MDDM23: German Mysticks

Sat Mar 2 11:31:03 CST 2002

"We observe Link-men waiting in a double line, as if
at some ceremony of German Mysticks, their torches
sparking intensely yellow at the edges as they
illuminate the falling Snow-Flakes." (M&D, Ch. 36, p.
363)

"There, over the Evening, he will find, among the
Clientele, German Enthusiasts ..."  (M&D, Ch. 30, p.
298)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0202&msg=65028&sort=date

"... Martinist Illuminati, a Grand Melange of
Motive...." (M&D, Ch. 37, p. 378)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0203&msg=65322&sort=date

Schwenkfelders might past Unitarians brush,
And Wesleyites scarce from Quakers raise a blush ...
(M&D, Ch. 37, pp. 379-80)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0202&msg=65237&sort=date

   "'Their Cities allow them Folly,' a German of
Mystickal Toilette advises the Astronomers ..." (M&D,
Ch. 34, p. 344)

   "DePugh recalls a Sermon he once heard at a
church-ful of German Mysticks.  'It might have been a
lecture in Mathematics ...'"  (M&D, Ch. 49, p. 482)

"'The Royal Society, however, is solidly Anglican.'"
(M&D, Ch. 36, p. 361)

>From Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
(New York: Routledge, 2002 [1972]), Ch. 6, "The
Palatinate Publisher," pp. 97-125 ...

   "A culture was forming in the Palatinate ... which
may be defined by the adjective 'Rosicrucian'.... deep
currents were swirling .... all the mysterious
movements of former years ... were gathered to a head
.... an attempt to give to those currents
politico-religious expression, to realize the ideal of
Hermetic reform ....  The movement tried to unite many
hidden rivers into one stream, the Dee philosophy and
the mystical chivalry from England were to join with
German mystical currents.  The new alchemy was to
unite religious differences, and found a symbol in the
'chemical wedding' with its overtones of allusion to
the 'marriage of the Thames and the Rhine.'" (p. 125)

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/chymwed1.html

Ch. 7, "The Rosicrucian Furore in Germany," pp. 126-38
...

   "The criticism of the R.C. Brothers ... rests
mainly on the follwing points.  It is suspected that
their activities may be subversive of established
governments....  There is a frequently made general
accusation of magical practices.  Finally--and this is
one of the most important points--their enemies
complain that the religious position of the R.C.
Brothers is not clear.  Some call them Lutherans,
others Clavinists, and some, Socinians or Dists.  They
are even suspected by some of being Jsuits.
   "This is suggestive of what may have been one of
the most important aspects of the Rosicrucian
movement, that it could include different religious
denominations....  [Robert] Fludd was a devout
Anglican, friend of Anglican bishops; so was Elizabeth
Stuart, the wife of the Elector Palatine.  The Elector
was a devout Calvinist ....  [Michael] Maier was a
devout Lutheran, as was [Johann Valentin] Andrae
[author of The Chemical Wedding of Christian
Rosencreutz] and many of the other Rosicrucian
writers.  The common denominator which would weld them
all together would be the macro-microcosmic musical
philosophy, the mystical alchemy, of which Fludd and
Maier were the two chief exponents ....
   "By the diffusion of a philosophy, or a theosophy,
or a Pansophia, which they hoped might be accepted by
all religious parties, the memebrs of this movement
perhaps hoped to establish a non-sectarian basis for a
kind of freemasonry--I use this word here only for its
general meaning and without necessarily implying a
secret society---which would allow persons of
differing religious views to live together peaceably. 
the common basis would be a common Christianity,
interpreted mystically, and a philosophy of Nature
which sought the divine meaning of the hieroglyphic
characters written by God in the universe, and
interpreted macrocosm and microcosm
methematical-magical systems of harmony.
   "And here we may remind ourselves that John Dee
entertained wide aspirations for the mitigation of
religious differences, the establishment of a a
universal reign of mystic and philosophic harmony, as
in the angelic realms.  Here, too, then, influences
from Dee's mission in Bohemia may have percolated to
the German Rosicrucian movement.
   "Yet this chapter has also brought out the strongly
German side of the movement, and the influence upon it
of German mystical traditions.... one is frequently
reminded of Jakob Boehme ....  Boehme was beginning to
write just before the issue of the first printed
edition of th Rosicrucian Fama.  His earliest work was
an 'Aurora', promising a new dawn of insight, like
that manifesto.  Boehme aimed at refreshing with
Paracelsus-inspired alchemical philosophy the deadness
and dryness of contemporary Lutheran piety, which is
an aim of the Rosicrucian writers....  Living where he
did and when he did Boehme cannot have failed to know
of the Rosicrucian furore and of the ,oevemtn around
the Elector Palatinate ....  Though there is no proof
of any connection between Boehme and the Rosicrucian
movement, one could say that he was the kind of native
German 'chymist' whom the authors of the maifestoes
might have hoped to attract." (pp. 133-5)

"The R.C. movement collapsed when the Palatinate
movment collapsed ...." (p. 136)

"In accordance with their misisionary policies, the
Jesuits evidently planned to capture the Rosicrucian
symbolism and to present it in their own way in their
work of re-Catholicizing the conquered areas and
establishing them in the counter-Reformation." (p.
136)

   "Conquered Bohemia would thus gradually lose touch
with the movement which had promised it liberty." (p.
136)

http://www.levity.com/bohemia/index.html

Ch. 8, "The Rosicrucian Scare in France," pp. 139-55
...

Ch. 13, "From the Invisible College to the Royal
Society,' pp. 220-46 ...

   "What has been going on in the Oxford group?  I
suggest, as a possibility, that there may have been a
movement among some of them to dissociate it as
completely as possible from imputation of magic, still
a danger for scientific groups.  To do this, they
intensify their interpretation of Bacon as a the
teacher of 'experimental philosophy', disinfecting
him from all other associations, whilst at the same
time drawing away from Dee's mathematical preface [to
Euclid], and the Dee mathematical tradition, which
they are associating with 'enthusiasm',  the
'enthusiasm' of a 'canting Puritan' or a 'moping
Friar.'"

   "The publication of Dee's diary was certainly part
of a general campaign against enthusiasts and
illuminati being worked up at the time.  In his
preface, [Meric] Casauban states that Dee, like
Trithemius and paracelsus, was inspired by the devil. 
The mention of Paracelsus gets rid of the whole
Rosicrucian movement.  This campaign ruined Dee's
reputation and deprived him for centuries of the
credit for his important scientific work.... 
   "As the natural philosophers moved towards the
consummation of the Royal Society, they had to be very
careful.  Religious passions were still high, and a
dreaded witch-scare might start at any moment to stop
their efforts.  So they drop Dee, and make their
Baconianism as innocuous as possible." (pp. 241)

   "In 1667 the official account of the origins and
grwoth of this great undertaking was published, Thomas
Sprat's History of the Royal society.  The Society is
said to have grown out of the meetings at Oxford of a
group of persons interested in natural and
experimental philosophy ....  Nothing is said by Sprat
about an earlier group in London, or of the hint that
theodore haak of th Palatinate might have been the
first to suggest such meetings.  That earlier group
would take one back too far towards the wild
revolutionary ideas of th parliamentarian period ....
   "Nevertheless .... let us look at the familiar
frontispiece to Sprat's book ....  The frontispiece
was ... engraved by Wenceslas Hollar, a Bohemian
artist .... one now notices the prominent winged angel
... crowning Charles II with a wreath of fame as the
founder of tis famous Society.  Bacon is under the
angel's wing.  One cannot help noticing this now, and
wondering whther it could be an allusion to 'under the
shadow of Jehova's wings', and whether thtrumpeting
angel was meant to recall the Fama ...." (p. 246)

http://www.princeton.edu/~his291/Sprat.html

http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/sprat.html

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/royalsoc/rshist.htm

Paracelsus, "The German Hermes"

http://www.alchemylab.com/paracelsus.htm

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/coelum.html

http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/Chem-History/Paracelsus.html

Jakob Boehme

http://users.erols.com/nbeach/boehme.html

http://users.aol.com/DoniBess/boehme.htm

http://www.augustana.ab.ca/~janzb/boehme.htm

John Dee

http://www.johndee.org/

http://www.dnai.com/~cholden/

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/h_dee.html

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/d/dee_john.html

Rosicrucianism

http://www.crcsite.org/rosicrucianism.htm

http://www.crcsite.org/

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/rosicros.html

But what of that "double line," those "torches
sparking"?  See ...

http://www.crcsite.org/cross.htm

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rpt27d.htm

And recall tunnels, rails, lightning bolts, integral
signs, u.s.w., in Gravity's Rainbow ...

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