IN CERTAIN RITES of High Grade Freemasonry, we come across an elusive fraternity known only as the Qadosh Fathers. In some places, they are also known as the Knights of the Morning Star or of Palestine. In this latter guise they are not too far removed from the Society of Ormus, described earlier. It is to Arthur Edward Waite, that some degree of gratitude is due, the previous criticisms notwithstanding, for preserving some crucial information for those of us who do not have access to some of the more arcane titles in the Masonic Libraries of Europe. Nesta Webster provides us with the background of the present subject, in her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, pp. 140-141.
"...Freemasonry originated long before the Crusades in Palestine, and that the real 'ancestors, fathers, authors of the Masons, those illustrious men of whom I will not say the date nor betray the secret,' were a 'disciplined body' whom Tschoudy describes by the name of 'the Knights of the Aurora and Palestine.' After 'the almost total destruction of the Jewish people' these 'Knights' had always hoped to regain possession of the domains of their fathers and to rebuild the Temple, and they carefully preserved their 'regulations and particular liturgy,' together with a 'sublime treatise' which was the object of their continual study and of their philosophical speculations. Tschoudy further relates that they were students of the 'occult sciences,' of which alchemy formed a part, and that they had 'abjured the principles of the Jewish religion in order to follow the lights of the Christian faith.' At the time of the Crusades the Knights of Palestine came out from the desert of the Thebaid, where they had remained hidden, and joined to themselves some of the crusaders who had remained in Jerusalem. Declaring that they were the descendants of the masons who had worked on the Temple of Solomon, they professed to concern themselves with 'speculative architecture,' which served to disguise a more glorious point of view. From this time they took the name of Free Masons, presented themselves under this title to the crusading armies and assembled under their banners."
Who was the Baron Tschoudy? It seems that he knew something that not everybody else did.
Louis Theodore Tschoudy was born at Metz in 1720 e.v. He was descended from a family originally located in the Swiss Canton of Glaris. He was a counselor of State and member of the parliament of Metz. He was one of the most active apostles of the school of Ramsay. In the 1750s e.v. he travelled to Italy, attracting the attention of the Vatican, taking flight and ending up in Russia, where he became a private secretary to Count Ivan Schouwalon. He advanced further in Russia, made a lot of enemies, returned to France. On his arrival at Paris he was sent to the Bastille. His family connections secured his release, he retired to Metz where he spent the rest of his life devoted to Masonic reforms and to research and writing. He is credited with either creating or revising the Knight of the East (15°), and the Scottish Knight of St. Andrew (29°). His most important work, L'ETOILE FLAMBOYANTE, is the source material for the story of the Knights of the Morning Star and of Palestine. We take the reader now to Waite's A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, for several extracts pertaining to the Knights of the Morning Star and of Palestine.
a. I Waite 316-20, sv. "Grand and Sublime Mason" (14)
"Heads of the Legend. It has passed through almost as many variations in Ritual procedure and motive as in descriptive names. We may compare the summary furnished by Ragon in his account of Capitular Grades with the recension of Albert Pike, which was based probably on several versions of the past, and offers by derivation from these a variant of the widespread myth concerning the preservation of Masonry in Palestine, from the age of Solomon and his Temple to the epoch of the Crusades, or in other words a theory of the transmission of Secret Tradition from the Covenant of Israel to that of Christ. It is to be regretted that such a subject should not have fallen into more capable hands, whether those of the original inventors or of the American Grand Commander by whom it was revised as usual. The traditional story is given here in its baldest form and recounts how certain Masons, about whom we shall hear in connection with the Royal Arch of Enoch, carried the Ineffable Treasure of the True Word from Judea into other countries, giving secret instruction to those who were worthy of being included among the keepers of the Royal Art. Masonry was propagated otherwise in the lower Degrees by far less cautious custodians and degenerated as it extended everywhere, but the Supreme Mysteries were reserved in sacred hiddenness by the Grand and Sublime Masons. They passed into Egypt and Assyria, they crossed over into Europe, and as it was indubitable that the original and historical home of Emblematic Masonry should not be left out, it is said that many settled in England, Scotland and Ireland. After such manner were Kilwinning and Heredom assured their own in legend. The centre of all remained, however, in Palestine, as did Christian Rosy Cross abide in the House of the Holy Spirit while the Brothers travelled abroad. They must have seen therefore the Lamp of Christ uplifted in the Holy Land, and though it is not said that they adopted the New Law, when the time came for the kings, princes, and faithful of Europe to deliver Jerusalem from the yoke of unbelief and its miscreants, we are told that they offered their services in that all-holy enterprise and that the Sublime Masons performed prodigies of valour. One result was that the royal and noble crusaders solicited and obtained initiation. The legend breaks off at this point, so that it is left an open question whether the Christian Brethren who returned again to Europe communicated that which they had received under the same seals to others or whether they were received into those Hidden and Holy Houses which, by the hypothesis of the story, were located already in the West.
"Version of Baron Tschoudy. I have said that there are several versions of this traditional myth, and seeing that it is the key of Templar Masonry, it is desirable at this point to observe how it stands in the earliest available if not original form, being that of Baron Tschoudy in his memorable Letoile Flamboyante. It is possible that what he offers is drawn from the traditional history communicated in the Fourteenth Degree of the Council of Emperors, and as I have indicated that this Rite most probably began within more modest dimensions of Ritual, which were expanded as opportunity offered, it is possible also that its Grand Elect Ancient Perfect Master may have been the work of Tschoudy himself, who composed many Grades and has been credited with the Institution of fully-fledged Rites, complete with all their workings. I present therefore his story of Elect Masonry in Palestine in his own words.
"Knights of the Morning. 'The most ancient of military Orders, or otherwise the first to assume a corporate form, was the Knights of the Morning and of Palestine, who were, moreover, the ancestors, fathers or founders of the Masonic Brotherhood. I must refrain from indicating the precise date of these illustrious men, and I dare not unveil their Mysteries; but it can be said that they were sorrowful spectators of all those misfortunes which successively befell the Kingdom of Judea. They looked also for that desired time, when God would deign to turn an eye of compassion upon those Holy Places, where His presence had been manifested from the days of the Mosaic Law. Most of them were as yet unconvinced that His Divine Incarnation had hallowed those regions for a second time by the Gospel of the Law of Grace. They were dispersed among various hiding-places, where the conspiracy of untoward events and the almost complete destruction of the Jewish nation had driven them.(1) Amidst such surroundings they awaited some future revolution which should place them once more in possession of their ancestral patrimony and enable them for a third time to erect their Holy Temple, to reassume their functions within its blessed precincts and otherwise those exalted occupations which had gathered them in old days about the person of their sovereign. In expectation of this glory to come, they stood guard jealously over their primeval traditions, their laws and their liturgy. The age of the world drew on to that year of grace in the Lord when Peter the Hermit summoned the Princes of Christendom to deliver the Holy Land: it was then that the Secret Companions discerned the approaching term of their long exile. From their concealment in the desert of the Thebaid and from the obscurity of centuries the Knights of Palestine came forth, reassumed their distinctive insignia and communicated with some of their associates who had remained as watchers in Jerusalem. These had applied themselves to the study of Nature and the profound consideration of her secret forces, making precious discoveries, which might well contribute successfully to the general designs of the Order. Their most especial attention had been directed to the sublime treatise of Morien, an ascetic of the Thebaid, their purpose being to secure those resources which were necessary to encompass their ambitions.'
"A Hermetic Motive.~~~Baron Tschoudy confesses that his narrative is intentionally obscure, since he is discoursing on subjects which should be understood only by a few, and it is indubitable that his Knights of the Morning are left as to identity in a cloud of his own creation: they might be Essenes, Therapeutae, successors of Prophets or Levites; they might be lineal descendants of Melchizedek, King of Salem, Werner's Sons of the Valley or the Grand and Sublime Masons of the Fourteenth Degree. But about the purpose of the Hidden Sodality there is no obscurity whatever, for Morien was an alchemist of his period and the alleged sublime treatise is still extant.(2) It follows that the consociates at Jerusalem were themselves Hermetic students, aiming at the transmutation of metals to enrich the chivalry. It is said further that they had embraced Christianity, and when the Knights of the Morning came from the Thebaid desert they were persuaded to do in like manner, from which, adds the author, it follows that the splendid edifice which they had erected so long in their hearts would now be devoted to the offering of 'a pure, holy, unspotted, emblematic sacrifice,' when it came to be built on earth. It should be understood that Baron Tschoudy was of the Catholic and Roman faith, as well as a literary alchemist.
"A Third Temple.~~~He affirms further that, under one or another disguise, the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem was the real object of all crusaders; that the solitaries of the Thebaid made common cause with the cross-bearing warriors of Christendom, keeping, however, their peculiar designs a secret, save only that they were in possession of the mystic measurements of the First Temple, being descended from its original builders. It is also said that beneath the pretence of speculative architecture they pursued a more glorious ambition. There is no doubt that this in the implicits of the reverie was the ambition of the Sons of Hermes. Such also, we are left to infer, was the inward secret of Emblematic Freemasonry, which~~~~by the hypothesis~~~~is indebted to this Militia Hermetica for its Laws and Constitutions, for its tissue of symbols, if not indeed its Rituals. According to Tschoudy, the Knights of the Morning assumed the name of Freemasons and were identified as such with the work of the Holy Wars. Their isolation and modest demeanour amidst the turmoil of ambitious crowds drew upon them the attention of the cross-bearing chivalries, who sought to be admitted among them, as affirmed by the traditional history of the Grand and Sublime Masons. A fixed method of reception was therefore devised, which is the root and essence of our present Speculative Masonry, as it is also out of this primitive observance that all the crazy medley of bizarre formulae, forced analogies and equivocal symbols has grown up in the hands of unwise imitators. It follows that the Knights of the Morning were the original founding Masters, creative agents and sole depositaries of the Royal Art.
"The Primeval Order.~~~Baron Tschoudy says otherwise that this handful of faithful souls who assumed the denomination of Masons ~~ and whom he distinguishes additionally by a conventional and impossible title ~~ marks the existence of something most ancient and most noble of all, 'the first Order of the world, the trunk of all others, which are nothing more than its branches.' Sacred and profane writings are represented as bearing their unqualified testimony to this Order, 'apart from all tradition,' and 'in a manner so clear and positive that the least instructed man can easily verify all its data and attain certitude concerning it.' Baron Tschoudy in this seemingly ingenious affirmation is imitating his alchemical masters, who were invariably most ambiguous when they claimed to be speaking most frankly and apart from all similitude. As his Knights of the Morning are incorporated from his own dreams and those of the Chevalier Ramsay, in combination with cognate reveries of High Grade legends, it is idle to ask who they were ~~ as, for example, the Fratres Lucis or the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, referred back in chronology almost to the Gates of Eden; a school of the prophets in Israel perpetuated to Christian times; a priesthood within and behind the Jewish priesthood. They may have been any of these, according to his own mind, or a blending of all the elect companies: it matters nothing historically.(3) Philosophically it is Tschoudy's mode of recognising the fact of a Secret Tradition, its subsistence from generation to generation, even from the earliest days of Israel(4), and its presumed transmission to Masonry. But it is not without interest to observe how it worked in the mind of another Masonic writer, many years after the author of L'Etoile Flamboyante had passed from earthly life, though his work was still in circulation.
"Thebaid Solitaries.~~~An anonymous Dictionnaire Maconnique was issued at Paris in the pseudo-Masonic year 5025 and embodies a collection of outline sketches concerning the various parts of that symbolic edifice known by the name of Freemasonry. One of its perfect ashlars is the legendary history of a particular Templar Grade which represents the Order of the Temple as derived from certain solitaries of the Thebaid, from the healing fraternity of Therapeutae and from those Knights of the Morning and of Palestine whose claims were first made known to us by Baron Tschoudy. The instruction sets forth that Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria, was a great ornament of the Order and that so early as the seventh century of this era the vows of the Templars were made in the presence of Simon, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Towards the eleventh century they are believed to have initiated a considerable number of virtuous crusaders, and it was at this epoch that the mythical Knights of the Morning assumed the historical title of Knights Templar. Their abolition at the beginning of the fourteenth century put an end to their visible existence, but the Order was not destroyed: 'it has continued in an unbroken succession, but secretly to this day and constitutes a Grade of the Elect.' Its object is said to be defined in a verse of the Psalmist which is cited by one of its adepts: 'I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall be ever in my mouth.' A sentence from the pledge of the chivalry is cited also as defining its will and purpose: 'I will ever assist the poor and regard them as my Brethren.'"
b. I Waite 446-448, sv. Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.
"Traditional History.~~~It is to be observed in the first place that the Legend is allegorical by its own claim, and the meaning on its surface is not therefore the true meaning, as indeed is obvious. It deals (1) with a defection of Israel, or at least of some School in Jewry, represented as a Masonic Academy; (2) with the rejection of a cornerstone; and (3) with the subsequent betrayal and crucifixion of Christ, symbolised as a Mystic Rose, which is also the True Word. In this allegory the Stone is not therefore Christ, and I can understand it only as a Secret Wisdom-Tradition, which subsisted by the hypothesis in Jewry, which also ~~~ as that Tradition itself affirms ~~~ was committed to Seventy Elders by Moses. It passed long afterwards into writing under the name of Kabalah. In the mind of the Grade-allegory the supposed maintenance of this Wisdom-Tradition among the people and through their teachers should have led them to recognise Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah Who was to come. His rejection rent the veil of the Temple, which means that it put an end to the Old Dispensation and the old election of Israel.
"The Elect Brethren. ~~~ There was, however, a little company of True Initiates, otherwise of True Masons and Elect Brethren, who were ~~ so to speak ~~ saved from among the castaways. They possessed, as it is said, relics of the former Temple, which I understand as signifying that the old secret knowledge had been kept alive in their hearts. They understood also the Signs of the Times; they knew that the Deliverer Who was foretold was already born among men; and since it is affirmed that they followed His hallowed footsteps for thirty-three years, it is to be understood that ~~~ according to the allegory ~~~ they were present from his birth even to his death.
"A Mystic Confraternity. ~~~ Mysterious and vague rumours concerning this Little Company of Perfect Masters are recurrent in High-Grade Masonry. By Baron Tschoudy, in his L'Etoile Flamboyante, they are called Knights of the Morning and of Palestine; for others they are Thebaid Brethren; and Werner, the German poet, terms them Sons or Children of the Valley. I have followed the track of this strange Confraternity through several literatures, or at least through various paths of independent allusion, and far beyond what would be understood as the Masonic field. .... It has been regarded as the Brotherhood of Initiation to which Christ Himself belonged, wherein the Mystery of Redemption was prepared from unknown ages for a birth in place and time. It seems hinted at in Gospel records by the flight into Egypt, and is represented in Biblical criticism and speculation by the suggestion that Christ was possibly connected ~~ during the Hidden Life ~~ with one of the Essenian Brotherhoods. Eckartshausen's Cloud on the Sanctuary is really its story at large, told behind an embroidered curtain.(5) The Russian Mystic Lopukhin made guesses concerning it in tracing the Characteristics of what he called the Interior Church. And last, but not least, the most curious intimations of all are found in anonymous communications addressed to the London Philadelphian Society(6) at the end of the seventeenth century and extant in Transactions which were published at that period.
"A Secret Tradition.~~~I am giving but the heads of personal researches, and that in most summary form. I am asking no one to join with me in an act of faith; but they have taught me to see that Christian literature is full of omens and signs respecting the perpetuation of a Secret Tradition through Christian Times, from a very far past. Concerning this Tradition I have spoken at large in several other memorials, and something may remain to be said at a later stage in the present book of research. Whether of the East or West, there is no knowledge concerning it in the Official Sanctuaries of Faith, and in this respect the Church itself is in a state of loss and dereliction. In the Grade of the Holy Sepulchre it is as if the makers of the Ritual were offering veiled information on this subject. The inference put forward by these is that the external Churches are official institutions only, and that the true building is within. There is a Church behind the Church, and because of that which is hidden our reasonable devotion is due to that which is without. This service is symbolised by the vigil over the Holy Sepulchre, which is not represented as empty and a mere relic, as it is in the Order of the Temple. There is obscurity about it; there is even darkness within; but the Day-Star is hidden only, and the chivalry looks for its rising. The Star is in the occultation of the Tomb, and this is the cloud on the Sanctuary. But a moment comes in the pageant when it is said to have arisen in splendour, and then the Christ of Glory is revealed in the transparency of the Grade, a Church emerging out of darkness into perfect light and life. We are shewn in this manner that somewhere within the manifest Sanctuary, and not elsewhere in the world, there lies the hidden treasure, whereunto that is a witness which I have called the Secret Tradition.(8)
"Cardinal Virtues.~~~When I hear, also in this Grade, that the Elect Brethren who had followed the footsteps of the Redeemer, began to teach others that there are three Pillars of Instruction inscribed with the words Faith, Hope, and Charity, I know that these are Keys to a greater Sanctuary: but they must be understood in a living sense. The greatest of these is charity~~~which is another way of indicating that the three are indeed one. When they pass from intellectual understanding into the grade of experience they cease to be evidence at a distance of things unseen and the shadowed substance of things for which we look. We begin~~~in a word~~~to see, to know, and to realise what God has prepared for those who love Him. With Christendom in corporate disunion and all its churches penetrated by the spirit of the world, the imagery of obscured light and a word lost in the darkness is just and perfect symbolism; but beyond the Pillars which I have mentioned a path opens towards an Inner Sanctuary, and it is in the Holy Sepulchre, a light is above the Sepulchre: and the Resurrection of the Lord of Glory is declared on the altar of the heart."
c. II Waite 152-3, sv. "Minor Rites in Masonry."
"Palestine, Order of.~~~On the authority of Baron Tschoudy and his Etoile Flamboyante it has been customary to speak of a certain Masonic Association under this name as a matter of historical fact, or at least as if it might be regarded from this standpoint. The least critical perception would have enabled those who have repeated these statements from mouth to mouth ~~~ following the lead of one another, and almost as if they had scarcely glanced at their author ~~~ to see that Baron Tschoudy's Knights of the Morning and of Palestine were as mythical as any other traditional history narrated in the Grade Rituals with which we are all familiar. The literary alchemist of Metz was putting forward his particular thesis on the origin, perpetuation and transmission of the Hermetic Tradition ~~~ as he understood it ~~~ under the veil of Masonry. It ought not to be necessary, even in the case of people of the Woodford and MacKenzie type,(9) to point out that an Order of Chivalry could not have existed prior to the institution of Chivalry, but the Knights of the Morning belong, by the hypothesis of their creator, to the very dawn of the Christian era. It is said further that the Chevalier Ramsay drew part of his alleged system from the legendary Order of Palestine, which was never heard of till 1766, when L'Etoile Flamboyante first came from the press. It is probably a point of detail, but the celebrated Oration happens to have been delivered in 1737. I do not suppose that Baron Tschoudy ever devised a Ritual to materialise his hypothesis, but if he did not do so the mantle of his inspiration fell upon some unknown person, and so it came about that we have the Sixty-third Degree of the Rite of Mizraim, which figures also in another collection."
This last quote, about the Order of Palestine, is telling. This Order of Palestine appears to be similar to the paradigm represented by the Prieuré de Sion. We find it in Nesta Webster, under the name "Brothers of the Holy Land." [See Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, pp. 168, 190-191.] It is true that in the 1450s e.v., there were groups like this in existence in Florence, for example the Platonic Academies of scholars like Marsilio Ficino have for their origins, the Platonic Academy set up by Johannes Bessarion, student and successor of Georgius Gemistius Plethon, who hailed from Constantinople, until it was overrun by the Ottoman Empire. It had a short life in the Greek town of Mistra, before being transplanted to Italy, and then to the rest of Europe. From Ficino, it goes to Pico, and then to the Germans, like Reuchlin, Agrippa, Hutten, and Paracelsus. For, in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, we are given some interesting data concerning the Chevalier Ramsay:
"Ramsay was born in Scotland sometime during the 1680s. As a young man he was a member of a quasi-Masonic, quasi-Rosicrucian society called the Philadelphians. Among the other members of this society were at least two close friends of Isaac Newton. ...
"...It is not known precisely when Ramsay made Charles Radclyffe's acquaintance, but by the 1720s he was closely affiliated with the Jacobite cause. For a time he even served as Bonnie Prince Charlie's tutor.
"Despite his Jacobite connections Ramsay returned to England in 1729, where ~~~ notwithstanding an apparent lack of appropriate qualifications ~~~ he was promptly admitted to the Royal Society. He also became a member of a rather more obscure institution called the Gentleman's Club of Spalding. This "club" included men like Desaguliers, Alexander Pope, and, until his death in 1727, Isaac Newton.
"By 1730 Ramsay was back in France and increasingly active on behalf of Freemasonry. He is on record as having attended lodge meetings with a number of notable figures, including Desaguliers. And he received special patronage from the Tour d'Auvergne family, the viscounts of Turenne and dukes of Bouillon ~~~ who three quarters of a century before had been related to Frederick of the Palatinate. In Ramsay's time the duke of Bouillon was a cousin of Bonnie Prince Charlie and among the most prominent figures in Freemasonry. He conferred an estate and a town house on Ramsay, whom he also appointed tutor to his son.
"In 1737 Ramsay delivered his famous "Oration" ~~~ a lengthy disquisition on the history of Freemasonry, which subsequently became a seminal document for the "craft." On the basis of this "Oration" Ramsay became the preeminent Masonic spokesman of his age. Our research convinced us, however, that the real voice behind Ramsay was that of Charles Radclyffe ~~~ who presided over the lodge at which Ramsay delivered his discourse and who appeared again, in 1743, as chief signatory at Ramsay's funeral. But if Radclyffe was the power behind Ramsay, it would seem to have been Ramsay who constituted the link between Radclyffe and Newton."(10)
Bear in mind that the Baron Tschoudy was a prominent disciple of Ramsay. Ramsay was guided by Radclyffe, who was Grand Master of the Prieuré de Sion, following the Grand Mastership of Sir Isaac Newton. These are important links, because we are constantly being told that the legends and stories that came from these quarters are spurious, while the ones that come from the Grand Lodge of London are genuine. The founders of the Grand Lodge of London included the same men who circulated around Radclyffe and Ramsay. You just can't get more genuine than that.
This being the case, then, a story about the Knights of the Morning and of Palestine, may not be the genuine article in itself, but is likely to be a story about something its inspirers wanted to raise a little light on. This brings us to the Qadosh Fathers. But we have one more quote from Waite to provide a background for our thesis.
d. II Waite 442, sv. "Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret."
"The Grade Allocution.~~~For the historical discourse summarised above there is substituted an historical allocution in a copy of the Ritual preserved in the archives of the Grand Orient of France. The inspiration of Ramsay is replaced in this case by that of Baron Tschoudy. It is said: (1) That the Magi ~~~ who were ancestors of Masonry ~~~ left Egypt, a.m. 3095,(11) and went to Jerusalem, taking with them the annals of the Order; (2) that they studied the Mysteries of Nature and practised all virtues till the year 4074,(12) when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus; (3) that they retired into Scythia and the Thebaid,(13) where they continued to propagate their doctrine; (4) that St. John the Almoner (550-619) was one of their initiates,(14) and became Grand Master; (5) that, as apostles of the true light, they joined the Crusaders under Godfrey de Bouillon(15) and regained possession of their temple when Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Christian army; (6) that Baldwin II became Grand Master of the Order, and instituted the Grand Knights of St. Andrew, or Princes of the Royal Secret; (7) that he entrusted to their care the Sacred Treasure of the Order; (8) that the members of this chivalry were chosen from the Grade of Kadosh and were proclaimed Princes of Masonry; (9) that when the Holy City came once more into the hands of the infidels all Masons were driven out, losing the greater part of those precious archives which had come under their charge; (10) that they commissioned a deputation of eighty-one Brethren to Upsala, who deposited the remnant of the archives in the Crypt of the Three Crowns; (11) that when the Prince Masons were finally expelled from Palestine they removed the hidden treasure and repaired with it to Scotland; (12) that the said treasure was again committed to the charge of eighty-one members, who remained in Scotland to guard it, while the rest were scattered abroad; (13) that before parting they bound themselves by a solemn pledge to win back their temple at Jerusalem and the lost sacred treasures; (14) that the Princes of the Royal Secret are descendants of these ancient Prince Masons and that those who are admitted among them must be vowed like these."
Here we have a legend that describes a special priesthood who came from Egypt, in the 10th Century, B.C.E. This period was full of such activity. This is also the time when the Benjaminites would have left Jerusalem. This is also the time when the Dionysian Artificers were most active, propagating their sect.
One might assume that these people were Jews, yet there is nothing to demand we believe it. It is highly possible that these men were the priesthood behind the formation of the Essenes, and maintained their existence under cover in Syria, Thebes, Eastern Europe, Mesopotamia, and North Africa, up to the time of the Crusades. It is in this group that we see the origin of the Monks of Calabria, mentioned in HBHG.
FOOTNOTES
1. I.e. in the vicinity of Pella, in the Decapolis region, in the Hauran, etc.
2. See, for example, Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers, (London: John M. Watkins, 1955 e.v. reprint edition) where a biography of Morien is presented on pages 9 - 11.
3. On the contrary, my dear Arthur. It matters everything! Arthur evidently was disappointed to find out that there were indeed degrees higher than the Three Craft Degrees. He certainly made his wallet fat off the High Degrees, even if he thought they were all bogus.
4. This insistence on the importance of Israel is solely for the legitimizing of his work. There is plenty of evidence in support of extra-Israeli traditions which survived the ages, from primeval times to the present day.
5. This is crucial, because the Brotherhood to which Councillor von Eckhartshausen referred was the S.'. S.'., and to which Aleister Crowley also belonged.
6. The Philadelphians, of John Pordage, Jane Lead, and Antoinette Bourignon. Andrew Michael Ramsay is said to have belonged to this group. The founders were ardent disciples of the teachings of Jakob Bohme. It resembled the Spiritualist movement of the 19th Century e.v. in character. Johann Georg Gichtel was affiliated to this group, also a disciple of the teachings of Bohme. This is a singular admission on the part of Waite, since he is suggesting that the "Interior Church" of the "Secret Tradition In Christian Times" filtered down to individuals like Bohme and Gichtel, which is not in itself all too surprising. The shocker is, that offshoots of these pure sources, such as Swedenborg, or Pernetty, or Pasqually, or Saint Martin, or Cagliostro, or any of the rest, developed the Authentic Tradition as we have been unveiling it, and this Authentic Tradition includes everyone and every group, society, and rite which Waite considered to be spurious, such as the Rite of Memphis, for example, and his arch-rival, our Saint and ancestral preceptor, John Yarker...(and Uncle AL as well!)
7. There is no note 7.
8. ...and which we call the Authentic Tradition. Solis Sacerdotibus.
9. Waite had nothing but contempt for Mackenzie, and is making this statement to further distance his own far-reaching speculations from those of his unwanted predecessors. The only problem is that Mackenzie was actually initiated in the real thing, and Waite received a bogus initiation. Consider too the plight of a Brooklyn native spending most of his adult life in London, then retiring to the States to head up the Lodge in Iowa... Waite probably never forgave himself for having been responsible for recommending Aleister Crowley for initiation into the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn. And this too, all the more, since Crowley received the initiation into the "Secret and Interior Church" which Waite always trumpeted about but never got to see for himself. In fact, Waite spent so much of his time condemning the actual "Secret and Interior Church" as a pious fraud, that its Guardians saw fit to exclude him!
10. HBHG, pp. 146-147.
11. I.e. 909 B.C.E. or thereabouts.
12. I.e., about 70 e.v.
13. The Thebaid can be located either in Boeotia or in Egypt, in the environs of the Cities of Thebes. We assume it to be the Egyptian Thebes, since the Nag Hammadi discoveries demonstrate that a lot of activity went on there at least into the Fourth Century, e.v. One might extend the definition of the Thebaid to include any secret desert area, like the Decapolis region, or the Syrian Desert, near Urfa and Palmyra, or we might also include the Hauran, where we shall return at the end of this Book.
14. Another John for the Johannites. While some say the Johannites are so-named after the various Johns in the New Testament, there are yet others who claim that the Johannites are named after St. John the Almoner. We hold to our thesis, that the original inspiration is Dositheos, and beyond that, Oannes and Enki.
15. See below, on the strange group known as the Tafurs.
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