Blake may have been aware of another Yogic technique with the toe, for Edward Moor, a soldier in India and student of Hindu mythology, returned to London in l791-96 with sketches of Indian Yogis, for which he sought engravers among Blake's colleagues. Among these was a drawing of Narayana "with his toe in his mouth, reposing on a lotus leaf."
31 July. Paris. Outbreak of the Revolution. The Mother Lodge of the Scots Philosophic Rite resolved to suspend work, and invited her daughters to follow her example. From subsequent statements it appears that the Grand Chapter did not dissolve.
September. In spite of all the protests, the decree emancipating the Jews of Alsace was passed, and hymns of praise were sung in the synagogues.
10 December. Offenbach. Death of Jacob Frank. The last center of the sect was at Offenbach, where members sent their sons and daughters to serve at the court, following the pattern that had been established at Bruenn. Frank had several apoplectic fits, dying on 10 December 1791. His funeral was organized as a glorious demonstration by hundreds of his believers. Frank had preserved to the end his double way of life and sustained the legendary Oriental atmosphere with which his life was imbued in the sight of both Jews and Christians.
With the death of Frank, and the gradual withering away of the families that made up his groups of believers, so died a Tradition which had been preserved for nearly 2,000 years.
Rennes le Chateau. Antoine Bigou, parish priest of Rennes le Chateau, erected the tomb of Marie de Negre d'Ables, Dame d'Hautpoul de Blanchefort.
Strasbourg. Saint-Martin's sojourn at Strasbourg came to an end. The next year he would spend at Paris. He wrote his next book, Ecce Homo, there, to forewarn people against the wonders and prophecies of the time, to indicate the degree of abasement into which man has fallen and of which the passion for lower marvels, like those of somnambulism, appears to be the prime example. This work was written as a counsel for the Duchesse de Bourbon, and probably in her own house. It appeared prior to The New Man, though composed subsequently. Bork works were published in 1792, the Reign of Terror notwithstanding. Saint-Martin was still in Paris during that ordeal.
Saint-Martin had some teaching activities imposed on him, when he was called to the Ecole Normal to train teachers for public instruction. This did not last long.
According to Wonnacott, Dunckerley borrowed from Lambert de Lintot's engravings pertaining to the Rite of Seven Degrees, created in 1785, at this time.
When the first K. T. Encampments were set up under Dunckerley the first one he warranted for London was named "Observance of the Seven Degrees," while the Baldwyn Camp, which in 1791 put Dunckerley in the position of Grand Master of the Templar Order (and later came in under the Grand Conclave) was called the Eminent of Seven Degrees when enrolled under the Grand Conclave. There were also three Encampments under Dunckerley called Harmony of the Seven Degrees, Science of the Seven Degrees, both at Salisbury; and Royal Edward of the Seven Degrees at Hampton Court. The three were off the roll in 1809.
Observance of the Seven Degrees must be the Templar branch of the body we have now under consideration; before 1791 the Preston schism had ended and the Lodge of Perfect Observance, where the High Grades had been practiced, had gone out of existence. The Lodge of St. George de l'Observance continued to promote the additional degrees, and in all probability the Templar grades of these Lodges went under Dunckerley's regime as the first Encampment he constituted under his Grand Conclave.
Paris. At this time, Charles Nodier is said to have been a member of the Jacobin Club. He was sent to Strasbourg, where he lived in the house of Eulogius Schneider, the notorious Jacobin governor of Alsace, but a good Greek scholar. He later became librarian in his native town, but his exertions in the cause of suspected persons brought him under suspicion.
Cagliostro imprisoned at St. Leo, in the Duchy of Urbino.
Edward Jenner vaccinates his 18 month old son with swine-pox. In 1798, he vaccinates his son with cow-pox. His son will die of TB at the age of 21.
First Bank of the United States chartered. Creation of Hamilton and chartered for 20 years.
England. Franz von Baader in England, is introduced to the mysticism of Jakob Boehme, the empiricism of Hume, Hartley, and Godwin. On his return to Hamburg, he became acquainted with Jacobi and Schelling. Between Baader and Schelling there was mutual influence until Baader's denunciation of modern philosophy in a letter (circa 1822) to Alexander I of Russia, thereby alienating Schelling. Meanwhile, Baader continued to apply himself to his profession of engineer, gaining a prize of 12,000 Gulden for his new method of employing Glauber's salts instead of potash in the making of glass.
In the Theosophist, Vols. 8 and 9, there appeared certain Rosicrucian Letters, signed F. H. and H., in the case of the last. It is affirmed that No. 6 was addressed to Eckartshausen. They have been republished since in an American periodical, the initials suppressed and the whole series described as written to Eckartshausen between 1792 and 1801. It is claimed that they are translated from the Spanish. "The initials suggest obviously the hand of Dr. Franz Hartmann." - A. E. Waite.
September. Saint-Martin called back to Amboise, due to his father's failing health. He remained for a year, or so, after his father's death.
Lodge Social Contract (and Philosophic Scottish Rite) suspends its labors.
The Lodge Ferdinand Caroline of Hamburg receives the English No. 509, with the date of 1776.
H. G. Albrecht, Secret History of the Rosicrucians.
Strasbourg. Moses Dobruschka (aka Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld), along with his brother Emanuel (formerly David, born 1765), went to revolutionary France, where they appeared in Strasbourg in 1792 under a new name, Frey (Moses used the symbolic name, Siegmund Gottlob Junius Brutus Frey). The "Frey" brothers contributed magnanimously to patriotic causes and attracted many to their salon in Paris. Junius published two anti-Girondist pamphlets. The influential radical politician François Chabot married their youngest sister, Leopoldine, for the sake of her large dowry. Thereafter all three were caught bribing members of a parliamentary committee deciding the future of the Compagnie des Indes. Chabot lost his influence and the Frey brothers were suspected as Austrian spies.
Versailles. The massacre of the Duke du Cosse-Brissac. A certain Brother Ledru, one of the sons of the learned Nicholas Philip Ledru, was the physician of Cosse-Brissac. On the death of that nobleman and the sale of his property, Ledru purchased a piece of furniture, possibly an escritoire, in which was concealed the celebrated Charter of Larmenius, the manuscript statutes of 1705, and the journal of proceedings of the Order of the Temple. The Cosse-Brissac family, we recall, held in its possession certain letters of the Abbé Louis Fouquet from the time of Nicholas Poussin.
Anti-Saccharite Society forms in Europe to protest effect of sugar on people. It induces a British sugar boycott through Europe. The British East India companies, already involved with opium drug trafficking, uses the slavery issue for an advertising campaign "East India sugar not made by slaves", for its sugar trafficking.
Saint-Martin at Petit Bourg, a country house of the Duchesse de Bourbon, and afterwards, at Paris, until the spring of 1794, when a decree against the privileged and proscribed classes, amongst which it was his lot to be born, enforced his return to Amboise until it was cancelled in his respect in January of 1795.
Around 1793, Charles Nodier is said to have created another group -- or perhaps an inner circle of the first -- (i.e., the Philadelphes) -- that included one of the subsequent plotters against Napoleon.
Epidemic of influenza in New England.
Major epidemic of yellow fever in the United States in Philadelphia, the social, political and financial center of the country. It would soon spread to other states through 1796.
5 April. Paris. Scholem: "The man of whom it appears to have been thought for some time, that after Frank's death in 1791 he would become his successor as the leader of the sect [of Frankists] in Offenbach, was sent to the guillotine in 1794, together with Danton, under the name of Junius Frey." -- Major Trends, Lecture 8,7, p. 320, and note 72. Scholem: "Moses, the son of Schoendel Dobruschka, Frank's cousin, who was known in many circles as his nephew, was the outstanding figure in the last generation of the Frankists, being known as Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld (a German writer and organizer of a mystical order of a Jewish Christian kabbalistic character, the "Asiatic Brethren"), and later as Junius Frey (a Jacobin revolutionary in France). Apparently he was offered the leadership of the sect after Frank's death, and, when he refused, Eva, together with her two younger brothers, Josef and Rochus, assumed responsibility for the direction of the court. Many people continued to go up to Offenbach, to 'Gottes Haus' as the 'believers called it" -- Kabbalah, Part II, 3, "Jacob Frank and the Frankists," pp. 304 - 305.
This is an interesting admission. We never find this name anywhere else, in all the works we have gathered for this research. Shabbetai Zevi was inspired, to some extent, by the school of Isaac Luria, which was one of the legitimate descendants of the original Kabbalah, which evolved over many centuries, from the time it reached the Languedoc around 1130 c.e. Jacob Frank, too, was inspired by the Shabbetean movement, and was in fact a successor to it, in Poland. Moses Dobruschka, then, being not only a relative of Frank, but a successor to him, was in an important position in the history of Kabbalah. Not only that, being one of the organizers of the Asiatic Brethren, he is placed into an important position within the Western Esoteric Tradition, for the Asiatic Brethren is what can be considered one of the ancestral traditions behind the Occult Revival in Europe in the 19th Century which brought us the Golden Dawn and the revived Illuminati of Reuss, and the various other Orders and Associations in Europe which existed in the 19th Century and had influences on politics, Left and Right at the same time... If we are to believe that Danton was one of the Illuminati, then probably too was Dobruschka. The name Junius Frey may have been his Order Name, for all we know. It is perhaps a coincidence that this individual dies the same year that Sigismund Bacstrom is initiated by the Comte de Chazal on the island of Mauritius. It is also worth noting that Casanova was in contact with Eva Frank on occult matters.
12 September. Mauritius. French Colony. Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom is received by the Comte de Chazal. "During a recent visit to East Africa I met in Natal a Mauritius born doctor whose wife was a Miss de Chazal, a native of Mauritius; among her ancestors about 1780-1790 there was this M. de Chazal who was an eccentric genius and was considered to possess curious arts; he also became a notable Swedenborgian and held classes of mystical philosophy. The name is many times mentioned in a French history of Mauritius..." Adam McLean, in an article entitled, Bacstrom's Rosicrucian Society, published in THE HERMETIC JOURNAL, No. 6, 1979, we read:
On 12th September 1794, Dr Sigismund Bacstrom was initiated into a Societas Roseae Crucis by Comte Louis de Chazal, on the island of Mauritius. The Count, then a venerable old man of some 96 years, seemed to have recognised inBacstrom, his greatness as an hermetic student, and offered to take him on as apupil and teach him the great work, and during this period, Bacstrom was allowed to perform a transmutation under Chazal's guidance and using his substances.
Chazal seems to have obtained his own alchemical knowledge while he was in Paris in 1740, and J.W. Hamilton Jones in his edition of Bacstrom's Alchemical Anthology (1960 Stuart and Watkins, London) even suggests that his teacher was the Comte de St Cermain.
When Bacstrom settled in London, one of his more important pupils was the Scotsman Alexander Tilloch, the editor of the Philosophical Magazine, which concentrated on papers and articles of early scientific research.
Paris. On 8 Vendémiaire, Deputy Grégoire presents to the Convention the project for a Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. It is installed in Saint-Martin-des-Champs in 1799, by the Council of Five Hundred.
The Duke of Brunswick urges lodges to dissolve because a poisonous subversive sect has now corrupted them all:
"A great sect arose, which, taking for its motto 'the good and happiness of man,' worked in the darkness of the conspiracy to make the happiness of humanity a prey for itself. This sect is known to everyone: its brothers are known no less than its name.... The plan they had formed for breaking all social ties and of destroying all order was revealed in their speeches and acts.... Indomitable price, thirst of power, such were the only motives of this sect: their masters had nothing less in view than the thrones of the earth, and the government of the nations was to be directed by their nocturnal clubs."
January. Saint-Martin returned to l'Ecole Normale in Paris. His time appears to have been divided between Paris and his native town until the end of 1799.
3 January. Montaubon. Birth of Jacques Etienne Marconis de Negre.
It is reported that the Fratres Lucis were broken up in 1795, but there is good reason to believe that such was not the case. (See 1804)
Joseph Balsamo (The Count Cagliostro) dies.(But cf. Eco, who says that Cagliostro was arrested in Rome, circa 1798.)
Germany. A traveller in Germany during this year describes the inability of the Illuminati to foment revolutions in Germany, since its people tend to be more loyal to the authorities...
Babouviste rising of 1796, which was directly inspired by the Secret Societies... This was known as the Conspiracy of the Equals, and was suppressed. Babeuf was executed the following year.
Paris. After the Revolution, (1789-1796), the Johannites became concerned with the restoration of the monarchy. They were largely responsible for the promotion of Naundorff as pretender to the throne, and also behind 'prophetic' movements such as that of Eugene Vintras. Charles Guillaume Naundorff (1785-1845) boasted that he was Louis XVII, who was thought to have been killed as an infant with his father, Louis XVI, during the French Revolution. Another self-styled 'guru' of the day -- who had risen meteorically from peasant to king's adviser -- was supported by the Johannites, and they appear to have stage managed certain visions of the Virgin -- such as that of La Salette in the foothills of the Western Alps in 1846. The objects of this group of Johannites were 1.) An attempt to regenerate Catholicism from within. This involved replacing mainstream dogma -- based on the authority of Peter -- with a mystical and esoteric Christianity in the belief that an age was drawing in which the Holy Spirit would be in the ascendant. A feature of this was the elevation of the feminine, in the outward form of the Virgin Mary, but this soon took on a more overtly sexual character and began to seem actively hostile to the Church. The vision of La Salette -- which was condemned by the Church -- was central to this plan. Somehow, John the Baptist's role in these developments was crucial. 2.) The movement was also allied with the attempt to have Naundorff recognized as the legitimate king of France, probably because, it it had succeeded, he would have been favorable to this new form of religion (having already endorsed Vintras). Significantly, Melanie Calvet, the girl who had the vision at La Salette, had herself come out in favor of Naundorff. It is interesting that the Church reacted by shipping her off to a convent in Darlington, in the north-east of England, where she could do no more harm. The combined forces of Church and State prevented the movement's grand plan from being fulfilled, and whatever really happened is now buried under an avalance of scandal and innuendo. But no doubt it is significant that the Church's reaction to this threat was to make the Immaculate Conception of Mary an article of faith in 1854. (This doctrine was to be conveniently endorsed by the Virgin Mary herself when she appeared to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes some four years later, although tjhe latter at first simply described her vision as 'that thing'.) Prophets such as Martin and Vintras appear to have been 'managed' by the Johannites, rather than actually being part of the sect themselves. Vintras' link with them was his mentor, a certain Madame Bouche, who lived in the Place St. Sulpice in Paris, and went under the name of Sister Salome.
Charleston, S.C. The Count Alexandre Francois Auguste de Grasse-Tilly, son of the Count de Grasse-Tilly who commanded the French fleet in the West Indies and on the coast of the United States in the latter part of the American Revolutionary War, was in Charleston, being an emigre noble from France, and was a member of the Lodge La Candour there. In that year, he was made Deputy Grand Inspector-General.
Pennsylvania. Death of John Peter Miller, last head of the Ephrata Brethren. The Community broke up at this time. Next, turn to 1798, where the story may have been taken up by Charles Brockden Brown.
Edward Jenner in Gloucestershire, England credited with concept of vaccination. Jenner vaccinates an 8 year old boy with smallpox pus. Jenner would vaccinate the boy 20 times. The boy would die from TB at the age of 20.
Edict of Peking forbids import of opium into China.
In the North of Germany the Rosicrucians survived until the Prussian crown changed hands, dying out in 1797 - 1798.
5 April. London.
"In the name of Jehovah Elohim the true and only God manifested in Trinity
I do hereby promise, in the most sincere and solemn manner, faithfully to observe the following articles, during the whole course of my natural life, to the best of my knowledge and ability; which articles I hereby confirm by oath and by my proper signature hereunto annexed.
One of the worthy members of the August most ancient and most learned Society, the Investigators of Divine, Spiritual and Natural Truth (which Society, more than two centuries and a half ago, did separate themselves from the Freemasons, but were again united in one spirit amongst themselves under the denomination of Fratres Roseae Crucis Brethren of the Rosy Cross - that is the Brethren that believe in the grand atonement made by Jesus Christ on the Rosy Cross, stained and marked with his blood for the Redemption of Spiritual Nature *) having thought me worthy to be admitted into their august society, in quality of a Practical Member and Brother (one degree above a Member apprentice) and to partake of their sublime knowledge, I hereby engage in the most solemn manner.
[* Laying naked at the same time our universal microcosmical subject (ChADMH), the best magnet for continually attracting and preserving the Universal Fire of Nature, in the form of incorporeal spiritual Nitre, for the regeneration of matter.]
1. That I will always, to the utmost of my power, conduct myself, as becomes a worthy member, with sobriety and piety, and endeavour to Prove myself grateful to the Society for so distinguished a favour as I now receive, during the whole course of my natural life.
2. I will never openly publish that I am a member of this august Society, nor reveal the name or Persons of such members as I know at present or may know hereafter, to avoid derision, insult or persecution.
3. I solemnly promise that I will never during my whole life prostitute, that is publicly reveal, the secret knowledge I receive at present or may receive at a future Period from the Society or from one of its members, nor even privately, but will keep our secrets sacred.
4. I do hereby promise that I will instruct, for the benefit of good men, before I depart this life, one person, or two persons at most, in our secret knowledge, and initiate and receive such person (or persons) as a Member Apprentice into our Society, in the same manner as I have been initiated and received (in quality of a Practical member and brother); but such a person only as I believe to be truly worthy and of an upright well meaning mind, blameless conduct, sober life and desirous of knowledge.
And, as there is no distinction of sexes in the spiritual world, neither amongst the blessed Angels nor among the rational immortal spirits of the Human race; and as we have had a Semiramis, Queen of Egypt, a Myriam, the prophetess, a Peronella, the wife of Flamel, and lately a Leona Constantia, Abbess of Clermont, who was actually received as a practical Member and Master into our Society in the year 1796, which women are believed to have been all possessors of the Great Work, consequently Sorores Roseae Crucis and members of our Society by possession, as the possession of this our art is the key to the most hidden knowledge. And moreover as redemption was manifested to mankind by means of a woman (the Blessed Virgin), and as salvation, which is of infinitely more value than our whole Art, is granted to the female sex as well as to the male, our Society does not exclude a worthy woman from being initiated, God himself not having excluded women from partaking of every spiritual felicity in the next life. We will not hesitate to receive a worthy woman into our Society as a member apprentice, (and even as a practical member or master if she does possess our work practically and has herself accomplished it), provided she is found, like Peronella, Flamel's wife, to be sober, pious, discreet, prudent, not loquacious, but reserved, of an upright mind and blameless conduct, and withall desirous of knowledge.
5. I do hereby declare that I intend with the permission of God to recommence our Great Work with my own hands, as soon as circumstances, health, opportunity and time will permit, that I
first - I may do good therewith as a faithful steward
second - that I may merit the continued confidence which the Society has placed in me in quality of a practical member.
6. I do further most solemnly promise that (should I accomplish the Great Work) I will not abuse the great power entrusted to me by appearing great and exalted, or seeking to appear in a Public character in the world, by hunting after vain titles of Nobility and vain glory, which are all fleeting and vain; but will endeavour to live a sober and orderly life as becomes every Christian, though not possessed of so great a temporal blessing.
I will devote a considerable part of my abundance and superfluity (Multipliable infinitely) to works of private charity, to aged and deeply distressed people, to poor children, and above all to such as love God and act uprightly, and will avoid encouraging laziness and the profession of public beggars.
7. I will communicate every new or useful discovery relating to our Work to the nearest member of our Society and hide nothing from him, seeing he cannot, as a worthy member, possibly abuse it or prejudice me thereby. On the other hand, I will hide these secret discoveries from the world.
8. I do moreover solemnly promise (should I become a Master and possessor) that I will not, on the one hand, assist, aid, or support with Gold or Silver, any Government, King, or Sovereign whatever, except by paying of taxes, nor, on the other, any populace, or particular set of men, to enable them to revolt against their Government. I will leave public affairs and arrangements to the Government of God, who will bring about the events foretold in the Revelations of St. John, which are fast accomplishing. I will not interfere with affairs of Government.
9. I will neither build churches, chapels, nor hospitals and such public charities, as there are already a sufficient number of such public buildings and institutions, if they were only properly applied and regulated. I will not give a Salary to a Priest or Churchman as such to make him more proud and indolent than he is already. If I relieve a distressed worthy clergyman, I will consider him in the light of a Private distressed individual only. I Will give no charity with the view of making my name known in the world, but Will give my alias privately
10. I hereby promise that I will never be ungrateful to the worthy friend and brother who initiated and received me, but respect and Oblige him as far as lies in my power, in the same manner as he has been obliged to promise to his friend who received him.
11. Should I travel either by sea or by land and meet with any person that may call himself a Brother of the Rosy Cross, I will try him whether he can give me a proper explanation of the universal fire of Nature and of our Magnet for attracting and manifesting the same under the form of a salt, whether he is well acquainted with our work, and whether he knows the universal dissolvent and its use. If I find him able to give satisfactory answers, I will acknowledge him as a member and a brother of our Society. Should I find him superior in knowledge and experience to myself, I Will honour and respect him as a Master above me.
12. If it should please God to Permit me to accomplish our Great Work With my own hands, I will Give praise and thanks to God in humble prays: and devote my time to the doing and promoting all the good that lies in my power and to the pursuit of true and useful knowledge.
13. I do hereby Solemnly promise that I will not encourage wickedness and debauchery, thereby offending God, administer the Medicine for the human body, nor the Aurum Potabile to a patient or patients infected with the venereal disease.
14. I do promise that I Will never give the fermented metallic medicine for transmutation, to any Person living, no not a single grain, unless the person is an initiated and received Member and Brother of the Society of the Rosy Cross.
To keep faithfully the above articles as I now receive them from a worthy member of our Society, as he received them himself in the Mauritius, I willingly agree and sign the above with my name and affix my seal to the same, so help me God. Amen.
In testimony that I have initiated and received Alexander Tilloch Esq. in quality of Practical Member and Brother, a degree above a Member Apprentice, on account of his practical knowledge and philosophical acquirements, I have hereunto set my hand and seal,
Sigismund Bacstrom
M.D. London April 5. 1797.
26 May. Babeuf executed. After his death, his friend and inspirer Buonarotti with the aid of Marat's brother, founded a masonic lodge, the Amis Sincères, which was affiliated to the Philadelphes, at Geneva, and as "Diacre Mobile" of the "Order of Sublime and Perfect Masons" created three new secret degrees, in which the device of the Rose-Croix I.N.R.I. was interpreted as signifying "Justum necare reges injustos."
The Gold R+C is said at this time to have died out, but we say that it went underground. It is interesting that at this time interest in the R+C is stirred up in England.
A charter dated 1797 attests to the foundation of yet another group -- also called the Philadelphes -- in that year, in reference to Charles Nodier. "Rule 18 states, 'The brothers of the Society of the Philadelphes have a particular liking for the color sky-blue, the figure of the pentagram and the number 5.'"
Geneva. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of 33 Degrees was known before this date in Geneva, as Chemin Dupontes gives a certificate of it at that date, granted to Villard Espinasse, an officer of the Grand Orient of France.
In 1797 Montjoie, writing of the Orléaniste conspiracy, to which in an earlier work he had attributed the whole organization of the French Revolution in its first stages, observed:
"I will not examine whether this wicked prince, thinking he was acting in his personal interests, was not moved by that invisible hand which seems to have created all the events of our revolution in order to lead us towards a goal that we do not see at present, but which I think we shall see before long." -- Galart de Montjoie, Histoire de Marie Antoinette, p. 156.
August and later. Napoleon at the Pyramid of Cheops. According to the legends of the A & P Rite, the Rite claims a derivation from Egypt, and an organization from the High Grades which had entered Egypt before the arrival of the French Army, and it had been asserted that Napoleon and Kleber (Jean Baptiste Kleber [1753-1800]), were invested with a ring at the hands of an Egyptian Sage at the Pyramid of Cheops. It is from this time that the Science of Egyptology (and Archaeology) really began. One source remarks: "The date of the founding of this system [e.g., the Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro] is also significant. Sceptics attribute the foundation of the Egyptian Rite Freemasonry to the European vogue for all things Egyptian that followed Napoleon's campaign in Egypt (during which the famous Rosetta Stone was discovered). However, this took place in the years 1798-99, after the instigation of the Masonic system." (Remember that Lechangueur was in Egypt in Napoleon's Army, as a health and supply officer...)
Cairo, Egypt. Evidently, included in Napoleon's campaign to Egypt, was some great Mission, for in the Annals of the Rite of Memphis, it is so denominated. The Mission to Egypt, they called it. Robert Ambelain, the late Grand Conservator of the Rite, wrote the following, as quoted by Allen H. Greenfield, in The Compleat Rite of Memphis:
"Most of the Members of the Mission to Egypt who accompanied Bonaparte were Masons of the old initiatic Rites: Philalethes, African Brothers, Hermetic Rite, Philadelphes, Primitive Rite, without omitting for all the Grand Orient of France. Having discovered at Cairo a gnostic-hermetic survival, then in Lebanon the Druse Masonry which Gerald [sic] de Nerval had encountered there and which went back to the operative Masonry of the Templars, the Brothers of the Mission to Egypt decided as a result to renounce their affiliation to the Grand Lodge of London, and to practice a new Rite which owed nothing to England, then enemy number one. And thus, under the direction of Samuel Honis and Marconis de Negre, was born the Rite of Memphis in 1813 in Montaubon." - Greenfield, p. 14.
This would explain why a lot of the founding members of the various Lodges and Chapters and Councils, etc., were members of the Legion of Honor. Indeed, it would seem that by making such an association on the Lodge Rolls would be for the purpose of setting them apart. What was so crucial, that these dedicated Frenchmen found it necessary to sever all ties with England? Did they find that the English Rite was superfluous, and really spurious, as it so obviously is, if one examines the history, and the doings of men like Anderson? Did they discover some important secret, a secret so immense that only Frenchmen in high standing could appreciate it? It isn't just because the Pyramids are there that Egypt is of great importance to any study of the Authentic Tradition. All the Supreme Mysteries of both Judaism and Christianity cannot really be understood at all unless they are interpreted in the light of their Sumerian, Egyptian, and Arabic originals. Now, the mention of de Nerval is interesting. Gerard de Nerval was not born until 1808. His real surname was Labrunie. He is the only Labrunie we can find in any of our books in our 2,500+ collection, save for one: That of Hippolyte Labrunie, who was one of the original founders of the Disciples of Memphis at Montaubon. It isn't mentioned whether or not Labrunie was a member of the Legion of Honor. But, it is possible that a relationship somehow could exist. Food for thought, etc. Also, de Nerval's associations with Nodier, with Gautier, with Victor Hugo and with Dumas, is well known. And there were Dumases involved with the Rite of Memphis. Whether they be the same or not we have no way of knowing at present.
The mention of the Druzes is interesting too, since the Druzes do have an interesting system, but we can only place them as far back as the Fatimite period, to Hamza, the vizier of Hakim bi am rillah, or Al Hakim. There are earlier sects which can be drawn from however, and what matter if the Lebanon is a few miles away from the really ancient sects? The western reader cannot generally make the distinction, like the western scholar once couldn't tell the difference between Arabia, India and Ethiopia, for once they were used interchangeably.
New York. Charles Brockden Brown publishes Wieland: or the Transformation. It tells the story of an old man, living in Tomhannock, New York, who belonged to a peculiar religion. Brown had come from a Quaker community in Pennsylvania, but he may have been describing the latter years of the Ephrata community. Demonic Obsession, hauntings and the like make this novel the ancestor to H. P. Lovecraft's works. It is interesting that in Brown's career, he suddenly chose to take up writing, and this was his first novel. There is some Moravian influence in it, too.
General vaccine programs against cowpox instituted in the US.
John Robison publishes Proofs of a Conspiracy in which he describes 84 German masonic lodges and says that the Illuminati still work covertly behind the scenes. Copy is received by George Washington.
Publication of Augustin Barruels "Memoirs of Jacobinism". Barruel comes to similar conclusions as Robison, that when the Illuminati was outlawed it went underground and resurfaced as an organization called the German Union, which played a role in creating the French Revolution in 1789. This thesis is later discussed in 1918 with Stauffer's New England and the Bavarian Illuminati. Knigge was allegedly involved with both the German Union and the Eclectic Alliance, which was used as a cover for converting Masonic lodges to Illuminism between 1780 and 1784.
Emigration to Canada begins.
15 April. William Henry White initiated in Emulation Lodge, No. 12, later called the Lodge of Emulation, No. 21, having been nominated by his father, William White, who was Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of England for thirty-two years.
August. Charleston. De Grasse-Tilly one of the founders of the Lodge La Reunion Francaise, and afterwards Master of it.
October. Charleston. De Grasse-Tilly made Deputy Sovereign Grand Commander of the Grand Council and Sublime Orient of Charleston. When Napoleon became First Consul, and permitted part of the emigrants to return to France, de Grasse returned.
24 December. Death of the Baron Kirchberger de Liebistorf, one of Saint-Martin's most cherished correspondents and contemporaries.
Germany. (Halle?) Józef Maria Hoene-Wronski, according to S. E. Flowers, was in Germany at this time, studying philosophy. This would be under Immanual Kant, but Kant had retired from teaching by 1797. If he studied under Kant, it must have been in Kant's declining years, for Kant's career was over with by 1795. He died in 1804, so that gives us a small window on Józef Maria Hoene-Wronski's training.
George Washington dies. With his death Masons were again trusted, and the controversy about the Illuminati faded.
15 December. William Henry White elected Master of the Emulation Lodge, No. 12, and presided until 1809.
Paris. Saint-Martin's L'Esprit des Choses appears in two volumes, with a Latin epigraph on the title, in which it was affirmed that Man is the Mirror of the Totality of things. After this, very little is known of Saint-Martin's life.
Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia.
France. Wronski moved to France and became a French citizen in 1800.
Warsaw. A "Society of the Friends of Learning" came into being, and a Dictionary of the Polish Language by Samuel Linde was among its many undertakings.
United States has 200 interest bearing banks.
Benjamin Waterhouse at Harvard University introduces vaccination in Massachusetts.
British sugar consumption reaches 160 million pounds per year.
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All Original Material (i.e., arrangement and interpretation),Copyright 1998-2001 e.v., Jonathan Sellers. All Rights Reserved.