The confraternity of the Rose-cross long attracted public notice.
Congenial with the more ancient freemasonry, it was probably designed
for a more intellectual order; it was entitled "The Enlightened," "The
Immortal," and "The Invisible." Its name has been frequently used to
veil mysteries, to disguise secret agents, and to carry on those artful
impostures which we know have been practised on infirm credulity by the
dealers in thaumaturgical arts, to a very recent period. The modern
illuminati, of whom not many years past we heard so much, are
conjectured to have branched out of the sublime society of the
Rose-cross.
This mystical order sprung up among that mystical people, the Germans,
who are to this day debating on its origin, for, like other secret
societies, its concealed source eludes the search. It was at the
beginning of the seventeenth century that a German divine, John
Valentine Andreae, a scholar of enlarged genius, in his controversial
writings amused his readers by certain mysterious allusions to a society
for the regeneration of science and religion; in the ambiguity of his
language, it remained doubtful whether the society was already
instituted, or was to be instituted. Suddenly a new name was noised
through Europe, the name of Christian Rosencreutz, the founder three
centuries back of a secret society, and a eulogy of the order was
dispersed in five different languages.
The name of the founder seemed as mystical as the secret order, the Rose
and the Cross.[1] The rose, with the Germans, which was placed in the
centre of their ceiling, was the emblem of domestic confidence, whence
we have our phrase "under the rose;" and the cross, the consecrated
symbol of Christianity, described the order's holy end; such notions
might suit a mystical divine.[2] In the legend, the visionary founder
was said to have brought from Palestine all the secrets of nature and of
art, the elixir of longevity, and the stone so vainly called
philosophical.[3]
If to some the society had a problematical existence, others were
convinced of its reality; learned men became its disciples, its
defenders; and one eminent person published its laws and its customs.
Michael Maier, the physician of the Emperor Rodolph, who had ennobled
him for his services, having become initiated by some adepts, travelled
over all Germany seeking every brother, and from their confidential
instruction collected their laws and customs. At the same time, ROBERT
FLUDD, a learned physician of our own country, distinguished for his
science and his mysticism, introduced Rosacrusianism into England; its
fervent disciple, he furnished an apology for the mystical brotherhood
when it seemed to require one.
The arcane tomes of Fludd often spread, and still with "the Elect" may
yet spread, an inebriating banquet of "the occult sciences"--all the
reveries of the ancient Cabalists, the abstractions of the lower
Platonists, and the fancies of the modern Paracelsians, all that is
mysterious and incomprehensible, with the rich condiment of science.
There are some eyes which would still pierce into truths muffled in
jargon and rhapsody, and dwell on the images of realities in the
delirious dreams of the learned.
Two worlds, "The Macrocosm," or the great visible world of nature, and
"the Microcosm," or the little world of man, form the comprehensive
view, designed, to use Fludd's own terms, as "an Encyclophy, or Epitome
of all arts and sciences."[4] This Rosacrusian philosopher seeks for
man in nature herself, and watches that creative power in her little
mortal miniatures. In his Mosaic philosophy, founded on the first
chapter of Genesis, our seer, standing in the midst of Chaos, separates
the three principles of the creation: the palpable darkness--the
movement of the waters--at length the divine light! The corporeity of
angels and devils is distinguished on the principle of _rarum et
densum_, thin or thick. Angelic beings, through their transparency,
reflect the luminous Creator; but, externally formed of the most
spiritual part of water or air, by contracting their vaporous subtilty,
may "visibly and organically talk with man." The devils are of a heavy
gross air; so Satan, the apostle called "the prince of air;" but in
touch they are excessive cold, because the spirit by which they live--as
this philosopher proceeds to demonstrate--drawn and contracted into the
centre, the circumference of dilated air remains icy cold. From angels
and demons, the Rosacrusian would approach even to the Divinity;
calculating the infinity by his geometry, he reveals the nature of the
Divine Being, as "a pure monad, including in itself all numbers." A
paradoxical expression, lying more in the words than the idea, which
called down an anathema on the impiety of our Theosophist, for ascribing
"composition unto God." The occult philosopher warded off this perilous
stroke. "If I have said that God is in composition, I mean it not as a
part compounding, but as the sole compounder, in the apostolic style,
'He is over all, and in all.'" He detects the origin of evil in the
union of the sexes; the sensual organs of the mother of mankind were
first opened by the fruit which blasted the future human race. He broods
over the mystery of life--production and corruption--regeneration and
resurrection! On the lighter topics of mortal studies he displays
ingenious conceptions. The title of one of his treatises is "De Naturae
Simia," or "The Ape of Nature,"--that is, ART! a single image, but a
fertile principle.
Sympathies and antipathies, divine and human, are among the mysteries of
our nature. By two universal principles, the boreal, or condensing power
of cold, and the austral, or the rarefaction of heat, impulsion and
repulsion, our physician explains the active operations in the human
frame--notions not wholly fanciful; but, at once medical and magical,
this doctrine led him into one of the most extraordinary conceptions of
mystical invention, yet which long survived the inventor; so seductive
were the first follies of science.
Man exists in the perpetual opposition of sympathies and antipathies;
and the Cabalist in the human frame beheld the contests of spirits,
benevolent or malign, trooping on the four viewless winds which were to
be submitted to his occult potentiality. Nor was the physician
unsuccessful, for in the sweetness of his elocution, pleasant fancies
and elevated conceptions operated on the charmed faith of his
imaginative patients.
The mysterious qualities of the magnet were held by Fludd as nothing
less than an angelical effluvia. In his "Mystic Anatomy," to heal the
wounds of a person miraculously, at any distance, he prescribed a
Cabalistical, Astrological, and Magnetic Unguent. A drop of blood
obtained from the wound mixed with this unguent, and the unguent applied
to the identical instrument which inflicted the wound, would, however
distant the patient resided, act and heal by the virtue of sympathy.
This singular operation was ludicrously named "the weapon-salve."
Fludd not only produces the attestations of eminent persons, who, in
charity we may believe, imagined that they had perfectly succeeded in
practising his "mystic anatomy," but he also alleges for its authority
the practice of Paul, who cured diseases by only requiring that the
handkerchiefs and aprons of patients should be brought to him. Hardly a
single extravagance of the Paracelsian fancy of Fludd but rests on some
scriptural authority,--on some fictitious statement,--or some credulous
imagination. Fludd, indeed, as our plain Oxford antiquary shrewdly
opineth, was "strangely profound in obscure matters."[5] A curious tract
was published by FLUDD, to clear himself from the odium of magical
dealings, in reply to a fiery parson, one Foster, who took an
extraordinary mode of getting his book read, by nailing it at the door
of the Rosacrusian at night, that it might be turned over in the morning
by the whole parish! This was "A Sponge to Wipe away the Weapon-Salve,"
showing, that "to cure by applying the salve to the weapon, is magical
and unlawful." The parson evidently supposed that it did cure! Fludd
replied by "The Squeezing of Parson Foster's Sponge. 1631, 4to."--"to
crush and squeeze his sponge, and make it by force to vomit up again the
truth which it hath devoured." Our sage throughout displays the most
tempered disposition, and the most fervent genius; but the nonsense is
equally curious.
We smile at the _sympathy_ of "the weapon-salve;" but we must not forget
that this occult power was the received philosophy of the days of our
Rosacrusian. Who has not heard of "the sympathetic powder" of Sir Kenelm
Digby, by which the bloody garter of James Howell was cured, and
consequently its pleasant owner, without his own knowledge? or of the
"sympathetic needles" of the great author of "Vulgar Errors," by which,
though somewhat perplexed, he concluded that two lovers might correspond
invisibly? and, above all others, the warts of the illustrious Verulam,
by sympathy with the lard which had rubbed them, wasting away as the
lard rotted when nailed on the chamber window? Lord Bacon acquaints us
that "It is constantly received and avouched, that _the anointing of the
weapon that maketh the wound_ will heal the wound itself."[6] Indeed,
Lord Bacon himself had discovered as magical a sympathy, for he
presented Prince Henry, as "the first fruits of his philosophy, _a
sympathising stone_, made of several mixtures, to know the heart of
man," whose "operative gravity, magnetic and magical, would show by the
hand that held it whether the heart was warm and affectionate." The
philosophy of that day was infinitely more amusing than our own "exact"
sciences!
We may smile at jargon in which we have not been initiated, at whimsical
combinations we do not fancy, at analogies where we lose all semblance,
and at fables which we know to be nothing more; but we may credit that
these mystical terms of the learned FLUDD conceal many profound and
original views, and many truths not yet patent. It is enough that one of
the deepest scholars, our illustrious SELDEN, highly appreciated the
volumes and their author. It is indeed remarkable that Bayle, Niceron,
and other literary historians, have not ventured to lay their hands on
this ark of theosophical science; too modest to dispute, or too generous
to attack: unlike the great adversary of Fludd, Pere Mersenne, who
denounced the Rosacrusian to Europe as a caco-magician, who had ensured
for himself perdition throughout eternity.
Pere Mersenne, at Paris, stood at the head of the mathematical class,
the early companion, and to his last day the earnest advocate, of
Descartes. That great philosopher was secretly disposed not to reject
all the reveries of the occult philosophers. It is certain that he had
listened with complacency to the universal elixir, which was to preserve
human life to an indefinite period; and one of his disciples, when he
heard of his death, persisted in not crediting the account. His own
vortices displayed the picturesque fancy of a Rosacrusian; and moreover,
likewise, he was calumniated as an atheist. Pere Mersenne not only
defended his friend, but, to clear the French philosopher of any such
disposition, he attacked the Rosacrusians themselves. Too vehement in
his theological hatreds, he dared to publish too long a nomenclature of
the atheists of his times;[7] and among Machiavel, Cardan, Campanella,
and Vanini, appears the name of our pious Fludd. Mersenne expressed his
astonishment that James the First suffered such a man to live and to
write.
On this occasion Fludd was more fortunate than Dee. He obtained an
interview with his learned sovereign, to clear himself of "the Frier's
scandalous report." He found his Majesty "regally learned and gracious;
excellent and subtile in his inquisitive objections, and instead of a
check, I had much grace and honour from him, and I found him my kingly
patron all the days of his life." Mersenne, notwithstanding the odium he
cast on the personal character of Fludd, was willing to bribe the
Heresiarch, for he offered to unite with him in any work for the
correction of science and art, provided Fludd would return to that
Catholic creed which his ancestors had professed. "I tell this to my
countrymen's shame," exclaims Fludd, "who, instead of encouraging me in
my labours, as by letters from Polonia, Suevia, Prussia, Germany,
Transylvania, France, and Italy, I have had, do pursue me with malice,
which when a learned German heard of, it reminded him of the speech of
Christ, that 'no man is a prophet in his own country.' Without any
bragging of my knowledge, be it spoken, I speak this feelingly; but a
guiltless conscience bids me be patient."
The writings of Fludd are all composed in Latin; it is remarkable that
the works of an English author, residing in England, should be printed
at Frankfort, Oppenheim, and Gouda. This singularity is accounted for by
the author himself. Fludd, in one respect, resembled Dee; he could find
no English printers who would venture on their publication. When Foster
insinuated that his character as a magician was so notorious, that he
dared not print at home, Fludd tells his curious story: "I sent my
writings beyond the seas, because our home-born printers demanded of me
five hundred pounds to print the first volume, and to find the cuts in
copper; but beyond the seas it was printed at no cost of mine, and as I
could wish; and I had sixteen copies sent me over, with forty pounds in
gold, as an unexpected gratuity for it." It is evident that, throughout
Europe, they were infinitely more inquisitive in their occult
speculations than we in England; and however this may now seem to our
credit, certainly our incuriosity was not then a consequence of our
superior science, for he whose mighty mind was to give a new and
enduring impulse to the study of nature, who was to teach us how to
philosophize, and was now drawing us out of this dark forest of the
human intellect into the lucid expanse of his creative mind, was himself
still fascinated by magical sympathies, surmised why witches eat human
flesh, and instructed us in the doctrine of spirits, angelic and
demoniac. Bacon would have elucidated the theory of Dee, and the
imaginative mysticism of the Rosacrusian.