Eliphas Levi in contact with and receiving initiation from the mathematician and Mystic, Joseph Maria Hoëne Wronski (1776-1853). Wronski was a Polish expatriate in France, where he had a Saturn-Gnosis Lodge, based upon Qabalah, Gnosticism, and the teachings of Jakob Böhme, and was the leader of the Antinomian Union. According to Ellic Howe, Wronski died in 1843. If this date is true, then Levi would have received his schooling in the years prior to his becoming an itinerant. The account of Wronski given in Flowers' work, Fire and Ice, may conceal something the German occultists either wanted to hide or were unaware of. To say that there were several Saturn Lodges in Poland, established by Wronski or otherwise, may mean nothing other than survivals of followers of Shabbetai Zevi. This was the last remaining stronghold of Shabbeteans in Europe, and too, survivals of Frankist groups. Shabbetai is the Hebrew name for the planet Saturn, and it is easy to see how the unschooled might mix the two. The Antinomian tendency came, first, from Shabbetai Zevi, Nathan of Gaza, and their followers, the Shabbeteans. From them it went to the Doenmeh, or followers of Shabbetai Zevi in Moslem countries, like Turkey. From there it went to Jakob Frank, and his disciples, known as Frankists, in the mid-18th Century. Frank's hand-picked successor in Offenbach was Moses Dobruschka, his nephew. Dobruschka was also known by several aliases, and was said to be a founding member of the Asiatic Brethren, by no less an authority as Gershom Scholem. He was hanged in Paris, in 1795 along with Danton, and other Jacobins, so we must assume that the Jacobins had a real connection to some of the Frankists, and some of the Illuminati survival groups, at least, and this then points to the Carbonari.
"Two events tipped the balance in favor of occultism, as a path for Alphonse Louis Constant: the first was the estrangement from his wife, who, in 1854 obtained a judicial separation from him; the second was his meeting with a Polish Messianist named Hoëne-Wronski.
"In many of his published writings Eliphas Levi made jokes at Wronski's expense, but nevertheless Wronski's influence was profound and lasting. It was he, it would seem, who introduced Levi to the Kabbalah; it was he who demonstrated to Levi the prognometer, a complex apparatus for formulating new philosophical statements which seems to have owed at least something to a 'logical engine' constructed centuries before by the medieval mystic Ramon Lull; it was he who convinced Levi of a coming 'Age of the Holy Ghost' in which a new and purified magic would fix 'the absolute nature of man.'
"The first fruits of Levi's contact with Wronski were some experiments with ceremonial magic and the authorship of two books, later published in one volume as Dogme et rituel de la haute magie." -- "Francis King," MAGIC: The Western Tradition.
Austria. According to Theodor Reuss, in his booklet, Parsifal,: "A proof for this is the Adamites, a sect of the Manichaeins that still existed in the middle of the 19th century (1850-60) in Austria and even gained equal footing with the Roman-catholic church.
"The Adamites got their name because they celebrated their church ceremonies and feasts completely naked. Their ceremonies and teachings exist in a modern form and correspond to those of the Manichaeins. Their Maria festival, especially the Maria festival during the month of May (May devotion), corresponds to the Bacchanlia of the festival of Ceres Libera, the Eleusinian orgies. The Adamites were believers and followers of the primal-mystery of generation. This cult of generation was the inexhaustible source of life's joy and enthusiasm. Above and below this cultus produced religious ecstasy until the holy Maria enveloped hearts and senses and the holy Phallus in its abundance impregnated the fruitful womb. In these ceremonies and festivals of the Adamites communism ruled - of women for the men and youths. But this communism did not extend to every-day life. Only during the ceremonies and in the sacred places (Temples and groves) the men and the youths had the right (and the duty) to complete the sex-act with any of the women present in the Temple or groves. In daily life the women were bound to their Lord and Master. But each man had the right to have several women if his means allowed. The children of the various women were all treated equally (inside the society of the members of the cultus) and the father was responsible for their support etc. Although the church has not succeeded in destroying these descendants of the ancient Manichaeins, the power of the state did succeed in its persecution of the members of this cultus, to drive this sect out of the public city life. Those members fleeing persecution gathered themselves secretly under the protection of the night and they made themselves secret societies after the ways of the ancients. It is in this way that the descendants of the ancient Manichaeins and members of the old Phallus cult of classical times has survived. In the last 10 years or so they have managed again to surface here and there in public, if under different names and in new apparel. They have even created a literature and have won new members everywhere."
Our question: Are these people really Christians, or even Manichaean Christians, or are they survivors of Jakob Frank, disguising themselves as Manichaean Christians? The Adamites actually go back in time several centuries earlier than the 19th. This group was similar in nature to the Brethren of the Free Spirit.
The Rite of Memphis in England is during this period still controlled by the French, i.e., Marconis. Up to 1859 it is possible they only initiated their compatriots. It is conceivable that the Grand Lodge knew nothing about it until the latter year when it learned, to its displeasure, of the existence at Stratford, Essex, of a Memphis "Craft" Lodge whose members were all British.
1 September. Vienna. Carl Kellner born. The Birth Certificate (in the P.-R. Köenig Archive), appears to state that his mother's maiden name was Stöfler. Dvorak tells us that Kellner was "Born in Vienna in 1850, he learned the profession of a chemist in private laboratories. It remains uncertain whether he ever studied at colleges or universities, although he called himself a Doctor of Philosophy since 1895.
London also gets a Lodge (Memphis). Gould says also a Chapter in New York.
Toulouse. The Ordre de la Rose-Croix, du Temple et du Graal, is said to have been founded. It would later include Josephin Peladan among its membership rolls. This is said to have been an offshoot of a somewhat irregular Masonic Lodge known as La Sagesse in Toulouse. It is said that members of the Hautpoul family were members of this Lodge, and perhaps members of the Marconis de Negre family as well. Around 1850 one of its members, the Vicomte de Lapasse (1792 - 1867), a well respected doctor and alchemist, founded the Ordre de la Rose-Croix, du Temple et du Graal. A subsequent head of this Order was Josephin Peladan (1859 - 1918), who was also from Toulouse...
Peladan was an occult expert, inspired by Eliphas Levi. Peladan developed a magical system that has been described as 'erotic Catholocism-cum-magic' and organized the popular Salon de la Rose + Croix. He believed that the Catholic Church was a repository of knowledge that it had itself forgotten, and he was particularly interested in John's Gospel.
Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany. The old Rosicrucian Lodge fell into abeyance, according to W. W. Westcott (writing in 1916). This would be the Nascent Dawn Lodge. Gould states that it was in operation until the 1870s. He also wrote that the first Lord Lytton was received into the Adeptship and became imbued with the ideas he displayed in his novel "Zanoni" and other works...
Berlin. Long before Maurice Joly's book Dialogues aux Enfers entre Machiavelli et Montesquieu appeared, another book bearing a similar title was published in Berlin in 1850. It was Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Rousseau by Jacob Venedy. The publisher was Franz Dunnucker. Jacob Venedy, the author, was a Jew, born in Cologne, May 1805, died February 1871. Owing to his revolutionary activities he was expelled from Germany and sought refuge in France. While living in Paris, in 1835, he edited a paper of subversive character called Le Proscrit, which caused the police to send him away from Paris. He then lived at Le Havre. Later, due to the intercession of Arago and Mignet, friends of Adolphe Cremieux, he was once more allowed to return to Paris. Meanwhile, he had published a book, Romanisme, Christianisme et Germanisme, which had won for him the praise of the French Academy. Venedy was a close friend and associate of Karl Marx. He had spent the years 1843-44 in England which at that time was the refuge and abode of all the masterminds of the 1848 revolution. In 1847 Venedy was in Brussels with Karl Marx who had founded there the secret organization called "The Communist League of Workers," which was eventually brought out into the open under the name of "The International Society of Democracy." In 1848, after the February Revolution, Venedy returned to Germany, still in the company of Karl Marx. He soon afterwards became one of the chiefs of the revolutionary Committee of Fifty, organized at Frankfort-on-Main in March 1848. Venedy was sent as "Commissar" into the Oberland to stand against Ecker. In Hesse-Homburg he was elected a member of the left and took his place in the Committee of Fifty. It was at this time in Berlin that he published his book Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Rousseau, upholding the ideas of Machiavelli and Rousseau for the slavery and demoralization of the people. When order was once more re-established in Germany, Venedy was expelled from Berlin and Breslau. He was an active member of the Masonic Order Bauhütte which was affiliated to the Carbonari. (See Die Bauhütte for Feb 25 1871.)
Italy. The neoscholastic Roman Catholic modernist movement originated in Italy about 1850 and had a close connection with the liberation and unification of that country under the leadership of Giuseppe Mazzini and Count Cavour. As a religious movement it quickly spread to France, Austria, and Belgium. The Catholic Modernist movement arose initially as a response to the challenge posed by the new scholarship, mostly coming out of Germany and France. Its original objective was to produce a generation of ecclesiastical experts trained in the German tradition, who could defend the literal truth of Scripture with all the heavy ordnance of critical scholarship. As it transpired, however, the plan backfired. The more the Church sought to equip its younger clerics with the tools for combat in the modern polemical world, the more those same clerics began to desert the cause for which they had been recruited. Critical examination of the Bible revealed a multitude of inconsistencies, discrepancies, and implications that were positively inimical to Roman dogma. And by the end of the century the Modernists were no longer the elite shock troops the Church had hoped they would be, but defectors and incipient heretics. Indeed, they posed the most serious threat the Church had experienced since Martin Luther and brought the entire edifice of Catholicism to the brink of a schism unparalleled for centuries. The hotbed for Modernist activity -- as it had been for the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement -- was Saint Sulpice in Paris. Indeed, one of the most resonant voices in the Modernist movement was the man who was director for the Seminary of Saint Sulpice from 1852 - 1884, Jean-Baptiste Hogan. From Saint Sulpice Modernist attitudes spread rapidly to the rest of France and to Italy and Spain. According to these attitudes biblical texts were not unimpugnably authoritative, but had to be understood in the specific context of their time. And the Modernists also rebelled against the increasing centralization of ecclesiastical power -- especially the recently instituted doctrine of papal infallibility.
Two states in the United States, Massachusetts and New York, create an active paradigm that says "the state is the father of children" and create laws to cause a social phasing out of "blood family" loyalty and a phasing in of "loyalty to state". The two states create adoption law.
Homeopathic college founded in Cleveland, Ohio.
US prison population is 29:100,000 (Ratio 29 per 100,000).
British physician reads a paper detailing microscopic examination of food products to the Botanical Society of London. The paper revealed that all food products examined in Britain were adulterated with foreign substances, including chemicals. Hearings periodically held for decades.
Germany experiences a new scientific paradigm, psychophysics, which maintains that people are similar to complex machines. The paradigm further leads to that of experimental psychology in order to discover the nature of humans and how to program them. In Germany, Wundt is the primary proponent of these ideas. American elite begin to come to Germany to study the paradigm.
Levi speaks of being employed. This must be on the Dictionnaire de la Literature Chretienne. At this time, too, Evangile de la Liberte, in conjunction with Alphonse Esquiros. The Last Incarnation, also at this time. It is said that this work advocated Socialistic principles.
Irwin. Members of the Sappers and Miners Corps were employed in various capacities at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and the Lance-Corporal Francis Irwin who received a bronze medal, a certificate signed by the Prince Consort and a present of a box of drawing instruments was probably our Irwin.
1 March. Mackenzie contributes articles to Notes and Queries. His "A Word to the Literary Men of England," published 1 March 1851, proposed the foundation of a learned society whose task would be to rescue old manuscripts in Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, Zend (an ancient language allied to Sanscrit), and a dozen other middle-eastern and oriental tongues. Some months later he reported that "I have so far accomplished my purpose, as lately, while residing on the Continent, and also since my return, to establish in Russia, Siberia, and Tartary, Persia and Eastern Europe, stations for the search after mss. worth attention."
6 September. Notes and Queries for this date shows that at one time Mackenzie was far from Austria and had visited the then remote Prussian province of Pomerania, where he discussed the reputed site of Julin with Count Keyserling, a member of a renowned Baltic landowning family. His Notes on Julin contains a lengthy translation from the German which could only have been achieved by someone with a first-class knowledge of the language.
2 December. Bonaparte's coup d'etat.
Jeremy L. Cross Body founded.
Grand Lodge of Philadelphes, in London, with F. J. Beujeau as Grand Master.
Jersey, England. Refugees arrived in Jersey from France, after the coup d'etat of 1851 when Louis Napoleon seized power. Many were distinguished and some were already Freemasons. The best known was Victor Hugo, but there were others, then of almost equal importance. They visited the Jersey Lodges, but a number, in addition to their advanced radical views, were atheistically inclined. There could therefore be few initiations of non-Masons among the refugees. To provide such facilities, a movement started in the Jersey French-speaking Lodge, La Cesarde. The leader was a colourful character, Philip Baudains. An Advocate of the Royal Court, he was also a popular Constable (Mayor) of St. Helier for many years. He was an experienced Mason, having been Venerable (or Master) of La Cesaree in 1860 and 1861. He realised that was no chance of getting a Warrant from the Grand Lodge of England for a Lodge that did not intend to open on the V.S.L., so he applied to the Supreme Conseil of France pour le Rite Ecossais. A Warrant was readily and quite irresponsibly granted, for a Lodge to be called Les Amis de L'Avenir. It may be remembered that, at this time, this Supreme Council was not recognized by Grand Lodge though the far larger and rival Grand Orient was. To add fuel to a fire that was already starting to smoulder, the founders of the new Lodge invited the Provincial Grand Master and the other leading Brethren of Jersey to assist at the consecration. The PGM promptly suspended the founders and forbade English Masons in Jersey to visit the Lodge. The result was an appeal to Grand Lodge, which was lost after a spirited speech by Brother Baudains who tried to declare a sort of Masonic UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) for Jersey. Having pointed out that there was already an Irish Lodge in Jersey, he said 'that the Island of Jersey is considered by Acts of Parliament as a foreign art...being the last remnant of the ancient Duchy of Normandy and, as such, the Supreme Conseil at France was at liberty to found the said Lodge...and further that the issuing of the Warrant for the above reasons is not, nor can be exclusively exercised by the Grand Lodge of England.' Grand Lodge would have none of this and the appeal was dismissed by a unanimous vote. This Lodge of the AASR continued under the leadership of Baudins. Unfortunately we do not know which Ritual he used. He, and a number of his co-rebels joined the local Irish Lodge and he became its Master in 1869. By 1873, most of the refugees had returned to France. Gradually, the rebels returned to the fold, Baudains not until 1888. It shows something of his position and character that he, once more, became Venerable of La Cesarée and Senior Grand Warden of the Province. His statue still stands in the gardens in the centre of St. Helier.
Among the refugees to arrive in Jersey was Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, who would become a very important and influential person in the French Occult Revival of the 19th Century. It was at this time that he started developing his Theses, on the Mission of the Sovereigns, the Mission of the Jews, the Mission of the Workers, the True France, etc. It is a wonder that Messrs. Lincoln and co., completely skipped over this very important character.
Hugo wrote The Man Who Laughs during this Jersey Exile. This work told of a secret association, in Spain, of nomads, named the Comprachicos, who existed in the 14th and 15th Centuries. They would kidnap children, or buy children from people forced into a life of poverty. They would take these children and, through body manipulation and/or psychological torture, turn them into circus oddities, for the benefit of the Nobility. Like fellow Grand Master of the Priory of SION, Jean Cocteau, in the 20th Century, Hugo based part of this story on Beauty and the Beast.
23 December. French Police force Marconis to close his Lodges. This is referred to as a debacle totale. Marconis then allowed it to "slumber," furthermore that its somnolence was permanent. This may well have been the case in France, but there was an export market for a novelty that offered a grand-total of ninety-five degrees and during the next decade it was sold -- it is inconceivable that Marconis offered all those degrees as friendly gifts -- to the U. S. A., Egypt, and Roumania. The Rite also reached England in 1850, but in the possession of Frenchmen who had previously belonged to it in France.
Geoffroi publishes a pamphlet accusing Eugene Vintras of homosexuality and of conducting secret Masses at which both Priest and people were naked. Geoffroi's son, a priest, alleged that his father's former associates had taught him a secret 'magical prayer' to be recited at the foot of the alter and to be accompanied by masturbation. For some years the Church of Carmel enjoyed a modest prosperity; branches of it were established in Spain, in Belgium, in England, and in Italy.
Wagner had been entrusted with the secrets of the Bhagavad-Gita already in the time of his involvement with the Wesendonks and with Nietzsche (1852-1857).
According to Mackey, Memphite Lodges were closed by the Civil Authority. The Rite "went to sleep."
Mackenzie translates Lepsius' Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of Sinai. This was well-received, and launched Mackenzie's literary career.
Webster: "Now precisely at the moment when Joly published his Dialogues aux Enfers the secret societies were particularly active, and since by this date(1864) a number of Jews had penetrated into their ranks a whole crop of literary efforts directed against Jews and secret societies marked the decade. Eckert with his work on Freemasonry in 1852 had given the incentive.
The Brothers of the Christian Doctrine was suppressed in 1852.
England. The Queen became Grand Patroness of the Boy's School.
8 Aug 1853 Neuilly (near Paris), France. Death of Józef Maria Hoëne-Wronski.
7 December. London. The Grand Master reported to Grand Lodge that he had been under the necessity of suspending Bro. William Tucker, the Prov. Gd. Master of Dorsetshire; the offence being that he had made his appearance in his Prov. Gd. Lodge wearing, in addition to his Craft clothing, the insignia of the Christian Orders of Masonry. It is also on record that Brother Tucker had made a point in his Address of recommending those higher degrees of Masonry found in the Ancient and Accepted Rite of 33 degrees, which after having met with disfavour from the late Grand Master, had been introduced into England from America within two years of the death of the Duke of Sussex.
Government of the Rite of Memphis moves to London.
Eliphas Levi travels to London, where he performs the well-known Evocation of Apollonius of Tyana. It was at this time that he met, and probably initiated Edward Bulwer Lytton, author of Zanoni, A Strange Story, The Coming Race, and Rienzi, which Lytton commissioned Wagner to transform into an Opera. It was, in fact, Wagner's first Opera.
Mackenzie helps the elderly and eccentric Walter Savage Landor to prepare a new edition of his Imaginary Conversations. In the same year Routledge published his Burmah and the Burmese, yet another surprisingly mature and self-confident product.
U.S.A. Second Atwood Body formed.
Cecil Rhodes born.
Dr. Isaac Brown, a prominent British surgeon and president of the Medical Society of London, creates a surgical procedure to remove the clitoris from women on the grounds that "masturbation caused epilepsy and convulsive diseases."
Smallpox epidemic in England.
In England, the Compulsory Vaccination Act . From 1853 to 1860, vaccination reached 75% of the live births and more than 90% of the population.
Chloroform first used as anesthetic in England.
First use of hypodermic needle for subcutanous injection.
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All Original Material (i.e., arrangement and interpretation),Copyright 1998-2001 e.v., Jonathan Sellers. All Rights Reserved.