The order of the Gold- and Rosicrucians as a secret church in the 18th century
Renko D. Geffarth
Western esotericism began in the Italian Renaissance in the second half of the 15th century with the rediscovery of ancient writings, such as the late antique Corpus Hermeticum, whose originator was the mythical priestly figure of Hermes Trismegistos, and its translation into Latin by the philosopher Marsilio Ficino. […]
The reception of the Kabbalah, Platonism and Hermeticism in the German-speaking world ultimately gave rise to the early modern concept of magic of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim and subsequently, with the integration of alchemy, the Paracelsian natural philosophy, the theosophy of Jakob Böhme and the panosophy of the Rosicrucian writings of the 17th century. All of this was always in interplay and conflict with Christianity and its denominations, which also persecuted such heterodox currents as heresy.[…]
Schlögl also emphasizes the enlightened character of the esoteric secret societies, as they represented an “alternative to the salvation economy of the Christian churches” with their efforts to redeem ‘creation’ in this world and therefore accommodated the “self-confidence of people at the end of the 18th century”.[…]
In an overview essay on the Illuminati Order and the Gold and Rosicrucians in 1993, the Munich historian and professor Ludwig Hammermayer once again emphasized the contrast between the ‘radical Enlightenment’ Illuminati and the ‘theocratic’ Rosicrucians.[…]
Obviously challenging areas of social and cultural reform were the confessional and associated political tensions in the empire in the 16th century, the role of religion in culture and society and, last but not least, the perceived lack of understanding of ‘science’. With the help of the secret brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, these three core issues were now to be subjected to a renewal that followed a uniform ‘world view’. The Rosicrucian manifestos and the discourse that took place in the years following their first publication were thus not only the mediators of an early modern esoteric tradition that drew on the physician and hermeticist Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus (1493- 1541), and the hermeticism of the Renaissance, but also an expression of the perception of the crisis nature of the early 17th century.[…]
These first years after the publication of the Manifestos are considered the period of the ‘older’ Rosicrucians, followed by a ‘middle’ period resulting from the translation of the writings into other European languages and their reception in other countries, especially in England; the beginning of this second period is generally placed around the middle of the 17th century and its duration is extended into the early 18th century.For the ‘middle Rosicrucians’, there is initial speculation about actually existing brotherhoods or even just circles of people who considered or described themselves as Rosicrucians; for example, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is said to have been a member of a circle of alchemists and Rosicrucians. However, it is still true for this phase of ‘Rosicrucianism’ that a real society, an order comparable to that of the late 18th century, very probably did not exist.[…]
The history of the development of Freemasonry presented in the following section does, however, show influences from the reception of Rosicrucian writings in 17th century England, which were passed on via Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), a member of the Royal Society founded in 1660 and one of the early Freemasons. The chronological order chosen in this study, ‘Older Rosicrucians’ – Freemasons – Gold and Rosicrucians, is therefore based on the well-founded assumption that there was a connection in terms of content between the Rosicrucian manifestos and early Freemasonry, just as there was a structural connection between 18th century Freemasonry and the Order of the Gold and Rosicrucians.[…]
