In October 1738, the chapterhouse of the mystical Zion Brotherhood was completed in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. According to a contemporary letter, "many have reported from there how the same, by virtue of a high hand of wonder, has been raised up as a new branch or growth out of the Original strength and condition of the Christian church."
The chapterhouse was clearly conceived of as organic -- more like a tree than a building. Inside the circular chamber of its trunk, the Brethren slept, with no windows admitting external light, but a trapdoor connecting them to the level above. All of the provisions required for the Brothers' use were drawn from the ground level, which served as cellar, storeroom, and pantry.
An allegory of the community described how a servant, guided by an angel, had ascended from the cellar bearing a golden beaker filled with the best wine. The structure of the chapterhouse illustrated how the spiritual wine or life-sap wells up from below, as in a tree: "Without a root in themselves, the branches have no capacity to be fruitful. They seek for offshoots of everlasting life in the Quint-Essence and Root of all things."
German theosophist Jacob Boehme had provided this fraternity with their scheme for understanding reality: "There will yet grow in the tree a lily with a root as broad as the tree spreads its branches." That lily within the tree formed the true rose cross, which extended from its central point, towards the east, south, west, and north. This helps us appreciate why the topmost level of the chapterhouse was opened again to the outside, through four oval windows at the four cardinal points. The Light within was supposed to flow out to the world as an extension of Brotherly regeneration.
"Where the spirits are harmonized in God, there the paradise is revealed and the heavenly kingdom of joy blossoms."
My dear fellow! It is not without reason that you wrote me with such venerable expression, since the divine, celestial, and mystical Venus* has become somewhat stirred within her innermost essence, and given birth to a sympathetic gathering of spirits from her divine pregnancy. This in turn has made your mind so reverent, that a similar expression arises in your writing. That is why the spirits have again found their vessel and parent in you, by divine magic.
I am very much comforted and full of joy in the Lord, because the precious knight's crown has clearly been restored. All the puffed-up heroes have been humbled and their basis for boldness overthrown. The many fatigues of life have brought about a mystical deathlike sleep, on account of which the male powers that seethe or boil in fire have now subsided. From the midst of their sunken or subsided power the holy Woman is afterwards born in our sleep.
In this way we acquire divine courage, through which all of our foes are overcome. Just as Father Adam lost his heavenly image through his sleep and was transformed into an earthly image, so we also must sink into a deep sleep to lose our earthly image and regain for our companion the heavenly Wisdom who gives us access to our lost treasure again.
Your own inclination is made evident by your little letter of recommendation, received as a token of your love. [I am] your admirer in the Lord and a possessor of nothing upon this Earth.
*The "divine, celestial, and mystical Venus" is Sophia or Theosophia (heavenly Wisdom). Theosophia is also nature's Spiritual aspect. The mystical doctrines of our correspondent's community in Pennsylvania were an attempt to control natural forces and cleanse man's mind by absorption in Theosophia.
"PRAYING is ceaseless magical consuming of God's own Being by the fiery volition of our soul's magical appetite. Living on God and his holy essence, we become in him what we are. Put in order by transmutation, the fetters of our vanity are dissolved, and we are made radiant by the brightness that is always his. In fact He becomes us so that in ourselves we are nothing! O what a gracious exchange it is that allows us with nothing to purchase everything that both formerly was and forever will be!"
4. A SUGGESTIVE SUMMARY OF THE MATERIAL PRESENTED HERE
The Freemason is given "hints and allegories" to identify the center stone of his arch. This is likewise the case with the language used in these selections. The community represented here also erected an actual lodge or chapterhouse that was initiatory by design. Although the building itself was later destroyed by fire, its description provides a practical context for applying the "hints and allegories" presented in these writings. Without putting too fine a point on it, students of esoterica may also recognize how to apply the plan of this building to the subtle anatomy of man.
As elaborated in the Theosophical Letter, the "spirits" that appear are observable and predictable manifestations of what is generated inside us. It should come as no surprise then to learn what the mystic vase or "vessel" is. This sacred receptacle of our own anatomy communicates to us through images that relate us back to the Ancient of Days by way of our chromosomes, nerve endings, and entire internal chemistry. That is why the human form is depicted in Rosicrucian literature as "a very old castle, where before the time of this world a great king had ruled".
"Venus" is the hidden Wisdom that leads us back to our lost treasure again, because in occult terms Venus is the most subtle of fluids, "a spiritual water". As such it becomes a bath for whatever else attracts and colors it. The so-called "male powers that seethe and boil" try to take Venus into themselves and change her "into a purple color" (blood). But because of the natural tendency toward degradation and dispersal, the finest essence of the blood (associated with the procreative center) must be channeled back up through the heart towards the original fountain in the head (the precious knight's crown). This produces "a white splendor like the sun", which is also our "baptism" to a new life here.*
*Supporting references in this paragraph are from the 22nd epistle of Jacob Boehme (English edition).
5. FROM A HAND-ILLUMINATED WALL HANGING OF THE PENNSYLVANIA MYSTICS
Here one finds the hidden treasure
that before the World with its darkness
God revealed and concealed.
See how when you serve him in all things
according to his Counsel
his blessings themselves do follow.
Go to his Temple both morning and night.
You will journey thus with many marvels.
6. A MAGICAL COSMOLOGY CONTEMPORARY WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA MYSTICS
Three years prior to the construction of the Zion lodge at Ephrata, a magical cosmology of vast proportions was published in Germany under the title, “Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum et Theosophicum” (1735). Echoing the idea of primordial creation found in Boehme’s own revelatory “Morning-Redness”, it also introduced a cabalistic fascination with numbers into such architecture as the “Saal” (or assembly hall) at Ephrata. An enlightened sense of dimension was thought to proceed from a divinely ordered “spirit in the brain”, which was gently governed by the celestial planet Jupiter. (See Boehme’s “Morning-Redness”, chapter 25. 111; also the comments about SACHARIEL – the Spirit of Jupiter – in the following excerpt, translated from “Opus Mago”.)
“B.C.D.E. is the world of the son of the morning-redness, the luster of the divine light. Therein all the light-rays of the divine majesty shone. The center B. of this great spiritual universe was its glorious throne, and it was equivalent to the divinely endowed majesty and magnificence except for an enclosing circumference. The splendid brightness of the divine light beamed unceasingly within this circumference, mirroring the inscrutable wonder-lights B-F, and always “making merry” with them. All twelve worlds of the spiritual hosts infused this center with their wisdom and splendor, proceeding majestically from one to the other of the divine radii without rupture or separation. (See how G.H.I.K.L.M.N.O.P.Q.S. and T. encircle this son of the red dawn’s throne.)
7. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE “BLACK” COLOR IN THE MAGICAL WRITINGS OF JACOB BOEHME
The seventeenth-century mystical philosopher, Jacob Boehme, is sometimes regarded as a Magus (or Magician), in the grand tradition of Paracelsus, John Dee, and the legendary Faust. But whereas this has caused alarm to conventional detractors, like those "Christian" enemies who confiscated the occult cross that admirers placed above his grave, other observers can discern the actual import of his research into reputedly "dark" matters.
Boehme himself unequivocally states that "Everything is accomplished by Magic, the good in the same way as the bad. Its own work is Nigromantia, but it is distributed through all of the properties. So in those who are good, it is good, and in those who are evil it is evil."
Although literally connoting "Black" art, it has been pointed out that in the Middle Ages "Nigromantia" had the more general meaning of Magic (Zauberei). The sense of the word is more an objective description of mystery than an epithet for the practice of evil. In fact, the color "black" holds a prominent place in Boehme's schema of color.
After elaborating that the colors of everything are blue, red, green, and yellow, with a fifth color, white, that "belongs to God"; he intimates that the black color does not belong to the wonders of creation, "but is the veil or the darkness wherein all things lie." Extending his exposition on the significance of color to the "tree of tongues", Boehme says that the alphabet of the language of Nature is the root, hidden among all languages "in the black color; for the black color belongs not to the number of colors. The same is mystery and not understood, save by him who possesses the language of Nature, to whom it is revealed by God's Spirit."
We will see in a moment how closely this pronouncement ties in with the only way that Magic ever gets “practiced” in the system of Jacob Boehme. Traditionally, the master achievement of the Magus is an alchemical one -- the stone of immortality, which Boehme alludes to as the “fifth essence (Quintessence), a pure unblemished child; as is to be seen in a certain white clear stone that resists fire”.
When we turn to an accessible contemporary system like Tibetan Buddhism, it is interesting to learn that the radiant “blackness” underlying all form and color leads to an experience of the Clear Light. The surrender of self, and the notion of self-existent form and color, brings about an awareness that there is no inherent, “separate” being. This realization also enables one to find the “Clear Stone”, and “practice Magic” in the Boehmian system. For then our desiring “receiveth where nothing is, though indeed there is Something there”! A seeker who has attained the Stone upon the cross (the Splendor solis, or white rose upon the cross) discovers what he is looking for, “where reason saith there is nothing”.*
*Quotations of Boehme, in the order they occur, are from: Six Mystical Points (the fifth point), Mysterium Pansophicum (the seventh text), and Threefold Life of Man (the tenth chapter).
8 JOHANN GEORG GICHTEL AND THE “WHITE” COLOR
“Through all this stormy period, impressive figures come and go -- a functioning body of philosophers represented in Germany by Gichtel and Andreae….” Manly P. Hall, Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins, pp. 408-409.
If Boehme was an Intuitive-Seer, his disciple Gichtel was more of a Magician-Practitioner among the forerunners of the Pennsylvania mystics. The following excerpt from an Italian theosophical article puts nicely the practical work of Gichtel, validating Manly Hall’s designation of him as a rose cross philosopher: “In the tradition of the ‘Royal Art’, whether physiological or hermetical, the center of the elemental cross and the body is the heart and its seat, the ‘white’ color, which produces the vivific light of the Quintessence. In Gichtel, this light is connected with water and the holy Woman, Sophia.”
The OPENING of such a center through surrender of the self -- far from being a merely submissive or ‘effeminate’ effacement of one’s being -- unleashed a flood of effectiveness! Kirchberger, in his famous theosophical correspondence with Saint-Martin, refers to Gichtel as a GENERAL, who defeated the military generals of Louis XIV when they attacked the city of Amsterdam from various quarters in 1672*. The potency of the cross which radiated from Gichtel’s center on this occasion was as great as the more peaceful projections envisioned by the alchemists, or the Brothers of Zion inside their Pennsylvania citadel.
*Letter LVIII. Morat, 25th October 1794.
9. EXTRACT FROM A LETTER BY GICHTEL, AMSTERDAM 1697*
“Whether our well-known friend has attained his ‘Laboriren optatum Finem’ is not truly revealed enough for us to affirm. Whenever I speak with him by word of mouth, I do not desire to investigate with many words how far his practical knowledge reaches. His reminder that he recommends the ‘supremi Lapis quadrangularis’ pleases me. For thereupon our unified happiness is established, and certainly, our paradisiacal rose-garden!
In the power of the Beloved, I wrestle with the fiery cherub; for without the fire of Love, which is like water opposed to raging Anger, we are powerless and unable to stand against the wrath that produces fear, anxiety, and terror through its dark sharpness. But wherever Love is carried or conveyed by imagination, it ignites the fire of wrath therein, and makes it burn clearly so that the darkness is swallowed up, and the lovely white Light is evident; now this is the temperament of paradise!
So it proceeds likewise with the ‘Opere Philosophico’, of which I possess knowledge, but which Christ regards as unimportant. Of course the reason Christ is made one of us is for Sophia (which for us is just delightful), but not everyone has even attracted him into their souls!
I perceive so much of the best about this friend of ours that has a very good savor. But whether he displays the 5th Essence is not for me to define until he is permitted to manifest it further. Sometimes it is reported to me about a Master of Art how the good man is assured of his imagined Philosopher’s Stone (Lapis Philosophorum). But though his ‘pregnancy’ extends to the 18th or 20th year, ultimately the desired Effect has not been realized. And knowing this, other good souls are credulous, and when they see a small change in the colors immediately attribute a victory to those who nevertheless pass the sum of their time as paupers!
I always hold to Christ therefore, applying a steady power of conviction with earnest prayer and entreaty, to have the skill to create there, where nothing is, and be able to take there what is not produced (J. Boehme).” (See Section 6 above, in conjunction with Gichtel’s statement here.)
*The excerpts translated into English, here and in Section 10 below, are from the first fifteen epistles of “Theosophia Practica”, volume V.
“In the writings of J. Boehme, one has to consider diligently what is required of a worthy seeker! Frequently the mind kindles a Mysterio in itself and moves in its fire and anxious star, seeking and searching in the soul; supposing that it is God’s impulse, though it is at last revealed to be quite otherwise. Therefore one must closely examine and become well acquainted with oneself before administering a Principio (a principle or power).
The Sal Urinae that produces a red Liquor has the prerogative before all other Salts. Our unnamed friend has discovered his so-called Phosphorum therein, and prepared excellent medicaments for bodily ailments, as I gladly acknowledge. For that which produces a stench in order to become heightened or transmuted in Sweetness has the power to smash the Calculem Veficae. But in metals it is too feeble by itself, which the times themselves ultimately attest to, and hopefully this friend brings his principle into perception.” *****
“I have read through the esteemed Book M., but was unable to find any foundation therein. It is only inflamed Astrum which sparks itself in a Mysterio and burns therein; but it is not from God. Yet I know that we poor worms are anxious to grasp God’s mysteries in the Astral, though it is not possible. The Astrum speaks only about the external, and understands what is written outwardly regarding a realm that is in the 4 Elements, and forming a likeness according to this that is ultimately brought down. Meanwhile, another master-builder arrives, takes up the Materia anew, and forms another tower which, without the Divine Spirit, is nothing but a seduction.
An interior-Christ has God’s realm in the inward earth, and that is joyous! In the 4 Elements there is only anxiety and quarrel, building up and breaking down. The individual fire experiences itself and believes it is God. Yet it is only an individual fire, which burns as long as it finds Materia. And when this aim is accomplished, it is realized that it was not divine; which is how I have to navigate these matters myself. But if we cannot be advised, we cannot be helped. God desires to be compassionate and illuminate us with his Light.
In contrast, such devils-weddings as propose eternal life are well known by me from Hanau, where a mother ignorantly duped her own daughter into one, who thereupon denounced her mother, and – notwithstanding pardon – no longer desired to live herself! [Daniel Becker] is blind, does not comprehend magic, and yet passes judgment on it and rejects it. 30 or 40 years ago someone burned and laid waste to many villages for a very long time, in Francken, Mainz, and Wurtemberg in order to aid this evil. Also, when I practiced in Camera Spirae (anno 1663), werewolves (Lycanthropi) were on the run, devouring cows, pigs, and children.
The late Imperial Elector of Heidelberg also did not want to believe this, but saw how greatly inconvenienced his subjects were. And when one [of the werewolves] that was struck by a bullet was sought out by means of his bloody tracks, which were picked up by dogs, he was pursued; and the fiend -- a blacksmith – was arrested. It is a grievous time full of blindness when one no longer has either belief or an understanding of Nature and the soul’s powers. And if cattle are led along by the nose it must be admitted that we are no better!” *****
“The [alchemist’s] hymn extols ‘Margarita’s Stone’ and ‘the Silver of Virgulis’, yet neither tincture nor metal is employed there – only the faith of Jesus [or , faith like Jesus’], which God knows how to bestow by means of his mercy-mass on those desiring to produce results. So the times will reveal whether our friend is an Adept.
As for myself, I find astral turbulence [literally, turba] in the philosophical tincture, and observe that the possessors of it work hastily or superficially. It is not much good to be in a position to accomplish something if you stand against the world spirit, and are merely hindered or thwarted in attempting to do good. For you do not have the Spirit of discretion to help where you should (where there is NEED, rather than just where you want to).
Therefore it is not good to be an Adept if you have not inwardly overcome the astral turbulence. Our experience surpasses the philosopher’s stone by far. We have had to wrestle with God for it, in conformity with the spiritual understanding or discernment that is imprinted in us – which is God’s.” *****
“I once received a wonderful inheritance of 400
alchemical authors (among other books) from a book dealer who was wholly unknown
to me; full of processes that I perused with great wonder at that time.
And while I have never in my life been an actual part of such
metamorphoses, neither is it proscribed for me; but I leave it to God what he
will make known within me.
Afterwards, Boehme’s writings came into my hands, and
I perceived that the physical and chemical sciences are able to be of great
service. I have diligently collated
at least eight good old scriptures, to see if what they describe is possible in
Nature. But whenever I discovered
their feasibility, other business made me desist; although my various travels
were also quite conducive to this discourse.
But without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, it is
only self-deception to assume that you can fathom the writings of Jacob Boehme.
For he signifies the forms or aspects of Nature by his use of the seven
traditional planets, which in the “Opere Physico” are conceived of quite
differently.” *****
“Not all spirits are to be trusted, though they convey God with their mouths and pilfer words from other illuminated writings. The heavenly maiden Sophia has wise and foolish lovers; some who love her because of God, others who desire her for a LIVELIHOOD; each doing his best to obtain her Pearl and precious brightness! But she distinguishes the fools from the wise and gives to each his allotted portion. She raises the poor up out of the dust, and leaves the self-wise empty – which I have frequently observed (and by injury grown wise).
No one who turns to her and longs for her is lightly abandoned, or left unkissed by her. But she does not entrust herself and her lovely Pearl to everyone the same. She tests the soul frequently and acutely, to see if it truly desires her marriage vow, or merely sensual pleasure.
To be sure, where there is a humble soul who has compassion for his or her afflicted brother, there will be a greatly esteemed one, whose niche is among God, men, and angels. For how can one love God, who is not seen, without loving his brother who is seen? I must always keep my eyes on my inward Guide and proceed as He would have me go, and leave much alone that He nevertheless furnishes to me subsequently.
I have many foes and friends as well (who nevertheless flee me in affliction). Yet in the Mysterio I am still a child, while ever new wonders are revealed that I am not fully able to comprehend. Remaining without comforts or amenities, I attend to God, who alone knows the secret of his Plan.
Although by false desire the will is infected and addicted; a niche or corner for Sophia is generated from there, for she loves the fire of our soul greatly, and reveals herself there willingly. But she will not be enclosed by our own desires, because unconfined she can accomplish more than we are even able to long for! Since she appeared to me for the third time, in the heart of the three Principles, and promised me conjugal fidelity face to face, I have renounced everything, and continually hunger for her Light-beams to prune me spiritually.” *****
“I have read your last letter with heartfelt joy and refreshment, and by means of it I have also ardently penetrated into God’s Love-Heart, as our heavenly Sophia and Jesus are awakened in earnest for the sake of their soul and family member.
Without doubt, the Love of Jesus should not only cover up the source of transgression, but also transmute or tincture the Father’s wrath into love and compassion in the fire of the soul, so that our accuser (the fiery dragon) is ejected from the soul, and peace with God is again permitted in the soul’s inner ground.
We certainly can do nothing by running to make our path straight or level, only sink into God’s mercy, and flee to our mercy-seat Jesus in the heart’s heaven. In which vast deep mercy is our help, our increase and fruitfulness, so that the interior hidden foundation of Light looks our creaturely, craving faith in the face, strengthening and shining through, so that we can stand against the angry accuser and take hold of Christ.
This has been my process and mode of life for 33 years already, desiring for the sake of all people and even for the fallen spirits, to be the anathema for each, so that God’s compassion is greater than the fall and transgression are able to be. As we so little more deserve grace than they do, I deeply pity their distress, and therefore into the deepest meekness and humility must sink.
I don’t fight against God’s compassion, dear brother! I embrace it, and hope to God for all creatures, since Christ himself preached to the spirits in prison who at the time of Noah could not believe that God would flood the world with water. And though the enlightened Boehme would take away almost all hope for the release of the fallen spirits, and I also experience their obstinacy sufficiently, nevertheless without divine revelation we cannot say what God will do in eternity.”
11. A WESTERN SAGE’S ATTAINMENT OF “EASTERN” REALIZATION
A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to Gichtel’s “independent” discovery of the subtle centers or “chakras” that characterize man’s inner anatomy. What has not been so readily acknowledged is the deeper ground from which his awareness of human physiology proceeds. But there is a connection and a clear progression from one to the other, even as we find in the causal ethics of advanced Eastern systems like Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism.
Like an Eastern bodhisattva*, Gichtel makes himself an “anathema” for all beings, even advancing past Boehme in this respect, who basically accepts that the lost are lost, though by their own free will. While Gichtel admits that actually having to deal with fallen spirits and “false spirits” (as well as purely opportunistic ones) can be just as harrowing for him as for any godly lover of Wisdom, he still feels enough compassion to offer himself for them, “hoping to God for all creatures”.
This requires unleashing the fathomless depths of a good heart, “sinking into God’s vast, deep mercy”. In the Mahayana and Tibetan systems, this is called “bodhicitta”, arousing the heart of enlightenment; which is just such a desire to benefit others on a vast scale. It is the basis which empowers the activities of all the saints and adepts, for “where there is a humble soul who has compassion for his or her afflicted brother”, there is one "whose niche is among God, men, and angels”. Christ referred to his own miraculous activity by saying to his disciples, “these and greater works than these shall you do”! The Buddhist systems refer to this ability as skillful means (or skill in means), the mother or author of which is Wisdom!
So we come full circle. Wisdom knows her own. She does not entrust herself and her lovely Pearl to everyone the same. She tests the soul to see if it truly desires her marriage vow. And then, as with the spiritual consort or dakini of the Tibetan system, she empowers her faithful retainer with the faculty of vision into the subtle or invisible, and enables the magical feats of faith.
*one who takes a vow to achieve buddhahood for the benefit of all beings
.