Sauvage Sundays

Esoteric and Hidden History

Happy Sunday yall, in honor of Our Lord’s day, I should like to discuss reality and Truth instead of ‘once upon a time.’ Let us turn then, to one of my favorite subjects, namely - occultism, esotericism, and eliptony - you know, woo-woo. Why should we look here? Well firstly, because it interests me, secondly, because it is useful research fodder for my writing, and thirdly, because it is important to understand the world around us. You, dear reader, may not believe in the principles of occult philosophy, but the Moloch worshipping elites who actually run our lives surely do.

The place to begin then, is with the foundation of the modern world. No, not the World War in either of its two parts. But the Wars of Religion that resulted in the Peace of Westphalia. And why the 'Wars of Religion' aren't actually wars between Protestants and Catholics, but between Orthodox Christians and an Occult Elite. Only the Orthodox never really realized that there was a war. Confused? Well buckle up my buttercups, because this rabbit hole is deep and the way is treacherous.

In order to understand the narrative, we must first understand the word of the day, and that word is 'Rosicrucian'. It is usually defined as follows.

Rosicrucian: Rosicrucian teachings are a combination of occultism and other religious beliefs and practices, including Hermeticism, Jewish Mysticism, and Christian Gnosticism. The central feature of Rosicrucianism is the belief that its members possess secret wisdom that was handed down to them from ancient times.

Ok, let's unpack a little, shall we? So I said we have to start with the Rosicrucians and Rosicrucianism. So who or what is a 'Rosicrucian'?

Well this is an interesting question and properly answering it, without resorting to the sort of circular pedantry of the dictionary; 'a rosicrucian is a member of a group that practices rosuicrucianism' requires much context, both historical and philosophical.

Rosicrucianism, generally speaking, was an intellectual furor that swept Europe, East and West, in the very early years of the 1600s, immediately before and all throughout the thirty plus year Wars of Religion, even after the Peace of Westphalia, which only caused the participants of the fervent to go underground again.

The key document that brought this intellectual stream into public light and historical record is the anonymously published pamphlet titled Fama Fraternitatis Roseae Crucis oder Die Bruderschaft des Ordens der Rosenkreuzer, but let's just call it der Fama for short, first published in 1612 - this is a critical date, remember it, we'll be back - but little known until the more widely promulgated second printing in 1614 along with the sequel slash expansion, the Confessio oder Bekenntnis der Societät und Bruderschaft Rosenkreuz, aka der Confessio.

Partly, these key texts exist to extol the virtues of Frederick V of Bohemia, the great Calvinist hope of the Protestant cause within the Holy Roman Empire, and champion his claim to the disputed elections for Holy Roman Emperor in 1612 (remember I said to mind the date?) whose ascension to that august office was supposed to usher in a 'New Age' and 'a general reformation of the whole wide world’ starting of course with the principle great power of Christendom, the Empire.

The original three pamphlets (the third is the Chymical Wedding, don’t worry, we’ll get there) and their imitators (of which there were many) announced the existence of a secret society, an “Invisible College” of long-lived persons founded by one Christian Rosenkreuz, who was said to have acquired his knowledge in the East. This society promised to inaugurate an era of universal enlightenment in the very near future.

The recovery of ancient wisdom was to be the foundation of this new reformation, but a crucial feature of it was to be the perfection of natural knowledge gained by experiment and by the consultation of scholars.

But this idea of an Invisible College didn't die with Frederick's chances at a Bohemian crown, let alone the Imperial Crown, at White Mountain (we'll return later). On the contrary, it became endemic in 17th century literature. Ben Jonson (1572-1637 playwright and poet, composer of The Alchemist in 1610) in England referenced the idea, relating it in meaning to Francis Bacon's (1561-1626 father of empiricism) House of Solomon (fictional society in New Atlantis), in a masque The Fortunate Isles and Their Union from 1624/5. The term accrued currency for the exchanges of correspondence within the Republic of Letters.

Der Fama itself tells the story of the "Father C.R." (later referred to in the text as "C.R.C." or Christian Rose Cross or Rosenkreuz) and his ill-fated pilgrimage to Jerusalem; his subsequent tutelage by the secret sages of the east, the wise men of Damcar in Arabia, from whom he learned the ancient esoteric knowledge which included the study of physics, mathematics, magic and kabbalah; his return through Egypt and Fes, and his presence among the alumbrados in Spain. It is assumed by occultists, for whom a cigar is never just a cigar, that Rosenkreuz's pilgrimage seems to refer to transmutation steps within the Great Work.

And the Great Work is where we must look next.