Secret Texts

Contents

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Capitulum

Auctor vel Auctrix

Paginae

0.

Introduction

?

1 ad 6

1.

Alchemical Art and

the Renaissance Emblem

Stanton J. Linden

7 ad 23

2.

Nature's Mystick Book :

Renaissance Arcanum

Hugh J. Ormsby-Lennon

24 ad 96

3.

Science, Magic and Masonry :

Swift's Secret Texts

Marie Mulvey Roberts

97 ad 113

4.

Yeats and "Unknown Superiors" :

Swedenborg, Falk, and Cagliostro

Marsha Keith Schuchard

114 ad 168

5.

Joel Barlow ... and ... Masonic Conspiracy in 1792

Carla J. Mulford

169 ad 187

6.

Peacock and the "Philosophical Gas" of the Illuminati

Gary R. Dyer

188 ad 209

7.

Freemasonry, the Bronte:s, and the Hidden Text of Jane Eyre

Elizabeth Imlay

210 ad 227

8.

Jose'phin Pe'ladan, Founder of Le Salon de la Rose+Croix

Ingeborg M. Kohn

228 ad 257

9.

Orlick's Hammers and Pip's Third Degree

William M. Burgan

258 ad 268

10.

A. E. Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross and the Novels of Charles Williams

Thomas Willard

269 ad 302

11.

"Two Circles to Gain and Two Squares to Lose" : the Golden Dawn

Robert A. Gilbert

303 ad 321

12.

Kim and the Magic House :

Freemasonry and Kipling

Paul Rich

322 ad 338

0-1.

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0.

Introduction


1 ad 6

pp. 2-3 this book

p. 2

"Stanton J. Linden clarifies the conjunction of Renaissance emblematology with Rosicrucian and alchemical symbolism; ...

Hugh J. Ormsby-Lennon retrieves an alchemystical gallimaufry ... about signification which he dubs "Book Mysticism." ...

In an iconographic essay which complemments Linden's, Kohn ... uncovers some of the stranger links between androgyny, art, and Rosicrucianism in fin-de-sie`cle Paris. ...

Marie Mulvey Roberts negotiates an unusual path through Swift, showing how closely Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry skirt ... on the Royal Society ... .

Gary Dyer demonstrates how adeptly Thomas Love Peacock adapted Swift's satirical techniques in order to expose ... absurdities in modern science ... . ...

Elizabeth Imlay shadows ... a sermon by the Rev. Patrick Bronte; then she demonstrates how his daughter Charlotte gave ... mysteries a feminist twist

p. 3

in Jane Eyre, a novel in which archetypes of initiation reverberate ... .

In a succinct essay on Dickins, William Burgan shows how the novelist exploit imagery already deployed by Barlow ... in order to achieve ... configurations of ... Freemason. ...

Rich shows how Freemasonry endowed Kipling's ... with an ironic dimension which alleviates its political incorrectness."

p. 3 similar historical novels

"Of the international bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail ..., ... it constitutes ... almost a doppelga:nger for Simon Raven's novel The Roses of Picardie."

pp. 4-5 literary criticism

p. 4

"Roland Barthes's introduction of orgasmic spirit ... becomes particularly apposite for ... penetrators of secret societies ... . Rites of initiation and inclusion (Phibionite orgiasm ...) are ... reflected, moreover, in ... the masonic apron".


"From Alexandrian allegoresis and medieval over-readings of Virgil {Vergilius} and Ovid {Ovidius} to post-structuralist and new historicist dicta that


absence is presence, literary criticism has returned, with canine {allusion to Cynic/Kunik philosophy} devotion, to the creed that all texts are secret texts. ...

{Absence of direct critcism of the government may suggest a hidden implying of such criticism (which was customary with Kunik philosophers).}

p. 5

In interrogating the text, these literary critics fathom arcana ... : absences are mysteriously peopled with the reader-adept's multifarious responses. ... Cricticism becomes a game ... in which even the cryptic clues left by some authors who wish to initiate theiur readers ... are overwhelmed by occult signs and symbols which ... critics smuggle in themselves."

p. 5 Derridean literary dissemination was already remarked on by Swift

""The true illuminated," he maintained ..., have met with such numberless Commentators, whose Scholiastick Midwifry hath delivered them [the true illuminated] of Meanings, that the Authors themselves ... may very well be justly allowed the Lawful Parents of them."

But ... Swift ... envisioned Derridean "dissemination" -- "the Words of such Writers beig like Seed, which ... will multiply far beyond either the Hopes or Imagination of the sower"".

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1.

Alchemical Art and

the Renaissance Emblem

Stanton J. Linden

7 ad 23

pp. 12-13 advocacy of brothre-sistre marriage {relating to the Kemetic royal sibling-marriages?}

p. 12

"Emblem IV of Michael Maier's Atlanta Fugiens. Maier's picture shows a richly dressed male and female in

p. 13

passionate embrace, and to them an attendant offers a love potion; the emblem bears the motto, Conjunge fratem cum sorore & propina illis poculum amoris ("Join brother and sister, and hand them the cup wth the love potion"). The epigram ... states :

... join two descendants of one pair of parents with confidence,

That they may live in marriage as husband and wife ... ."

p. 13 chemical wedding

"In Solomon Trismosin's Splendor Solis ... sulphur and mercury are presented as a royal couple and are linked with their respective celestial counterparts, sun and moon ... .

... in the Maier epigram, sulphur and mercury are envisaged as two humans of opposite sex, ... their interaction ... a marriage, that is, the chemical wedding ... . ... .

... renderings of the conjunctio as sexual ... are to be found in the sixteenth-century manuscript of Arnold of Villanova's Rosarium Philosophorum ... and ...

in the seventeenth-century Pretiosissimum Donum Dei by Georgium Anrach ... . In the latter, the alchemical stages ... are figured forth as coition occurring within egg-shaped hermetic vessels".

p. 13 alchemic co-ition

"renderings of the conjunctio as sexual allegory are to be found in a sixteenth-century manuscript of Arnold of Villanova's Rosarium Philosophorum in the Stadtbibliothek Vadiana, St. Gallen (MS 394a, f. 34, 64), and most strikingly in the seventeenth-century Pretiosissimum Donum Dei by Georgium Anrach (Bibliothe`que de l'Arsenal, MS 975, f. 13, 14, Paris). In the latter, the alchemical stages ... are figured forth as coition occurring within egg-shaped hermetic vessels".

{"dragon ... to copulate with ... the White Tiger [Tigress]" (D-TC, p. 17).}

D-TC = Eva Wong (translatrix) : Harmonizing Yin and Yang : the Dragon-Tiger Classic. Shambhala Publ, 1997. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=06ErGINAPUkC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=

pp. 15-16 adept's pilgrimage

p. 15

"included in the Lumen de Lumine {'light from light [, very god of very god, begotten not made]' -- quoted from the Creed} (1651) by the Rosicrucian writer Thomas Vaughan ... . ... . ... a mystical pilgrimage, the Lumen is ... the search for the alchemical elixir ... . ... His course, which "hath been unknown ..., ... hidden from ... the World" (pp. 321-22) ... takes him to

the "Invisible magical Mountain," which is both small and great, soft and stony. Moreover, the aspirant's progress toward the mountain is impeded by ...


"Beasts and other Ravenous Birds" (p. 323)

{implying that the "Beasts" are winged}


in the "Regio Phantastica," visually represented as a black circle,


and his journey must be taken at night.

{impliedly, during dreaming (as is explicitly indicated in the Red Book by Carl Gustav Jung)}


... the pilgrim is guided by a winged figure ... with ..., Ariadne-like, a ball {clew} of string : "... to lead in the Humble, and Harmlesse" (p. 327). ...

p. 16

... the investigator may make is way through the "Magicall Schoole" and discover ... in the center, "the secret Candle of God, which hee hath tinn'd {alloyed} in the Elements" (p. 326)


For Thomas Vaughan ...

{as likewise in the Upanis.ad-s, as concerning Agni}


in the celestial world it is the sun,

in the animal ... an intrinsic heat ...;

in the mineral realm, it is a "firie spirit {"thy ministers a flaming fire" (Psalm 104:4 & Epistole to the Hebraioi 1:7) -- a category of divine angel} (p. 327)."

p. 15 alchemic thread of fate

"the pilgrim is guided by a winged figure and armed with a sword and, Ariadne-like, a ball of thread ... (p. 327)."

{Rather than of Ariadne, the thread indicated is likely to be that of the Moirai. The sword indicated is likely to be the cutting edge wielded by Moira Atropos. There are "winged Fates (Lasa) who call the dead to Hades" known in Etruscan religion -- "A&A (E&EI)" : cf. also Renaissance depictions of "the four-winged Fates" (PORTFOLIO 1871).}

"A&A (E&EI)" = Article "Art and Architecture (Etruscan and Early Italic", vol. 1, p. 865a. In :- James Hastings' ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=uiJBAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA865&lpg=PA865&dq=

The PORTFOLIO 1871 (edited by Philip Gilbert Hamerton. London : Seeley. Jackson, and Halliday). = http://home.us.archive.org/stream/portfolio02hame/portfolio02hame_djvu.txt

p. 16 Green-Dragon god of quicksilver {evidently borrowed by European alchemists directly out of Chinese alchemy; indicating a close linkage of Chinese secret-societies with European secret-societies} {There are statements by Occidental secret-societies admitting to their Chinese provenience; the I.W.W. statement to this effect is an instance, while the Mormon golden books is another indication of this Chinese connection.}

"the Green Dragon, or the Magician's Mercury ..." (p. 327)."

{"mercury creates the Green Dragon ... the mercuric dragon" (D-TC, p. 17).}

D-TC = Eva Wong (translatrix) : Harmonizing Yin and Yang : the Dragon-Tiger Classic. Shambhala, Boston, 1997.

pp. 17-18 the 10 emblems (each in a in roundel) and 10 aphorisms for William Cooper's Philosophicall Epitaph in Hierogliphicall Figures (London, 1673)

p.

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emblem

aphorism

17

1.

"figure, head surrounded by an aureole ..., holding a star"

"[Mercury] in the midst of Spiritus"

18

2.

"three entities"

"Anima, Corpus and Spiritus"


3.

"figure similar to the one in the first roundel but holding the symbols for sulphur and mercury"

"What struggles against ... is [sulphur], what sustains ... is [mercury]."


4.

"angelic figure and the opening heavens"

"bring forth God from the heavens"


5.

"two solar bodies, shadows, and flying birds"

"a firm and stable foundation"


6.

"four ... (... winds) ... within the alembic" {cf. "four Gospels ... since there are ... four winds" (Irenaios : Adv. Haer. 3:11:8 -- NTA--G&RW, p. 356)}

"four-fold and spiritual philosophy" {cf. S^imonian Book of the Four Angles and Points of the World (SM, fn. 72)}


7.

"divine fiat emerging from books on the shelves of an alchemist's"

"secrets of wise precepts and of the philosophers"


8.

"Avian figures"

"medicina ... might even become gold"


9.

"king and queen cleansing their offspring"

"project bodies above a body" {projecting the astral body?}


10.

"neoplatonic pattern of emanation, conversion, and return"

"proceeds from one root, expands into many, and returns into One."

NTA--G&RW = Wilhelm Schneemelcher (ed.) & R. McL. Wilson (transl.) : New Testament Apocrypha. Vol. 1 -- Gospels and Related Writings. Rev. edn. Jesse Clarke & Co, Cambridge. http://books.google.com/books?id=TDW0PeFSvGEC&pg=PA356&lpg=PA356&dq=

SM = George Robert Stow Mead : Simon Magus. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12892/12892.txt

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AMS STUDIES IN CULTURAL HISTORY, 1 = Marie Mulvey Roberts & Hugh Ormsby-Lennon : Secret Texts : the Literature of Secret Societies. AMS Pr, NY, 1995.