The Golden Builders Read online

  What are those golden builders doing? Where was the burying place

  Of soft Ethinthus? Near Tyburns fatal tree? Is that

  Mild Zions hills most ancient promontory: near mournful

  Ever weeping Paddington? Is that Calvary and Golgotha?

  Becoming a building of pity and compassion? Lo!

  The stones are pity, and the bricks, well wrought affections:

  Enameld with love and kindness, & the tiles engraven gold

  Labour of merciful hands: the beams and rafters are forgivenness:

  The mortar and cement of the work, tears of honesty: the nails,

  And the screws & iron braces, are well wrought blandishments,

  And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten,

  Always comforting the remembrance: the floors, humility,

  The ceilings, devotion: the hearths, thanksgiving:

  Prepare the furniture O Lambeth in thy pitying looms!

  The curtains, woven tears & sighs, wrought into lovely forms

  For comfort, there the secret furniture of Jerusalems chamber

  Is wrought: Lambeth! The Bride the Lambs Wife loveth thee:

  Thou art one with her & knowest not of self in thy supreme joy

  Go on, builders in hope: tho Jerusalem wander far away,

  Without the gate of Los: among the dark Satanic wheels.

  Jerusalem XII.25-40. William Blake, 1804

  This edition first published in 2005 by

  Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

  York Beach, ME

  With offices at:

  368 Congress Street

  Boston, MA 02210

  www.redwheelweiser.com

  Copyright © 2002 Tobias Churton

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. First published in 2002 by Signal Publishing, Lichfield, Staffordshire.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 1-57863-329-X

  Printed in Canada

  TCP

  12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

  8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  PART ONE THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY

  Chapter One Hermes - Star of Alexandria

  The Vision of Hermes

  Neoplatonism and the Hermetic Tradition

  Chapter Two Alchemy

  Zosimos of Panopolis

  Chapter Three Hermes meets Islam

  Gnosis in Harran and Baghdad

  Thabit

  Thabit and the Gral

  The Sabian inheritance in the west

  Alchemy in the middle ages

  Sir George Ripley (c.1415-1490?)

  Chapter Four The Hermetic Reniassance

  The Mercurial Spirit

  Lodovico Lazzarelli - born again gnostic

  At the Hermetic bowl

  In the Sun

  Chapter Five The Hermetic background to the first Rosicrucians

  Paracelsus (1483-1541)

  The Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom

  Notes to Part One

  PART TWO THE TRUE STORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS

  Chapter Six The Fame of the Fraternity

  The Fama

  The myth of Christian Rosenkreuz

  In the House of the Holy Spirit

  Haslmayr and Paracelsus

  Plötzkau

  Chapter Seven The New Age

  Apocalyptic

  John Dee: Apocalyptic Prophet

  Saving the world

  The Fiery Trigons

  The breaking of the seals

  Tobias Hess and the apocalyptic numbers

  Chapter Eight Hess and Andreae

  Andreae and radical reform

  Caspar Schwenckfeld (1489-1561)

  Sebastian Franck (1499-1542)

  Piety & Mysticism

  Christoph Besold (1577-1649)

  Chapter Nine The Greatest Publicity Stunt of all Time

  The Rose

  The Furore begins

  The Stone falls

  The Devil in Paris

  The Assassination of Truth

  Andreae calls Time

  Johann Valentin Andreae and History

  Chapter Ten Others have Laboured

  Hit by the Stone

  The Stones in Action

  Comenius (1592-1671)

  A new Court at the Hague

  The Royal Society

  The Return of the Fama

  Witch Hunt

  Haunted by Dee's Spirits

  Notes to Part Two

  Illustrations

  PART THREE ELIAS ASHMOLE (1617-1692)

  Chapter Eleven A Mighty Good Man

  His Life

  Restoration

  Chapter Twelve Elias Ashmole and the origins of Free Masonry

  The Mainwarings

  Warrington - what happened?

  The Old Charges

  The Lodge is in the Head – The Acception and the London

  Masons Company

  Notes to Part Three

  Bibliography

  Index

  Preface

  “Why are you so interested in alchemy, Rosicrucianism and things like that?” my mother asked me recently.

  “There's something beautiful in magic.” I replied, without thinking. When I suggested making this exchange the Preface to my new book she recommended I add the letter ‘k’ to ‘magic’: the old spelling, to distinguish it from stage conjuring.

  Magick has always had to be qualified. Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) sharply differentiated “magia”, the science of the magi, from “goetia”, a thing involving demons and a terrible thing - what we would now call black magic. The cradle of Christ in the New Testament welcomes the magi from the east, while the Acts of the Apostles pits Paul and Peter in regular conflict with ‘magicians’. Mathematics in the middle ages and Renaissance was frequently classed, innocently, as ‘natural magic’ while sorcery was condemned. The word is used just as innocently today on the cover of a child's ‘magic painting book’ though its practitioner might be a little devil.

  Magic in this sense denotes a startling effect that can be described with the adjective ‘magical’, but which is plainly a simple operation of natural laws that strikes us as special ( the reaction of crystals in water). Not surprising then, that magic is often linked to the word illusion - the magic lantern deceives the eye. Cinema, which has done little else for a century, has naturally become the vehicle of global mythology.

  That adjective, ‘magical’ though - does it not suggest something more than the operation of a natural law? Something we describe as magical somehow touches our most receptive part, that which we call the soul, in a way that can change our lives, or make our lives. With this kind of power, it is little wonder that magic has been used and abused by the wicked (from the evil eye to the Nuremberg Rallies), and puritans have come to suspect beauty as carrying a fatal attraction. But is ugliness preferable? Well, I suppose the generous puritan might opt for just plain plain. But that is to side step the issue. To the eyes that behold it, the universe contains beauty and ugliness in measureless measure, but not much that could be fully described as plain.

  So what attracts me to these subjects? There is, I believe, a hiddenness to the universe, an inherent quality that does not meet the eye, at least not at first. I am not referring to microbes or DNA - though one might find this magic there as
well. It was, according to one of the subjects of this book, Elias Ashmole, the “admirall wisdome of the Magi”, to seek this quality, and work with it for the good. Another subject, Paracelsus, referred to the “divine signatures” inherent in the world, traces of a more than natural (though not unnatural) presence, something of the Maker's mark and transcendent mind, discernible in creation - a ladder, a clue, to something higher. One needs to see the world from a different perspective to that which has become familiar, or over-familiar. One needs to ascend the ladder, or ‘stairway to heaven’.

  Science is the child of the Magi, and from the point of view of the modern magus, is a distinguished branch of Magick. The scientist today, in general, would feel most uncomfortable with this, to say the least. But many of us think that the truly magical is inseparable from our existence as spiritual beings, as well as our existence as biological entities. I might fall in love with a spiritual being, I am unlikely to send flowers to a biological entity, though the behaviourists would have it so. All our love is so much ‘evolutionary determinism’. Take away the poetry, the music, the living faith and spiritual knowledge, yea, even and especially the magick, and what would we have? Dr Johnson might say, “Why, sir, then you would have what you call the Modern World!”

  Something is missing from the equation and this book represents part of my search to find out what that something is, and is not.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book could not have been written without the facilities, inspiration and access to original documentation, books, incunabla and manuscripts provided by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (J.R. Ritman Library, Amsterdam).

  For a thorough understanding of the original creators of the Rose-Cross mythology, I am indebted to Dr Carlos Gilly of Basle. For a series of sparkling interviews on so many aspects of the gnostic tradition, I am indebted to Professors Hans Jonas, Gilles Quispel, Elaine Pagels, R.Mc. Lachlan Wilson and Dr. Kathleen Raine. The conversation and encouragement of the late Jean Gimpel has been invaluable in understanding the practical achievements of the Middle Ages.

  Gratitude is due to the kindly and attentive staff of the Lichfield Record Office and the Stafford Record Office.

  Maureen Archer is responsible for tireless labour, above and beyond the call of duty, on the typesetting.

  I also want to thank Dr Christopher McIntosh, Columba Powell, Matthew Scanlan, Julian Jones, Sarah Miller, Victor and Patricia Churton (my parents), and Joanna (née) Edwards - who arrived in the (old) nick of time - for your love and patience.

  The book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Jan Arvid Hellström, the late bishop of Växjö, Sweden, who first brought me to the Theology Faculty of Uppsala University to lecture on Gnosticism in 1990, so launching a collaboration cut cruelly short by his death in a car accident in 1994. We spoke often of a new thing - or really, a very old thing, that seemed new. We called it ‘Stone Theology’. “He who trips on the stone shall be broken, but he on whom the stone falls shall be winnowed.” I shall carry on, Jan Arvid.

  This book is also dedicated to my darling wife, Joanna, and to our daughter, Mérovée Sophia, who, I hope, will read it, one day.

  Introduction

  Believe me, the only promise of a better future for our country is to be looked for from those to whom her past is dear. (Dean Inge. Things New & Old. 1933.)

  The expression ‘Hermetic Philosophy’ has been discussed in academic coteries for many years. Is there a coherent Hermetic philosophy, or is it merely a convenient title for a mixed bag of late antique spiritual and moral philosophies, with only the figure of Hermes Trismegistus to lend a spurious unity to the collection? The most recent scholarship on the matter (Fowden, Mahé, Quispel, Edighoffer, Secret, Gilly, Van den Broek) has suggested that one can talk meaningfully of an Hermetic philosophy, even a spiritual ‘way of Hermes’ of Egyptian provenance (Van den Broek has even employed the term ‘Hermetic lodge’), to which Hermetic authors have accreted sympathetic philosophical material, intuiting its inner consistency to the mainstream of their interest. This book accepts the expression Hermetic Philosophy in this sense, as a spiritual stream with its own special emphases.

  When I wrote my first book, The Gnostics, in the middle of that (in retrospect) exciting decade, the 1980s, attention to the Hermetic philosophy in academic circles centred either on its place in the Gnosis of late antiquity (the children of Jonas and Nag Hammadi), or as a primary impulse in the Italian, French, German and English Renaissance (Yates, Walker, Faivre). There was very little linkage. Theologians didn't seem to speak to historians of art and Renaissance philosophy.

  I hope the first part of this book fills some of the gaps and demonstrates that, in spite of appearances, the Hermetic Art is always one, at any time, and is a boon to all sacred traditions, be they ever so (apparently) distant. Infinity is Hermes' natural territory.

  The Gnostics concentrated its Hermetic interest on the figures Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno. We have the towering influence of the late Dame Frances Yates to thank for that. In this book, I have chosen to focus attention on the so-called ‘Hermes’ fool', Mercurio da Correggio, who dressed up as an hermetic messiah and entered Rome on an ass to tumultuous public interest the year before the Battle of Bosworth. He was not crucified, but went on to have an extraordinary impact on poet and Cabalist Lodovico Lazzarelli and thus on the wider European cultural horizon. Looking at the untutored Mercurio, we find the message is the same, but somehow deeper, more personal, as if the spirit had glided down from the lofty heights of Ficino's abstractions, and nested in a single, receptive human heart. Ambrosia is stored in the catacombs of footnotes.

  There are exceptions to this rule. Paracelsus is of course widely famous, especially on the continent. In Britain he has become a hero of homoeopathy; recognised by history as a scientific giant, he should also be seen as a theological master.

  Paracelsus' influence on those peculiar writings dubbed ‘Rosicrucian manfestos’ has long been regarded as seminal, but his influence on 16th and 17th century theological discourse - a revolution in attitude in fact - will come as much of a surprise to some readers as it did to me in the late eighties. Looking into the Paracelsian influence, we can see that the origins of Rosicrucianism should less hold the attention of conspiracy theorists than that of theologians, historians of science - and, of course, free spirits everywhere.

  The true (as opposed to the mythological) story of the Rosicrucians is inspiring. How did it happen that a handful of brilliant men, working both alone and in concert, did create an enduring movement, firstly of spiritual and moral development, and secondly of scientific study?

  The movement in question has been dubbed (by Dame Frances Yates in 1972), a movement of ‘Rosicrucian Enlightenment’. However, as this book demonstrates, such nomenclature does not properly express the range of activities pursued by the movement's chief exponents, while its usage has had the unfortunate effect of confining the significance of the movement to the world of the esoteric : an idea which could not have been further from the mind of the movement's foremost progenitor, Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654). In fact, the movement described in this book resists simple classification, being part of an unfolding development of knowledge whose roots lay in the oriental world of the Middle Ages : the desire for operative knowledge of a natural creation, a natural creation, that is, deemed to be in essence magical : a world of spirit and matter combined. It is precisely in this combination of worlds that contemporary interest in this movement might lie, for purely materialist science has (since the 1920s) been touched by the suspicion that there's ‘more to it than meets the eye’.

  The movement in question came about chiefly because certain men - in particular, Johann Valentin Andreae, Tobias Hess (1568-1614) and Christoph Besold (1577-1649) - believed that the lodestone of the ideal civilisation had been lost, and they set about finding it. Avoiding, as much as was possible, the contentions of Reformation theology, they sought their ‘stone’ throu
gh combined investigations of the worlds of spiritual alchemy, natural science (including mathematics) and pre-Reformation mysticism. In the period described, these areas of study constituted the greater part of the then-creditable (if sometimes disputed) endeavour of magia naturalis : natural magic.

  In Part Two, the skin of history has been lifted to reveal a thriving world of advanced thought and culture, such as few could have imagined existed so long ago. We have much to learn from it, for contemporary civilisation is, in the opinion of the best minds of the age, at sea in a welter of foaming confusion; the problems stemming not so much from the want of a compass, but from the provision of too many of them, few of which can agree on the cardinal points. In this situation, anything that may give us knowledge of the original charts with which the barca of modern man set sail in the seventeenth century can fail to help us. Part Two contains the story of a boat which has come home, laden with riches and extraordinary tales - with a difference: these tales are true.

  Part Three represents the fruit of a bond with the extraordinary figure of Elias Ashmole, a bond transcending more than three centuries. I believe Ashmole's significance to have been profoundly underrated. The effective demotion of Ashmole from the status of bright, even brightest, luminary of the 17th century English scientific renaissance to guarded appreciation as antiquarian and donor (see the catalogue for this year's exhibition on Solomon's House in Oxford held at the Museum of the History of Science, formerly the Old Ashmolean, for example), is disconcerting. Hermetic Philosophy has in the past been shunned as being at best pre-scientific (you can't measure spirits) and at worst, scandalous occultism (we don't want spirits anyway). I suppose exclusion brings its rewards. Poor Hermetism! Shunned by Science and Theology alike, some two millennia after having served as patron to both.

  I think Ashmole himself - a grand character - would have been very much amused by this twist in the story of his reputation. He took the larger, cosmic view. The stars rule mankind, he believed - with all the paradox implicit in that statement. And things are changing. Amsterdam University has led the way by establishing a Professorship with a remit for pursuing the study of Hermetic Philosophy, an achievement which must owe much to Joost Ritman's epoch-marking Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, about which you can read in my book, The Gnostics.