum, Magia, alchimia, scienza, 228; cf. n. 94 supra.
[105] Hence the structure of the order described in the Inquisitorial records
(twelve Areopagites, seventy-two followers: Francesci Giusti contra
Federicum Gualdum, section II.6; cf. Luke 6.13, 10.1) differs markedly from
that described in the Testamentum (seven Magi, seventy-seven brethren).
[106] The frontispiece of La critica della morte (Colonia: s.n., 1694), states
that Gualdi ‘disappeared’ in 1682. As he was born c.1600, this is probably
his date of death (various legends notwithstanding).
[109] The text (Curiöse historische Nachricht, 82) puts ‘Bibrach 15. Meilen
hinter Nürnberg’; but pseudo-Gualdi was travelling from Nuremberg to
Augsburg, and it is Biberbach rather than Biberach an der Riß that is 15
German miles from Nuremberg. A further letter (pp. 85-86) to the same
recipient describing business matters in Lübeck and Hamburg is written by
pseudo-Gualdi from Amsterdam in 1723.
[110] Dreyzehn geheime Briefe von dem großen Geheimniße des Universals
und Particulars der goldenen und Rosenkreutzer (Leipzig: Adam Friedrich
Böhme, 1788).
[118] MS Vienna, f. 1 recto; on the family von Prinz und Buchau, see
Johannes Sinapius, Schlesische Curiositäten, vol 2 (Leipzig: Michael
Rohrlach, 1728), pp. 403-404.
[123] Aurum Seculum ChurFürst. Augusti und Christano. Primi. mid Eignen
henden gearbeidet. Dresden: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und
Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, MS e 8/1.
[126] Elisa von der Recke, Nachricht von des berüchtigten Cagliostro
Aufenthalte in Mittau, im Jahre 1779 (Berlin: Friedrich Nicolai, 1787), pp. 3-
4; cf. Martin Mulsow, ‘You Only Live Twice: Charlatanism, Alchemy, and
Critique of Religion, Hamburg, 1747–1761’, Cultural and Social History 3
(2006), pp. 273-286 (p. 278).
[128] The lost manuscripts of the Dégh archives described Schultz as ‘the
centrepoint of all chemical correspondence’: Abafi-Aigner, ‘Entstehung der
neuen Rosenkreuzer’, 81. The dates of Schultz’ life can be gleaned from his
correspondence with Johann Haussen: Briefwechsel Tobias Schultzens,
Ehelichs und Haußens. Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS
Kiesewetteriana 30 (1765-c.1770), ff. 3 verso (‘Ich gehe nunmehro in mein
79stes Jahr, und weis nicht, wie lange ich noch lebe…’), 30 verso – 31 recto
(‘…den Tobias Schultzens Geist belebt…’).
[129] Friedrich Münter, Authentische Nachricht von den Ritter- und Brüder-
Eingeweihten aus Asien: zur Beherzigung für Freymaurer (Copenhagen:
Profft, 1787), p. xxvii; however, it is unclear if this is a reference to an
artefact or to insignia.
[130] Renko Geffarth, Religion und arkane Hierarchie: Der Orden der Gold-
und Rosenkreuzer als geheime Kirche im 18. Jahrhundert (Leiden: Brill,
2007), p. 185.
[134] Bernt von Schinkel and Carl Bergman, Minnen ur Sveriges nyare
historia, vol 3 (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1853), pp. 335-339.
[137] While Pfeffer was a surgeon, Gualdi was a miner; the thirteen letters
associated with pseudo-Gualdi are bound together with a ‘miners’ hymn’
(Dreyzehn geheime Briefe, 117-120); and the most complete collection of
order manuscripts still in existence comes from the hand of Johann Salomon
Haussen (1729-1802), the mine inspector at the Trier family’s ill-fated cobalt
mine at Glücksbrunn, where the ‘dearest son’ of Imperator Tobias Schultz
also worked (Briefwechsel Tobias Schultzens, ff. 4 verso, 5 recto). A letter
from ‘Fried’ (a ‘Gabrielist’, i.e. a Magus seated at the lunar chair) suggests
the recently deceased mine manager Johann Paul Trier was also an order
member (Friedischer Brief, Taucha d. 24. Dez. 1770. Munich: Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, MS Kiesewetteriana 16 (1770), ff. 2 verso, 7 verso, 8
recto). It is noteworthy that the Royal Prussian mine surveyor, Johann
Gottfried Jugel, was a prominent Gold- und Rosenkreuzer: Geffarth, Religion
und arkane Hierarchie, 196-197.
[138] In the words of Imperator Schultz, ‘die ganze Welt in allem ihren
Thun, ist böse’: Briefwechsel Tobias Schultzens, f. 7 verso. For imminentist
eschatology, see the Friedischer Brief, f. 3 recto: ‘dass Ihr… solche göttliche
Geheimnisse der himmlischen Sophiae per Chemiam et Cabalisticam
ausarbeiten sollet… auf dass Ihr sammt vielen andern nicht darben müsstet
zur Zeit der Noth, und der Trübsal, die da kommen wird auf den Creys des
Erdbodens in gantz Europa in kurtzen.’